Futurama Season 7 Review

So, as most of you can probably guess, I love Futurama. It's my favorite show of all time, and one of the main inspirations for my particular brand of humor (and I don't just mean the many times I've accidentally ripped it off). When it was cancelled in 2003, it was the first time since Titus that I'd ever been legitimately upset by the cancellation of a show. As I went through college, though, I started to see its cancellation as a mixed blessing. This line of thought was brought on by shows like The Simpsons and South Park, which were declining in quality by that point, as well as Family Guy, whose already tenuous quality took a nosedive after its recovery from cancellation in 2005. I figured that, while Futurama ended far too soon, at least it never started to suck.

After I came to terms with this, the first movie, "Bender's Big Score," came out. It was awesome, and peaked my interest in the next three movies to come. "Beast With A Billion Backs" and "Bender's Game," on the other hand, I was less enthused about. While it had some funny moments, "Billion Backs" was much less polished, and quite frankly, the subject matter made me feel a little unclean by the end of it. And "Bender's Game," while a decent tribute to Gary Gygax, was about as convoluted and nonsensical as a bad episode of Star Trek. Then "Wild Green Yonder" came out, and redeemed the movies as a whole. By this point no one knew if Comedy Central was going to renew the series or not, so I regarded "Wild Green Yonder" as the last episode that would have aired on FOX if they weren't douche bags. It wrapped up the series nicely, and if this was the last Futurama I ever saw, I'd still remember the show fondly.

Then Comedy Central renewed the series. Fortunately, the writers have still got it.

Yes, overall, and much to my pleasant surprise, the newest season of Futurama is quite good.While it unfortunately produced my least favorite episode to date ("Proposition Infinity"), it also produced two of my new favorites ("The Late Phillip J. Fry" and "Lrrreconcilable Ndndifferences"), and managed to maintain the sense of humor and scope I love about the show, even if it took a few episodes to reestablish it.

It's worth noting that the season had a shaky start, and while the season opener "Rebirth" was great- the way Comedy Central transitioned to it directly from the end of "Wild Green Yonder" the night of its premiere was a nice touch- the next few episodes were relatively lackluster compared to the rest of the show. The biggest problem, I think, is that it seemed as though the writers were making up for lost time, satirizing things from the past few years that they weren't able to while the show was cancelled. This is most noticeable in "Attack of the Killer App," which satirized the iPhone a few years after it was hip to do so, and "The Duh-Vinci Code," which satirizes, obviously, the Da Vinci code. These episodes were still decent, and if they were able to come out in a more timely manner, they'd have been legendary. Unfortunately, they felt somewhat dated for coming out this year.

*NOTE: For the next few paragraphs, I'm going to discuss why I didn't like the episode "Proposition Infinity." The tl;dr version: while I agree with the show's message, I thought there was too much character derailment. If you don't feel like reading my big, geeky rant on this, or if you haven's seen either "Proposition Infinity" or "Lethal Inspection" and don't want them spoiled for you, feel free to skip to the next set of asterisks.*

This brings us to the episode from this season I liked the least, and, on my first viewing, the first episode of Futurama that I actually disliked: "Proposition Infinity." As long-suffering fans of Family Guy and South Park can attest, it's always dicey when a show tries to get political. Now, Futurama's been guilty of this before; "Crimes of the Hot" and "Wild Green Yonder" had obvious environmental messages, and "A Taste of Freedom" was about flag-burning, which was a big deal at the time. However, "Proposition Infinity," which was about gay marriage, was the first time the political message was detrimental to the show.

While I won't go into it too much here, I do agree with what the show was trying to convey. What I didn't like was that, other than the hilarious parody of the Proposition 8 gathering storm ad, there wasn't much in the way of humor. Worse for me, however, was that the characters were derailed to make a point. Kif's whininess and Amy's stupidity were both exaggerated for the sole purpose of breaking them up for an episode, freeing her to date Bender and get the robosexual plot rolling. Most of the other characters, who in a previous episode ("I Dated a Robot") were adamantly against Fry dating a robot, were all for Amy and Bender's relationship, and Bender himself made no effort to rob Amy, which, up until the credits, was where I thought the episode was going.

I'd also go into Professor Farnsworth being a straw villain in this episode, but he is actually more or less in character as a crotchety, petty old man that will ultimately do the right thing. And while the show's debate tactics are questionable- the two biggest detractors for robosexuality that we see, the Professor and the robotic reverend character, are both closet robosexuals themselves, which strikes me as kind of an immature implication- it's important to remember that this is a comedy. After all, there's already a program that makes reasoned political commentary. It's called The Daily Show, and it comes on right after this. It's not Futurama's job to debate maturely, so I can let it get away with this sort of thing. But only when it still keeps the humor, which I don't think this episode was entirely successful in doing.

Now I specified earlier that I only disliked this episode after the first viewing. There was another episode this season, "Lethal Inspection," that, much like "Proposition Infinity," I didn't care for at first. It focused on Bender discovering that he's mortal, which is already at odds with a lot of previous events in the show. Thinking that it's a mechanical defect, he and Hermes go looking for the inspector that approved him so he can beat him up. After Bender gives up the search and decides to make the most of whatever time he has left, Hermes is revealed to be the inspector, and a montage of everything he did to protect Bender from being destroyed as a baby plays over a melancholic song, much like the ending montages in "Leela's Homeworld" and "Jurassic Bark."For me, this ultimately fell flat because the twist seemed to come right the hell out of nowhere, and Bender isn't nearly as sympathetic as Leela's parents or Fry's dog.

However, time and research for this review has caused me to think about these episodes a bit, and while they're still not my favorites, from a world-building and character development standpoint, I have a certain amount of respect for them. Watching the old episodes again, I've noticed that, before it's widely known that Mom is a villain, Hermes never joins the other characters when they talk about how nice she is. At first, I chalked this up to Hermes being absent when the characters discuss her. After all, the only times I can think of when they're both in the same scene are when she is either destroying the world with robots, or taking over Planet Express, both of which would easily earn Hermes's ire. "Lethal Inspection" adds a brand new dimension to this, as we learn that Hermes actually used to work for Mom, and quit because he didn't want to kill defective robots.

Let's take this knowledge and look at a specific scene in "Proposition Infinity." When Amy and Bender decide they're going to take to the streets and get robosexual marriage legalized, Hermes is the first one to give his support. Granted, they turn it into a pot joke a few seconds later, but that doesn't change the fact that Hermes was awfully eager to join the fight for robot equality.This all seemed at odds with his vehemence with Fry for dating a robot in "I Dated a Robot," but then I thought about it a little more, and I realized something. The robot Fry dated was basically a blank shell with the personality of Lucy Liu embedded into it, programmed solely to love Fry.Hermes wasn't mad because Fry was dating a robot. He was mad because Fry was keeping a robot as a sex slave. It's easy to interpret from this that, all along, Hermes has been a sort of covert champion for robot civil rights, using his job as a bureaucrat to aid in this however he can.This is especially helped by "How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back", in which Hermes uses his sorting talents to save Bender's life for what turns out to be the second time.

This is just a theory, of course, and I admittedly wouldn't expect the writers to make too much of this even if it were true, given the screwball comedy nature of the show. However, keeping this thought in mind makes "Proposition Infinity" and "Lethal Inspection" a lot more watchable, and has gone a long way towards making Hermes my favorite Futurama character, which is something I never expected.

*RANT OVER*

The season as a whole really started to pick up for me with "The Late Phillip J. Fry." Along with the hilarious song when they travel through several eons at once as well as Farnsworth's misadventures in killing Hitler, it's the first episode of the new season since "Rebirth" to bring up the whole Fry/Leela thing, and does so in a nice, heartwarming way that didn't feel too angsty.This was the episode that pretty much assured me that Futurama is back, and still just as awesome today as it was in 2002.

However, my personal favorite episode this season, and I'll admit it's for somewhat arbitrary reasons, is "Lrrreconcilable Ndndifferences." First of all, the Omicronians are, by far, my favorite recurring villains. I was disappointed by their lack of representation in the movies, and was glad they got an episode in the new season. Second, Fry's "Deliveryboy Man" comic and the way it satirized problems lots of comics have today was brilliant in its subtlety. And there was something unfathomably hilarious about Bender cosplaying as Leela ("I have fruit-boobs!").

However, the ultimate reason this episode is my favorite is the War of the Worlds bit featuring the head of Orson Welles. True, it was a great reference to the infamous radio broadcast and a hilarious take on Welles's prima-donna nature, but there's another, more personal reason I liked this part. Orson Welles was voiced by veteran voice actor Maurice LaMarche, who usually plays Kif and various other characters on the show. However, there's a particularly famous role LaMarche played in a cartoon I watched when I was little. A character whose voice was remarkably similar to Orson Welles...

YES!

So yeah. This is the big reason that this episode's my favorite. It reminds me of Pinky and the Brain. It's like everything that inspired me to be a cartoonist has come around full-circle. If they had somehow worked Calvin and Hobbes into it, I probably would have started crying.

The season finale/100th episode was also fantastic, but bringing up the Brain feels like a good emotional climax, so I'll end the review here. Suffice to say, I'm enthusiastic about Futurama's return, and I'm looking forward to the next batch of new episodes.

Don't blow it, guys.

Chapter 19 Commentary: I Rip Off Matt Groening More than I Thought

So, it’s been a long time since I’ve done commentary. For a while, I wrote a few paragraphs after each chapter, discussing what I liked about it, what I didn’t. Then, after Vyonafield, I just kind of stopped. With this one, I can kind of see why. All I could think of to talk about at the time was future plotlines that League of Extraordinary Bastards was going to set up, and plans running through my head for Cartoon Billy and Connor’s team-up, which would obviously be loaded with spoilers. But, time has given me a bit more perspective, and now I actually do have things to say about it, so let’s get to it.

Overall, I think this was one of my favorite chapters. I try my best not to play favorites with my characters, as I don’t want any of them to turn into the Wesley, but Cartoon Billy is always particularly fun to write. Part of it is nostalgia, as he’s the first villain I’ve ever written, and one of the few characters to appear in my comic that’s been around since my middle school days. I first created Billy as a rip-off of Sideshow Bob from the Simpsons. For those that are curious, that’s sort of the meta-reason his name is Cartoon Billy (the actual in-comic reason is a future plot point, so I’ll drop the subject here). And originally, in my middle school comics, he was a lot like Sideshow Bob. He was a convict with a sophisticated air about him that had an irrational grudge on whatever protagonist I was using at the time (generally Clyde). As time went on and I started caring about storytelling and originality, Billy gradually evolved into the idiotic, egotistical mad scientist we know him as today, almost to the point where there’s no Sideshow Bob in him at all. If anything, he reminds me more of either the Monarch from Venture Brothers, or Dr. Doofenshmirtz from Phineas and Ferb, based on his idiocy, general ineffectiveness, and almost chronic need to be someone’s arch nemesis.

Speaking of the evolution of characters that originally ripped off Matt Groening’s, this brings me to an elephant in the room whenever I think of Moron County’s success: Kiff. Kiff was a character I created freshman year of college, shortly before Moron County first went online. At the time, Futurama had just been cancelled prematurely by Fox, and for all intents and purposes, did not look like it was coming back. It hadn’t gotten its surge in popularity on Adult Swim yet, and it would be another three years or so until Family Guy made its return from cancellation that would pave the way for Futurama’s. What I’m getting at here is, at the time, I named Kiff after the Kif character as a tribute. Now Futurama’s back, and suddenly, the line between “tribute” and “plagiarism” has gotten a little too blurry. Exacerbating this is Kiff’s character development, which has made him far, FAR too similar to Futurama Kif. Both are green. Both sarcastically yet dutifully serve moronic narcissists. This is a lawsuit waiting to happen.

That said, I have a plan for this. As soon as Moron County gets popular enough that I make an animated or print adaptation (or anything else that actually makes money), or for it to garner the attention of Matt Groening and his lawyers, I fully intend to change Kiff’s name. I have at least three names in mind. If I’m able to change the name on my own terms (that is, before someone legally makes me), I’ll likely make a big announcement, put up two or three names on the site, and let the fans vote. If Matt Groening or his attorney threatens me, I will, after the requisite squeeing at the fact that Matt Groening reads my comic, promptly change Kiff’s name to whatever strikes my fancy at the time, going back and changing it in the archives if necessary. There’s at least some dialogue I’ll have to rewrite (there’s one point where Bobbes comments that Biff and Kiff’s names rhyme), but I’ll worry about that when I need to.

Destructor is also a rip-off of a Futurama character, but in my defense I forgot said character existed at the time. The Destructor in my comic was actually derived from Invader Zim’s Mini Moose, another character that appeared randomly in one episode despite the villain’s claim that he was there the whole time. Also, my version of Destructor’s dead. And never, ever coming back.

Ever.

So I don’t think that’ll be a problem.

Anyway, back to the chapter itself. I first came up with the idea for a villain tryout when I was trying to figure out what, if anything, to do with Larry’s character. It became a given that, if he was going to continue to exist in the comic at all (which was a given, as I don’t like loose ends), he would end up joining Billy. I pondered Billy’s logic for letting him do this, came up with the evil opposite idea, and came up with them holding tryouts for an evil counterpart to Nina and/or Vyona (which set up my planned conclusion of Connor joining quite nicely). This eventually changed into just having villain tryouts to allow for more jokes, but I kept Billy’s evil counterpart idea, mostly because any opportunity I have for Billy to exasperate Kiff is a good one.

There were a few gags that I planned to do but left out for various reasons. Mike’s appearance as a Klingon was originally going to be a standalone comic, with Kiff mocking him for being a Trekkie, but I couldn’t really come up with a way to make this funny enough to use a page on, so I just stuck it in the montage. There was also going to be a fight scene at the end when Connor basically killed all the other applicants, but I decided that her blowing up Destructor after he tried give a group hug was funnier. Finally, I was going to have Bobbes try out, and have Billy (the only other character aware of the fourth wall) patiently explain that Bobbes is a protagonist, but that felt too much like it was ripping off The Order of the Stick. At least, moreso than this chapter already was.

Anyway, that’s about all I’ve got. There’s a fair amount I’d also like to say about Connor and Larry, but again, this is getting to the point where I’m afraid I’ll spoil future plans for those characters. So I’ll save that for a later commentary. My next one will probably be on Stupid Christmas Carol, so look forward to it hopefully sometime next week.

State of the Comic; Long Overdue AggieCon Post

So okay, wow. It’s been a long, LONG time since I’ve posted anything on this blog. A lot of this is because I don’t have much to write about. Most of my writing talents go towards the comic itself, and I’m just not opinionated about enough things to sustain a blog. I also tend to second-guess everything I say and do. This has been good for me survival-wise, but it does make blogging kind of difficult. When I’m done writing, a lot of the time when I read over it I actually find myself disagreeing with what I wrote. Combine that with the fact that I’m no longer in a school that makes me write things (just one that makes me draw and paint things, which is a much nicer deal), and I just don’t write that much these days aside from scripting and planning Moron County. Hopefully, that’s going to change now.

Anyway, on to the state of the comic.

As some of you know, Moron County turned six years old a couple of weeks ago. I also attended my first convention as a panelist last month, in the form of AggieCon 2010. I had intended to do a blog reporting it immediately afterwards, but real life kind of made me concentrate on other things for a while. At any rate, I should at least acknowledge some of the fine folks I ran into.

First of all is A. Lee Martinez. I was on several panels with him, mostly about comics, comic book movies, and drawing comics. He has numerous books out, and if the one I’ve read, Monster, is any indication, they’re quite good, so definitely check them out.

Second is Mel White, who was awesome, and did more than any other panelist to make me feel welcome. So a special thanks to her, and also check out her comic Coyote. It’s excellent.

Next is Martin Whitmore. He’s an awesome artist who does a comic called Tasty Flesh, about strippers trying to survive the zombie apocalypse. Now, you could probably tell from my description that it’s not exactly safe for work, but if you’re somewhere you can get away with reading it, definitely check it out.

Finally, a special thank you to my good friend and loyal reader Veronica. She was on staff at AggieCon this year, and it was in part thanks to her that I was invited as a panelist. She also hung out with me for a bit, went to one of my panels, and talked up Moron County like she was getting paid. Thanks again, Vern.

Back to the comic itself… wow. Six years. And if you combine the old comic with the reboot, which I’m doing because it’s more impressive that way, there are over six hundred comics online, which in the web comic world is something of an accomplishment. It shouldn’t be, but it is.

Now, obviously, just because the comic’s still kicking doesn’t mean it’s where I want it to be. If I want to do it for a living, I realize I need to start treating it like a business. The fact that I had to beg for feedback to get comics after two weeks of silence isn’t good, and I’m aware the fault lies with me, not my readers.

Obviously, Moron County needs a more active community around it, and the first step is to get more readers. I’m going to make it a point to set a new goal each month for myself to make this happen, and this month, it’s to start advertising again. Also, I’m going to update this blog more often, once a week if I can manage it. I have several ideas already. There are chapters I haven’t given commentary on yet, and I also have some interesting ideas for short stories and a review series that may be a great idea, or a horrible one. I’ll keep you guys posted here in the coming weeks!

Vyonafield Commentary

In a way, this chapter represents the perils of doing a comic with an ongoing story arc. This is a chapter I’ve been wanting to do for a while. It’s been running around in my head ever since I saw Cloverfield in theaters a couple of years ago. However, at that point (I believe I was in the midst of chapter 6 or 7), I had already planned out the rest of book one, and could not work a Cloverfield parody into it. So I set it on the shelf for a while, and worked it into book two. The downside to this was that Cloverfield has gotten stale by now. But if I didn’t let that stop me from making a Casino Royale parody, I certainly wasn’t going to let it stop this.

Part of the reason I wanted to do this arc was because Cloverfield and other movies that use first person perspective intrigue me. Even The Blair Witch Project’s style of storytelling was interesting to me, though the movie itself was a turd. It’s also a much older practice than people think with Lady in the Lake (1947) being the first example I can think of (or at least the earliest that I’ve personally seen). I wanted to try to replicate this in comic form, and a Cloverfield parody seemed like a good excuse to do it. It was a fun challenge, but I know I didn’t entirely succeed. Although I’m getting better at perspective drawings and drawing my characters at odd angles, I know there’s some times in this chapter they looked off model. There were also some camera angles (particularly in both scenes Cartoon Billy shows up) that the person holding the camera could not possibly have gotten.

I think the experiment would have worked better as an animation, and I in fact did consider animating it briefly, but time constraints and the future inability to put the chapter in books prevented this. The advantage that film in first person has over comics in first person is that motion and sound can be used to show what’s going on, whereas with a comic, all I had to work with were visuals. As a result, I sometimes had to pick clarity of image over a realistic camera angle so the audience would know what was happening. And conversations that took place off camera were incredibly difficult. Not only did I have to make it clear who was talking to who, but I had to make sure their word balloons didn’t obscure what the camera was focusing on, which was usually important. I do wish I had looked for some comics done in first person, instead of depending solely on movies. That would have really helped.

The story, I think, went slightly better. I feel this is one of the better parodies I’ve done in a while, and I think I did a good job of paying homage to Cloverfield while also mocking some of its more questionable moments. I chose Vyona to be the monster because, as I said at the start of the chapter, she hasn’t gotten to do much since she became a main character. Also, in most cartoons where a character becomes a giant, unless the character’s evil (which isn’t a direction I wanted to go with this parody), the character has to be dim, naïve, and/or clumsy in order to pose an actual threat. The destruction they cause is either by accident, or because they think the city’s a toy, or something like that. The only other characters that really fit this were Booker (who I didn’t use because it’d be too much like that crappy Honey I Blew Up the Kid movie) or Bobbes (who just had his own chapter). So it became obvious pretty quickly that this was going to be Vyona’s role, as she’s just ditzy and clumsy enough to create some havoc.

My biggest regret with the story was the hormone excuse. Originally, that was going to be Vyona’s reason for going nuts and destroying the town, but I realized, pretty quickly, that this was kind of sexist. Then I remembered that Vyona’s brainwashed to attack Connor on sight, and decided to use that as her excuse instead, which I think makes great foreshadowing for some events I have planned later. Unfortunately, I didn’t come up with that until the page explaining the growth hormone thing had already gone online, so I was stuck. Nobody’s complained, though, so perhaps I worried too much.

Finally, a note on the ending, which hasn’t gone online at the time I’m writing this, but that I’m sure will irritate at least some people. Let me say this now: I hate it when any form of fiction uses time travel as an easy reset button. And tough as it is to believe, that’s not what I did here. Clyde’s time remote solution is eventually going to come back and bite the characters in the ass. Just not for a while, as I have other stories I want to tell. Also, and this again goes back to the foibles of an ongoing story arc, I didn’t want the city being destroyed and Vyona getting attacked by the National Guard to stick. That would just add too much baggage to what is already shaping up to be a complicated next few chapters.

So anyway, Vyonafield was a huge experiment on my part. Parts of it succeeded, but overall, I think it could have gone much better. But, like all of my mistakes in cartooning, I learned from it, and I like to think I’ll be a better artist for it.

An Open Letter to My Own Computer

Dear Compy, (yes, I call my computer Compy)

I know you're reading this, because I'm using you to type it right now. You've been my faithful friend since 2006. I've used you to make hundreds of comics during this time, and even with three years under your belt, you still run the newest games as good as a new machine. So believe me when I say that this isn't personal.

Over the last six months, you have died on four separate, unrelated occasions, forcing me to defragment your hard drive (and in one case, buy you a brand new one) and reinstall everything each time. Compy... what the hell?

Now, I will grant you that the third time was significantly more my fault than yours. After all, I forgot to install any sort of virus protection that time. Let's not kid ourselves; with my internet surfing habits, that's the equivalent of going to Amsterdam without a condom. However, for all the other times, there's no excuse! It's getting irritating! And now, I'm unable to work on the comic for the next two days, because it'll take me that long to recover my files that I didn't have backed up (Carbonite, while a Godsend if your files are deleted unexpectedly, takes forever to recover things), not to mention the time it'll take to pir... er... install the Adobe Master Suite again.

Fortunately, I have a week and a half of buffer (hooray for Vyonafield's simple panel layouts) or this would be even worse. Nonetheless, I think it's time for an ultimatum.

Compy, I love you as much as a man can love a machine without it getting creepy, but this is the last straw. If you die again this year, I'm not resuscitating you. No, instead, I'm giving you a viking funeral.

In case you're not up on your Norse mythology, that means I'm SETTING YOU ON FIRE.

Then I'm going to take the ashes, mix them with what may or may not be my own feces, and mail them to Norton.

I'd put in a photoshopped picture of you on fire to further illustrate my point, but I DON'T HAVE PHOTOSHOP RIGHT NOW!

Real blog entry next week. Too angry to do one now.

THIN ICE, COMPY!

An Analysis of the Mushroom Kingdom through Mario Kart: Despots, Princesses, and Blue Shells

So, I’ve been playing a lot of Mario Kart for the Wii lately. Now, I know this game’s been around for months, and pretty much everyone with a website and an eye for videogames has talked about it, but hey, it’s my turn. Besides, reviewing this game is only something I’m doing out of necessity. The real purpose of this rant is to use that review as a springboard to talk about the Mario universe in general, because I’ve discovered something here that I think makes the games a bit more interesting. So hey, let’s get to it!

From a control standpoint, it’s a very, VERY good thing that the game allows you to use Gamecube controllers like in Smash Brothers Brawl, because the wheel is nigh-useless for multiplayer. In single player, and in online play where you’re the only racer using your console, the wheel works fine, and is actually kind of fun. Same with two player. But in three or four player races, where the split screen gets smaller to accommodate everyone, the wheel seems to get a lot more sensitive, and it becomes impossible not to drive into walls or off cliffs. But, like most Wii games, there’s lots of ways you can control the game, and most of them work just fine, so this isn’t really worth harping on.

One thing that lots of reviewers have commented on is the difficulty of the AI. Some of this is quite valid, but some of it is, from my experience playing the game recently, exaggerated. Now, before I say anything, it’s true. The AI controlled drivers are a bunch of assholes. They’re aggressive and uncannily accurate with their green shells and banana peels, and that’s on the easier difficulties. On the harder difficulties, they’re like level 9 characters in Smash Brothers, only there’s eleven of them, and they’re driving cars. They have super human reflexes and they go out of their way to screw over the human player even when it’s not in their best interest. In that vein, I’m tempted to compare them to the Borg from Star Trek, but I feel that falls flat. The Borg, from what I recall, have a certain sophistication that these machines lack. A more accurate comparison would be that the human racer is Carrie, and every race is prom night. They build you up, make you think you’re going to get first place right up until you’re a second away from the finish line, then BOOM! On comes the onslaught of shells, pow-blocks, and pig’s blood.






Only you don’t get psychic powers with which to get your revenge. You just get impotent cursing.

The bit of the reviews bashing the AI that I find exaggerated, however, is that the AI is also favored by the item roulette. Many of the people complaining about this game found that, while computer players consistently got the best items when near last place (bullet bills, lightning, etc.), the human player consistently gets terrible ones (mushrooms, that friggin thunder cloud, Bloopers that have no effect on the AI at all). Now maybe these are exaggerations, or maybe I got a later version where they fixed this (I did get it several months after everyone else, after all), but I haven’t had that problem. There hasn’t been a single time I can think of where I’ve been in last place and haven’t gotten a Bullet Bill, and I’ve seen that Carrie scenario described above done to a computer player in first place about as often as it’s happened to me; thus allowing me to pass him and get first place myself. Yes, there is an element of luck, but the game itself doesn’t seem stacked against me, and that makes it a lot more bearable.

Besides, all told, the AI being mean isn’t a huge detriment. Yes, it makes the one player 150cc and Mirror Mode courses an exercise in frustration, but as any true red blooded Mario kart player will tell you, the Multiplayer mode is where it’s at. And unlocking the courses in multiplayer isn’t hard at all. You just have to place. Now granted, getting first in grand prix mode, and getting star rankings, will unlock new characters and cars. However, since Wario and his bike from the Warioware series were both available from the beginning, I couldn’t possibly give less of a crap about this. Quite frankly, unlocking minor characters from the Mario universe is the equivalent of getting a toy from a box of crappy cereal. It’s bright and colorful, but ultimately kind of lame and not worth what you had to do to yourself to get it. In fact, there are some characters I have managed to unlock over the course of the game that I wish I hadn’t, because now I have to listen to their voices whenever I race them.

For example:

So anyway, that’s the review portion of this blog entry. For those of you that just clicked here to see what I think of Mario kart Wii, here’s my opinion summed up: Multiplayer’s fun as hell, the wheel is useful in single player mode but otherwise overrated, single player mode is an exercise in frustration on the higher difficulties, but ultimately unnecessary to concern yourself with unless you just HAVE to have Dry Bowser, or Baby Luigi, or Toadette, or any of the other lame extraneous Mario characters that I haven’t unlocked yet.

Now that that’s out of the way, here’s what I’ve come to realize about the Mario universe thanks to Mario Kart. The Moonview Highway course is what started this train of thought for me.

Sorry, that’s the best picture I could find. For those unfamiliar with the course, it’s basically a huge sprawling city with cars, giant bombs on wheels, and huge pictures of Princess Peach everywhere. Given the presence of those pictures, I can only assume that Moonview Highway takes the racers through downtown Mushroom Kingdom. We never see this in the games, and it has made me realize something: the cartoony and barren landscapes we see in other Mario games (specifically the platformers and RPGs) are not all there is to the Mushroom Kingdom. It’s actually a thriving metropolis. And that means Peach isn’t just a traditional Saturday morning cartoon princess that rules all the cute little mushroom headed people in their villages. She is actually the leader of a country with a clear, well developed infrastructure.

And, looking at the events of the games with this new knowledge in mind, she’s kind of a vicious one.

When Mario’s travels take him to new locales, like those countries in Super Mario Brothers 3, or Isle Delfino, or even, God forbid, the far reaches of space, Peach is using him to scout territories. Yes, Mario’s saving these places from Bowser, or his kids, or Smithy, or the Purple People Eater, or whatever villain’s menacing him that week, but Peach is using this to her advantage to get the Mushroom Kingdom new territory.

“Oh dear, Bowser’s attacked you. That’s a shame. He does that, you know, he’s such a meanie. But Mario just saved your country! Isn’t that great? But I should warn you, Mario’s quite a busy plumber. If Bowser comes back, there’s no guarantee Mario will too. If only you were part of the Mushroom Kingdom, then I could use my power to… oh, you wish for us to annex you? Are you sure? I mean, you’ll become second-class citizens to my little mushroom people, and I’ll get all your money, but I’m okay with it if you are? Really? Splendid!”

Think I’m wrong? Well, here’s some proof: pretty much every locale Mario has visited, from Dinosaur Land and Sarasaland to Luigi’s Mansion and Isle Delfino, has been a course in Mario Kart, or Mario Golf, or any other of the Mario sports games that have come about over the years. Do you really think the people and things that live here would go to the trouble of setting this up if the Mushroom Kingdom didn’t own their asses? And as a specific example, let’s look at the ever-annoying Princess Daisy. She’s allegedly the ruler of Sarasaland, but ever since Mario saved it, all she does is hang out with Peach and dig through Luigi’s trash looking for things to build a shrine with. Clearly, she’s been outsourced. Whether or not this is a good thing is a separate discussion that I’m not geeky enough to get into.

In short, Peach has, over the course of the games, become a blonde, pink, passive-aggressive Napoleon. She now owns several countries, and cannot be considered the ruler of the Mushroom Kingdom so much as the ruler of the Mushroom Empire.

You may be wondering where the other Mario characters fit into this. I’ve already discussed Daisy, but what about the ones people care about? Mario and Luigi, I think, actually take all this at face value. They really are about saving the Princess from Bowser or whatever else is attacking, and either ignore or are unaware of what happens afterward. They are legitimately heroes. Just apathetic or stupid ones.

Bowser’s a bit more complicated, as there are two possible roles for him. One, he’s in on it, and is Peach’s silent partner in expanding her territory; he attacks other countries, Mario stops him, Peach cleans up afterward. This would explain why Bowser participates in their sporting events, and why he opens up his castle for kart races like the conquered territories do. The other, more tragic possibility, is that Bowser is legitimately trying to resist the Mushroom Kingdom, and may in fact be the only one who is (Wario really only cares about maintaining his gaming company and treasure hunting, and not about international politics). Each time he kidnaps Peach or invades a country, he’s trying to stop the Mushroom Kingdom from expanding. But he’s ultimately doomed to failure. He lets Mario (and by extension, Peach) win because, as the RPG’s have taught us, he’s in love with the princess. This also explains why he opens up his castle for racing and sports tournaments, but it’s much, much sadder.

On a final note, bringing us back to Mario Kart Wii, what’s the deal with Koopa Cape?

Don’t get me wrong. It’s my favorite track in the game, but why is there an ominous aquatic tunnel with laser beams halfway through the course? Are the koopas trying to build Rapture from Bioshock? If so, why hasn’t that been in a real game yet? I think it’d be interesting.

Get on it, Nintendo.

Chapter 17: Bobbes's Big Day Commentary

Not to pat myself on the back too much, but overall, I think this chapter was a pretty big success.

I was nervous about this chapter for a lot of reasons. First of all, it was the first chapter to prominently feature Zaffod and the Grogians as villains ever since the much maligned “Cats and Grogs” storyline in the old comic (which I’ve always considered to be its low point). The next reason was that it’s also the first chapter to prominently feature Connor, who we’ve only seen briefly in the comic before now, and I was afraid her debut, so to speak, would fall flat. Most of all I was nervous because Bobbes seems to be the most popular character in the comic. I didn’t want a chapter starring him to be disappointing to the readers.

By far, the most difficult part was writing the Grogians. Zaffod himself was more or less set in stone. He’s a sarcastic alien prince that hates humans. All I have to do when writing his dialogue is channel Invader Zim and make it more vulgar. Breeble, on the other hand, was created more or less on the spot when I started writing.

In the planning stages, I was just planning to bring back Lieutenant Box and the intern from the old comic, but this was shaping up to be a really bad idea. The intern, as far as his character went, was basically just Bobbes as a Grogian, which really became apparent when I tried to write scenes with them together. I’ve also already used the evil intern shtick recently in Eve, the evil jailbait intern working with Carl, so I didn’t want to repeat myself. As for Lieutenant Box, I noticed in the old comic that he didn’t really have a personality until after Zaffod died and he was put in charge. I also hate his design; I’m not sure what I was thinking there. So, I took elements from the two, came up with a completely new look for a Grogian character, and named him Breeble, who is just as dumb as the intern from the old comic, but has a personality quirk (in this case, talking like an eighties stoner) that separates him from Bobbes.

Connor’s dialogue in this chapter was very fun for me to write. Much like Chris and Steve, she tends to straddle the line between anti-hero and straight up villain, and I think this shows pretty well in how she talks to the characters. Along with the “awesome scheme of kickassery” line, which I’m sure will make its way into merchandise someday, her threatening the Grogians (to say nothing of blowing one of them up) and her witty rapport with Steve during their fight showcased her dark, edgy side fairly well.

Part of my goal for this chapter plot-wise, along with adding to the mystery of just what Bobbes is and where he came from, was to establish Bobbes as sort of a morality pet for Connor, which I accomplished by having him talk her into saving Chris and Steve. Connor, as some of you may have guessed, isn’t exactly a good person. By the end of Volume II of Moron County, she will do some pretty rotten things. How this will affect her friendship with everyone’s favorite blue rabbit might make for some interesting stories later.