Comic Review #83: Maximum Carnage (1993)

 

I talked about this comic series in the last Final Episode post about Monster By Mistake. I mentioned how I talked about this series for one paragraph when I would just do one paragraph review of comics. I do feel that I should re-do all of those reviews and get into the nitty gritty of what was good and bad about those stories. That was also the first time I ever read the series and I did it due to having scans on the internet because whenever these issues show up they are way too expensive for me. I am not paying anything over 3 dollars for these issues because their are so many copies of each one of them. That brings down the price. Plus the fact that I did not really like reading the story. Yes, I do still want to own the series because I would like to have every Spider Man comic ever, but I do not want to spend 140 dollars to own all 14 parts of this series. You'll see why I don't want too.

When I was a kid watching the 1994 Spider-Man series I nearly shit my pants seeing Venom for the first time. This crazy fucking monster man wants to kill Spider-Man?!? Was he in the comics too I asked myself! I found that yes he was. Except it was incredibly popular at the time and every single issue he was in was worth more than my little nine year old self could buy! Way too much! I pretty much have all of them now. At least the appearances in Amazing Spider-Man, but still none of the Venom Lethal Protector thing. It's like Maximum Carnage here. I don't want to spend the wild ass prices people want for these comics that are not as rare as they think. I'm a cheap jerk I guess.

Anyway for some ungodly reason this is a big story. It was 14 parts. It got a SNES and Genesis game (the only good part of this series is the video game. Play that instead) and well I do not like it and I'm going to have to reread the damn thing again. Such an unnecessary and shitty thing I have to do for you JERKS. Just because I was a lazy jerk myself the first time reading this. Anyway the story starts in an all new Spider-Man comic! It's called Spider-Man Unlimited and it was the fifth Spider-Man title. It would be something that would come out every few months instead of monthly. It only lasted for about 20 something issues before being cancelled in 1998. It is not to be connected to the Spider-Man Unlimited cartoon series that I still have to discuss somewhere on this blog. I don't really want too though.

Anyway the story starts with Cletus Kasady, also known as Carnage escaping from Ravencroft. I am a fan of Venom but Carnage could be a bit much at times. I do still enjoy a few stories he was in though. He spends pages pretty much killing as many guards as possible. We then go to the funeral of Harry Osborn, the second Green Goblin. We then see Cletus Kasady help Shriek escape. And they find Doppleganger you know the weird Spider-Man from the Infinity War story. You think Spider Man is just going to end up teaming up with Venom and maybe Black Cat (seeing as she was at the funeral) but nope. All this story is another character joining the team (Deathlok, Captain America, Nightwatch (yes the spawn ripoff guy) Iron Fist, Morbius, Cloak and Dagger (she "dies" in part 2 but comes back later)all show up with Black Cat and Venom and Spider-Man to fight Demogoblin, Carrion, Doppleganger, Carnage, Shriek, and probably someone else I forgot) Somewhere in here a group of people just go nuts because seeing all the horrible brutality drives them mad until Deathlok seriously steals a machine from the Care Bears to blast everyone with Love. I am only somewhat joking with that sentence too!

This story was mostly uninteresting padding and it really went nowhere. This was clearly one of the worst kinda stories. It's not a legit classic. It's not something goofy and weird. It's not  a story anyone telling really gave a shit about. However you do get some pretty damn good art by the guys drawing the Spider-Man titles at the time. Mark Bagley, Alex Saviuk, Tom Lyle and others. The saddest thing is most of these writers HAVE and even STILL DO good stuff. It's just sometimes hard for someone to care about a story. AND THEY DIDNT. You could literally skip 80% of this story and not be lost. That's not a good thing for any fucking story. I'm not even going to lie to you and say that I actually did re-read everything because I didn't. Fuck this story. I'm going to stick with my rating of D- because the art is really nice but other than that I don't like this story and I'm tired of talking about it.

Random Ass Thoughts #4

 Yep, it's time for another bunch of random ass thoughts that no one asked for but I just feel I gotta get them out on paper. This time I have four of them!

1.) Isn't it fun to have complicated feelings on a complicated subject that fans just don't want to have a serious discussion on? Okay, you all kinda know that I love comic books and Marvel Comics and collect a whole hell of a lot of them. Now if you spend time on Facebook you'd see SO many arguments over who did what in the creation of the characters. You got people who think Stan Lee did it all (He didn't) you got guys who think Jack Kirby did it all (He didn't) You got guys who think it was just Kirby and Ditko (they didn't). My feelings on the whole thing? Yeah it's complicated. I believe that Kirby and Ditko did a LOT of the heavy lifting that Stan Lee gets all the credit for but I'm sorry I do not for a second believe that Stan Lee just sat in the Marvel Offices for like 50 fucking years with his thumb up his ass doing nothing but getting a nice prostate massage. I think he might be the most important figure because he was the glue that held it all together in the beginning. Yeah,  One of the things I like about Marvel is that it hasn't been rebooted really and is still a sixty two ongoing year story. I also don't like how these arguments forget about people who were there in the beginning like Don Heck and Dick Ayers who worked on a lot of comic stories and added to the tapestry of the Marvel Story and deserve the respect and credit for that. Oh and all of the people who created big name characters like Wolverine and The Punisher and Iron Fist and Luke Cage. Oh and the people who came before Stan Lee and Jack Kirby like Bill Everett and Carl Burgos with Namor or The Original Human Torch. What I'm saying is that the Marvel Story is a large story that many many human beings put work and effort into telling. It wasn't made by just one person. Sorry if you don't like that.

2.) I kinda hate the whole "JUST CREATE NEW CHARACTERS" a lot of anti-woke people will yell when a character like the 3rd Robin is shown to be bisexual or something. First off, it's not like the easiest thing in this world to create a new character out of nothing and it's also hard to sell new characters because despite people yelling for them they don't sell as well as you'd think! Also would you be like "oh hey Disney/Warner Brothers I have this great amazing idea and I will just give you this for the small amount of money you'll give me in return!"? Hell no you wouldn't. Unless you are like the biggest idiot in the history of this damn world. Also a new character doesn't mean it's automatically good either! at one point Friends was a new idea and that show sucked ass. The biggest point to all of this is when they make fun of the new characters that happen to be gay or black or transgender! It's like they are dishonest shitheads!

3.) I fucking hate facial hair so much. I hate shaving it. I hate having it on me. I hate it.

4.) The Thames Ident is the coolest thing ever. I love it

That's it. Go away now.

The Final Episode #111: Monster By Mistake (1996, 1999-2003)

 

 

I didn't think it would come to this. I didn't think I would end up discussing this show once once let alone twice, but time makes a fool of us all. I recently because I was THAT bored went around and looked at my blog and I do think while my posts are still not very good they are a massive improvement of what I used to do. Seriously in one of my old reviews of Spider-Man comics I gave the series Maximum Carnage one paragraph. I do not like that story but I feel it's enough of an "important" Spider-Man story that it deserves more than one paragraph. I will be discussing that series again sadly because I feel it deserves more of a in depth look.

The Monster By Mistake TV Review was so terrible that I do not think even portnoyd commented on it. He didn't comment to do the stupid tiresome comedic dance we do that he will never let die. It was that bad. Mostly because I clearly was way too angry at a dumb youtuber and his dumb YouTube video. It was on the movie House (1986) a horror comedy. The reviewer didn't like it and yeah maybe I'm just opinionated but I love that movie and it's very special to me, being one of the many things from my childhood I loved. I don't know if I even mentioned why the video made me mad. The biggest reason was the reviewer calling the movie a ripoff of Evil Dead II (1987). I don't even know if it was some kind of weird joke because I thought that entire idea of saying a movie that 1.) came out prior was a ripoff and 2.) the fact the only things the movie have in common are they take place in a house and are horror comedies made me just give up on that You Tuber without even seeing the video.

Yeah I got so worked up over it that I decided to do what I call an honest review of something I didn't like. I really did not like this show but I will get into that. I really do not like that article and the only thing that keeps me from deleting it is that I don't think it's right for weird reasons I don't really want to get into. I dunno but I'm just going to forget it exists.  Anyway it's finally time to get into my hopefully a little bit more improved discussion on the Monster By Mistake CGI cartoon that aired on Television. I hope that I don't make any weird comments that piss off any hardcore Monster By Mistake fans but I cannot deny that this will not be very positive. 

I think that I've mentioned this before but the Canadian Government wants Canadian Television Channels (like in this case YTV) to have a good amount of Canadian Content. It's not my favorite thing because a lot of Canadian content is not great. A lot of it was "Yeah, I think I'm going to throw some toys I have around instead of watching this" kind of TV show. However they were pretty lenient in the past. If an anime (like Dragon Ball Z or Sailor Moon) had a Canadian voice acting cast then you'd be let in and would count as Canadian content. Any cartoon animated by like Nelvana would also count (like Babar, Adventures of Tintin or Care Bears) and we still got a lot of the shows from Cartoon Network (like Dexter's Lab) or Nickelodeon (did you know that Are You Afraid of the Dark? is a co-production between Canada AND America?), plus reruns of all kinds of other stuff. It wasn't as bad as I remember and I really should discuss some more Canadian content because It's all over the place with quality.

Anyway I must finally get into this show. If I were to ever somehow rate all of the Canadian content that I watched between 1985 and 2003 this show would be put in the F-Tier.  This was the trifecta of Casper the Friendly Ghost and another show that I will leave nameless until we get to it's Final Episode because I like to tease you people with MYSTERY! This was an absolute no. Yes, sometimes I and even you would watch a TV show or cartoon you didn't enjoy because there was nothing else to do and the NES had pissed you off because you played BattleToads for an hour trying to beat the damn turbo tunnel, those three shows had me just deciding to stare at a fucking wall instead. They were that bad. Luckily for me and my sister, I do remember this being a Sunday show (why did channels like this just shove all the junk on Sunday?) and that was a day we'd go visit Family or go to the Flea Market. Both way more entertaining than stinky ass Monster By Mistake. (Now I just wonder how the hell PJ Phresh Phil would have tried to hype us kids up with this show while talking to us during the shows on The Zone) 

Monster By Mistake was created by a guy named Mark Mayerson, which really sounds like a cool Superhero name that Stan Lee would give some Marvel Comics character. He worked for Catapult Productions. I do not know what other things they did in Canadian CGI animation. This is one of the things that made me not want to revisit it. I mean besides not liking it when I was a 14 year old in 1999. CGI Animation ages terribly. I mean I still like Reboot and Beast Wars but I'd be lying if I said the CGI wasn't dated and that was CGI that was GOOD at the time. They were helped by 9 Story Media who worked on a lot of reboots of things like Clifford the Big Red Dog and The Magic School Bus Rides Again. The only thing I know that they made that isn't a reboot that was made after like 2003 was Nerds Vs Monsters that my nieces were kinda into until they found the worst thing ever made YouTube Kids. 

Anyway I'm sure you are dying to find out what the premise of this show was and I will finally tell you. It involves a kid named Warren who finds a magic jewel made by Gorgol or however you spell his stupid name that turns him into a monster whenever he sneezes. His sister tries to help him not be a Monster anymore by using the spell book. Also there is a ghost named Johnny who plays a trumpet because why the hell not?  This whole show just felt slapdash and weirdly pandering. Like hey kids like Monsters and Ghosts so let's just shove them into the equation. All I know is that I spent more time enjoying Pokemon and Dragon Ball Z at this point in my life. Yeah unlike some kids who have been forced to stop watching cartoons at an age like eight. I was still able to watch cartoons at fourteen and my parents didn't care.

So the Final Episode was released in 2003 and I think that makes this show the newest thing I've covered for The Final Episode series of blog posts. Wild. Anyway there was a three year gap between the pilot airing in 1996 during Halloween (I remember it because I was probably waiting for Are You Afraid of the Dark? marathon to start. That or Freaky Stories. or Goosebumps. Something of better quality then this. Then there was another three year gap between 2000 and 2003. Giving you hope that they got rid of it. The CGI changed and somehow got uglier between all three gaps too! Amazing.) Anyway the Final Episode was written by Steve Westren but it's not on the IMDB page for him. I assume it's him because this guy also worked on other 9 Story Media productions. His credits go all the way back to 1995. Wimzie's House, Groundling Marsh, Franklin and Friends, and a lot of other stuff that I have no thoughts or feelings about. It was directed by David Geldart who worked on season 3 of this show and maybe Star Wars Episode II Attack of the Clone Wars.

The shows Final Episode is called Strawberry Jam. Yep. So Tracy the sister to the monster is growing strawberries with their dad, except they aren't doing a good job and Tracy isn't enjoying herself. Oh no! Warren tells her but Dad loves doing it with her! We then see Dad and Mom talking about the same thing and HOLY MOLY Dad doesn't want to garden either! Woah! Thrilling stuff! Anyway Tracy just grabs the Book of Magic Spells and makes the berries appear! And they look great! You know after the fifthy-first time you used the Magic Book and it messed up maybe the character that was shown throughout the show to be intelligent would have realized IT WASN'T A GOOD IDEA. Any way Mom, Warren and Johnny the Jazz Trumpet Playing Ghost with His Jaunty Hat from 1943 eat the strawberries. Only the strawberries make everyone go hyper!

So Tracy then uses the magic spell to make people un-hyper, starting with Mom. Who was painting the walls polka dots! So wacky! I think I get why I did not like this show as a child because it somehow feels pandering and incredibly forced. Ooo it's polka dots! Isn't that funny kids! No. It isn't. Anyway Moms back to normal but now she's tired! Anyway Tracy runs to do Johnny next and he becomes tired! Before she goes to turn Warren back to normal (who is doing tricks to impress his dead eye friends. Seriously this is some of the cheapest AND creepiest CGI animation you could have possibly made.) but she realizes dad took the berries to the Flower Berry Growing Contest thing! Oh no! She quickly turns Warren back and they go of. Notice I did not say Warren turned into the Monster and used his monster powers to get and find dad quickly.

Oh there's a scene where Johnny the Ghost is tired and can't fly up high but can fly two streets ahead to steal coffee from their aunt character who as a cop who hated the Monster. I don't know why but this character was the most annoying of them all.  Yeah if people commented on this they'd be like this was a show for children Michael!!! but I would have called this plot point out as bullshit in 1994 when I was NINE. It's a lazy "oh shit this episode needs to be a scene or two longer! just jam in some shit" from a lazy show that just felt like it was pandering. A lot of shows from the 1980s and 1990s you get the feeling people had some fun making this and it shows within the product itself. Not a single person had any fun making this and it feels like a detention assignment.  One so bad that I could tell at 14 years old.

So they find Dad but before he ate a Strawberry! Oh no! You know this might be the lowest lowest stakes I've seen in something I've reviewed for the Final Episode. Even Charles in Charge had higher stakes and that had Scott Baio who is so bad that I stop giving a shit about anything he's in that isn't the silly ass movie Zapped! . Anyway they get the berries but oh no Dad is freaking out in the Bus! He's gone Hyper!!!!!! In the Bus!!! Anyway there's an insane amount of scenes of Dad just driving all over the place. Then five minutes before the episode ends they get Warren to change into the Monster. To grab the bumper when Johnny the Ghost puts the Strawberries into the bus' gas tank. The Monster then would grab the bumper. You'd think the Strawberries would do more than gum up the tank they'd stop the bus from moving at all. This is clearly "Oh shit we didn't even use the Monster in this episode so we gotta shove him in here" and because it was a Friday they threw it together in the laziest way possible. 

The bus is finally stopped but oh no the lady cop who hates the monster is now here how will we stop her from getting the monster and putting him in jail or something. Thankfully the strawberries in the gas tank blow up and spray stuff all over her so Warren can turn back into Warren! Woah! Anyway Tracy tells her dad she doesn't want to garden and instead make a machine from Young Machine Magazine or some shit. I don't know. You can tell I've clearly checked out. The machine looks like shit. Warren brags to his friend and his sister gives him a stare like he caused this whole mess or something. Anyway this, THE worst Canadian thing ever ends. Yes. I'd rather listen to Justin Beiber for days then ever watch another episode of this show.

FINAL VERDICT: Another thing wrong with the original post about this show is that it was way too nice on the show trying to show the youtube guy that I don't even remember anymore that's the real way to review a thing but it isn't. If you dislike something and have a shitty blog you should just tell the world about it. This was in a 3 way tie for the worst thing on the television when I was a kid. The fact that it could have been replaced by anything except those two other shows would have been an improvement. Anything. A nickelodeon show we didn't get. Reruns of I Love Lucy. A random anime from Japan. Like literally go to Japan and pick the first remotely child friendly to Canada anime you can see and put it there. Anything. Literally anything would be better than this trashy, thrown together nonsense. This was a ugly, lazily written (so bad that a literal child could tell they were just throwing stuff together sense) boring mess of a television show. The worst thing of it all that with people who knew what the fuck they were doing the idea probably could have had some legs but what we got was a man with no legs. Depressing as hell.

The Final Episode #110: The Smurfs (1981 - 1989)

 

Well, you beautiful people sure didn't give a shit about The New Adventures of He-Man and honestly I cannot blame you. So we are taking a break from the He-Man universe for a while. There's at least two more shows I want to talk about related to He-Man. I'm sure you know what they are. Anyway I still wanted to talk about something from the 1980s that was incredibly popular but I always forget about. I don't know why. Anyway I think The Smurfs is the last of the big name 80s cartoons that I have left to talk about. I might have to give a looksee at a list but after this the biggest big name cartoon left would be She-Ra. I think that would count as a big name so I guess I was wrong already in this opening paragraph. Isn't that something?

The Smurfs has a pretty long history to it, so buckle up boys and girls! It all starts in 1928 with the birth of Belgian comics artist Pierre (which is one of the best French names ever) "Peyo" Culliford. At only 19 or so years old the man creates his first comic Johan which in 1954 became Johan and Peewit when well the character Peewit joined. Peewit is a very goofy name that I do enjoy writing and saying. Peewit. It's got pee in the name. Comedy gold. GOLD IS THE SAME COLOR AS PEE!!!! Uh. Okay back to the history of The Smurfs. They show up in a Johan and Peewit story called The Flute with Six Holes. They literally become so popular that Peyo pretty much starts making comics for them. I betcha didn't know the Smurfs are a spinoff! I gotta stop clicking on Wikipedia links or I will go down a rabbit hole reading about European comics that I cannot find here in Canada.

Anyway in 1976 a man named Stuart R. Ross was travelling in Belgium and saw the Smurfs and well history was changed on that day! The Smurfs were brought over to America and that's how Fred Silverman's daughter Melissa got one. That's what gave him the idea of making it into a cartoon in 1981. He then went to Hanna-Barbera and they worked with Peyo (he was very involved with this cartoon) Even though port will do his LOL JOSH HABANRALABARA AND JIMMY BANANANANANA joke that was maybe funny the first time not even he can deny that this was a popular as hell series lasting 258 episodes (which since most episodes had two stories turned into 425 stories overall) and 7 specials. It was without a doubt one of the most popular Saturday Morning Cartoons of all time. It lasted from 1981 to 1989. It was one of the few hits Fred Silverman had during his time!

Anyway I think I'll talk about my history with The Smurfs which isn't much. I remember getting Teletoon Retro, a satellite cable channel in Canada and it showed the Smurfs. I aksed my parents if I had ever watched it and they said I was a big fan when I was like four. I don't remember this but I was also four at the time and what I do remember about being four involves Ninja Turtles and Real Ghostbusters, not blue men and one woman (so weird). I'm pretty sure no channel showed the Smurfs in reruns around here and I'm surprised they didn't. I did for some reason watch both of those live action movies with Doogie Howser and they were absolute dogshit. Do not watch those movies. Ever. Anyway, that's pretty much it for me and the Smurfs.

It's finally time to sit down and watch the Final Episode of the Smurfs! It's a two fer apparently, but it's 23 minutes long. Did the Smurfs show for an hour back then or did I get hornswoggled by internet episode guides again! Anyway I watched it so I'm gonna talk about it. It's called The Golden Rhino and was brought to us on December 2nd, 1989. Apparently they changed things up for the Smurfs in the ninth and final season where they end up time travelling. Wild. Apparently they changed it up because Quantum Leap was popular, or at least that's what Wikipedia said. Anyway I want a crossover of both of those shows now. That would be something else. Anyway the Smurfs are forced to travel throughout time and get sent to Africa. They are trapped on a bridge and almost fall into the water

They are saved by a young African boy named Pricari and his Rhino Rhadu who can turn anything into gold with his horn! Rhadu turns the bridge rope into gold and the Smurfs can climb up it! They do so and Pricari decides to bring them to his village to meet his friends. His friends Stretch (a Giraffe) and Cubby (a lion cub) meet the Smurfs and then we pretty much change over to the bad guys of this episode. A guy named Tamar the Treacherous who has Rhadu's parents. Two other golden rhinos who he has made useless by over taxing them. You know the kind of story this is already if you've seen any 80s/90s cartoon. Anyway he sends his henchmen Azoul out to kidnap Rhadu! He apparently knows where he is and goes after him with some Gorilla Men. I like the way the Gorilla Men look in this episode It's pretty great! Anyway Rhadu, some weird bear creature that hangs out with The Smurfs now and Brainy Smurf go to the woods away from the other Smurfs so that Brainy can turn his books that he's written into gold. He says his words will live on forever. Hey Brainy I think they should actually call you Egotistical Idiot Smurf because how the FUCK are you supposed to open a book after its turn into gold you daft SHIT?

Anyway Brainy gets captured along with Rhadu and they turn Brainy into gold and bring it all back to Tamar who you know starts turning everything into Gold even his fucking food which he wouldn't be able to eat! Jesus man you do realize if you turn everything into Gold it becomes useless right!? Still he turns everything even his bed into gold. Which would not be fun to sleep on but I guess he's just gotta have that gold. He's like that annoying character from the 3rd Austin Powers movie, Goldmember. The only funny part of that movie was Michael Caine and one scene of Dr. Evil talking about his father. Still better than The Love Guru. Just about anything is better than that though. Anyway Pricari, Stupid Idiot Smurf and Painter Smurf along with his animal friends come to save Rhadu! They all end up in the dungeon except for Pricari who pulls an invention out of his butt that saves the day. It's this thing with some wooden hands that move. I do not remember if they ever mentioned he was an inventor or not but it made me go "huh?" when it happened. Anyway they save the day by rescuing Rhadu. 

They escape in one of Tamar's ships and Tamar follows him after them in his new ship that he wanted turned into gold. They try to use the wooden hand invention again and it ends up failing. Tamar finally catches up with them but they got the three Rhinos to put their horns together and end up turning his ship into gold. He then tells Azoul to remember where the ship sank because he's coming back for it. I'm glad this guy doesn't have any more golden rhinos or golden gooses or golden touches because he uses it too much. Anyway this episode was actually a lot more fun than I am making it sound and I actually enjoyed it. I just like Gorilla Men and making fun of Brainy Smurf.

The next episode that was a part of this was called Hearts N Smurfs and was quite shorter than the other episode and I enjoyed it more. Anyway this episode involves Cupid and Holland! So yes the Smurfs do in fact wear clogs and it's very cute. I think thats why I like it more. I'm a very simple man to please. Anyway we see Cupid making animals and all that fall in love and be happy nice people. We also see this episodes bad guy Van Garg... an ancestor of Gargamel from later on and yes he does have the exact kind of cat. Except his cats name is Hans because you know Holland. We also see him destroying a tulip. Van Garg almost has Cupid but the Smurfs time travelling knocks him into the water but also hurts Cupid's wings so he has to go to the Smurfs for help. He trains three Smurfs, Hefty (who apparently is supposed to be Strong but whenever I see the word Hefty I think big old fat guy) Clumsy, and Brainy into Cupids to help him until his wings heal. You'd think Clumsy would be the one who would get captured first but nope it's Egotistical Idiot Smurf who gets captured by Van Garg and turned into a bad guy. He then turns everyone else into bad guys and it's only due to a mistake by Hefty (who hits a rain cloud with an arrow turning it into a love cloud. The love cloud turns Van Garg into a nice guy and he and his cat Hans run around Holland being nice. Papa Smurf puts the Time Crystals together and hopefully they will return home this time. 

FINAL VERDICT: These were two charming fun little adventures starring a bunch of blue men and one woman (still so weird). They did not have my favorite Smurf, Gay Stereotype Smurf in them but I will always be happy to make fun of Brainy Smurf. Anyway this just reminds me of a question I want to ask, what's better a good but not really "final" Final Episode or a bad episode that does end things? I mean I'd rather watch this over Sabrina the Teenage Witch or New Adventures of He-Man any day. Maybe that's for a special edition where I go over all the types of Final Episodes. I dunno. Anyway I've written enough about this stuff for today.