If it were up to some writers, Wolverine & Spider-Man would both beat the crap out of Thor for no better reason than the simple fact that they're better known, even though Thor should easily overpower both of them based on purely on brute strength. I'll have to remember, the next time I commission an artist for a piece of art, to do a picture of Thor beating up both Wolverine & Spider-Man, oh the captions we could have with that...
The question would be, of course, who would win a Wolverine vs. Spider-Man fight in modern animation? The last time they tangled was in the 90's Spider-Man series, which was BS&P'd to death (although I recall Logan getting tossed around rather badly).
Well, I never watched an episode of Dragonball Z all the way through (I think I saw maybe one clip of Piccolo getting trashed, even losing a hand, and a Goku training segment, and that was ages ago) so I can't comment on all the Super Saiyen stuff. And while I don't want to annoy you Dread (I enjoy your reviews too much), the "regular/super Mindless" Hulk thing just doesn't do enough to quash my annoyance with the one-sided battle because the Hulk's always in some mindless state of rage, even when he's "regular mindless" for lack of a better term.
"Mindless Hulk" is without any mercy or compassion, and he never calms down. Of course, the Hulk's strength rises infinitely with his anger, and "Mindless Hulk" does that at a faster rate. "Normal" Hulk usually just wants to be left alone or reacts to whatever is immediately attacking him (or Banner). I do agree that the line is blurry, though. The intention was that Thor was fighting a stronger, more dangerous Hulk than Wolverine was; it just probably wasn't executed quite as well.
The notion of Kyle & Yost having a fine enough idea and simply not executing it well of course is completely impossible to anyone who has watched WOLVERINE AND THE X-MEN (sarcasm alert).
Definitely. With Kari Wahlgren, Emma Frost's voice actress doing Amora the Enchantress no less.
Yeah, they usually cast great voice talent. WB of course usually gets a lot of good talent for their stuff, too. Conroy will always be Batman to me, but Bader's Batman works fine for BRAVE AND THE BOLD. You need that hint of comedy or absurdity to make it work.
It's more fun when Hulk's opponent can actually fight back and not get completely bulldozered.
That was my major problem. I could understand Thor losing for storyline reasons. Again, Hela was involved, and they wanted Enchantress to try to redeem herself to him. Besides, Thor has never been allowed to ever do more than "match" Hulk on occasion in the comics, so anyone expecting a win from the Odinson for a no holds barred cartoon is kind of naive. Still, it seemed Thor's entire attack strategy was, "land one attack or one 3-4 hit combo, assume Hulk is beaten, be surprised when he isn't, and then take 5-10 STRAIGHT MINUTES of punishment". It was Thor-as-Rocky Balboa. The fighting could have been paced a little better, had Thor seem a little less punching-bag-ish. Don't get me wrong, HULK VS. THOR was still only topped by HULK VS. WOLVERINE in terms of battle storyboards, and you'd need SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN to surpass it from Marvel TV shows.
One bit in particular speaks volumes. Not to spoil much, but there is one bit where Hulk throws a massive statue at Thor. Now, Thor could fly over it, or duck it, or move to the side, or even maybe catch it, or whatever. Instead, he does flashy spin moves smashing it to bits with blows of his hammer, thus leaving himself wide open for another Hulk attack. He had no strategy. Yost and Kyle claimed to have read Thor's run, but he displayed no more attacks than the attacks he only does in AVENGERS stories; shoot thunder, or hit with hammer, repeat.
Of course, to be fair, Thor took a far worse beating than Wolverine would have withstood. He got punched through a mountain.
Oh definitely. It's one of the reasons why, sometimes, it's actually kind of hard to like Batman. Come to think of it, I can't remember the last time Superman was genuinely popular in the public eye, unless you count the seemingly endless "Smallville".
I can't believe that show has lasted 9-10 seasons.
Can never go wrong with that.
Exactly. THE BATMAN failed because it straddled that line poorly; it started off wanting to be taken seriously, but was too ridiculous to do so. Then it had some lighter episodes and darker episode, and even some good ones, but just was never very cohesive.
BATMAN: BRAVE AND THE BOLD launches itself squarely in the "absurd comedy adventure" camp where it doesn't want to be taken seriously very often, and is appreciated on that level. Granted, the Dick Sprang era of Batman is the only one that hadn't been done to death in animation or films since the 90's, but still, it works. One easy example is mechs. THE BATMAN had Batman use this robotic "Bat-Bot" machine to fight Bane and it was handled with utmost melodrama and seriousness, which didn't work because it was so completely stupid. BATMAN: BRAVE AND THE BOLD allows Batman to literally convert his Batmobile into a straight up "Bat-Mecha" and you know it's not supposed to be taken absolutely serious because his next line is the infamous retort, "The hammer of justice...is unisex!"
To make a comparison, someone who is stupid, but takes themselves as smart and serious, is usually annoying and irksome. Someone, on the other hand, who accepts his stupidity and even revels in it sometimes is usually at least more entertaining.
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