NYCC: Green Lantern Animated Series

One of the few previews I saw when I went to New York Comic Con was a preview of the new DC Animated Green Lantern series. The series will be coming to Cartoon Network sometime next year.  The preview episode was about an hour and set up the basic premise of the series.

The series stars Hal Jordan, has been a Green Lantern for a couple years, while on Oa, he and the Guardians receive a message that someone has been killing the Lanterns of the outermost edge of the galaxy.  The Guardians are hesitant to investigate the deaths, however, Hal being the hero he is, he steals an experimental spaceship and along with Kilowog investigate the killings.  There they discover the Red Lanterns, a previously unknown set of Lanterns who blame the Green Lanterns for destroying their civilizations.  Not many details are given about the history of the Red Lanterns but they are definitely scary.  During the battle between Hal and Kilowog and the Red Lanterns, the experimental spaceship is damaged and unable to do the hyper warp jump to make it back to Oa.

Creator Bruce Timm  discussing episode

This leaves just the two lanterns in an unexplored area of space, with a mysterious enemy.  The animation is computer generated, with a style meant to evoke the Pixar movie The Incredibles.  I saw where they were going and I really enjoyed it.  The powers on screen were fun, and well animated.  The story seems different many other animated series.  Bruce Timm, the creator of this series, in addition to classic series such as Batman: The Animated Series and Justice League Unlimited, mentioned that this series will be serialized with Hal and Kilowog discovering the history of the Red Lantern, in addition to having standalone episodes where the two lanterns will discover a new part of space.  I can't wait to see some more.

Random Thoughts: Some Favorite Cartoons

Every so often I get random thoughts in my head.  I've decided to start writing down these thoughts.  Here is my first random thought.  Let's see if I can keep it going.

A couple days ago I was thinking about some of my favorite cartoons, and I remembered a few of my recent favorite that I rarely hear talked about.  I'm not saying these are the best cartoons ever, but I sure enjoyed them. So without further ado, here are three of my favorite under the radar cartoons.

Fillmore! - Disney (2002-2004).
This show is about a juvenile delinquent who becomes an officer in X Middle School's "Safety Patrol".  The Safety Patrol is X's pseudo police department who investigates school related crimes.  The hook of the show was that it parodied hard boiled detective stories.  Crimes such as car theft and drug smuggling where turned into scooter thefts and tartar sauce smuggling.  The show played the crime parodies extremely straight faced and even had a deep voiced narrator to add to its grittiness.  Here is a clip to show you what Fillmore! was about.



Recess - Disney (1997-2001)
This show was about a group of Middle School friends who meet up during recess to escape from the trials of school.  The playground during recess is a microcosm of the larger adult world, with a leader, mean girls and snitches.  I loved the way that kids would get in trouble and they would help each out.



Codename: Kids Next Door - Cartoon Network (2002-2008)
The last and probably my favorite.  This show was about a group of kids who are secretly part of an elite agency that battled adult tyranny.  Adult Tyranny included forcing kids to wear ties, forcing kids to eat broccoli and refusing to give out candy.  I loved this show because it loved to parody pop culture, movies and TV.  Off hand I can think of parodies of the The Matrix, Star Wars Trilogies, Lord of the Rings, Aliens, and Air Force One.



Another episode, I couldn't find a youtube of this episode, but it is one of my favorites. Codename: Kids Next Door - Operation P.R.E.S.I.D.E.N.T.

I also thought about these shows and why I liked them.  I like these shows because they take the mundane things in life that we as adults take for granted or might be rather small in the grand scheme of things, however when seen through the eyes of children whose world view is a lot more limited, these mundane things are actually quite special.