Monday, December 30, 2013

"The End" Week: Two for the kids.


DC catches a lot of flak for some of their publishing decisions, but two things they usually give a try or two are adaptations of their animated series and kid-friendly books. So, here's the last issues of two of those: Young Justice #25, "Rolling Doubles" Written by Greg Weisman, art by Christopher Jones; and Superman Family Adventures #12, story by Franco and story and art by Art Baltazar.

The final episode of Young Justice aired March 16, 2013; after being pulled on and off of Cartoon Network's schedule. The toy line, which wasn't awful, but was a bit spendier than the standard figures at the time since they came with larger bases. With those two on the way out, the comic adaptation was on borrowed time.

This was the last of six parts, and alternated between the present of "Team Year Five" and the past of "Team Year Zero." "Year Zero" was actually between the televised "Young Justice" and the second part of the series, "Young Justice: Invasion," filling in some backstory like the death of Beast Boy's mom at the hands of Queen Bee or Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon playing spin the bottle. The present storyline concludes two separate alien invasions, Kylstar and Brainiac, who are both turned away but not exactly defeated.

While a few jokes carried over from Tiny Titans, I don't think Superman Family Adventures was quite as popular as its predecessor. But, this issue features the Justice League, Jor-El and Lara, the Kents, Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, the Super-Pets, and more versus Darkseid. Oh, and Superman too.

Just like the recent Itty Bitty Hellboy, I'm probably not the target audience here; but there's still a few fun bits. Although like Hellboy, I don't think Superman (and his mythos) is as ripe for comedy as the Teen Titans, either. And they might be returning maybe? Still, Baltazar and Franco have other stuff going too.

2 comments:

  1. I loved Tiny Titans SOOOOO much.

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  2. Idk why, but just the image of those cute super-pets, especially the Bat-pet and the GL Ch'ip, just tickles me:)

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