Oh Swamp Thing, what were the creators of your show thinking? I will say, it could have been much worse, but it was not great. The saving grace was that the show's repetition had not reached extremes at only 5 episodes. Still, the rhyming of Doctor Deemo and Arcane's fixation on becoming immortal like Swamp Thing were getting quite old as was that blasted theme song. Even the origin was already told twice so clearly the fresh ideas were running thin. Nevertheless, its kinda cool that of all the obscure characters Swamp Thing got his own series when Wonder Woman and Flash are still waiting for their shot. The pilot episode, The Un-Men Unleashed really is the one to watch
After Swamp Thing got the whole Han Solo treatment being frozen in a block, he was hauled away for experimentation. And since its been 5 episodes, it was apparently time to retell Swampy's origin. The strange thing is that even though some of the animation was recycled from episode 1, most of it was redone from a slightly different angle... which really makes you wonder why they would revisit this origin so soon. To save money would have been my initial thought, but apparently they just really loved the story.
This time Swamp Thing raced Arcane to the legendary Fountain of Youth which had a Native American version of the knight from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The plagiarism was actually quite blatant, though the episode, complete with "trials" like the tunnel of silence was admittedly fairly entertaining.
Who would have guessed Swamp Thing had a green thumb? But seriously, who would build a nuclear satellite and allow it to enter a decaying orbit? The Red Star sattellite just happened to land in the swamp setting the stage for another showdown between Swampy and Arcane. This time Bayou Jack became the victim of mutation turning into a giant mantis.
Although putting Swamp Thing in the Amazon rain forest seems like a no brainer, getting him there by hitching on a planes landing gear (which evidently never retracted) seems sort of bizarre. Add to that (and this is no joke) Swampy complaining about the lack of in flight snack or movie, and you have yourself some serious camp... or is it nonsensical camp? Swamp thing ended up skydiving and taming a jaguar in this Fern Gully prototype. Oh, and there was a Shaman who could command the animals.
"You can't mutate a mutant." Words to live by... and away we go officially into the '90s. In full disclosure I know very little about Swamp Thing. I have seen the live action movie, once. And I know a bit about his back story, but I pretty much had no idea who any of the characters in this episode were. Apparently Arcane has been Swampy's primary adversary in all of his onscreen appearances and the Un-Men were Arcane's mutant creations.
While it may be hard to fathom a world where Swamp Thing got his own animated series while the likes of The Flash, Wonder Woman, Green Arrow, and about 100 other more popular characters have not, its really not that hard to fathom at all, since that is the world in which we live.
Seeing the creatures that resembled Swamp Thing was exciting enough, but Swamp Chickens were the icing on the cake. This episode is a good lesson for why you really shouldn't mess around with meteors. Lesson learned.
Although its never good to be a D-lister, at least in 1991 that status alone wouldn't keep you off the screen if you were a superhero. In particular, swamp monsters were all the rage.
Toxic Crusaders
The animated for kids Toxic Crusaders, centered around the R-rated Toxic Avenger AKA Toxie featured hoped to cash in on the environmental movement ala Captain Planet. It earned just 13 episodes -though only 5 aired. Swamp Thing
Around the same time as Toxic Crusaders, Swamp Thing attempted a lazy cash grab, but once again the series was short lived. And the intro theme was just brutal.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze
As if audiences couldn't get enough of green mutants, the Turtle sequel arrived in the summer of '91. The first movie was a great success resulting in a rushed production for the sequel arriving just 51 weeks later.
The tone of the movie was significantly lightened and Vanilla Ice was invited to make a lengthy appearance rapping "Go Ninja, Go Ninja, Go!" The sequel was not as big a success as the original, but it still pocketed $78 million on a $25 million budget opening the floodgates for the inevitable 3quel.
Rocketeer
The Rocketeer, on the other hand was not a success. This much underrated period film about a Nazi fighting hero was directed by Joe Johnston who would go on to direct the the 2011 live action Captain America film.
Darkwing Duck
Aside from TMNT 1991's only other modest success was Disney's animated DuckTales spin-off Darkwing Duck starring Drake Mallard.
Power Pack
In the 90's Marvel Comics really struggled in the live action department. The slew of low budget trash (Captain America, Fantastic Four, Generation X) that got greenlit is remarkable. Even more remarkable is how the company has turned things around around. A pilot for Power Pack about a team of super powered kids did somehow manage to get made, but it was pretty iffy. Believe it or not, before Marvel Studios struck gold with Iron Man, a Power Pack live action film was one of the films named to launch the new studio. Yikes.
She-Hulk
Although a She-Hulk TV movie, following up on the Death of the Incredible Hulk movie from 1990, never did get that enviable greenlight, a promotional photo shoot gives us a glimpse of what could have been. Once again, not Marvel's finest hours.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles hit the big screen in March of 1990 with a surprisingly dark (though somewhat truer to the source material) tone. The darker tone would be a theme for the live action movie that followed, perhaps a result of the Burtonified Batman the year previous. The film cost $13.5 million and banked 10x that. Though slow at times, this movie is a step ahead of the sequels that followed.
Dick Tracy
Hoping to replicate the previous summer's Batmania with Dickmania, Dick Tracy employed Danny Elfman to write a dark score to this visually interesting film. It also had an all star cast including Warren Beatty, Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman, Dick Van Dyke, and Madonna. Not a bad movie, but Tracy is no Batman. The movie broke $100 million, but while Batman received sequels and reboots aplenty, Dick Tracy #2 never materialized.
Darkman
Before there was Spider-Man, Sam Raimi brought us Darkman. The movie is about a dude who is attacked, has his face burnt off, and seeks revenge as the masked Darkman. The movie spawned two sequels and a failed TV pilot, so in all a pretty decent run for an original character.
Captain America
Marvel's Captain America did not come to "theaters everywhere "in the spring of 1990. IThe poorly made movie was instead dumped on the poor Aussies down under late in the year and would quietly arrive in VHS bargain bins in the US a few years later. Thanks to youtube, its crappiness will not be forever forgotten.
Captain Planet and the Planeteers
On TV, Captain Planet and the Planeteers launched an incredibly successful series producing 113 episodes in combination with the sequel series The New Adventures of Captain Planet. Apparently heart was the 5th element that went along with earth, wind, fire, and water.
Its not to say the show was very good, but somebody must have been watching it.
Swamp Thing: The Series
Another "green" series, Swamp Thing, also faired better than one would expect lasting 72 episodes.
Death of the Incredible Hulk
Still on the topic of green, the last of the Jade Giants TV specials aired in 1990 titled Death of the Incredible Hulk. This outing unsurprisingly featured Hulk dying. Although there were plans for another TV special, it was not to be and the TV Hulk would rest in peace.
The Flash
Another Danny Elfman scored project was the one season wonder The Flash. Following in the footsteps of the dark Batman film, this series featured a grittier Flash. Later in the season, the tone lightened up a bit to allow for characters such as The Trickster portrayed by Mark Hamil, a role that may have won him the job of voicing The Joker in the Batman Animated Series.
Basically 1990 was a low budget year for the heroes of super. Even though there were a fair amount of shows produced, sadly none of them proved too long lasting.
In my book, or at least on my blog, 1989 was one of the most important years for superhero shows. Looking over the year's entries, it also seemed that green monsters were quite popular that year. After all, who doesn't love green monsters?
The Toxic Avenger Part II
A few years after the cult hit Toxic Avenger, Toxie returned and traveled to Japan (karate kid style). The movie did horribly and even the trailer is so bad / offensive that I won't embed it here, but if you must see it: here ya go.
The Trial of the Incredible Hulk
After Hulk and Thor's successful team up the year before in the Incredible Hulk Returns, Daredevil was ready to do some legal representin'.
The Return of Swamp Thing
"He's got a grudge cuz they turned him to sludge." But "He is turning over a new leaf."
Yeah, pretty much nobody wanted to see this, and so no one did.
Batman
Obviously, Batman was the year's standout. Not only was the movie one of the most successful superhero movies ever made reinvigorating the genre and spawning a slew of Batfilms. Batman also spawned Batman: The Animated Series, itself a highly influential series, as well as other dark takes on heroes such as the short lived Flash series.
Punisher
Marvel's big summer attempt at The Punisher starring Dolph Lundgren fell flat never even making it to theaters.
This fine tradition of Marvel disasters would continue with Captain America and The Fantastic Four before the company finally went on a winning streak some 10 years later with Blade.
The Toxic Avenger III: The Last Temptation of Toxie
As if Toxic Avenger II wasn't enough, 1989 actually delivered two Toxie sequels. Unsurprisingly, this one didn't do to well. Trailer.
X-Men: Pryde of the X-Men
X-Men fans would have to wait a few more years for the acclaimed animated series, but in 1989 they nearly got a series. Pryde of the X-Men was created as a pilot for an animated series which never got picked up. The team consisted of some interesting choices including Kitty Pryde AKA Shadowcat, Cyclops, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Dazzler, Storm, and of course Wolverine.
Though new entries in the superhero genre were sparse in 1982, green was definitely in. in the form of two green monster-heroes.
Swamp Thing
Wes Craven's Swamp Thing, based on the DC character was made for a mere $3 million giving us a swamp full of "government agents, scientists, soldiers, master criminals, secret formulas, monsters and midgets."
The Incredible Hulk (Animated)
Later in the year, a more familiar green face would arrive on TVs across the country.
The Incredible Hulk animated series, beginning just as the live action series wrapped, ended up being just a 13 episode blip in the Jade Giant's career. The series was a bit truer to the comic book and also provided the onscreen debut of She-Hulk.
In all, 1982 just wasn't a very good year for fans of superheroes. Fortunately, the decade would end much stronger than it started.
