Thundercats

[Thad]

You know what chaps my ass?

I've watched the credits to Thundercats Roar (in slow motion, so I actually had time to read them) and you know what name isn't in them? Bernard Hoffer.

The music credit is "Music by Matthew Janszen." And no disrespect to Janszen, who's certainly contributed some new music to the show and deserves recognition for it, but the vast majority of the music cues are from the original series (and the ones that are new are, in many cases, new arrangements of themes from the original series).

If Wikipedia is to be believed, Hoffer is still alive. I hope he's at least getting royalties, but his name should be in there given how extensively they're using his work.

ETA: found a thread with people discussing it, including someone who claims to be in contact with Hoffer. Hoffer (purportedly) says he sold all the music rights. If he signed away his publicity rights as part of the deal, that's his call to make, but I still think it stinks. I'ma head over to IMDb and see if I can add a "Bernard Hoffer (uncredited) - music" credit or somesuch added.

[Thad]

(music by Bernard Hoffer)

[Friday]

I've given a lot of thought as to what the absolute best OP is and let me say that Thundercats on cello is fucking up there

[Friday]

top 100 cartoon/anime OP list coming soon

[Thad]

New Thundercats comic by Declan Shalvey and Drew Moss. Could be good. Looks to be based on TOS; not a reboot, side stories set around the time of the early episodes.

[Büge]

so it's not set in the continuity where Wilykit and Wilykat are sex slaves

[Thad]

Well, I suppose you could think of it as a prequel if you want.

[Thad]

New Thundercats comic by Declan Shalvey and Drew Moss. Could be good. Looks to be based on TOS; not a reboot, side stories set around the time of the early episodes.

#1 is fine. Retells the story of the first episode with a couple of retcons that make the timeline somehow make even less sense; introduces most of the principal cast (Snarf is nowhere to be found). Some character redesigns, most notably Tygra's righteous 'stache.



It gets a fair amount done for a first issue. The Sword of Omens gets broken, which is boring but isn't the twist; Mumm-Ra confronting Jaga is, and that's a lot more interesting. The show rarely had Jaga interact with anyone but Lion-O, the Grune episode being the big exception.

[Thad]

#2 has some nice character moments. There's a good bit where Wilykit and Wilykat discuss how Lion-O is treating them differently now. I'd say that was definitely in the background in TOS -- that even though Lion-O's physically older than they are they still have more experience and a part to play in helping him grow into his role -- but I don't remember any point where they ever actually sat down and had a conversation about how it feels to have somebody who was a peer last week suddenly age ten years and start treating you differently.

Slithe (or possibly Slythe; they can't seem to decide on a spelling) has a good moment too, where he acknowledges that he's wounded from the battle in the previous issue but can't show weakness in front of his men or they'll kill him to take power. (At this point his men are the various Reptilian underlings who appeared in the early episodes of the show and then disappeared without explanation; we haven't seen Jackalman or Monkian yet.) But then he doesn't act particularly wounded as he gets a fight scene in with one of those random giant monsters that are scattered all about Third Earth (and yeah it's one from TOS).

They introduce a new Thunderian, Calica, and Lion-O immediately develops a crush on her; it's a promising enough setup but feels a little too similar to the Pumyra arc on Thundercats 2011.

Panthro and Lion-O butt heads and Tygra separates them (then tells Panthro "of course you're right, but challenging him in front of us is just going to make him dig his heels in"); Panthro goes off to mutter to himself about how god dammit Jaga, you really fucked us here; I'm a general, not some opera floozy; how am I supposed to do my job and look after my overgrown 12-year-old boss at the same time? etc. and he has a point. I feel like Jaga really should have brought someone along on the mission whose only job was to look after Lion-O and who didn't have any other obligations, maybe somebody who wasn't very good in a fight and might be a bit of a whiny scold but could at least devote his full energies to trying to stop Lion-O from fucking up all the time. Sadly, no such character exists; Jaga really dropped the ball on that one.

[Thad]

Issue #3 brought out my inner CBG on page 1 by saying "Thundrainium" when they clearly meant Thundrilium, but then won me back with a pretty specific callback to the interior of the Book of Omens.

Also, it turns out Snarf does exist! And this version's way of making him less annoying is...he speaks to Lion-O telepathically and nobody else can hear him, including the reader.

The implied Mumm-Ra/Jaga backstory remains the most tantalizing bit of the book but hasn't really been developed at this point. The show hinted at various times that Mumm-Ra had some kind of unexplored past experience with Thundera (he already knows what the Eye of Thundera is when the Thundercats show up on Third Earth, and there's an episode in the final season where there's some kind of magic artifact on Thundera and he says he left it there some time long in the past) but like pretty much all of the series' lore it was half-baked ideas that never really got any development. I'm interested in seeing where the comic goes with it, though of course it's always possible this is one of those things where the explanation will be less compelling than the mystery.

I have always kind of been interested in seeing somebody explore Jaga as a flawed dude who everybody else literally deifies (they say stuff like "Great Jaga!" where we'd say "Good Lord!" or "My God!" or the like). He destroyed their fucking planet by hurling an evil magic sword into its molten core. I always kinda thought a good Thundercats reboot could explore that disconnect. And then Thundercats Roar totally did, and that was great! but played it for laughs and I was always kinda thinking how it would look played for drama.

[Thad]

#1 is fine. Retells the story of the first episode with a couple of retcons that make the timeline somehow make even less sense

By issue #3 it's clear that this is intentional. The Thundercats think they've been in suspension for at least a decade, hence Lion-O's aging, but Slithe referred to his last encounter with them as "months ago" in #1, and in #3 Snarf tells Lion-O it's only been two months since Claudus sent him to protect the Treasure of Thundera before the planet was destroyed. It's not entirely clear yet what Calica's deal is or whether she's telling the truth (or at least thinks she is) about what's happened to her, but she also isn't clear on how long it's been or how long she was in suspension.

So there's definitely something screwy with the timeline, though it's not clear exactly what it is yet, and okay, I like it. They've taken the single biggest plot-hole in the series and they're writing a story around trying to explain it. Interested in seeing where that goes.