#Butches spawn right out the ground

[smugraccoon137]

Casually watching Willow and I love this butch for butch couple Elora just happened upon

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: Christmas Special Villains

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

Much like I did for Halloween, I wanted to do a bunch of one-shot or at the very least minor Christmas villains, which presented me with an interesting problem – most Christmas specials don’t really have villains. Usually the main obstacle to overcome in any holiday special is some sort of emotional fault of the main character, a lack of belief in the spirit of the holiday, or something to that effect, and when there is an actual villain, it tends to just be ones from the show at large with a Christmas-related scheme. Like I’m not doing Princess Morbucks or the Kanker sisters for this.

Luckily, There were a few I was sure on, and I managed to scrounge up a few more to deliver five lovingly-wrapped holiday villains. We have:

Mrs. Claus from The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy

Ghost Writer from Danny Phantom

Robot Santa from Futurama

Edna Jucation and the Faculty Four from Codename: Kids Next Door

The Woodland Critters from South Park

Here’s the most interesting thing: Despite Christmas stories tending to lean more towards internal conflict and self-reflection, when they do have actual, tangible threats like these, they tend to be honestly and genuinely great. This is in stark contrast to A lot of the villains from the Halloween specials, who tended to just be big scary baddies without much oomph to them.

Actor: Mrs. Claus is portrayed by Carol Kane, an incredibly prolific actress who you may know best as Valerie, the wife of Miracle Max from The Princess Bride. And much like in that film, she manages to be as enjoyable and funny as the guy playing her husband, which is a tall order indeed – in that film it was Billy Crystal, and in the special it’s Gilbert Gottfried.

Ghost Writer is portrayed by Will Arnett of all people. This was post-Gob Bluth but pre-Batman and BoJack, so while not unknown by any stretch it’s definitely weird to go back and see him in a Butch Hartman action cartoon of all places. He does a great job, as to be expected; when has he ever done poorly?

In his first appearance, Robot Santa was voiced by none other than John Goodman. Normally I’d say Goodman would be perfect for the role of Santa, but… this one’s a maniacal robotic serial killer. It’s a wonderfully jarring juxtaposition. After that, John DiMaggio gave Robot Santa a voice for his other appearances, and he does a good job for sure. Obviously he’s no John Goodman, but really, who is?

Edna Jucation is voiced by Candi Milo, and the Faculty Four are played by Dee Bradley Baker and Darran Norris; Baker is the Unintelligible Tutor and Thesaurus Rex, while Norris is Mr. Physically Fitastic and the Human Text. These are all top-tier veteran voice actors, and they do a fine job, but I can’t particularly say they really make any of these characters stand out or be memorable, which is a shame.

As to be expected, the Woodland Critters are voiced by Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Big shock there. Even less shocking is that they are perfectly funny as these depraved animals.

Motivation/Goals: Out of all of these, I think it’s really fitting that Mrs. Claus is the one with the best motivation. As the HEAD head vampire in the North Pole, she has turned Santa into a vampire and put a halt on Christmas because she is overworked and exhausted, having to do all the household chores all year while Santa only works one night. It is absolutely, perfectly understandable that she snapped… but apparently this isn’t even the first time, as Santa mentions at the end this has happened on multiple prior occasions. You think he’d treat her better after the second or third time, but then we wouldn’t have a plot.

I’d say that Ghost Writer and the Woodland Critters are tied for the next spot; both of them have solid reasons for doing what they’re doing. Ghost Writer was just a humble author trying to finish a Christmas story in time for Christmas, but unfortunately this caught the eye of the extremely Scroogey Danny Phantom, who absolutely hates Christmas due to traumatic events caused by his family fighting on Christmas in the past. Danny, in a moment of incredible callousness, blasts the poor ghost’s manuscript to bits and then proceeds to rub it in, which drives GW to breaking the annual truce and using his powers to torment Danny by trapping him in a Christmas story where he and everyone else can only speak in rhyme. It’s honestly hard to feel sympathy for Danny here, but GW does take it a bit too far.

The Woodland Critters, on the other hand, are just utterly depraved… but that’s to be expected seeing as they are the creations of Eric Cartman, inhabiting a Christmas story whose sole reason for existing is to make Kyle look like a tool. In the story, they get Kyle knocked up with the Antichrist. You see, there master is Satan, and they want nothing more than for his spawn to be born into the world. They really just exist as a reason for Cartman to rip on Kyle for being a Jew at Christmastime, as Kyle himself points out in their debut episode.

Edna and the Faculty Four are a bit simple and amusing, as is befitting of a gimmicky villain from The world of the KND. They team up with the Delightful Children because Substitute Teacher’s Day is virtually unknown compared to Christmas, the kind of absurd, wacky reason for villainy you’d expect from a world where some of the most feared supervillains include an evil dentist and a vampire who spanks people. Robot Santa is likewise extremely simple, yet effective: every Christmas he flies down to Earth to punish the naughty – which is everyone except Zoidberg. This is due to a programming oversight that left his standards set way too high, so no one can ever measure up. Except Zoidberg. There’s really not much more to him than that, but really, does their need to be?

Final Fate: Mrs. Claus is redeemed at the end of the special thanks to Billy, who helps her understand the true meaning of Christmas and who heals her husband so that he can apologize. Things seem like they might work out for real this time because now Malcolm McDowell’s vampire is around to help with tidying up, so hooray! Happy ending here!

Ghost Writer gets thwarted because Danny picks up an orange; as Ghost Writer never watched Drake & Josh and thus didn’t realize that “door hinge” is an acceptable rhyme, he was unable to continue writing his story and got beat up by Danny and his rogues gallery and then thrown into Walker’s prison for breaking the yearly truce in the Ghost Zone. At least he got to complete his book?

The Woodland Critters go out when Santa comes in and blasts them away with a shotgun… but since they are technically fictional characters, they show up in Imaginationland to cause problems. Still, it’s reassuring to know they can be taken out with simple firearms.

Edna Jucation, the Faculty Four, and Robot Santa really don’t have any canonical final fate; they just get defeated and then go on their merry way. In Robot Santa’s case, he actually showed up quite a few more times after his initial appearance to wreak havoc, but the Faculty Four and Edna were entirely oneshot antagonists.

Final Thoughts & Score: Christmas honestly fares a lot better than Halloween does as far as I can see. The villains tend to be a lot more thematic, or at the very least they have more personality and thematic function. Halloween doesn’t really have any sort of core themes to work off of as opposed to Christmas, which has a lot of reoccurring themes in works based around it. Still, most of these characters just settle on being funny.

Mrs. Claus and the Woodland Critters are the best of the bunch here, and both earn themselves a spot on the Nice List with a 9/10 each. Mrs. Claus is just a lot of fun, mostly because of the fact she has legitimate grievances on top of being a unique twist on the character. Mrs. Claus as a vampire overlord who commands hordes of vampire elves? That’s the sort of creative wackiness that Billy & Mandy delivered on. The Woodland Critters are just funny, plain and simple, acting as the sort of amusing subversion that could be expected of from South Park in its glory days as well as being totally in line with Cartman’s personality. These are the exact sort of original characters I’d expect from a guy who ground up a kid’s parents and made them into chili, what with their blood orgies and ultraviolence. Amusingly enough, they score a point higher than Cartman did in his own Psycho Analysis, which is mostly due to their limited appearances meaning that they stay remarkably consistent, where Cartman tends to be whatever an episode needs to be, be that hero, anti-hero, or villain.

Next up are Ghost Writer and Robot Santa, who both get 7/10. Ghost Writer is a very amusing oneshot, but it’s honestly weird that out of all the Villains from Danny Phantom, he’s the first one I talked about. You’d think it would be Ember or Vlad or something… at any rate, he’s an amusing antagonist, but he’s also one who it’s hard not to view as being in the right, especially since Danny was just a jerk to him completely unprovoked due to his own personal hangups with the holidays. As usual with fun ideas on the show though he was only ever used once, which is a real shame but at the same time understandable; his gimmick really only works with Christmas, so it would have been weird shoehorning him into another episode’s plot. For what he is, he’s fun.

Robot Santa has a similar problem, not really being able to function outside of Christmas specials, but his few appearances leave him as an amusing antagonist who never really overstays his welcome. He’s not as entertaining or engaging as, say, Mom, but he definitely offers some laughs with his hilarious concept and his ridiculous levels of bloodlust. Points t him for helping out the heroes in the first Futurama movie too.

That just leaves us with Edna and the Faculty Four, and the Faculty Four just manage to scrape onto the bottom of the Nice List with a collective 5/10. They don’t really have much character or personality, especially when compared to the heroic Marvel pastiche that is Elfa Strike, but as brief amusing gag villains meant to pay loving tribute to the Fantastic Four, I think they’re decent. Edna is not so lucky; she’s a bit obnoxious, shrill, and doesn’t really correlate to any sort of Marvel character, which is baffling since the entire episode is one big love letter to Marvel comics. Sad to say, but she’s landing smack dab on the Naughty List with a 2/10. She doesn’t even have a cool gimmick!

I suppose that wraps it up for Christmas special villains. Doing something like this is tough, because it really makes you sit back and wonder what sort of Christmas villains you should put on. Obviously I avoided any theatrical film villains, but that did leave one particularly glaring omission of a villain from a holiday special… a big, green, unpleasant omission. He’s a mean one, for sure...

[eddycurrents]

For the week of 27 May 2019

Quick Bits:

A Walk Through Hell #10 somehow gets even more disturbing as we’re shown some of McGregor’s past as he was abused and set up as a suicide. The horror that Garth Ennis, Goran Sudžuka, Ive Svorcina, and Rob Steen keep exploring in this series keeps getting more personal and seemingly has no limit to its depth.

| Published by AfterShock

Amazing Spider-Man #22 concludes (mostly) the “Hunted” arc as Kraven continues to try to convince Spider-Man that he’s a killer and to finally put Kraven out of his misery. It’s incredibly messed up logic, but Nick Spencer, Humberto Ramos, Victor Olazaba, Edgar Delgado, Erick Arciniega, and Joe Caramagna make it interesting. You could consider this end anti-climactic, especially after how long this has been, but I get the feeling we’ll be dealing with the ramifications for a while to come.

| Published by Marvel

Amber Blake #3 takes an interesting turn as an undercover operation into a modelling agency reveals that Amber’s childhood friend Amanda is still alive. The level of intrigue and twists in this story just keeps escalating, matching the density of the layouts and art from Butch Guice, Mike Perkins, and Dan Brown.

| Published by IDW

Angel #1 is incredible. Possibly even better than the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series and that has set a ridiculously high bar. Bryan Edward Hill, Gleb Melnikov, Gabriel Cassata, and Ed Dukeshire embrace the darker, moodier feel of Angel consistent with the different atmosphere that was present in the television series, while diving deep into building up his dark past and conflicted future. There’s a lot that is new to this interpretation, which just makes it more intriguing. And the art from Melnikov and Cassata is gorgeous.

| Published by BOOM! Studios

Ascender #2 advances the vamps’ plan to eradicate the remaining technology in the universe, as Andy is reunited with Bandit, and the vamps come to threaten him and his family. This remains an interesting new take on the Descender world from Jeff Lemire, Dustin Nguyen, and Steve Wands as we see more of what’s happened since the end of that series.

| Published by Image

Batman: Last Knight on Earth #1 is an interesting debut from Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo, Jonathan Glapion, FCO Plascencia, and Tom Napolitano. On its surface, it’s an “Old Man Bruce” story, as a previously comatose Bruce awakens in a dark and strange future. But this existence is weird and unreliable. Especially as Bruce awakens in a fiction at first, being told that he’s in Arkham and that all of his villains and time as Batman were fever dreams cooked up by a fractured mind. This may well be the best art ever from Capullo, Glapion, and Plascencia.

| Published by DC Comics / Black Label

Black Science #40 shows that the story still has some surprises in store as it rockets towards the end. Also some ridiculous jokes. Matteo Scalera and Moreno Dinisio continue to inventive as hell with the art.

| Published by Image / Giant Generator

Coda #12 is the explosive, brilliant conclusion to what has been on the best series of this year and last. Si Spurrier, Matías Bergara, Michael Doig, and Jim Campbell have delivered some stunning flights of imagination, tapping into some highly inventive nihilistic fantasy, presenting the final battle battle this issue, and, man, does it stick the landing. Phenomenal storytelling all around.

| Published by BOOM! Studios

Daredevil #6 begins “No Devils, Only God�� in a New York City without Daredevil. Lalit Kumar Sharma, Jay Leisten, and Java Tartaglia come on for art duties for this arc and it’s an interesting shift. Sharma’s style reminds me a bit of Klaus Janson’s, but without the heavy inks and shadows.

| Published by Marvel

Detective Comics Annual #2 heads into Year Two territory as we get a new Reaper from Peter J. Tomasi, Travis Moore, Max Raynor, Tamra Bonvillain, Nick Filardi, and Rob Leigh. This is a nice use of the annual format, giving us a satisfying single issue story setting up a possible future arc.

| Published by DC Comics

The Forgotten Queen #4 brings an end to this excellent series exploring the history of Vexana, War-Monger, from Tini Howard, Amilcar Pinna, Ulises Arreola, and Jeff Powell. Very interesting depth added to the character and interesting hints as to what more might be coming, hopefully.

| Published by Valiant

Hellboy vs. Lobster Johnson: Ring of Death elaborates further on Hellboy’s time in Mexico making wrestling movies in a pair of tales from Mike Mignola, Chris Roberson, Mike Norton, Paul Grist, Dave Stewart, Bill Crabtree, and Clem Robins. Seeing a presentation of the movie Hellboy starred in is a real treat.

| Published by Dark Horse

Immortal Hulk #18 leans hard into the body horror aspect of the series, debuting both Betty’s full form as this new Harpy and in the Abomination. Joe Bennett, Ruy José, and Paul Mounts just nail this perfectly.

| Published by Marvel

Killer Groove #1 is a great first issue from Ollie Masters, Eoin Marron, Jordie Bellaire, and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou. It’s a taut crime drama mixing a never-was musician with the potential of life as a hitman, as he lucks into a kill during a chance encounter. Great art from Marron and Bellaire.

| Published by AfterShock

The Magnificent Ms. Marvel #3 advances the alien plot, sending Kamala and her parents off to Saffa to supposedly fulfill the role of their Destined One, saving the planet again. Saladin Ahmed, Minkyu Jung, Juan Vlasco, Ian Herring, and Joe Caramagna are doing some interesting world-building here, and ensuring that nothing is quite what it seems.

| Published by Marvel

Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt #5 is the beautiful conclusion to what has been a brilliant series from Kieron Gillen, Caspar Wijngaard, Mary Safro, and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou. It’s been a sequel, satire, criticism, and repudiation of Watchmen, but it’s also been an interesting mediation on “being better” while coming to terms with the nature of reality and learning to deal with the human element.

| Published by Dynamite

Queen of Bad Dreams #2 gets more into the grit of IJ Wei’s investigation into the escaped figment, delivering some great police procedural stuff. The artwork from Jordi Pérez and Dearbhla Kelly is wonderful. Reminding me a lot of some of the work from John Watkiss, particularly during a very impressive action sequence.

| Published by Vault

She Said Destroy #1 is an intriguing science fantasy debut from Joe Corallo, Liana Kangas, Rebecca Nalty, and Melanie Ujimori. It taps into Celtic mythology, presenting a war between Brigid and the Morrigan, but also appears to be telling a coming of age story with some members of the Morrigan’s flock as they try to combat Brigid’s oppression. 

| Published by Vault

Star Wars #108 is essentially another one-shot in the 80th anniversary of Marvel celebration, with Matthew Rosenberg and a murderers’ row of new and old Star Wars artists delivering a tale set in the old Marvel continuity. While you’ll get more out of it if you’re familiar with the original series, with familiar faces like Valance Hunter, Domina Tagge, and Jaxxon, but it still works well on its own without having any foreknowledge of previous events.

| Published by Marvel

Stranger Things: Six #1 begins another prequel mini-series, this time introducing us to “Six” and looking into the experiments going on at the Hawkins Labs, from Jody Houser, Edgar Salazar, Keith Champagne, Marissa Louise, and Nate Piekos. I quite liked the first one that served as a view into the terror that Will went through during season one, but this one looks like it’ll be breaking some new ground. Very interested to see more of what happened earlier.

| Published by Dark Horse

Superman: Leviathan Rising Special #1 is a tease for Event Leviathan, the next turn in the Superman series, the forthcoming Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen minis, and the upcoming Supergirl arc once she returns to Earth, but it also manages to tell a fairly entertaining story in its own right as Talia al Ghul kidnaps Clark Kent.

| Published by DC Comics

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #94 continues “City at War” as everything gets nastier and dirtier, and we still haven’t had a full-on incendiary spark yet to ignite even larger warfare. Dave Wachter and Ronda Pattison deliver some incredible artwork. Splinter is very chilling in this one.

| Published by IDW

Thor #13 will make you care about Cul Borson. At least, a little bit. Maybe. Jason Aaron, Mike del Mundo, Marco D’Alfonso, and Joe Sabino deliver on another single issue story broadening the bits and pieces of the War of the Realms.

| Published by Marvel

Transformers #6 takes a break from the ongoing narrative and gives us a look into the past friendship between Megatron and Orion Pax, from Brian Ruckley, Beth McGuire-Smith, and Tom B. Long. There are some interesting parallels between Megatron’s observations and the drifting apart of these two old friends.

| Published by IDW

Wolverine: The Long Night #5 concludes this adaptation of the podcast of the same name from Benjamin Percy, Marcio Takara, Matt Milla, and Joe Caramagna. This has been a mature, psychological thriller amidst all of the violence and darkness, with this final chapter delivering more twists even as it brings the answers.

| Published by Marvel

Other Highlights: Age of X-Man: X-Tremists #4, Bad Luck Chuck #3, Black Panther #12, Blossoms 666 #4, Catwoman Annual #1, Dark Red #3, Dead Kings #5, Delver #4, Dick Tracy Forever #2, Doctor Who: The Thirteenth Doctor #8, Dog Days of Summer #1, Fantastic Four #10, Fight Club 3 #5, Four Sisters 2: Hortense, Grand Abyss Hotel, KINO #16, Life on the Moon, Lumberjanes: Somewhere Green #1, Major X #4, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #39, Princeless - Book 8: Princesses #3, Punk Mambo #2, Punks Not Dead: London Calling #4, Rick & Morty #50, Spawn #297, Star Trek: Year Five #2, Star Wars: Vader - Dark Visions #4, Superior Spider-Man #6, TMNT: Urban Legends #13, Thanos #2, Wailing Blade #1, War of the Realms: Giant-Man #2, War of the Realms: Spider-Man & The League of Realms #2, War of the Realms: War Scrolls #2, Wasted Space #10, X-23 #12, X-Men: Grand Design - X-Tinction #1

Recommended Collections: Death Orb - Volume 1, Dept. H Omnibus - Volume 1, The Goon: Bunch of Old Crap, Judge Dredd: Toxic, Punisher - Volume 2: War in Bagalia, Rick & Morty Presents - Volume 1, X-Force - Volume 1: Sins of the Past

For the week of 20 May 2019

Quick Bits:

Action Comics #1011 is the last stop before Event Leviathan starts in earnest and it raises more questions as to what’s going on. Brian Michael Bendis, Steve Epting, Brad Anderson, and Josh Reed have done a great job elevating tension through this lead-up and moving the pieces around the board.

| Published by DC Comics

Assassin Nation #3 is another brutal issue from Kyle Starks, Erica Henderson, and Deron Bennett. The body count remains high and we get more questions about who authorized the hit. There’s some hints that it may all just be misdirection.

| Published by Image / Skybound

Detective Comics #1004 gives us the life history of Astrid Arkham. It’s told largely in full page montages, really allowing Brad Walker, Andrew Hennessy, and Nathan Fairbairn to cut loose on the visuals.

| Published by DC Comics

Faithless #2 sees Faith go to a party, and then it gets weird. This feels like that Griffin Dunne film of him wandering around New York, only with more magic and gorgeous art from Maria Llovet.

| Published by BOOM! Studios

Ghost Tree #2 delivers well on the promise of the first issue, going further with Brandt’s conversations with the spirits around the ghost tree, and setting up the possibility of something horrible coming soon. More gorgeous artwork from Simon Gane, Ian Herring, and Becka Kinzie.

| Published by IDW

Incursion #4 is a fitting conclusion to this series bringing Gilad back to a regular status in the world of the living, with some interesting teases as to what might be further down the line, from Andy Diggle, Alex Paknadel, Doug Braithwaite, Diego Rodriguez, Leonardo Paciarotti, and Marshall Dillon.

| Published by Valiant

Justice League Dark #11 continues “Lords of Order” and keeps burning down the magical side of the DC Universe, while diving very deep into the back catalogue to build up the new. James Tynion IV is developing a very interesting structure for what might be coming.

| Published by DC Comics

Middlewest #7 shows the sheer devastation that Abel can unleash as his powers manifest, similar to the rage that his father has shown, and how his newfound “family” can also let him down horribly. Great work from Skottie Young, Jorge Corona, Jean-Francois Beaulieu, and Nate Piekos as the story seems to be headed for more dangerous waters.

| Published by Image

Star Wars: Age of Rebellion - Jabba the Hutt #1 is an entertaining little story of how Jabba manipulates others to accomplish his goals.

| Published by Marvel

Stone Star #3 gives us another surprise as Dail tries to save Kitzo from being eaten in the arena by Most-Maw. It’s very interesting how this series plays with elements of hero shooters and the designs for the characters and creatures by Max Dunbar are incredible.

| Published by Swords & Sassery

Other Highlights: A Shining Beacon, Age of X-Man: Amazing Nightcrawler #4, Animosity #21, Asgardians of the Galaxy #9, Avengers #19, Batgirl #35, Battlestar Galactica: Twilight Command #4, Bone Parish #9, Books of Magic #8, Clue: Candlestick #1, Cyber Force #10, Dial H for Hero #3, Doctor Strange #14, The Flash #71, Freedom Fighters #6, Gasolina #18, GI Joe: A Real American Hero #262, The Goon #2, Highwayman, Invader Zim #43, Invisible Kingdom #3, Martian Manhunter #5, Marvel Comics Presents #5, Mary Shelley: Monster Hunter #2, Miles Morales: Spider-Man #6, Monstress #22, Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur #43, Mr. & Mrs. X #11, Redneck #20, Riverdale Season 3 #3, Road of Bones #1, Rumble #12, Runaways #21, Shuri #8, The Silencer #17, Star Trek: Q Conflict #4, Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge #2, Tony Stark: Iron Man #11, The Unstoppable Wasp #8, Venom #14, War of the Realms: Journey into Mystery #3, War of the Realms: New Agents of Atlas #2, War of the Realms: The Punisher #2, War of the Realms: Strikeforce - The Land of Giants #1, War of the Realms: Uncanny X-Men #2, The Warning #7, Welcome to Wanderland #4. Wolverine: Infinity Watch #4, Wonder Woman #71, X-Force #8

Recommended Collections: Black Badge - Volume 1, Black Magick, Cover - Volume 1, Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Volume 1, East of West - Volume 9, Fantastic Four - Volume 2: Mr. & Mrs. Grimm, Friendo - Volume 1, James Bond: Blackbox, Middlewest - Book 1, Planet Terry Complete Collection, Redlands - Volume 2, Summit - Volume 3: Truth & Consequences, Wayward - Book 3

d. emerson eddy thinks there should be more hours in the day.