Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by Steve Bennett of Super-Fly Comics and Games in Yellow Springs, Ohio. This week, Bennett talks about trends in animated television, and looks at Justice League Action.
As I’ve written before (see “Confessions of a Comic Book Guy -- We Don’t Want Girls”), for a while now there’s been a concerted effort by the major providers of children’s animated entertainment (Disney, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network) to narrowly focus their programs to a very specific audience. And through vigorous market testing, they seem to have come up with a formula that has the best chance of delivering the demographics that advertisers covet; young boys. Which is why so many modern cartoons, as well as being 11 minutes instead of 22, are loud, dumbed down, and feature oversimplified art design and goofy, random humor. Just compare 2003’s Teen Titans to 2013’s Teen Titans Go!
I’ll happily concede there’s nothing wrong with cartoons for specific ages or genders, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is inarguably intended for little girls; the primary themes of the show are friendships and working together because Hasbro did market research and found that’s how they played with their toys. But Hasbro has also embraced older male fans of the show, the Bronies (older female fans are known as Pegasisters) and have marketed all sorts of high-end My Little Pony collectibles to them. The problem with those boys shows is they don’t want even slightly older viewers, let alone adults, and they sure don’t want any girls, because the shows exist to sell the toys. And boys buy the toys.
Which is why I’ve been more than a little afraid Cartoon Network’s next superhero show, Justice League Action, was going to be yet another goofy comedy (see “Confessions of a Comic Book Guy--Overreact Much?”). I felt a little more confidence when I read an interview with producer Alan Burnett who called the show “an action show with comedy” and “a show that parents can watch along with their kids” (something known as “co-viewing” in the television industry).It’s set to debut on Cartoon Network on December 16 at 6:00pm with an hour special that features the four-part story “Shazam Slam” and will run in its regular Saturday morning slot on December 24, Christmas Eve. But it premiered in the UK a couple of weeks ago and thanks to the magic of the Internet I’ve seen three episodes, “Nuclear Family Values,” “Follow That Space Cab!,” and “Power Outage.” And so far, I’ve liked what I’ve seen.
The show features a rotating cast of DC heroes (Blue Beetle, Mister Terrific, Firestorm, Martian Manhunter, Star Girl, Shazam) but will be anchored by DC’s Trinity, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. All three look, sound and act pretty much as you’d expect. Superman is dressed in his current costume, there’s been no attempt to ‘lighten’ Batman (who is once again voiced by Kevin Conroy), and while this Wonder Woman owes something visually to the impending movie version, she also seems to have a slightly amused whatever-the-female-equivalent-of-cocksure-is attitude. Then there’s what The Mary Sue website calls her “badass hair design.” Personally, I’m unsure whether this is an intentional hair style or an indicator Princess Diana doesn’t care what her hair looks like. Frankly, I kind of like the idea of the perfect woman not having perfect hair.The shows I saw look and sound great and hit just the right balance between the humor (they’re keeping a lid on the goofy) and action (there’s definitely plenty of that). Overall, they favorably compare to the Hanna-Barbera cartoons I grew up with (Space Ghost, The Herculoids), which is high praise indeed. About the only downside to the series I can see came from another quote from producer Alan Burnett who said he wanted the show to “appeal to boys in particular.” While boys love action, even old ones like me, I hope Mr. Burnett is aware a lot of girls like action just as much as boys do.
And while it looks like we won’t be seeing the return of more serious superhero cartoons on cable anytime soon, back in November it was announced that after a very long hiatus a third season of the Cartoon Network series Young Justice will stream on Netflix. If successful, hopefully, it will start a trend; I’d love it if someone from Netflix would talk to Samurai Jack creator Genndy Tartakovsky about producing a new season of the sadly short-lived Sym-Bionic Titan.And, finally, by now everyone has probably seen the promo for the upcoming Riverdale series coming to The CW (see “CW Releases Brooding ‘Riverdale’ Promo”). While I’m not particularly interested in seeing “Archie Meets Twin Peaks” on a weekly basis I can’t see it doing the Archie brand any permanent damage. On Facebook, the moment that received the most comments was the scene where Archie is showing off his chiseled chest and torso. Besides the pure eye candy appeal of it, and the fact it’s on TV and everyone is insanely good looking on TV, I imagine the purpose of making Archie “dead fit” (as the British would say) is to finally explain why so many attractive girls spent so much energy pursuing a perfectly ordinary, vaguely nice looking, accident-prone teen.
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.