“Yesterday’s” Comic> Ultraverse Premiere #5

“Paper covers rock! I win!”

Ultraverse Premiere #5

Malibu Comics/Ultraverse (July, 1994)

EDITOR: Hank Kanalz

I was supposed to be reviewing Prototype #13 but I can’t seem to find it anywhere. I can find the flipbook of Ultraverse Premiere #6 but I haven’t done #5 yet, so let’s get caught up on this. Because apparently the week I try to cut down my time consuming anthology count is another way to eat up my time! Hopefully the comic I was going to review shows up in time to review it, as the whole series seems to be down past #4 on every site I tried.

This issue shared a flipbook with Firearm #11 but I don’t care about that series. Naturally that one came up! I still won’t review it. It just makes me madder!

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BW’s Daily Trailer> Origin Of Ultraman Documentary

Catch more from the ULTRAMAN Official English Channel on YouTube

Not sure when this is hitting the West.

Jake & Leon #688> Baby Doctor

I was going to do a “goo” or “coo” pun with the title, but decided against it.

I’ll keep making original regenerations ginger until the show gets it right.

Over at The Clutter Reports this week I tapped another old Scanning My Collection article by looking at the third volume of G.I. Joe Vs. The Transformers.

Coming up this week, if I don’t have any more comics at Neon Ichiban to review we’ll be jumping over to Globalcomix. I also need to see if there’s anything new at ComiXology (it’s Amazon so I doubt it since they don’t seem to like the freebees and if I had money I’d be getting the physical version if possible) and Drive Thru Comics or I’m going to have to rethink Tuesday and Thursday offerings for the daily comic review. There’s also the next chapter of Star Trek: The IDIC Epidemic for Chapter By Chapter, and this weekend is Independence Day, which I try to do something for. Otherwise it’s hopefully business as usual.

Have a great week, everyone!

Saturday Night Showcase> (The New Adventures Of) Flash Gordon

Last week we looked at the TV movie. I forgot the series was available legally on YouTube, and by two sources. Filmrise has the rights to distribute but because Flash Gordon is owned by Kings Features Syndicate they also have the series up. I decided tonight to bring up the entire first season, the serialized one, not the second season where executive meddling led to two stories per half-hour episode and the unnecessary addition of…

Sorry, Gremlin. On another show I might have liked you, but you don’t fit here.

I don’t even hate Gremlin the baby dragon. He just feels so unnecessary that I wouldn’t have missed him had he not been there. He didn’t add anything to the story, and while I could maybe find a use I don’t remember any stuffed animals of him being sold, so he didn’t even fulfill his marketing purpose while having no narrative purpose. Killing the serial format (probably so they could be lazy and air the episodes however they wanted) was what really ruined the show for me, though. That’s why the embedded playlist below is made from the Comics Kingdom posting. You’ll only see the intro once but you can stop at any outro, and after the embed I’ll link to where you can see it to continue for yourself.

The playlist, if it’s still up when you get here, has all of season one and the first episode of season two. It introduced Gremlin so you know what I’m talking about, but it also has an important wedding (no spoilers for newcomers), so I felt like including it. Enjoy.

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BW’s Saturday Article Link> About Star Trek’s Kiss

Star Trek often gets applauded for the first interracial kiss on television. Now, ignoring the fact that it was kiss forced by a race of jerk telepaths forcing Kirk and Uhura to liplock, essentially forcing both of them into a shared sexual assault, it’s not actually the first. Bleeding Fool contributor Karina Smitt shows that it’s not even TV’s first black/white kiss. That doesn’t make the kiss insignificant at that point in television and US history, where it was still considered taboo in our world for stupid reasons, and I still love classic Trek. It just means, as Smitt notes, context matters.

How Paramount Warner Brothers Discovery Etc. Could Use Cartoon Network & Nickelodeon

In case you haven’t heard, David Zaslav bought the former AOL Turner Time Warner Brothers Othernames only to sell it off. He had planned to keep his Discovery Network stuff I think, but long story short Paramount fought for the whole thing. Certain Hollywood types are fighting it because it’s only okay when Disney tries to buy every piece of media in the world…on second thought, that’s all political BS we don’t care about on this site. Skydance, who bought Paramount, is still working their way around the world trying to get the merger confirmed because they have branches in other countries. As of this writing it’s the UK’s turn.

Cord Cutter News is of the opinion that a huge sticking point is that Skydance would then own two of the big names in TV children’s programing, Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network. According to this article in particular it looks like Skydance has stated that if this is a dealbreaker anywhere they’d be willing to sell of Cartoon Network. Thus far every country, including the US, hasn’t been all that concerned. That’s because they’re both separate networks with their own target audience and content. Nickelodeon is strictly a kids channel until the US kiddies are in bed, and then goes over to Nick At Nite. Cartoon Network ends around the same time and Adult Swim takes over. Nickelodeon still has a Nicktoons channel in the US while Cartoon Network ended Boomerang, their former home for older cartoons when the channel took on more and more new shows.

Their only competition come from classic cartoon channel MeTV Toons, free streaming channels like WB’s own Cartoon Rewind, a binge/marathon channel which is only on Amazon Prime and only has like six shows or something on repeat, and Kartoon Channel, which has finally started getting some good shows like the 2003 He-Man & The Masters Of The Universe reboot. Plus you have show-exclusive channels and of course on demand options. Still, let’s act like the UK and any remaining countries are okay with Skydance owning both channels and their spinoffs…of which Cartoon Network has none in the US but Boomerang is still an option in other countries. The question is how could they restructure those channels and still make them unique destinations for kids entertainment?

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“Yesterday’s” Comic> Zip Comics #2

“That reminds me, I need to stop and get light bulbs on the way home.”

Zip Comics #2

M.L.J. Magazines, Inc (March, 1940)

I was a little tentative coming out of last issue, but as the formation of Archie Comics’ “Red Circle” characters (M.L.J. became Archie at some point) it still bears some investigation. Hopefully things will improve as this is the last comic of March of 1940 and it would be disappointing to go out on a bum note.

(I should make a list of the comics I’m reading and ones I’m avoiding. It would be easier on me. That’s a note to myself, folks.)

[Read along with me here]

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