What Do You Like/Dislike About Super Hero/Action Cartoons

[Avaitor]

My next one was going to be on anime in general, but considering the recent tragedy in Japan, I thought talking about why I hate the moe phase and other certain traits regarding Japanese cartoons would be in poor taste, so that will be on hold for now. Rest assured, I'll get to that eventually, along with a couple of other sub genres/demographics portrayed in anime.

For now, I want to focus on the action cartoon, super heroes in particular.

Batman: TAS is kind of the golden standard when it comes to action animation, and can you blame that? Nearly 20 years on, it's still an impressive series, and a lot of the best things I was planning on focusing on (brilliant usage of art design and color to make everything mesh, deeply psychological character traits, well-defined but not entirely black and white line between good and bad guys, inspired voice acting, tightly-written stories, varied adaptations) can be traced to this series. And I can come up with examples for how it accomplishes each of these on the fly.

On the other hand, it's not perfect. The continuity is a little whack on the show. That's alright, since this isn't really the type of series that should do ongoing story plots, but I do think BTAS could have added a more consistent timeline in. Then the animation tended to get wonky in some episodes. Blame the overuse of some studios like Akom and Sunwoo when Warner couldn't get TMS, but it's a little sad when you can put a marathon of 3-4 episodes, and have at least one of them be a dud in terms of motion and fluidity. And then there are some storyline that just seem out of place on the show, like "The Forgotten" or "Cat Scratch Fever". The former was done too early in the show's run and without enough emotion or a convincing enough villain to make it work, and the latter felt like Gargoyles' leftovers, not Batman.

I think for all it does wrong, The Spectacular Spider-Man did right. It has a lot of the best points that BTAS did, as well as much more consistent animation, strongly plotted out storyarcs, and had most of it's storylines fit in with the climate of the show. It was also able to add in humor without breaking tension or coming off as campy, something BTAS also had problems with when not involving the Joker or Harley Quinn, a subtle line here or there aside.

As a fan of both Batman and Spider-Man, I followed both of these series and greatly anticipated them. They both took the best qualities of just about every incarnation that mattered and made them stick well. To me, they're the prime examples of how to do a comic book show.

How not to do a comic book show? Just about anything before the 90's, honestly. I might rewatch some "classics" to further highlight my point. That, or the recent Iron Man show where they deaged Tony Stark and took all of the suave douchebag aspects that made him who he was to begin with. All done in horrible CGI.

I also don't like when the writers just soullessly recreate entire storylines from the comics and adapt them without much intention to make them particularly good or special, especially with limited control due to S&P. Like most of the Marvel shows from the 90's. I also don't like when artists take the basic designs we read in the comics every day and expect them to work in animation, hyper-detailed lines and all. Again, like the 90's Marvel shows.

As for non-comic based action shows, take out most of the things I mentioned involving source material and focus more on defining the original characters. Gargoyles is the golden example there, but I'd also like to point to Avatar: TLA and American Dragon as good examples, and Danny Phantom as a not-so-good.

So what do you enjoy the most out of a good action cartoon? Do you like intense fight scenes, character development, exciting stories, or any combination of these? Is there anything you expect out of an adaptation or an original? And do you think that toyetic series can be done well?

[Spark Of Spirit]

I don't mind episodic or ongoing plots. I can go with either as long as:

1. the characters are well written and fun or awesome
2. the plots aren't TOO cliche (predictability is expected, but there's a limit)
3. the animation is consistent with the writing
4. the action is choreographed well
5. the resolution of the conflict isn't retarded

All the best action shows follow all of the above, and the lesser ones usually fail in a few of those.

By the way, the 90s Avenger show is probably the nadir of the superhero genre. While the other 90s shows might mess up in certain aspects, they don't fail nearly as hard as that one does.

[Aurora]

When it comes to Superhero cartoons imo Batman: TAS, and Justice League/Unlimited is everything they should be. Not carbon copies mind you.

Despite, it's popularity I'm having big problems with Superman: TAS. I know the creators wanted to downgrade the character since, he could probably solve any problem in 3 seconds if he had the same abilities from the comics. BUT! They seemed to have downgraded him too much, imo. Not to mentioned some episodes suffer from simple logic Superman could have used.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I agree with all of Avaitor's points in regards to BTAS. Its a brilliant animated series, on the whole, but lets be honest, it IS far from perfect, as its quality is not consistent and for every 4 or 5 good episodes that there were, we had at least 1 that was mediocre or a total throwaway (which is still a very good ratio, mind you, but it happened often enough to be noticeable, which is why its worth pointing out). It had some great episodic stories, but overall it still felt a bit too muddled since, as Avaitor mentioned, even in episodic series the time-line of events should be made a bit more clear, at least if its as long as BTAS (since shorter series can kind of get away with it, but longer series can seem out of place if you feel like events are just happening in a random order, with certain episodes from one season feeling like they could have happened several seasons earlier). On the whole, though, its a very minor thing, and it doesn't really hurt the overall quality of the show.

That said, I do feel that The Spectacular Spider-Man really managed to surpass BTAS (and for that matter if we go by action cartoons in general, so did Gargoyles). That doesn't mean that BTAS hasn't aged well, because it has aged beautifully on the whole and is still one of the best existing examples of how to do a proper superhero cartoon, but I think that both of the series which I just mentioned (both of which of course involved Greg Weisman), took the qualities that were great about BTAS but stayed far more consistent with them, and each series also took a lot of their own risks in terms of tackling darker subject material.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Yeah, I don't think "age" really has anything to do with BTAS's faults as the episodes that sucked then still suck now and the best from then are still are still the best.

That said, the only episodes I find are weak are the ones that were written specifically to be that way. You know the ones from the early era, they feel like they could be ripped out of a boring Saturday morning 80s show or something. The actual BTAS episodes that were not written just to be contrary (by certain individuals) to the proper series are still great watches today.

The only episode I won't make excuses for is Critters, though. Geez, Timm, what the flying hell?

[Avaitor]

The only episode I won't make excuses for is Critters, though. Geez, Timm, what the flying hell?

Aww, I like "Critters". If you haven't seen the commentary for that one, I'd recommend it.

Oh, and I don't know if I mentioned this before, but ongoing storyarcs are overrated. Not that they're not good or welcome, but an action show can be just as good without an arc as with one, and people who complain when shows like BTAS don't include one in are missing out.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I don't know if I would call them overrated. To me, good ongoing story arcs are good because they are done well, and good episodic series are also good because they are done well. Batman: The Animated Series is still the most well-loved action cartoon out there because its done so well for the most part. I will agree that it takes more skill to tell a good episodic story in which you have less time to tell a single story, but at the same time, its not like people will automatically put more value on a continuing story arc if its not actually a good one.

[Avaitor]

I think what really annoyed me was reading that some people wanted the new MLP to have one. I mean, this is fucking My Little Pony. The fact that it's been able to gain a fanbase outside of the demographic like that is amazing, but making every episode have an overlapping theme that adds up at the end wouldn't do anything one way or the other for it.

The thing that makes me a little resistant to storyarcs is the same reason that western studios are- low repeat value. I may really enjoy watching a show with an ongoing story at first, but sometimes it's hard to get back into them after I finish watching them, since I can't pick an ep or two at random. I feel the need to watch it all again, and I just don't have the time for that. And then sometimes, the chase is just better than the catch, like with Avatar and W.I.T.C.H. That's why I rewatch so few anime and why a lot of the ones I rave about beforehand stick to me less than a lot of western series I gush about.

I mean, quality ongoing storylines like the ones SSM had are just good and have enough staying power to hold up in repeat viewings. But I don't think I'll be able to get back into W.I.T.C.H. anytime soon.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

But, once again, that has more to do with the quality rather than just because its a story arc. There are some dumb-asses who think story arcs are inherently better than an episodic format, but that's just idiotic ignorance. Neither form of storytelling is inherently better or worse than the other. It all depends on the talent of the writers telling those stories.

To address your point on re-watchability, the same thing goes for that. Batman: The Animated Series, and several other completely episodic series are great and most of their episodes are highly re-watchable, and if you compare it to like Avengers, those hold up more (that is to say that Avengers was quite enjoyable for me to watch 1 time through, but now that I've already seen season 1 I can't see myself wanting to re-watch it anytime soon like I would for something like The Spectacular Spider-Man which is just that captivating to watch). However, the reverse example is also true. Right after finishing Gargoyles, I was left wanting more, and when I realized that The Goliath Chronicles wouldn't do shit for me past the first episode, I actually went back to re-watching some of my favorite episodes from the series not too long after I had just finished it. You have to keep in mind that in terms of re-watchability, there is no rule that says you have to re-watch the series in any particular order just because it has more of a continuing story line. In truth, I rarely do that for good animated series with continuing story-lines, as since I already know the full story-line, I go back to my favorite episodes or the ones that I feel like re-watching, and skip the stuff that I didn't particularly care for (such as the post-Avalon stuff in Gargoyles). For example, would you believe that I have NEVER bothered to re-watch Yu Yu Hakusho in order since my first general time through the series? Whenever I go back to it, I go back to re-watching a specific episode or set of episodes in the series that I feel like seeing again, and for me it has a great re-watch value since I find myself going back to an episode or 2 just about every week (and I've been doing that for years, now....maybe I'm just weird but I still haven't burned myself out on the show, somehow ).

Anyways, I can see where your opinion is coming from, and its just plain stupid for people to automatically give a continuing story structure more value than an episodic one just based on the fact that its a continuing story-line, alone. But I'd also say that the reverse notion isn't really right, either. Honestly, I think both styles of story-telling have their strengths and weaknesses, and the best examples of each play fully to their strengths, to the point that their weaknesses almost seem nonexistent. To be more specific, a good story arc will use its time wisely to build up the plot and develop the characters, but a bad one will succumb to the weakness of feeling dull and dragged out longer than it should be. On the other hand, a great episodic series will use its own advantage of being able to cover multiple really well-told miniature stories rather than just one big one, but have tons of variety for doing so and also still containing great characterization within each single episode without having to build up a real sense of continuity in terms of a grander plot, whereas a bad episodic series will just let its weaknesses take over and be cliche and mundane with all of its episode types and do nothing to distinguish using a variety of styles between episodes and not include any truly interesting or entertaining stories within any of its multiple episodes.

So, really, as far as I stand, if something is good its because its done good. It really doesn't matter to me whether the show is episodic or arc-based as long as the writing plays to the strength of that form of story. That's just my opinion, though, but I felt it was an interesting enough discussion topic that I could express my views on the matter.

[Avaitor]

Yeah, it's not that I'm against storyarcs at all, but I'm not one of the people who thinks that having one over the course of a series will make it any better or worse. I've been able to enjoy both sides of the field.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Even watching the commentary to Critters doesn't really save it. I dunno, BTAS was always good at being serious and comedic when need be, but I don't think it ever really did camp well.

Either way, I can deal with episodic or ongoing formats, as long as it's quality, I don't care what it does.

[gunswordfist]

"Do you like intense fight scenes, character development, exciting stories, or any combination of these?"

This, which is way Sym-Bionic Titan was so great. Over the last few years, STB, Avatar, LEGION OF SUPERHEROES and Samurai Jack were my favorites. I'm really looking forward to Legend Of Korra. My most anticipated "sequel" of anything not named Mass Effect.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Being that most of my exposure to superheroes comes from cartoons more than movies and comic books (especially since I don't read super hero comic books due to a lack of opportunity/finance for me to expose myself to them), I felt like ranking my top 5 favorite superhero cartoons. I didn't know what thread this would fit in, and didn't feel like creating a thread just for it, so I'm just going to use this one because I can't think of anything else. With that said, here are my picks (and Desensitized, keep in mind that I haven't seen that much of The Brave And the Bold yet, unfortunately):

5. The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes- True, this series is still on-going and there's a chance it might decline in quality later on (I sure hope it doesn't come to that), and its also true that it got off to a rather weak start. However, everything that has happened ever since the episode featuring Captain America's revival in the modern day has impressed me so much. Ever since then I literally haven't seen a single bad episode. Every story I've seen seems like it has a ton of relevance, actually requires a team of heroes to accomplish, and most of the time the series has continually ratcheted up the tension and the stakes, making each new situation seem even bigger than the last. On top of such big scenarios, the show does an excellent job of balancing out its huge cast of characters. If it can maintain its current level of quality for the rest of the season, it'll secure its top 5 spot as far as I'm concerned, but even as of right now its in my top 5 because it is high on quality. To be honest, though, The Brave And The Bold may just slightly edge this show out of my top 5 once I get to see more of it. What I've seen so far has definitely impressed me.

4. Batman Beyond- This show certainly isn't for everyone. Some people don't like the stories or constantly feel the need to compare it to the superior BTAS. However, that's not how I see it. Much like how no successor could ever really measure up to Bruce Wayne as the true Batman, I feel like no other show can truly measure up to the undeniable significance and status of BTAS. However that's no the point. The point is that the show is its own entity much like Terry is his own Batman, and while its never going to be as great as the original, it still stands tall on its own merits. To its credit this show is even less shy than BTAS to be dark, and it handles a lot of its mature subject material quite well. I honestly believe that this show was ahead of its time among superhero cartoons, and while its lacking in some areas (the action scenes are kind of weak by today's standards and the animation varies a bit too much in quality), it more than makes up for it with all of its strengths, ranging from great villains and a gritty futuristic atmosphere to the strong mentor-protege relationship between Bruce and Terry. I also know how you guys like to say that the 2nd season is pretty weak and holds the series back and all that stuff. I've watched the 2nd season multiple times. Yeah, aside from a few episodes, I have no idea what any of you are talking about, and quite frankly I don't care. I love this whole damn series.

3. Justice League/Unlimited- Alright, a long time ago I disliked Unlimited for adding in a bunch of new heroes I was unfamiliar with and didn't care about, and I kind of just stopped watching the series altogether because quite frankly I was at the height of my anime-phase at the time and admittedly I was kind of one of those annoying "anime is better than Western Cartoons" kids who had a naive outlook on quality entertainment and thought a bunch of shonen series were the best animated stuff I ever have. Those are dark times I would rather not look back on. Anyways upon re-watching the entire series I came to appreciate just how damn well-written it was. It also showed that the animators had significantly improved with action scenes since Batman Beyond, and when the series went Unlimited, one I gave it more of a chance I came to realize that the writers did a good job of introducing us to more obscure heroes that newbie viewers like myself could still understand and get familiar with even if we had never picked up a comic book in our lives. Its a great show and to-date its the best team-based superhero show that I have ever seen.

2. Batman: The Animated Series- This is a no-brainer, really. I would right something long-winded about how amazing it is, until I remembered that I already DID write something long-winded about how amazing it is for this site. If you haven't read it, go check it out here on our list if you haven't already read it (its ranked #2 for a reason).

1. The Spectacular Spider-Man- Alright, I won't deny that BTAS is the BEST superhero cartoon of all-time. It was the influence that made every other great superhero show possible, including everything else on this list of mine (meaning this show as well). That said, if I had to give you my favorite superhero cartoon of all-time, this one takes that spot by miles. I have never seen another series so consistently top-notch in my life. Even Weisman's best show, Gargoyles, had its share of weak episodes (I say its his best because while has its lows, its highs are admittedly unrivaled by any other animated show I can think of). And yeah, while TSSM is shorter, its still amazing that every one of its 26 episodes are not only immune to be plagued by any bad episodes or even mediocre ones, but are all of such high-quality from start to finish. I have watched the show 3 times over by now and I can safely say with great certainty that not a single episode failed to impress me. This is also flat-out the best version of Spider-Man that I have ever seen. And, yes, I haven't read the comics, but this show really convinces me that I need to. That said, this is the best Spider-Man I have seen because it has the best Peter Parker/Spider-Man, Norman Osborn/Green Goblin, Harry Osborne, Eddie Brock/Venom, Aunt May, Gwen Stacy, Mary Jane, Flash Thompson, and James Jameson that I have ever seen, among all of the other supporting characters and villains that make up Spider-Man's universe. This is the best superhero show I have seen, period, and a lot of that has to do with how Spider-Man in this show is really the ideal of what think of in a super-hero. He is a flawed individual for sure, but his heart is always in the right place and I can always get behind him. With Batman Bruce Wayne has to make hard choices and sometimes can be too cruel even to viewers like me, whereas Terry has trouble measuring up to what he needs to be to come to Bruce's level altogether, and on the other hand in team-based shows like The Avengers and Justice League there is a lot of conspiracy and motivations that are easily swayed which causes the heroes to stray the line between heroes and persecutors a bit too much for my liking. With TSSM, though, Spider-Man is always a hero, even in his darkest moments (including when he's temporarily taken over by the symbiote), and as corny as it sounds that means a lot to me.

[Avaitor]

For all that people called out against JLU bringing in too many super heroes, I think it juggled the DC Universe much better than Young Justice is now. Think about it. They relegated a vast majority of heroes to the background until it's time for combat, and they usually got time for introductions and development in a gradual pace alongside more developed heroes.

YJ tries to do that, but has the newer heroes get lost in the soap operatic juggle and expects us to still care about them. I think that Weisman could learn a trick or two by rewatching JLU.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Yeah, some people try and defend Young Justice saying that it needs time to develop so many characters, but IMO its the show's own fault for pushing so many new characters into the foreground of the story at once. It has no excuse when JLU introduced even more new characters and managed to characterize just about all of them while keeping up a good pace and never losing focus of the core 7 heroes in the process of it.

Oh yeah, speaking of superhero shows, has anyone hear been watching Green Lantern: The Animated Series? I've been thinking of finally checking it out myself. Is it any good?