Ultimate Spiderman

While I was on vacation, I watched some cartoons with the kids.  This is something that I hardly have time for otherwise, plus the fact that their mother doesn’t like them watching cartoons*.  I saw that Ultimate Spiderman was on and thought, “what the heck.”  My kids loved it.  More importantly, I loved it.  It was really clever and quite funny.  We were lucky because they showed like three episodes back to back.  I think my favorite was the Hulk episode.  At one point Spiderman is trying to get Hulk to do something and hulk says that he is smashing and Spiderman says, “Hulk, smash in that direction.”  Not as funny when I write it down.  Watch the episode. 

 

We also caught an episode of Super Hero Squad.  Now from the toy line and marketing, I assumed that Superhero Squad was for toddlers and preschoolers.  Assumption wrong.  That is a pretty good show as well.  Don’t get me wrong, it is assessable to younger children but without coming across as completely dumbed down. 

 

A few years ago, DC had a stranglehold on the cartoon market and I really thought that my kids would grow up to be bigger DC fans than Marvel**.  Recently, Marvel has started dominating the airwaves though.  Not with crap either.  Their shows have been pretty good across the board.  They have also dominated the movies making my kids want to learn more about the stars of those movies.  Marvel is doing good work grooming its next generation of fans.  DC could really learn something here.

 

*this should be included in the vetting process during courting.  Something along the lines of “If we ever have kids will you let them watch hours upon hours of cartoons on Saturday mornings and before school.”  If the answer is no, you may want to throw that one back.

 

**Make MINE Marvel.  I am a Marvel Comics guy from way back.  Don’t get me wrong; I love me some Batman, but Marvel has always seemed to tell a more interesting story than DC.  At least for me.  I like Superman and everything but find the comics pretty tedious.  Although, there were some runs in Justice League that were awesome that he was part of.