“Bad Future”

It took two weeks, but finally my first Gargoyles /TMNT AMV (and my first AMV ever, I might add) is complete.  Take a gander:

Like I said last week, there’s a bunch of similarities between “Future Tense” and “Same as it Never Was”, and I thought this would be a cool way to display them (and as a bonus, possibly increase blog traffic).  The final video ended up being a bit too long–I originally only wanted to use “The Real Folk Blues”, but it would have meant cutting off too much awesome footage, and I realized there was no way I was going to be able to tell a coherent story with only six minutes’ worth of footage.  In any case I’m satisfied with how I managed to par it down.

Just to be clear: this in no way reflects the kind of story I intend to tell with this blog–I just did it for fun and to see how well I’d do.  I think I did rather well, but I think that about everything I do.  What do y’all think?

Also, curses to whoever designed Windows Movie Maker to freeze up whenever you look at it funny.  Big mistake on my part, and one I shan’t repeat again.

Top 10 Gargoyles / TMNT similarities

I’ve mentioned before that part of the reason why I began this blog in the first place was due to the large amount of similarities between both Gargoyles and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoons–more so, even, than you would expect from show designed for similar audiences and which had a couple of writers in common. Since I’m still working on the big Monsters of NY project, I thought I’d do something simple for today’s update, so lo an behold, a list listing what exactly those similarities are.  Most can’t be considered anything but coincidence, others would seem to be a result of shared writers,

Note that this list does not include  elements which one would expect to see in an action cartoon–for example, the fact that both teams include a resident genius isn’t notable at all.  These are things that are eerily similar, even when placed under a microscope.

The Element	Gargoyles	TMNT (2003)	Ian has some ’xplaining to do.
Skyscrapers aren’t enough.	The Eyrie Building, a skyscraper with a castle atop it.	The Foot Tower, a skyscraper with a pagoda atop it.	Of all the elements in this list, this is the one I have the most problem classifying as coincidence.  While I don’t really know whosd idea was it to design Foot Tower in this manner–was it a character designer, the writers, a showrunner, or even Peter Laird?–depending on who it was, the possibility that the Aeirie Building provided some direct inspiration goes from “far-fetched” to “quite plausible”.
Evicted	The ‘goyles lose their home in the pilot, although they don’t leave until ep. 9.	The turtles lose their first lair in the pilot, and finding and establishing a new home is a priority in the first few episodes.	While the loss of a home is a common starting for fictional stories (see “Krypton, Planet”), this a bit more specific than that.   While being driven out of their homes is a standard part of most TMNT adaptations, the series played considerably more emphasis on its loss and in the seearch for a new home.  And of course, the slow loss of the gargs castle home drives the first half of season 1.
Sentient nanomachine colonies are the new black.	Matrix	Nano	Granted, nanomachinery is currently hot, and this particular iteration is well on its way to being a standard action cartoon trope, but there is a crucial element that makes these two characters more than different takes on a common trope: the fact that both started as misguided destructive forces, only see the light and join a secondary good-guy team (The Redemption Squad and the Justice Force, respectively).
The Great Helicopter Heist	In “Her Brother’s Keeper”, the Trio take The Pack’s Helicopter as their own.	The TMNT take helicopters belonging to the Foot and the E.P.F.	There’s really nothing I can say about this, except that it may end up being my new standard: your show may be good—maybe even great—but it won’t be balls-to-the wall awesome until your characters steal a helicopter.
The Future Doesn’t Look Good at All	“Future Tense”	“Same as it Never Was”	Two cartoons with  “bad future” plots? Not surprising at all.  Two cartoons with “bad future” plots which involve the on-screen deaths of most of the cast, heel face turns, and some very similar imagery and staging?   Okay, now we’re getting weird.
Woobies	Coldstone/Othello	Leatherhead	This one is sort of a stretch: the similarities between characters aren’t obvious, but they’re definitively there.  Both characters are more-or-less consider kin to the protagonists (Coldstone is clan; Leatherhead came to be via the same process as the turtles); both are initially made to believe that the protagonists are evil in their initial appearance; both are believed dead at the end of their initial appearance.  Then, once they are reunited with their kin, they’re prevented from joining them because of their mental instability (Coldstone’s multiple personalities, Leatherhead’s anger).
Hey, why don’t we ditch our supporting cast and setting for a while?	The Avalon World Tour	Fast Forward	While the storylines weren’t similar, its effects sure were: extended storyarcs downplaying the established supporting cast (who, while not entirely gone, appeared much more rarely) and setting, establishing a bunch of new ones, and resulting in a permanent addition to the cast upon the storyline’s end, which came not long after each arc’s end.
There’s something different about you dude…just like the last ten times.	Coyote, the ever-upgraded robot who gets a new design with every successive version.	Baxter Stockman, the cyborg who gets a new body every couple of episodes.	Cartoons usually try to stick to one design per character, so when a series makes a point of periodically changing the character’s appearance, it gets noticed.  Coyote changes looks more frequently, but Stockman, thanks to his greater prominence, has more.
And we shall become men of business.	Lexington will eventually help create Lexington-Xanatos Corporation.	Donatello will eventually help create O’Neil Tech.	This is another weird one, since it doesn’t seem to stem from any storytelling trends, and because they’re both events that we know will happen, but haven’t actually gotten to see, or even know much about.
Engagement jewels are bad news.	Xanatos and Fox get engaged; Eye of Odin turns Fox into a savage fox-woman.	Casey and April get engaged; Ring of Yin turns April into a demon-woman.	This one would totally feel like a stock plot, except that engagements (and subsequently, weddings) are rather rare in western action cartoons, which makes these shared plots seem less coincidental than they could be.

Foxy Lady: A Look at the Many Looks of lady Fox

While most of the characters in Gargoyles adhere rather strictly to the limited wardrobe animation convention–unless there’s some sort of special occasion, they’ll wear the same outfit every time–two exceptions stand out: the first is Coyote, whom doesn’t so much change outfits as change bodies, and the second is the lovely Fox Xanatos (née Janine Renard), who given her eternally variable status (She’s a member of the Pack! She’s a prisoner!  She’s a martial artist!  She’s pregnant! She’s a used-car salesman) doesn’t reallyhave too much of a chance to obtain a standard look.    Today, we take a look at the many looks of Fox.

The “Gargoyles” Movie That Isn’t, pt. II: What to Do

A couple of days after the announcement of Disney’s plans to make a gargoyles (but not Gargoyles) movie, fans have been roused to action, and have come with several good suggestions on how the fandom can best exploit this for the good of their beloved franchise.  I’ve already spoken of the Facebook page created to rally fans towards a new common cause–which now is just shy of having 500 members–and now I’d like to mention some of the better suggestions that have been made so far:

1. Make the Facebook page the first thing one sees when Googling  “gargoyles movie”: Suggested by Landon Thomas, it goes something like this:

If we want the Facebook page to go the distance as rumors keeps swirling around, it’d be great if a Google search for ‘gargoyles movie’ returned the Facebook page as the first result. Right now the Facebook page in on the 2nd page of results. If I remember how Google Bombs work, we need the phrase ‘gargoyles movie’ to be hyperlinked to the Facebook page in as many locations as possible, like this: a href=”http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=142182852459700&v=wall”>gargoyles movie</a (add outside brackets) Try to put it in context, of course.

If every Gargoyles fan page contains that code, it might bump up the Google results. There isn’t really a definitive site for ‘gargoyles movie’–the Cinema Blend article is already at #3, so a top Google result is ours for the taking.

2. Write to Disney: Granted, this is in no way an innovative idea, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a good one.  Greg Bishansky writes:

These are the two people we need to contact. LouAnne Brickhouse at Disney, and Lauren Shuler Donner at the Donner Company. Both of their business addresses will be included at the end of this message.

First, and I cannot stress this enough. The tone we all take is very important. Be passionate, but do not be hostile. If we get hostile, we’re giving them every excuse to throw our letters away, and we cannot do that. Tell them if they are going to make a movie about “Gargoyles” to embrace the popular cartoon from the 1990′s. Tell them there is a large fanbase that loves it. Tell them that there is a rich mythology and lots of great material that would make for a great franchise of movies. Tell them they shouldn’t throw this away.

Also, this is not about Greg Weisman. They have a writer that they like, so don’t badmouth Zoe Green, and don’t tell them that they should get Greg Weisman to write it. That also would be counterproductive.

If everyone’s got that, here’s who to contact:

ATTN: Lauren Shuler Donner
The Donners’ Company
9465 Wilshire Blvd. Suite 420
Beverly Hills, CA 90212
USA

ATTN: LouAnne Brickhouse
The Walt Disney Studios Company
500 S. Buena Vista St.
Burbank, CA 91521-9722
USA

In fact, I’ve already written my version of the letter, which you’re all free to use as a template (read: use as an outline, and try not to copy it wholesale–we don’t want a bunch of letters that look like somebody just stamped names on it)  when drafting your own:

ATTN: LouAnne Brickhouse
The Walt Disney Studios Company
500 S. Buena Vista St.
Burbank, CA 91521-9722

Dear Ms. Brickhouse:

I have recently become aware of Walt Disney Studios’ plans to produce a gargoyles-themed movie sometime in the near future.   I wish you all the utmost success in this latest venture.

Upon first hearing this news, my mind turned to an already-existing Disney property: Gargoyles, the critically-acclaimed animated series that first aired from 1994 to 1997 in the Disney Afternoon block, and which later resurfaced as a comic book in 2006.  I was, and remain, a big fan of that series, and so the news of this new, unrelated “gargoyles” project naturally raised some eyebrows.

While I am aware that very little about the project is known with certainty (and that, in fact, writer Zoe Green has been hired to develop the concept more-or-less from scratch)  the fact that the only thing that is actually known is that it will involve gargoyles in a modern-day setting–which is in essence of the 1994 Gargoyles–makes me wonder why the decision was made to ignore the existing franchise in favor of a new one.  Movies are a risky business, after all; it would seem to me that basing this new movie on a known concept with an established and passionate fan base; several existing stories that could be adapted into several movies with little trouble; proven all-ages appeal; and existing supplementary products which could be re-released upon the films release; would be a safer choice.

Another thing to consider would be the usefulness of the already-existing Gargoyles fan-base, which could be a great asset should film based on the property be produced.  Should they find the movie to their liking–which I don’t believe would be a hard thing to do–they could be great help in giving the movie early positive word-of-mouth, and in general help promote the movie in ways a completely original concept can’t be.  This fandom should not be underestimated: a Facebook group created after initial “gargoyles” announcement has obtained more than four hundred members in  less than 48-hours–members with movie-going friends and acquaintances; and a stake in the success of a Gargoyles movie.

Perhaps I’m jumping the gun here.  For all we know, Zoe Green’s untitled “gargoyles” project could end up being completely different from Gargoyles, and both franchises will be able to coexist.  However, I do hope Walt Disney Studios considers the potential advantages of a film based on the existing property.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Ian Pérez

Ammendments or suggestions are welcome. Please help; this is the best chance we’ve had at a full-blown Gargoyles revival in more than a decade, and although failure is very much a possibility, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try our damnedest. So write, spread the world, and do anything in your power to convince Disney that making a Gargoyles movie is their best shot at making a succesful gargoyles movie.

The “Gargoyles” Movie That Isn’t

So I was all about enjoying my hiatus from this page, when I heard some rather…interesting news.  For those who don’t know, it was revealed yesterday that Disney is taking the initial steps to produce movie based on the concept of gargoyles in a modern-day world–a movie notably not related to the very similar concept they already own.

The biggest question in most Gargoyles fans’ minds right now is a very logical “WHY THE FUCK?!”  Why spend money and brainpower developing what they already have?  Some have come to believe that they’re the butt of a sadistic joke: after a decade and a half of support and requests for more “gargoyles” they’re rewarded with precisely that…except not.  Even Puck couldn’t have planned it better.

So what, precisely, does this news mean for Gargoyles?  Hard to say yet, given how vague everything is.  The core concept–modern-day gargoyles–could be developed in a million ways, and the chances that this new property will end up resembling Greg Weisman’s in anything but the most superficial way seems slim–I don’t expect I’ll see Shakespeare, robots, the Illuminati, and multi-racial cops in (writer in charge of developing the project) Zoe Green’s treatment.  In any case, a few of the more enterprising fans have noticed that regardless the outcome, the news has created a sudden and unexpected amount of interest in Goliath and co., and are willing to make the most of it: Greg Bishansky, for example, has created a Facebook  page for Gargoyles’ fans frustrated with this news, which he’s noted has attracted several people outside of the fandom’s usual suspects.    What will come from the venture is anyone’s guess, although the hope is to prove to Disney that there is indeed interest in Greg Weisman’s Gargoyles, interest the House of Mouse would do very well to exploit.

A particular question in fans’ minds is whether they’d be better off hoping for the project’s success or its failure.  On one hand, if this becomes a Pirates of the Caribbean-like success, Disney may decide that spending money on a similar concept in the hope that lightning strikes twice may be a worthwhile venture.  On the other hand, the new concept may cast an inescapable shadow on the Manhattan Clan, and Disney may decide that the way to bring Goliath and co. back is by making them more like Green’s gargoyles.  A The Last Airbender-type failure, on the other hand, would bring its own dangers.  While failure would allow Weisman’s gargoyles to maintain some cred as “the good version of Zoe Green’s ‘Gargoyles’”, it might also make Disney even more averse to supporting the existing Gargoyles franchise.  Then again, Gargoyles fans are more than used to that particular status quo.

Personally, I think that unless the final movie actually ends up having “Gargoyles” somewhere in the title–and I’d put even money on that–the similarities in concepts won’t matter in the long run.  Core concept aside, I don’t see this movie resembling Weisman’s Gargoyles much at all; in fact, I’d be very surprised if the gargoyles in this movie don’t turn out to be something like the Pokemon in the anime of the same name–they’ll be prominent, but they won’t be the stars.  They’ve got my attention, however, and I’m certainly interested in seeing how this turns out.

MoNY Timeline (2010-2105)

With little progress made on the next chapter of “April Forever”, and nothing else prepared, it’s time for part four of the Monsters of New York timeline.

This here is mostly set-up for the status quo in TMNT’s Fast Forward season–basically, a bunch of birth dates for Original Characters, and some rather vague details on the circumstances behind Darius Dun and Cody Jones’ backgrounds, because yes, I do have a story with him in mind.

As for the lack of Gargoyles stuff, chalk it up to the fact that there’s very little  canon-in-training with a definitive dates.  Since I’m not planning on playing with anything Gargoyles related during this era anyway (unless I decide to) that suits me just fine.  The only notable exceptions are a nod to a Gargoyles fic I particularly like.

Parts one, two, and three.

Five concepts I would have loved to see in TMNT 2k3

Why I’m generally very satisfied with all the characters and stuff that TMNT managed to adapt from the Mirage comic book, there are a few concepts which I really wish had made the leap from their original continuities into the cartoon.  These are the five that top the list:

Note: So as not to fill the list with the usual suspects, all of the old toon characters appearing in Turtles Forever are discualified from consideration.

5. Professor Obligado

Even though this is probably the one concept in the list most likely to have made it into the cartoon, as it’s an original Mirage concept, he’s also the hardest to incorporate, as he originally starred in a series of solo back-up strips that never even involved the turtles.

Basically, Professor Obligado was an Utrom professor who’d have high-concept adventures in the name of SCIENCE!  He was first introduced in a story called “The Grape”, which involved his death from a drug overdose, and it snowballed from there.  Unfortunately, his story never really got a proper conclusion (aside from well, dying).

4. Roadkill Rodneys

A.K.A. “those guys who would take half your health in Turtles in Time if you weren’t careful”.  I absolutely love these guys, partly because they have a rather awesome design, but mostly because of their name.  Roadkill Rodneys.  Roadkill.  Rodney.  It’s brilliant.  Whatever chemical processes led someone to name these that, I want in.  Plus, they could have been made to fit rather easy.

3. Cudley the Cowlick

One of the more awesome concepts from the Archie TMNT series (based on the first cartoon, at least in theory), Cudley is a giant floating cows head, that also functions as a spaceship.   He can also traverse through the dimensions, and was prior to Turtles Forever, the one character in the franchise aware of the different turtle-verses.

2. Oyuki Mashimi

One of the things I deal with in my April Forever fic is the idea that aside from the two family members we meet—the missing uncle August O’Neil and her sister Robyn, who gets about two minutes of screen-time—she has no relationships outside the turtles or people she meets through them.  While they wouldn’t need to take too much screen-time, it would have been nice to know that they were there.

Created for the Archie comic books, Oyuki was a Japanese homeless girl who had been kidnapped by baddie Chien Khan as part of a ritual sacrifice.  Eventually rescued by the turtles, she decided to stick around, and eventually became April’s roommate and assistant.  In the story “The Angel of Times Square”, set in the “future” of 1999 (the series took place in 1994 by then), it’s revealed that she has become a reporter in her own right.

Note: an updated version of Irma would work just as well, but given that we got a cameo of her in Turtles Forever, she’s not eligible.

1. Shadow Jones

While the animated series was generally quite good when it came to translating the various Mirage characters to the screen, there are some notable omissions; this is the biggest.

Shadow Jones was, in the original comic books, Casey Jones’ step-daughter, and the daughter of his first wife, Gabrielle.  While we first see her as a baby in 1992’s “City at War” arc, we eventually see her as a teen when the comic book series returned for its fourth incarnation in 2001, and at several stages of her development during the non-linear “Tales of the TMNT” book.

Given the logistics involved, the chances that we were ever going to see Shadow were always slim.  A teenage Shadow wasn’t happening without time travel, and we’d already seen one of Casey and April’s descendants in Cody Jones.  Having her as a baby, on the other hand, would have required either shoehorning in Gabrielle into a situation in which she didn’t really fit (the events that brought about her appearance in the books couldn’t really be duplicated in the ‘toon) or having her be Casey and April’s birth daughter.  However, that in itself isn’t without its complications, as it would have required either writing in a pregnancy (which, while not unheard of, is still a subject most children’s cartoons don’t really deal with), and depending on the timing, having them have a child out of wedlock, which wasn’t going to happen*.   The best bet for having her appear would have been to write her in as something that occurred during the one-year gap between the events of seasons 5 and 7, but given that the writers were intent in having Casey and April marry, there was no way to write it in without establishing, again, that they’d had her out of wedlock.

In the end, even if they’d been able to write baby Shadow in, what would she add?  She obviously can’t be a character in herself, and while there are stories that can be told about how she changes Casey and April, such stories are usually beyond the scope of Saturday morning cartoons.  Not only that, her presence would have likely ended up limiting Casey and April—after all, they can’t risking their lives when they have a baby to raise.

So why I want her included at all?  First, because like I said before, she’s the biggest of the Mirage characters that wasn’t adapted to the cartoon, and I would have liked to see her included just for that.  Not only that, it would have been the natural next step for Casey and April, and given how much I enjoyed the progression of their relationship and their adult lives, it’s one I would have liked to see taken—even if we never got to see kick-ass adult Shadow.

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* Note that while the episode “The Return of the Justice Force” did have an out-of-wedlock pregnancy as a major plot point, the pregnancy itself was kept offscreen, and involved characters exponentially less prominent than April and Casey.

MoNY Timeline (1997-2009)

This is the third part of the overall timeline for the relevant events in the shared Gargoyles/TMNT-verse. The first can be seen here, the second here.

People who’ve been following this section will notice a gap in the time-line–specifically, between 1994 and 1997, or the time-span in which the Gargoyles series takes place.  Why the omission?  Because I have nothing to add to that time period, which would mean that by including it here, I’d be copying other people’s work (particularly, that of the awesome people at Gargwiki) wholesale without adding anything of value.  Plus, all that text would be a bitch to format.  So if you have to know what happened in that period of time, you can just check their timeline: 1994, 1995, 1996.

Also, note that, unlike Greg or the wiki, this timeline does not cover every event in TMNT–I’m just not dedicated enough to assign a date to every single event.  This is mostly just a guideline in order to have an idea of when each important event occurred; however, this should not be taken to mean that these events aren’t canon.  Also, as with the other installments, the list is subject to later additions, which will be announced in their own blog posts and then added here.

ETA: Small alteration: I added an item down over at “March 2009″.

And Now for Something Completely the Same

Nah, not really–it’s actually something a bit different: an essay on one of the newest cartoons to hit the streets Cartoon Network.  No, not the awesome Adventure Time With Finn and Jake–the other one.

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For the past few weeks, I’ve been watching Generator Rex, one of Cartoon Networks new offerings.  Created by Man of Action, the consortium of comic book creators who previously created the aggressively unambitious  Ben 10, it is…well, a disappointment.

PREMISE! A science experiment gone horribly wrong (or horribly right–it hasn’t been elaborated upon yet) has coated every organism in the world with nanites.  Every so often (about once a week, conveniently enough) these nanites will mutate one of those organisms into a super-powered EVO (a.k.a. whatever the creators want), which will as often as not cause chaos and destroy America’s property values and morals.  Only one organization has the resources to stop EVO’s: NERV Providence, a paramilitary group of ambiguous jurisdiction under the control of White Knight, the one man in the world who is not infected by nanites, and who has no problem with the concept of “destroy the village to save it”.  Providence’s secret weapon is Rex, an amnesia-laden fifteen-year-old EVO kid with the ability to a) turn parts of his body into machines or weapons of different types and b) restore most EVO’s to normal by rendering the nanites altering their bodies inert.  Other characters include Agent Six, who can best be described as the love child of Batman Beyond‘s Old Man Bruce Wayne and Agent Bishop; Doc Holiday, Official Providence Hot  Scientist; and Bobo Haha, who’s there because focus groups have determined that  snarky talking monkeys are quote-unquote hilarious.  While there’s a fair bit of cliché in the concept, there’s also a whole lot more promise.  A world in which everyone, at any moment can turn into a monster?  That sounds awesome.

One thing to note is the fact that Rex is the first non-Star Wars American action cartoon in Cartoon Network to garner a PG rating, which in theory would allow it a latitude not usually seen in western cartoons when it comes to what it decides to show, and would allow more complex characterization and more realistic depictions of stuff like life, violence, emotion, sexuality, and death. Generator Rex‘s creators obviously enjoy this new-found freedom: their first episode features the Providence Red Shirts attacking a rampaging Evo with guns that actually shoot bullets; kills off those very same Red Shirts a few minutes later; and has Rex dispose of Big Bad Apparent Van Kleiss by vertically (and bloodlessly) slicing him in half with a nanite-created sword, things they could hardly do with their previous work.  For people frustrated at the industry insistence that American action cartoons must be targeted at kids above all else, this shift is a promising development.  While cartoons like Gargoyles, the DCAU, Ninja Turtles, and Avatar: The Last Airbender showed that a lot could be done under the ol’ TV-Y7-FV rating, there are still thresholds that can’t be crossed–the battle in Gargoyles #12, for example, would not have made it to TV, no matter how awesome the show’s S&P representative was.

While Generator Rex attempts to bring some nuance to the usual cartoon fare–ZOUNDS!  The good guys knowingly work for an outfit that is scarcely better than the threat they deign to eliminate!–it is, unfortunately, far too inconsistent to take advantage of these potential plotlines.  One particularly glaring example is Rex’s policy on killing, which goes from a Ninja Turtles-like ” killing is okay when the person is unambiguously evil and/or actively trying to kill you”  stance to “no killing humans ever” (in apparent contrast to Providence, whose policy appears to be, “cure, contain, or kill” with severe emphasis on that last one) to “killing EVO’s is okay even when you can’t confirm their humanity.”   Given that this is the sort of thing that forms a character’s core values, the ambiguity suggest that either a) he has none, which would be an interesting detail if they were at all interested in pursuing it,  b) the writers don’t know what they are, or worse c) they don’t care.

This sort of inconsistency can be seen all over the show’s writing.  Their world is radically different from ours–remember, anything anywhere can turn into a rampaging monster at any time–except when the writers want to make it just like ours, which is most of the time.  White Knight is a ruthless operator who would not hesitate to destroy New York to kill the EVO’s inside and secretly wishes that he were Gendo Ikari…except when he’s incapable of doing anything to curtail his subordinates’ constant and open insubordination.  Agent Six and Doc Holiday are veterans that have been forced to make various compromises in working with Providence, except when the writers try to convince you that they’re really stand-up guys.  Rex acts like the average teenager (or at least Man of Action’s idea of a teenager, which is not at all the same thing) when the only thing he remembers is his five years as Providence’s (who, we’ve established, is not particularly inclined to raise a child in a manner that makes for healthy development) ward.  The writers seem to want both create a world with Neon Genesis Evangelion-style moral complexity, but are unable to reconcile it with their desire to create another Ben 10.

Thing is, that clash doesn’t need to exist.

Gargoyles, Ninja Turtles, Avatar: The Last Airbender.  These three shows managed to create conflicts that were more than just about good and evil, worlds that felt developed and real, and characters who seemed familiar and relatable while embracing the ways that they differ from us avarage mortals.  There are shows where actions had consequences, characters had consistent moral codes (which does not necessarily mean they were good ones) and did not require “oh, he’s just a teenager” as an exuse for their mistakes.  Characters like Karai, Broadway and Zuko had moral crises that children could understand and process, and were still palatable and relatable to older teenagers and adults.  All in all, they, even within the constraints of that pesky ol’ TV-Y7-FV rating, managed to portray life, violence, emotion, sexuality, and death in as mature a manner as they could.  And they were awesome, without spending every waking minute trying to convince us of that fact.

With its premise, production values, and level of support, Generator Rex could do a lot to help skittish TV executives accept the idea that cartoons needn’t be tailored just for kids, and that they can include complex, more “mature” ideas.   All it needs to do is, man up, grit its teeth, and actually decide to implement them.

MoNY Timeline (994-1993)

This is the second part of the overall timeline for the relevant events in the shared Gargoyles/TMNT-verse. The first can be seen here.  As before,  most of the relevant Gargoyles segments are taken from Gargwiki’s own semi-official timeline.