Powers

Hiya folks, I'm back. So with the trend of superhero shows massing from ABC to CW to Netflix you wonder if any are allowed to show any form of adult theme or interaction. Oh Agents of SHIELD have eluded to but the restrictions of the channel's by-laws forbid any nudity of any such. What about powered beings that think, act and talk like humans? Daredevil and Jessica Jones have given a more realistic stance in that and I imagine The Defenders and Luke Cage will do the same. Keeping that in mind, we never see them at their vulnerable state. Do they go clubbing? Are they at the library checking out books and DVDs? We do not see the level of true arrogance and drunk on their own victories. They are flawed humans with abilities that exceed our own and none of that happening? What if I told you of a show sponsored by Playstation creating an entire world loaded with super beings of all different ages, backgrounds and cultures? With the amazing distribution of Playstation Network, Circle of Confusion and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment comes a show that gives many a point of view on superhumans and normals. This is Powers.

Meh, I gave up smoking.

Created by comic book writer/producer Brian Michael Bendis (Ultimate Spider-Man, New Avengers, Jessica Jones and Powers) and novelist/writer Charlie Huston (All Signs of Death, Powers and Caught Stealing) comes a take on L.A.primarily dealing with heroes, villains and the collateral damage of in-between. Our story focuses around Detective Christian Walker (Sharlto Copley of District 9, The A-Team, Europa Report, Elysium, Payday 2 and Oldboy) a former power known as Diamond, Walker has been stripped of his powers and is now developing a true detective's mind and instincts. The City council nor the federal government are putting real money into the Powers Division, a gathering of cops trained to deal with superhumans and superhumans homicides. Kinda like Special Crimes Unit in Metropolis. Understaffed, underfunded and undermanned, this team relies heavily on what they have learned about power sets from Walker.

Breaking in a new partner from Sheriff's department, Detective Deena Pilgrim (Susan Heyward of 30 Rock, 666 Park Avenue, Mother of George, The Following, Poltergeist, Powers and Vinyl) grew up with cartoons and following of Diamond and his super hero team-ups, so she feels a bit let down of this bitter and cynical cop busting his tail trying to make the same difference he did in costume. Walker's biggest accomplishment was busting his former mentor Wolfe (Eddie Izzard of Eddie Izzard: Dress to Kill, The Avengers, Mystery Men, Shadow of the Vampire, Five Children and It, My Super Ex-Girlfriend, Ocean's Thirteen, The Riches and Valkyrie) a man that can absorb powers, heals like Wolverine and oh yeah shucks and devours people like so many oysters. Yup, you have not lived until you have seen Eddie Izzard buck bare, with ratty long hair, a beard and a ravenous appetite.

Hey, this is all real ya pervs.

Several of the supers avoid Walker like the plague as if he is a walking, talking moral lesson that anyone can be taken down. A mishap with a wannabe powers Callista (Olesya Rulin of Urband Legends: Bloody Mary, High School Musical, Vampire Chicks with Chainsaws, The Dance, High School Musical 2, Forever Strong, High School Musical 3: Senior Year and Greek) puts Walker in the path of his ex-partner/love interest/friend Retro Girl (Michelle Forbes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Swimming with Sharks, Battlestar Galatica, True Blood, In Treatment, The Killing and Berlin Station) a seasoned crime fighter/poster girl/endorser does her level best to aid and help but realizes as much power as she has, she cannot save everyone and it eats at her. Ghosts from Walker's past arrive in the form of his old teleporting friend Johnny Royalle (Noah Taylor of Dogs in Space, Lover Boy, A Country Practice, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Vanilla Sky, Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life and Peaky Blinders) which everyone swears by died by Wolfe's hands and teeth is back juicing the kids of powers, any potential powers and existing heroes and villains feeling like their powers are waning.

With homicides, mishaps, team-ups and general city wide destruction occurring constantly, Walker gets why normal humans are terrified, envious or amazed by what they see and hear. Will the Big, Bad Wolfe come out to huff and puff? Will there be a mass of lunacy needed to be stopped? Will Walker ever get his powers back?

This is very adult, folks. If you wanted to watch this with the kiddies, there is graphic violence, swearing like sailors and some sexual content in dialogue and a few visuals. It's raw and unfiltered how characters feel about this and that and the stories encompass all characters about it. I mean how would you respond to seeing three blocks engulfed in green fire? Maybe a 200 foot high being threatening to eat your planet? It gives us a more human view to a superhuman world.

Black Lightning got hot?

Random Picks Week: Superman: The Animated Series

Day 3 of Random Picks Week and clearly we haven't had any cartoons in a bit.  Don't worry, nothing zany and loony if you will.   Since 1992's popularity of Batman: The Animated Series, we seen copious villains, explosions, mysteries and wild adventures.   Rather than a Dark Knight how about a Beacon of Hope standing for truth and justice?  This is Superman: The Animated Series.

So... you own this starship or rent?

Darkseid: You dare to spoil me?
Superman: That's for Dan Turpin!
Darksied: Who?
 Superman: The good man you murdered!
Darkseid: If I had known the death of one human would hurt you so, Kal-El, I would have killed more!


As with the Batman series, Superman (Tim Daly of Almost Grown, Year of the Comet, Wings, The Batman Superman Movie: World's Finest, Invasion America and Eyes) has a bizarre collection of intellectuals, brutes and monsters for villains.  Constantly matching wits with genius philanthropist Lex Luthor (Clancy Brown of Thunder Alley, Highlander, Shoot to Kill, Earth 2, Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm, Fallout: A Post-Nuclear Role-Playing Game, Justice League and Carnivale) who happens to get what or whom he wants by any means necessary.   In his secret identity as Clark Kent, Superman finds himself fascinated by Lois Lane (Kim Delany of Threesome, Almost You, Sweet Surrender, China Beach, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, Justice League, Desperate Housewives and Body of Proof) a sassy, pushy and captivating lady reporter with the ability to be accident prone or drawn down the greatest amount of danger one person could experience in 8 lifetimes.  

I'm looking for Sarah Connor.

With a substantial supporting cast, voice casting director Andrea Romano (Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated Series, Batman Beyond, Superman/Doomsday, Justice League, Teen Titans, Ben10: Alien Force, Green Lantern: First Flight and Son of Batman)  does her level best to match the ideal voice with the character.  Such as: Brad Garrett for Lobo and Bibbo Lebowski, Malcolm McDowell as Metallo, Lisa Edelstein as Mercy Graves and Michael Ironside as Darkseid.


Just a few comments and critiques now.  Rather than the gritty and dark look of Gotham, Metropolis is always sunny and bristling with new technology.  Some of it for the better and a lot of it to beat on Superman and claim of power.  With the constant city-wide destruction that keeps occurring it is a wonder anyone lives in Metropolis at all.  The transition of more than a few Gotham villains hoping to get a break from Batman they head to a city with a being that is almost a Demi-God??   Does that make any sense at all?     To look at it in Marvel Comics terms, Hey I am tired of Spider-Man beating on me all the time, I will see if I can find the Hulk and have it a bit easier.

Regardless the reasons of said villains, Batman makes more than the occasional cameo and the two form a friendship despite their differences in methods and techniques.  And Batman's costumes is still cooler by far.  We also have the introduction of Green Lantern, The Flash and Aquaman for a younger audience that did not see the Super Friends or Super Powers.   Trust me kids, you are better off missing those episodes.

The alien with the heart of gold and Midwestern upbringing tries to solve issues without always resorting to punching and destruction but let's face it, with planes falling out of the sky, missiles zig-zagging around town and more than a few meta-humans trashing the joint, Supes is a busy guy.

Here's Lobo with the wind-up...

Night Man: Man of...well night mostly.

Hey kiddies, thought I would drop by with another TV series review. Yeah, I was feeling up for it.   So grab a seat, a refreshing soda and kick back.  This is Night Man.

Spoilers have secret identities too…

Ill-fated comic book company Malibu Comics creates a realm known as the Ultraverse; a land with heroes and heroines of science and magic alike.  Mutants and super powered beings roam this world until Marvel Comics bought them out in 1994.  The idea was to capitalize on this new bastion of characters and incorporate them into the existing Marvel Comics universe.   But hey who gives a crap about that?! 

Today we are talking about Glen Larson’s (creator of Magnum P.I., Knight Rider, Quincy, M.E., The Fall Guy and Manimal) adaptation of Night Man made for two seasons.  Loosely based on the comic book character, Johnny Domino, an accomplished saxophone player and former martial arts instructor is struck by a lightning bolt in a freak accident involving a cable-car and attempted political assassination.  Johnny (Matt McColm of Night of the Warrior, The Adventures of Brisco County Jr., The Protector, Space Cowboys, Baywatch and The Matrix Reloaded) discovers after this bizarre trauma that he is telepathically able to recognize evil.  After being released from the hospital and an attempt on his life he encounters Rollie Jordan (Derek Webster of Stargate, Independence Day, Godzilla, Mental and Damages)a brilliant engineer who is of four men that created high tech body armor and weapons for the Department of Defense only to have their project gutted due to budget cuts.  Wanting to hold onto their jobs and reputations, they decide to move the armor into law enforcement only to find out the prototypes are being auctioned off to foreign powers and possibly terrorist cells.   With the aid of his father Frank (Earl Holliman of Forbidden Planet, Police Woman, Hotel de Paree and The Wide Country) former Bay City officer the trio tries to intercept the bad guys and rein in the cops for assistance.  

  Johnny feels the cops won’t arrive into time and uses the prototype armor which consists of: a poly-weave Kevlar and Nomex hybrid, an anti-gravity flying belt, a holographic woven cloak that allows him to be rendered invisible, an optical lens that sees every spectrum of light and doubles as an offensive laser beam.

Okay the storyline is a bit hokey, the cops are a trifle inept and frankly the fact that Johnny manages to keep his identity secret at all is something of a miracle.  The concept of a vigilante striking out on crime by his or her lonesome is not an original story but that jazzy saxophone intro you will NOT get out of your head.  This show is a bit of a guilty pleasure and yes for the haters I shall hang my head down for this.   Similar to the Flash’s production, this show had potential to continue fairly well but alas the dreaded Nielsen ratings felt this show was not up to snuff and after only two seasons it went away like a puff of smoke.  This rating board also thinks such shows as Road Rules and Jersey Shore are worth your time so keep that in mind and hey at least check out the pilot if you are interested.

Spectacular Spider-man

Hey true believers… hehe sorry had to get that out of my system.   From the original release of 1964 Marvel Comics created Spider-man via Stan Lee and Steve Ditko.  In 1967 an animation of same titled character was created and while the artwork was a bit hammy as was some of the storylines it was true to the hero.  From the 1970’s to the 1990’s each incarnation took its own spin on the wall crawler but missed the mark by several inches until 2008’s creation that blew away even the most doubting of fan boys and girls.  So grab your tights and spare web cartridges and brush up on your banter.   This is The Spectacular Spider-man Season 1.

In tradition with the standings of most of the varied releases this version is no different in giving Spidey’s younger years thus we are off to Midtown High where Peter Parker is all of 16 years of age fending off crooks and baddies with puns and punches.   The animation hails from Adelaide Productions.  The team responsible for (Jackie Chan Adventures, Roughnecks: The Starship Trooper Chronicles and Men in Black: The Series) and Culver Entertainment for distribution.  A great take on an old thang.  The stories have consequences, real character development and an expanding storyline.  Villains of yesteryear galore and Spidey is on his own fighting nutballs in costumes, bullies at school and J. Jonah Jameson for libel on his every other movement.  It feels real nice to be wanted huh?  

The crux of this version in my belief is the voice cast that was assembled.   Peter Parker/Spider-man (Josh Keaton of Spider-man: Shattered Dimensions, Marvel Super Hero Squad, Transformers Prime and Green Lantern: The Animated Series), Gwen Stacey (Lacey Chabert of Party of Five, Mean Girls, Transformers: Rescue Bots and Young Justice) Captain Stacey and the Rhino (Clancy Brown of The Highlander, Starship Troopers, The Shawshank Redemption) and Harry Osborn (James Arnold Taylor of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Valkyria Chronicles II, Batman: The Brave and the Bold) to name a few but be honest you want to know about villains and man o man have we got villains.  Dipping into Spider-man’s substantial rogues’ gallery we have a bouquet of voices to match their cartoon likeness.

The Vulture: the high flying vengeful scientist Spidey encounters voiced by none other than Robert Englund (A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Mangler, Hatchet, Justice League) Hammerhead: low ranking lieutenant to an unannounced villain in the shadows.  With a steel (or sometimes adamantium) plate in his head and a rough right cross voiced by veteran voice actor John DiMaggio (Bender of Futurama, The Problem Solverz and Batman: The Brave and the Bold) as well as The Sandman: a being turned into living sand that can mold his body into any shape he desires.

  Again as previously mentioned the lingo and dialogue has been updated to suit the younger viewers but does not detract that this metamorphosis of Spider-man can and will mostly be viewed by mature fans of many ages.  Those of us that grew up with the comics will most likely agree that this version of Spider-man was well drawn, well written and properly executed the fullest of its capabilities.   Alas this series was only made for two seasons and had not been picked back up.  What does that mean in the long run of things?  Well maybe a revamp of it is on its way but most likely with the Ultimate Spider-Man creation that it will be shelved leaving potential story lines unfinished.  Who knows what future holds for this web-head franchise.  I, for one will enjoy these episodes with my nephews.