Darkseid in Love

I'm currently watching an episode of Superfriends. Here's a plot summary as I watch:

The space shuttle, piloted by Colonel Steve Trevor - and only by Colonel Steve Trevor, is captured by a Boom Tube and brought to Apokolips. The Colonel is captured and brought before Great Darkseid, God-Lord of all Apokolips. The One who makes universes tremble.

Darkseid: "So. This is the mortal that Wonder Woman prefers over me!"

(It was about here where I started laughing. I haven't stopped yet. Feel free to join me.)

Kalibak - Kalibak, mind you, uses a "molecular re-configurator" to change Darkseid - Darkseid (God-Lord of all Apokolips. The One who makes universes tremble.), mind you - into a duplicate of Steve Trevor and then Boom Tube's himself and the shuttle back into space just outside of the Superfriends' satellite. They rescue the shuttle and get it to earth. Wonder Woman is relieved.

(Keep on smiling. Go with it.)

Excerpts from "Steve's" subsequent explanation and following days' debriefing:

"Excellent. The Fools."

"You doubt my story?!?"

To Diana Prince: "By the way, I'm expecting Wonder Woman to drop by this evening. See to it that she waits in my office until I return!"

Wonder Woman goes to talk with "Steve" about his recent behavior, walks in on him as he's directing some parademons to switch a satellite, and gets captured. Batman breaks in, having figured it out, but is unable to stop "Steve" from escaping with Wonder Woman through a Boom Tube.

(Pretty good, huh?)

The Superfriends discuss strategy while cleaning up the mess "Steve" made during his escape. Seriously, they clean up. Firestorm uses his powers to fix a table. Superman uprights a bookshelf. Robin places a lamp.

Batman gets all suspicious-like as to why Darkseid left when he did, and gets that finger-on-the-chin "hmmmm...." look as the substitute satellite is loaded onto the rocket.

Meanwhile, on Apokolips, Darkseid - having both Wonder Woman and the real Steve Trevor before him in chains - explains his entire plot. 'Cause, well... that's what you do!

The plot? Seems like the substitute satellite is actually a great big molecular re-configurator that, when placed in orbit, will transform the population of earth into parademons.

(Scratching your head? Me too. Just laugh.. it helps.)

Steve gives us the ol' "Monster! You'll never get away with this!" which follows with Darkseid using the molecular re-configurator to change him into a monkey-man. Steve, not Darkseid. That would be silly.

Darkseid: "How do you like your boyfriend now?"

(Just keep laughing.)

Wonder Woman actually doesn't much like it, thank you very much, and breaks out of her chains only to be turned into glass by the same molecular re-do-hickey.

Meanwhile, the other Superfriends break into the sewers of Apokolips and make their way to the trash dump. There they find the monkey-Colonel, who's been put to work sorting through recyclables apparently. They free him and make their way to Dessad's lab, stopping to notice a Wonder Woman statue being moved by Kalibak.

Robin: "Why would Darkseid have a stature of Wonder Woman? That's weird!"

(It sure is, Robin. It sure is.)

They figure it out with the help of some Monkey-Astronaut grunting, grab the statue and a Mother Box from Kalibak. Or rather, a "Porthole generator."

They then teleport into Desaad's lab, use the matter changer thingee to change WW and Monkey-boy back to normal, use the porthole box to move the satellite over Apokolips where it blows up some stuff (?), and then escape back to earth. Darkseid yells, "Noooo!" and we're all good.

Except that Steve points out that Darkseid still has the original satellite and they really should try to get it back.

Batman: "Darkseid will never expect two visits in one day!"
Cyborg: (Hand to the side of his face) "Oh, no! Here we go again!"

End scene.

Wow. Just.. wow. This has got to be the worst interpretation of Fourth World characters I've ever seen. Yes, I know it's a kiddie cartoon.. but.. just wow.

I was laughing to keep from crying.

Still.. it was funny.

WRONG, Camel Breath!

Lately TiVo has been picking up the later seasons of Super-Friends, which currently includes the Challenge of the Super Friends - the ones with Firestorm, Cyborg, and Darkseid. I gotta say - and I know this is a kiddie show - but Darkseid playing a Dick Dastardly level foil leaves me cringing today. He's almost *uggh* comical in his incompetence. I fondly remember as a kid learning about his upcoming appearances in the new season and getting so stoked.. I was one of the few of my friends that actually knew the awesomeness that was Darkseid from the comics. And I also remember that, as much as I wince today, I loved these episodes back then... I think it was just that I got to see Darkseid as a 'toon every Saturday. Just the fact that he was in them. I certainly didn't know bad characterization at that age - just my favorites. This must be how children's television is programmed. It's kind of sad realizing that.

I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of what may very well be the most awesome collection of sequential art ever. It's in the final stages of preparation and afterwards will be carefully packaged and mailed to me cross country at great expense. Prepare yourselves.

It looks like we now know who is the real multi-million dollar baby-daddy. Or, as the best headline in weeks over at Fark puts it: Congratulations to Larry Birkhead, winner of the 2007 Anna Nicole Smith Vaginal Dumpster Invitational! I know of at least two old farts that are not pleased. Not pleased at all.

Now that I've seen the final stats, Mike tripled my daily hits with his many links. Thank you, sir. The negatives have been burned, and the cake has been devoured. The dogs thank you, too. That film has been casting a dark cloud over them for far too long...

And Finally, I've been re-reading a fantastically groan-inducing book (in a good way) that I really must do a write up on soon. In the meantime, enjoy this panel from it, untouched I swear:

Camel Breath? Must've learned that Zinger from Latverian Finishing School: Insulting the People Beneath You

Tomorrow? All-Star Supes! Oh, Hells Yeah!

On Topic Weekend: Superfriends

I love my TiVo. Mr. TiVo. I love it so much, that being a computer guy and all, I've hacked the crap out of it. It's tied into my home network, I can watch any computer vids through it, burn anything it records to DVD (menus are fun to make!), whatever. You name it, I can do it with Mr. lovely, lovely TiVo. I've also jacked up the hard drives' (and added an extra one) so that I have close to 1 Tb of space.

That's 1000 gig's of TV recording space baby! I had to install an extra fan on the sucker to deal with the heat issues. Geek, me.

So, I can be pretty liberal with what I let Mr. TiVo record. I'll thumbs-up anything that looks remotely interesting and sort it out later. I really don't watch live TV anymore, except for news and a few remarkable shows that I can't wait to watch later - like Heroes, for example. Heroes is Nine Shades of Awesome. And if you don't know that, you're a poopy-head, Mr. Poopy-head.

Anyway, on weekends I traditionally play catch-up and go through all those things Mr. TiVo has recorded. Today during breakfast, I watched a few episodes of Superfriends that it recorded automatically off of Boomerang for me because Mr. TiVo knows my recording habits by now, and it love-es me.

A few points, while I'm watching (real-time post!):

- When the Legion of Doom's opening scene of someone standing up and taking the floor with the latest "I have a cunning plan on how we can finally defeat the Super-Friends!" starts with ... Solomon Grundy .... Yeah, you got problems there, "Super" villains.

- When that same plan Solomon Grundy proposes eventually leads to space travel, time distortions, black holes, and dimensional rifts ... I'm OK with that. Thank you for my surreal breakfast moment!

- Brainiac needs pants.

- Of Hawkman, Black Lightning, and Wonder Woman, guess who's the only one wearing a space helmet. Nope - it's Wonder Woman. What th'?

- There is no "Eye of the Storm" in a black hole. There is however, a rocket in my pocket.

- Toyman is a dick.

- The Riddler is nothing but a useless plot device. Tell me how: "When the earth was young, it was only a trickle /// better solve this fast, or friends won't be worth a nickel!" leads the Batman to the Grand Canyon? Yeah, he's the Goddamn Batman, I get it.

- When you actually lure the Superfriends to the Grand Canyon, thanks to Riddler's brilliant bait-and-switch, and they send Superman, Batman, Robin, Aquaman, Green Lantern, Flash, Samurai, and Apache Chief, don't counter with Captain Cold and Scarecrow. You're not representin', yo! I'm jus' sayin'...

- Aquaman gets them out of the Grand Canyon trap. Aquaman. Seriously.

- Paraphrasing Riddler: "You'd better tighten your belt /// or the heat will make you melt!" Constellation Orion? Yeah, first thing I thought of too.

- Toyman (dick) is hovering above Hawkman, Wonder Woman, and Black Lightning taunting them. If only one or ALL of them could fly and get to him!

- OK, umm... the whole "Citizens of Earth! We have captured the Superfriends! Send all the money in your national banks to the international airport, Care of: THE LEGION OF DOOM!!" thing.. yeah. Good luck with that.

- Green Lantern: "Only the power of Superman and myself can succeed in this mission!" Everybody else: "Dick."

- Legion of Doom defeated, buried under tons of airport rubble. Brainiac: "You forgot about my cloaking device!" They disappear. Umm.. I bet I could still find them. And I don't even have Super-hearing (vision, smell, et all), Super-Speed, a magic lasso, a power ring, or uber-detective skills.

- Batman's exiting taunt to Riddler: "What has 13 heads, belongs in a cage /// won't learn its lessons, and gets worse with age?" Riddler's disembodied voice: "Umm.. I give up!"

What!?! ... What!?!

Riddler: Dumbass

Edit: Riddler verse slashies look too much like italic I's. Fixed.