(Archived)Crisis on Infinite Polygons Vol 2 Issue #1: The Verges of Future Past

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Heyoo people! You may remember me from such topics as my random "Pinkie Pie is best pony" post and my little write up on my fears of American history being whitewashed in AC3, but one topic I love to make!(Part time) is making it's debut here this week on Polygon! No longer are we constrained to The Verge to veer off randomly into comic and cartoon discussion! Heck we could do it at both websites if we so pleased.

If you're new to this topic then welcome welcome welcome! Each week me and Chaosbirdomaid write up a topic to give fans of comic books/manga and anime/cartoons, each week we also rattle off an animation and a comic/manga series that we would recommend to you fine people. Please contact us if you want to write a recommendation for a cartoon or comic as well! We love to collaborate with others.

Featured Comic: The Ultimates

So by now i'm sure you've all seen the Avengers, you've seen wisecracking Tony Stark, Heroic Steve Rogers,Destructive but good intentioned Hulk and Protector of earth Thor. All of them ,while dysfunctional, you could call a true team of heroes. In this series, based in the reboot continuity of Marvels "Ultimate" line you could call them many things, heroes likely wouldn't be at the top of the list.

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Certainly not the Hulk.

This is a world that attempted to closely mirror our own, even George W Bush is presented in this series as the current president. However the uh "Heroes" of this story are not good people. Captain America, while still being a World War 2 hero, harbors a pretty nasty mean streak and subtle racist tones as products of his time, Wasp and Giant Man are a pretty dysfunctional couple, with Giant Man being presented as a very abusive man and Wasp in clear denial of this. Tony Stark/Iron Man is the kind of Martini swilling alcoholic you'd expect to find in a high class club, not in a suit of high tech armor. Hulk is....just terrible, not content with smashing, Hulk amplifies the absolute worst of Bruce Banners personality, he's horny, he's cannibalistic and he'll stop at nothing to get what he wants, usually pretty disgusting things. My personal favorite of this story is Thor, presented as a environmentalist with thunder based super powers, doubts are immediately raised as to if Thor really is the god he claims or just a man with extraordinary powers and delusions of godhood.

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God Of Thunder? Mental Patient?

The story follows this team as they are introduced to the world as a super team to combat the super threats of the changing world, but what I feel makes the series something special is the character dynamics, believe me when I say you probably aren't going to actually "like" any of the heroes present in this book, but you'll read on anyway for the crazy places the story goes and the ways they present the new(well new in 2001) twists on these classic heroes. I highly recommend it and it's sequel series "Ultimates 2" but I would advise you to steer clear of it's third iteration because everything I describe here was foolishly thrown out the window.

Featured Animation: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

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So....much....color!

"Oh god, ponies, I need to insult somebody now!" Yeah, I know, It's that cartoon that seems to have taken over half of the internet, and killed the parents of the other half(We're in for a lot of Batmen) But bear with me here folks and let me tell you why this is genuinely a good show, intended for little girls or not.

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"Yeah! Just give him a chance!"

See, this show is spawned from one of most "Girly" toy properties around since the 80's. The My Little Pony line of toys were always seen as really and truly "girlish"(I know I thought so) and in 2010 when it was given a modern reboot(likely in a simple attempt to re-push the toy line) Hasbro/The Hub made a very wise choice, they hired actual talent. Lauren Faust(known for Powerpuff Girls and Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends among others) Was given the task of reinvigorating the line of candy colored ponies with new story's and new characters. I doubt Hasbro expected what they got. In the place of what had earlier been terrifying and blatant cash grabs we got complex characters, fun stories, loads of good natured sincere humour and a surprising amount of pop culture nods and references. The stories in the show are usually self contained, but sometimes they branch into two parters. It's clear the show is still aimed primarily at it's target audience but not many cartoons these days feature the same style of this, gorgeously smooth flash based animation and lighthearted sincere humor free of the cynic dominated tastes of many shows these days gives what could have been a pretty awful cash in a permanent place among one of the best animated shows in history(certainly not the best but that's a whole other story for me).

Maybe I convinced you to check it out? Maybe you don't want to That's all fine and dandy. Is the fanbase weird? You could say, but there's always a weird element to fanbases of shows these days. If you can look past the original intention of the branding I very much recommend you at least give a few episodes of the show a shot. As it goes on the show is even beginning to shift away from the original target audience with more and more frequent pop culture nods, deeper story's, excellently composed music and fanbase fun packed around every corner.

Unlike a lot of random image macros and annoying people would like to make you think, there is nothing obligating you to check it out, but hey, if you want to I give you both my thumbs up.

Okie Dokie Lokie *snaps out of pony mode*....woah, okay anyway, the way this topic works normally is if you want to talk about anything animation or comic like feel free to discuss to your hearts content, each week we'll be bringing you a new issue with some new recommendations to fill your heads with! Usually on Wednesdays but, I was a little delayed getting this puppy out of the gate.

So Again, we're all here on Polygon! And we all love the place so far likely, here's to our continued enjoyment.