Fantastic Four: Mr. Not So Fantastic

Fantastic Four: The Complete 1994-95 Animated Television Series

How many wives would name their husbands Mr. Fantastic? Especially with men who completely ignore them?
Susam Storm (to test if he's listening): "I'm going to go drown myself."
Reed Richards (obviously not?): "That's nice, dear."

Dr. Doom looking happy and blushing? Oh, the horror! Then again Sue is a beautiful woman, not that her man Reed notices. Doom's slacking; those Doombots look like mini Sentinel knockoffs.

Prince Namor the Submariner also notices Sue's beauty and tries to lure he into becoming his queen. She halfway falls for it. Seriously? The guy has ridiculously un-aerodymnic ankle wings which couldn't possibly help him fly. Not to mention the Vulcan ears how he doesn't look - or have powers - remotely like any of his people, which is why some of them want to overthrow him. Oh, and he has the personality of an cranky ass.

That Human Torch - How did Johnny Storm's towel stay on as he did all that jumping and flipping around when controlled by the Mole Man? His serenade of the spoiled girl: *cringe.*

Mmm...tastes like chicken - Galactus looked like he was sucking chicken skin off the planets he consumed. Yummy?

Miscellaneous - If vibranium punches back when Thing punches it, how was hitting one specific spot supposed to help? Never realized the Watcher was quite such a large baby man. Pyschoman: bad Mongol look-alike?

The Incredible Hulk 1982 - Miraculous Clothes

Miracle clothes - They rip and tear when Bruce Banner changes into Hulk until he's wearing nothing but ragged purple pants. When he changes back to Dr. Banner, the clothes are whole again. Miraculous! Imagine never having to lose buttons, replace holey clothes or repair broken seams. Oh, except for the occassional lab coat that goes missing after he returns to weak Banner mode.

Idiot Talbot - Sure, he knows martial arts, NOT. Could he have called Betty any louder to alert the enemy to their presence? Watch he swiftly he flees. No wonder the men called him Noodlehead Ned. Why hasn't he gottem demoted yet?

That three star nightgown - Do those nightgowns come standard for army generals?

Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends (aka Love Triangle)

Talk about flexibility: Spidey can change in the tight confines of a sarcophagus! Where's Spidey stashing his clothes?

Iceman - Anyone else thinks he might be overemphasizing his muscles when he builds that icy shell? And where did his clothes go that time he turned back to Bobby wearing nothing but underwear?

The secret room - How'd they build it and with what money? Why hasn't Aunt May accidentally activated it when dusting or walked in while it was open and they were out?


Three's Company - The threesome are like Three's Company with superpowers. Well, I guess since Firestar looks like MJ they didn't need Mary Jane Watson there even if Anna Watson was living next door. Love triangle!

 
Licensing fees, please - They have Spidey comics, T-shirts, and costumes. They invited him to star in a Hollywood movie. Why isn't Peter getting a cut of this stuff? Since they like to send Spidey bills for destruction in the wake of his superheroing, at least he could start a fund using licensing fees to pay for all that. Peter's so broke he had to go as Spider-Man for Halloween while his equally jobless college friends got to go as other superheroes.

That arcade - Who studies in an arcade? Can anyone even concentrate with all the noise? Not that I didn't enjoy seeing Flash Thompson getting Ponged to within an inch of his life.

That Dracula -  Anyone else think Dracula sounded fruity saying "frisky little frosty friend?" How did he keep crocodiles alive in a tiny enclosed space for decades? Vampires should be afraid of fire so why marry Firestar?



Miscellaneous - How did the Red Skull's henchmen touch that burning rope around Iceman with their bare hands? How did they save the future from Spidey germs without decomtaminating the future girl before sending her back?

Spider-Man 1967 - Ouches and ughs

• You can tell a villian by his color - Starting in the second season, the villians literally have green skin. No one bothered asking if they were OK or even space aliens. Maybe no one cared or they were too afraid. Or maybe the 60's were a happy time full of love and equality for people of all colors, even possible aliens from outer space! But shouldn't they have cared then? Hey, dude, you gonna puke? You well enough to rob a bank/destroy the city/conquer the world?

• Spidey needs a chiropractor - If you watch him run toward you or across the screen or anywhere really, you'd see that the poor guy moves kind of funny. And I don't mean like a spider, or a human spider or anything that should be remotely natural-ish. It's really painful to watch. The same thing goes for his walking, crawling, sneaking, some web swinging... Heck, his smoothest move is the stripper pole spin. Wonder why that is?

• Recycled creatures everywhere! - Or maybe every villian/nasty environment gets their monsters from the same rental place? Spidey finds the same creatures on a far off island, deep within the Earth and even in other dimensions. Yet everytime he seems surprised and has to figure out how to fight them all over again.

• The wonders of webbing - He can weave airtight ship sails  but his parachutes let through more than fishnet stockings. I guess he hasn't yet learned to webzip to bypass that endless scurrying. Then again, that scurrying - and endless swinging - sure helped them waste a lot of time/save money on animation.

• Paging Daredevil - Could have sworn I saw the guy all in red standing on a dark nighttime rooftop. Oh, my bad, that was Spidey!

• Ladies love a nerd! - For a hopeless socially-challenged, perpetually late, plans-cancelling nerd, this Peter sures attracts a lot of ladies.

• Mysterio unfishbowled! - Since when has Mysterio ever appeared in his villain costume sans fishbowl head? Apparently here!

• They really phoned it in towards the end of the series with lame stories using badly recut footage from previous episodes. Thank goodness it finally ended.

See what you think:Spider-Man - The '67 Collection (6 Volume Animated Set)

Captain America 1966 Cartoon - All those who oppose his shield must yield

• Why, Bucky, of course you can be my sidekick! Never mind that you're just the teen mascot

  

  Are those micro-shorts?

  and not a soldier. I'll train you so well, you won't need armor, a shield, superpowers or a weapon either. You won't die under my watch. Oh, whoops, you did.
  
• Red Skull's delusional! Then again, what would you expect from someone willing to bake in a hideous head-encompassing mask and gloves 24/7? He actually thought that he and Cap were alike, that Cap would sympathize with his story of how he was plucked from obscurity to become a fearsome figurehead (then disposed of his puppeteer leader). And how did he think crushing the weak and helpless would give him great power? Presumably, they're weak and helpless because they have no power to take.

  

  Not a happy camper

  
  
• He's athletic! Just check out those cartwheels! No one else could make it look so easy, like he doesn't even really have to use his hands or feet!
  
• That's one sharp shield! "All those who oppose his shield must yield." Even if the opposition is his own parachute. He accidentally sliced the strings with it and went plummeting.
  
• Is it just me? The prisoner escaping to cause so much trouble in one episode wasn't even restrained! They sat him in the back of an open air truck with no handcuffs or guards, or at least no way to keep him from literally falling off the truck. And expected him to be a good  little boy and stay.
  
• That A wasn't sewn on or woven into his mask? He removed

  

  Horns of plenty?

  
  

  
  

  and replaced it as easily as a velcro patch or magnet to put some device behind it.How doesn't it fall off in the heat of battle?
  
• After they brought him out of frozen death and he became the leader, all of the other headlining members of the Avengers were mysteriously always busy or away. He had to work with the B team. Wow, even  Wolverine's pointy do has nothing on Quicksilver's hair!
  

Get Captain America - The Complete 1966 Series on DVD now! 

 

• Episode 1: The Origin of Captain America, Wreckers Among Us, Enter Red Skull
• Episode 2: The Sentinel and the Spy, The Fantastic Origin of the Red Skull, Lest Tyranny Triumph
• Episode 3: Midnight in Greymoor Castle, If This Be Treason, When You Lie Down With Dogs
• Episode 4: The Revenge of Captain America, The Trap Is Sprung, So Dies A Villain
• Episode 5: Return of Captain America, The Search, To Live Again
• Episode 6: Zemo and his Masters of Evil, Zemo Strikes, The Fury of Zemo
• Episode 7: Let The Past Be Gone, The Adaptoid, The Super Adaptoid
• Episode 8: Coming of the Swordsman, Vengeance Is Ours, Emissary of Destruction
• Episode 9: Bitter Taste of Defeat, Sorcery Triumph, The Road Back
• Episode 10: Doorway to Doom, When the Commissar Commands, Duel Or Die
• Episode 11: The Sleeper Shall Awake, Where Walks the Sleeper, The Final Sleep
• Episode 12: The Girl from Cap's Past, The Stage Is Set, 30 Minutes to Live
• Episode 13: The Red Skull Lives, He Who Holds the Cosmic Cube, The Red Skull Supreme

 

The Invincible Iron Man 1966

• Where do I get one of those suits? Why settle for an electric car that you charge from any old outlet when you can have a rocket powered, beam emitting suit of armor? I wonder if he's got international adapters for that thing?

Shiny!

• Can you hear me now? You've got to love the visual sound effects. Zitt! It's not just a zit but a zitt, watch out, it might squirt something deadly! Wok! Watch out for flying woks! Bong! Well, now that would be quite a smoke. The one I like most though is Fwoof! It sounds downright fluffy. It's also interesting how Clank! and Ring! came out sounding like the same glub.

• Upgrades and more upgrades! He upgrades suit 3-4 times in 13 episodes: switching to a less clunky (and less blinding) suit by episode 2, having another utterly destroyed by an enemy later on, building a brand new one to save his pal Happy Hogan (who happened to be posing as him, etc. The iron suits rusted, yuck! He got challenged by a Titanium Man. He really should have built one of adamantium or vibranium, or a layer of each, or something.

• Politicians will be politicians. Isn't it comforting to know that politicians weren't any smarter way back when? Congressman What'sHisFace keeps demanding Tony Stark to appear before Congress to reveal the secrets of Ironman's armor. Because, you know, telling a bunch of politicians -- and whoever else might be lurking around -- will ensure that the country remains safe. Safe from who? Ironman, an independent agent who -- although constantly fighting on the side of good -- might, by some extremely remote possibility, turn on the country at any time? From the bad guys continually trying to take over or destroy the world who would love the increased opportunities to steal said armor secrets?

Unfortunately, Amazon doesn't seem to have a completr set of these available, but if you're nearly as old-fashioned as Al Bundy and you still have a working VCR (but sadly no Betamax), individual episodes are on VHS.

Episodes 2 & 5: The Death of Tony Stark & The Crimson Dynamo

Episodes 7 & 9: If I Die, Let it Be with Honor and The Other Iron Man

You'll have to find  the rest yourself.

• Episode 1: Double Disaster, Enter Happy Hogan, Of Ice and Men
• Episode 2: The Death of Tony Stark, The Hands of the Mandarin, The Origin of The Mandarin
• Episode 3: Ultimo, Ultimo Lives, Crescendo
• Episode 4: The Mandarin's Revenge, The Mandarin's Death Ray, No One Escapes the Mandarin
• Episode 5: Crimson Dynamo, The Crimson Dynamo Strikes, Captured
• Episode 6: Enter Hawkeye, So Spins the Web, Triple Jeopardy
• Episode 7: If I Die, Let It Be With Honor; Fight On, For A World Is Watching; What Price Victory?
• Episode 8: The Moleman [sic] Strikes, The Dragon of Flames, Decision Under the Earth
• Episode 9: The Other Iron Man, Death Duel, Into The Jaws of the Death
• Episode 10: Cliffs of Doom, The False Captain America, The Unmasking
• Episode 11: My Life For Yours, Black Knight's Gambit, Menace of the Monster
• Episode 12: Dream Master, If A Man Be Mad, Duel In Space
• Episode 13: The Beauty and the Armor, Peril in Space, As A City Watches

Do Norse Gods Smite Lowly Mortals For Snickering?

The Mighty Thor DVD - The Complete 1966 Series
 (Marvel Super Heroes)

• He's giving! Who knew the mighty thunder god entertained sick children in the hospital? He's also a doctor with his own practice which never seems to suffer even if he has to run out and save the world all the time. Why doesn't he do those sick kids at the hospital more good by treating instead of just entertaining them? Plus, he even generates special effects for Hollywood movies! Did they pay him for it? He could give the money to those poor sick children. Why didn't they use special effects? Or did hiring a god cost less?
• Daddy wuvs him! His father, almighty Odin, loves him enough to forgive almost anything, but not before dishing out a very brief (15 minutes max) lesson. Daddy takes 1/2 his power and repents, all his power and gives it back, bans him from Asgard and lifts the ban, ditto with Earth, makes all of Asgard fight him, etc. But he's not the only one to get Daddy's fickle treatment; Loki's been chained to a rock, then given temporary rule of Asgard, sentenced to years of toil with the trolls, then set free, etc. But Odin really loves Thor. In fact, his TV is usually set to the Thor channel. Yes, they get some sort of TV in Asgard. Why not? After all, it is closer than Omicron Persei 8.
• He keeps changing! (And changing) One moment he's Dr. Don Blake in a suit. The next he taps his cane to the ground (having suddenly changed from suit to what looks like either a hospital gown or short sleeved scrubs). And finally, he changes to Thor with his mighty hammer. What's with the gown/scrubs quick change? Is he afraid he'll rip the suit (a la Hulk's shredded shirt and pants)?
• He's got weird hair! (But super strength hair gunk) As Dr.

  

  Now you see it, now you don't.

  Blake, he's got a short, (more) modern do. With one tap of his cane/hammer, he suddenly sprouts a glorious godly mane. His helmet covers all the hair in front. And then it doesn't and he's got a weird piece sticking up on the left. A piece that defies gravity more easily than his whirling hammer. A piece that only shows up when he's looking dumbstruck, mystified, puzzled, or worried. Then the helmet comes off and he's got smooshed limp girly hair longer than mine's ever been. Maybe his luxurious locks are why Loki (whose ponytail is limper than a dead horse's) hates him so?
• A mighty mallet indeed! Spinning his hammer allows him to fly! It provides slightly more lift than an entire bag of hammers but is much less cute than Bugs Bunny's spinning ears. He can also spin it to make time stand still! Which apparently only affects dying women named Jane but not nefarious villians trying to kill him. The enchanted hammer always returns to him! Nope, it keeps getting trapped or tricked. Then again it's got the IQ of a, well, hammer. Thor's hammer does other miraculous things that he suddenly needs it to do! (Like fuse elements to cause a nuclear explosion. Did he care that innocent people were nearby?)
• You Jane, me Thor. In a cartoon full of two dimensional characters, Jane is thinner than a sheet of tissue paper. Superman's Lois Lane and Spider-Man's Mary Jane Watson both had spunk, Iron Man's Pepper Potts was loyal (and besotted with Tony instead of the hero), Hulk's Betty Ross had smarts and caring. Jane has ... beauty. That's it. OK, so she's also a nurse for Dr. Blake's inconstant practice. She's weak, a fainter, kind of whiny, the perpetual damsel in distress. When Hercules woos her, she goes along to make Thor jealous, resulting in a battle that must have caused millions of dollars worth of destruction. (Talk about getting two guys to fight over you.)  She's sort of two timing (before she realized she loved two sides of the same coin), thwarting Thor to save Dr. Blake (which did NOT impress Odin). The one thing that's mentioned again and again, the only thing that stands out, is that she's beautiful. And that's it.
• Check out that rainbow bridge to Asgard, home of the mighty gods! It's so My Little Pony. Thor's faithful friend, Baldr, rides across it on a cool horse. Heimdall stands guard there with his sword. Thor just kind of slides up and down it as if it's, well, a fun slide in a playground.

• Unleash the sounds of war! Ka-Pow! I get. Blam! Sure, why not? But what the heck is Blap?

Watch The Mighty Thor 1966 cartoon for yourself!

• Episode 1: Trapped by Loki, Vengeance of Loki, Defeat of Loki
• Episode 2: Chained Evil; Sandu, Master of the Supernatural; Enchanted Hammer
• Episode 3: Enchantress and Executioner, Giants Walk the Earth, Battle of the Gods
• Episode 4: At the Mercy of Loki, Trail of the Gods, Return To Earth
• Episode 5: The Absorbing Man; In My Hands, This Hammer; Vengeance of the Thunder God
• Episode 6: To Kill A Thunder God, The Day of the Destroyer, Terror of the Tomb
• Episode 7: The Grey Gargoyle, The Wrath of Odin, Triumph in Stone
• Episode 8: Mysterious Mister Hyde, Revenge of Mr. Hyde, Thor's Showdown with Mr. Hyde
• Episode 9: Every Hand Against Him, The Power of the Thunder God, The Power of Odin
• Episode 10: The Tomorrow Man, Return of Zarrko, Slave of Tomorrow Man
• Episode 11: Enter Hercules, When Meet Immortals, Whom the Gods Would Destroy
• Episode 12: The Power of Pluto, The Verdict of Zeus, Thunder in the Netherworld
• Episode 13: Molto, the Lava Man; Invasion of the Lava Man; Living Rock