All right...for those of you who don't know my thoughts about Wish, yes, I wasn't happy with the finished result, but no, I'm not a hater. I'm mostly just disappointed that this project that had so many good ideas came out so half-baked, and THIS is a perfect example of what I mean.

No, it's not because "Star Boy" appears in it -- at least, not by itself. I do actually like Star's "himbo" personality in this, even if I also completely understand liking the idea of a mute version of the character. (The downside is that the mute Star from the finished film honestly doesn't have much personality outside of just being cute, in contrast to other mute magical Disney characters like Tinker Bell.)

No, the lost potential here is two-fold --

Firstly, I once again felt more emotion watching this storyboarded sequence than I did at any point in the finished film. I smiled hearing the fun banter between Star and Asha, insinuating that they're becoming closer despite their contrasting personalities; I felt some suspense in how Star and Asha were going to get away from evil!Queen Amaya; I even laughed pretty hard at the cat-and-yarn gag! I didn't laugh once while watching the finished movie.

Secondly -- and this point is actually the one I want to focus on more -- is the commentary given about why this scene was cut. I truly think another unspoken reason behind the decision was that this sequence was clearly inspired by the transforming chase scene in Nimona, which Disney of course infamously dropped when they closed Blue Sky Studios and later got picked up by Netflix, only to receive glowing reviews from just about everyone...but one of the core reasons that Head of Story Mark Kennedy cites for why they changed this scene (aside from wanting Star to be mute and not a shapeshifter like other Disney characters, which I'm a bit confused about because yeah, Disney's done cute, mute non-human characters before too -- what about Dopey, Pascal, Maximus, Dumbo, Bambi, Magic Carpet, Sven, and again Tinker Bell?) is that they wanted Asha to be the hero and be able to "solve all her problems" without Star's help.

Up to a point, I understand what Kennedy means -- the theme of the film is supposed to be that we all have the power inside of us to make a difference, and that's great. But by making it so that Asha doesn't need any help from Star, it takes something away from their relationship. No human is an island, and relationships, both in stories and real life, are often built on that fact. Just look at Ariel and Eric in the original Little Mermaid -- Ariel saves Eric from drowning and from Ursula zapping him with Triton's trident, and then Eric saves Ariel from Ursula by skewering her with the broken figurehead of a ship. Even in non-romantic examples, we have Judy and Nick having to help each other solve the case in Zootopia; Buzz and Woody helping each other get back to Andy in Toy Story; the Parr family and Frozone all fighting together against Syndrome's robot with their unique powers in The Incredibles; Jim Hawkins and Long John Silver working together to save themselves and everyone else at the end of Treasure Planet; even Anna helping Elsa learn how to control her magical abilities through an act of authentic, courageous, selfless love that only she can do in Frozen. These characters needing help and deep emotional connections with others is what creates a bond between them, helps the characters grow and change into stronger people, and makes us as an audience enjoy watching the two characters together. We become invested in both the two individual characters and the relationship forged between them. Because they all have their unique strengths and weaknesses, they supplement and complete each other. Even perfect paragon Superman in most DC properties isn't an island -- when he's in the Justice League, there are plenty of times where he needs help from Batman or other team members to save the day. Even Superman is a stronger character when he has people around him who can balance out his flaws.

If Asha never needs help, that runs the risk of the challenges she's facing seeming far less consequential, because no human can handle absolutely everything, all by themselves. Yes, perhaps in the finished film, Asha asks her friends to help her liberate the wishes (a task which ultimately fails, leaving Asha to confront Magnifico alone again and realize exactly what everyone has to do to defeat him on her own anyway)...but just in regards to Star and Asha's relationship -- which even the filmmakers have said is something like a "soulmate" relationship, though not in a romantic sense in the finished product -- these two can't have a meaningful connection if one of them is completely self-sufficient. This is also why quite a few Disney fans didn't like that the Little Mermaid remake changed Ursula's defeat to have it be Ariel who killed her, rather than Eric, because it hurt the "equal" dynamic between the main couple where they both helped and supported each other.

In short, "girl power" shouldn't have to mean never needing to rely on anyone else...and honestly, looking at this scene concept, we don't see Asha relying on Star too much! She's the brains of the outfit -- she's making plans; she's providing Star some much needed common sense; she's using Star's light as a distraction so they can get away...she even escapes Amaya at one point by sliding right under her horse! Asha in this storyboard is a bad-ass!

What we see in this sequence is these two characters having to help each other in order to succeed. And that would've been a great foundation on which to build more dramatic stakes and a relationship with actual pathos, whether romantic or not.

"Batman should be a good parent because he's the hero of the story so it makes no sense that he abuses his kids. He's a paragon of justice and so he must also be a good father." - a take I've seen around recently

Have you considered that Bruce isn't supposed to be a perfect person?

He's a hero to the people he helps, he's not a hero in every facet of his life. He's a paragon of justice when a sick and twisted society won't punish criminals because of corruption and bribery, he's not a paragon of justice in the sense that he will always stand for what is right - what's right and wrong strongly depends especially for a 80+ yo character. He's selfless when it comes to his mission because he refuses to have a normal life, and sacrifices his own happiness for the greater good of Gotham and the rest of the world, but he's not selfless in the sense that he will prioritize the well being of his family over everything else.

Bruce is often written as someone who is a control freak, paranoid, domineering, and to be Batman it kind of makes sense that he needs to be. His mission is noble and so are his actions, but he's a flawed human being who will also hurt those who love him, will cross other people's boundaries, will be physically violent and emotionally dry.

Yes he's a good parent sometimes and often he's also a very good person, but to be honest if he was a perfect paragon of righteousness without a single flaw I wouldn't like him nearly as much as I do. He's interesting because he's imperfect, and if I want to read about a character who's the picture of emotional and moral perfection, I pick up a Superman comicbook.

Scott McCall is Not a Paragon

Someone sent me an anon request which I meant to answer, but I screwed up and posted it with only five words. So, this is the full answer, and it deals with a category error that many people, especially people who don't like Scott, make when thinking about Teen Wolf.

Scott McCall is not Superman, nor was he meant to be. Scott McCall is not Captain America, nor was he meant to be. Scott McCall is not even Izuku Midoriya, nor was he meant to be. He is not a paragon. This doesn't make him any less a heroic protagonist, of course, but it does require the thoughtful audience member to view him through a different lens then they would otherwise.

The classical definition of a paragon is a character (or actual person) who embodies a virtue in its purest most Platonic form. However, in modern cultural construction, it's taken on a more open connotation as a heroic lead protagonist who embodies every thing good in a cultural setting. Superman embodies overwhelming planet-shattering power used responsibly, arising from the embrace of the Other and being embraced by the Other in return. Captain America may be less powerful, but he embodies the strength of those who hold principled convictions. And so on. With a shallow reading, Scott McCall can certainly fit into this group, but there are several important differences.

Scott's Heroism is Not Premeditated. Superman listens with his super-hearing across the world to find people to save; he is a founding member of the Justice League. Captain America volunteered for Project: Rebirth to go fight the Nazis and then Hydra; he is one of the reasons the Avengers were founded. Izuku Midoriya dreamed of being a hero and took advantage of an opportunity to work towards being the head of an entire social system predicated around this as a career.

Scott doesn't pursue evil throughout the series and the movie; instead, he is pursued. In Season 1, he is chased by the alpha. In Season 2, he is drawn into the war between the Hales and the Argents by threats to his immediate social group. In Season 3, he is the target of the Alpha Pack and Stiles is the target of the nogitsune. And so on, with the Dead Pool, Theo and the Dread Doctors, the Wild Hunt, and Monroe, they all come after him. Yes, by the time Season 5 comes around, the villains have realized that Scott won't let the people in his town be straight-up murdered and so they have to in order to win the day, but it's not as if Scott seeks them out. If, for example, the Doctors had used the Nemeton at Toulouse, Scott would never have been involved.

Scott's Heroism is Not Professional. Superman develops resources to help him in his heroic calling: the Fortress of Solitude, an occupation that brings acts of villainy to his attention, and scientific experiments. We watch Captain America train, alone and with others, in order to be able to fight threats more effectively. Izuku Midoriya literally goes to a specialized technical school for training heroes. They view their heroism as part of their normal lives, and not a situation forced on them periodically.

Scott goes to a mundane high school. He trains to play lacrosse. He learns to help animals. While Derek and Stiles may have saddled him with the heroic charge of "Protector of Beacon Hills," it is a title he accepts only because he has to. In the movie, Scott hasn't been back to Beacon Hills in a long time. He runs an animal shelter. He is called in when there's a dog trapped in a collapsing building, but that's a very narrow situation. He's still the alpha, but that's because of his relationships with "my friends, my pack" not because he's got a territory to watch over. He does get better at heroic action over the series -- Season 1 Scott wouldn't have been able to dodge Ghost Rider bullets like Season 6 Scott could -- but we never see him train for the purpose of being a better hero.

Scott's Heroism is Not Proselytizing. Superman wears the symbol of the House of El on purpose; he attends news conferences; he's spoken to the United Nations. Captain America is draped in the flag of the country whose virtues he wishes to embody. He struggles repeatedly with those virtues (think of the Nomad era). Izuku Midoriya literally aspires to become a symbol for the people of Japan. They consciously desire others to see the value of what they stand for and to integrate it into their lives. They're not forcing their beliefs on anyone, but their behavior is designed to influence the society around them for a benevolent end.

Scott is definitely a leader, but he exhibits leadership in limited situations. Unlike Allison, he has no goal to reform the Argent code. Unlike Demon-Wolf-Era Deucalion, he doesn't want to reform werewolf society. Unlike Monroe, he doesn't want to free humanity from fear or danger. The biggest example for me is that he never tried to change or rehabilitate Peter (or Deucalion or Theo) even though he had hope that Peter would change. The biggest long-term goal he expresses interest in is encouraging Liam to step up as lacrosse captain and, when necessary, as alpha after he leaves for college. None of this requires an impact on society.

I want to be completely clear: this doesn't make Scott any less a heroic protagonist. Scott wanted to be a normal teenager and then a normal adult, but the cost of him ignoring what was going on right in front of his face would have borne by innocents, so he sacrificed his own wants and needs for others. That's his heroism. Yet far too often, I've seen Scott lumped in with Captain America and similar heroes. There's nothing wrong with the Paragon Archetype, but it simply doesn't fit. Sometimes fans do this to compliment Scott, but that's flattening the character to fit somewhere he doesn't belong. Most of the time it's used as a negative, calling Scott boring, tyrannical, judgmental, whatever the hate du jour happens to be. Such a character deserves to be looked at for what he is, not stuffed into the nearest category so the fandom can move on.

Alan Moore Understands And Appreciates Superman Most Of His Very Loud Fans Do Not.

If you don’t know what I mean watch, For The Man Who Has Everything, it’s a Justice League episode adapted from one of his stories (and he actually likes the adaptation!). It is a beautiful example of how Clark Kent is a genuine person who cares about his loved ones, and would be happy living the simple life. The story also showcases that he knows that’s not possible if he’s Superman, but he sacrifices that life anyway because the hero, the symbol, Superman, is so so important. He can’t step away when he knows he can do more.

UNFORTUNATELY, a lot of his fans get really hung up on the aesthetics of Watchmen, and miss the fact that Superman isn’t in the story! Watchmen is a story without a “pure of heart” paragon hero. Did some of them try to be? Yes, but every character had something that made it impossible for them to keep it up. Especially since the “team” doesn’t seem to actually like each other.

Watchmen isn’t “what if the JL was more realistic?” At least the way I read it, it seems to be more, “what if the JL were never friends, and never had anyone driving them to be remotely emotionally healthy”. AKA a story that can’t exist with Superman in it.

(There are other BIG issues with the characters of Watchmen that caused them to be Like That, but that’s beside the point rn.)

TL;DR I like the work, hate the loud fan club.

Side note, watch the Overly Sarcastic Productions videos if you want to know what started me on this… this time… They’re really good!!

remember when devin grayson wrote about green arrow flirting with teenager dick grayson and then bruce and dick have an incestuous relationship............................

Listen, I have no idea what this ask says, I just see a string of random letters followed by dot dot dot. 

In completely unrelated matters, the only dynamic between Dick and Ollie I abide by is one where the nicest thing Dick’s ever said to Ollie is something like “hey why does your face look like you killed a squirrel and glued it to your chin, is that what you were going for or do people just not like you and so nobody ever told you til now that that’s what it looks like.”

And even there, that’s still just the best Dick could manage (or was willing to even aim for) after Bruce gave Dick a totally and one hundred percent genuine and sincere Talking To about how he needed to be more polite to Ollie. Cuz the way I envision it, all that’s after Dick initially opened with something like, idk, “hey wanna hear a funny joke, it goes “what do you call a known Errol Flynn fanboy who thinks putting on a domino mask when he fights crime with a bow and arrow like, magically makes his goatee invisible? A dumbass who doesn’t get how secret identities work, that’s what. Get it, its you, you’re the joke.”

LOL for the record, I don’t actually hate Ollie and have no really strong opinions on him one way or another, it usually just depends on how he’s being written in whatever story or issue I’m reading with him. Its just canon that Ollie is like, one of the few people that Dick just openly can not stand, pretty much, with this stretching back far enough that personally, I like to headcanon it goes all the way back to even before Ollie took Roy in and has absolutely nothing to do with Roy whatsoever.

Idk, its just really fucking funny to me to picture that like, for whatever reason, ten year old Dick Grayson decided upon meeting the Justice League that they were all awesome except for Oliver Queen. Dick doesn’t know why, he doesn’t care why, he just knows that like, “I do not care for that Oliver Queen guy, not one bit, and no, I am not open to constructive criticism on this matter, UGH BRUCE STOP TELLING ME I SHOULD AT LEAST TRY AND BE NICER TO HIM, I SAID HE WAS A BUTTFACE AND I MEANT IT, WHERE’S THE CONFUSION.”

Because see, while Ollie is not Actually The Worst, he IS one of the League heroes who is prideful and petty enough to like, absolutely take offense to someone hating his guts for no discernible reason, while considering this more than reason enough to hate their guts right back. Even if that particular someone happens to have both miles and years left to go before they hit either puberty or the top side of five feet tall, and thus in the meanwhile, Ollie must literally lower himself in every sense of the word in order to return fire at his pint-sized and prepubescent critic.

Like, if Dick for whatever reason decided he just doesn’t like Superman or the Flash and he’s not gonna and you can’t make him, then I mean, Clark or Barry or someone else along those lines would just be like, oh, okay, that’s fair I guess. No, its totally fine Bruce, the adorable little human incarnation of glitter, cotton candy and all things Cute and Precious and Wee that you just took in is allowed to hate me if he wants to, its absolutely *wheezing sob* not a big deal. I’m a big boy, I don’t need you to intercede on my behalf with him. Now if anyone needs me, I’ll be wallowing in my room for the next 84 years, trying to figure out if I was some kind of monstrous puppy-kicker in a previous lifetime and that’s why my fate here in this one is to be despised by a ten year old with the superpower of Absolute Preciousness. Its my punishment, clearly, for being just the worst kind of monster to ever exist, the only kind that could actually be hated by someone like your adorable little Fun-Sized sidekick of joy and sunshine and l-l-laughter......no, don’t look at me, I’m hideous! *bursts into tears and scurries away to hide from the light*

But see now, Ollie, on the other hand, like.....he’s not a monster but he’s not about to let even some paragon of preciousness go around painting him as one. Why the fuck does he spend so much money on publicists if he’s just gonna roll over belly-side up the first time one of the people bad-mouthing him just happens to be like, a toddler instead of the usual TMZ?

So Ollie’s not about to admit that he’s actually miffed and even a little bit wounded that this cherub who seems to like even most supervillains more than he likes Ollie, just like, can not seem to be in his presence longer than sixty seconds before drawing his weapons and stabbing Ollie with words that hurt, dammit, because he has feelings too, y’know, he spent a lot of money on pricey therapists figuring out that yes, those are feelings he’s feeling and he can even name some of them.....

Like, he’s not quite on board with actually ACKNOWLEDGING that hey this stings, and that he really just wants to know what the hell this kid’s deal is and why don’t you like me, tiny human, what did I ever even do to you??? But all of that is like......Advanced Level Therapy stuff that he hasn’t quite gotten around to finishing yet at this point in time. Like yeah he’s already dropped a mint on the A-list of the head-shrinking world by now, but apparently he was supposed to keep coming back or something like that, they all keep making a really big deal about that for some reason, and look, he’s been busy. So he really just hasn’t had the time to finish up the course on How To Make Peace With the Fact That Sometimes Tiny Humans Don’t Like Me Even Though I’m A Fucking Delight, Dammit.

But even if the why of this kid getting under his skin so much eludes him for the nonce, Ollie is perfectly clear on one thing: he doesn’t typically go around making enemies of the twelve and under set, but if you prick him, he doth in fact bleed, you little prick. So if this knee-high nightmare is gonna keep coming at me and trying to start shit, then I am more than willing to throw down, is basically Ollie’s take here. 

“He wants to dance? Then c’mon, let’s do this thing. We can dance if he wants to. I’ve got the time,” Ollie says to himself and any other nearby Justice Leaguer who might be looking at him with that swiftly-becoming-familiar expression of mingled judgment, pity, exasperation and something a bit more ambiguous but which probably lands somewhere in the ballpark of “We honestly don’t know what to make of all of this but we’re all a little concerned This Is Not A Good Look, Bro. And also, we would like to formally request by way of this petition with all 200+ signatures of Leaguers and auxiliary members and support staff: please don’t escalate this into something where Batman might actually kill you, because that’s definitely not gonna make any of this less awkward for the rest of us, and uh....not to be indelicate here, but all those times we’ve all said things like no Ollie, we don’t think Bruce is a better fighter than you and we absolutely agree with you, you could totally maybe take him in a fair fight if you had your bow and arrows on you and he had the flu probably.....like. Umm. How to put this....Okay, soooooo....here’s the thing. There may, perhaps, ever so slightly be a possibility slash definite hardcore certainty that there were fib-like qualities to those conversations. A little bit. Oh hey, look at the time, we gotta run, there’s a fire somewhere, hopefully. Lol wait whoops did we say hopefully, that’s so weird like where did that even come from. We definitely meant to say probably. There’s a fire somewhere, probably."

But look, at the end of the day, the thing is, Headcanon Ollie is not like, proud of any of this, but he’s not unproud of it either. He is hashtag justified and he wouold appreciate some validation of that Ugly Truth, even if it might go against the grain and not ever exactly be a POPULAR opinion with the “please don’t tell the ten year old that nuh uh, his face looks like a hairy butthole, nobody wins there, that is not the victory you are looking for” crowd.

Honestly though, at this point Ollie’s list of Big Asks is quite small. Miniscule, even. All he wants, all he really really wants, is for someone, anyone, to join him in grasping the one essential corn kernel at the heart of this whole clusterfuck. The thing that nobody but Ollie seems to get and that Ollie’s pretty sure would be enough to allow him to die happily, if he could just manage to find one other person to sign on to the one single extremely obvious observation he keeps trying to point out to everyone, with a whole lot of nada to show for it:

Because see, the one thing about all of this that drives Ollie just absolutely up a wall, is that for some reason he can’t seem to get anyone to understand that like.....this whoooooole ridiculous mess, just like, even in terms of its very existence in the first place?

None of it is Ollie’s fault.

Dick started it!

Mere moments after frustratedly trying to convey this to Dinah for the umpteenth million bajillionth time:

“Okay, could you at least say something?” Ollie asked exasperatedly. “Anything? Seriously, I would take you counting to ten in Cantonese as an acceptable response at this point.”

“I’m just trying to decide which concerns me more,” Dinah said at last. Several epochs and the equivalent of the entire Jurassic Period later. But whatever, its not like Ollie was holding his breath at this point or anything. “The fact that you are genuinely trying to find and occupy the moral high ground in your feud with....a ten year old. Or that you actually think you’ve found it. That this is it, this is what that looks like. ‘The ten year old started it.’”

That was apparently all Dinah had to say. She fell silent again, and said silence lingered through a recreation of now the entire Cretaceous Period, before continuing into a revival of the whole Paleozoic Era from start to torturous finish.

“Well?” Ollie said with a patience that belied the urgency of the many pressing matters he had to attend to. Like the vanquishing of a ten year old archnemesis most foul.

Dinah just continued to frown pensively.

“Hang on, I’m still deciding.”

so, I just finished watching the Snyder Cut of Justice League

And since I did watch the Theatrical Cut or Josstice League (and own that on Blu-Ray) I thought I’d compare and contrast.

From here on out the Theatrical version is Josstice League and Snyder Cut is Snyder Cut

First, the things they have in common: A lot of the plot beats and characters appear in both with the exceptions that are probably obvious.

But the story still is

“Space Invader from beyond the stars is on earth searching for magic macguffins to end life on Earth as we know it forces Bruce and Diana to recruit a team of other metas to stop this and they end up reenacting Re-Animator with Superman/Clark who died in Batman v Superman with the MAcGuffin and the MacGuffin Ship from Man of Steel and in the end, though shit gets weird in Russia, they save the world and resume their lives in slightly better shape than before.”

Now onto the contrasts

I’ll hit the low hanging fruit and go with Tones first.

Josstice League’s tone could flip-flop wildly. Which, since they were trying to mimic the MCU’s tonal flip-flopping (by even hiring the same guy who set it up with Avengers) makes some sense.

Snyder Cut isn’t without levity but it doesn’t do the drastic veers that Josstice League did.

There are some things I liked better about Josstice League, believe it or not.

While the tone shifting like it did was very MCU copy-paste at times, there were character moments of the Flash from Josstice League I enjoyed.

I even liked Diana’s little heart-to-heart with Bruce from Josstice League.

I also liked Bruce being behind bringing Lois into the fray post their attempts at science based necromancy calling her “the big guns” even if that sounded way more like Tony Stark than Bruce Wayne.

One final compliment I can give Josstice League was the soundtrack. I like the music I like and I liked the music they chose.

The scenes that the Snyder cut extended were a 70/30 split of me liking the extensions with a 30% split of them thinking “You know, I get why they cut this” and this being the character set up scenes. Flash’s sequence is ok, and so is Cyborg’s, but the Aquaman one with Bruce and Diana’s foiling of a bank heist felt too drawn out. Aquaman interacting with Atlanteans sequences are mostly needed to establish the other characters and how he got the trident and costume change.

It’s neat to see how things got into place for each scene but.....if this was a book I was editing, those would be the darlings I’d have told Snyder to kill.

The extra characters were folded in seamlessly. It was nice to see Willem DaFoe’s Aquaman character get an appearance since he’s a big player though the change in hair style was jarring.

I was stoked to see Martian Manhunter. So stoked.

I was also pleased by the revised Steppenwolf design. Before, he just seemed like....I can’t quite put it into words eloquently but Josstice Steppenwolf looked liked an early 2000′s CGI cutscene character crossed with a few of the Orcs from Lord of the Rings and an orc from Warcraft the failed movie. Just off and not much of a villain.

This one is a major improvement and it’s pretty clear he’s a grunt the whole time.

Was very excited to see Darkseid in a major movie.

Now all they need to do to make me happy is use Brainiac in a live action movie. Yeah, I know he’s been live action a couple of times but not in a major movie.

For the most part, the action of Snyder Cut just felt better.

The quiet scenes also felt better.

Problem is, the length makes watching this in one go not really a practical thing. I know there are chapter marks, so kudos for that, but this film isn’t perfect.

The Length thing is a nitpick. Since this is a special home-release, I don’t care as much as usual about length but I really have opinions on movie lengths for theatrical stuff partly from being a movie goer back when that was a possible thing to be AND from working in a movie theater. (I’m of the opinion that keep theatrical releases to 150 minutes or you’re just being an over indulgent jerk of a studio)

Now onto actual problems.

First is that I both love and hate Snyder’s Snyder-verse.

So, I hate the Grittier Superman Snyder came up with in Man of Steel wherein Superman is less Paragon and more like a Punisher type. Same goes for Batman in Snyder-verse (since he’s not a fan of guns and the whole doesn’t KILL people rule)

If any come at me with “but that’s because he’s too simple a character otherwise” I’ll direct you to Overly Sarcastic Productions’s better worded video essay about paragons not being boring/simple.

But Snyder does have good ideas for a general shape of his universe, and he also is pulling in more comic book source material into the films, which I love.

but his universe is always darker and grimmer than necessary and sometimes his aesthetics are weird.

Speaking of that-that weird destroyed future timeline wherein Supes is working for Darkseid.

Can’t say I like the aesthetics of it. Can’t say I like how Batman is portrayed in it either and no, not a fan of Mera or Joker’s presence. I’m able to admit that this is due to both of the actors portraying them. Though, I also really don’t like the Suicide Squad Joker.

Superman going evil isn’t unheard of in story arcs. See animated Justice League story arc wherein the Flash was killed by Lex Luthor.

Making Lois the key to his heart also isn’t a bad idea. 

It’s just the moment the movie threw that in just before the end, I rolled my eyes at it. I also thought the Lex Luthor bits were a bit superfluous, at first, but hey, it explained Deathstroke the Terminator (and gave a name for the face of his terrible future counterpart).

So, yes, I enjoyed the Snyder Cut for the most part. Should it come to physical media, I’ll probably purchase it.

Comparing the two films isn’t quite fair, but Snyder Cut just looks better over all.

I’ll give the Josstice league credit for being shorter-easier movie to sit through, with some dumb moments enough for fun and maybe even a scmaltzier ending at times but it just looks like the second draft of something next to a final draft with the Snyder Cut.

Snyer’s Cut’s polish is nice, but the length does undermine it.

So, actually both versions are fine but one clearly looks like it had been smashed and glued back together while the other is smooth and seamless with more consistency over all.

Like what  you will.

I like both but Snyder Cut is, to my eyes, the better put-together film.

TV Review: Crisis on Infinite Earths (Spoilers)

Parts 4 & 5: Arrow & Legends of Tomorrow

Spoiler Warning: I am posting this review the day after the episodes air in the U.S, so if you haven’t yet seen the final two parts of the crossover then don’t read on until you have.

Overview:

Wow! I can’t decide if it’s the fanboy in me but I am really impressed with how Warner Bros/DC and The CW were able to finish telling this ultimate crossover story. I will draw a lot of parallels to Avengers: Endgame in this review because you can’t really not but while obviously Infinity War and its conclusion in the comics was a massive event, Crisis is seismic, it is the event...in many respects it is Event One. So the pressure was on to not only payoff the last 8 years of storytelling in essentially 5 hours, but also honour this iconic comic-book event.

And did they do it? Well after a slightly shaky start with Arrow, in my humble opinion yes and, with Legends of Tomorrow no less, I think left audiences and fans especially with one exciting feast of food for thought...potential. There is so much potential and so many doors opened not just to our now core four shows, but for shows to come and even shows affiliated.

But with the doors now burst open for the future of the DC Multiverse, because after this I can’t just call it the Arrowverse anymore, just exactly where does The CW go from here?

Disclaimer: Because this was a two-part finalé of sorts and I am time-constrained with other responsibilities, I will be saying what I loved, what I hated and what I thought was “meh”, because there is still some “meh”.

The Great:

Earth-Prime:

So of course the first great thing for me was this new reality that all our main heroes find themselves now inhabiting, save for Oliver who I will get to. But yes, after the events of Arrow which saw our seven Paragons, and Spectre Oliver, supposedly defeat the Anti-Monitor and reboot the universe, they create Earth-Prime...as well as a new Multiverse but getting to that.

Earth-Prime now hosts not only the original inhabitants of Earth-1 (The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, Batwoman etc) but also combines them with Earth-38 (Supergirl) and even Black Lightning’s Earth...which we never had an official designation for which is annoying.

So now, it’s widely speculated which state all of these relatively fictional cities are in, but from what I know you have Star City in Washington, Central City in Missouri, National City in California, Gotham City in New Jersey, Metropolis in New York and Freeland in Georgia. All of which are now in the same reality as they should have been from the start but I digress.

This is possibly a novelty that will soon wear off, particularly when our individual heroes face off against a big-bad and cannot call one of their new allies for help, but for the time being it is really awesome to see that not only has this happened, but it is a direct ramification of the events of the crossover that is permanent...this doesn’t get retconned and isn’t temporary...Earth-Prime is now the main setting of the Arrowverse.

Justice League?:

Right at the end of the episode when our main heroes (Genuinely everyone who is the main character of a current series or future series as well as Martian Manhunter are lined up) to mourn their fallen friend Oliver, it turns out that where they have decided to do this is the same S.T.A.R. Labs Hall that the first major team-up first assembled in.

The reasoning for this is because Barry has decided to make this all-star team-up official for “future missions” (meaning future crossovers) and even has brought in a round table with chairs for every member there as well as an empty seat for Oliver.

This is clearly either a nod or an introduction to the Justice League of the Arrowverse. Obviously here the founding members are The Flash, Supergirl, Martian Manhunter, Superman, White Canary, Batwoman, Black Lightning and, posthumously, Green Arrow.

Although on that note, I feel that Green Arrow slot may soon be filled by Mia Smoak given that she is set to become the new Green Arrow. Although how she gets back from the future remains a mystery even if she does.

Regardless, this is something that has been either preluded to or wanted by fans since the all-star team up first came together during the Invasion crossover. I love the logos on each chair representing each character, I love the characters that are involved. I mean it may seem a bit biased to have three characters from Supergirl involved but not only do I feel this is because Tyler Hoechlin’s Superman is getting his own series but also you can’t have a Justice League-style founding team without Martian Manhunter.

Also, it’s unclear as to exactly how large this team is. Yes these 7/8 are the founding members but do the rest of Teams Arrow, Flash, Superfriends and the Legends act as subsidiaries akin to Justice League Unlimited? Only time will tell.

I mean we know that both Black Canaries are heading over to Green Arrow and the Canaries with Mia but I would love to see Elongated Man, Mister Terrific, Vixen, Brainiac 5 and Ragman being part of this team going forward.

Going Meta:

Tying into this Justice League scene, I did love how Meta the last episode got, not so much Part 4 but definitely Part 5. I will admit the constant Meta-References on Legends of Tomorrow is one of the reasons why I’m so annoyed with the show recently but because I guess Legends hasn’t been on until now in this current run I guess I missed it.

Also on a side-note the very term of “Meta” is bemusing to me in regards to this series of shows because of course there’s meta-referencing but also here metahumans that are also called “metas”.

But anyway, there’s been a running gag throughout the crossover about how the Legends don’t want to be a part of the crossover, yet Ray seems to be excited that there was a crossover. Sara seems to want the crossover to finish as soon as possible despite she, and Barry, being the de-facto leaders of the all-star team before Barry formally forms the Justice League team.

I also enjoyed the interaction between Kate and Jefferson, who essentially are the two relative newbies to the Arrowverse with Batwoman joining last year and Black Lightning officially joining this year.

When Jefferson clicks that this whole saving the world situation will be a recurring thing, Kate tries to reassure him by saying she was “the new kid” last year.

It is interesting because, aside from Supergirl, the newcomers in the year of the crossover usually sit it out or are barely in it. Nate and Amaya during Invasion! for example were only in it during their episode.

Here we of course only have Black Lightning representing because as I understand it there is something going on his his show with his team which is why they’re not active here but still.

Also on the subject of Meta references, Rene’s corrolation of Mick’s surname being Rory as a similarity to a Rory that was once on Team Arrow, being Ragman, just makes me miss Ragman on the show. I know Joe Dinicol is returning for the Arrow finalé so I am thrilled for that.

Heat, Frost & Lightning:

This does sound like I’m only loving this last episode rather than the two episodes but I’m getting to that.

Anyway Prime-Earth Heat Wave reunites with Killer Frost after two years and I am thrilled. I love these two together, I think Mick and Frost really bounce off each other well and Dominic Purcell and Danielle Panabaker do have good comedic and antihero chemistry together.

But also, they have added and somewhat unwanted assistance this time as Black Lightning shows up. I knew Cress Williams would be back in the crossover after his minor appearance in Part 3, it was also a sign that all The CW shows now inhabit this one Earth and to have three elemental heroes working together (it pains me that both Heat Wave and Killer Frost have become heroes) was very cool. I hope there’s more of this trio down the line.

Lex Luthor - Paragon of Deception:

I am not Jon Cryer’s biggest fan but I really enjoy him as Lex Luthor. While I thought his mission to kill all the Supermen was fun, him becoming the Paragon of Truth replacing Kingdom Come Superman at the last minute, as I said in my last review, was a stroke of genius that I did not see coming.

I do love the fact that, rather than becoming a good guy through becoming a Paragon, he is still Lex Luthor and still self-serving while also trying to help restart the universe.

The fact he gave himself powers with the Book of Destiny which allowed him to fend off Supergirl, I would say “and Ryan” but really Ryan Choi didn’t really do much until Part 5.

Lex also had possibly my favourite line of the two episodes which was “In the contest of Mind over Muscle, Mind wins every time”. It’s a very Eobard Thawne type of line but I can imagine any version of Lex I’ve seen saying it which makes it so classic.

Also, if they are in fact doing a Justice League-style team, they need some sort of Injustice League with Lex and Eobard. I mean they’ve had the Legion of Doom but that didn’t work out so maybe this would?

Also, I’m sorry, the fact he was the one to figure out how to save the universe and yet ends up not only back being alive but as National City’s good guy as well as the owner of the D.E.O, I am most excited to see what happens in Supergirl next because of this development.

Parallel Earths for Non-Arrowverse Properties:

So in this new Multiverse, Earth-Prime is the Arrowverse Earth. The reality where Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow, Batwoman and Black Lightning all take place.

The other Earths this time around seem to be Earths for other shows that aren’t Arrowverse inclusive. Earth-2 seems to belong to the upcoming Stargirl series, Earth-9 is still Titans, Earth-96 is still Kingdom Come Superman’s Earth which combines the Christopher Reeves Superman with Routh’s Superman Returns, Earth-21 is Doom Patrol which many fans believe is the same universe as Titans but despite both being DC Universe shows, they’re separate universes.

Earth-19 is where it gets interesting as what we see is the planet Oh, meaning this is a universe the Green Lantern Corps exist on and is most likely an allusion to the upcoming Green Lantern series in development on HBOMax produced by Greg Berlanti. However, originally Earth-19 was the home of the Collectors such as Gypsy and the Accelerated Man, so whether or not they cohabit I do not know

I liked this set up because Earths 2, 9, 19 and 21 are all the main settings for either current or upcoming shows. This echos the comics beautifully as now the Arrowverse is one Earth, and the affiliates are different Earths.

Also the fact that Kingdom Come Superman was shown in this line-up is probably an assurance to fans that he either could or will return at a later date. The Superman and Lois series is definitely based on Tyler Hoechlin and Elizabeth Tulloch’s versions of the characters but Brandon Routh is stepping down from Legends this season so while he may be pulling back on The Atom he could appear as a guest or recurring guest on that show maybe?

It is also fair to assume, because of these Earth designations being the same as they were Pre-Crisis (love being able to say that), that Earth-666 is still the Earth that Lucifer is based on, Earth-89 is still the Burtonverse Batman reality, Earth-66 is still the 60s Batman reality and Earth-167 is still Smallville’s reality. Just because we don’t see them doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

Also it’s unclear about how Earths established on The Flash such as Earth-3, Earth-90 and Earth-X fit in to all of this. Because Pre-Crisis Earth-2 isn’t confirmed to be part of Earth-Prime so Earth-2 Laurel could easily cohabit the same universe as Stargirl, it can be assumed that the 90s Flash is still a separate reality and Jay Garrick still exists on his own Earth.

Wonder Twins:

While not featured directly in this crossover, the very end of the final episode features the sound of a monkey the floor above the main S.T.A.R. Labs Hall, and while the team go to investigate, the camera reveals a cage with a busted open door and the name “Gleek” on the side of it.

Gleek, as far as I am aware, is the pet monkey of Zan and Jayna better known as the Wonder Twins. Also apparently as this commotion was going on the theme music from the Wonder Twins animated series was playing over it.

I only know of Zan and Jayna primarily from Smallville in their one appearance but I do also know of them as a duo that they are.

From what I know, the Wonder Twins are alien members of the Super Friends and Justice League, so for them to be alluded to just as the Arrowverse’s Justice League are forming is quite poetic.

Whether or not they are being saved for the next crossover or if they will be featured in upcoming episodes of Supergirl, The Flash or Legends of Tomorrow remains to be seen, but I do imagine the fact that characters from these main shows, and Black Lightning and Batwoman, will not be mentioned in the next episode of each series.

The Bad:

Spectre:

Alright so I mentioned me being a fanboy at the start of the review, however I am not as familiar with the comics as I am with the movies and shows. Because of this, I still to this day have no idea who Spectre actually is and what his role in the larger DC Universe is.

For instance, when Emmett J. Scanlan was introduced in Constantine as Jim Corrigan, I understood in the comics he was supposed to become Spectre and the fact those premonitions preluded to that was interesting...but then he became Lobo on Krypton and I really wanted to see Lobo here but didn’t.

Now with have this other Jim Corrigan from some random other Earth, because Constantine made it clear that this wasn’t the Corrigan he knows, but this one has become the Spectre of the Multiverse because there can only be one Spectre at a time.

Simultaneously, Oliver dies, is brought back by the Lazarus Pit, but his soul becomes the new Spectre after Corrigan passes on that burden so now Oliver is Spectre. Which is where we find him here...sparingly.

Honestly, in the episode dedicated to him, Arrow, it is criminal how little he is actually used particularly as it’s his second death episode of the crossover.

But in regards to who the Spectre is and what he does, people can tell me to read the comics or watch other shows with Spectre in, but if this current show that I am watching doesn’t explain what this Spectre is or does, that’s bad and, in my opinion, a waste of time.

From what I gather Spectre is a lot like Pariah, he is there to bear witness to events. However, like Pariah, Spectre’s power set is never really explained, he’s just there.

He can travel interdimensionally, okay how? He had the power to ignite the flame for the new universe...okay how? The Spectre can be passed on from person to person...okay how? None of this is ever truly explained and then he dies...so does Spectre die? Will there never be another Spectre?

Speed Force Scavenger Hunt:

So I am sure this was supposed to be poignant for the fact it was the Arrow episode and all but one of the Speed Force scenes are essentially flashbacks to previous scenes from Arrow. However, the way they were filmed was completely distracting.

How do you use previous scenes while incorporating new footage? Cheat and film a new scene and clumsily stitch the two together with “clever” angles. You literally had the one scene that the Paragons were witnessing, then their own scene which were never shown together. You always have the characters talking at the camera as if they’re talking to each other, it’s disconcerting and really uncomfortable to watch.

The aim of this mission was for all the Paragons to come back together after they were scattered through the Speed Force...why? Because.

Also the scene from Invasion! with Oliver and Kara, Kara is clearly present day Kara but surely in the memory of the scene she should be wearing the suit she wore back then and had the hairstyle she had back then?

Speaking of Invasion! because it was mentioned in this scene, the Arrow episode from Invasion! celebrating 100 episodes and being another Batman rip off, was a lot better and tugging the nostalgic heartstrings than this.

The only two new scenes we get both involve Barry, the first is an odd inclusion and involves Arrowverse Barry Allen coming face to face with the DCEU’s Barry Allen, Ezra Miller.

This was the most unexpected and bizarre cameo in the entire crossover. This also calls into question how DCEU Flash is still alive considering the entirety of reality has been wiped out. They could have explained that the Vanishing Point and Speed Force were the only two places Antimatter cannot reach, but they didn’t.

It was still fun to at least see Ezra Miller’s Flash, not just because Ezra Miller agreed to appear on the TV series, but also because after Justice League I feel he needed a second chance before his movie comes.

The second new scene was after Sara is murdered and brought to the Arrowcave, John is there telling Laurel to take Sara’s place and become the new Canary...despite not being too happy that she becomes the new Canary in episodes that follow this scene but I digress.

Barry shows up, and because John and Laurel don’t know of The Flash at this time they don’t know who he is, but he electroshocks Sara back to life and she is revealed to be the modern-day Sara.

This is what I don’t understand, Marc Guggenheim made it quite clear that Earth-1 Laurel would have be a major plot point in this crossover, but all she did was extend her original emotional scene into what is, in my opinion, a plot-hole. 

Giant Beebo:

Can someone please explain this freakin’ toy obsession. I know it’s not real, yet for some reason it is all Legends of Tomorrow usually resort to for a cheap laugh or a cooky villain.

Here, Giant Beebo is back, but it’s not actually Giant Beebo it’s an illusion. However, the very fact this gave the freedom for the show to reference the time the Legends transformed into a giant Megazord-like Beebo to defeat Mallus, there’s so much epic stuff happening in this episode so why go back to what makes Legends of Tomorrow so bad.

The most part of this final episode was where I want Legends to be at, not resorting to cheap gags.

The Meh:

Weather Witch:

Alright so before getting into the biggest “meh” point of this conclusion for me I do need to touch on the fact that the minor threat that started the ball rolling on discovering Earth-Prime was all-inclusive in the final episode was by Weather Witch...why?

Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with Weather Witch...but what was the point in Weather Witch being there? You could have had quite literally any other villain still living from Arrow, Flash, Supergirl or Legends...have the New Rogues as a team being the conflict. It just makes no sense.

Rules of Earth-Prime:

Alright so with this new Multiverse now comes potentially new rules. For example, John and Lyla (who by the way never got a comeuppance unlike Nash) now not only have JJ but also Sara is back, as if she never left as she seems to be the same age as JJ...so does this mean they’re now twins?

It’s also stated that Connor is gone, and because we never see Mia or William it’s implied they’ve gone back to the future ready for the next Arrow episode which is also the Green Arrow and the Canaries backdoor pilot.

However, with Sara being back, what does that mean for the rest of reality? Clearly Flashpoint never happens in this reality so with Sara and JJ in the same universe are others back from non-existence? Is Cisco’s brother Dante alive? Reverse-Flash clearly can’t die but where was he during all this?

What about others who were previously dead? Captain Cold, Earth-1 Laurel? I know some of these things will probably be explored over time or at the convenience of the writers but some revelations in this episode other than Sara Diggle would have been nice to see.

Also, for some strange reason, Superman and Lois of Supergirl now have two sons rather than just the one...why? 

Overall I rate the entire crossover a strong 9/10. Part 4 did let the crossover down a bit but Parts 1-3 and especially Part 5 were just so good that I cannot mark it down too far.

This was the crossover every DC fan was going to be watching and critiquing not just because of the comic-book story it is based on but the fact it is the most ambitious TV crossover to ever exist crossing over not just the five main shows, but other shows past and present and even movies.

I loved the nostalgia that played into seeing Smallville, 1989 Batman, 1960s Batman, Kevin Conroy, all of the cameos and additions were just so well done.

So that’s my review of the conclusion to Crisis on Infinite Earths, what did you guys think? Post your comments down below and check out more DC TV Reviews as well as other TV Reviews and posts.

Arrow: Crisis on Infinite Earths Part 4 & Legends of Tomorrow: Crisis on Infinite Earths Part 5

Ok lets see how this ends, how they gets the Earth’s back and how they deal with the new Paragon. 

Look the Monitor’s planet and he had a wife, so this is going to go bad. This is all the Monitor’s fault. That is why you don’t go to see the dawn of time.

Lex you have been volunteered hope you trust your work.

What is with that deep voice, Oliver sounds like the Monitor. He might want to lose that voice because he sounds like a demon. Yea, if I was them I would have freaked out if I saw Oliver because he sounds like a demon and kinda looks like one.

Wow, all it takes to unlock someone's potential a boop on the head.

Basically they have to change history. Well that usually turns out bad for Barry but sure let try it, maybe it won’t go wrong.

They lost Lex and Barry is in some weird place in the speed force. Oliver’s voice sounds normal. Great, Barry you lost people in the speed force. It shouldn’t be to hard to find them just use your brain.

OMG DC movies Flash. That was kinda awesome and that is exactly how the DC movie Barry would have acted. The cameo’s keep coming.

Really Lex, you have powers now. Why did anyone let him near that book? Also Jon Cryer is an amazing Lex Luther.

It’s just Up, Up and Away. Also they are really lucky that planet is similar to earth with gravity and oxygen.

I love Lois, “Barry did you go shopping for a new costume while you were suppose to the saving the world.”

Basically this episode is going to be Barry running around the speed force into random moments from Arrow. While Kara and Ryan try to stop Lex from being Lex.

Listen to Ryan because we don’t need this whole Crisis to happen. Great so there will always be a Monitor who will travel to the dawn of time and cause the Crisis. Well there goes that plan, some how I knew it wouldn’t work. What have we always been told on Flash don’t change time because bad things happen when you do and somethings are inevitable.

I like that, if I knew I would tell you but I don’t know. I trust you will know when the time is right. They are going to let Oliver do whatever it is that he needs to do. Also it’s probably good Lex got powers for this moment.

Looks like Oliver might have gotten some powers too. “You have failed this Universe”.

Are they going to Care Bear Stare? Seriously they basically did a stare down and that is all they had to do? Am I the only one who feels like that was anticlimactic.

Was Barry telling Oliver that him dying is a cop-out? That is what I got from its worse for those of us who live because we have to keep going and be the hero’s. I am pretty sure there was no avoiding Oliver dying there. I bet that is not what they were trying to imply but that’s what I got from the moment. Really took away from what should have been a sad moment. Also did Oliver just die again?  

Wait everything is back? I feel like there has to be more in the last episode. Otherwise there wouldn’t be a need for a 5th episode to the crossover.

What did you do Lex? We all know you are not the good guy, Unless him being the hero really got to his head. If Lena and Lex advocate for Supergirl does that mean no more crazy Lena? While I wanted crazy Lena to stop it feels like a cop-out and way too easy. Also what was the point of the beginning on the season if that got erased. I really need the next episode of Supergirl for answers.

Is there 1 Earth? Either this gets fixed or there is just one Earth. You know that wouldn’t be the worst thing. Really what is having infinite Earth’s giving us? The ability to “bring people back from the dead”. It’s really was just a way for us to tie in all the shows and movies in.

Looks like Nash is back to normal. I guess that means that Lyla is back to normal. J’onn really enjoyed giving Nash those memories. Also should we put all the blame on Nash. Yes, he should’ve have let the Antimonitor out but The Monitor shouldn’t have started it all in the first place by going to the dawn of time. How about we be pissed off at both of them. Is anyone upset that J’onn is giving them all the memories.

OMG Beebo. Omg Mick is doing book signings. Really Ray a selfie? Mick is pissed this interrupted his signings. Also I am a going to miss Snart AI. Apparently Beebo is sacred.

I get it that everyone is really upset about Oliver dying. Somehow when they all happened that memory or knowledge was taken away. It is something Team Arrow had been preparing for the fact that Oliver was not suppose to survive the Crisis. Some of them where there when he died the first time. I understand that people thought that he would be alive when everything got fixed. The Monitor was very always said that Oliver was going to die very specific about that. Even with Barry he said The Flash, so it could be a different one. He always said Oliver had to die.

There is still antimatter in the city? Ok, so what are they going to do about it. I had been wondering about Ryan because no one mentioned him. Once they realized that Paragons remembered everything I feel like they should have checked on him. I am sure he is trying to figure what is going on as well. Wow, Ryan and Ray were nerding out hard core.

Hello Black Lighting, I guess you would be on this Earth as well. Also love the Mick and Frost banter. I would be so here to see that more often. Can Frost do a cameo on Legends?

“We will not fail this world,” nice reference to Oliver’s phrase. Barry does have fast hands. Did anyone really think that Barry was going to press the button. He is not that dumb. Doesn’t he have a multiple degrees?

Oh no, angry Kara. Throw it like a girl, not sure how I feel about that phrase. I know they didn't mean in the bad way but I kinda feel like they didn’t have to say it.

Wait did Diggle get his daughter back? The one that turned into JJ when Barry changed time. Wait Superman has more than one son? Did this merge things from multiples Earths? How does Clark remember having only one child but Lois does’t? Is it because of the him being given all the memories? Wouldn't those have merged when J’onn did the memory thing? I have some questions about this moment.

There still is a multiverses out there just all the CW shows now exist on one Earth. Hello Titans (which I have now seen), Green Lantern, Swamp Thing, Brandon Routh Superman, Doom Patrol, and Star Girl and the Justice Society.

Black Lighting you have no idea Is that like a Justice League table? Was that the Hall of Justice?

Stargirl is getting her own show? I guess that is why we had so see her team on Earth-2. CW is about to become the DC superhero network. Also just learned about the green light for Lois and Clark’s show. Which I am going to so watch because I love her as Lois. I like her better as Lois then her character on Grimm.  Also Gleek as in Gleek who hung out with the Wonder Twins? Does that mean the Wonder Twins are going to come in at some point.   

Well I am here for Earth-Prime it will make the crossovers so much easier. Can we have more cameos like they do on Chicago PD, Fire and Med? I would like to see slight cameos from people once in awhile.

I have to say this was the best crossover. I had thought that about last years. Yes, were there some issues with this crossover of course. I could have done without the whole having to find people on the speed force and had more with battling the Antimonitor. The whole Care Bear stare was just dumb. Some of the cameos were just done as fan service and had not point. If none of those people were going to Paragons then it was like why did you even bother with them? At the same time I loved them so I can’t complain too bad. Yes, if they took somethings out it would have been a shorter show. There was quite a bit of filler bit it was enjoyable fillers. It would have been nice to see more characters in the 5th episode. Where was Mia, William, Connor, Ralph, Cisco, Brainy, and others? With all that being said it was really ambious to do and they did a good job with it. It was an enjoyable crossover.

I am curious to see what they do for next years crossover because it will have to be huge. Someone might have to die 3 times. I am curious to see what these changes are going to do for the upcoming seasons. Somethings will not be how we left them. Also can someone tell me where Felicity went at the end of Arrow with the Monitor? Oliver died twice so where did she go to see him?

Question: is the Justice League a fundamentally broken concept? Is there any reason Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman should coexist that's not bleakly mercenary in the way, say, Tom and Jerry Meet Willy Wonka is?

Man, I love the Justice League. In many ways, they are like the Platonic ideal of a superhero team and pretty much every other super team is a reaction to them, whether positive or negative. (Yeah, sure, Justice Society, etc, but the JSA didn’t inspire imitators the same way the JLA did.)

While it’s true that a lot of times I like the Justice League more in concept than in practice, boy, if that isn’t true of literally any long-running superhero franchise.

As far as I can tell, there are two ways to interpret your question: first, is there a need for a team of people who already take on world-shaking threats on their own to get together? Second, since the DC universe heroes were clearly and textually designed to exist in separate universes and franchises and their story frameworks are often dependent on them being the only superhero there is, does mashing them together ruin that?

For the latter question, while the original motive was almost certainly mercenary, I imagine that many fans would argue that the creation of a more cohesive DC universe has been a net benefit; some may disagree. Additionally, it’s pretty hard to think that any creative decision made by a commercial medium like monthly comics don’t have at least some mercenary element behind it. No publisher is like, “Yes, this looks like it will definitely lose money, print ‘er up.” Even books that are presumably greenlighted for their creative vision--hey, let’s say Vision as an example--are still getting printed with the idea that positive critical buzz will turn the book into an evergreen seller. While there are plenty of publishers who will print books just because they’re good, the big ones have to watch that bottom line.

As for the former, I feel like at its best, the Justice League franchise focuses on the team tackling threats that are too big even for Superman to handle. While the early days of the team has them confronting a mixed bag of adversaries, even then they’re primarily fighting against more powerful threats like Despero, Starro, Amazo, and other villains that don’t end in -o. By the time of Morrison’s JLA, the team is taking on enemies that are almost existential in nature, culminating in the Lovecraftian Mageddon, the Anti-Sun. Plus, you know, just keep going back to that Darkseid well when you’ve got nothing else.

From a thematic angle it’s nice, when done well. The Leaguers are supposed to be the best of the best, aspirational figures and moral paragons. How shitty would it be if they couldn’t manage to be friends? Plus, all of us have to admit when we’re overwhelmed with everything, no man is an island, I get by with a little help, etc etc. You can’t do everything on your own, even if you’re Superman.

We can do much more together. It’s not so impossible.

(art by @kristaferanka ) 

Dan Watches Crisis Part 4&5

Alright so.. Gonan just write some things here in the breaks.. obviously spoilers so.. under le cut. 

Because I’m writing these after big chunks of watching i’ll have forgot stuff and im on a time limit before it starts again so.. yeah if i forget to mention stuff it’s me brain farting. 

Part 4

Oliver as the Specter is pretty cool

I like the Monitor origin thingy

HOLY SHIT EZRA MILLER WAAAH!!!??? I can’t believe they did this.

Lex, the universe is literally ending, can you maybe make sure it doesnt end before you take it over?

Paragon of Humanity is also pretty good i cant remember his name though, I wanna say Kevin Tran but pretty sure thats his supernatural character :P

Kinda liking the whole going back to previous scenes thing and It’s not like fucking up any timelines because it’s like.. a memory? it’s weird but they’ve vaguely bullshitted enough for me to buy it. 

Also I kinda hope Oliver stays the Specter.. not ready for him to be gone for ever.. Also Constantine deals with the Specter from time to time soo fun. 

Is it Specter or Spectre ... I wanna say Spectre but Specter feels better to type. 

So Lex could just be like “Don’t do it” but instead he’s like “Do it and work for me!”

The Turning.. Yes this is me talking about an advert for a movie now.. Is The Turning just like a horror movie where the Adams Family hire a nanny? 

Americans have to deal with so many more ads than the English.. it’s ridiculous. 

Still liking Kevin Tran. 

Kinda dumb they had to get through to Mar Novu for it to not matter at all 

Oliver has major Obiwan vibes

Antimonitor looks cool.

The guys without powers who just punch the ghost things.. idk about how that looks. 

Awwh Oliver died :(

Part 5

Merged Earths now?

FFS Lex. I feel like a disappointed Parent.

Merged Earths now! Woop Woop

Marv, you legend. Marv for president. 

Imagine if in the Flash movie they play the scene from Part 4.. i’d maybe watch it. 

Jon’s the best boy, doing his bit to bring peoples memories back. 

Awwh no Dig don’t cry! Nooo. This is not Diggity. 

Yo but you know.. maybe Google the spectre.. try both spellings.. just in case? 

Yeaaah fuck you Nash you son of a Reverse Flash bitch

Yo Sara, Everyone and not Oliver is better than nobody at all, maybe be a little bit relieved, just a little bit? 

Oh fuck it’s Beebo!

I used to have a crush on a girl named Sara but it was pronounced like Sar-ah not Ser-ah... Like Sahara ... it’s hard to explain through text. 

 Someone needs to go check on Black Lightning and Lucifer and like other Earth people just to check. I’ll watch a whole hour of someone being like “Maybe the Titans are here now?”.. “Nope.. What about Smallville?”...”Nope.. What about..” and so on. 

Fuck you Chick Fil A I’m so hungry and you’re not over here. 

We stan Rebecca. 

The fact they call team ups crossovers is both wonderful and offputting and idk how i feel bout it

Yay Batwoman!

Damn right Beebo is off limits. 

Nash, redemption time, work on it. 

Remember everyone, Oliver Queen died for our sins. 

Nash’s wrist thing reminds me of a pip boy. 

Now they’re all on the same earth can we get more weird relationships with characters who were on different earths before. 

OH SHIT A GHOUL

oh apparently called shadow demons

OH NO RYAN.. .. You’ll always be Kevin to me. 

Kevin Tran is the atom in the comics too because like.. i googled him a while ago. 

Microverse trademark issues.. heh.

HOW HAS BARRY NOT SEEN IRIS YET? 

They should have had Booster Gold at the start of time just like “Huh so this is what it was like” and then he just leaves. 

WTF was that old spice ad? 

I just realised theres gonna be so many more notes for this part because like.. it’s the end and i’m having after thoughts from the first part. 

I’m also getting rly tired now as it’s 2:39am here. I accidentally wrote 2:£9 then and £ does just kinda look like a backwards 3 

Does anyone wanna go to the Daytona 500 with me? You pay for it, and my flight, and my food and hotel and everything else and I’ll show up, maybe... tbh it’s not my kinda thing.. but free holiday!

AND THE SHOWS BACK ON

Loving Jons new look. 

Am i going to ship Mick and “Frosty” now? 

Yooooo This is for the streets Black Lightnings back!

What if they just pretended to surrender and then shanked him when he wasnt looking. 

Also i saw this fight in a behind the scenes thing that i think was leaked 

We got a big boy. 

So Sara and Kate are gonna fuck at some point right.. or already have in this new earth timeline

Yo where is like.. Cisco and Wally West and Lightning and Thunder and.. c’mooonnnnn crossover.

Tiny Superman is pretty good.

How come there was no Atom crawling up the Antimonitors butthole theory? 

So.. Antimonitor shrunk to death.. we all good now? 

Clark has sons!?

Diggle has a daugher too.. forgot to question that.... 

They couldn’t quickly get every single DC actor to do that moments silence? 

Ohhh okay so Multiverse still exists and thats the other shows they cant rly crossover 

Justice League being formed? 

Also cool that green lantern and swamp thing got mentioned at all tbh

... If this is Justice League being formed.. feels weird with no Batman 

Mia should really be here for this somehow to actually be the Green Arrow?

WTF IS A GLEEK.. other than a fan of Glee

Just googled what Gleek is and I think it’s a good place to end.. 

Leaving you.. with this mother fucker. Night!

...Fucking Gleek. 

Iz Explains Stuff So You Don’t Have to: The Nightwing Debacle.

Hey guys! As promised, here’s a write up of what’s currently making waves in the DC/comic fandom today. Given that this subject somewhat related to the Hydra-cap nonsense, I thought it should be something I cover as well, just to sorta give non-comics fans/DC comics readers who might see this and want some context.

1. Who is Nightwing?

You guys know Robin, Batman’s sidekick who they almost always leave out of movies? This is the first (yes there’s more than one, but that’s a topic for another day) and possibly most iconic one to pop-culture. Named Richard “Dick” Grayson, Dick is the son of the flying Grayson’s , two circus acrobats who died due to mob interference during a show (he also has Romani heritage (which the comics often ignore) This will be important later). Bruce took Dick in and the rest is well history.

Dick probably has the most screen time over any Robin in film/tv adaptations, including Teen Titans, Young Justice, The Lego Batman movie, the original Adam West series, and Batman Forever. He’s arguably the best known Robin to non-comic’s readers.

Because time does pass in comics occasionally, Dick grew up and after a series of events that have been retconned so many times it’s not worth getting into, ditched the Robin mantle. He would later take up the title of Nightwing.

2. Why the name Nightwing?

Dick is a HUGE fan of Superman (no really, Superman is pretty much his uncle) and after he ditched the Robin title, Superman and him had a talk where Superman told him of two legendary kryptonian heroes Nightwing and Flamebird. Inspired by the story, Dick would take on the name of the former (the latter name has a much more varied history).

3. Okay, so what’s the big deal besides the Robin thing?

To compress a lot of history into a paragraph, Nightwing is the one DC hero that like almost every other DC hero trusts and likes. Most of the Justice League has known Dick since he was a little kid and trust him implicitly for both his general good nature and reputation of being like, a really fucking good guy. Like a really good guy. A good enough guy that when Batman was told to let his own world die to let a better more “ideal” world survive, he asked if Richard Grayson was in it to make his choice on if it actually was a better world. (Dick was not in this world, which made Batman hard pass on that shit. Really. This is a thing that happened.)

Dick has also led multiple successful superhero teams, worked on the league himself, and donned the Batman title for awhile.

4. Okay, got it. So what’s going on?

Today DC announced a new six issue limited series in an elseworld (which is a world that takes place outside of canon. Think an AU.) This is the summary:

NIGHTWING: THE NEW ORDER is the story of a future world without “weapons”—where superpowers have been eliminated and outlawed. The man responsible? None other than Dick Grayson, a.k.a. Nightwing, now leader of a government task force called the Crusaders who are charged with hunting the remaining Supers. But when events transpire which turn the Crusaders’ aim toward Grayson’s own family, the former Boy Wonder must turn against the very system he helped create, with help from the very people he’s been hunting for years—the last metahumans of the DC Universe.

5. OH NO IS THIS HYDRA CAP ALL OVER AGAIN?

Yes and no. So far, it’s safe to say that this series does echo Hydra Cap in a paragon for good and justice becoming the figurehead of a fascist regime. However, everything else is kind of more murky.

For one, this series is an elseworld, which means unlike Hydra Cap, it doesn’t take place in the regular DC universe. This is not the fate of the Dick Grayson we know and love, nor is it him; it’s a version of him in a different universe. It’s also a limited run, so we got an enddate on this sucker off the bat.

Second, this is more general fascism instead of nazi brand fascism. The first cover echoes other fascist/oppressive regimes but it applies to multiple besides the Nazi party. In the DC universe, metahumans aren’t coded as a minority group (though smaller subsets are, like the Superfamily being coded Jewish), so it’s more sci-fi than an allegory for real life oppression (though if depending on the details of this event, that remains to be seen. The writer took to Twitter to state there is absolutely no genocide here in this book but the first few pages imply otherwise and long story short, I’m not convinced). The group Dick works with is also entirely new and unlike Hydra has no link in history to the Nazi party, making the claim that they’re a general “evil fascist villain” hold water.

Third, unlike Hydra Cap, this book is branded as Dick learning the error of his choices rather than a long saga to try to convince us he has a point. I doubt we’ll see the same extent of “we should feel bad for Dick oppressing all these people” that we see in Hydra cap. However, this also remains to be seen. Long story short, it’s never gonna try to get us to root for the bad guy.

6. So it’s fine?

Now I wouldn’t say that. Making an iconic character a fascist is still something to side eye, and a lot of my above caveats can change if the story itself decides to make those connections (i.e if there are prison camps for example). It’s also important to note, that making a Romani character a fascist, and one under the label of “crusader” is in terrible taste, considering the Romani people’s history with both.

The writer is also someone I don’t have a ton of faith in when it comes to nuance. (though to his credit, he is assuring and validating concerns on twitter rather than laughing us all off as SJWs).

What I’m saying is that it’s gonna be hard to figure out exactly this is going to play out until I see the first issue. I think the storyline and the advertising is something we should be critical of, but a lot still depends on how the book approaches it. This isn’t to say you should “give it a chance” only that we might want to hold off from saying DC is promoting fascism until we see if they’re gonna take this from a “feel bad for Dick angle, not all fascists are bad” or a “Dick fucked up hard” angle. We can just say this storyline is at the very least insensitive given current events and Dick’s ethnic roots.

Plus, Dick turning on Superman is just weird, and the preview pages are not helping my concerns.

So be critical of the concept but be careful not to declare what the narrative is trying to say until we know what the narrative is.

7. And if it does come out to be “feel bad for Dick, not all fascists, narrative supports the fascist regime for just wanting the best for us” angle?

Then go crazy guys. Though even if it does go that way, it still won’t be as Hydra cap. Because at least it’s still only a elseworld.  Which is like the worst consolation prize ever.

Allen’s Rambling XXVII: When the Movie was Better than the Book (Magical Girl Raising Project)

I’m shocked that I marathoned Magical Girl Raising Project in just three days. When I made my Anime Update saying I’d re-watch the series I thought it’d at least take a week or longer. Rewatching Vivid Strike took me two weeks I believe, so the fact that I rewatched this series this quickly just… shocks me. But hey, that’s a testament to how much I liked it ,I suppose.

But I digress…

Anyway… Magical Girl Raising Project, or MagiPro as I’m going to be calling it from this point on because Christ, these light novels and their overly long titles. I watched the anime when it was airing in the fall, and later bought and read the first volume of light novel of this series. The anime just had me that curious about the world of MagiPro after I finished it, curious enough to buy the source material, something that no light novel-based anime has done for me. Hell, few manga-based anime get me to do this, but these series hits a lot of my personal interests, being a darker take on the Magical Girl genre and all.

Believe it or not, I’m actually a huge fan of Magical Girl anime. Magical Girls was what got me into anime in the first place in fact. I got up early every morning to watch Sailor Moon before school when I was a little kid, I first got into Crunchyroll thanks to Shugo Chara, and one of the first anime I watched from start to finish was the Japanese version of Magical Doremi back when I didn’t understand the whole fansubs issue, three seasons of it (what can I say, those theme songs were catchy). I don’t know… maybe it was because I was mostly around women and had a rather shy and feminine personally when I was a kid, but I loved a lot of shows that screamed “girl power”. Much like La Pucelle, I’m quite the fan of these anime and manga despite being a boy (and 23-year-old one at that). However, as of recent years I’ve found myself watching more and more dark takes on the Magical Girl genre throughout the years. Madoka Magica was the start for me, really dissecting the genre and ripping it a new one, and since then I’ve just been captivated by similar shows. Yuki Yuna is a Hero, Day Break Illusion, I even bought a DVD of Revolutionary Girl Utena since I heard this is a sort of darker magical show by 90s standards.

Ah, but I’m getting off topic. Like I said, I just finished watching then anime, and I’ve read original light novel. After experiencing both versions I have to say I think the anime of MagiPro surpasses the book in terms of entertainment. How so exactly? Well, the short version is the show took advantage of being animation and made a lot of interaction more interesting to watch rather than read, but there are a few more reasons.

But before I get to that…

Making Amends

Much like when I talked about Persona 5, I realize I made some harsh judgements about MagiPro a little too quickly when I first finished it. Upon second viewing and reading the light novel I’d like to take a few things I said about this show back.

I originally said that Snow White was an underused character that was trying to be an innocent Madoka-esque victim despite never even attempting to solve the issue of being in a killing game, but I think I only thought that because I was watching the show at a weekly rate. Upon a second watch, I can say for certain that Snow White definitely earns her main character spot. The point of her character is to show that being nonviolent and wanting to do the right thing without shedding blood is how a magical girl is supposed to behave. Where everyone else is forming alliances, and trying to ensure their own safety, Snow White is trying to save and help everyone around without care for what benefit she gets from it. She’s the paragon of this story, like Superman and Batman, except a cute girl instead a young man (an improvement already in my opinion). Huh… actually, she basically goes from being a Superman-style Paragon of Magical Girls to Batman-style Vigilante by the time you start reading the books… interesting.

Another thing I said was that I felt Ripple took a lot of screen time away from Snow White. Again, while marathoning this series I feel the opposite. We see a bit more Snow White than Ripple, it’s just that Ripple was more in the action that Snow White was with her match with Calamity Mary and Swim Swim. Actually, the book give her more screen time than the anime if anything.

And lastly, I take back what I said about the ending being shallow. It wasn’t shallow, but I feel they didn’t need to introduce the idea of the Land of Magic being an omnipotent presence felt a little bit like sequel-baiting by adding that bit last minute, but… I’ll say no more on that.

Okay, amends made, now then, the real reason you’re all reading this.

What the Anime Did Better

Backstories

The book didn’t really give every character a solid backstory, not to my memory anyway. You knew a bit about Snow White, Ripple, Ruler, and Cranberry’s background, but little else. The anime decided to give every character a decent solid backstory that explained their motivations and how they became magical girls, something I appreciate even if seeing said backstory it was a death flag. I understand the book couldn’t really break everyone down since it was focusing one just a handful of characters, but I’m glad the anime took advantage of this by giving everyone at least a few minutes of flashback to explain themselves.

Fight Scenes

I’m so glad these fight scenes looked as good as they did in anime. Hand-to-hand combat can only be done justice in animated or comic form, because trying to have that same energy in books is… difficult to say the least. Just something about seeing the action makes it more engaging. Ripple vs. Swim Swim and Alice vs. Calamity Mary were my favorites, and Ripple throwing Calamity Mary with a hurricanrana was just… yes. Speaking of fight scenes, I’m glad Cranberry vs. La Pucelle got animated as well. It’d really suck if we didn’t get context for the aftermath of that fight. The book cutting out that fact felt a little… cheap to me, and I’m glad the anime gave La Pucelle a bit more development.

The Overall Look

I talked about this in the Update before, but the character designs of the magical girls just look a lot better in the anime compared to the book. It’s just easier to keep track of everyone given how big the cast is. Most of the descriptions given in the book really didn’t do the designs justice as compared to the anime in my opinion as well. To the point where an artist did redesigns based on how the characters were described in the book (very good redesigns in my opinion, but my point stands). Also, I love how some of the details were worked in, like Nemurin’s clouds emoting, or seeing Top Speed’s broom transform into a motorbike-broom hybrid, stuff like that.

A Few Other Things

The entire Musica Magica album. It was just cool to listen to. Betrayal and Destruction are my favorites. It’s not an anime-specific thing, but it was a product of the anime, so…

Again, Ripple doing a hurricanrana was just… perfection.

Cranberry was a more believable villain in anime, as opposed to a mysterious and powerful figure in the background since we saw more of her and her actions and her actively trying to kill other magical girls.

Alice was a much creepier character in her intro in the anime compared to the book. The animation team really played with her zombie-esque appearance.

How the anime weaved in scenes in Episodes was just perfect. It really helped set up a lot of things, especially Swim Swim’s betrayal. You’d have a completely difficult opinion of Swim Swim if you didn’t understand what made her want to betray Ruler in the first place.

What the Book Did Better

This one’s going to be a bit shorter since I really have a hard time thinking of where the book was better outside of continuing. That’s not to say the book is bad, and the series gets exponentially be in later volumes, but… y’know.

The book was a bit better at establishing Ripple as a main/central character, and helped us understand how the world of MagiPro worked with her intro.

World-building was done a bit better, or at least I didn’t have many questions by the time I finished the epilogue as compared to the anime.

The book series is still ongoing, where the anime isn’t likely to get a season 2.

Powers and items are explained a little better in the book, especially characters like Calamity Mary and Snow White, who’s powers a bit vague.

I think that’s about it in terms of nitpicks and my overall feelings. Like I said, I still like the book, and I’ll be reading it more as the series continues, but if a season 2 happens and we get to see Restart animated I will watch that in a heartbeat. A Gundam fights a giant Kaiju in Restart, what’s not to love? Anyway, that’ll be it for me. I’m going back to story writing now.

Who is Batman?

I have loved superheroes since I was two. But unlike most of you, I'm willing to bet, there's one hero who just doesn't work for me.

Superheroes, the ones who last, have a unique life among fictional characters. Superman has had stories written about him and published continuously for 77 years. Spider-man for 53. Wolverine for 41. These are characters whose stories have no end by design. Even death is just another plot point for them. Over the course of their lives the hundreds of writers, artists, and editors who've handled them have helped them evolve and refocused their interpretations to show new facets through the years. The Superman who appeared in Action Comics #1 is not the same one who was killed by Doomsday is not the one written by Chuck Austin is not the one who starred in All-Star Superman.

Over the decades, the most lasting pieces of these characters get distilled by the zeitgeist and the fans to form a more or less cohesive character. There are always comic readers who say things like, "I only liked the Flash while Mark Waid was writing him," or, "Superman would be awesome if he would just get his hands dirty," but they are defining their preferred version of the character by contrasting him or her to what the popular interpretation is.

Which brings me to the character I have issues with: Batman. Like Superman, he's been around for closing in on 80 years and in that time he's been any number of things. There's a version of him for everyone. But it seems that the consensus surrounding the character dictates a hero I just can't get behind. It's seemed that way since Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy ended.

More than any other hero, Batman is defined by tragedy. I think that's my hang up. I don't enjoy, can't have escapist fun with, or imagine a better world built by someone who wallows in the darkest moment of his own life.

The blame for this naturally falls on Frank Miller. The Dark Knight Returns turned Batman away from being a superhero and the World's Greatest Detective and towards being a demigod, a Hades to Superman's Apollo. Miller's Batman isn't a detective, he's omnipotent. He isn't a man trained to physical perfection, he calls on the powers of Hell that visited him the night his parents were murdered to give him the strength to beat alien gods into the pavement. And Miller's subsequent work in the Dark Knight universe--The Dark Knight Strikes Again and All-Star Batman and Robin--have only pushed things further.

What's the counterpoint to this Batman of the Underworld? I think the answer lies in the character's natural progression as a hero.

Batman is born when Bruce watches his parents die in front of his eight-year-old eyes. Something not enough people ask is, "How does this scar Bruce psychologically?" They instead accept that Billionaire + Tragedy + Training + Batsuit = Justice.

Seeing his parents' deaths exposes some of the most common lies parents tell their children: "You are safe. I will always be there for you. I will protect you no matter what."

Bruce's issues all revolve around trust. A stranger came out of the night and took his security away forever. If his parents can be killed, anyone can. If a man on the street can pull a gun and put a life in danger, anyone can. Bruce can no longer trust the unknown to be good or the good not to hurt him by leaving forever. He can only trust himself. So he has to be ready for whatever might come out of the night for him.

But there's one exception. Alfred. Alfred hasn't violated the promises of safety and security. Alfred is the one who has been there for Bruce through everything. He's the one reminder of the world before it became this horrible place full of shadows.

And as we know from the stories, there will be others who will earn Bruce's trust. James Gordon. Dick Grayson. Lucius Fox. Superman.

Yes, Superman. The Batman I could believe in--Batman, the superhero--trusts his allies instead of plotting their eventual deaths behind their backs.

My preference for the prehistory of Batman, that vague five-year span (and earlier) that DC built in before the first issues of the New 52 reboot, includes a teenage Bruce meeting a teenage Clark Kent and the two of them forming the first true friendship either of them has experienced. Clark gets someone he doesn't have to hide his abilities from while Bruce finds the first person who's every bit as good a he appears to be. What's more, he's bulletproof. He's someone Bruce doesn't have to worry about protecting or being abandoned by. Not that this part appeals to Bruce on a conscious level, but subconsciously Clark and his friendship are the antidotes to Bruce's scars. Forming that friendship is the beginning of the healing process for Bruce.

That's the key word in all of this. The thing "my" Batman has that Frank Miller's never will is a chance to heal the wounds his parents' deaths left him with. It won't be quick, and in comic book time it'll never be finished, but here's what it might look like:

--Eight year old Bruce watches his parents' murder. He's left with no family except Alfred.

--A series of psychologists are unable to help Bruce. They never manage to establish trust and Bruce never opens up to them. Bruce begins to read about psychology on his own and later criminology as well.

--Bruce begins taking self-defense classes to try and gain a sense of control over his fears and his environment.

--At Alfred's insistence, Bruce enrolls in private school starting in 7th grade. He can't stand the other students or his teachers, but for Alfred's sake he does his best to tolerate them.

--In his late teens, Bruce meets Clark Kent. They each reveal their true selves to the other and keep in contact when they return to their separate worlds.

--Bruce leaves Gotham on the pilgrimage that will forge him into Batman.

--Bruce returns to Gotham and begins his war on crime. He meets James Gordon and finds in him the first ally he can count on since Clark.

--Bruce meets Dick Grayson and takes him in, eventually training him to become Robin. This is a huge step in Bruce's growth. He's taking responsibility for someone else for the first time. If something happens to him now, there is someone else who will be without a father figure. This likely becomes Bruce's deepest fear, the possibility of leaving someone behind the way his parents left him.

There are more opportunities in there and after, but you get the point. Jason Todd's death would be another landmark, of course, as would Dick leaving to become Nightwing if it's played as a child rebelling against his father. Like in any continuing story with a theme, there would be advances and setbacks for Bruce's ability to trust others.

The important thing is that this makes Bruce human instead of an avatar of rage. People call Superman unrelatable because he's a paragon who always makes the right choice, but Miller's Batman is no better. He's a man trapped for eternity in a place of bitter anger, stuck trying to mold the world in his own image and taking out anyone who stands in his way.

To mourn is human, but all mourning ends someday. We revisit the memories of those we lose and we feel their absence at our core, but that pain stops controlling us at some point. Batman shouldn't be built on the idea of making others feel our pain. He should be an example of what a person can do when he takes his pain and uses it to better himself and the world around him. Even after he stops feeling that pain every day.

The Utopia (wip)

Summary : Driven by a benevolent protector... what could go wrong?

Universe : DCAU (Justice Lords verse)

Warning : Contains a domestic situation which could be classed as abusive.

[I started this several years ago. I am posting it at the humble bequest of @starspatter. I dunno if I’ll pad it up to finish it. You should be familiar with the DCAU and the Justice Lords to fully enjoy this fic. I mostly wrote this because I like protective Bruce and wanted to see what might become of the sidekicks in the Justice Lords universe.]

---

It was a perfect world. With heroes to defend the right, the true, and the just, protection was always close at hand. There was still sin and vice in the world, but as long as it could not corrupt the light, nothing in particular was wrong. The heroes created a coalition to combine their powers. Nothing was impossible, and the world was theirs, theirs to shape into a paragon of "right". (They knew exactly what was right. How else could they judge the criminals from the good folk, like the chaff from the wheat? And the rewards of the harvest... those were thrillingly yet to come.) It was a perfect world. Before Lex Luthor destroyed it.

Like the cogs of an intricate machine, the inner mechanisms of the Justice Lords were not to be messed with, particularly by someone with a set of particular and vicious goals. But Luthor knew nothing of the powers with which he was dealing. For him, the Flash was a simple thorn in his side, an insignificant speck of dust, a young buffoon with no future of any note. Wally West was in the way, and Luthor was not a man to work around obstacles. He simply destroyed them. It was that tenacity that brought him to the highest office of the United States of America... It could have been a perfect world. Two bullets disrupted the quiet fabric of the Lords. Where restraint was, was now a hole, eight millimeters wide. Where conscience was, a second hole, of the same size. The absence of an element fundamentally changes a compound - it becomes something completely different, with no memory of what it once was, and no conception of what it could become. Without the suppressor, the rage boils over, frothing and spitting angrily, like a cancer cell mutated by some catastrophic event. Superman, the most powerful guardian the world had ever known, became a figure of vengeance. He would not rest until justice was served, until the scales were once more balanced. When the Bat and the Amazon encountered the smoking corpse of the guiltiest man alive - the final president to be assassinated - there was but a moment of self-reflection, before they turned away from the light entirely. There was a new way now, and that was what they would follow. Superman was always a visionary - this was his way now. So it would be for all of them. "Never again." they promised. No one took that oath more gravely than the Bat. It would be a perfect world. --- [Insert scenes here] --- "Spontaneous inter-dimensional shearing, I think they call it." "...wuh...Bruce?..." Tim Drake cracks one eye open, but he can see nothing save the near-blinding fluorescent situated over the cot. He's in the Cave, he can tell that much. The muted whirr of machines; water dripping at regular intervals; bats are stirring, whispering from somewhere far away. It's a familiar noise, a comforting symphony of home. He's glad to hear Bruce's voice. "You were lucky. If the exit portal had opened any higher off the ground, you could have broken something or worse." Now Tim seems to remember something Ray Palmer had once mentioned... spontaneous portals opening to other dimensions. They weren't a common occurrence, the chance of a human encountering one, much less falling into one, was less than 1 in five hundred thousand every fifty years... like tectonic plates, the seams of the multiverse were continually shifting and slipping, and random shearing was one of the products. You could never predict where in the multiverse a portal was going to open up, but due to some manner of quantum particles that interfaced with neurons, you could subconsciously gain some degree of control of where you were going to land. Tim had done decently well. The Cave was the only decently safe place he knew of. It made sense to want to be there, even if he'd had to fall a few feet from his exit point and black out deep within the Cave... ...Something was off about Bruce. He had almost forgotten the inter-dimensional part... "...You're..." /Words, Drake./ "Yes." That monosyllabic word told him most of what he needed to know, even if he'd already deduced most of it just from being in the Cave. Yes, the man above him was Batman in this universe, and yes, he was Bruce Wayne by day, and yes, he was still a master conversationalist. Tim allowed himself to relax, if only a fraction. He was glad he hadn't landed in some freakish dimension where Bruce was Two-Face and Harvey Dent was Batman, or something weird or creepy like that. He would be safe here, at least until he could find a way to get home. --- This version of Bruce was no carbon copy of the one he knew. That, he figured out quickly. He'd taken a spatial hop - not a temporal one - yet this Bruce had significantly more gray in his hair than his counterpart. What's more, something about him was desperate... afraid in a way that Bruce typically wasn't. As if something beyond his oath were constantly troubling him, making it almost impossible for him to get any work of value done. Actually, nothing he had done so far had been troubling to Tim persay, but it was obvious Tim wasn't allowed to leave the Batcave, and no answers were forthcoming when he tried to ask why. This Batman rarely left the Cave all night in any case (what were the criminals of Gotham doing, he wondered?), but when he did, the familiar face of Alfred was there, watching over him as if he were some kind of criminal. Yes... he was definitely in unfamiliar territory. --- Dick's voice was steady, but tense across the vid link. "Bruce, you've given me everything I could ask for, and in return I gave you my loyalty. So I'm asking you... don't do this. And can't he hear you right now?" Bruce switched his view to the camera over the medical cot, Tim was peacefully resting... "He's asleep. We can talk." "You mean you drugged him." Dick murmured. He wasn't surprised. At this point, he was rarely surprised at how far his mentor would go for safety and stability. And how much farther... he needed to know. "You going to introduce them? Are you sure it's a good idea?" he asked. Dick remembered then why he'd walked out of the Cave and never looked back, the day he was fired. He couldn't question Bruce's actions - the time for that had long past. But it wasn't right to leave him to his own devices like this, not when other people were involved. "It'll be fine." the Justice Lord whispered, with the certainty of a man who found some notions of morality to be futile jokes in the face of fate. "In fact, I think it's just what Tim needs." --- "What happened to them?!" Tim couldn't understand the glass cases lined in a neat row in front of him. They were much like the one back home that held Dick's old Robin costume, but these were much more... sterile. One held the familiar black and blue Nightwing suit... the next, Barbara's Batgirl costume. The final one gave the eerie sensation of looking in a mirror - it was his Robin suit, looking like it had been placed there yesterday. One terrifying thought immediately surfaced and settled in his mind, and it was more disturbing than he wanted to imagine. But it would explain why he hadn't seen them around the Cave, and why Bruce and Alfred acted so strange... no, they couldn't all be... The Lords had lived without compunction for the past few years, but Bruce was a man of logic and reason, and could see moral decay. He knew what it was and why his compatriots had been admonished by Superman Prime and the rest of the League. He could see consequences. What he couldn't foresee were his own fears. "They're all alive. Retired." "Retired..." Tim whispered, as if it were a fate not quite as bad as death, but just as close. "I need you to follow me." His tone brooked no arguments, and Tim did as he was bid. The elevator was something Tim had found infinite joy in, his first days in the Cave - everything about the place was magical. Other kids dreamed of Disney World, Tim dreamed of the Batcave. Somehow he knew it would have something utilitarian enough to be there, but still close enough to an amusement ride to be fun and amazing, like a figment of his dreams. That was where the man led him. The floor code he entered, though - it was unknown to Tim, and required two extra passcodes and a fingerprint besides. Tim couldn't help getting chills - what unknown secret of the Batcave was he about to be shown? It could be where Bruce kept experimental weapons or the next generation of the Batmobile or even some kind of tunnel system that ran under Gotham, which Tim was certain Bruce was hiding somewhere. Tim counted no less than eight levels passing by before the elevator stopped at what he presumed must be one of the lowest sub-basements the Cave had to offer. /Keep it together, Drake.../ To open the door at this level, of course, required a 20-digit code (without which the elevator would no doubt ascend to the main Cave with alarms blaring), but before entering it, Bruce spoke without turning to face Tim. "You should know that I have a dimensional transporter of my own design that will get you home." It must be down here, Tim deduced. Only something that precious to Batman would have such high security around it. Good 'ol Bruce... always had a solution, even when things seemed to be at an impass. It was an exhilarating relief - with no answers, Tim had spent the past days questioning how in the world he was going to get home, when he wasn't sleeping deeply... "All right! Thank God. ...Bruce must miss me by now. My Bruce, I mean." The man turned and granted him a soft smile, the kind Tim wasn't used to seeing from Bruce. There was something in it... something like pity. "Just... wait, Tim." Bruce keyed in a 20-digit code that he obviously knew by heart and the doors parted on what looked like a short promenade, leading up to an impenetrable-looking door. Tim was reminded of a panic room. This was something he could see Bruce building, a safe bunker some three miles underground with a dimensional door to escape without a trace. He could practically burst with the James Bond coolness of the whole thing... An advanced-looking biometrics scanner verified the biorhythmic signatures and DNA of two humans known to the Batcave's system, likely to thwart androids, aliens (the villainous kind), and Clayface, thought Tim. This was going to a lot of trouble, even for something like a dimensional transporter. Which you wouldn't want in the wrong hands, but still, Tim thought. Bruce punched in a final code that seemed considerably longer than the others. The door buzzed quietly, unlocking for its verified visitors, and rolling back like the door to some advanced bank safe. It really looked a lot like a bank safe, Tim thought, the entire door was some four feet thick and composed of some alloy that was most likely fireproof, bulletproof, bombproof... anything-proof. Not only that, but a series of complex mechanisms on the opposite side of the door seemed to imply that not only were the contents of the chamber protected from unauthorized access, but that there was no way to open the door from inside... What was on the other side of it, though, was not what Tim was expecting to see. He'd prepared himself for some futuristic vault, centered around this awesome-looking portal that could access any dimension in the multiverse. Instead, the room he was met with had a relatively low ceiling, recessed lighting including an area that looked like some sort of artificial sunlight, and thick but aesthetically pleasing walls all around. It looked like a strange apartment suite, with an open sort of floor plan. There was a small but well-stocked workout area off to the right, and nearby, some sort of workbench with what looked like circuits spread all over it and tools placed here and there. A very, very large flat screen television graced a significant part of a wall, the shelves around it littered with DVDs and video games of all kinds, from the retro to the cutting-edge. Discrete cameras and sensors were integrated into the entire space, likely providing full video and audio to the Cave's computers. The place was minimalist and Spartan, but wide and spacious in its own way; Tim felt a strange sense of belonging in the place, as it seemed to contain most creature comforts he could ask for, and though it was quiet and homey enough, one thought flashed into Tim's puzzled mind. /"Someone actually /lives/ here?"/ Who would Batman keep locked up under the Batcave? Would it be a dangerous criminal? Maybe this was his only way to keep a positive eye on someone so dangerous. But to go to all this trouble for one person? Before he could think any further, the obviously lone occupant of this strange domicile emerged from an alcove on the left, a soda in his hand, a seemingly shocked look on his face at the sight of his visitor. Tim didn't have time to be shocked, something pricked into his arm and everything shortly went black. --- The drugs wore off him like a heavy fog. Consciousness eventually surfaced, but his head was still swimming. He had to convince himself that what he had seen was real. But it couldn't be. Oh, yes it could. Tim desperately didn't want to open his eyes to it, but he needed to know the truth. /Up-and-at-em, huh.../ Forcing heavy eyelids open, he stared up at the solid-looking ceiling despondently. Sitting near him... "Oh my god." Tim croaked. Yes. Now he really was face to face with himself. It was too strange. Maybe this was all some horrible, nightmare-induced hallucination. Bruce was nowhere in sight. His... counterpart... had seated himself on a small ottoman near him, but not too near. Tim realized he was lying on a soft couch, likely the spot where Bruce had placed him before /leaving/ him down here. No explanation. Nothing. Then he'd have to simply fill /himself/ in on what was going on. At least his host seemed mentally stable. But Tim remained wary. This version of himself could be dangerous - locked away, where he couldn't hurt anyone. The idea gave him uncomfortable thoughts and chills... "Hey." the doppelganger greeted shyly, and Tim immediately rejected the fact that he sounded that way. No way was he that quiet or tentative, either. (Right?) "You... y-you're me." Tim mentally slapped himself for the ridiculously cliche words that had just fallen from his mouth. What else do people say when they meet their counterpart from another dimension? The boy snorted softly and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I should be so lucky." At that point, as he had with this strange version of Bruce, Tim felt he could relax. His double at least had a sense of humor, and that he could work with. Silence reigned over the two, but Tim was bursting with questions. He just couldn't decide what to ask first. The doppelganger then took the initiative to ask him something. "You want a soda? 'Cause... I can get you one..." Still racked with questions, it took only that much to get Tim to fall suddenly into helpless giggles at the absurdity of the whole thing. /I passed out in the bunker-safe-thing of my double from another dimension and when I woke up he offered me a soda.../ Once he was able to breathe again, Tim felt he was able to look at him truly now, eye contact, no fear. "Um, no. Thanks. I don't need a soda right now. But I do need to know what the heck's going on." Immediately, the figure opposite him tensed and fidgeted, suddenly defensive, withdrawn. Then he shook his head as if clearing it. Tim suddenly became concerned as to the relationship between Bruce and Tim in this world. Were they enemies? But he was Robin. Or used to be. Had he made some horrible mistake? Was this his punishment? "I-I guess it doesn't matter now. You might as well know. I'm guessing he didn't tell you anything about... this." "Good guess." "He told me you're from Earth Prime. That there was a freak accident. Is that true? Or did he pull you from somewhere?" Tim blinked. "No, that's all true. I'm here by accident." As far as I know, Tim thought. The double looked somewhat surprised that he hadn't been lied to, and Tim could understand. Bruce wasn't always honest, here or at home. It wasn't all that surprising. "Huh. Well... from what little he told me, you're here for the same reason as I am." Now that was just too cryptic. "Wait." he blurted. "You're retired from being Robin. Is this your retirement? Aside from other concerns, these are some sweet digs! Is this supposed to be like your sanctuary?" The look on the doppelganger's face was too grim for that to be true, and Tim felt a sudden chill of what was unknown and unspoken about this room. "No." the boy said slowly. "No. This isn't Robin's sanctuary. It's a gilded cage." --- Upon close inspection, Tim found that his double had not only every NES game worth playing, but every SNES game, too. "This must be what takes up most of your time." The kid shrugged. "A little of this, a little of that, and I get by. He doesn't want me to get... bored." The words were said bitterly, and slowly Tim began to understand their implications. If there was more to know, he decided it would be better to simply know it. "You didn't retire." he said slowly. "He fired you. And Dick, and Barb too." "Yeah. And Green Arrow fired Red Arrow, and Superman fired Supergirl, too." Tim started. "What?? You're telling me everyone fired their sidekicks - er, partners?" "All the ones under 25, anyway." "But... why?" The boy frowned deeply, averting his eyes. He mumbled a tense response. "Because of the Flash." "Um... what does Wally have to do with any of this?" "That's right..." Those haunted eyes widened for a second. "You don't even know..." "Then back up. Tell me how it got to this point." The double's eyes seemed to look right through him, far away to some past time. "It was... two years ago. I guess our world used to be a whole lot like your world. Steven Drake was my dad, Bruce took me in after dad skipped town, and I was 13 then. I remember fighting the Scarecrow, Klarion, Clayface, the Creeper, the Joker, Poison Ivy and... well, the rest. Those were the halcyon days... but, nothing good can last. Things really started to sour when Luthor was elected president..." "Wait, /Lex/ Luthor? /The/ Lex Luthor?" "One and the same, unfortunately. The Justice Lords worked behind the scenes, trying to keep him from taking things too far. Superman believed he could be reasoned with, but in the end, it was a losing battle, and Luthor was mad with power. When the Flash foiled one of his plans, Luthor decided to personally shut him down. For good." The Justice Lords. Bruce had told Tim about them, that they were an alternate version of the Justice League, but he had withheld all these details. That was the dimension he had landed in, the same one that the League had visited. "And after that..." "After that, Superman... repaid Lex in kind." The doppelganger's voice wavered. Superman was his friend, one of the world's greatest heroes. Tim couldn't imagine the Clark he knew killing anyone, even if it was Luthor. "That's how the Justice Lords were able to take everything to the next level. Instead of killing most of the supervillains, though, Superman... lobotimized them." "Please." Tim said quietly. "Just... I'd rather not hear any more about Superman." The double seemed relieved. "Tell me about Bruce." "Batman was the only one of the team who believed that they weren't necessarily doing what was right. But he changed, too. After what happened to Wally West, he recanted all previous beliefs in having younger partners."

Tim knew what was coming, and to spare his alter self pain, decided to finish the tale of woe for him. "So he fired you, Nightwing, and Batgirl." Beyond one nod of the head and misty eyes, the alter Tim could not answer. "To... to keep anything from happening to us. And that's the purpose of this room, too. If you think this entire room is one big vault, you're right. No one can get in..." a look of defeat, misery, "...and no one can get out. I think he intended on having three total of them down here, a personal "utopia" for Dick, and one for Barbara. But... they won't go anywhere near him now, so I guess they're free from him for now. He could bring them down here if he really wanted to, though. Trust me, he's serious about this. This entire room is custom made. It's not supposed to be a cell, though it functions as one. Bruce does everything he's supposed to do to make sure I don't get bored or go insane down here." "D-does it work?" Tim found himself afraid to hear the answer. The double swallows, eyes downcast. "I hope so." They desperately needed a subject change, so Tim asked "Doesn't he worry about your health?" "Yeah. A little too much. I'm supposed to be safe from bacteria down here, but my immune system isn't what it used to be since I haven't had exposure to crowds or germs in general. Bruce didn't know he was carrying a pneumonia germ... but, it was enough. I got sick. I was sure I was going to die... that was the only time he let me upstairs, so he and Alfred and Leslie could care for me. When I recovered, she recommended I get some fresh air. That was the last time I've been outside. But..." "What'd he do, tie you to a post or something?" Tim still had hope that this was some cruel joke. "Worse than that. He carried me..." A strange expression, somewhere between fondness and vulnerability. "Wouldn't even let my feet touch the ground. Bruce is different now. He knows what he can lose. He'll never let it happen to me, not as long as there's still a breath in his body." "...You've gotta leave." Tim said with finality. The doppelganger smiled bitterly and shook his head. "I don't even think about it any more." "But your Bruce has taken things way past protecting you. This is practically abusive!" "I have everything I need here, and I'm absolutely safe. Look, I didn't think Heaven would be this far underground, but... for Bruce, I'd live and die here, if that's what he wants from me. He gave me the best years of my life, and I owe him peace of mind in return. It’s a loyalty issue. For me, it's a small price to pay - " "Oh, is that what he calls it? Dude, it's the ultimate price to pay. Sounds like he's been gaslighting you pretty bad. Maybe he's not all as sane as you think!" "You do know about the cameras, right?" "Who cares." --- [Scene not written yet - but prime!tim convinces lordsverse!tim to escape, probably by getting Bruce to open the door and then getting past him by distracting him somehow. They escape and have some adventure finding another dimensional transporter - possibly Superman's? lordsverse!tim gets injured by guards or something and decides not to go to prime!verse with Tim. They have a tearful goodbye of sorts. Bruce turns up to recover the injured doppelganger.] --- Almost. Just a few more seconds, and it would have been... another tragedy. Like Mom and Dad. Like Flash... He ties another stitch off and steadies his shaking hands over Tim's side. No more blood, and no more bleeding. The Flash. So damn young when he... Children, they were all children... no place in this mad game. He'd promised himself, never again. He'd promised. Ties the last stitch off, and bandages the wound. Tim's unconscious from the drug again, and he should stay that way... for now. Why couldn't he put them all in stasis? Find some way to seal them in glass cases. Guarantee their safety and happiness... Bruce gently rests his hand over Tim's hand. "Nothing's going to hurt you." he whispers. ---

[Insert ending here... probably involving prime!tim assuring batman that he'll always play it safe]

18 Things From Kids' Shows That Got Past Censors

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18 Things From Kids' Shows That Got Past Censors

by Keshav Srinivasan

– on May 25, 2018

in Lists

Remember those days when you were a kid and you’d sit down in front of the TV and watch whatever cartoon was on? It could’ve been anything, from SpongeBob SquarePants to The Animaniacs – basically, anything that seemed innocent enough that you could watch it without getting in trouble. That’s why it’s always weird to take a look back at some of your favorite shows that you watched when you were a kid and realize just how strange they really were at the time. From subtle (and not-so-subtle) innuendo to political humor, these writers snuck in some content that we – and the censors – completely missed.

The main offender here seems to be cartoons, as opposed to the live-action shows, which is pretty interesting. Maybe the writers figured that they can sneak in a few jokes here or there in a cartoon because parents would be less likely to notice. Of course, the live-action shows on Nickelodeon were just as sneaky in their own way, looking back now. The unexpected things in kids’ shows that somehow got past the censors seem completely different from an adult perspective.

Here are 18 Things From Kids’ Shows That Got Past Censors.

18 The Fairly Odd Parents – Existential Crisis

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This is a pretty heavy one to lay on a kid. We all know The Fairly OddParents to be a show about a frustrated kid named Timmy Turner who finds out that his godparents, Wanda and Cosmo, are fairies who can grant him any wish he desires. Usually, the show takes the side of Timmy, showing his real parents to be immature, irresponsible, and pretty childlike. Not only that, but virtually every other authority figure of his life seems to be some kind of terrifying monster, not the least being his slimy teacher Mr. Crocker.

In “Future Lost” Mr. Turner and Timmy are cleaning out the attic when Mr. Turner throws some heavy shade.

The Fairly Odd Parents is supposed to be a relatable that sympathizes with frustrated kids around the globe by rejecting the authority that controls their lives. That’s true most of the time, but then but it also drops a total bombshell that must have blown the minds of a bunch of kids.

Now, these kids aren’t just victims, they’ve just realized that they could be just as bad as their parents. Can you imagine every kid watching this show contemplating just how they might have ruined their parents’ lives?

17 The Powerpuff Girls – Accidents

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The Powerpuff Girls sidesteps the classic children’s question of “where do babies come from?” pretty well. Sure, you can have that awkward conversation about reproduction, or you can just tell your that they were in a lab with “sugar, spice, and everything nice,” – plus an accidental dose of Chemical X! As Blossom, Buttercup, and Bubbles are superpowered heroes, it seems obvious that kids would want to be exactly like the Powerpuff Girls, so chances are good they’ll buy the bluff.

That honestly might be the reason why the writers were able to sneak this little joke in the show. Like, sure being an “accident” has a real-world connotation, but there’s no way a kid would be able to realize that, right? Kids are far more likely to think the Powerpuff Girls’ new friend Robin was also made in a lab. Then again, this joke could have a disastrous effect and make someone question whether their parents really wanted to have them around in the first place.

The Powerpuff Girls is still such a success today because of its mix of sweet and subversive humor, as well as its message of female empowerment. But if there’s anything we could ask for in a children’s cartoon, it’s a good dose of existential crisis.

16 Animaniacs – The Bird

Animaniacs was constantly pushing the barrier of what’s allowed on a kids’ show. Well, in this case, the show had several layers to its sneaky joke that made it past the censors.

What’s great about a lot of these jokes in Animaniacs is that they’re still clever, even if they’re sneaky or pushing the boundaries. There are a lot of jokes on this lists that are funny just for the shock value of seeing a joke like that make it into on a kids’ cartoon. But the jokes on this show are so dang clever that even the most protective parent might have to relent to their charms – take this “bird joke” for example.

The writers are acknowledging the limitations of humor on a family show, while also sneaking in a nod to a non family-friendly gag.

Not only is there a great bit of wordplay here, but the joke is actually really interesting in how it breaks the fourth wall.

This idea must have blown plenty of kids’s minds at the time, just because there are so few shows and movies for kids that do this. Seeing jokes like these show that the writers were more interested in making a legitimately funny and creative show for everyone, not just something that barely passes for entertainment for kids who honestly couldn’t care less.

15 iCarly – Freddy’s apartment number 

Moving away from cartoons, let’s take a look at some of the live-action kids’ shows.They’re basically sitcoms designed for children, sort of like Friends, but just tame enough that parents would be okay with their kids being exposed to it. It’s got all of the hallmarks of sitcoms: privileged characters, studio sets, super fake-sounding laugh tracks, and a funny joke ration of about 1:100.

Now, because it isn’t a cartoon, there is a little bit less leeway when it comes to sneaking things past censors. There’s something about animation that makes content seem way more kid-friendly than it really is. That’s why, in shows like iCarly, certain references need to be subtler than most.

Let’s play a game of spot the joke. Is it something to do with Freddy? No, that looks pretty normal. Maybe something to do with what he’s carrying? Hm, a camera and a laptop? We don’t think so. Discerning viewers may have noticed, on the other hand, the sign right next to his face.

As far as innuendo goes, this is about the cheapest and laziest way to go about it. Seriously, this background gag is basically what 12-year-olds text each other when they’re trying to be funny.

14 The Flash – Can’t get a date

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Superheroes are supposed to represent the kind of person we should aspire to be. They are strong, wholesome, paragons of good. Coincidentally, they’re also in a lot of cartoons. You would expect that superhero shows would censor themselves just a little bit, but that, more often than not, was not the case.

In fact, superhero shows had some of the edgiest material in cartoons, featuring all sorts of fun things like rampant violence and terminations. Obviously, little things like that wouldn’t freak out the censors as much as innuendo, but the writers still managed to sneak in this joke.

This scene has been used as a meme to the moon and back and with good reason. Hawkgirl’s burn is just savage.

The Flash already gets enough flack as it is. Honestly, he’s basically obsolete as Superman can do all of the stuff that he does while flying. The poor guy can’t catch a break. But man, if he already gets the short end of the stick when it comes to superpowers, at least let have a little bit of dignity in the Justice League cartoon.

Look at his face in the second panel. Sure he’s smiling, but it’s a smile that covers up years of humiliation.

13 SpongeBob – Sports Channel

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SpongeBob is known for being a pretty wholesome guy. He’s blindly devoted to everyone, always keeps a positive attitude, and dresses like he’s just about to head to a business meeting. There is no way this character would ever to anything as crass as… watching The Discovery Channel? Yep, that is in fact a real life sponge, and yes, SpongeBob seems weirdly fixated on this very sponge.

One of the weirdest parts of this scene is just the look on this character’s face. It would be one thing if he was just leaning back in his chair, but his leaning forward, plus the giant googly eyes, makes this whole moment just weird. It’s probably because this is basically the opposite behavior that we expect from a character that supposedly is very clean cut. This is one of the less subtle jokes on this list, just for how obvious some of the references are (“just looking for the sports channel” is basically one step away from saying “I just read it for the articles”).

Why a real-life sponge? Not only does this scene have sneaky joke in, it also seems to transcend the two-dimensional world in which the show is set.

12 Edd, Ed, and Eddy – Chicks Galore

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Edd, Ed, and Eddy was always one of the weirder children’s shows. Sure, it didn’t involve talking animals or magic, but something about it always felt off. These characters just lived in this weird, grimy world that kind of felt like ours, but was not quite there. Because the show followed three boys in the (relatively) real world, it always felt like it kind of skirted the line between appropriate and edgy.

This joke above is a pretty great example of the writers having their cake and eating it too. At first, it just seems like a cheap way to get in a suggestive reference into something that isn’t meant for adults, just for the heck of it. The boys’ glee in reading “Chicks Galore” makes us one thing – then we see it’s a magazine actually filled with adorable pictures of baby chicks.

The actual revelation of what’s in the magazine makes this reference into a proper joke while also retroactively making it far more appropriate for kids.

Sure, mixing up the two definitions of “chick” might sound a little hacky, but the fact that the writers were able to pull us through that double reversal is really impressive in its own right.

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11 Rocko’s Modern Life – Phone Rules

Rocko’s Modern Life is another one of those shows, like Animaniacs, that was a little bit on the older side. Like Animaniacs, this show was especially famous for sneaking in adult humor. Although, honestly, “sneaking” doesn’t really sound like the right term. What would be more accurate is “cramming as many jokes itno an episode as possible and hope that the censor boards missed it all.”

This joke above might just be the bravest one just because it’s featured in every single episode.

Rocko’s job is never really given a clear explanation-all we’re told is that he works in phone reception. For all we know, he could be in retail, or sales, or customer service, but discerning viewers may notice the sign right next to him. We don’t know about you, but we don’t know too many customer service jobs that require the employees to follow those three rules.

Knowing that Rocko’s primary source of income revolves around him performing speciality calls kind of colors every single episode in a really weird light. This is one of those jokes that probably didn’t register that much with kids just because of how subtle it is, but it is a strange thing to notice now, having grown up.

10 The Rugrats – Mr. Boppo

The Rugrats always felt like one of those shows that targeted audience that were jus a little younger than usual. While most shows that we grew up watching starred talking animals, adolescents, or teenagers, Rugrats starred actual babies. That’s why is might be easy to shrug off a lot of the jokes that were in this show but, looking back on it, a lot of the lines had a really dark sense of humor. A lot of that revolved around the parents’ resigned and defeatist look at marriage and family, but some of the more crazy humor came straight from the babies.

It doesn’t exactly take a linguist to figure out what the joke is here, but let’s break down what Lil actually talking about. In Rugrats, Mr. Boppo is one of those punchable dummies, painted to look like a clown. It’s Tommy’s toy, but he gives it to Chuckie, who develops a morbid fear of it. Here, Lil weight in what she deems to be proper behavior for a youngster: “A kid his age should be playing with his friends, not alone in his room boppin’ his Boppo.“

Though Lil was completely unaware of the joke she was making, the writers surely weren’t.

9 Victorious – Jade’s grades

What separates Disney channel shows from Nickelodeon shows is that Nickelodeon always seems more comfortable with pushing the boundaries a little bit. This is actually kind of a clever joke, using some of the wordplay that was present in a lot of these other cartoons. There is something kind of different about having these jokes on a live-action show as opposed to a cartoon, though. Maybe it’s because the cartoons are so over the top that sneaking in an innuendo here or there doesn’t totally feel out of place.

Victorious was the seventh show created by Dan Schneider for Nickelodeon. The show followed Tori Vega’s studies at a Hollywood Arts High School – a performing arts school where she pursued her dream of being a singer. It makes sense that Tori and her classmates would discuss grades, right? It’s perfectly normal for Leon to question someone’s grade improving rapidly. However, Jade had another kind of lettered-tier on her mind when she recalls going for a size A to a size D.

Jade’s known for being a dark and edgy character on Victorious, but as this list shows, Schneider loved to infuse his live-action Nickelodeon shows with lots of sneaky humor. At least, he did until Nickelodeon parted ways with the influential producer in March of 2018.

8 Rugrats – Grandpa’s movie

A lot of the sneaky humor in Rugrats comes from the adult characters. It’s a pretty neat way of getting parents to tolerate another cartoon that they got to watch with their kids. A lot of these jokes reflect much of the difficulties and perils of adulthood. All that being said, the writers aren’t above a little bit of immaturity every now and then.

Take Grandpa Stu for example. We all know the cliche of the grandfather passing down his old relics to his grandkids. It’s the kind of classic milestone that many people go through. However, most of these relics tend to be old books, or old pictures, or old movies that they used to love to watch. Grandpa Stu sure has his fair share of old movies, but some of these movies seem to be a little… not very family-friendly.

It would be one thing if he handed them a run of the mill movie that was too old for them, like Alien or Species. But Lonely Space Vixens? That’s such an absurdly specific title that really says a lot about this guy. Maybe it’s best of some aspects of our grandparents were kept a secret.

7 Fairly OddParents – Cosmo Gets Political

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Sneaking innuendos into children’s cartoons feels a little old hat. Maybe, as a writer, you want to expand your range a little bit. How do you do that? Why, by inserting a sly political joke that kids would probably never get in the first place in the middle of an episode, of course. This is another great case of a writer knowing about the maddening tedium that parents must feel when watching cartoon after cartoon.

Surely many adults could use a cathartic joke about the crazy bureaucracy surrounding the IRS.

It is weird that Cosmo, of all people, seems to make this joke. The character is supposed to be something of a buffoon – the kind of guy who would say something so stupid that you’d have no choice but to bury you face in your hand. It seems like we never really gave him a chance to show off his smarter side, because he seems to be way more cognizant of the real world than any of the other characters.

Sure, Timmy and Wanda are off having all sorts of magical adventure, but it’s really Cosmo who’s got one foot in reality, always aware of the limitations of the real world.

6 Hey Arnold – Grandpa Phil was a hippie

Ah, the sixties. As the old saying goes: if you remember the sixties, you weren’t really there. It seems like grandparents are stuck watching cartoons with their grandchildren, which is why the writers of Hey, Arnold decided to throw in a little joke for them. This is a joke dedicated to all of the grandparents who remember spending their young adulthood in a thick cloud of smoke. It’s funny how the kindly, seemingly harmless Grandpa Phil ends up having lived a life of partying and free love.

Out of all of the cartoons we may have watched as a kid, Hey, Arnold always felt like it was closest to reality. There really weren’t any magical elements or talking sea life or even over the top hijinks. For the most part, the show was about kids living their lives in the city, and they even addressed more serious topics from time to time.

Sure, there were some over the top moments here or there, but compared to something like Edd, Ed, and Eddy, Hey, Arnold might as well have been a kitchen sink drama. Something like referencing the fact that Grandpa Phil partied it up might sound weird, but it’s weird in the way that real life is weird.

5 Rocko’s Modern Life  – $

Rocko’s Modern Life has a pretty subtle background joke throughout the show. Sure, it’s pretty edgy as far as children’s shows go, but at least it’s subtle. Well, apparently subtle wasn’t good enough for these writers, so they just decided to throw caution to the wind and name this episode Who Gives a Buck. Get it? Because buck rhymes with –  well you can put the rest together. All we can imagine is the collective jaws of parents around America hitting the floor.

This looks like one of the cases where the joke wouldn’t even fly over the heads of many kids – but apparently it fooled the censors.

Again, it’s important to remember that Rocko’s Modern Life was famous for pushing the boundaries of what was allowed in children’s programming. What’s especially evident was the way these writers were willing to go all out, just to see how far they can go. Did they enjoy the fact that this show would likely drive their parents insane? Or maybe they just got their kicks out of trolling the studio executives and censors. Whatever it was, you can’t deny that these writers were brave (or stupid) enough to not give a – well, you know the rest.

4 Looney Tunes – Playduck

When it comes to cartoon TV shows, Looney Tunes is about as classic as it gets. The show has inspired countless others like it, being watching by nearly every kid in America. It’s characters, like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck are so well known that they’re basically household names. With this much popularity, you would figure that the writers felt that they had the responsibility to keep things family friendly.

More often than not, Looney Tunes were constantly skirting the barrier for what kids can watch. For example, does anyone remember the World War II episodes? They weren’t messing around.

Daffy Duck seems to be the main target here. He’s the one who usually pushes the envelope for decency, which makes sense since he is almost always the villain. Here specifically, he can be seen reading a copy of, well, a certain magazine. Is he just looking for the published short stories of various avian authors? Or is he interested in the interviews with a myriad of bird actors? Maybe Daffy and Edd from Edd Ed and Eddy should be up sometime. Daffy’s magazine collection has got to run dry eventually. Maybe Chicks Galore would be right up his alley.

3 iCarly – Gibby’s book

Here’s another one from iCarly, this time a little bit more clever than before. Viewers of the show know that Gibby tends to be the weird one. He’s always a bit of a wild card, hilariously immature, and always is on the verge of taking off his shirt. Long story short, the writers must have had a ball playing around for this character. Basically, they had the freedom to make him do all sorts of crazy stuff. Whenever the show got too dry, all they had to do was bring Gibby, running in, with his shirt off.

Because of how immature this guy is, it’s especially hilarious to see him read a book titled Nifty Shades of Beige.

If you don’t quite get what that’s a reference to, here’s a hint: replace nifty with fifty and beige with grey. We think what sells this gag the most is Gibby’s reaction. It’s hard to tell what exactly is going on in his head. Is he shocked? Horrified? Fascinated? Disgusted? The world may never know.

What’s especially funny about this book was the fact that they replaced grey with beige of all things. Honestly, can you really think of a more vanilla color than beige? Take all the time you need, just know that you’ll turn up with nothing. Maybe the book Gibby’s reading isn’t really that inappropriate at all. Christian Beige isn’t exactly the kind of name that would make readers get hot and bothered.

2 SpongeBob SquarePants – Doubloons

Following the adventures of a plucky sea sponge and his quirky group of friends, SpongeBob SquarePants seems like it’s about as innocent as a show can get. It’s got a happy-go-lucky protagonist, a goofy sense of humor, and a bright, colorful art style. But, weirdly enough, the show has a surprising amount of popularity amongst the adults that grew up watching it. That might be because the show is actually pretty funny. Seriously, a lot of the humor is actually surprisingly clever. Te main reason might just be because of the amount of adult jokes the writers were able to smuggle in. Honestly, it’s a surprise that Nickelodeon didn’t hit the cancel button after day one.

So, yeah, kid’s shows can have some pretty risque stuff, but, in the grand scheme of things, they’re usually pretty mild, right? Oh, sorry? What’s that? SpongeBob just made a “don’t drop the soap joke”? To be honest, these kinds of jokes were usually the types of jokes that kids said without really knowing the meaning behind them, so maybe this is a lot more harmless than it seems. That being said, any parent who happened to have been watching the show at this type would have been likely to have a conniption fit.

1 Animaniacs – Fingerprints

This is a pretty classic censor slip. For any Gen-X’ers out there, Animaniacs was one of the most popular animated kids’ shows on TV. Not only was it popular, it was critically acclaimed, being produced by none other than Steven Spielberg. One other thing the show was known for? Hiding a lot of adult humor int its episodes. And when we say a lot, we mean to the point where you think: how the holy heck did any network TV program sneak this past censors.

The Animaniacs are playing detective and Dot gets assigned to “dust for prints.” She pops up with a cartoon version of the iconic singer Prince and says “I found Prince!” When Yakko responds, “No, fingerprints!“, Dot looks at a grinning Prince and shakes her head, saying “I don’t think so.“

This joke above is a really famous example just for how brazen and clever it is.

It’s got a bunch of things going for it that makes it a fondly remembered moment for the now-adult fans of the show. For one, there’s the pop culture reference to Prince, which many adults to this day still listen to. Secondly, there’s the great wordplay. This really incapsulate the spirits of Animaniacs perfectly.

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What other kids’ shows had jokes thats slipped past censors? Let us know in the comments!

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