Defenders of the Earth - A mixed bag of 80s animation

Back in 1986 Defenders of the Earth premiered. It featured three popular characters from the King Features Syndicate comic strips: Flash Gordon, the Phantom and Mandrake the Magician. I was about ten years old when this came on and I remember watching the show, though not consistently (my cartoon mainstays from that time were GI Joe, He-Man and Transformers). Still the show stuck with me over the years and when I had a chance to pick up the entire series for twelve dollars (got to love some of those Amazon deals) I did so. Having only a vague recalection of the shows plot I was none the less looking forward to re-watching the series, keeping in mind that it would suffer from the same pitfalls that all 1980s action/adventure cartoons do. Even with that filter - and my strange desire to like the show - I have to say this series is truly a mixed bag of Good, Bad and horrendously Ugly.

In a nut-shell Defenders of the Earth follows the adventures of Flash Gordon, the Phantom, Mandrake the Magician and Lothar as they battle Ming the Merciless who wants to take over the earth (thus the clever title Defenders of the Earth). Joining our heroes are their teenage children. Flash has a son named Rick Gordon, the Phantom has a daughter Jedda, Lothar has a son LJ (Lothar Junior) and Mandrake has an adopted son Kishin. Kishin is the youngest of the children being in his early teens while the others are in their late teens. As with most 80s cartoons the team also has a "cute" animal sidekick. In this case we get Zuffy an alien creature from the planet Mongo.

Now if you are a child of 80s TV animation - like myself - then you may remember coming home and having new cartoons to watch every afternoon. This was possible because large numbers of episodes were created in short spans of time so that you could have one for each day of the week. At the time this seemed great, you had a new adventure almost every day. Sadly the drawback to this method of entertainment is that the show's crew had to jam through a large number of episodes every week to meet the deadlines. So instead of crafting consistent well thought out stories, these shows churned out material as fast as possible, good or bad. The end result of this is a very inconsistent set of stories featuring a stagnate cast with little to no characterization. Of course this is nothing new when you're talking about action/adventure cartoons from the 80s.

As with many action/adventure cartoons the key to quality lies within the shows writing. Unfortunately due to the situation I described in the previous paragraph DOE (Defenders of the Earth) suffers from a very mixed bag (yes I will be using that phrase a lot in this review) in terms of story. Most of the 65 episodes from Defenders are stand alone episodes. This is typical of the genre from this time period, but DOE does have a couple multi-episode arches (there were a couple 2-part stories and two 5-part stories) that proved to be pretty enjoyable compared to the one and done stories that comprised the rest of the series. As a whole though the writing quality was immensely varied. Some episodes were pretty respectable and I felt that the stories stood the test of time rather well. Then the very next episode would be so unbelievably stupid that even a young child would find it insulting. But what makes these episodes so unwatchable isn't just the silly plots, it's the bad story structure. All too often the writers would fall back on lazy plot devices and ridiculous character decisions to move the plot along. I lost count of the number of times that the heroes simply asked their super computer (Dynak X) why something was happening, or had it calculate a cure for some evil disease and the computer had all the answers. Other times the story relied upon characters simply forgetting something very important or doing something asinine like pushing a button on the Defenders secret weapon (despite being specifically told not to). I could go on all day with more examples, but I think you get the idea.

As it was the standard of the time DOE also has a handful of PSA (Public Service Announcement) episodes. Now as a rule I have never liked PSAs but I try to keep an open mind when watching these old cartoons. That said DOE's PSAs were - once again - a mixed bag. The "don't do drugs" episode was actually really good. It showed how the pressures of teenage life (not just peer pressure but the pressures of responsibility) can lead to problems with drugs. The story even touches on how parents who don't take the time to listen to their children can contribute to this. On the opposite end of the spectrum the episode about teenage drunk driving was egregious. All the teenage drinkers are portrayed as fall down laughing party drunks and the black-and-white message that drinking underage equals death was exceedingly preachy. At no point does the episode handle substance abuse in a realistic fashion or touch on the dangers of alcoholism and drunk driving to anyone who's not underage.

Our next mixed bag involves the shows characters. Flash and the other established heroes each have episodes that delve into their pre-existing mythologies, and this is a good thing. However they only total a half-dozen at best which isn't really a lot considering there are 65 total episodes. I would have loved to have seen more stories involving Flash's early adventures on Mongo, or an episode dedicated to how Mandrake and Lothar first meet, but apparently the producers needed to leave room for story gems like frozen dinosaurs getting thawed out by Ming to destroy mankind (and I thought Jurassic Park had spotty science).

As frustrating as the adults are in this series, it pales in comparison to the disappointment that I felt in regards to their children. The frustration is not with how bad the teen heroes are (well with the exception of Kishin, he was pretty bad) it's actually with how much potential they have and how the writers never fully tap into it. Rick Gordon is a little vanilla but at times the writers would touch on things like his occasional jealousy or the difficulty that comes from being the son of the legendary Flash Gordon. These brief moments of characterization opened worlds of possibilities, but due to the rapid production pace writers never had a chance to do anything with it. Jedda (the Phantoms daughter) is equally - if not more - frustrating. Unlike the shows other characters Jedda is not trying to step out of her fathers shadow, but is actually preparing to step into his shoes (due to the fact that she is next in line to take up the mantle of the Phantom). On the rare occasions that we got to see this side of Jedda develop it was truly a treat. Sadly the show's writers would all too often abuse Jedda by portraying her as a vapid, brainless plot device who does the dumbest things to further the story. LJ was the most underused of all the young heroes. In the few episodes that revolved around him (I can only recall two LJ centric stories) we got to see a brash, arrogant and even chauvinistic youngster who was far too cocky for his own good. These are great character flaws to explore but unfortunately it never happens. Kishin is the weakest of the bunch. Basically he is just the prototypical "left out" character due to his young age. Kind of like Speed Racer's little brother who would stow away in the trunk of his race car, Kishin would ignore orders to stay behind and follow everybody else into danger.

The show also messes up the interpersonal relationships between our younger heroes, specifically in terms of romance. Early in the series it is alluded to that Rick and Jedda have a mutual attraction. However this theme disappears, re-appears, disappears etc. Sometimes they're into each other then at other times they would fall for some stranger they just met, Jedda being the worst offender in this regard. There was at least a half dozen episodes where she would fall for some guy that she had only known for a matter of minutes. Rick was also guilty of this on at least two separate occasions further confusing the budding romance between him and Jedda. Now I don't expect there to be some epic romance here (nor would I want one) but you need to be consistent. Even the 80s cartoon GI Joe understood this. You knew that Fint and Lady Jay were an item and you didn't see them hooking up with other characters whenever it was convenient for the plot.

On the bright side the voice acting in DOE is pretty good. Each voice is distinct and they were mostly recorded as an ensemble allowing for the actors to better play off of one another. The music from the series is also decent. Like most action/adventure shows the in-episode music is recycled throughout the series but it wasn't as noticeable as other shows. I would also like to call out that I absolutely love the series opening theme song. I don't know if it's the catchy lyrics or the electronic keyboard but there is something so 1980s about this that I can't help but feel nostalgic every time I hear it.

Rounding out the production of this series is the animation. DOE was animated in Korea, a very common practice these days but back in 1986 it was still kind of new for American produced cartoons. So how did it come out? Well as you may have guessed it's a ... (wait for it) mixed bag. When the studios "A" crew was working on the show the results were pretty good. Well they were good for a show using minimal animation (minimal animation is the technique where you use fewer in-between drawings than is necessary to fool the human eye into thinking it's seeing movement. Thus the movements of the characters are often jerky and unnatural). When the good crew wasn't working though you got the "B" crew, and these guys were bad. The animation not only suffered from the minimal animation technique but also suffered from off model characters, goofy gesturing and terrible disproportion. The difference between the "A" and "B" crews was so vast that you didn't even have to look hard to tell which you were watching, it was as clear as a Hollywood teenagers complexion. In one exceptionally odd situation there was an early episode in the series where the animators actually used the wrong model sheets! They ended up using early character designs instead of the finalized designs. Lothar is wearing an unusual jungle costume, Jedda's hair is way too long and Ming is actually the wrong color (he supposed to be green and they made him blue). You can view the original model sheets on the DVD special features and see that this is indeed what happened. The fact that the shows producers even allowed such a big oversight to air is shocking.

To sum up Defenders of the Earth is a lot more bad than it is good. Sure the potential was there but even viewed through my rose colored 1980s animation glasses I have to admit this was not the best show from the decade. It's not the worst mind you, but it falls well short of the better shows like Galaxy Rangers, Dungeons and Dragons and GI Joe. On the plus side the DVD set is really nice. The packaging is beautiful and you get some really cool special features. My favorite is that each episode has a couple bullet points calling out interesting facts about the show. They even point out the bad things like poor animation and silly plot holes. If you have never heard of this show you should definitely stay away, but if you watched the series as a youngster and you don't mind a little pain then it might be worth your time to check it out.

Spectacular Spider-Man? - You better believe it is

When it was announced that a new cartoon titled "The Spectacular Spider-man" would air in 2008 I was skeptical. Over the years there have been a number of Spider-man cartoons, none of them all that memorable. There was the minimally animated cartoon from the 1960s. Later in the early 1980s we saw the extremely tame Spider-man and his Amazing Friends. In the mid 1990s the world was treated to the ambitious - but ultimately disappointing - Spider-man the Animated Series. The success of the first Spider-man movie spawned a strange CG cartoon that aired briefly on MTV. Finally last (and most certainly least) was Spider-man Unlimited (don't get me started on this one). The best of these can be considered nothing more than a mixed bag.

Despite these reservations however, I was liking the direction of Marvels animation and wanted to give the show a chance. I watched the first 4 episodes and felt ... underwhelmed. The show was ok, but the stories just weren't doing a lot for me and the non-costume character designs bugged me (too simple and the giant irises were just creepy). It was at this point that I dropped the series and moved on.

Over the next year I kept hearing positive buzz about the show. Being a firm believer in second chances (after all I tried re-watching the Real Adventures of Jonny Quest) I gave the show another shot. So I picked up with episode five and prepared for the worst. All I can say is that I wish being wrong was always this pleasant. Within three episodes I was hooked. Yes the giant irises still bothered me but I quickly got over it once the series kicked into high gear. This is without a doubt the BEST Spider-man cartoon ever made, and one of the best action/adventure cartoons in quite some time.

The strength of the show stems from its writing. The initial episodes that I found lacking were actually laying the necessary groundwork for the payoffs we would get throughout the season. In other words this is the kind of show that has layers. Things that happen in one episode often have repercussions in later ones. That's not to say that the episodes don't stand well enough on their own - far from it - but there is a larger picture being created and watching the series writers and producers pull it all together is a real treat. They also deserve a lot of credit for having the sense to borrow from the best that the various Spider-man incarnations have to offer. Elements from Stan Lee and Steve Ditko are clearly present, as are influences from John Romita and even Brian Michael Bendis (the writer of Ultimate Spider-man). This may seem like a no brainier but I have to applaud them none the less; especially when you look at the choices that other Spider-man cartoons have made regarding influence.

Characters are unique, flawed and very three dimensional. Our hero Peter is truly clueless when it comes to romance, but through it all he's the kind of tough luck hero we love to root for. Supporting cast characters are also well developed. We feel the disappointment and frustration of Gwen Stacey as she tries to win Peter's heart. Harry Osborn's desperate attempts to make his father proud are heart wrenching. In short these fictional characters feel real, something that can be sorely missing from many action/adventure cartoons.

Spider-man's rouge gallery is admirably represented here as well. You get all the big names like Doctor Octopus, Rhino, Sandman, Mysterio, Kravan, Shocker, Vulture, Lizard, Green Goblin and of course Venom (this covers two seasons worth of regulars). However my favorite antagonist is season one's primary villain, the criminal godfather The Big Man. Normally I would expect the Kingpin to fill this roll but the shows producers went in a different direction, they used a little known Spidey villain named Tombstone. I absolutely adore Tombstone (wow that felt strange to write). The way he makes Peter feel like a kid playing at an adult game is great; and his explanation to Spider-man as to why he is creating super villains is one of my favorite rationals ever (I won't spoil it here, you'll need to watch to find out).

I would like to also hand out an honorable mention to SSM's version of Eddie Brock (Venom). If you have ever read the comics - or watched the atrocious Spider-man 3 - then you should know that Eddie has a less than inspired origin; especially in terms of motivation. What SSM has done is to take the revised Eddie Brock from the Ultimate Spider-man comics and further improve his background so that he becomes more of a willing victim. So instead of being some pissed off reporter who is discredited, Eddie is a life long friend of Peter and a science major at Empire State University (both Eddie and Peters parents died in the same air plane crash). Bound together by tragedy, these two are like brothers, they even refer to one another as bros. Sadly through a series of unfortunate events (the kind that can only happen to Spider-man) Eddie begins to feel betrayed by Peter, and later by the supposed hero Spider-man. The tension builds throughout season one and culminates when Eddie finally bonds with the symbiont (Spider-mans black alien costume) and discovers that the two people he hates most - Peter and Spider-man - are one in the same. Yes Venom is looking for revenge, but it's revenge born out of betrayal. A much strong emotion than previous incarnations of the character.

Though the story and character writing is without a doubt cleaver, the show's dialog is nothing short of brilliant. In case you don't know, Spider-man is supposed to be a smart-ass. This has been a part of the character's identity since his inception back in the 1960s. The problem over the years has been that this quality has never translated well outside the medium of print. Every Spider-man cartoon prior to SSM has failed miserably at providing witty banter, the same can be said for all three Spider-man movies as well. Spectacular Spider-man changes all that. Spidey's one liners in this series are not only funny, they are laugh out loud funny (and I'm not the kind of person who laughs out loud at action/adventure cartoons). Credit must also go to the voice acting of Josh Keaton (the voice actor who portrays Peter and Spider-man). Keaton's timing, inflection and pauses provide maximum effect for these fantastically written lines.

In regards to the production quality of the show, SSM it is definitely a well made series. The animation is fluid and the character models are always consistent with the last couple episodes of season two being particularly impressive. I still would have liked to have seen non-costume character designs that were a little less ... cartoonish (yes I can appreciate how ironic of a statement that is) but it's something that I got over pretty quickly and in the grand scheme of things it's a small complaint. Voice acting is excellent all around (though some voice actors noticeably do multiple characters, most of them one shots) as is the music. Top to bottom this show is about as good as the action/adventure genre gets.

If you have not seen this show then I recommend that you do so. The first season is available as a two-disc collectors set and can be found relatively cheap. Unfortunately the second season is currently only available in the form of four individual volumes. That may not be the best way to watch season two, but I do feel it is worth the effort to pick them up.

Jonny Quest - The Real (Bad) Adventures

Back in 1996 - about a year after I graduated high-school - there was a HUGE premiere for the revival of Jonny Quest. This new series was titled "The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest" (as opposed to the 1960s show which was fake?) and it was shown on multiple networks. With all the hype I couldn't help but get excited. I was a casual fan of the original show and I desperately wanted a new action/adventure cartoon to fill the void left by Batman the Animated Series. Much to my dismay however, this reboot turned out to be a mistake of Jar Jar Binks proportion.

I originally watched something like the first 8 episodes of this series before giving up on it (thankfully Superman premiered not too long after). But with the recent release of the first 13 episodes on dvd I decided to give the show a second chance. Well you know what they say, those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. Please note that this review is for the first 13 episodes of this series only. The show ended up running 52 episodes in total. I believe that the shows original producers were replaced so the remainder of the series might be better than what I saw here.

To start I would like to single out the biggest flaw of this series, the tone. Actually it would be more appropriate to say that the show had too many tones. There were episodes about religious zealot terrorists followed by episodes of aliens followed by episodes about saving endangered animals followed by episodes about a mad geniuses attacking through virtual reality and best of all an episode about ghost pirates (we'll get back to this one later, trust me). None of these themes is really that great (well maybe the ghost pirates is great) but it's the use of all of them in such a small number of episodes that proves so problematic. You just can't go from "save the whales" to "there is an alien posing as the vice president", it's too jarring. Your show needs an identity, something that the audience can always anchor itself to. Instead the produces of The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest just throw as many popular ideas of the time at us as possible and thrust the characters into each premise with no concern about how much sense any of it makes.

As for the series cast, it consists of Jonny Quest, his father Dr. Benton Quest, family body guard Race Bannon (ex-special services), Dr. Quests apprentice Hadji and Races daughter Jessie. Overall this would be a pretty solid base of characters if they had been properly developed. Unfortunately they all come off as generic stereotypes that serve no purpose other than to further the shows so-called plot. Jonny is brash, reckless but ultimately a good natured person who never pushes things too far. In other words he's boring. Jessie provides some much needed estrogen to the show but little else. Given her fathers background you would expect her to have a lot of military skill sets like hand-to-hand combat, weapons expertise etc. This happens to a extent but honestly you never get the feeling that the rest of the characters (she is usually teamed with Jonny or with Jonny and Hadji) really need her, or that they couldn't just as easily do what she can. Hadji serves up nothing more than Indian mystic wisdom cliches while training himself to be some kind of David Blane type endurance expert (so he can put himself into trances so you think he's dead and he can hold his breath for a long time). Race is a body guard with military ties, that's about all I got from him in the first 13 episodes. Finally Dr. Quest is ... well it's hard to say. He's supposed to be some kind of super geniuses scientist but he seems to spend all his time looking into the paranormal and searching for artifacts. More of an archaeologist/ghost hunter than a scientist I would say.

Another problem with the cast is that none of them have any notable flaws. That may seem like a strange thing to say, but having characters who are flawed in some way helps humanize them for the viewers. Make Jonny's reckless nature a problem that ends up hurting someone he cares about. Maybe Jessie has trust issues because her mom abandoned her. Have Race's past come back to haunt him due to questionable actions from his secret service days. You get my point, I want to have characters that grow and change with the show. I want them to have baggage from their past, not just stagnantly stumble their way from episode to episode never any different from the experience.

Alright now I want to talk about the show's writing a little bit; specifically I want to talk about the show's premiere episode "The Darkest Fathoms". In this episode we see the pirate ship of Blackjack Lee sink into the ocean's depths somewhere near the Bermuda islands. Of course there was treasure on board, treasure that Blackjack Lee swore no one would have. Skip ahead to modern times and some divers discover the ship (named The Ivory Web) while searching for oil. Well old Lee won't have none of that so ghost pirates attack the oil expedition. Naturally(?) Dr. Benton Quest is called in to investigate after the attack. Through a series of predictable events Dr. Quest and Jessie get captured by those pesky ghost pirates and Jonny takes off to rescue them. However it turns out they're not real ghost pirates (gasp!). They're just a bunch of shady criminals who are trying to get the gold for themselves and they're using the legacy of Blackjack Lee to scare off anyone who gets too close. To do this they have concocted an over elaborate plot complete with fog machines, wind machines and other special effects to make people think that there are real ghosts guarding the treasure. Now if this plot sounds familiar it's because it's the same plot of EVERY SCOOBY DOO EPISODE EVER MADE!! Seriously ghost pirates? Common Hanna Barbara haven't you covered this ground enough already?

Other horribly offensive plots include 3 "save the animals" episodes; one about elephants, another about a tiger on the loose in the city and the last involves whales. I'm all for going green and what not but after Captain Planet I have a violently allergic reaction to cartoons that preach at me. Also Alien in Washington is so stupid it made me want to travel back in time and punch the show's writer square in the neck. I mean an alien has spent years on earth posing as a human so that he could become vice president and try and stop our government from doing experiments in outer space. How exactly did he come up with this plan? It takes years of political service, maneuvering and media scrutiny for someone to be able to serve in this position of office. Did you start preparing for this knowing that we would some day start experimenting in space? Because this strategy would take years to pull off, not months. What if the presidential candidate doesn't choose you as a running mate? What if you had lost the election? The plot holes in this thing are so big you could fit Rosie O'Donnell's head through them. It would have made more sense for the alien to have taken over the vice presidents body, but the show actually makes a point to tell us that this was not the case. There were several other "alien" themed episodes that were nearly as bad; you can just imagine the shows producers and writers sitting around trying to come up with ways to emulate and leach off the success of the X-files (one of the biggest hits on TV in 1996).

The production quality of these episodes also falls far short of the standards for the time. Based on the inconsistent look you can tell that the animation was sourced out to different studios. The quality of this animation ranges from passable to awful. There are some episodes where the characters are truly flat, with no shading or depth at all. The backgrounds lack any detail or stylization. The merging of CG backgrounds and cell animation is so bad it looks like an armature did it in Photoshop. Character models are inconsistent with changes to hair color and even age happening regularly (Jonny will look 13 in one episode then 16 in another!). Lastly the CG realm of Quest World has aged really badly. Even at the time this was not impressive CG but compared to the standards of today - even TV standards - this stuff is laughable.

Voice acting is at least passable. The characters all have distinct voices that fit their design. Hadji and Races accents are not the best, but I've heard worse. The shows music is serviceable as well. It feels kind of strange to have to use aspects of the show I consider average as a means of complementing the series, but there just isn't much to celebrate here. Actually I do want to call out one aspect of this show that I was impressed by, people die. If you know anything about action/adventure cartoons you know that people - even villains - rarely die (don't want to scare the kids after all). So the fact that numerous people - good and bad - bite the big one in this show was very surprising. And the deaths weren't exactly tame ones either. One villain is stomped to death by an elephant. The oil expedition divers from the premiere episode freeze to death when their heat supply is cut off. Another villain is even mauled by a tiger. Now none of these deaths are shown on screen of course, but the implication is obvious. For a show like this to have the guts to tread on such taboo ground is something to be applauded. Even now it's rare to see people die in an action/adventure cartoon.

As you can tell I didn't like this show. Have I been a little hard on the series? Maybe just a little, but I stand by everything in this review. Much of my displeasure comes from when this show was and not just what this show was. I hold any action/adventure cartoon made after 1992 to a higher standard than the shows that came before (the GI Joes and Thundercat type cartoons). This is because Batman the Animated Series set a higher bar for the genre and any show that was made after that should - at the very least - try and meet or exceed that higher standard. Instead The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest crawled under that bar without even looking up to see where it was. I have no idea if the remaining 39 episodes of this show are any good, but I will say that you should avoid these first 13 at all costs.

Legion of Super Heroes - Why do the good die young?

Not too long ago I finished watching the 26 episode run of the Legion of Super Heroes. This was an unfortunately short lived series that aired on the Kids WB starting back in 2006. When the Kids WB went bye-bye, sadly, so did this show. Ultimately the series ran two seasons (13 episodes each).

Season one primarily deals with Clark Kent being brought to the future by the Legion of Super Heroes so that they can help him become earths greatest champion Superman. In return (when he returns to the past) the legacy of Superman will serve as an inspiration to the Legion (yeah it's kind of a mirror within a mirror thing). It may sound a little confusing but this theme really works well, especially when we see Clark struggle with the burden of becoming a legend.

The show's not all about Superman though. The cast of heroes includes (as evidenced by the shows name) the Legion of Super Heroes. Legion characters from season one include Lighting Lad, Phantom Girl, Saturn Girl, Timberwolf, Triad, Brainiac 5 and Bouncing Boy. Other Legionaries show up as well but these are the ones most often used. With a cast this large it's easy for characters to get lost or underdeveloped. Thankfully the shows writers do an excellent job of exploring each character throughout the first season. From Bouncing Boys insecurity to Phantom Girls strained relationship with her mother to Lighting Lads conflicted relationship with his brother (and later Cosmic Boy) just about everyone gets a dedicated episode (though some get more than others).

Character relationships are also well developed. Notables include Lighting Lad and Saturn Girls budding romance as well as the seemingly mismatched Bouncing Boy and Triad. Brainiac 5s hero worship of Superman is also fun to watch, particularly because he is also serving as a bit of an adviser and guide to Clark on his journey to become Superman.

If I were to offer any criticism of season one it's that I felt the show could have gone a little further with its character development. Also the Clark Kent learning to become Superman theme seems to disappear later in the season. Overall these were pretty small complaints though and the rest of my  production expectations were met (solid animation and production/character design, good sound and music, fantastic voice acting, writing, dialog etc.).

On to Season two. The second season of this shows jumps two years into the future. Of course we're talking about the future to begin with so let me clarify, the shows characters are all two years older. This is a little odd and unexpected at first, but you quickly become accustomed to the change and I found the show was better for it. I honestly do not know if this was an organic change the shows producers had intended from the start, or perhaps a response to criticism from the previous season. Either way I liked it.

The season premiers with the Legion going to the future (What's that you say? You thought the Legion was already set in the future. Well they are but that was the 31st century. They're traveling further into the future, the 41st century) to help a cloned Superman fight the villain Imperiex. You see in the future (I mean the futures future) earth is getting whooped on by Imperiex and his ginormous army. The only hope for us is to clone earths greatest hero Superman. But that's still not enough to stop Imperiex so this new Superman travels to the 31st century to recruit the Legion for help. Got all that? Good. Anyway they end up beating Imperiex but don't finish the job. As a result Imperiex escapes to the past (the past being the 31st century) and wages his war on the universe all over again.

That sets up Imperiex as the seasons overarching villain. This is another change from season one (which did not have an overarching villain) that I approve of. Anyway the Legion go back to the future (I mean the 31st century) along with cloned Superman to, once again, stop Imperiex. To do this they recruit modern day Superman (the original from season one) to help them. So essentially we have two supermen. The original big blue boyscout and his edgier, moodier, doesn't play well with others clone. Still with me? Good.

I'll spare you any more confusing synopsis now and focus on the season in broader terms. Once again the show does a great job of giving each character their own episode so that we can explore them in depth. Timberwolf has a nice episode dealing with his fear of his own primal nature and animal side. Lightening Lad finally gets to settle things with his brother. Best of all Brainiac 5 faces down his own demon, his evil ancestor Brainiac 1. Previous character dynamics are still present as well, but much to my disappointment they are still not fully developed (Saturn Girl and Lightening Lads romance, Bouncing Boy and Triad as well).

Visually the show is actually better in season two. The animation feels cleaner and more detailed. The action sequences are more vivid and the overall design is just stronger. The music and voice acting are top notch once again.

I do have one complaint I want to call out from this season though. Chameleon Boy. I am familiar with the comics, and I've always liked the character but he comes off very generic in the show. Generic in what way you ask? Well if you've ever watched Teen Titans just imagine an orange Beast Boy with tentacles instead of hair and you got Chameleon Boy. Actually Beast Boy is probably a little sillier than Chameleon Boy but my point is that Cham (as his friends call him) ends up feeling like some cliched shape shifting goofball for the team to poke fun at. A role that many of us had already seen played out in the Teen Titans cartoon just one or two years prior to this. Personally I wish they would have found a better purpose for the character.

To conclude I would have to say that season two of Legion was a significant improvement over season one (and since I liked season one that's pretty impressive). The more mature characters and themes were a step in the right direction and given another season I think the show could have gotten even better. But this was not meant to be. Luckily each season is self contained. What I mean is that each season has a beginning, middle and end so you're never left with unresolved story lines. At worst there may be a little set up for season three but not enough to bug you. If you're a fan of Superman, or the Legion of Superheroes or just good action/adventure cartoon you should check this series out.

DVD Notes: Only season one of this series has been released on DVD to date. There are no indications that the second season will ever be released.

C.O.P.S. - Fighting crime in a future time (god help us all)

C.O.P.S. (Central Organization of Police Specialists) was an animated television show from the late 1980s (it premiered in 1988). In case you don't know, most action/adventure cartoons from the 80s were used as springboards/tie-ins to large toy lines. In other words kids watched the cartoons then begged mom and dad to buy them the toys (shocking I know). Well even though this practice continues today, the Regan years were really the hay-day for this type of thing; shows like GI Joe, Transformers, Thundercats and He-Man were massively successful and C.O.P.S. was one of the last shows to try and cash in on this tried and true formula. Unfortunately (for the show not us) it was never able to achieve any significant success and ended up only producing 65 episodes (this is a lot by today's action/adventure cartoon standards but back in those days 65 episodes was just a single season).

That's enough of a hackney history lesson, let's break this show down to see just how good and bad it really was. To lead off I want to provide the following frame of reference. All action/adventure cartoons prior to Batman the Animated Series are horrible. So when I review a show like this it's meant to be in context to other shows of that time period, not the cartoons we enjoy today. Lastly, I was only able to watch 22 of the shows 65 episodes (apparently Shout Entertainment meant to do 3 volumes of 22 episodes on DVD but stopped after one. UPDATE: As of 2011 Mills Creek has  released all 65 episodes over two separate DVD sets).

The concept of COPS is simple enough. In the year 2020 (not that far off now) Empire City is caught in the grip of the evil mobster Big Boss. Helping Big Boss terrorize Empire City (mostly by stealing) is his gang of crooks: Berserko (Big Boss' semi-retarded nephew), Dr. BadVibes (mad scientist), Turbo Tu-Tone, Rock Krusher, Ms. Demeanor (who looks like a cross-dressing dude and whose name even sounds a lot like Mister Meaner at times. I always wondered if that was intentional) and Nightshade (catburgler).

Standing between Big Boss and our fair city are the (you guessed it) C.O.P.S. They are led by B. P. Vess AKA Bullet Proof (B.P. Vess, Bullet Proof Vest. Get it?), Mainframe (computer specialist), Hard Top, LongArm, Mace, Mirage, Bowser and Blitz (a guy and his robot dog), Sundown (a cowboy. That's right I said he's a cowboy) and some other ones I don't feel like mentioning since I'm sure you get the point. All in all it's not an entirely bad concept, but it's not a particularly great one either. Very few of the characters really standout, though the shows creators tried to hedge their bets by having so many. Ultimately I think that young boys (the shows target audience) were going to be more drawn to a giant transforming semi-truck than a guy hauling around a battering ram.

The show's writing on the other hand was not so mediocre. It was terrible. Now I have to say again that all of these types of shows from the 80s had bad writing, but the writers on C.O.P.S. really seemed to not care. I hope I'm wrong but it feels like this show was just a paycheck to these people. Specific things I hated when watching the DVD box set were as follows. The terrible dialog. It's stilted, awkward and corny (especially the shows catch phrase "It's Crime Fighting Time"). The complete lack of suspense. Now of course no one is going to die, but at no point in the show do the writers manage to establish even the slightest sense of danger. Not even when B. P. Vess is first injured and medically altered to become Bullet Proof do you get the impression that he's hurt. I mean the guy is just talking and acting normal, but he may die at any minute? Finally the out and out silliness of some of the stories. A guy robbing banks with bugs he keeps in his hive hat. Berserko's theft of a giant balloon. Midget thieves hiding out in an orphanage posing as babies! Common, I know this show's for kids but give them a little more credit than that; no wonder this show has so little nostalgia factor.

Normally I would not spend a lot of time talking about the voicing talents of a cartoon. Over the years I've just come to expect - at the very least - relative competence. So the reason I'm going to focus so much on the voicing talents of C.O.P.S. is because of just how unbelievably bad the voices in the series were. The acting is so terrible in fact, I would have to put this show on par with Thundercats as the worst sounding action/adventure program of the decade.

So let me define "unbelievably bad". The character Big Boss is a fat, glutenous, ugly monster of a man. He carries around a cigar and is loosely based on the Edward G. Robinson movie mobster Johnny Rocco. Now if you know a little Looney Toons history you know that Johnny Rocco was the basis for the famous Bugs Bunny episode where he battles the mobster Rocky. Naturally Mel Blanc did a hilarious spoof of the Johnny Rocco voice, especially his over emphasis of the "mahh" and "seeee". Well Big Boss is like listening to an exaggerated Mel Blanc Rocky. Where Rocky was a funny over the top caricature Big Boss is like a caricature of that caricature. In short, this terrible impression is so outlandish and over the top you can't stand it. That combined with the aforementioned terrible dialog produces a character who sounds nothing like what he appears.

Other terrible impressions include Squeeky Kleen, whose voice is based on Peter Lorre. He sounds so nasally you would think he was some kind of servant to a mad scientist in a Ed Wood horror movie; instead he's an OCD butler/chauffeur to Big Boss. Finally there's Berserko. Berserko was designed to be a grossly incompetent, overly stupid criminal. To help get this across the show gives him this very strange Bobcat Goldthwait type voice. Though I think the similarity was unintentional the result was - once again - awful.

The rest of the show's character voices are not as offensive but are none the less bad; even by the standards of the time. I don't know who to blame for this, the sub-par voice actors, a terrible voice director or the shows producers; probably all three. Regardless I found myself groaning and rolling my eyes just about every time someone spoke on the show.

Fortunately the visuals in  C.O.P.S. fare much better. Though the animation was pretty typical for the time period (awkward, unnaturally stiff movements) many of the shows backgrounds and design work were in fact excellent. Being set in the future there were - of course - robots, hover cars and other future tech. that needed designed. While other shows from the 80's (such as Defenders of the Earth) also had the same necessity, C.O.P.S. really excelled in this department. I especially enjoyed the vehicle and robot design as well as the detailed backdrops found in many of the episodes.

Another visual aspect of the show I liked was the use of highlights and shadows. Many of the reflections on things such as metal and glass looked fantastic as did the shadow effects when characters were driving in the standard issue C.O.P.S. cars (the front of the car was slatted like blinds and the animators did a great job of moving the horizontal shadows over the interior while the vehicle was in motion). You could tell that there were people working on the show who really cared about these details and took the time to render them admiringly. It's sad to think that while the writers and voice actors were hacking out their portion of the show that production and character designers, animators and background painters were putting a lot of love into their work. Still it was that attention to visual detail that helped get me through all 22 episodes of my DVD box set, so for what it's worth thanks.

Taken in its entirety I would have to say C.O.P.S. is a pretty bad cartoon, even for its time. It had thinly veiled PSA lessons for kids (don't steal, listen to your elders etc.). It was a victim of the heavy handed Standards and Practices of the time (minimum violence, in fact you would be hard pressed to find a single animated punch that actually connects with its intended target) and it had plenty of marketing tie-ins (comics, toys etc). Would I recommend this show to anyone? Only if you have a lot of nostalgia for the series (I for one had just entered my teens when this show started so I was already too old to look past the obvious flaws) otherwise you should best steer clear.

UPDATE: As of 2011 Mills Creek has  released all 65 episodes of this series over two separate DVD volumes. So basically you can now purchase the entire series pretty cheaply if desired.