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Comments for the week ending February 2, 2025

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here's a fanfiction writer on Reddit who goes by Chaos Rubix. created some incredible fanfic scripts for a potential Season 5 of Young Justice, in case the show ever gets renewed.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/10IVVPtxOz2kC_Q4tqK1wiBa8p_jm4hF0

shango

Craig> I'm not a gun person myself either, though I will admit that the history and crafting of weaponry is a fascinating subject for me. I'm more of a curious sort who doesn't mind a bit of research. It something I wouldn't have thought much about if you hadn't brought it up.
Matthew the Fedora Guy
Ain't nothing crazy 'bout me but my brain!

If anyone’s interested, I’m in a Twin Peaks meme group, and we’re currently posting Gargoyles crossover memes (inspired by Michael Horse being in both shows). https://www.facebook.com/share/g/195tz4U64t/?mibextid=wwXIfr

(I am not a bot, I promise.)

Jurgan - [jurgan6 at yahoo dot com]

Incidentally, one book (actually, a couple of books) that I ought to have mentioned during my pieces on Puck in my commentary on "The Mirror" and iron as a weakness of the faerie-folk for "Ill Met By Moonlight" was "Puck of Pook's Hill" by Rudyard Kipling, and its sequel, "Rewards and Fairies". In these two books, a couple of modern (at the time it was written - very early 20th century, I recall) children named Dan and Una, while doing a little amateur "A Midsummer Night's Dream", inadvertently summon Puck, portrayed here as the only one of the faerie-folk left in England. (Something that does parallel "Gargoyles" slightly, given that Puck winds up being the only member of the Third Race who didn't withdraw to Avalon for the Gathering, though the similarity ends there.) Puck makes friends with them, tells them stories about events in England's past he'd observed (and occasionally participated in), and introduces them to several figures from past English history whom he'd brought temporarily forward in time, such as a Norman knight from the Battle of Hastings, a Roman officer posted at Hadrian's Wall during the closing years of Roman Britain, and even, on one occasion, Elizabeth I herself, come incognito. Fans of Puck might find it appealing.
Todd Jensen

CRAIG - Thanks for your advice on "copying" the posts before posting "send". I'll be doing that for my reviews henceforth.
Todd Jensen

Matthew > I'm not a gun person at all, so I don't know what the protocols would have been like in the various countries the group visited, but I did find myself wondering about that after I'd typed my comment! Thanks for that information. I guess Arizona seems like the most likely location she might have re-upped. Just from a cursory google, it seems like Arizona is pretty lax with selling ammunition, not requiring any kind of firearm license, just being above 18. She would have had the day free, with the gargoyles in stone. Maybe by that point in the World Tour, she was so used to not having any ammo that she just didn't think about it.
Craig

Craig> Thanks for bringing up how good Kate Mulgrew is as Titania, I forgot to mention that. Voyager has never been a favorite of mine Trek wise but she's certainly a great actor and her performance here is somewhere in-between sultry and unsettling. I'm more than certain she drew from her experience here with her future role as Flemeth in the Dragon Age series.

Incidentally, you're comment about Elisa not buying more ammo for her gun sent on a bit of a rabbit hole involving NYPD's service pistols and ammunition purchasing around the world. Given the period of time of the mid 90's and that Elisa is probably using standard pistols issued by her precinct (you don't get to ask for anything fancy when you lose that many sidearms) she's probably using something from Smith & Wesson 5900 series; the NYPD discontinued the use of revolvers as standard issued sidearms in 1994. The 5900 series uses 9x19mm cartridges and 9x19mm cartridges are among the most common types of ammunition for semiautomatic pistols in the world. However, purchasing ammunition is much more time consuming and requires valid licenses in countries like Poland, Ireland has much more restrictive gun laws and England has bigger restrictions for hand gun ammunition purchases than ammunition for things like hunting rifles or shotguns.

Also, considering that the travelers rarely spend much time in one place and their attention is usually directed towards something more pressing, she probably just never got the chance.

Matthew the Fedora Guy
Ain't nothing crazy 'bout me but my brain!

Thanks for all the backstory on Oberon, Todd. And for your Nicolas theory, which I recall you sharing previously. I think you're definitely on to something there. Extra thanks for recreating the post after losing the entire thing! I think we've all been subject to that at one time or another. If you don't end up writing future posts in a Word processor, one other tip is to highlight the entire post and click "copy" before hitting the "post" button. That way if the browser crashes, you'll be able to paste the text back.

This is another really good episode. The more action-oriented ones aren't always my favorites, but this one comes with a healthy dose of mythology and Shakespeare, of course, which appeals greatly to me. And the action sequences are boosted by some very good animation from Animal-Ya. The volcano sequence comes immediately to mind, and compares favorably to the volcano scene in "Heritage" (which itself was one of the better moments in that episode, and one of Sun Min's best contributions to the show). I'm a sucker for well-animated lighting/shadow effects.

Titania certainly makes quite an impression in this one, coming off as an intriguing, enigmatic but likable figure, who at least at this moment in time seems to be operating on a much more sophisticated level than her husband, who comes off as a bit of a meat head. Kate Mulgrew is characteristically terrific, bringing great charisma to the character. I always found Titania's outfit design pretty scandalous for a Disney Afternoon show (and also biology-defying, in certain angles/shots). I don't think I knew what to make of Titania's line about repaying a favor when I first saw this. I'm not sure if I knew that she shared a voice actor with Anastasia. I was the kind of kid who read the credits, so I may have been aware...but Gargoyles, like most cartoons of the era, would often reuse actors in different roles, so I probably didn't give that much thought. I certainly was surprised when the reveal came in "The Gathering."

Love the shot of Goliath, Angela, and Gabriel running on all fours. It always makes me happy when we get to see that. Is this the only time we saw Angela running that way?

I wonder why Elisa never bought more ammo for her gun on any of their stops. A loaded gun sure would have come in handy on some of their adventures.

Craig

Todd> I know how you feel. Many a long-winded posts of mine were lost due to technical difficulties or my internet cutting out at the wrong time. It's gotten better but I've gotten into the habit of copying my writing before posting just to be sure.

"Ill Met By Moonlight" gives us our proper introduction to the "Oberon" of Children of Oberon And Titania. Oberon makes a hell of an impression and Terrence Mann does a great job portraying the grandiose and arrogant attitude needed for the role fitting for a Shakespearean actor). This also a big thing for the Gargoyles universe as we've now seen the zenith of power when it comes to magic and the Third Race. Like most comic book inspired worlds there's someone at the top and that someone is gunning for the heroes which begs the question, how do you fight someone with the powers of a god?

The closest we've gotten thus far have been the fully powered Archmage and the Weird Sisters. The former went down because his power came from outside sources and once they were out of balance that same power destroyed him. The Weird Sisters don't have that problem but they do have have their weakness to cold iron and more importantly, they have their own arrogance. That same weakness that allowed Magus to twice best them.

Oberon is similar in that way but his most obvious weakness is his pride and quick-to-anger attitude, that last one makes it easy to manipulate as the Sisters easily use that to turn him against Goliath's group and the Avalon Clan. And his pride also allows Titania to subtly manipulate him as well, knowing that she couldn't get him to see reason on his own she makes a competition and weakens him at his request to make it more sporting. That same weakness allows him to laid low by the iron bell, the sort of thing that would be a painful irritation if he were at full strength. It shows that while he is certainly the pinnacle of power in the show, he's ultimately not so high above that the only way to beat him is to somehow get to his level. Once again demonstrating Greg's use of avoiding power creep in an action show by fighting smarter not harder.

Matthew the Fedora Guy
Ain't nothing crazy 'bout me but my brain!

Just finished writing a lengthy commentary/review of "Ill Met By Moonlight", which I'd just rewatched today, and I lost the whole thing thanks to site problems. So I'll have to reconstruct it from memory. (I may have to start writing these things on my regular word processor program and upload them to the "make a comment" page, to keep this from happening again.)

"Ill Met By Moonlight" contains one of the biggest doses of Shakespeare in "Gargoyles". First, it features Oberon and Titania (fully introduced here) among the cast, plus the Weird Sisters from "Macbeth" (as well as a mention of Puck). The title comes from "A Midsummer Night's Dream", Oberon's opening words in the play. The triceratops-crested gargoyle introduced in "Avalon" receives a name - and it's Ophelia. Oberon, as he enters in pursuit of Goliath, Angela, and Gabriel, says "The game is afoot", which originated in the "Once more unto the breach" speech in "Henry V" (though it's now far better-known through Sherlock Holmes' use of it). Goliath uses the phrase "foregone conclusion" from "Othello" during the confrontation with Oberon on the rocky plain, and at the end of the episode says "All's well that ends well, then."

This episode makes a good case for the importance of communication. When Oberon and Titania appear on Avalon (and make a very impressive and dramatic entrance), they do not immediately reveal who they are, making it all too easy (especially given that they're accompanied by the Weird Sisters, whom the Avalon clan have good reason to distrust) for our heroes to see them as just more enemies. Nor do they ask the newcomers who they are at first, until Goliath takes the sensible route and makes that inquiry - and by that time, Oberon's become angered enough to just order the ground to swallow them up. (I can't help wondering whether the Weird Sisters might have subtly encouraged him to take the approach of "Just order them to leave without explaining that he's Avalon's original ruler", in the hopes of producing just such a result.)

Although we won't find out that Titania is the same person as Anastasia Renard for another two episodes (we do get a hint of it, of course - more on that in a little bit), her actions here indicate that Fox clearly got her shrewdness. She provides a good veiled hint about how to defeat Oberon, but more than that, she also comes up with an ingenious way to persuade Oberon to take a "trial-by-combat" approach rather than simply wiping them out. It's clear that Oberon wants to have Titania for his wife once again, but his pride obviously won't allow him to beg her to come back, and we can assume that he recognizes that ordering her to return would be a bad idea as well. But Titania offering to remarry him if he triumphs - that solves the problem. They can be a wedded couple once again, in such an event, without any harm to either one's pride and dignity. (And while Oberon does technically lose, Titania still remarries him, thus producing an ending where everyone gets what they want - except for the Weird Sisters, of course. More on that in a bit, as well.)

(The first time you saw this episode, what did you make of Titania's remark about repaying a favor to Goliath? In my case, I was spoiled; I missed the premiere of both "Walkabout" and "Ill Met By Moonlight" thanks to a move going on at the time, so my introduction to both Titania and Anastasia was in "The Gathering Part One". So I already knew the answer when I first saw "Ill Met By Moonlight".)

I've a theory, by the way, about the particular act of "disdain" for mortals of Titania's that led to Oberon divorcing her and banishing her and the rest of the Third Race from Avalon. In "Dark Ages: Alliance", we met a youth named Nicolas who's enthusiastic about acting and apprenticed to a weaver - and who is living in the late tenth century, the period when the "Great Divorce" took place. Could the triggering event of the exile have been the Gargoyles Universe version of "Methought I was enamour'd of an ass"?

We've discussed Elisa's varying degrees of support for the law here earlier, and this episode offers another example. When Ophelia points out that Oberon has a point - he's the original ruler of Avalon, and to him, the Avalon clan are trespassers - Elisa argues that Oberon gave up his rights to the island when he left it. Not the strongest argument, since Oberon clearly always viewed it as a temporary absence rather than a permanent departure. (I remember someone once saying here, long ago, that Elisa probably wouldn't have taken the same approach if she'd gotten home from the World Tour to find squatters in her apartment.)

We get a close look at the two beacons on Avalon's shore at the beginning: a fire on one side, a tower with a glowing blue light on the other. They're very impressive (and remind me a bit of the Pillars of the Valar at the start of J. R. R. Tolkien's "The Silmarillion", though far longer-lasting).

One of the Avalon gargoyles has fish-like features; I wonder if the gargoyles in Loch Ness have a similar look. (And the Loch Ness and Avalon clans are both Scottish....)

The Weird Sisters seem displeased at the ending; their hopes of using Oberon for revenge have obviously backfired, and now the Avalon clan is under his protection, making it harder for them to strike at them. Something about this last glimpse of them in the episode suggests a set-up for a later story, which, of course, we never got (the result of this episode coming so close to the end of the "Disney Afternoon" phase of "Gargoyles").

A LITTLE ON OBERON AND TITANIA: Oberon first appears in a late medieval French romance called "Huon of Bordeaux". The title character is one of Charlemagne's nobles, who falls afoul of him and is banished; he meets Oberon and gains his help in recovering his fortunes. Oberon is here portrayed as the size of a three-year-old child (a dramatic contrast to the Oberon of "Gargoyles", who is not only very tall under normal circumstances, but will even grow to giant-size in "The Gathering"), the result of a wicked fairy showing up at his christening and cursing him, Maleficent-style. (It's thought that Oberon was adapted from an earlier legendary figure, the dwarf Alberich, whose name in German means something like "elf-ruler", an appropriate name or title for Oberon. Alberich is best-known nowadays, of course, for his role in Wagner's Ring Cycle, though the Wagnerian version of Alberich is based more on the Norse Andvari.) He's also described as the son of Julius Caesar and Morgan le Fay, an unlikely and indeed anachronistic pairing, though such anachronisms often appeared in medieval legend. (Our own time may not be in a position to point a finger at the practice. I've seen pop culture treatments of the Middle Ages that made King Arthur, the Vikings, and Robin Hood contemporaries, for example - and there's Disney's animated "Hercules" series, which similarly had Hercules and other figures from Greek mythology living alongside such personages from the classical period of ancient Greece as Pericles, Herodotus, and Alexander the Great.) Oberon becomes almost a fairy godfather to Huon, and at the end of the story, brings him to Avalon where he declares Huon to be his successor as the ruler of the faerie-folk. (This leads to a narrowly-averted confrontation when King Arthur, already brought to Avalon earlier, shows up to indignantly state that he's far better-suited to succeed Oberon to the throne than Huon is. Oberon replies that he has decided on Huon as his heir, and threatens to turn Arthur into a werewolf if he doesn't agree to it. Huon steps in to offer a peaceful solution, suggesting that he and Arthur be joint-rulers of Avalon and the faerie-folk together, to which Arthur and Oberon both agree. Afterwards, Oberon quietly dies, with Arthur and Huon together assuming the throne.)

Shakespeare, of course, brought Oberon into "A Midsummer Night's Dream" as the fairy king and thereby ensured that he'd be one of the most famous fairy rulers in legend and literature thereafter. Whether Shakespeare got Oberon directly from "Huon of Bordeaux" or someone drawing on that romance, I don't know; he wasn't the only major Elizabethan writer to make use of Oberon, though. Edmund Spenser also mentioned him in his "Faerie Queene", as the father of Gloriana, the Faerie Queen of the title (and thus deceased during the action of the poem). Spenser's Gloriana (as the poem makes extremely clear numerous times) is an idealized version of Elizabeth I, which would make Spenser's Oberon similarly an idealized version of Henry VIII (minus the bulk and the wife-beheadings, of course); a history of Fairyland contained in the poem at one point makes it all the clearer by describing Oberon as the younger son of the great faerie king Elficleos, who succeeded him to the throne thanks to the premature death of his older brother Elferon (just as Henry VIII was the younger son of Henry VII, who became King of England thanks to the premature death of his older brother Arthur).

Naturally, other writers made use of Oberon as the fairy king thereafter, such as, in the early seventeenth century, an English poet named Michael Drayton, who wrote a poem called "Nymphidia", in which Oberon rules over Fairyland with Mab as his consort (the notion of Oberon and Mab as a married couple would seem disturbing from a "Gargoyles" point of view, of course, given that Mab's Oberon's mother - even if it is canon-in-training at this point), and which features Puck as serving Oberon, just as in "A Midsummer Night's Dream". The poem has Mab engage in an affair with a faerie knight named Pigwiggen; Oberon finds out and angrily confronts Pigwiggen, but the goddess Proserpine (or Persephone; Hades' wife and the queen of the underworld) steps in to have them both drink from the river Lethe (the river of forgetfulness) to re-establish peace. (J. R. R. Tolkien, who disliked the poem as helping to popularize the notions of the faerie-folk as tiny - for example, Pigwiggen rides an earwig - that he worked so hard to combat in his own works, commented about it in his "On Fairy-Stories", "It would have been better if Lethe had swallowed the whole affair.") Since then, Oberon has appeared many times in other works of fiction as the fairy king. (I recall an episode of "Peter Pan and the Pirates" which included him as the fairy-king, but made his consort Gloriana - presumably a reference to Spenser's Gloriana, though as mentioned above in the original poem, she was his daughter - and had them rule at Tintagel, clearly an allusion to the famous Arthurian castle in Cornwall. More recently [SPOILER] Greg Weisman incorporated Oberon and Mab (though with slightly different spellings) in an issue of his comic "The Spectacular Spider-Men", making their names titles for the faerie rulers rather than regular names. He also brought in the cry "By Herne's Antlers", referring to another Shakespearean figure whom I hope will someday make it into "Gargoyles". [/SPOILER]

Titania seems to have been entirely Shakespeare's invention - though, thanks to the fame of "A Midsummer Night's Dream", she's become a very familiar fairy queen since. (Her name seems to have originated as an alternate name for the moon-goddess in classical mythology; it's obviously based on "Titan".)

The episode combines two familiar weaknesses of the faerie-folk. Iron (or cold iron) was the first; it was hinted at a few times in the series before (such as the chains used to bind Puck in "The Mirror" and the Weird Sisters in "Avalon", not to mention the iron Cauldron of Life being incorporated into Coyote 4.0 to trap Coyote the Trickster in "Cloud Fathers", the episode just before this one. It was depicted as a defense against the faerie-folk many times in legend and folklore. The really ingenious part of this episode was to merge it with bells, another traditional weakness of the faerie-folk (and also, in Scandinavian folklore, of trolls - which the "Hilda" graphic novels and the animated series based on them made use of). In the original stories, this seems to have been due to their being church-bells, with the implication that the faerie-folk were pagan beings fleeing from them. "Ill Met By Moonlight" took a less potentially controversial route, ascribing it to the bell used against Oberon being made from iron.


FAVORITE LINES.

ELISA: Every time we sail into the mist, I keep hoping I'll see the Brooklyn Bridge or Lady Liberty.

PRINCESS KATHARINE: At least ye have Avalon to come home to.

ELISA: But it's not my home.

{Goliath looks saddened.}

ELISA: It's not our home.


TITANIA: In Avalon, Oberon's word is law.

PRINCESS KATHARINE: Does that mean he's always right?

TITANIA (smiling): Not while he's married.


OBERON: And now, lady wife, now it is time for the Gathering.

Todd Jensen

So I was watching Long Way to Morning with a Friend who'd never seen it, and I noticed something odd about David Warner's performance. He rolled his "R" a little bit when he said "Prince Malcolm". Which I thought was a little weird, and in fact, particularly in that scene with the Prince (which is *really* the only scene where he has dialogue) his whole performance was off a bit. Not bad, just... off. and I realized... he's sort of doing a Scottish accent. WHen he says "Fool" he does the little upturned "ooO" sound Scottish people do.

He doesn't do it *at all* in his second appearance (in Vows or in Long Way to Morning) he just does his standard English dialect.

Long Way to Morning was when the production started to make more of an effort with the accents and getting some authentic brits to do the Scottish voices (like Roger Rees and I guess David Warner was an attempt at that, but his accent is almost literally indistinguishable from his natural English one). Though I think the only actual Scots they ended up getting were Sheena Easton and Scott Cleverdon. I think mostly successfully. The only Americans who are still doing it are legacy ones (Ed Gilbert, Jeff Bennett and Kath Soucie -- one of whom is good, one of whom is okay, and one of whom is *dreadful* I won't say which is which). And then Diedrich Bader does it in Hunter's Moon and he's... fine. It's a bit of a goofy American version of a Scottish accent, a little inauthentic, but it's okay.

I see we're discussing world tour episodes, some thoughts of mine:


Sentinel: Uh... eh. I think aliens are a bit of an odd fit for Gargoyles and I find the amnesia plotline really irritating. Bringing back the pompous archeologists is cute I guess. It's one I never really saw when I was a kid for some reason, only as a teenager (in the 2000s). But I don't think I would have really liked it. It's not a bad story, having said that, a lot of the world tour episodes feel kind of silly and low stakes, and this one obviously doesn't, but the plot elements themselves kind of bug me, and it just doesn't work for me in general. Nokkar is also kind of overly serious and bland for me. I dunno. Avery Brooks has a great voice but there's just not much here for the character, in my personal, honest opinion.

Bushido - This one's cool. I think more could have been done with the concept and the characterizations (Kai in particular is just kind of a sack of bricks), there's also not a ton for Goliath, Angela and Elisa to contribute here. It's almost entirely a Yama-Taro story. And I like Yama, I think he's a great looking character and a really neat concept. I don't really like Taro, he's kind of just slimy and despicable. The actual episode itself is... fine. It spends a lot of time on explaining how the Japanese clan is different, and none of that really goes anywhere. A lot of the world tour epsidoes' problem is... they just don't need the skiff. Like the main characters arriving doesn't really DO anything. They don't change anything. They're just kinda there and along for the ride.

The Green has that issue a little bit too. They're just there for the action scenes and then to sort of debate the issue of the episode itself but they don't really contribute anything to it.

Cloud Fathers is one of the strongest World tour episodes for me by contrast because it IS about the skiff. It is about Elisa and her relationship with her father, and it's about her father, who's a tertiary character but he's a known entity, and because Elisa cares about him, I kind of care about him. Just for that reason. Elisa also connects with her heritage in a weird sort of distant way I guess.

Xanatos's presence also helps a lot. They don't have to spend time introducing a new bad guy. As usual he just POPS off the screen, is super entertaining and is someone we really care about. He's here, he wants immortality and the legend of the week is interwoven in with his story (and Peter's) extremely effectively. It's just a solid, solid episode in every way. Very entertaining, and I was really invested.

Alex

To Whom It May Concern,

I recently noticed that links to the GargWiki have been frequently posted on the Fandom Gargoyles Wiki.

In response, I will be undertaking a comprehensive overhaul of the Fandom Gargoyles Wiki, updating and enhancing its content with material from the GargWiki. By leveraging tools like ChatGPT, this process will ensure that the information presented there is sufficiently "original", all while maintaining the quality and accuracy of GargWiki—not to mention saving me a significant amount of time.

The goal is straightforward: by elevating the Fandom Gargoyles Wiki, there will no longer be any need for readers to be redirected elsewhere. Let’s be honest—the Fandom Gargoyles Wiki consistently ranks as the top result in Google searches for topics related to the series. For better or worse, it remains the first destination for casual fans seeking information.

With that in mind, I strongly encourage everyone to cease spamming links to GargWiki on the Fandom Wiki. It’s unnecessary, counterproductive, and ultimately futile.

Anonymous

MATTHEW - [And unlike the former, it doesn't carry a negative stance for Peter leaving his home and finding a life outside the tribe.] Particularly since that led to Elisa being born, and being in Manhattan to befriend the Manhattan gargoyles after their awakening.

And thank you both, Matthew and Craig, for your comments. A particularly good point about how Coyote the Trickster defeated Coyote the Robot - getting him to bring the building crashing down on himself. Definitely worthy of a trickster.

Todd Jensen

"Bushido" kicks off a four-episode run of very good episodes to bring the World Tour to a strong conclusion. This ending portion is one of the two strongest stretches of the World Tour, along with the run of December 1995 episodes (from "Golem" to "Grief"). Those four December episodes were "pure" World Tour, though, whereas this closing run includes two significant departures (an Avalon-based episode and the unique "Future Tense"), which certainly spiced things up and made it feel like the arc was reaching a climax of sorts. I wonder if that was planned that way, or it's just the order the episodes happened to be ready for air.

Todd and Matthew have covered "Bushido" quite well, so I don't have much to add. Taro isn't the strongest villain, but I think that actually works to the episode's advantage. We've discussed before how little time these World Tour episodes have to set up so many new characters and tell a story; a more overbearing villain might have sucked the air out of the episode. Yama is the most compelling character here, and the episode wisely makes this his story. It's a good example of prioritization in storytelling choices, something a few World Tour episodes weren't as great with. I look forward to seeing more of Yama in the comics; the idea of a noble character making a well-intentioned misstep, and having to find his way to forgiving himself is a very compelling arc. Sora doesn't make much of an impression in the episode, unfortunately--again, screentime limitations. Her voice actor Haunani Minn made a good impression in a couple of memorable one-shot roles on the 1980s DuckTales: as a spy who hypnotizes Donald Duck into stealing secret naval plans but later redeems herself, and in another episode as a very likable priestess in an unspecified time period in China's past, who teams up with time-traveling Scrooge despite their differing attitudes toward fate and destiny.

"Cloud Fathers" is a really good one, possibly in my World Tour top five, depending on the day you asked me. The skiff's appearance in the university swimming pool is certainly one of the more memorable and fun arrival scenes in the World Tour. I have a great admiration for Michael Horse (as a big Twin Peaks fan), so it's nice having Peter get a spotlight here. Great to see more of Beth, too, and to get a sense of her character, who comes off quite well. Some terrific Xanatos lines, and also a good plan; finding a use for the Cauldron of Life after his original plot failed in "The Price" is classic David. Coyote is certainly the most appealing of the trickster characters we met on the World Tour. If I had one complaint, it's that I wish we got to see him being a bit more...well, tricksy. But as a kid, I found him a compelling character, and he served to get me interested in the trickster archetype. Also a much better use of Gregg Rainwater's talents than the somewhat bland Natsilane. He really shines as Coyote.

Todd - Good point on Elisa's hypocrisy in being OK with the gargs illegally interfering with Xanatos's operations here...and inventing a creatively brilliant--but legally very questionable--loophole to justify it to herself, a loophole which apparently didn't exist in Guatemala. Obviously she has a strong bias against Xanatos, for good reason, so it certainly makes sense from a character standpoint.

As for the ending "twist" of what visiting grandpa meant...I don't think I saw it coming in advance. I can't fully remember, but my feeling is that I didn't give it too much thought, and the ending evoked an emotional reaction from me. I'd just lost my grandmother a little less than a year before, so I think it probably brought up thoughts of that. It's a very well-executed scene, even if you do see it coming. Well-written, well-acted, and nice use of Carl Johnson's music to elevate the emotion. Speaking of music, one other little note on the score: this one features a very quick five-second snippet of the 'Nightwatch' intro music when Peter arrives at the airport. This is the only time this particular piece of music ever appeared in the first two seasons, before being used in "The Journey."

Craig

"Cloud Fathers" is another highlight of the arc and one that does a great job fleshing out Peter Maza. He's a tough as nails cop just like his daughter but we haven't seen much about him, this episode delves into his past, his mindset and the complications he has both with his father and his heritage.

We've mentioned before the similarities between this episode and "Heritage" and how this one succeeds in the complexities of Native Americans, their culture within the tribe, and their culture as Americans. One thing that I certainly like is that while "Heritage" really hammered in the "some times the old ways are best" message this exploration of heritage is done as a more personal journey. And unlike the former, it doesn't carry a negative stance for Peter leaving his home and finding a life outside the tribe. Instead the conflict (besides Xanatos' machinations) comes from his stubbornness and the regret that he never reconciled with his father during his lifetime. His denial of the supernatural events are anchored to the complicated emotions he has to his past and his father and the resolution isn't based on having to step up as a "chosen one" figure but rather to let go of old bitterness because that stubbornness is hurting his daughters in small ways. I just realized that Gargoyles has a thing for old, stubborn fathers of the main characters. Peter Maza, Petros Xanatos, Halcyon Renard, heck even Goliath gets in on it a few times.

A big point also in the episode's favor is the accuracy of culture on display. Unlike Raven taking the role of villain for the episode, Coyote is depicted as the mischievous, and playful helper that shows up in a lot myths of the Southwest. Even though it isn't explicitly stated, the connection between Coyote and Peter is in-line with Kachina spiritual practices. When the male performers put on the costumes and wear the ceremonial masks they lose all sense of their personal identity and take on the persona of whomever they're dressed as. Peter having that connection to Coyote ever since he put on the mask isn't just a way of saying that Peter's heritage is still with him, but that the two are truly bonded in spirit.

And finally I have to bring up that among the Trickster-themed episodes this one is the one that remains probably the most true to the spirit of the trickster mythos, overcoming adversity with wits rather than matching in force. Besides Xanatos using his wits and capitalizing on the Third Race's weakness to iron, the defeat of the Coyote-bot is also done appropriately, first by Peter donning the old Kachina mask to confuse the robot and then by Coyote himself who uses the robot's single-minded destructive programing to bring the house down. A trick Greg would repeat with Spider-Man beating Shocker.

Matthew the Fedora Guy
Ain't nothing crazy 'bout me but my brain!

Rewatched "Cloud Fathers" today.

This episode marks Goliath's last fight with Xanatos, at least in the "Disney Afternoon" phase of "Gargoyles" (if you don't count "Future Tense", which turned out to be an illusion), and it's definitely up to form - particularly Xanatos, on the one hand, quipping as only Xanatos can about "cliched villainy", and on the other, admitting that he has no feud towards Goliath, no genuine wish to kill him - it's just business. (His remark at the end about Goliath's last-minute victories getting irritating does have an ominous tone - fortunately for the clan, it doesn't get followed up.) A fresh clash with Xanatos, even outside Manhattan, must have delighted a lot of viewers.

We also meet another legendary trickster, the original Coyote - with a lot of fun over how he shares his name with Coyote the robot. (Which opens the door to potential confusion when writing a review/commentary; I'll refer to them throughout as "Coyote the Robot" and "Coyote the Trickster" - though it would have been tempting to use for the robot the original proposed spelling of "CYOTI". The version that I videotaped back in 1997 called him "Trickster" in the closed-captioning.) It's been brought up here that earlier tricksters on the World Tour, Raven and Anansi, were portrayed as more villainous than they were in the original tales; as if to make up for it, Coyote the Trickster is portrayed as much more friendly, helping out our heroes against Xanatos - and, on a deeper level, revealing a connection with Peter Maza that led to a touching scene near the end.

And we also get Peter Maza fleshed out more, finding out much about his background. The first time we saw this, how many of us were surprised when it turned out that "visiting grandfather" meant visiting his grave? (I can't recall, alas, whether I was surprised or not.) Which leads to another touching scene at the very end, a feeling of some sort of reconciliation between father and son.

One thing that struck me this time is that, at the end of the flashback scene where Peter's parting company with his father Carlos, we have some wind blowing past - echoing the wind in the very first scene where Coyote the Trickster's wrecking Xanatos's bulldozers. I wonder if this was intended as a hint of Coyote the Trickster's ties with Peter.

Last week, we discussed Elisa's thoughts on the law and the gargoyles abiding by it (or not) in "The Green". In this episode, she takes a different approach, letting Goliath and Angela go to the construction site, with the argument (when Peter Maza voices his unease this time) that since the gargoyles don't legally exist, they're not technically trespassing.

The moment when Coyote the Trickster disappears when the Mazas and Bronx look away reminds me of how, in Irish legend and folklore, if you took your eyes off a fairy or leprechaun, even briefly, they could escape. (Logical, since Coyote the Trickster turns out to be another member of the Third Race. Which ties in, also with Xanatos able to imprison him in a trap made of iron - though it helps that the iron is also the remains of the Cauldron of Life - and trust Xanatos to use the word-play of "ironic".)

FAVORITE LINES.

BETH: They're kinda beautiful, but so alien.

ELISA: After a while, all you notice is the beauty.


XANATOS: It's my first real stab at cliched villainy. How am I doing?


GOLIATH: Let her go. She's done nothing to you.

XANATOS: Actually, neither of you have done anything that I'd hold a grudge over. The truth is, I have no desire to kill you.


XANATOS: Ironic, isn't it? One coyote catching another?

COYOTE THE TRICKSTER: I should sue you for trademark infringement.

XANATOS: Consider him a tribute. Besides, I've always considered myself a trickster at heart.


GOLIATH: We're here for Coyote.

COYOTE THE ROBOT: Right here.

GOLIATH: The other one.

COYOTE THE ROBOT: Also right here.


XANATOS: You just can't program good help these days.


XANATOS: Goliath, I must say, these last-minute upsets you keep handing me are becoming... irritating.

Todd Jensen

I don't know if anyone edits IMDb, but it used to have the trivia that Greg Weisman has watched every episode of the The Goliath Chronicles, no more, no less and won't watch them again, but now the trivia just hyperlinks to Gargoyles making it look like he's disowned the whole show instead of the third season he wasn't a part of.
Anonymous

"I have no Talent; I make Ready Wit my Talent.
I have no Friends; I make my Mind my Friend.
I have no Enemy; I make Incautiousness my Enemy.
I have no Armour; I make Benevolence my Armour.
I have no Castle; I make Immovable Mind my Castle.
I have no Sword; I make No Mind my Sword."


"Bushido" is certainly one of the highlights of the World Tour Arc, which I think it really needed. I hesitate to call any of them bad but the quality wasn't always up to the usual snuff. This episode however is way up there in my opinion, though I will admit that's from a personal bias. I had missed "M.I.A." and "The Green" when they first aired but I did catch "Bushido" so I was really surprised to see another gargoyle clan independent of the heroes existing in the world. Kai greeting Bronx like a dog lover would when they see a lost or stray was pretty amusing considering garg beasts aren't something you'd run into every other night.

One of the things most mentioned, and Todd brought it up, was the parallels between the Ishimura Clan and the Wyvern/Manhattan Clan. Kai and Goliath the towering leaders. Yama and Demona, the ones who betray their clan to a supposed human ally, the rich industrialist Taro and Xanatos. But one of the good things about this episode is that the episode also put in the work to differentiate from the original plotline. Yama betrays the clan not out of a hatred towards humans nor towards the relationship between humans and gargoyles, but to advance that relationship beyond the borders of Ishimura. Taro manipulates the clan for his own ends and like Xanatos treats them as assets to be used. But Xanatos also treats them as worthy adversaries and ultimately uses their conflict not just for his own ends but to improve himself. Taro sees the gargoyles as nothing more than a means to an end for his greed and mocks the lessons of bushido that they teach. He's beaten more easier than Xanatos is because he's a shallower person.

One detail I truly like is that the town of Ishimura represents the hopes of humans and gargoyles living together, Angela's dream in a microcosm sort of way. Yes there are bumps along the road but for centuries they've kept their honor and their pact with one another. And while the tradition has remained steady another favor in this episode's point is that it must evolve. While they've remained safe and secure within their provincial community that can also bring about stagnation and mistrust which brings its own problems. And as Goliath points out that if they don't reveal themselves on their own terms someone else will do it for them, someone who may not have their best interests in mind.

Having the gargoyles of Japan draw from the tales of the tengu is a interesting creative choice. The tengu are an incredibly diverse group: the Dai Tengu resembling red-faced old men with rather large noses. Karasu Tengu who possess the bird like features. Kawa Tengu who live by rivers and summon forth will o' the wisp fireballs. They can be mischief makers like the Children of Oberon, noble teachers like what Todd referenced with Ushiwakamaru (aka Minamoto no Yoshitsune). And they can be villains as well. I'm still hoping that we get a member of the Third Race that's truly a tengu in appearance if not behavior. Japan has too many neat mythological figures to leave out.

One last detail, I do find it pretty funny that Taro would scoff at the notion of never getting rich off of bushido, if you know your history that is certainly not the case. Bushido of course was primarily practiced by the samurai who enjoyed at large amount of privilege, being able to seize property or kill anyone lower than them. There's been a lot more media showing a more idealized version of the samurai than the more realistic. Actually one depiction that stood out to me came from Princess Mononoke where the protagonist kills a few of them who are raiding a village to protect himself. Despite his hurt that he had to kill to defend himself and several villagers his traveling companion, a monk no less, waves it off. Dismissing them as "samurai thugs."

In a way, "Bushido" harkens back to Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai" depicting the old warriors not as what they were, but as they should've been.

Matthew the Fedora Guy
Ain't nothing crazy 'bout me but my brain!

Sorry for the double post, but I rewatched "Bushido" today.

"Bushido" is one of the more important World tour stories, because it not only introduces another surviving gargoyle clan, but shows a community where humans and gargoyles live side by side, harmoniously (almost). It shows that Goliath's dream of peace between humans and gargoyles is possible. It's not perfect - you'd need some trouble to make a story - but Taro is motivated by greed rather than by fear in his scheme, a plan to exploit the gargoyles and turn them into a tourist attraction.

Taro's scheme seems designed to echo Xanatos's scheme in "Awakening", and, on a smaller level, the Wyvern Massacre. In both cases, he's working with a discontented gargoyle to carry out the plan. But the differences are as strong as the similarities. Taro, obviously, isn't on Xanatos's level for a start; we'd never see Xanatos suffering the comical humiliation of dangling from a giant animatronic gargoyle in front of the press. And Yama shows himself to have much less in common with Demona, fortunately for the Ishimura clan. Where Demona wanted revenge upon the humans mistreating her clan, Yama wants to have the gargoyles make contact with the outside world, taking the initiative. (And he does have a point, even if he chose the wrong solution. If the humans in the outside world will find out eventually that gargoyles exist, it's a good idea to have it be something much more favorable to the gargoyles' public image than a claim that they destroyed a clock tower above a police station.) He genuinely believes that the first human visitors the gargoyles will receive in their new home are children whom they can share their knowledge with. (One touch I really liked was Taro observing Yama's enthusiastic talk about the children with a "How gullible can this guy be?" expression.) And, most important, when he discovers what Taro's real goal is, he stays and confronts the man, rather than running away as Demona did when she realized how the betrayal of Castle Wyvern was likely to turn out. All in all, Yama made an interesting character, and I'm glad they continued his story in "Bad Guys".

It's also a very funny episode, with a bit of Disney poking fun at itself through having Taro's scheme involving an amusement park. (Not to mention Goliath's utter horror at the thought of becoming a television star.) I liked the touch of the Ishimura clan briefly wondering if the temple had been moved to the theme park - a contrast to Castle Wyvern's actual move from Scotland to Manhattan. (Other landmarks we see in the theme park are Notre Dame Cathedral - a logical feature of a gargoyle theme park - and a castle which looks a lot like Castle Wyvern, though I don't know if Taro actually modelled it after that one.)

Continuing the notion of gargoyles echoing local legends, the Japanese gargoyles seem to have been at least partly modeled on the tengu. A story I read about the tengu many years ago particularly got me thinking in that direction; it involved a young man named Ushiwaka who gained the help of the tengu in restoring the fortunes of his clan. (I've long thought that if we ever get the story about how a Timedancing Brooklyn came to feudal Japan and met Katana, Ushiwaka's story would make a good background event, much like the war between Constantine and Kenneth the Grim in his first Timedancer adventure.) Some of the stories I've read about tengu make them seem more like Third Race tricksters than like gargoyles, though; presumably it's another case of "few things are accurate".

Another detail I enjoyed was the Ishimura clan taking their posts during the day facing inwards, to thank the humans of Ishimura for keeping them safe while they're in stone sleep and show their trust in them.

And the Ishimura clan has at least one gargoyle beast. We only get a glimpse of it near the start (on ground level, next to the human townspeople), but it's pleasant to find that there's at least one other clan out there that has one. (Especially since we've learned, since then, that the London clan has none.) Speaking of gargoyle beasts, we also have a charming scene of Bronx meeting Kai and greeting him. (I think it's impressive that, for all of Bronx's intimidating presence when he's in a fight, he can act like such a lovable dog on other occasions.)

I've wondered a bit about Taro's decision to have the reporters encounter the gargoyles at dawn, just as they're turning to stone. If I wanted to introduce humans to gargoyles in a way to really bring home the awe of them (hopefully, in a more respectful way than Taro was intending), I'd have picked evening; gargoyles bursting out of stone sleep is much more awe-inspiring than gargoyles turning to stone. When I brought that up here a few years ago, one poster suggested that it might have been to make it harder for the gargoyles to get away at the start of the press event, which certainly makes sense.

One odd moment: when he's trying to stop Kai from leaving, Taro pulls on the head of a small gargoyle statue at his podium, and nothing happens.

And Kai's cry "Gargoyle must not fight gargoyle" - we humans could learn something from that. (For that matter, my contemplating that line reminded me of a scene in "Young Justice" where Superboy, giving a school report on a country - Rhelasia was its name, I recall - that had divided in two rival nations (evocative of real-life North and South Korea), puzzles over why they're having such friction with each other when they're all humans.)

I can certainly see why Elisa considered Ishimura her kind of town.


FAVORITE LINES.

KAI: I'm afraid that doesn't belong to you.

ROBBER: Look, I don't know what you are - .

KAI: But I know what you are.


YAMA: Yes, I know. We're terrifying.


GOLIATH: I have always greeted the dawn facing out, in the direction from which trouble may come.

KAI: Here, we face in towards our home. It is a bond of trust with our human protectors.


TARO: Perhaps it is your secret that is the problem, and not humans.

GOLIATH: And you will solve this problem by charging admission?


GOLIATH: Can't you see that here, humans will gawk at you, or worse?

YAMA: Yet how can we hope to become accepted in the world if we are afraid to show ourselves?

GOLIATH: Then do so on your own terms. Not in this cheap amusement park.

{He strikes the battlements of the theme park castle as I speak, smashing a hole in them.}


ELISA: There are reporters outside ready to make you all TV stars.

GOLIATH: Noooooo!


TARO: Let the press in.

YAMA: The press? SO you lied about the children too. You have no honor.

TARO: Hey, nobody ever got rich off bushido.


YAMA: Bushido demands I face him alone.

TARO: Bushido is not kind to you, Yama.


TARO (struggling to get out of the giant animatronic gargoyle's grip, then seeing the reporters): Thank you all for coming to this unique entertainment environment.

REPORTER #1: What was all that noise?

TARO: Gargoyles! This park features real gargoyles! Stone during the day, they come alive at night.

REPORTER #2: Ha! You expect us to believe that?

ELISA: I've seen them! They're bigger than the statue! Must be a hundred feet tall!

HIMOSHI: Yes, yes, and they can turn invisible.

ELISA: There are thousands of them surrounding us, even now!

REPORTER #1: Sounds like you've been watching too many cartoons.

TARO: They're lying! The gargoyles were here. They were here, but they escaped.

GIANT ANIMATRONIC GARGOYLE (activating, eyes aglow, and dropping Taro as it speaks): Welcome, my friends....

TARO (to the animatronic gargoyle): Not now!

{The reporters leave, laughing over the spectacle.}

TARO (running after them): Wait! I can take you to the gargoyles!

REPORTER #1: Real live gargoyles?

TARO: Well, they'd be stone by now, but they'll awaken again tonight.

REPORTER #2: Even for a publicity stunt, this is terrible.

TARO (as the giant animatronic gargoyle repeats its programmed greeting behind him): They're real, I tell you! They're real!


ELISA: At least it's possible for gargoyles to trust some humans. May not be much, but it's a start.

Todd Jensen

MATTHEW - Thanks for your comments on "Sentinel", especially the "compare-and-contrast" look at Nokkar alongside the newly awakened gargoyles at the start of the series.

As I mentioned in my commentary, I believe that Nokkar mistook the gargoyles for a previously unknown alien species that was working for the Space-Spawn rather than the Space-Spawn themselves, though, as I said, it doesn't come across that well.

Todd Jensen

"Let me get this straight, does anyone here not have amnesia?"

Gargoyles goes galactic! This is actual rather fascinating, while the series has dipped its toes into science fiction since the conclusion of "Awakening" but for the most part has held onto its roots of sword and sorcery. Here we get our first look into a cosmic side of the Gargoyles universe (which really makes it feel even more comic book-y in style) with the revelation that there's intelligent life out there...so to speak.

This is another one that doesn't rank high on my list mostly because its conflict has to rely on the central antagonist jumping to conclusions based entirely on faulty information and under the pre-determined belief of being right despite not having any evidence to support it. It's a conflict of Nokkar's own making and it's only Elisa's unknowing instincts that stop him from killing our heroes.

Nokkar's story at times feel's like an inversion of the Clan awakening in modern day Manhattan. While the gargoyles make mistakes based on what the world is like, it's mostly filtered through their perception of both the past and through their living as another species. Goliath's comment about a television appearing as a magic tapestry has all the makings of a "I know it's not the right word, but it's the only way I know how to describe it." They're naïve about the modern world and how it works, but it's tempered by their willingness to learn and by an edge they've developed due to the prejudices they've faced in the past and the betrayals they've encountered.

Contra-wise, Nokkar is from a race more advanced than our own and has lived on Earth longer than most other living species. But despite the centuries he's accumulated he's done incredibly little to learn about the world he's supposed to guard and immediately concludes that the gargoyles are Space-Spawn, which I'm hoping is a race of shapeshifters otherwise Nokkar decided inhuman = Space-Spawn, which makes him look like even more of a failure. Nor does he consider the possibility that by giving someone amnesia it might cause them to freak out considering they have no idea who they are, where they are or who any of these people might be. I sometimes wonder that if Gargoyles had kept its original comedic flavor it would have been revealed that Nokkar was such a screw up that he was assigned to Earth to keep him from messing things up on his home world.

Alas that we'd get Benjamin Sisko playing a character of Neelix levels of incompetence.

Matthew the Fedora Guy
Ain't nothing crazy 'bout me but my brain!

Rewatched "Sentinel" today. This was another example of an episode clearly inspired by "gargoyles-evocative" landmarks - the moai of Easter Island, in this case. (Goliath even speculates at the start that they were designed "to ward off long-forgotten enemies". From what I've read about the moai, they seem to have been monuments to past leaders rather than guardian-figures, though I'm not enough of an expert on Easter Island to feel certain about that.)

Nokkar was another case, alongside the Banshee in "The Hound of Ulster", of "I've already made up my mind about who and what you are, so don't try confusing me with contradictory facts". More noticeably than the Banshee here, since she seemed to like capturing and tormenting people anyway. It does make Nokkar come across as not too sympathetic. To be fair to him, he does show genuine concern towards Elisa. He immediately asks her if she's all right after capturing Goliath, and willingly invites her on board his spaceship in a way that shows he trusts her. And he does listen to what she has to say at the end, and realize at last that the gargoyles weren't hostile aliens after all. Still, he does seem ridiculously stubborn for most of the episode, and the reconciliation at the end feels maybe too quick to seem realistic (the consequence of having only half an hour to tell the story). If "Gargoyles 2198" had been made, it might have handled him better.

This episode, I remember, got many viewers wondering if the Space-Spawn whom Nokkar's people were at war with looked like gargoyles. The impression that I got was that Nokkar believed the gargoyles to be members of an alien species working for the Space-Spawn, the way that, say, in "Doctor Who", some alien species like the Ogrons worked for the Daleks. (Nokkar does address Angela as "Space-Spawn" at one point, though, which probably helped provide the false impression.) I remember Greg Weisman commenting that part of the idea behind the episode was to make it clear that gargoyles weren't aliens (a mistaken notion that went back at least to "Temptation" when Brooklyn described the Cloisters as "like the world we came from" - he meant, of course, the Middle Ages, not another planet, but some of the audience didn't get that) - and, ironically, it resulted in still more of the audience thinking that gargoyles *were* aliens. (Probably the one way to increase the confusion would be to do a "Gargoyles"/"Young Justice" crossover in which G. Gordon Godfrey insinuates in one of his broadcasts that the gargoyles are aliens - and much of the real-life audience of that crossover take that claim too seriously. Though I doubt we'll ever see something like that outside of fanfiction; Greg Weisman will presumably be taking extra care to guard against that misapprehension.)

One detail I liked this time around was a glimpse of a little robot - roughly the size of a large insect or spider and with similar legs to a spider - walking about the spaceship.

FAVORITE LINES.

ELISA: Whoa, Tiny, you mean there's more of you?

GOLIATH: My name is not "Tiny". I am Goliath.


ELISA: That's some story, all right. Gargoyle clans, mutated brothers, magic spells.... You threw in everything but King Arthur and the Holy Grail.

GOLIATH: Yes, well, we haven't encountered the Holy Grail yet.

Todd Jensen

Hello, Drew, and welcome. The well is deep, indeed: if you have not been over to GargWiki yet, you should go when you have...oh, possibly an hour or three. (Check the "Other Sites" tab above.) And of course there's...what, three now?...comic series that have come out in just the past couple of years that are written by Greg Weisman and are more or less a continuation of the series (not to mention the previous continuations from about fifteen years ago that're in the process of being reprinted really soon now). Did I mention the well is deep?

Anon @ 3:21:29 EST: I think a few people saw your previous message, but (with respect) on first glance it looked a lot like the kind of bot-driven lint that blows across the Comment Room all the time, so a lot of people may have overlooked it. I don't know that anyone here would be able to make something like that all that easily, especially not with the original voice actors, since Disney still holds a pretty firm grip on the series and characters (and voice actors typically want to be paid, after all). But I wouldn't rule out some kind of fan work being out there already; I just wouldn't know where to point you for it, other than by pointing at, uh, the Internet generally.

morrand - [morrand276 at gmail dot com]

Hi! A few days past I asked about a Gargoyles motion comic. I can't find if anyone answered. Can you do it?
Anonymous

Hey all, I have been a Gargoyles fan since it was on tv, however after it was off air I rarely saw it and as I grew older it just eventually escaped me altogether. However, with it being on Disney+ and NECA making such a cool line (I hope it’s not dead), I’ve been more consumed with Gargoyles over the last couple years than I ever have. That led me to the Voices from the Eyrie podcast, to more recently Gargoyle Nation on YouTube, and today I discovered this site. I just wanted to say hello and I’m loving learning stuff I never knew about this epic property.
Drew

Second!
Matt
"Human problems become gargoyle problems..."

First.
Todd Jensen