DC ups the ante; Marvel drops the ball
Tuesday, February 26, 2008 at 07:29PM This past weekend, I had the pleasure of going to Wondercon, the little sister of Comicon. As always, there were wonderful forums with sneak peeks of upcoming media.
When I heard that there was going to be a panel on the new animated series, The Spectacular Spider-Man, I was more than ecstatic. I was a huge fan of the 1994 Spider-Man animated cartoon [watch here]. The way that it was drawn, the voice acting, and dialog was impeccable. I also am a huge fan of the comic book, so having a new cartoon from Marvel was just what the doc [Connors] ordered.
The not so Spectacular Spider-Man
Much to my dismay, I was dead wrong. The animation was sub-par and looked similar to the way Digimon was drawn. Peter Parker now has a mole [which, coincidentally, the artist "cheeks" possesses] and looks like he is five-years-old. The jokes were bad and lacking wit, while the storyline was scattered and unfocused. The only upside to The Spectacular Spider-Man was the voice acting of Josh Keaton as Parker/Spidey. He sounds quite similar to Christopher Daniel Barnes, who was the voice of my favorite web-slinger circa '94.
After that letdown, I was quite skeptical walking into the Justice League: New Frontier film by DC. Surprisingly, I was absolutely blown away by the animation, motion effects, voice acting, concept and writing. DC seems to know what they are doing with their comic properties; The New Frontier is aimed at the older demographic who are hardcore comic book fans. Marvel seems to be chasing the Pokemon pipsqueaks, while forgetting those of us who have grown up following Spidey.
DC takes animated media to a new frontier
Justice League: The New Frontier is worth buying on DVD and I look forward for more from the DC franchise. It's available On-Demand starting today, and I would strongly suggest it as a comic book movie must see. If you would like to watch The Spectacular Spider-Man and weigh in with your own judgment, check it out on March 8 on the Kids WB.
Reader Comments (9)
Having grown up as a huge Marvel fan, your review of these two series saddened me. Although I appreciate some of the DC characters (Superman and Batman), I always felt that the DC universe was too complicated and disjointed for my liking. Almost every character was more cartoon than comic book, the art was usually inferior to Marvel, and the writing/plotting seemed to be on a kindergarten level. It looks like these two animated features completely reverses that perception. I'll check out JL:TNF and give TSS a pass.
I'm jealous, you Californians have all the fun. I have been waiting impatiently for the new DC film ever since I saw the teaser piece last summer. I'm ecstatic that you're giving it a thumbs up. I haven't been able to find it on demand yet, Netflix has flagged it as a "short wait". So, I'm doing the ancy dance here.
DC has had a longer tradition of animation/motion picture distribution of their characters than Marvel. Marvel was slow to get rolling with films. As a result, they have a better understanding of how to do, I think. That coupled with being owned by Warner Brothers gives them a slight advantage. Additonally, I think their characters just translate better to motion pictures than Marvel's. What do you think?
The FAIL of the new Spider-Man cartoon still pales in comparison to what is being done to the actual comic. My patience was tested back during the whole clone storyline and now that they are trying to mend the gaping hole left by Spidey unmasking himself in "Civil War" by basically have him make a deal with the devil is making me want to just give up.
The DC branded cartoons have been a better product than the Marvel based ones for the most part. "Batman: The Animated Series" has still yet to be dethroned as the greatest comic character based cartoon.
I just realized that DC's animation has been better than Marvel's for the most part for a while. As much as I loved the 90's X-Men series, the animation was sloppy, unlike Batman:TAS's stylized character design and animation. I've yet check out Marvel's direct-to-DVD titles.
I think Marvel needs to do some serious searching for a characteristic style that's fresh but easy to maintain high production values over time.
I will say that it might be unfair to compare a Spectacular Spidey series to a New Frontier movie.
New frontier is dope, the spider-man shit looked wack to me I watched the panel for while.
Yeah the JL movie was pretty old school. Watched it on my AppleTV the other day. Not only it was set in the fifties, the uniforms and such were old.
Frankly they could have done better on the animation as they have done in other JL movies. However something has to be said about keeping it mature and non-pokemonesque.
Nice post! You are going in my RSS reader.
A justice league movie - awesome! Never heard about it down under.
Hi there Expert, what entice you to post an article on DC ups the ante; Marvel drops the ball? This article was extremely interesting, especially since I was searching for thoughts on this subject last Saturday.
Excellent read, I just passed this onto a colleague who was doing a little research on that. And he actually bought me lunch because I found it for him smile So let me rephrase that: Thanks for lunch!
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