DCeased and Batman: Last Knight on Earth (DC)

 

DCeased

Writer: Tom Taylor

Artist: Trevor Hairsine

Batman: The Last Knight on Earth

Writer: Scott Snyder

Artist: Greg Capullo

Well, DC Fandome finished last week. We got teasers/trailers for The Suicide Squad and The Batman. Just on the side, is this what DC intend to do with their properties? Put "the" at the start of the title and hope people forget what came before? I'm surprised at this stage they aren't calling it The Wonder Woman 84, the trailer for which was good, but not surprising. We got Gotham Knights- better known as The Batfamily can't have anything for themselves without neckbeards throwing a tantrum. Oh- there was also that Suicide Squad video game trailer- the squad seems to be taking on Superman again, because that seems to be how DC promotes characters; forget writing engaging stories, just have them fight Superman and-- wait a minute: Why are all these characters carrying guns. I get Harley Quinn and Deadshot carrying them, but King Shark? If I play as King Shark, I want to tear mooks apart with my mighty jaws, not wave a target over them and hold down R2. And why does Captain Boomerang have a gun? Can we notice no other long-range weapon that he might use? One that's his name for example?

You know what was conspicuously absent? Announcements about DC's comic line. The Milestone Universe is coming back, but that's outside the mainline DC imprint. On the back of constant layoffs, one can't help but think that DC stands about as much chance as American schoolchild on a weekday. With that in mind, let's review a couple of books that, appropriately are about the end of the DC universe. Let's call it The AT&T Double Bill.

First up, DCeased. This story falls in the "zombie apocalypse" school of the end of the world and to be fair, writer Tom Taylor does an admirable job working this into the DC universe. The thing that turns people into zombies is a corrupted version of the Anti-Life Equation, and it's even carried to Earth by Cyborg. My problem though is that I'm well and truly uninterested in zombies. I don't care for hordes of brainless creatures desperate to feed- I teach middle schoolers and such things always feel too much like my job. So I started reading ready to be bored to death, but by late that same night, I was still reading, which is like a vegan discovering their favourite sandwich had ham in it. So what was it, then? 

Well, firstly, the story doesn't bother with the whole "humans are the real monster" schtick, and instead sticks to saying that "actually, the real monsters are the ones mistaking your face for a violet crumble". It's nice to see a zombie story not pretend it's commenting on any moral complexity. It leaves the story to focus on the tragedy of loss. Characters have to kill their best friends, they lose their parents, they grapple with the constant realisation that they're just not going to win. It's an oddly refreshing tragedy, one that avoids one of the commen pitfalls of this kind of story. Right from the get-go, it's clear that things are completely... can we say "American-2016-election'ed"? When we know that this is going to end badly, we therefore don't end up with our hopes dashed when that's exactly what happens. Rather, what little hope remains in the story ends up all the more sweet, and that's exactly what DCeased does, so it gets four out of five violet crumble faces.

And since there's really no way to segway into this, let's move on to Batman: Last Knight on Earth. This is a slightly more complex story that DCeased: A cloned Batman wakes up to find that the entire world has gone to hell... actually it's not that much more complex, really. This is a Scott Snyder book, so expect a lot of Scott Snyder tropes to make an appearance here. There's an evil version of Batman, a new take on a fight with Superman, and Joker's here. Actually, it's just Joker's head, but Snyder's voice for him this time around is so different to his previous work, that it actually makes him the best person in the book. I haven't been made to laugh by the Joker for a long time, but here I was, chuckling every time he asked if he could be Robin, or making some pun about whatever danger Batman found himself in. Then I remembered that I'm not supposed to enjoy the Joker, because that makes me an incel or something- NO, I'M NOT EXPLAINING THAT!

Of course, the other thing that seems to happen in Scott Snyder books is that the setting becomes a character of it's own. In Batman, it was Gotham, in Dark Nights: Metal, it was the dark multiverse and here, it's the whole damn world. Snyder makes full use of this setting, letting us explore not every inch of it, but enough that it can be enjoyed. I'm reminded of Old Man Logan in many ways, and that's not really a bad thing. Both books employed a "What if we did Mad Max, but used our most popular heroes with the pointiest ears" approach, and the results have been just distinct enough to make me want to see more of it. It's been heaps of fun and, like the book before, also earns four out of five Joker incels.

What? That's not good enough? Fine. I suppose I'd better declare a winner in this double-bill. At the end of the day, I think I have to give it to Last Knight on Earth- if for no other reason than that it manages to give us all the suspense of an end of the world story without resorting to that thing that every bit of pop culture seems to be going to, but if you want one that better represents the state of DC, best go DCeased. A plague brought on the world by means of social media? Sounds like the Snyder Cut to me! Gfaw Gfaw!

Actually, that looked pretty good...

This Was Almost: Power Rangers

So... most people likely to read this are probably quarantined by now (I mean, not Australia- we're all practicing unenforced social distancing which weirdly means not closing schools for some reason?) and I figure if I even try to talk about... y'know... that... people are going to feel more than a little irked.

How about something cool about Power Rangers? You know, the show that's essentially a re-skin of the Japanese Super Sentai franchise, using all the action scenes, but somehow getting a more ethnically diverse cast right from the beginning with zero whining from alt-right whatever-gaters?

So a few weeks ago the Rangers fandom was rocked when Hasbro announced that the next Super Sentai series announced for adaptation was Kishiryu Sentai Ryusoulger.

Pretty cool, right?

Well, the fandom lost their collective mind because this was going to be the FOURTH dinosaur-themed Power Rangers when Power Rangers: Dino Charge (which is exactly what the name suggests) was still fresh in memory.

Now, obviously, the nostalgia factor is there. You want to hit the fanbase right in the childhood? Make them think of Mighty Morphin'. But why is that season the big deal? Why is Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers the big, first season, especially when it's popularity in Japan was only so-so at best?

Well, it wasn't always going to be like that. Today, I want to take you into what could could have been Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. We'll see what the show was about, speculate about how a Sentai adaptation would have played out, and why it didn't turn out that way.

Before going too much further, I just want to make clear that this is all based on rumour. I've research this to some degree, but can't find anything concrete that this definitely is what was going to happen, but the rumour was that when first trying to start Power Rangers, show creator Hiam Saban was interested in adapting not Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger, the show that we now know as the original Power Rangers, but it's predecessor, a show by the name of Chojin Sentai Jetman, or Superman Squadron Jetman.

If you look closely at their helmet designs, it's pretty clear that they aren't Dinosaur themed. Nope, the main motiff for these rangers was birds: Red Hawk, White Swan, Yellow Owl, Blue Swallow and Black Condor. 

Do I need to spell out why this show wasn't adapted?

I do?

Okay, well, imagine you're making this show set for a 1993 release date. Do you go with birds? Or do you go with Dinosaurs in the same year that Spielberg releases Jurassic Park? Look, Jetman was a good show- unlike Zyuranger, it was regarded as some of the best Super Sentai had to offer, but you tell me which one's more instantly marketable.

Another advantage Zyuranger had over Jetman is that
Zyuranger had the sixth ranger, and without the presence of Tommy Oliver, I don't know if the show would have been anywhere near as popular.

But let's speculate: what would it look like if Mighty Morphin Power Rangers used Jetman as a base?

Honestly, it wouldn't be that different.

See, when the original American writers for Power Rangers saw the Sentai footage, they saw it with absolutely zero subtitles. They had to piece together what was going on from visuals and music with no knowledge as to the what the characters were saying.

Because of that, for the most part you could have had almost the same first season. The suits and zords would have been different, but Jason? Totally could be the red ranger again. Zack? Definitely Black. Kimberly? Tell me White Swan couldn't as easily be called the Pink Ranger. The only characters who would change costumes would be Billy and Trini and that's just because the blue and yellow rangers look like this:

And yeah, I know the yellow ranger in Mighty Morphin' was originally played by a male actor, but convincing kids that the two above aren't their original genders is something a stretch.

There would also, with no sixth ranger, be no Tommy, and no Rita. Rita would be replace by this guy:

But aside from that, the story would be basically the same. Bad guys come to Earth with intentions to destroy it because... bad guys... Zordon recruits five teenagers with attitude. Said five teenagers beat up a monster of the week until the next season, where they use the next sentai's Zords and maybe even the suits to keep the toyline healthy and the cheaply-made show continuing.

So that's what Power Rangers almost was. You can find Jetman  in some places online and on DVD if you're interested in seeing the show. Other than that? This was fun. Might do another one of these some time. Beast Wars Transformers, after all, had a very different original plan as well...