Polite Dissent

Saturday night, the Cartoon Network aired the first episode of a new Fantastic Four cartoon. So how was it? I’d say it was the same quality as Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends. As a ten year old, it was great, but as an adult, not so good. Same here.

I know I complained two years ago about the Justice League Unlimited theme music; well, this is much, much worse. In many ways it reminded me of the X-Men cartoon theme music, just with less melody. Apparently Marvel believes that anyone with a $100 Casio keyboard and a drum machine can write cartoon theme music.

For the most part, the art and animation were uninspired. This was particularly evident in the characters. Reed looked unkempt and chunky and the distinguidhed white streaks in his hair don’t look distinguished, just goofy. Sue and Johnny looked overly angular, like refugees from Aeon Flux. It wasn’t all bad: the Thing looked very good (and the villain Ronan looked appropriately menacing as well).

The characterizations made me wonder how familiar the writers were with the comic Reed was unsure of himself most of the time. Not around Sue — like in the movie — but around science and technology. That’s about as far from Reed Richards as you can get. I had high hopes for Sue, especially when she was introduced as “The Invisible Woman,” but then in the first scene she faints dead away when Johnny’s in danger. So much for progress. Johnny’s character is not that out of place: thrill-loving hot head with a heart of gold. The best characterization is the Thing — the writers have him down well.

The plot was your average hackneyed Saturday morning super hero plot. Johnny is captured by the Kree and put on trial for crimes against the Empire. As is common (if not required by law), the trial is held in a giant sealed alien dome in Central Park. We’re informed that the dome is to keep Johnny’s teammates out — but a minute later Reed is brought in as a lawyer and Ben and Sue as witnesses…so much for keeping the teammates out. It wasn’t a bad plot, but it certainly wasn’t a particularly good one (I had to laugh each time Johnny referred to the Kree as “smurfs.” First, it was kind of funny. Second, it betrays the fact that the cartoon is being produced in France because I doubt that many U.S. kids know who the Smurfs are any more).

Overall, I give the cartoon a very cautious “wait and see — and hope it gets better.” I’ll give it two more episodes.