Saturday night’s super-hero toons made me very happy, because I’m an eight-year-old trapped in a near-middle-aged man’s body.
After what seemed like weeks of reruns of the most recent episodes, we got a new outing of Justice League Unlimited. The opening act made me a bit nervous, as it seemed to set up yet another 30 minutes focusing on characters who’ve been around from the beginning (Batman, Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman). I’m not a big fan of time travel stories, either, nor do I have much taste for DC’s Old West characters, who also appear.
But I ended up liking it a lot. It was more of a caper comedy than a “we must save the future” slog, and the gunslingers all got nice little moments in the spotlight. I also got laughs at things that I’m certain weren’t intentional. (Blame my other half. He walked through the room during an early scene, watched a bit, and said, “Wow, it’s the cowboy fetish episode.”) Thank goodness one of the bandits who donated their outfits to the heroes wore a pants size that would fit so snugly on Wonder Woman. (Tom the Dog raises an interesting question about Batman that I would have considered if I hadn’t been laughing at the chaps and the six-guns-in-one.)
I’m surprised at how much I’m enjoying Teen Titans. I thought the first season was pretty mawkish and dull, but it really seems to have hit its stride. This is the conclusion to the “Titans East” story, and it’s carried along by the terrific action sequences. (I can’t think of a super-hero cartoon that’s ever done them better, honestly.) There wasn’t as much of a focus on the guest stars this time around, but as the second half of a two-parter, that can be excused. It was a Cyborg-centric outing, and a pretty darn good one at that. It succeeds where similar character studies have failed on this show by highlighting how the spotlight character interacts with the people around him rather than dwelling too much on his inner angst.
This brings up a counterpoint between the two shows that surprises me. JLU promises a wider look at the DC Universe (or at least the toon equivalent), but I find that TT is much better at delivering it. I’ve been a bit let down by the way JLU has dealt with supporting characters; I get a bit frustrated watching all of these great second-stringers wandering around the satellite or limited to bit parts in big battles. There have been successful exceptions (the episode featuring Zatanna, for instance), but the show hasn’t really hit its stride or lived up to the potential of its cornucopia of characters.
TT seems to make more of a commitment to introducing its supporting characters and guest stars. When Terra or Bumblebee or Aqualad or whoever appears in an episode, you can be reliably certain that they’re going to have some meat added to their bones. This might be because TT has a less ambitious fictional universe and deliberately keeps itself to a smaller scale. It’s probably not a fair comparison, but looking at results in terms of viewing pleasure, TT wins.
Scott at Polite Dissent has posted his own thoughts on the eps. Go take a look.