The Hero Reboot Challenge: The Flash

THE HOOK (PART ONE)

“I’ve gotta be honest, Iris: your husband will never be the

fastest man alive.”

- Ed Thawne, “The Unstoppable Force”

In Central City, nothing ever moves quickly. For all of the less-than-stellar things you can say about the little town that could, it hasn’t earned that name by rushing into anything. The solar panels on the roof of the governor’s mansion were dragged there with grandeur, and the city’s skyline shined like the Second Coming, eventually. The people that live here are like that, too: if the city didn’t dictate their rhythms, you could say that they dictated the city’s. Just ask Ed Thawne, Central City’s top physician. Needless to say, he never had much competition, (the c-word was rarely uttered in this place) but he was gentle enough for his name to make the rounds early and often. City folks never called it a doctor’s appointment; it was just “going to Ed’s”.

Perhaps this was why Centeral City was so struck when Ed Thawne retired. Usually, when a man as old as Ed retires, a pine box of some sort is involved, and everyone rents a nice tuxedo or dress. Edward Thawne, however, retired in the most basic sense of the word; one day, the aging doctor woke up to find that realigning his bookshelf was more appealing than realigning somebody’s back, and that was that. A somber mood fell over the little town, or at least a somber enough mood for six-packs to be bought and consumed in his honor. But no retirement is a good retirement if it doesn’t end sometime, even if it’s just for a old college friend. After all, it wasn’t every day that you saw two people survive the same lightning strike. And it wasn’t every day that they were married.

Tomato Fixes: Jonah Hex (Part One)

A woman much smarter than me, but also sadly less alive, once said that writers are, as a rule, proficient in three things: lying, cheating, and stealing. Seeing as I’m only slightly good at the former, and absolutely pitiful at its closest relative, I figured I ought to take a crack at the last one. As such, I’d like to welcome you to a new feature on The Scratch Pad, called Tomato Fixes.

Maybe it’s just my parasitic, crippling narcissism speaking for me, but every so often, I finish reading a comic at a comic, and I find myself thinking “With a few tweaks, this comic could be eons better.” Naturally, I’ll spend the rest of the day tweaking the comic in my head, nipping here and tucking there, pecking at premises and clipping at characters until I either want to throw the whole smoldering mess off of a steep cliff, or, on a better day, arrive at something that would make a pretty compelling comic or animated series. This set of post is for the lucky few ideas that fall into the latter category, the rare beasts that miraculously manage to claw themselves out of my head with their vital organs mainly intact.

The Notaku Diaries – Episode 1

Episode One

Hosted by Tomato Surprise and Chdr. The opening song is Dream Island Obsessional Park (Yume no Shima Shinen Kōen) by Susumu Hirasawa. This is the first episode, so it is a bit rough, with everyone talking over each other at times, but all-in-all, I feel like it was a good job. ~ RacattackForce

Download Episode One Here

Head below the jump to see what shows we are covering this week…

The Notaku Diaries: An Introduction

Good evening, Scratchi-verse!

Chances are that, if you’re reading this, you know about the now infamous and divisive post I made on this blog last week. In it, I detailed my long and deep-seated disgust at many modern anime shows, a disgust which pushed many of our readers to be a little angry at me, some even calling my post a “croc”.

There may be some similarities.

But, that’s not what I’m here to talk about today. Rather, I’d like to talk about the second part of my post. (But watch out for crocs!)

They don't even look HUMAN.

In the second part of the post, I made my intent clear. The point of the post, you see, was not a tooth-and-nail assault against anime. Instead, it was a plea to The ScratchPad’s audience (and wow, there are a LOT of you. Seriously, thanks.) to get me back onto the anime train, to provide the fuel for me to take one last desperate run on the roller-coaster of Japanese animation. And you all delivered. In addition to the multitude of comments, Tweets, and Facebook messages the post received, my own fellow ‘Padders tried their best to get me onto the anime bandwagon. Shortly thereafter, I announced via Twitter that my posts for this blog would radically change in the year 2011. If you haven’t quite put two and two together, I’ll fill you in below the cut.

Thought Balloon: I Have An Anime Problem

Good afternoon, Scratchi-verse!

I have a confession to make. There’s a secret that I’ve shamefully kept from all of you for years on end. As an animation fan, it’s plagued me for years.  As a person, it eats at me every day, causing a deep void to endlessly widen in my soul. But, you know what? I’m tired of remaining silent.  I’m tired of living in fear, and I’m REALLY tired of letting it control me. So, today, in hopes of fixing the problem and finally being free, I’m going to just come out and say it, finally seeking the help and guidance of you, one of our many excellent The ScratchPad readers:

My name is Tomato Surprise, and I hate anime.

Ripe Reviews: The League Of Extraordinary Gentleman (Volume One), by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neil

Good afternoon, Scratchi-verse!

I’ve been writing for close to six years now. One of the common axioms that frustrated me in my early years as a writer, and still does today, is “there’s nothing new under the sun”. I’ve heard this from people I really respect and admire, and, to tell you the truth, it scares me. As a writer, it boils down to this. If everything’s been done before, why am I here? Isn’t my job as a writer to come up with new things, original ideas that never make people think the same way that they do after the conclusion? It was a bit of an existential writing crisis, which in retrospect was probably not good for my 8-year-old blood pressure. Even so, I’ve continued to look for an answer to these questions practically every day. I’ve finally found one, in today’s comic, that I think is satisfying. I’m sure you’ll agree, in fact, that it’s really quite extraordinary.

Ripe Reviews: The Walking Dead, By Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, And Charlie Adlard

Hey, Scratchi-verse!

You know what I’m tired of? Crisis movies.  Whether it be in print, on panel, or ingrained within the silver screen, humanity is obsessed with ending itself, even it means completely skewering a trivial bit of Mayan prophecy bullock. There’s more than one way to skin the cat of Armageddon, though. Environmental collapse, meteor showers, alien incursion, and mass spiritual warfare all contribute to this annoying, dime-a-dozen phenomenon. One thing’s bugged me about every one of them, though.

After the ragtag band of human heroes solves the world-wiping threat, they just proudly gallup into an end-credits laden sunset. Wait, writers, back up. What about society? Does is return to normal? Does it rebuild? What’s changed about it? What’s different? No, no, CUT THE CREDITS! I still have so many questions!

Or at least I did, until I read the subject of this week’s review: Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead, published by Image Comics.

Ripe Reviews: Shrek The Halls and Merry Madagascar, by Dreamworks Animation

(NOTE: Yes, Tomato here with ANOTHER re-post. My computer froze a whopping SIX times in two days. By the end of August, my schedule should right itself. Thanks for understanding.)

Welcome to another edition of the Scratchpad, your- OH FORGET IT!

CHRISTMAS! WAHOOO!

That’s right, dear reader, we’re starting our holiday festivities here at Ripe Thoughts, and what better way to do so then to review a pair of Christmas specials, both produced for NBC by Dreamworks Animation, the company behind Shrek, Madagascar, Kung-Fu Panda, and Monsters vs. Aliens. So, pour some cocoa, roast some chestnuts, and crank up the carols as we dig into Shrek The Halls and Merry Madagascar!

Shrek is, bar none, Dreamworks’ cash cow franchise. After the gargutuan success that was 2001′s Shrek, Dreamworks saw the potential that the big, green ogre had to get them some big, well, green. So, they churned out two sequels, a bevy of video games, and this 30-minute holiday special, cleverly titled Shrek The Halls.

For those of you who’ve been, I dunno, dead for pratically the past decade, here’s a rundown of the general Shrek plot. Shrek is a big green ogre, who lives in a swamp land where fantasy creatures like gingerbread men, dragons, fairy godmothers, and Eddie Murphy exist. He’s your typical bah-humbug tough guy, stomping around and yelling and being gross. That all changes one day when he hears that a princess has been kidnapped, and so he teams up with Donkey, a talking, erm, donkey to rescue her. Cue heroics. Well, they do rescue the princess, and it turns out that *gasp* she’s an ogre, too. In the second movie, they get married. In the third, Fiona and Shrek make sweet ogre love and she has babies. There’s also a Spanish cat with a sword. That’s the gist of it, which bring us to Shrek The Halls, taking place between Shrek 3 and the fourth-coming (tee-hee!) Shrek Goes Fourth.

Shrek has softend up a bit since his bone-crunching monster days. His only goal this year is to throw a nice Christmas for Fiona and her subsequent legion of mini-ogres. Fair enough. At least we have plot.

What follows the first ten or so minutes of plot set-up is hit or miss. There are a few good jokes, and Mike Myers and co-star Eddy Murphy are in pretty good shape, and the animation is top-shelf. I must note, however, that Myers is starting to sound a little worn, but I don’t blame him. With three installments in the bag, plus this and a few games, with at least two, maybe three more movies on the way, I’d get tired of it. And y’know what, that’s probably the biggest problem here. Everything is so tired. The actors are tired, the jokes are tired, the music is tired, the story is tired. Heck, I’m tired. The fact is that we’ve known these characters for so long now that it becomes a predictale mess. The idea of a Christmas special has been done, re-done, and re-re-done so many times that to survive in the long term among Rudolph and Frosty, you’ve gotta bring something original to the table. Shrek The Halls just… doesn’t.
Overall, if you’re a huge Shrek-o-phile or if you’re looking for good animation, you may like this special. If you’re looking for something new, though, Shrek the Halls is more ho-hum than ho-ho-ho.
I give Shrek  The Halls four calling birds out of 12 drummers drumming.

Now, let’s move to Merry Madagascar!

Madagascar, while nowhere near as big of a hit as Shrek, still had some legs at the box office and made Dreamworks enough money for them to continue the franchise. As with Shrek, a sequel and Christmas special followed.

Here’s a plot synopsis of Madagascar. When a plane chock full of city-raised zoo animals, like Alex the lion, Melman the giraffe, Marty the zebra, and Gloria the hippo, crashes on Madagascar, they’re forced to make due with their wild surroundings.

The plot of the Christmas special itself, while passable, is fairly formualic. Big Red himself crashes on Madagascar after being tailpiped by a trifecta of treacherous penguins. He’s got amnesia, though, so it’s up to the Madagascar gang to make his usual Christmas Eve rounds.

I’ve gotta say, I liked this more than Shrek The Halls. I attribute that more to these characters only having a sequel under their belt instead of two, but this isn’t to undermine the talent possessed by the voice cast. Ben Stiller and Chris Rock, as always, seem to shine the most. It’s almost as if you feel like Ben Stiller is actually there, talking to Chris Rock and whatnot.

The humor, unlike in Shrek The Halls, left me rolling. The voice actors of Madagascar are so animated in thier line delivery that I’d be breathless with laughter if they read their W2 Forms.

I don’t know if it’s the fact that the talent is simply better in Madagascar, or if the novelty of Shrek has just worn off, but either way, I give Merry Madagascar eight maids a milking out of twelve. Make sure to come back on Wednesday and Thursday as we count down the Top 10 Animated Holiday Specials!

Happy Holidays!

Tomato

Ripe Reviews: Astonishing X-Men: Gifted

(Hey, Scratchi-verse! Tomato here, filling in for ToonFaithful by re-posting a review I did for the amazingly awesome comic review site Collected Editions! Check them out!)

I have a confession, guys. This confession may make you click the “X” in the corner of your browser faster than you can say “Excelsior,” but hear me out. I’ve read two, maybe three, Marvel trades. All of them, in my honorary opinion, were poorly written, badly drawn, and had all the writing finesse of the back of a cereal box.

There was strike one.

I’d heard a lot about Joss Whedon, but never really cared either way about him. So, as far as I was concerned, his name on the cover of the book didn’t win any prizes from me.

There was strike two.

I kid you not, readers, as I flipped to the first page of Astonishing X-Men: Gifted, I was the cynical comic book guy. Literally, as I opened the book, I muttered aloud, “Show me what you’ve got, Mr. Whedon.”

To recap: two strikes, and a critic more nitpicky and crass than Statler and Waldorf combined.

Despite all of this, if you’ll pardon the pun, Astonishing X-Men: Gifted, well, astonished me.

Thought Balloon: Please, Don’t Crush The Sandcastle

Good morning, Scratchi-verse!

Maybe all of this summer heat is getting to my head, but I’ve been on a huge beach kick lately. Baking in the sun, enjoying the fresh air, and yes, reading some awesome comics! So, as thoughts in my head often do, these two thoughts crashed into each other, blending into a philosophical smoothie of comic goodness!

Comics, I’ve figured out, are a lot like sandcastles.