Brad's Week in Dork! (1/5/14-1/11/14)

Blink and you'll miss it.  That's what this week felt like.  2014 has barely started and I can already feel it slipping away.  I spent a good chunk of it compiling this year's Cinematic Resolutions, but I'm not quite ready to tackle any of them yet - which is certainly foolish if I have any hope in hades of devouring those Godzilla flicks before the latest reboot hits the big screen.  Gotta get hot.  I did manage to finish off Sweet Tooth & begin Grant Morrison's Animal Man.  Feels good to be tackling comics outside of the weeklies, and I hope it's a trend that lasts.  I'm tired of looking at all those unread trades piling up next to the bookshelf - Gotham Central, Doom Patrol, Infinite Kung Fu, Rasl, Swamp Thing, Loveless, and our next entry in the Graphic Novel Book Club, Sailor Twain.  New Year, and I want to refocus some of my dork energy into the other pop mediums.  Let's not forget I'm only halfway through Richard Stark's Parker series, and Darwyn Cooke is already adapting novels beyond my knowledge.  That ain't cool.

"What A World!" & "I'm Melting...I'm Melting!" by Jason Edmiston

I'm not bitching and moaning about the week, it just feels like it lacked focus.  I want to buckle down, but I guess I'm still decompressing from the massive 2013 movie dump I did in December.  This week started with a Late Show Drafthouse screening of Walter Hill's The Warriors.  My buddy Herms was in town from Texas, and it was a blast subjecting his fresh eyes to the Gang War crazy of late 70s New York City.  Yep.  This is the way it was folks.  Fact.  Matt & I also finally got ourselves around to witnessing the atrocity of the latest 47 Ronin.  Oh man.  What a waste.   So...yeah...the real highlight of the week was easily the Alamo 100 Raiders of the Lost Ark screening.  I've seen that film well over a hundred times now (at least 4 on the Big Screen), and it just never gets old.  Me & Indiana Jones?  It's true love.

The Warriors:  "I don't like the way you live." Ok.  I don't love The Warriors.  It's one of those seminal films of my youth that I just never bothered with.  The first time I saw the movie, I was 18/19 and well on my way to being a snooty film freak.  My initial thought back then was that Walter Hill perfected this sort of whacko gang land in his rock opera Streets of Fire.  Still, this film is a bit of a wonder, and I absolutely love its earnestness.  Here's a New York City in which Mimes rove the streets looking for trouble, where Baseball Furies terrify in warpaint, and where hillbillies in roller skates are the toughest dudes on the block. You can't help but chuckle at the sight of skinhead goons marauding about in a Road Warrior wagon. It's all about honor, friendship, and gash....uh...yeah, there are some awkward moments. The Warriors themselves always seem like a bad date away from running a train on their female companion - I know this, cuz our hero Swan says exactly that.  James Remar is the angry tough guy that gets taken off the stage when he fails to rape an undercover police woman.  So yeah, The Warriors, it's not too PC.  It's an icky fantasyland birthed from the same community fear that brought us Bernie Goetz and his cinematic Death Wish.   It's nearly two hours of confused, but somewhat intoxicating outlaw philosophy.  After all, as The Director's Cut clumsily establishes at the start, The Warriors is a story of courage similar to that of the 300 Spartans......uh....wha?

Sweet Tooth Vol 6 - Wild Game:  Gosh darn.  I just could not get past how damn sad this series got.  In a lot of ways it reminded me of Brian K Vaughn's Y The Last Man.  A Post-apocalyptic landscape.  An on-the-road quest to discovery the origin of a plague.  Bonds of friendship.  Bonds of love.   Maybe it's Lemire's somber, sometimes morose art-style, but I could never really connect to any other emotion than sorrow.  Sweet Tooth & Company finally reach their Alaskan destination, but the answers there are typically more ponderous than narratively satisfying.  Lemire writes a helluva page-turner; once I got back into this series, I was racing to the climax.  I love the sequential tinkering he puts his story through, and he's obviously having fun with the medium.  It's painfully refreshing to witness an artist utterly aware of his medium's visual importance.  This is not Brian Michael Bendis with neverending captions and word balloons.  Sweet Tooth is art.   But gloomy as hell, and I can already feel the story leaving my cranium.

Deceptive Practice:  The first time I encountered slight-of-hand artist Ricky Jay was as the narrator of Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia. That voice. Once heard it will live in your head. The next time I saw Ricky Jay was in David Mamet's Heist. That lead to an obsession with Mamet's films & plays which in turn lead to obsessions with Joe Mantegna, William H Macy, and Ricky Jay. Now for the first time, director Molly Bernstein takes us inside the tricks of Ricky Jay's trade. No, this is not a How-To on his artistry, but a sort of origin tale - a documentary that will drop your jaw in astonishment while also digging a bit into the history of stage magic. I'm a sucker for this type of thing. Penn & Teller. The Amazing Jonathan. Fun stuff. But Ricky Jay is an artist, a genius, and it feels like a privilege to get a peak inside.

Raiders of the Lost Ark:  "You want to talk to god?  Let's go see him together."  You know the deal.  On the verge of another World War, the American Government responds to rumblings of Hitler's Occult shenanigans by recruiting world renowned archeologist/adventurer, Dr. Indiana Jones.  It's an absurd premise born from the whacky pulp adventures of various movie serials, and succeeds thanks to Harrison Ford's uncanny badass charm.  This is one of those exceptional fits of character & actor.  Yes, you can imagine a world in which Tom Selleck traded idol for whip, but that's an offcentered Fringe universe where RC Cola reigns supreme.  No thank you.  The Big Bang Theory recently postulated that the good professor's presence in the narrative achieves absolutely nothing in the plot, but I actually think the futility of the Nazi's scheme adds an extra layer of apocalyptic gloom.  It's not a matter of Indy saving the day, but Indy bearing witness to God's Wrath.  Can't shake it.  Raiders of the Lost Ark is still the all time greatest adventure story.

47 Ronin:  If you're looking for an Asian Adventure with heavy doses of CGI then let me recommend Stephen Chow's Journey To The West.  If you're looking for a few against the many samurai slaughterfest then let me suggest Takashi Miike's 13 Assassins or the obvious Seven Samurai.  But if you're looking for the 47 Ronin saga told exceptionally then you better go with any other dozen retellings such as Kenji Mizoguchi's double feature or even Mike Richardson & Stan Sakai's recent Dark Horse Comic.  Cuz you're not going to want to bother with this one.  This film is nearly as lifeless as Keanu Reeves' performance.  It's a dull flop destined for banishment in the Wal-Mart five dollar bin or the black hole of streaming services.  Maybe some ignorant child will discover a curiosity for the genre after stumbling across it, but that's the best possible future this 47 Ronin can hope for.

21 Jump Street:  "They don't serve vegan in jail, bitch!"  I lost money on this one.  No way did I think a cinematic reboot of a crappy teen beat cop show from the 80s was going to work - especially one fronted by GI Joe's Duke Meathead.  Directors Phil Lord & Christopher Miller obviously enjoy a challenge; coming off a hilarious weirdo adaption of the unadaptable children's classic Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs, they go foul mouthed, meta absurdist, and weirdly violent for the buddy cop genre.  21 Jump Street is too damn odd to be this generations Beverly Hills Cop, but I appreciate the life & death stakes filtered through a gross-out, silly Superbad sensibility.   And Channing Tatum shines with his role.  He's an adorable idiot wandering the world of nerdom and discovering humanity while Jonah Hill descends into assholehood via the cool crowd.  It's a dumb ass movie with brief hints of legit high school commentary.  Something the original show could never claim.

The Other Guys:  Playing with the same Buddy Cop nostalgia as 21 Jump Street, Will Ferrell & Mark Wahlberg are the station house dolts that never walk away from explosions while the world champions the heroics of Sam Jackson & The Rock's Lethal Weapons.  But when aiming of the bushes results in a Wile E Coyote-styled roadkill splat, Ferrell & Wahlberg rise to the challenge of gunkata gymnastics.  Although seemingly impossible, The Other Guys is far stupider than 21 Jump Street, but that's the universe of Will Ferrell, and it's impressive how well Mark Wahlberg inhabits the stupid - "I'm a peacock!!!"  The Bernie Madoff social commentary is welcome even when the actual mechanics of the plot get murky.  You're really just hear to watch Wahlberg torture himself over Ferrell's sexual ownership of Eva Mendes.  "Gator don't take no shit."

Cellular:  Based on a story by Larry Cohen (Hell Up in Harlem), written by Chris Morgan (Fast Five), and directed by David E. Ellis (Snakes on a Plane).  Cellular is actually an extremely entertaining thriller that fully commits to its gimmick.  Chris Evans is dragged all over Los Angeles after he answers an unknown caller, and a weak cell signal keeps him at an arm's distance from William H Macy's savior cop.  It all has something to do with corruption, video tape, and Jason Statham's sneering 5 o'clock shadow.  Sure, Cellular is disposable, but it's the perfect film to catch on TNT.

MST3K - Warrior of the Lost World:  "This isn't Mad Max, it's Sad Max."  The Italians know how to pilfer American Cinema better than most modern day Hollywood Suits, but for every Fistful of Dollars or Django, you get two dozen Warrior of the Lost Worlds.  Doing his best Blofeld, Donald Pleasence rules over a post-apocalyptic wasteland with the doomsday threat of Mega Weapon.  Robert Ginty mumbles his way into the heart of Persis Khambatta, and races through the ashes of exploded henchmen while Fred Williamson's reigns fire from above.  I really can't imagine surviving this movie without the Robot Roll Call, and MST3K feasts upon this horrid buffet with great gusto.  Lots of cheap shots, well played.

Tropa De Elite:  "Put your bad face on."  We're just a month away from Jose Padilha's Robocop remake, and as a means of battling my own anxiety, and thanks to my buddy Darren slapping an import blu-ray in my hand, I finally decided to see if all the fuss about Elite Squad is genuine.  Turns out, this is not the balls-to-the-wall shoot-em-up I had been lead to believe.  Elite Squad is an oppressive cautionary tale destined to keep me the hell out of Rio De Janeiro.  After years of battling unstoppable drug trafficking and corruption, Wagner Moura must find a replacement before his baby is born.  His options are a couple of kids facing their own hurdles in a vile system, and whatever the outcome the resolution seems utterly pointless.  Every Drug War story concludes in futility, but few have achieved such heartbreaking pessimism as Elite Squad.  There is plenty of action here, but I left the film more impressed with Padhila's societal assassination than his shaky-cam.  Hopefully he can retain that awareness for the Robocop.

Animal Man Vol 1 by Grant Morrison & Chas Truog:  I've owned these trade paperbacks for three years.  Only now am I tackling them.  Why did it take so long?  I have no idea.  I guess I was just waiting for Morrison to finish up his Batman run before tackling these supposedly iconic stories.  I think I was also nervous that they couldn't possibly live up to their hype.  Well, I'm happy to report, that the first volume of Animal Man is absolutely, utterly, stupendously fantastic.  And weird as hell.  Just the way I like my Morrison.  In the first four issues, stuntman Buddy Baker finally decides that its time to come out of retirement and embrace his mind-bendingly strange animal powers.  He can suck the life essence from any creature in his presence - meaning a bird above can give him flight or an earthworm below can help him regenerate a severed limb.  When he's hired by S.T.A.R. Labs to investigate a giant puddle of monkey meat, Buddy Baker comes face-to-face with an even grosser lost hero of the DC Universe - B'Wana Beast!!!!!  It's an epic clash of the "Oh Dear God" and it's a sobering warning to any reader not ready for Grant Morrison.  This is the deep end kiddies, time to get nuts.  The next issue is a one-shot look into God's Lonely Man, Wile E. Coyote.  Yep, you read that right.  No Looney Tunes character is safe.  You also get the apocalyptic art of Hawkworld, a super villain satirizing of Edgar Allen Poe, and a home invasion from Mirror Master.  Those looking for Superman should take a hike.  I've had a few things spoiled for me, but my understanding is that Morrison's Animal Man only gets better and more bizarre in the next volume.  Can't wait.

--Brad

Comic Reviews: Animal Man 1 & 2

Volume 1

    I had a harder time getting into this than the recent Swamp Thing.  Part of it is that the Animal Man character doesn’t capture me at all.  He feels like the victim of decades of bad writing or at least inconsistent writing.  He was a super hero, a stunt man, an actor, and who knows what else.  None of which seems to lend him any depth.  Nor does the tale of his daughter being the avatar of the Red raise any especially interesting story potentials.  In fact, it feels like the same old, same old.  If she were ten years older, it would start smelling of Joss Whedon (he tends to limit his idiot savant/ultimate engines of destruction who only look like unassuming young women to the hormonally confused and terminally hipstery teen years).  Actually, it already smells of Joss Whedon.  His daughter spouted plenty of snarky comments that didn’t befit a kid of four years.

    However, I’m still interested in this whole Green-Red-Rot conflict and what might happen when Animal Man and Swamp Thing come together.  Or, Animal Man’s daughter and Swamp Thing, as she seems to be the real power player here (of course).  In this volume, we’re introduced to the Hunters Three, a triumvirate of hungry monsters looking to get their rotten claws on young Maxine.  Blah, blah, blee, blee, and they’re riding away in an RV with a mystical cat, being chased by a hoard of monsters.  OK.  Sadly, there’s not much to it.

    The art is disgusting.  Now, the art is supposed to be disgusting, but even getting past the content of the images, I found the art distractingly unpleasant.  Characters rarely look the same from panel to panel, and I had to go on costume cues to keep track (Animal Man is even suddenly bald in one panel…though that may be in volume 2).  Large sections looked like the artist spilled his inkwell all over the page and didn’t bother to clean it up.  The four year old girl seems to shift ages from 10 to 30 with every panel (never looking like a four year old).  At least there’s shading, I guess; something that seems to have become hip to skip in a lot of comics.

Volume 2

    Not far into the second volume, I was getting sick and tired of every one of the characters.  Animal Man is a sniveling cry-baby.  His wife is a fickle moron.  His kids are idiots.  And his mother-in-law is an old hag.  While basic plot idea is interesting, I don’t want to read about these people anymore.  It suffers from the same issues too many comics suffer from, especially those that have family dynamics.  The characters seem to spend most of their time bitching and moaning at each other, and not enough focused on what’s happening.  When the hoards of monsters are at the door, it may not be the time to bring up a bunch of family problems.

    I did enjoy the flashback story in the middle, about the Rot incursion in 19th century Canada.  It has a nice Lovecrafty vibe to it at the beginning.  However, it wraps up too quickly and seems to have nothing much to do with anything.

    Otherwise, while the general story builds toward the team-up with Swamp Thing and the eventual war of Rotworld, Buddy’s family becomes somehow more infuriating.  By the end of the volume I felt like I was watching the worst X-Files episodes, where Scully is staring at an alien spaceship and denying that aliens are possible.  Buddy’s wife has got to be about the worst character I’ve read in a good long time.  She’s the worst 70s movie cop-wife, who hates everything her husband does and makes everything imaginable somehow about her (see Vic Mackie’s wife on The Shield for a modern equivalent).  He needs to go to work, she feels abandoned.  He tries to save people from monstrous beings, she demands he walk away.  The apocalypse is happening around them, and she’s upset that he’s not spending enough time at home.  Rotten animal demons just ate a cop in front of her and her kids, and she’s blaming it on her husband’s decision to try to help.  Everybody is trying to protect her daughter, and she’s complaining that she doesn’t want to be involved in other people’s problems.  I’d say throw the bitch to the Rot, but I don’t hate the Rot enough to subject them to her.  Obviously, I would not recommend reading this one.  However, it seems to have a fairly devoted fanbase out there, so maybe there’s something in it for people that I’m not picking up.

Animal Man Volume 1: The Hunt
Author: Jeff Lemire
Artist: Travel Foreman
Publisher: DC Comics
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3507-9

Animal Man Volume 2: Animal Vs. Man
Author: Jeff Lemire
Artist: Travel Foreman, etc.
Publisher: DC Comics
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3800-1

-Matt

Brad's Week In Dork! (4/21/13-4/27/13)

Yes, I stalled on the Martin Scorsese-a-thon.  No real reason.  Just haven't tracked down a copy of New York, New York yet.  Looks like I might have to dive deep and purchase the blu ray to make that happen.  But the rest of the week wasn't that crazy.  I found myself in a work stretch of 7 days, coming home and not really wanting to blitz through cinema.  I read a good batch of comics, but nothing I really want to focus on here.  The big news came from the big screen.  Pain & Gain (thanks mostly to The Rock) earned a spot as my second favorite film of 2013 so far (yes, Steven Soderbergh's Side Effects still reigns supreme and I find that so completely strange).  But both Oblivion & Lords of Salem proved to be interesting theatrical experiences, but also films I just couldn't back fully.  I'm still waiting for that Great Movie.  Iron Man 3 hits next weekend, fingers crossed for flawless Summer entertainment.

Animal Man - The Hunt & Animal vs. Man:  Running side-by-side with Scott Snyder's Swamp Thing, but where Alec Holland battles The Rot from the The Green side, stuntman turned super hero Buddy Baker battles the decaying force from the side of The Red.  Green = plant lifeforce.  Red = animal lifeforce.  The big difference here is that where Snyder is completely & utterly faithful to the Saga that came before (you cannot ignore Alan Moore), writer Jeff Lemire has little interest in following Grant Morrison's footsteps.  Morrison's fourth wall shattering comic is written off as nothing more than a dream.  Lemire's Animal Man is as new as The New 52.  And that is absolutely not a bad thing.  The first tradepaperback centers around his daughter Maxine taking on the powers of The Red - after she resurrects the corpses of all the neighborhood pets.  Their journey takes them into the realm where Animal Man's powers began and together they discover the real deal behind Buddy's origin as well as the invading force of The Rot.  The second tradepaperback takes Buddy & family on the road with three servants of The Rot chasing their tail.  Hellblazer John Constantine appears to point Buddy in the direction of The Swamp Thing, and the two books rush towards each other.  Lemire relishes the grotesque, taking full advantage of artists Travel Foreman & Steve Pugh.  These guys know gross.  They've been waiting their whole careers for The Rot.  Twisted creatures covered in tumors, claws, tentacles, and leaking blood & puss.  You want monsters (and who doesn't want monsters?) then you'll get your fill on Animal Man.  The vaults & crypts of EC Comics are not locked shut, but are thrown wide open in The New 52.  Take a peak.

Oblivion:  "That is one pissed off weapon!"  Joseph Kosinski follows up the underrated Tron Legacy with this post-apocalyptic mystery reminiscent of...well, Everything.  Planet of the Apes, Alien, 2001, Outland, Zardoz, Moon, Wall-E, and I Am Legend (the book as well as all 3 adaptations).  As a science-fiction film about science-fiction films it's a good enough time at the movies.  Tom Cruise fights for the users; the human race has fled to Titan after a cataclysmic war with The Scavengers left Mother Earth decimated.  He's a worker bee.  Looking after the drones that guard the hydro towers converting what's left of Earth's natural resources.  Don't want to get too much into spoiler territory here, but whatever the revelations they're too familiar to be exciting.  Tom Cruise makes it work though.  The man knows earnest.  His scowls & shouts can pretty much sell any ridiculous sci-fi trope.  Doesn't hurt either when Morgan Freeman pops by to add an extra layer of exposition.  Production design is the real king of the film.  From the sweeping icelandic landscapes to the industrial Scav bunkers, the world of Oblivion feels legit even when the story settles on homage.

The Lords of Salem:  For the first ten minutes I thought I was going to love this movie.  The opening scene depicting the Satanic Rights of Meg Foster's coven are so delightfully Devil's Rain, and I was hopeful that Rob Zombie's latest would offer another grande trip down genre memory lane.  After all, The Devil's Rejects is a perfect piece of 70s exploitation and the gore hound's crown jewel.  Then the misses shows up.  And Sheri Moon Zombie is not the actress this movie needed.  Her disc jockey banter grinds the film to a halt.  Jeff Daniel Phillips, Ken Foree, & Sheri Moon - just a couple of chums chuckling it up with absolutely zero chemistry.  But every moment Meg Foster is on screen with her wretched staring contests is utterly unnerving.  And when Dee Wallace teeny boppers her way through the black rights, The Lords of Salem is a barrel of dead monkeys.  Rob Zombie is an expert at showcasing nonsensical dream imagery - he makes a great music video.  Goats.  Neon Crosses.  Smoke banks.  Jiggly mutant midgets.  Satan worshiping werewolves.  When he relishes in the blasphemy The Lords of Salem is a creepy, wrong-headed enchantment.

Django Unchained:  I just can't stay away.  Six watches.  I know I said this last week, but this is definitely my favorite of the Tarantino flicks so far.  You may be able to argue the superior quality of both Jackie Brown & Inglourious Basterds, but Django Unchained is the flick QT made for Brad.  Yeah, it's a Western or Southern - whatever.  So already you're playing in my favorite genre.  But then you add the hero's quest against the backdrop of America's great shame, and the resulting rage is not just cathartic but highly entertaining.  Tarantino drags his audience through the muck and filth of history, a horrendous reminder, but when Django stands victorious in front of an exploded plantation I am on my feet in twisted joy.  It's a brutal watch, but a necessary one.  Entertainment as social conscious.  

Pain & Gain:  Shave 30 minutes from the runtime and we might have had the first great film of 2013.  It's certainly the most captivating performance from The Rock to ever assault an audience.  His Paul Doyle is a born again cokefiend convict who falls in with the Sun Gym Gang when The Church grabs for his manbits instead of his eternal soul.  When rags goes to riches and riches to cocaine, The Rock goes full demento, acting to the heavens and achieving comic genius.  Finally, an actor who understands his Baysplosion surroundings.  And as he's proven in Ted & The Other Guys, Mark Wahlberg only excels when he's wrapped in the absurd.  His orgasmic slow motion expressions are almost as entertaining as The Rock's green inked beard & toeless panic.  Yes, Michael Bay's sophomoric, homophobic, misogynistic comedy has finally found a place in this "True Story" attack on the American Dream.  Should we forgive him now for those Transformer balls dangling over John Turturro's head?  Hell no.  It just so happens that Bay's indulgences fit swimmingly into Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely's screenplay.  The Rock, Walhberg, and Anthony Mackie are a tremendous trilogy of dunces and it's a hoot to see them stumble into the atrocities resulting from their criminal delusions of grandeur.  But should such a gross and tragic "True Story" be a hoot?  It's a little awkward to laugh at The Rock grilling severed hands on his BBQ when THE IS STILL A TRUE STORY crawls across the screen.  It is a messed up and bizarre crime spree that is also funny as hell.  Darwin Awards couldn't possibly do these dolts justice.  Pain & Gain certainly doesn't idolize the dimwits, but the reality makes my enjoyment a little complicated if not distressing.

Creation Entertainment's Official Star Trek Convention - Cherry Hill, NJ:  After work on Friday, The Wife & I braved DC traffic to travel north to the strip malls of sunny New Jersey.  There, tucked away in a corner of the Cherry Hill Crowne Plaza, Creation Entertainment was hosting their Official East Coast Star Trek Convention.  This was Lisa's first Trekkie Con and I was kinda hoping for something epic, but Jersey doesn't do epic.  Billed as the 20 year celebration of Deep Space Nine, the con was little more than a dozen Vendor tables & a sprinkling of Trek Celebrities.  The big names were Avery Brooks (Capt. Sisko), Michael Dorn (Worf), Gates McFadden (Dr. Crusher), Nana Visitor (Major Kira), Rene Auberjonois (Constable Odo), and Armin Shimerman (Quark).  They rotated the tables, no one celebrity sticking out through the entirety of the convention, and for the most part we were happy with our awkward fandom interactions.  Lisa chatted vegan lifestyles with Dorn.  Nana Visitor complemented us on our matching Niners ballcaps (aren't we adorable!).  And Rene Auberjonois was very pleasant in accepting Lisa's full-on Boston Legal lovefest.  Every couple of hours one of them would take the stage for storytime.  Nana Visitor revealed Odo as her best DS9 lover "Just think of the shape shifting possibilities."  Cirroc Lofton droned on about his encounter with The Ark of the Covenant in Ethiopia, refusing to take questions from the crowd.   Michael Dorn chanted ballbreaking lies of Gates McFadden stripping for the cast of TNG.  And Avery Brooks managed to take a bevy of questions, but offered no answers.  The man is wonderfully jazzy & zen, and probably bat shit crazy.  "Either you're a god or you're not.  I'm a human being...relationship with the divine...it doesn't change me.  I'm not fooled!  I still see you out there!"  Whoa.  Anyway, it was a hotel con.  Quiet.  Odd.  More expensive than you'd like.  But another fun weekend in the weird world of dorkery.

--Brad

Animal Man Cartoon!

Well, here is further proof that we live in a golden age of Dorkdom.  The DC Nation has a short Animal Man cartoon ready to air on Cartoon Network.  That's just bonkers to me.  And I love it.  Check out the clip below, I assure you, this is a reality.



--Brad