Collider is reporting, based on an unknown source, that Warner Brothers has canceled Jerry O'Flaherty's CG animated Thundercats origins story, based on the animated pilot. If you remember correctly, the Thundercats had to vacate their homeworld when it was destroyed.

And that sounds like a remarkable origins story, unlike most of the heroic origins that are being floated around Hollywood right now. Plus it has alien planets and cat people — sound familiar? But no, that couldn't possibly make any money. Plus it looked amazing, judging by the concept art of Third Earth.

But the "good" news is the flash video game is still being made along with The Orb of Madness, where you get to play Panthro. So, that's something.

But we're still baffled. Hasn't Avatar proved that alien features directed towards everyone can and do make money? So why get all gunshy over another alien features that not only has a bankable pre-existing audience, but more awesome cat people? Plus the merchandising alone has got to be making someone at Warner Brothers hungry. Hollywood, we urge you, this is one of the classic properties we want made into a film, we don't need a Labyrinth remake or another Neverending Story, just one good Thundercats film.

The show, Under The Influence: He-Man and the Masters of the Universe will show at Gallery 1988 in Los Angeles, will run from January 8th through the 29th. But several of the participating artists have already posted their contributions to the show.

Many of these are via Super Punch.

He-Man - The Bad and the Ugly by Alex Fugazi
He-Man - The Good by Alex Fugazi
Stinkor by Brennan Kelly
The Creeping Hordak by Brennan Kelly
Skeletor Atop a Throne of Skulls by Keith Noordzy
Trimming the Bowl Cut by Kiersten Essenpreis
Skeletor Gets a Root Canal by Kiersten Essenpreis
Greyskull by Jeff Boyles
Just kidding at Castle Greyskull by Alessandra Fusi
The rest of the Pricess of Power by Alessandra Fusi
Beastman Garbage Pail Kid by Layron DeJarnette
Battlecat by Bill Carman
Cringer by Bill Carman

Publisher's Weekly noticed this little gem on Amazon. Both complete series will be available soon, along with The Best of Rocko's Modern Life but when, we're not sure. There is no date as of right now, but we'll keep checking. Maybe this is the holiday miracle we've been dreaming about. Now all we need is the complete DVD set of Liquid Television, and we're set.

You can watch the first episode of the The Maxx, which was adapted from Sam Kieth's comic book below, along with the first episode of The Head.

The International Animated Film Association announced the nominations for the Annie Awards. Laika's Coraline was the most-nominated feature, with ten nominations including Best Animated Feature, Best Character Design, and Best Directing in a Feature. Just behind Coraline is Pixar's Up with nine nominations and Disney's The Princess and the Frog with eight. In the television category, Disney's upcoming computer-animated Christmas special Prep and Landing led the way with nine nominations. Monsters vs. Aliens and 9 took just two nominations each, both earning one nod for animated effects; Hugh Laurie was nominated for his voice work in Monsters vs. Aliens, and 9 earned its second nomination for feature design.

Last year, the Annies courted controversy when Kung-Fu Panda swept the awards, shutting out the much-acclaimed (and eventual Oscar winner) WALL-E.

Below are a few of the big categories for features. You can see the full list here.

Best Animated Feature
"Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" - Sony Pictures Animation
"Coraline" - Laika
"Fantastic Mr. Fox" - 20th Century Fox
"The Princess and the Frog" - Walt Disney Animation Studios
"The Secret of Kells" - Cartoon Saloon
"Up" - Pixar Animation Studios

Directing in a Feature Production
Wes Anderson "Fantastic Mr. Fox" - 20th Century Fox
Pete Docter "Up" - Pixar Animation Studios
Christopher Miller, Phil Lord "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" - Sony Pictures Animation
Hayao Miyazaki "Ponyo" - Studio Ghibli
Henry Selick "Coraline" - Laika

Writing in a Feature Production
Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach - "Fantastic Mr. Fox" - 20th Century Fox
Pete Docter, Bob Peterson, Tom McCarthy - "Up" - Pixar Animation Studios
Timothy Hyde Harris and David Bowers - "Astro Boy" - Imagi Studios
Christopher Miller and Phil Lord - "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" - Sony Pictures Animation

[via Variety]

For a season finale (which this was; it's officially the last episode of the first season, even though there was a gap of months between the most recent batch of episodes and the rest of the first season; the second season begins next month), last night's "The Fate of Equinox!" left us cold. Sure, the threat of the universe being destroyed in the battle between chaos and order sounds exciting on paper, but I've never been that interested in Equinox, the original(ish; he's based on the comics' Libra) villain chosen to hook the whole story around, and despite some nice moments, Dr. Fate wasn't up to the guest-star caliber of Aquaman, Blue Beetle or other heroes. It was fun enough, sure, but this - and last week's "Inside the Outsiders" both seemed like products of writers getting tired towards the end of the season, and especially after the "Mayhem of the Music Meister!" episode. We're hoping for a little more from "Death Race To Oblivion" when the show returns (If nothing else, there's some wit in the idea of Batman teaming with the Question to take on the Riddler), but what did you think?

The DVD version of the movie - serialized online before being shown on Adult Swim earlier this year - includes new unseen footage, as well as interviews with the people responsible and storyboards like these:

GI Joe: Resolute will be released on November 3rd.

A straight plot recap of "Mayhem of The Music Meister!" wouldn't even scratch the surface of what made it such a joy to watch (But, if you need one: The Music Meister is a villain who can control people through music. He falls in love with Black Canary because of her singing voice, but even though she falls under his control like everyone else on the planet - with the exception of Batman - she's ultimately his undoing because of her canary cry superpower); it was, even more than usually for this series, all about the execution. Whether you came for the promise of Doctor Horrible-esque superheroic musical comedy, fanboy-baiting with characters like Green Arrow and Black Canary taking the first step down the road that's already led them to marriage in the comics, or just plain fun cartoonery with dancing gorillas, it's fair to say that this week, Batman: The Brave and The Bold delivered something for everyone.

It wasn't just NPH's dulcet tones that made this week's long-awaited episode of B&B so much fun; everyone involved raised their game, whether it was writers Michael Jelenic and James Tucker offering some of the best dialogue of the series so far (Who doesn't love Batman when he gets all pun-laded and sincere?) as well as a plot that's so ridiculous it approaches camp perfection (Never mind Batman singing, the explanation of how he managed to hit those notes afterwards was hilarious), or regular voice actors Diedrich Bader, John Di Maggio and especially Grey DeLisle (amongst many others) shamelessly singing their hearts out as well as managing to deliver their between-songs lines with straight faces. Although the casting coup and nerd cache of NPH has been getting all the plaudits for this ep, everyone involved did an amazing job.

After this, it'll be tough not to see the regular lunacy of the series as something of a comedown - but, at the same time, it was the uniqueness of the whole thing that made it as special as it was. Still, considering every jail in Gotham City is fitted with a revolving door and staffed by unreliable guards, is it really too much to hope that we might see a reprise sometime next season?

This review definitely contains spoilers, although it won't give away anything major, that you couldn't figure out from watching the trailers and looking at stills.

So you probably already know what Astro Boy is about: there's a scientist, Dr. Tenma, and his brilliant little boy, Toby, gets killed. So Dr. Tenma makes a robot replica of Toby, complete with Toby's memories, and gives him the most cutting-edge armaments and power source, so he can never be hurt again. But the robot version can't replace Toby, so Dr. Tenma ultimately rejects him — and he goes off to become Astro Boy.

I've grown to have a healthy appreciation for the manga of Osamu Tezuka — his medical thriller Ode To Kirihito is riveting and totally not what I expected — but writer/director David Bowers added to Tezuka's world-building in ways that totally enhanced the story for me. And a huge part of that was Bowers' vision of a world of enslaved robots, which is both funny and occasionally disturbing.

Bowers, an Aardman Animation veteran who worked on Chicken Run and Wallace And Gromit, lets his Aardman roots show most of all when he's dealing with some of the robots in the movie. From Dr. Tenma's robot servant to a flying a window-cleaning squirt bottle and squeegee, to a robot trash-can dog, the robots are always cute and silly, yet also can't help reminding you of their non-person status in the gleaming futuristic Metro City. A clever, retro-looking instructional film at the start of the movie serves to underscore this point, showing robots being used and then tossed aside, onto the giant scrap heap that Metro City floats over.

But don't worry — at no point does Astro Boy give you a dry lecture about robot rights, or the unfairness of enslaving other sentient beings. Instead, it contains tons of sly jokes and clever moments that make you sympathize and identify with the robots — even as we're rooting for Astro Boy's quest to be recognized as a human.

And that's where Astro Boy gets really interesting. Because, of course, the original story is all about Astro wanting to be a "real boy," like Pinocchio. By juxtaposing that quest with the constant reminders that all the other robots are just as aware as Astro Boy himself, the movie makes the standard "quest for humanity" a lot more complex.

Because Astro Boy is the only robot who actually appears human and is programmed with a real human's memories, he's the only bot with the option of blending in with human society. He's also almost the only bot who's not programmed with Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, which force the other robots to be servile even when they don't want to be. The more we sympathize with the other robots, who don't have the same options Astro has, the less clear-cut Astro's quest for humanity begins to appear.

Some of the most fascinating scenes in Astro Boy deal with this question of "passing" as human — early on, after Astro Boy is created, he thinks he's a "real" boy — but the other robots can see the truth at a glance. Dr. Tenma's servant bot is instructed to treat the robot boy as if he were human, and this nearly causes a robo-conniption fit. "I'm so freaking out right now!" the robot says a few times. And then later, Astro Boy knows he's a robot, but he's trying to live among humans as one of them — except that he keeps having to worry that the other robots will "out" him.

It's not much of a spoiler to say that Astro Boy gets to be accepted as a real boy by the end of the movie — but that only leaves you with more questions, particularly about how this will affect all the other robots. The movie only offers the barest hints that Astro Boy's special status could end up benefiting all his robot brothers and sisters.

There are two things I love in children's movies: world-building and subversiveness. And Astro Boy has enough of both of them to build a thousand giant robots out of.

We already talked a lot about the movie's world-building in this exclusive interview with Bowers and designers Jake Rowell and Luis Grane: the movie takes place in a floating city, which includes an entire mountain levitated above the ground. And we get little glimpses of the history of the development of the robots in this society, especially when we meet a 100-year-old robot named Zog (voiced, rather laconically, by Samuel L. Jackson.)

As for the subversiveness — well, I already talked about the fact that the movie paints Astro Boy as a bit of a race traitor (in a gentle, sly way that will not make your kids bawl, I promise.) But then the film turns around and gives us a hilariously inept trio of robot liberationists — the Robot Revolution Front, three former appliances (including a refrigerator) who make grandiose speeches that remind me of the People's Front Of Judea in Monty Python's Life Of Brian.

Unfortunately, because the members of the Robot Revolution Front are still bound by the Three Laws of Robotics, their biggest plan for defeating the human hegemony is to attack one of the humans with a particularly large feather — and tickle him. A lot.

One of the biggest cheer-worthy moments in the movie is when we meet a second robot who isn't subject to the Three Laws, and who is willing to kick some ass.

Because we don't really want to see Astro Boy struggling against vague, nebulous anti-robot prejudice, the movie gives us two clear-cut villains: the President of Metro City, who wants Astro Boy's super-advanced power source to power a new war machine, and HamEgg, a roboticist who's fallen from grace and now organizes nasty robot gladitorial matches on the surface.

And it's the former villain, the President, who provides one of Astro Boy's few weak spots. He's so transparently a satire on George Bush and other leaders who want to start bogus wars to boost their approval ratings, that he becomes a bit painful to watch. The movie is fairly subtle about its other messages, but whenever the President comes on screen, we're suddenly assaulted by neon signs blaring "POLITICAL MESSAGE." Also, you'll cringe a bit when a scientist explains the difference between Astro Boy's power source (which is intrinsically good and morally pure) and a separate, evil power source, which creates negative vibes and aggression.

But those are minor quibbles, really — the spoon-feeding around the President only stands out because the rest of the movie is so determined to let you draw your own conclusions. There are no easy answers to Astro Boy's dilemma — he feels like a human boy, but he knows he really belongs to the subjugated robot class — and the movie doesn't really attempt to offer us any.

And that's what makes this such a great kids' movie. It's pure, engaging fun pretty much the whole way through, with a few bits of sadness, like when Astro Boy's flesh-and-blood model dies (there's no blood; he just vanishes.) But the movie takes the "kid caught between two worlds" plot you've seen a million times before and adds an extra layer of weirdness. Both you and your kid will be thrilled by all the zoomy flying-robot action, but you'll both be left debating exactly where Astro Boy should want to belong anyway. And that's definitely one of the hallmarks of a good movie.

Well, watching the movies? Not necessarily a bad idea. Watching Ultimate Avengers: The Movie, Ultimate Avengers 2: Rise Of The Panther (Well, kind of. See below), The Invincible Iron Man, Doctor Strange, Next Avengers and the Hulk Vs. movies in one sitting? One of the dumber ideas I've had in a long time. I love superheroes as much as the next man - even if the next man is Stan Lee himself - but I now believe that the human mind has a limit when it comes to this kind of thing. And that that limit is somewhere around four hours... Which, considering these DVDs average 70 minutes each, is a shame.

Ultimate Avengers: The Movie


On the one hand, I can understand why Marvel went with this for their first direct-to-DVD animated movie: It's pretty much a straight adaptation of the first volume of a critically-acclaimed reworking of the origins of a franchise featuring some of their biggest names. On the other, much of the reason for that critical acclaim had to do with the "mature" tone that's pretty much stripped away in this movie, leaving what really feels pretty much like a particularly grim, overlong episode of a generic superhero cartoon show. There's no real excitement here in the writing, performances or visuals; it's just... there. I have the feeling that, if I was fourteen and hated the world but still thought Captain America was awesome, it might be better, but as it is...? Not the greatest start to the viewing marathon.

Ultimate Avengers 2: Rise Of The Panther


And here's a bad sign for the rest of the movie marathon. Perhaps sensing how little I enjoyed Ultimate Avengers, the DVD Gods took pity on me: The review copy of this disc wouldn't play. But judging by the trailer, this is a weird mash-up of the Black Panther's first appearance in Fantastic Four and a retread of the Ultimates villains, which is... um... interesting, perhaps? I'm not feeling too bad for missing this.

The Invincible Iron Man


If nothing else, this movie makes you appreciate Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr. just that little bit more by how clumsily it handles Tony Stark's origins at That Guy In The Robot Suit. Yes, bringing in the Mandarin gives the movie more visual impact, but almost everything else that they change - whether it's the "I'm under investigation by the FBI so I'll just hang out in the alley beside my work" scenes or the "I hate you, Dad! I hate you I hate you I've bought the company somehow and you can run it because I love you" plot - would bring you as close to nerdtears as it did me. It's at this point that I start to wonder how much Marvel Animation is/was being used as a testing ground for the live-action movies, and whether the Iron Man movie was so good because they looked at this and saw what didn't work. Meanwhile, visually, everyone still looks very generic. For a comic book company with such strong artists, it's really surprising that Marvel seemed to be happy with such dull visuals for their animated movies (Compare and contrast with any of the DC animated projects of, what, the last two decades? Or most of Cartoon Network's output, for that matter).

Doctor Strange: The Sorceror Supreme


Here's the first piece of magic about the Doctor Strange movie: It seemed like it would never end. Also, and maybe it's because I was struggling to pay attention at this point, I'm not sure that it really made sense. It's another origin story with additions to make it more like a movie and less like something Stan Lee and Steve Ditko came up with in a mix of inspiration and deadline sweat but, just like in Invincible Iron Man, the new stuff - like the addition of a magical super team that recruits Strange so that he can learn about magic - just serves to confuse and bog down the movie and fill it with non-descript characters it's hard to care about. Watching so many of these in a row, I've started to realize how bad the characterization has been in these movies so far - either it's pretty much non-existant (the super team here are cannon fodder, really) or done with no subtlety whatsoever (Strange's switch from asshole to good guy, complete with "What about the children?" dialogue). Fans of the crazy Steve Ditko designs of the original comic will want to stay away; this is another - and, thankfully, the last - of the visually boring movies, completely lacking the off-kilter plasticity of the comic at its best.

Next Avengers: Heroes Of Tomorrow


Is it so wrong to want to kiss a movie? Probably, particularly an animated movie full of kids. But, really; after the last four movies, Next Avengers seemed like the greatest thing in the world - Fast-moving, original (Well, as original as a mash-up of Young Avengers and Avengers Next could be, but not an adaptation, at least) and with some interesting character design? I'll take several, please. Yes, it theoretically skews younger than the other movies, but somehow felt like it was pandering less (And, really, starting a movie with "Oh, all your favorite superheroes? They're either dead, abandoning their offspring - Yeah, really, nice move Thor - or enslaved by the bad guy" shows that this isn't exactly the most comforting movie you can imagine for kids) and if skewing younger means more enjoyable, then I'd be happy if Marvel kept doing movies for young'uns. The first genuinely good movie of the bunch, although I may be grading on a curve and/or lost whatever critical faculties I've had by this point.

Hulk Vs.

Easily the best of the bunch, Hulk Vs. is a weird split-DVD, offering two 45-ish minute movies, Hulk Vs. Wolverine and Hulk Vs. Thor and both of them are better than... well, everything else I've watched so far, apart from maybe Next Avengers. Ignore the title, though, because in both cases, the Hulk is kind of a bystander/McGuffin for the guest-star to jump off've and shine, and of the two episodes, the Thor one is by far the best. With a plot straight out of a mid-1970s issue of Marvel Team-Up (Loki brings the Hulk to Asgard to fuck with Thor! And it all goes wrong!) and a couple of unexpected twists (The death of one of the title characters, for example) packed into its short running time, it offers the kind of fast-paced thrills and spills I'd been looking for all along. Hulk Vs. Wolverine, meanwhile, feels like an odd mix of the comic book and movie versions of the character's history, as the rest of Weapon X try and take Wolverine back "home" and the Hulk complicates matters. It's... interesting, I guess, but feels more like the middle chapter of something instead of a standalone story by itself. But, again, it's better-written and more enjoyable than the earlier movies, and both Thor and Wolverine edge ever closed to a distinct visual style that the movies have lacked up to this point. Of the six DVDs, it's the only one I'd really recommend to anyone other than a Marvel completist, or animation masochist.

Watching all six of the movies so close together, you can see their evolution and understandable growing pains, from adaptations to all-new stories with Next Avengers and Hulk Vs., and also visually and in terms of trying to work out how to tell their stories - Both Next and Hulk feel rooted more in fan-friendly continuity, but that also makes them less bogged down with the need to explain everything, making them more enjoyable to watch for new viewers, ironically. Even though the movies are clearly improving, there's still a reverence to the original comics that holds the cartoons back in a way that, say, Batman: The Animated Series or The Brave and The Bold don't share - The people involved seem too concerned with keeping the spirit of continuity alive, at times, instead of the spirit of the characters, and the result is writing that feels lifeless at times, even in Hulk Vs. Wolverine. As soon as they can work out how to replicate the live-action movies' ability to pick and choose what works, and as soon as the powers that be look for bolder ways to visualize those stories, then they'll be in good shape. For now, what's there is a public growth from awkward beginnings to... well, an only slightly less awkward present.

The Marvel Animation 6 Film Set is available now.

OMAC is one of those characters that has a great concept that almost no-one has been able to do anything with: Basically, he's a nobody who gets retrofitted without his knowledge or consent to become the ultimate soldier, One Man Army Corps (or OMAC, for short). After years of attempts to update the character, work the character into regular superhero universe continuity and just generally redo the concept altogether, the comic version of the character seems pretty broken, but the Brave and Bold version managed to get everything right by... well, playing it relatively straight.

"When OMAC Attacks" wasn't the show's best episode, nor an obvious choice to bring the show back after its summer break - Both of those would be next week's musical episode - but it was entertaining enough, even for non-Kirby enthusiasts (Kirby fans like me would've spent the episode going "Is that really Kafka from the comic? Seriously? Awesome!"); using OMAC as an illustration of classic cartoon moral "Sometimes, it's better not to fight" was a smart move, balanced by the use of alter ego Buddy Blank as last-minute coward-made-good, saving Batman from mysterious villain Equinox. Where it fell down was a lack of the self-aware, more-than-a-little-goofy humor that's often the show's best quality... In fact, if anything, the episode seemed too sincere and straightforward. But perhaps that's because next week used up all the crazy pills.

In the end, it was nice to see the show back, and that goodwill alone was enough to make what was really a middling episode seem better than it actually was. But, having seen next week's "Mayhem of the Music Meister!," I know that much, much better things are around the corner. Better luck next time, then.

The Hollywood Reporter notes that UTA has taken on Voltron's US rights holder, World Events Productions, and plan to exploit the anime character throughout different media as much as possible. According to the report, video games and toy deals are in the works, but the priority is an animated series and the previously-announced movie project, which UTA will now help shop around studios. Is America ready for Voltronmania in 2011?

Voltron off to UTA [Hollywood Reporter]

I'm talking, of course, about Metroplex and Trypticon, AKA Autobot City and Decepticon City, two of the most "In Disguise" of those Robots In Disguise. I'm not sure too much thought was put into the "city" part of either character - Like, what happens to everyone in the city when it becomes a giant robot? Do they go somewhere safe inside, or do they get crushed or what? - but it has to be said, if I had to choose one Autobot to have my back in a fight, it'd be the one bigger than Oakland. Here's to you, giant metrobots!

[YouTube]

As part of its master plan to capture a greater male audience, Disney is looking to Double Dare You to create a darker slate of animated films than the usual Disney cartoon fare, as well as produce books and merchandising tie-ins. The plan is for Del Toro to produce all of Double Dare You's films, as well as direct some of the features.

First on the agenda is Trollhunters, based on an original story by Del Toro, which will introduce a mysterious aspect of his new brand:

The pics will all be tied together by "one feature that shall remain secret, but that you shall soon be very familiar with," del Toro said.

[Variety]
Image by *blix-it on Deviant Art.

News broke early this morning that the Walt Disney Co. have acquired Marvel Entertainment in a move that, according to the official press release on the subject, "highlights Disney's strategic focus on quality branded content, technological innovation and international expansion to build long-term shareholder value."

The deal will give the House of Mouse the rights to all of Marvel's characters, but current licensing deals with movie studios like Fox (X-Men) and Sony (Spider-Man) will stay in place, according to this morning's investor conference call to discuss the sale. Despite reassurances on the call that the deal wasn't about acquiring the characters or stories but bringing in Marvel's talent pool ("No one knows their characters and stories better than the folks at Marvel" it was said at one point), Disney President Bob Iger sure made it sound like Disney was looking to take a firmer control Marvel's IP in this morning's statement:

This transaction combines Marvel's strong global brand and world-renowned library of characters including Iron Man, Spider-Man, X-Men, Captain America, Fantastic Four and Thor with Disney's creative skills, unparalleled global portfolio of entertainment properties, and a business structure that maximizes the value of creative properties across multiple platforms and territories.

Marvel's current management structure will stay in place despite the acquisition, and the company is expected to maintain its two main bases in New York and LA in a similar fashion to Pixar continuing to operate in Emeryville, CA, following their own acquisition by Disney in 2006. However, the goal of the sale, it was said on today's call, is

not to rebrand Marvel as Disney but to shine a spotlight on the Marvel brand.

When asked about this changing Marvel's movie plans, it was said that Marvel Studios would make decisions about 3D or co-branding autonomously, although "sparks will fly" following meetings between Marvel and Disney/Pixar CCO John Lasseter because everyone was so excited about collaborative opportunities: "Exciting product may come from that," it was said.

The sale, while approved by both Disney and Marvel, is not necessarily a done deal. Before being finalized, the sale has to be approved by Marvel stockholders (who'll received an estimated $30 per share plus Disney shares, if it goes through) and approved by antitrust committees.

Developing.

Additional Reporting by Meredith Woerner.

Adam Baines is a concept designer in the UK, and is just starting his career. I love how some of these images combine a classic, cartoony animation style with anime-style cyborg body parts. And the steampunk images, while not incredibly original, are still very nicely-executed and fun. The lunar lander (number 5) and weird cart (number 6) are especially pleasing.

via Baines' gallery at Voidart

Everything about the above clip is pure awesome, including Snake Eyes's pet wolf and the weird blind Scottish guy who lives in the tundra and wears a funny eye mask.

Shout! Factory just put out a box set of G.I. Joe Season 1.1: A Real American Hero, which comprises the three original miniseries that introduced us to Duke, Scarlett, Snake Eyes and their COBRA foes, back in the early 1980s. The Love Boat-style disco lounge music churns over non-stop sketchy visuals of square-jawed men (and women) jumping over explosions and trying to hoist meteorites out of volcanos. It sails past campy and just keeps roaring off into the distance, with dialogue like "It's danger, with a capital D — for Destro!"

There's only one radioactive-ninja-fights-polar-bear sequence as far as I could tell, but luckily, the four-disc set is chock full of other crazy moments, all drawn in the same weird heavily inked style, sort of like Herb Trimpe on uppers. I had never seen the original G.I. Joe cartoons before, and now I'm hooked on the ridiculous snarling banter between the helmeted Cobra Commander and the silver-masked Destro. Cobra Commander is like an evil five year old boy, always trying to drag Destro into eating giant turkey legs with him or playing "arena battles" with mind-controlled gladiators. It's a miracle they keep almost taking over the world.

You will get this opening theme song stuck in your head for days:


It's up there with the English-language Starblazers theme.

The voice acting in these cartoons is so insanely over the top, it feels like it's in four dimensions. Check out Cobra Commander leading his umpteenth sneak assault. "A perfect victory!! Almost... too perfect..."

The animation style is simultaneously crude and detailed, in a way that's hard to explain. The pictures are amazing, but the lines are kind of rough and the movement is often kind of ridiculous. And in every other shot, something rolls towards the "camera," either an exploding vehicle or a giant boulder or an evil projectile. It's very in your face. Check out the way Destro's face has those little lines between his eyebrows and around his mouth. His silvery mask is weirdly expressive:

All in all, it's pretty much total lunacy, with crazy plots about COBRA trying to build a giant teleportation machine so they can steal the Eiffel Tower (what is it with these guys and the Eiffel Tower?) and eliminate New York, or destroy all the oil tankers so the world's economy crashes to a halt. Basic supervillain stuff, and the G.I. Joe squad stops every scheme, using the power of pure cheesiness. A couple of the episodes are even written by Bat-God Paul Dini and Howard The Duck creator Steve Gerber.

The DVD set's extras consist of some early Hasbro toy promo reels, plus a collection of amazing PSAs, like this one:

I didn't even realize until the other day that "Knowing Is Half The Battle" was a slogan that nobody ever uttered in the TV show, or in the comic book. It's a phrase that only turns up in these wacky PSAs. Anyway, if you want the full dose of G.I. Joe insanity, you may want to consider skipping the live-action movie and renting this puppy on DVD. And watching it with a jug of the cheapest, most throat-burning bourbon you can find. It's the ultimate experience! [Amazon]

1984-1992: Generation One
The original, and still the best. This is the incarnation that most people still think of when someone talks about Transformers - the one where giant robots turn into vehicles, dinosaurs, cassette tapes and all manner of other unassuming objects when they're not beating the crap out've each other. It's also the one that brought the world this classic piece of music:

1992-1995: Generation 2
Essentially a reboot of the original toyline with characters and figures based on the originals, but with details and colors changed to make them both safer and, theoretically, more toy-friendly. Theoretically, in the same continuity as the original G1 line, and notable for having advertisements demonstrating some truly basic CGI:


Somewhere, a young Michael Bay saw this and thought "One day... I'll do that. But better."

1996-1998: Beast Wars


A full-out reboot of the franchise (until they started bringing in G1 characters and concepts, but that was retconning the reboot, and things get muddy from that point on), with Autobots and Decepticons replaced by Maximals and Predacons, and Primal and Megatron replacing Optimus Prime and... um... Megatron as the main characters (Honestly, the two Megatrons are different characters). Unlike the majority of the original Transformers, these characters don't transform into vehicles or objects, but animals.

1999-2001: Beast Machines
A continuation of Beast Wars, but this time the Predacons are replaced by the Vehicons, as Megatron replaces his henchbots with... well, new henchbots, but these ones turn into (other) machines, instead of animals.

2001-2001: Robots In Disguise
A curious (and short-lived) mix of G1 and Beast Wars, this line set the Autobots versus the Predacons, who then created the Decepticons out of former Autobots because... Oh, I'm still not sure. All that you really need to know what that the animated series was as if someone had wanted to remake the original for the Pokemon audience, and was every bit as enjoyable as that sounds:

2002-2004: Armada/2004-2005: Energon/2005-2006: Cybertron (AKA: The Unicron Trilogy)


A four year line co-produced by Hasbro and Japanese manufacturer Takara, this revision of the franchise started with Armada hewing closely to G1 concepts, but with the added bonus that certain characters could essentially "power up" by partnering with a power-enhancing smaller robot called a "Mini-Con".


Energon took place 20 years after Armada, with Transformers settling on Earth (including building giant robot cities to live in) and having developed the ability to combine with each other to form even larger giant robots.


Cybertron followed from Energon, but only in America - The Japanese version of the line (called Galaxy Force) was another continuity reboot - and saw the Transformers travel the galaxy looking for "Cyber Planet Keys" that could... unlock a black hole and stop the destruction of Cyberton. Hey, I didn't come up with the idea.

2002- : Transformers Universe
Pretty much a re-release line from Hasbro, Universe has featured toys from every Transformers line repainted and reissued. Lacking a cartoon series of its own, the Universe continuity as such consists of a Collectors Club-only comic that explains that this incarnation sees Transformers from different times and different parallel earths brought together to defend a peaceful, post-Beast Machines-era Cybertron from the invading Unicron.

2007- : Movies
The Transformers go mainstream, thanks to Michael Bay. To all intents and purposes, the first movie is a revised version of the classic G1 continuity, right down to the use of "Whitwicky" as the surname of the human hero... just with added Bayhem. By the second movie, it's beginning to build its own mythology, and picking and choosing which era of toys to add to the mix.

2008-2009: Transformers Animated

Yet another reboot, and one that deages Optimus Prime (as much as one can de-age a robot) into something approaching a teenager, making him the leader of five Autobots stranded on Earth, fighting Decepticons and, oddly enough, human supervillains in a future Detroit.

And don't forget...
Alternators - A toyline where the robots turned into accurate cars licensed from real world car manufacturers.
Robot Masters - A Japanese toyline accompanying Energon and Cybertron, but set in G1 continuity.
Star Wars Transformers/Marvel Transformers/Disney Transformers - A toyline where robots turn into licensed characters or vehicles from other franchises.