Cartoon Country: A Touch of Magix

Back in October, Cartoon Country took us on a guided tour of Superhero City. In that article, we caught a brief glimpse of Magix, you know, that floating magical cloud city thingy which hovered in the sky above Superhero City and was attached to the city by that rainbow doo-dad.

Bifrost

Yeah, that one.

Well today, we’ve been given clearance to take an extensive tour of this unique spot. So strap in, fasten your seat belts, and…

Ever Rainbow

Take it to the Rainbow Bridge!

While the denizens of Superhero City like to refer to Magix as SHC’s “sister city”, resembling a shiny, sparkling pink-and-gold self-contained city housed atop a puffy pinkish cloud which floats some 10,000 feet above Superhero City, attached to the shores and beaches of SHC by the Ever Rainbow, Magix is in fact an outer-dimensional asteroid realm. Magix is also the name of the capital city within this planetoid realm.

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So the capital of the city of Magix is the city of Magix. Confused yet?

As its’ name implies, the asteroid Magix is surrounded by, well, magic. The air around the planetoid reeks of bananas and kumquats (that’s what white magic smells like, BTW; very few people know that). These magical energies are what keep Magix afloat and from falling through the cloud it’s housed upon, magic controls the climate in and around Magix and prevents the city from interfering with or being interfered with by our planet’s ecosystem…

S&G 2

…And magic is what keeps the asteroid’s structures, rivers, trees and inhabitants (hereinafter referred to as Mythicals by scientists with too much free time) from floating off into space. Now, about said inhabitants…

Generally speaking, Magix’s citizenry can be filed into 2 distinct categories (by bureaucrats with too much free time): Mages and Enchanteds.

Happy-cartoon-wizard-with-a-magic-wand-Stock-Vector

Mages, no prizes for guessing, are beings capable of performing magic, sorcery and spell-casting. Mages make up around 70% of Magix’s population, no mystery there, given how the realm is slopping over with mana (or magical energy, as defined by World of Warcraft players with too much free time).

Rapunzel 4

Enchanteds can’t consciously cast spells the way Mages can, but they are no less mystical in their own right. Enchanteds can sense the presence of magic anywhere and possess a strong psychic, almost supernatural connection to nature and animals, as well as innate prodigious expertise in specific fields, skills and talents, which are unique to each Enchanted. You could call the Enchanteds Passive Mages.

Grumpy_Promo

“And janitors wanna be called ‘Resident Stationery Engineers’, but it ain’t gonna happen!”

Common types of Mages include:

Faeries

Fairies, a class of all-female winged hippie hotties…

Pixies

Pixies, basically like Fairies, only smaller, like wallabies to kangaroos…

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Elves, Fairies with no wings and a Y chromosome…

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And Witches, the Gingers to the Fairies’ Mary-Anns.

Winx Fairies

“Though we dress cooler!”

Common Enchanted types include…

Little Tiana and Lottie

Royals, Kings and Queens and Princesses and Princes, basically the blue-bloods. (And that’s not just a figure of speech; if you prick them, you’ll see that their blood is actually blue!)…

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Heroes, or Specialists, who use their great strength, speed, cunning, cool tech and weapons and awesome hair to save the day (Hoo-Rah)…

Heidi's Song 2

Earthers, country dwellers who are full-on into nature, animals, the earth, earth-based activities like farming, baking, caring for animals…and barefootin’ it…

Courtly_Jester_is_here!

Jesters or Clowns, humanoids who live to joke, have fun and make people laugh and smile. (Seriously, chuckles are better than sex to these folks)…

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And Pirates, genuine swashbucklers who can sense treasure from miles away.

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The difference is that their ships fly!

Common animal species you’ll encounter in Magix are magical creatures like Unicorns

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“My real magic power is that I’m DOLLING! (That’s an extreme form darling, BTW.)”

Palace Pets, extremely adorable creatures with the power to calm and delight who live in the gardens, forests and wilds between Magix’s palaces and are often adopted as companions/familiars to the Royals…

palace-pets

“You will succumb to the cuteness. Resistance is futile.”

Dragons

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Enjoy them while they’re in their cute baby stage; they grow to be 50 feet high.

..And Monsters.

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It’s a one-eyed Purple People Eater. Insert your own Sheb Wooley joke here.

Dot

“Obscure joke. Talk to your parents.”

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The monsters and some (though not all) of the witches reside in Darkmoon, a creepy dark forest on the outskirts of Magix. It’s always nighttime in Darkmoon, even when it’s bright and sunny everywhere else, perpetually shrouded underneath a sinister looking moon.

Majoras Mask Moon

Yeaah….it’s probably best not to look directly at it.

Not unlike our world, Magix is presently undergoing an era of Political Correctness, due to many of the previously disparate lands and kingdoms having been recently united under the rule of the Candy Kingdom, after their rulers King Kandy and Queen Frostine having won this decade’s Hungry Games.

King_kandy_new

“Don’t give us that look! We didn’t resort to any underhanded chicanery or hostility! We merely suggested that the previously rivaling factions come together under us and enjoy and era of peace, prosperity, love, luck and lollipops!”

Queen Frostine

“It was purely voluntary, but we knew the other kingdoms would come around to our way of thinking. Gosh, who wants to be fed to the silly old Pain Monster??”

To their credit, under the Candy Kingdom’s rule, Magix has become very rich and prosperous.

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The capital city of Magix. Home to Fantasy Land’s 1%.

If you have enough of Magix’s chief monetary unit, the gold coin…

Wario with Gold Coins

“Cha-Ching, bee-yotches!”

…You can go into the shopping center in Magix’s town square and purchase the latest and greatest magic wands.

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They cost a little more, but they’re worth it. Trust me, you don’t want to buy some cheap knockoff from off the streets.

The Merchant

The few Outlanders who get to see Magix from the inside are often surprised to discover how technologically advanced the realm is. Magix has Spell Phones (they’re like cellphones except they run on magic instead of electricity), Spell-o-Vision, computers and flying vehicles such as Wind Riders.

Wind Riders

Grumpy_Promo

“Hey, your realm isn’t suck in medieval times, why do ya think ours is?”

The Candy Rulers have even started a high-profile, exclusive private school within the capital, the Cloud Tower Academy for Magic and Might.

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Within these walls, Magix’s richest and most privileged young fairies, witches, wizards and heroes-to-be learn their respective crafts and get out of their parents’ collective hair for a few hours, fed by the realm’s finest chefs and taught by the greatest sorcerers in all the land.

Shang_tsung_mk2011

“Yeah, it’s me. I teach Advanced Black Magic and Junior Curses here. It’s part of my work-release program and community service. I’m also under house arrest; if I even think of committing an act of treachery, I’ll be instantly teleported to Hell, or worse, the Deep South!”

Now, you may recall during our Superhero City tour, that originally the rulers of Magix didn’t want us poking our noses around their realm. What made them change their minds, you ask? It took some heavy negotiations and a HUGE donation of lollipops.

Lollipops

When we gave the Candy Royal Family an entire room full of lollipops, they turned over like a dog begging for a treat.

Princess Lolly

“What can I say? My parents are suckers for suckers!”

Cartoon Country: Saving the Day

This Cartoon Country is going to be brief. I just wanted to showcase DC’s latest offering of it’s web series DC Super Hero Girls titled “Saving the Day”. This is in reference to an earlier Cartoon Country that we did where we talked about the episodes “Crazy Quiltin'” and “Weaponomics”.

Ah, so they had a plan for that all along. And Cheetah finally gets her come-uppance for her earlier jerkiness.

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I’d say that this sort of contradicts what DC said earlier about there being no bad/mean girl character on this show, but it doesn’t really. Sure, Cheetah was being a jerk, but she was mostly just trying to get all of the glory rather than trying to take over there world via one high school, so there’s that.

Now, if Supegirl will finally show up and Barbara Gordon would finally don the Batgirl costume, we’ll be in business. I’m going to assume that WB and DC have a plan for this also. Stay tooned.

Cartoon Country: “Weaponomics” and “Club Life”

On today’s Cartoon Country, we’ll be giving our thoughts on the latest (as of this writing) 2 installments of the DC Super Hero Girls web series, “Weaponomics” and “Club Life” (a.k.a. “Clubbing”). We’ve just finished shoveling a ton o’ snow that got dumped on out doorstep over the weekend (thanks, Winter Storm Jonas!) so these will be brief and to-the-point.

First, Wonder Woman tries to make the grade in weapons’ class (with Cheetah once again rearing her jerky head) in “Weaponomics”.

 

And now, for the assorted ramblings:

  • So, are the teachers at this school all blind? This is the second time that Cheetah has screwed with Wondy in plain sight, and no one has noticed?
  • Why didn’t Wonder Woman just bind Cheetah with her lasso so she’d confess? It’s not like Wondy could get into more trouble; she was already in detention. Seems like a very easily solvable problem.
  • So in this universe, Cheetah and Catwoman are buds. Heh. I’m not really a Catwoman fan, but she has a decent design here. Understated, but effective in its’ simplicity. Much better than that thing she walked around in on Mortal Kombat VS DC Universe.
  • I really hope that Cheetah will eventually receive the comeuppance that she’s so begging for. This “Cheetah messes with Wonder Woman and receives no punishment for it” routine is starting to leave a bad taste in my mouth.

 

-Next up, Principal Waller informs Poison Ivy that she must get some extracurricular credit by joining one of those fancy-shmancy school clubs that I’ve seen so many times in fiction but never in real life.

 

And once again, the ramblings:

  • The daisy with a face was cute. I like how ‘un-grounded’ this series is.
  • I’ve never been a big Poison Ivy fan, but she has a great design in this series, and I can sympathize with her ‘plight’ here, having never been much of a joiner myself. To quote Groucho Marx: “I’d never join a club that would have me as a member.”
  • The Detective Club mentions a landed Kryptonian spacecraft and are looking for its’ ‘female occupant’. We all know who that is. Hopefully this means we’ll FINALLY be seeing Kara/Supergirl on the show.
  • Speaking of, Barbara Gordon is still masquerading as Babs the IT Gal. I know they’re going to address her finally donning her cape and becoming Batgirl at some point, I just wish they’d hurry up and do it already! I wonder why Babs doesn’t want to be a hero? Does she not think she’s worthy because she doesn’t have any super powers? Katana, Catwoman and Harley Quinn don’t have any powers either, and they’re students (unless we’re going by Quackerjack from Darkwing Duck‘s rules and counting wackiness as a super power).
  • I like how the alien (or mythical/otherwrldly, in Wonder Woman’s case) students have their own United Planets Club; being an outer space/outer dimension nerd, I thought that was a nice touch.
  • This is Starfire’s 3rd appearance on the show, but her first speaking appearance. Like Beast Boy, Star has her Teen Titans: TAS voice actor, Hynden Walch.
  • Miss Martian is freakin’ adorable.
  • Rocking out with the band is THE most interesting thing I’ve seen Katana do so far.
  • I really like Beast Boy’s costume here. Where can I get that paw print shirt?
  • For once we see Cheetah in a short not being a jerk to Wonder Woman.
  • I have to say, though the series’ focus is clearly on the girls (it’s in the title, fer cryin’ out loud!), I do like how the boys are portrayed here. When they do show up, they’re just regular characters, not a bunch of FRIs (Forced Romantic Interests). If we must have boy characters in a girl-centric franchise, I’d rather them be portrayed this way instead of just being obligatory boyfriends for the girls.
  • Another character’s design that we like is that of Frost (she’s not called “Killer” Frost here for obvious reasons). It’s a stark contrast to how the character looked on Justice League: TAS; here, Frost looks like a nice version of Icy from Winx Club. If Icy were to do a face turn, that’s probably what she’d look like.

-“Club Life” is my favorite episode of this series so far. More shorts like this (and the eventual appearances of Supergirl and Batgirl), please.

Cartoon Country: Web Premiere Toons – Hong Kong Phooey

Today Cartoon Country looks at a Cartoon Network Web Premiere Toon circa 2001. Imagine if 70’s cartoon crime fighter Hong Kong Phooey (aka bumbling janitor Penry Pooch) had graduated from the Dragon Ball Z/Street Fighter/Naruto school of martial arts. Check it out.

 

-One YouTube poster said of this short: “So glad that did not fly or my childhood would have been ruined.”

Ah, no.

For one, I’m pretty sure this was never meant to be anything more than a one-and-done short (I do recall there being plans for a live-action HKP movie years ago, but evidently nothing came of that), and for another, even if that weren’t the case, how exactly would the mere existence of 1 new cartoon adaptation which you’re not even required nor obligated to watch ruin your childhood when your childhood has already come and gone? Cartoons and cartoon producers aren’t dicks with time machines, after all. Quite frankly, if you’re that resistant to change, it’s a wonder you haven’t tried to off yourself the instant you hit puberty. Personally, I thought this short was awesome, and I enjoyed the original series as a kid.

The original Hong Kong Phooey hasn’t gone anywhere. He’s still around, and his intro still rocks.

 

 

If there ever is to be a new Hong Kong Phooey TV show, movie or anything, I think it should be a mix of both: the silly slapstick combined with the ultra-stylized, over-the-top martial arts mayhem.

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“Step into my dojo, mo-fo!”

 

 

Cartoon Country: X-Men Evolution – “Walk on the Wild Side”

Today’s Cartoon Country looks at the second season episode of X-Men Evolution titled “Walk on the Wild Side”, in which the female X-Men (specifically Jean Grey, Amara Aquilla aka Magma and Tabitha Smith aka Boom-Boom) get fed up with playing second fiddle to the guys, and form an all-female vigilante crime-fighting group called the Bayville Sirens. Shortly after our heroines form their new gang, this happens:

 

 

dude-wtf

-Not only did the story just randomly jump to Radio Disney for a second, but this sequence boasted a puzzling occurrence which was never addressed. The 3 characters who formed the Bayville Sirens were Jean, Amara and Tabitha, who did so out of frustration (and some unintentionally sexist comments from Cyclops). OK, got that, however, about a third of the way through that little dance party video thing, Kitty Pryde (Shadowcat) and Rogue just show up, and for the remainder of the story the 2 of them are just there, as if they’d been Sirens all along, despite them having no stake in any of this and no participation in the story up to that point. There’s really no reason for Rogue and Kitty to be in this story at all, other than a) they’re girls and b) they’re main characters. OK, we’re not going to offer a logical, canonical reason for these 2 to just arbitrarily join the story? No explanation at all? Just not gonna address that at all, huh? Not even a throwaway line somewhere? Nothin’? M’kay.

Speaking of strange occurrences,

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RIDDLE ME THIS……

What is it about this episode that makes so many aspiring authors on the internet want to write fan fiction about it? The last time I ventured onto FanFiction.net, there were literally dozens of fanfics based on or inspired by “Walk on the Wild Side”. In one of them, in retaliation the male X-Men decide to start their own all-boys’ splinter faction called the Bayville Strikers.

UmmNo

Far be it for me to pass judgement on another author’s vision, but I gotta say, naw, that idea’s not working for me, bruh. We don’t need an all-guys’ X-team for the same reason TV doesn’t need a White Entertainment Television. Boys don’t need special representation in what’s already a male-dominated genre. We don’t have to imagine what a superhero team consisting of just boys would be like; we’ve already seen that, several times: that’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. That’s Street Sharks. That’s Battletoads. That’s Ronin Warriors. That’s Centurions. That’s Super Hero Squad. I could go on, stop me before I sub-reference again. All-male teams are a dime a dozen, so that wouldn’t be anything special. If they were really going to have a girls’ vigilante team AND a boys’ vigilante team existing alongside of it, then you should just make one team and make it co-ed, which would just be the X-Men.

But that’s just my opinion. If “Walk on the Wild Side” revs your engine, then by all means enjoy the ride. Myself, if I want a Girl Power superhero team, I’ll stick with these ladies:

Powerpuff Girls

They have better costumes, anyway.