Cartoon Rundown for 10/24/09

For this week’s cartoon review of Batman: The Brave and Bold Andrenn was able to get enough strength, after spending the past week out sick, to write up a review of the episode. So for the special musical episode you will be getting two reviews of the episode

The Spectacular Spider-Man Ep. 23

“Gangland”

Kevin’s Review
The hits just keep coming since The Spectacular Spider-Man came back from what felt like a very long break. And surprisingly this episode sort of concludes the whole gang war storyline that started when the show came back. It is surprising to see this arc end so quickly since it has only been three episodes and even more so since last week’s episode focused more on Peter’s supporting cast than the gang war.

In any case this was a great episode. The one thing that continues to amaze me about the writers and animators about this show is how they make each action sequence feel new and exciting. The fights in this show never feel like a rehash of older fights. And when a cartoon gets into its second season some of the action sequences feel like a rehash of fights in season one, similar to how comics get repetitive at times. But thankfully this is not the case for this cartoon. The whole thing of having the opera being played in the background was a great addition, adding to the “epic-ness” of the fight between Spider-Man and the crime bosses of New York City.

The fatal four way fight that had Spider-Man vs. Tombstone vs. Doctor Octopus vs. Silvermane was great. I especially like how the writers of this show were able to have Silvermane get physically involved in the fight since it is something the character is not known for.

And it was great to see Tombstone back in action. For this whole season he has Tombstone has basically been put aside to build other storylines. Credit to the writer for building Tombstones into this shows universe’s Kingpin of Crime that when we see him make his comeback in this episode he has that big boss aura he had throughout the first season. And it was great seeing his fight Spider-Man. I like that the writers did have Spider-Man be the one that took down Tombstone.

Also, I loved the moment at the end of the big fight between Spider-Man and Captain George Stacy. The relationship between these continues to be very fun to watch as there is a certain Batman/Commissioner Gordon relationship. With Tombstone out of the picture for now it is going to interesting to see how the brains of behind everything that happened in this episode will play use the whole situation to his advantage.

Taking somewhat of a backseat is Peter’s personal life. But this episode taking place during Valentine’s Day we do see some focus on that. The most interesting thing coming from this part of the episode is the whole She’s All That transformation of Gwen. It was predictably going to happen but still cool that the character looks more like her comic book counterpart while maintaining the whole science geek persona she has had on this show. With Peter paying more attention to Gwen again it looks like his relationship with Liz will be over soon especially after Mark’s little comment to Peter at the end of the episode (which Mark was completely right in saying).

Overall, this was another great episode. The Spectacular Spider-Man continues to be a great show and now with the gang war arc over it will be interesting to see were the last three episodes go.

Episode Rating: 9 Night Girls out of 10

Batman: The Brave and the Bold Ep. 24

“Mayhem of the Music Meister”

Andrenn’s Review
Now the overall plot is incredibly simplistic, bad guy gets satellite, bad guy initiates plan to take over the world, good guy stops him. With a bunch of fun little moments. As far as the story is concerned the only major development that caught my eyes was the new relationship between Green Arrow and Black Canary.

It was introduced here more for comedy I figure, as it was pretty funny seeing Green Arrow get rejected by Canary. Though it comes to fruition at the very end, but more on that when I tackle the songs.

Overall the plot was a solid and enjoyable one, with some fun twists that where great and a great use of its full cast of characters from heroes to villains. Though of course NPH as Music Meister totally steals the show every time he’s on screen.

Harris totally gets into the role and blows everyone out of the water. As much as I loved his work in Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog, I’d have to say his singing here was even better mostly for the maniacal and off the wall soundtrack.

Now onto the songs!

Our intro sound to the Music Meister was long and enjoyable. It did a great job of introducing us to our villain, mapping out his plans and also showing how over the top and flamboyant he is while still showing he’s a very credible threat and isn’t too goofy not to be taken seriously.

No real criticisms really. It’s wild and over the top and I loved the hell out of it.

Drives Us Bats: Undeniably my favorite of the songs. It was amazingly well done both with the music and the singing, it all blew me away and the only complaint I have is it wasn’t longer!

If Only: While it was odd seeing Black Canary, a fairly independent character, sing about wanting someone to love her, this song was well done. Mostly thanks to Music Meister coming in during the middle of it and adding his own twist to it.

Death Trap: A fairly short song but it sums up every cheesy super villain death trap and for that it’s awesome. The actual moment of the song was insanely over the top, our villain spares no chance of letting Batman live.

The World is Mine: While I like this song I think it never got quite as epic and over the top as the others. While I did like the adding in of all the people around the world singing I still think this song was missing a little extra something to really make it awesome.

If Only (Reprise): Okay I confess, this part kind of got to me. It was a sweet way to end an all around epic story. Sort of a quiet way to end a war really.

Looking at this episode as a whole, there wasn’t one minute I wasn’t smiling and loving this. From start to finish this episode was full of exciting energy, off the wall action, a fun story and some of the best music I’ve heard from a super hero cartoon since the days of Batman: the Animated Series, and they weren’t even singing to that music!

Episode Rating: 10 Night Girls out of 10

Kevin’s Review
Batman: The Brave and the Bold has been one of those cartoons that I have been very mixed on. It seems this show just alternates between good and bad episodes. And one of the criticisms I had against this show is that so far it has yet to have a very memorable episode. Until now

Andrenn summed up my thoughts of this episode perfectly. This was a phenomenal episode and this is not just the best episode of this series but my favorite comic book cartoon episode. Period.
Neil Patrick Harris stole the show in this one. As a huge fan of his Barney character from How I Met Your Mother and Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog I did not expect anything less from NPH. His Music Meister was Legen…..wait for it…….dary. From the five minute intro song explaining his origin and plot to take over the world it was fantastic. NPH just has the charisma and musical chops that he carried this episode on his voice alone.

While all the songs were fantastic my favorite amongst them all is “Drive Me Bats.” That song has been stuck in my head since hearing it on the episode. Even though each song was very catchy this is the song that this episode will be remembered for and the one that I would not be surprised if it gets some mainstream appeal.

Also I got to give huge props to Grey DeLisle, the voice of Black Canary. She was super impressive as the co-star of this episode. She was actually on screen more than Batman himself. And Grey DeLisle was great as she showed great range to sing different genres of songs she sang. I especially love her love balled to Batman that turned into a duet with the Music Meister. She and NPH had some great musical chemistry on this episode.

Overall this was just a fun and entertaining half hour of television that no fan should miss. NPH provides an Emmy worthy performance as the star of this episode and Grey DeLisle does a great job as his co-star on this episode. Now time to download the CD for this episode from ITunes.

Episode Rating: 10 Night Girls out of 10
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Kevin