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 Samurai Rabbit: The Usagi Chronicles, the cancellation of M.O.D.O.K., and the MultiVersus video game.

Although I primarily self-identify as a Comic Book Guy, I am also extremely interested in animation as you may have noticed from the recent columns about Encanto (see "Missing The Mouse") and Turning Red (see "This Week In Stuff").  Of course, there’s nothing unusual about being an adult animation fan today, but back in my day, like comic books, cartoons were definitely just for kids. They were treated like a controlled substance and doled out in microdoses; a couple of hours in the afternoon and on Saturday Mornings.  And like me, some of those kids kept watching them long after they were supposed to stop.

Of course, the worlds of animation and comic books often intersect, producing shows like the recent Netflix series Samurai Rabbit: The Usagi Chronicles, based on Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo.  While it takes Sakai’s characters more or less seriously, I wish the series had a larger budget so the action was smoother and faster. And while the tone is surprisingly silly, its intended audience (kids) should like it just fine.

I’ve always been a big fan of Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K.  And, I had been enjoying Hulu’s M.O.D.O.K, Hulu’s adult animated show by Patton Oswalt and Jordan Blum (see “Meet The M.O.D.O.K’s.”), which had the Mental/Mobile/Mechanized Organism Designed Only for Killing trying to balance his dreams of conquest and revenge with family life. So naturally, I was disappointed to find out that M.O.D.O.K. had been cancelled after a single season.  But I felt immediately much better when I read how Oswalt and Blum with artist Scott Hepburn (M.O.D.O.K.: Head Games) were doing a creator-owned miniseries with Dark Horse, Minor Threats. 

A couple of weeks ago I recommended some comics for ICv2 Kids Week (see “Today’s Comics For Kids”), one of which was The Jurassic League; a six-issue limited series, co-written by Daniel Warren Johnson and Juan Gedeon and illustrated by Gedeon. It shipped last week, and I’m happy to report it’s as good as anticipated. Johnson makes full use of its wonky premise and Gedeon’s art is appropriately rough and raw. The way I see it, you can either read comics where the Justice League are dead or one where they’re dinosaurs. I think you can guess which one I’ll be reading.

Back in December (see “Just The Beginning”),  I wrote about how I was looking forward to playing MultiVersus, the upcoming Super Smash Bros/ Marvel Vs. Capcom type fighting game featuring such WarnerMedia characters as Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Shaggy, Bugs Bunny, Tom and Jerry, Arya Stark from Game of Thrones, Steven Universe, Garnet, Finn the Human, Jake the Dog, and Larry David from Curb Your Enthusiasm. Well, our wait is almost over because they announced that the open beta is coming in July 2022 and will be available on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC. They recently released a trailer, and it’s really kind of amazing, the way they mix and match the various characters, always keeping their personalities in, well, character.  The highlights of the trailer include Superman meeting The Iron Giant (wearing an ‘S’ insignia on his chest) and an appearance by Ultra Instinct Shaggy. 

Remember Big Chungus, the plus-sized Bugs who became an internet meme and appeared in the game Looney Tunes: World of Mayhem and the 2001 movie Space Jam: A New Legacy?  Well, Ultra Instinct Shaggy comes from a series of videos showing the Scooby-Doo character going through Goku’s "ultra instinct" transformation from Dragon Ball Super. And apparently, it’s now become “canon”.

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.