So, anyone who has been hitting this site knows by now that G.I. Joe: Renegades is hitting The Hub on November 26th. Well, anyone who is a fan of action animation has a lot more to look forward to than just that.
Check out what’s hitting TV on Friday, the 26th, all times are from the Eastern Time Zone:
3:00pm – Hubworld Exclusive featuring a Transformers: Prime preview – The Hub
3:30pm – Hubworld Exclusive featuring Behind the Scenes looks at G.I. Joe: Renegades and Transformers: Prime – The Hub
4:00pm – Transformers: Prime Darkness Rising, Part 1 – The Hub
4:30pm – Transformers: Prime Darkness Rising, Part 2 – The Hub
5:00pm – G.I. Joe: Renegades Descent, Part 1 – The Hub
5:30pm – G.I. Joe: Renegades Descent, Part 2 – The Hub
7:00pm – Young Justice Independence Day, Part 1 – Cartoon Network
7:30pm – Young Justice Independence Day, Part 2 – Cartoon Network
So, yeah… that’s like 5 hours of awesome action animation for the evening after Thanksgiving. Best part is, none of it overlaps. Of course, to me, G.I. Joe: Renegades is the highlight of it, but Young Justice looks amazing, Avengers has been terrific, and I’m looking forward to Transformers: Prime, too. Wow there is some great animated series on the air right now. It’s almost like the comic book-heavy 90’s again!
Here are some videos to wet your whistle…I know I can’t wait!
G.I. Joe: Renegades
They’ve gone through a few different names over the past little while…most recently it was Tri-Gate Creations, and now it’s Slayer Design Studios. But the basic idea and business model is the same. Provide production-level customized pieces to build you own G.I. Joe universe.
They most recently caught my eye with the incredible Red Shadow offerings they had a short while ago… caught my eye in such a way, that I made sure I had some pieces in hand to review. Well, I haven’t yet had a chance to review them, but a review is coming…while you wait, though, I just have to keep talking up these guys. They have some absolutely insane product offerings.
Want to inject some Super Hero love into your G.I. Joe universe? They got that. Want to beef up your Iron Grenadier army? Yeah, they can take care of that, too. Want to create an apocalyptic war-infested zombie wasteland with your Joes? Oh hell yeah, theygotthat. Hell, they even have some awesome other 80’s properties that you know and love.
From the sheer quality of the sculpting to the amazing variety of products, Slayer Designs is simply the shit when it comes to custom parts and pieces. Check out their revamped store front, and keep your eyes peeled. There are new items being posted every day, and nearly all of them are incredible.
Keep in mind, I’m taking some of this information with a grain of salt, because the language within the interview is somewhat unclear. But according to an interview with Greg Johnson at 411Mania, there is a possibility that G.I. Joe: Renegades might air early November…perhaps even the 10th.
Honestly, I’m not sure that’s entirely accurate. There’s no telling when this interview was done (though it was only released yesterday) but Mr. Johnson specifically mentioning the 10th appears to me to be more related to the debut of The Hub rather than Renegades specifically. We’ll see.
To me, the better information is that Greg Johnson is involved in the first place. This guy is an action animation powerhouse, who has been involved in a wealth of fantastic animation. This is his resume:
Beast Wars
X-Men: Evolution
Ultimate Avengers & Ultimate Avengers II
Invincible Iron Man
Dr. Strange
Wolverine and the X-Men
So yeah, pretty much every Marvel related animation release over the past several years has been written by Greg Johnson. Just seeing Beast Wars, X-Men: Evolution, and Wolverine and the X-Men on this list is freaking AWESOME to me. Three of my favorite animated series over the past several years. Great news.
Another little tidbit of information comes from MultiChannel.com. The information they reveal mentions G.I. Joe: Renegades being a part of the “Weekend” schedule.
“WEEKEND AFTERNOONS Deltora Quest
Men in Black
G.I. Joe Renegades
Batman Beyond
Hubworld
Hub Family Movie Night” WEEKEND OVERNIGHT G.I. Joe Renegades
Batman Beyond
Men in Black…”
Take this all with a grain of salt, of course, but as we get closer to November hopefully the picture will start clarifying.
With G.I. Joe: Renegades not hitting until Thanksgiving (allegedly) I’m focusing all of my animated attention on Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, which most of you know by now. Reason? I think it’s awesome and I want to talk about it. So, 788, go ahead and click away now. 😉
The New York ComicCon just wrapped up, and revealed some more details about the series… apparently those awesome Micro-Episodes running on DisneyXD right now are in actuality the first five episodes of the animated series, broken down into smaller chunks. That does explain a lot…I thought it was kind of weird that those microsodes were so high quality and would be in addition to normal content, especially since they’re actually revealing the origins of some of the key players.
Also revealed at New York ComicCon was that the “pilot” for Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes would pick up where the Microsodes left off and show a veritable Super Villain rebellion, with widespread escapes from the various super villain prisons around the country. Certainly a story that’s been done before, but if the quality of the series even comes close to matching what we’ve gotten for the microsodes, we are in for a damn treat.
I’ve already professed my love for Hawkeye, and I’ll also admit that I’m a huge Captain America fan as well. Granted I haven’t read the book in a number of years, but the 90’s era Captain America stories were among my favorite comic stories ever written. Steve Rogers’ leaving his post, becoming The Captain while John Walker became the new Captain America…that whole storyline and how it tied into Ultimatum and the Red Skull. Diamondback, Crossbones…all of this made for some fantastic Marvel Comics memories. So while much of the nuances of The Avengers may be lost on me, I can certainly appreciate it when they focus on some of the more key characters.
One question I had was how would they handle Captain America’s origin? The answer? Pretty damn well. I’ve embedded a series of three microsodes below the jump, which feature the origin of Captain America…and also some very cool familiar faces.
We see Fury and his Howling Commandos, including one very familiar commando who is only called “Logan”. Not only that, but in one of the latest microsodes, Nick Fury also references the Mutant Response Division, and even calls them “Marties” a terrific reference to the unfortunately canceled Wolverine and the X-Men series, indicating that this series ties in with that one. A very cool, rich Marvel animated universe is starting to form, and I can’t wait to see where it goes next. Click the “read the rest of this entry” link below to check out Captain America’s animated origin! (more…)
Part of the news in New York ComicCon is the information that G.I. Joe: Cobra co-writer Christos Gage has received an exclusive contract from Marvel Comics, which means he will be moving on from the fantastic IDW title. His co-writer Mike Costa will remain on the book.
Announcing it via his Twitter feed, he expressed regret that he had to leave the book, but confidence that Costa can continue on fine in his stead.
As a humongous fan of G.I. Joe: Cobra, I’m sure Mr. Gage’s influence will be missed, but I wish him the best of luck, and a huge congrats on the Marvel deal! Part of the Marvel deal is also doing the writing for the upcoming Captain America: Super Soldier video game from Sega (to launch in conjunction with the film) so I know we’ll all be sure to check that out!
Yeah, yeah, I’m still talking about Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. DisneyXD has been posting new microsodes every day, and I’ve been pretty much in love with every single one of them. With G.I. Joe: Renegades apparently not debuting October 11th, the 20th is now the date I’m most looking forward to next month.
That being said, I was giving my readers a bit of a break from it, because nothing puts a focus on a lack of Joe news like hitting my site and seeing back-to-back-to-back-to-back Avengers updates. However…yesterday’s episode featuring The Hulk forced my hand, when I saw this:
Yes, that is a helicopter pilot for The Hulkbusters, and yes he speaks with a thick Southern drawl, and yes, he parachutes out of the helicopter just in the nick of time when the Hulk brings it down. Freaking awesome. As cool as this little cameo is, I really geeked out when I saw the following pictures:
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You see, while many folks will say Spider-Man, Superman, Batman, or Wolverine got them into comic books, for me it was Hawkeye. Sure I was buying G.I. Joe comics back in the day, but I hadn’t broken into super heroes until I stumbled upon the Hawkeye limited series way back in the 80’s. I had been fascinated with archery at the time, and a super hero who just used a bow and arrow was absolutely awesome to me. I hadn’t yet been exposed to Green Arrow (and only would be about a year later when I got into the Super Powers toys) so Hawkeye was the man. Sure, he was in that horrible 90’s Avengers cartoon, but here he seems to be done right. I’m fired up. Cannot wait to see this cartoon in full bloom.
Check out the Avengers Microsodes right here!
