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Gargoyles

The Phoenix Gate

Comment Room Archive

Comments for the week ending October 10, 2021

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Hey! Big fan of Gargoyles, even though I just discovered it recently. I had a question in regards to Xanatos, if that's alright to ask.

I wanted to know, just how in touch is Xanatos with his Greek Heritage, would you say? And, for that matter, does he prefer Constantinople or Istanbull? XD

Ya boy - [bb7740292 at gmail dot com]
Me.

I just double checked which alien planets we have orbital establishing shots for, and the planet in the upper left is definitely New Genesis. The only question is how it somehow got two moons in the meantime. Maybe they were behind the planet when we saw it last.
Karrin Blue

Yeah, I'm pretty curious about those too! And they're not identical - zooming in, the red ones seem to be on fire? Another point for them being Chaos-aligned.

(They also make me think of the Star Seeds from Sailor Moon, but that's probably coincidental.)

And there's also the technicolor planet with its two mini-moons on the upper left - I almost want to guess it's Gemworld, because I think that'd be fun and magical and certainly their giant crystals could be seen from space, but DC has so many alien worlds there's no way to be sure (for the next week.)

And of course there's those weird hexagonal bubbles - I'd guess those were something to do with Halo, but they don't quite align to her rainbow on a second look (although that might be artistic license.) Maybe something with the Lantern Corps? Or another friend suggested it looks like the rainbow gradient the Multiversity stuff was using. I admit I'm biased towards that because I'd love some alternate-timeline peeks (something in the vein of the Justice Lords?)

Well, I hope Greg is at least enjoying seeing us speculating.

(Also, a correction: Kaldur still hasn't grown his hair out, it's still that odd inverse-tonsure sort of thing. Which worked when he had the high collar of the Manta suit, but really does strike me as odd when he's in the Aquaman costume. Or maybe that's just me...)

Karrin Blue

Those multi-colored, hexagon spheres at the bottom have me intrigued. Reminds me of the Ghost Dimension projections that Granny used.
Matthew
When you return to your unobservable but empirically determined dimension of origin--tell them CARL SAGAN sent you.

I'm intrigued by those glowy red and yellow diamonds in the top right. They seem too specific to be just random design flourishes.

Given the apparent emphasis on magic this season... the abstract forms of the Lords of Chaos and Order?

Algae
The sword is the tool of a soldier, one who fights at the behest of others, a servant to the Power. The scepter, on the other hand, this is the totem of a true ruler.

Oh, and it looks like that's Mars in the background, set opposite to Earth - so I was probably wrong about the deep space adventures, and Ma'aleca'andra will play a bigger role now! I wonder - way, way, WAY back in season 1, M'gann mentioned that Fate was like the great sorcerer-priests of Mars. If we're going to be digging into what magic is and how people get it, could we finally be seeing some Martian magecraft? That's been something I've been wondering about for ages - it feels like a lot of the time, superheroes in space tend to be science or sufficiently-advanced-technology based, with only Earth having mystics. So I'm pretty excited to maybe see some Mars magic!
Karrin Blue

Ooh, interesting! So Zatanna and Rocket will get to be more center-stage this time - that should be fun, especially when we never got to see most of Rocket's Team tenure.

Also, our first look at the timeskip designs! Though I won't be surprised if these ones on the poster are tweaked from the actual show, it doesn't look like Phil Bourassa's art style and sometimes details can shift around between artists. But it looks like Kaldur grew his hair out a bit, M'gann grew her hair out a lot, and Dick might have gone to the finger-stripes costume (which I've been hoping to see for ages now.)

It's too bad they couldn't give us specifics beyond 'focuses more on individual character dynamics' and 'the Legion and Halo are definitely present', but such is life.

Karrin Blue

Greg and Brandon just did an interview with Collider over the upcoming season, there's a lot of No Spoiler responses but they also revealed the new poster for the season.

You can check it out here: https://collider.com/young-justice-season-4-poster-showrunners-interview-hbo-max/

Matthew
When you return to your unobservable but empirically determined dimension of origin--tell them CARL SAGAN sent you.

JACOB> Just doing a quick search through the site, the only post I could find by a "DrZaius" was from back in 2009.
Algae
The sword is the tool of a soldier, one who fights at the behest of others, a servant to the Power. The scepter, on the other hand, this is the totem of a true ruler.

Does anyone here know Dr Zaius? I am trying to find him. It has been 20 years. Someone said he uses this site.
Jacob Oliver - [lordjjoliver at gmail dot com]
Jacob Oliver

Hey so I could not find this out ANYWHERE and maybe folks also are not sure but I am looking for any sort of data or sales records on how well the Kenner line of toys for Gargoyles did. I know I have seen Greg mention he is pretty sure they did well because the show worked at a deficit but the company made it back in merch and rerun ads etc.
Austin - [knightaustin51 at gmail dot com]

Welcome back, Vashkoda! That was a pleasant surprise, seeing your post.
Todd Jensen

VASHKODA!!!!!!!!!> LONG TIME NO SEE!

As you may know, Marina Sirtis eventually did start doing Gargoyles convention appearances. She came to 2009... the last Gathering, then did CONvergence 2014 which was a Gathering reunion in Minnsosta, then did CONvergence 2018. And I know she's done a lot of panels about it at other conventions with Gargoyles cast and crew. And she's been fantastic.

Also, Jennifer L. Anderson and I just started a new podcast (we are tentatively posting new episodes every last Friday of the month) where we sit down with Greg Weisman and occassionally other members of the cast and crew to do a deep dive episode by episode. We've just posted show #1: https://www.spidey-dude.com/voices-from-the-eyrie-01-developing-the-show/ and show #2 should be posted on the 29th (we're recording show #5 soon).

Greg Bishansky - [<--- Voices From the Eyrie]
"Welcome to Voices From the Eyrie, a Gargoyles podcast" - Shari

Hope all is well, glad this place is still alive and kicking! Sorry all I ever seem to do any more is drop by once a year to share a link. I was watching videos of Star Trek conventions and happened to come across one of a few of the actors answering a fan’s questions about Gargoyles. Marina’s voice threw me off initially, but I did enjoy her story about her audition (maybe she’s shared it before, but she was never at any in the Gatherings I made it to). It’s about 22 minutes into the link below.
Vashkoda

Thanks Algae, looking at every post I made for Young Justice I calculate that I wrote and copy/pasted 146,797 words in total over nearly a year so no wonder I was tired.

No wait...I also led the book club and before that I was writing retrospectives on The Spectacular Spider-Man. That's two books, two animated series, 98 episodes, 29 tie-in comics and one Audioplay.

Jesus H. Tap-Dancin' Christ no wonder I've been feeling burned out. Heck, if I put half of the effort into my creative writing I could actually have something I'd consider putting out by now.

Matthew
When you return to your unobservable but empirically determined dimension of origin--tell them CARL SAGAN sent you.

MATTHEW> Congratz on finishing your Young Justice retrospective. I know I haven't responded to each of your reviews but every single one has been a pleasure to read.
Algae
The sword is the tool of a soldier, one who fights at the behest of others, a servant to the Power. The scepter, on the other hand, this is the totem of a true ruler.

Well The Ghost and Molly McGee episodes 1-5 are now on Plus. Yes 3-5 are added despite them not yet airing on tv.

Oh and I'll have to rewatch 3 later, but Jeff Bennett did additional voices work in of of the two shorts on the episode.

Antiyonder

Karrin> I'm hoping we see just where everything falls into place after the last season in the upcoming Fandome. Incidentally, I also heard that Zatanna might be training Madame Xanadu from all the way back in season 1.

Todd> The Audioplay is actually available on Youtube, which is where I re-watched it. You can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXD8fdM6tac

Matthew
When you return to your unobservable but empirically determined dimension of origin--tell them CARL SAGAN sent you.

Thanks for the audio play review, Matthew.

While I haven't heard the audio play and therefore can't say much about the review, I liked your description of one of the "normal life" elements that Clayface aspired to was "getting a cat"; as someone who's lived practically his entire adult life with one cat or another, I can certainly relate to that.

And I noted the "Never the end" line at the end; it would have to show up somewhere.

I hope that this time I'm not premature in wishing you a well-earned break - to last until the Season Four episodes start coming out.

Todd Jensen

Well, at the end of the marathon, you get a prize, isn't that how it goes?

I have a lot of fondness for works where the limitations on production shaped the final product. Like how Revolutionary Girl Utena's budget-saving reuse of stock footage builds the sense of a repeating pattern, everything moving in circles, and long held frames of animation stretch out awkward moments, or how the stage version of Phantom of the Opera only settled on their now-iconic half mask because the original full mask interfered with a microphone. So of course, I have a lot of fun with a radio play written around who was actually going to be available that got written out in just a couple days in between working hours and over weekends. It makes me wonder what might've been different if, say, Zehra had been available but Danica had had something come up suddenly.

Still, for something that's so light and comedic, it really is interesting how much plot gets packed in. Clayface's redemption, as you say, but also that Waller is now pro-actively 'recruiting' for the Squad - it's one thing to have it for death-row inmates or for people to volunteer to work their time off (for a given value of volunteer), but quite another to go around kidnapping the prisoners who do things the 'right' way. And it's the sort of thing I can easily see Jefferson wanting to take a stand against - especially when at least a few of the heroes are themselves former criminals, and when Waller probably would have no compunctions about going after some of Taos' residents either.

I'm very curious about M'gann and Conner's trip, too. If you'll permit me some theorizing- I don't think they're actually going to Mars? Per Torch Songs taking place only a month after Endgame, traveling to Mars in the Bioship doesn't take all that long - I'd put it at a week on the outside, assuming they hadn't immediately returned from Mars when the comic opens and spent a week-ish on B'aarz's problem. This party and goodbye seems like it'd be a bit overboard if they're only going to be gone a few weeks. At the same time, if they expected the trip to take a very long time, I'd expect them to have had a bigger event, or at least to have been fielding goodbyes and well-wishes - not to mention the oddness of bringing Garfield, when he'd be away from his work and the Outsiderd and Perdita for just as long. So, I figure they're going to be leaving for a few months - and unless they're planning on actually staying on Mars to accomplish something long term, I think they're going farther afield.

This is also a narrative tidiness thing - I might be off here, but this being their going-away party makes me think that, when the season opens, they'll still be gone. My current theory is that when the season opens, they'll be on their way back from wherever, and start one of the new subplots either by bringing some key information to the Team, or by missing their arrival date and the Team sending a group out to rescue them. Either way, that somehow their being not on Earth will be relevant early.

Or maybe I'm totally off there. We'll see! It just seems like it'd be a bit odd to have this big deal of them going away, for them to be back in time for the start of s4, and I'm not sure what's on Mars that'd need all four of them to be there for an entire year to get things done. Something with M'Comm? Though I admit, part of why I don't think they'll be on Mars is because I would very much like a sort of green family road trip through space, running into different space people and problems. Though I'm sure I'll like whatever really happens.

I'm also pretty interested to see who might be leading the Outsiders in Garfield's absence! Any (well, most) of them could make for an interesting choice - I'm personally banking on Static. He's got the heroing experience, the leadership experience (from being the de facto head of the Runaways), he's smart, and it'd be nice to give him something more to do after his more limited role in Outsiders.

Seconding wanting to know who Zatanna's other protégé (protégés? She could have more than two...) is. I've seen a lot of guesses it's Raven, and much as I love her - and much as I'd appreciate another version of her where we get to know her before the Trigon drama comes to the fore - it seems a rather obvious pull, and I wouldn't mind seeing some more obscure magic teens. Zachary Zatara, maybe? Teen Eve Eden? There's quite a few choices.

And it's very nice to see Artemis become Team leader. Even from the beginning, she was the first to call the Team her family, and she seems incredibly well-suited to not just keeping her head in a bad situation and commanding others through it, but also teaching the younger members and being there for them in quieter moments. I hope she has a good, long tenure - she earned it.

Karrin Blue

Never the end, but for now a conclusion...

Watched the Audioplay "The Prize" today which acts as a bit of a epilogue to season 3 and quite possibly a bit of a hint on what's to come with season 4. We see M'gann, Conner, Garfield and J'onn are planning a big trip off-world (which is probably leading to the trip to Mars that was hinted at last week), Roy's own growth and maturity is giving him another chance with the Team, and a former villain is be given the chance at a better life.

Clayface has had an interesting arc over the seasons, from a cancer-ridden Shadow warped into an inhuman monster by a woman's scorn. Basically used as a weapon to be thrown at the heroes by the League, then forcibly brainwashed by the Mad Hatter and Branchwater. We saw in the tie-in comics that Shadows are mentally conditioned to obey the words of Ra's al Ghul which means that for the majority of his time in the series, he's been without a will of his own. But after the events of "Triptych" when Tim freed him from mind control we saw something that we haven't really seen before from him or most any of the villains, genuine appreciation. And with that has come the desire for rehabilitation and a return to normalcy, of sorts. In a way it strongly reminds me of what I spoke of in "Away Mission" of how those who are so severely transformed that they don't have much of a chance to live a normal life at all, and in terms of the narrative they don't really get a chance to live either. But that's changed here, we see Clayface not only wants to turn over a new a leaf but really wants the little things that goes with a normal life, like getting a cat. It actually makes sense that Bowhunter Security would be the place for him considering it was founded and staffed largely by fellows abused by the villains, who had a sense of agenda stripped away from them and all of them wanting to start anew.

Audioplays are something of an interesting breed, the ones Greg's done in the past have been non-canon crossovers which leaned heavily into the comedy side of things. And while this one does have a strong comedy edge, it also has a lot of introspection as well. It's not having the characters tell Waller that she should really lighten up or teaching Vandal the true meaning of Christmas. We have Conner and M'gann prepping themselves for leaving the Team, how characters have changed over the years, and the never-ending drama between Kaldur and Manta. Because of this, it holds an odd place within the series' canon. One that I hope is explored a bit further in the future. This marks the second time the heroes have squared off with the Suicide Squad and Waller's interest in acquiring Clayface shows that she doesn't care about the rehabilitation of supervillains, only on what assets she can can get her hands on. And a nigh-indestructible shapeshifter could certainly be valuable to her plans. Makes me wonder who else she has in mind for her kind of work and whether she's interested in using heroes as well as villains...

Some Final Thoughts: Forager referring to Lian and Amistad as larva is so bizarre and yet so in-character that I actually had to stop for a moment and think about why that makes sense. But Forager has always had a "unique" perspective of things. So we hear rather briefly that Zatanna is training her proteges, as in plural. We've already seen that Traci is being instructed under her, but who could the other one be? Someone new? Or someone we've seen before? Interesting that both Raquel and her son are vegetarian, I've sometimes wonder how vegetarian parents work with the diet of their young children considering the need for protein at a young age. So Artemis is officially the new leader of the Team, which makes sense since she's the senior most member who hasn't resigned from leadership duties, moved on to the League or is going away to other duties. Plus considering how she did in the Russia op, I'd say she's well suited for the task.

Acting MVP: There's been one person who I've neglected this whole series, one who's shown up since season 1 but I've never mentioned, and that's Greg himself. Despite not being a professional voice actor he's always brought a strong performance as Lucas Carr.

DC Profiles: John Economos is traditionally depicted as the warden of Belle Reve, in appearance. While he does run the day-to-day aspects of the prison, in truth he's little more than a figurehead for Amanda Waller and her dealings.

Favorite Lines:

Mr. Carr: Hi Megan, Conner.
Conner: Need any help with the food?
Forager: Forager and Lucas Carr do not need help with the food From Megan Morse or Conner Kent. Megan Morse and Conner Kent are guests of honor at this event. Megan Morse and Conner Kent will not have to lift finger, or pincer, to help Forager and Lucas Carr.
Mr. Carr: I...think he means we got ya covered.
Forager: Forager said as much.

Mr. Carr: Wait a minute, who's narrating this story? Me or you?
Forager: Forager thanks Lucas Carr for Lucas Carr's service. But Forager will take Lucas Carr's story from here. Oh, and Forager will also suggest that Lucas Carr check Lucas Carr's grill. Forager smells smoke.
Mr. Carr: Wait what? My burgers!

Forager: And, in Happy Harbor...
Mr. Carr: My fruit punch!
Forager: Yes, Amistad Ervin and Lian Nguyen-Harper wanted to see how much potato salad would be required to overflow Lucas Carr's punch bowl.
Mr. Carr: My potato salad! Forager! You're supposed to be watching these kids!
Forager: Forager did watch Amistad Ervin and Lian Nguyen-Harper. Amistad Ervin and Lian Nguyen-Harper's potato salad experiment seemed to be a worthwhile education endeavor. Exploring the displacement of liquids.

Captain Boomerang: What now Monkey Boy?
[Mallah grunts in response]
Captain Boomerang: Am I supposed to know what that means?
Tuppence: Yer' supposed to know that a gorilla ain't a monkey.
Captain Boomerang: Yeah, yeah. Why doesn't he get one of them thought-to-speech boxes like Brain and the Ultra-Humanite use?
Brick: Then he might have to converse with the likes of you.

Kaldur: The bad news is if they succeed in getting Clayface into the prison, we have little chance of getting him out.
Raquel: Why?
Kaldur: The United States government sponsors Waller and will not acknowledge her operation's existence.
Conner: Then we out them to the world.
Kaldur: We cannot. Waller knows the Team's secrets and has threatened to reveal them.
Conner: Let her. I mean, I'm no fan of Clayface but our secrets aren't worth keeping. Not at the expense of a man's freedom.
M'gann: God I love you.
Raquel: God I hate the US prison system.

Captain Boomerang: A security guard? Who uses a bow and arrow? What were you, president of the "Green Arrow Fan Club?"
Will: You have no idea. Besides, you're using bomerangs.
Captain Boomerang: Oye! Boomerangs are way cooler than arrows!
Will: Says who?
Captain Boomerang: Batman.
Will: Ok...y-you got me there.

Raquel: Ladies and gentlemen, let's not forget why we're here. A toast to the happy couple as we wish them bon voyage on their next great adventure!
All: Here here!
M'gann: Thanks everyone, you don't know how much your love and support have meant to me--to the both of us! Over the last ten years.
Conner: Yeah, seriously, your friendship, that's the real prize.
Forager: Never the end...

Matthew
When you return to your unobservable but empirically determined dimension of origin--tell them CARL SAGAN sent you.

If I remember my magpie rhymes right, either a boy or a birth!
Karrin Blue

Okay, three, two, one. Let's jam.
Matthew
When you return to your unobservable but empirically determined dimension of origin--tell them CARL SAGAN sent you.

Second

So...who’s got their NECA Goliath?

Chip - [Sir_Griff723 at yahoo dot com]
"Become a writer; you can be petty." ~~Roshni Chokshi

Then came October full of merry glee:
For yet his noll was totty of the must,
Which he was treading in the wine-vats see,
And of the joyous oil, whose gentle gust
Made him so frolic and so full of lust;
Upon a dreadful Scorpion he did ride,
THe same which by Diana's doom unjust
Slew great Orion; and eke by his side
He had his ploughing share, and coulter ready tide.

"The Faerie Queene", Edmund Spenser

Todd Jensen