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It was in London that he began to show an interest in the occult, and first became a demon tricking con-artist. She was attending a costume party dressed as a female Batman when she saw Bruce Wayne kidnapped by the villain Killer Moth. After retiring as Batgirl, she is hunted down and shot in the abdomen by The Joker.
Initially falling into a bout of depression, Barbara soon began to use her skills with computers as well as photographic memory to re-invent herself as Oracle, provider of intelligence to the heroes of the DCU and leader of the Birds of Prey. Recent changes have meant that Barbara has recovered from her paralysis thanks to intensive physiotherapy, and is once again a costumed crimefighter under the Batgirl alias. At age 16 he took a job as a garment worker until the death of Kitty Genovese, an event which deeply affected him. He used some cast-off material to fashion a mask, and became the crime-fighter Rorschach.
Rorschach remained a relatively mirror crime fighter for several years until he investigated a case involving a child who had been murdered and fed to dogs. At this point, he considered Walter Kovacs an alias and Rorschach to be his true self. Rorschach investigates the death of The Comedian, and uncovers the conspiracy which takes place in the pages of Watchmen. Hellboy is the name given to the demon Anung un Rama. He was brought to earth by Nazi occultists who were seeking incredible power. Hellboy aged far slower than a human would generally, but his aging seemed to accelerate and slow at different stages.
In time grew to resemble a large red-skilled demon with horns, a tail, cloven hoofs for feet, and a giant right hand made from stone. Despite being gruff, he has a wicked sense of humour thanks to his upbringing as a normal boy.
He possesses none of the evil traits one would expect of a demon. Due to his decades of experience, Hellboy is extremely knowledgeable when it comes to the occult and can access parts of the world most people are unaware even exist. Carol Danvers was introduced in the s and was immediately written as a character who overcame gender stereotypes. After Captain Marvel battled a dormant Kree Sentry, Carol discovered his identity, and a relationship blossomed between the two. She took the name Miss Marvel, and became a successful superhero. Over time, the Hulk became a character in its own right and several different personas began to emerge.
Besides the savage Green Hulk, there is a Grey Hulk also known as Joe Fixit who is more canny and street-smart than the green Hulk, but not quite as strong. Unlike most heroes on this list, The Hulk is rarely celebrated as a hero. While he has often been sought out by the other heroes to battle alongside them, they have also taken up arms against him when one of his personas has caused destruction on a vast scale.
His return led to the epic World War Hulk, which saw Hulk at his most powerful. In his highest level of rage, Hulk is only stoppable by a cosmic level force such as The Phoenix, or Galactus.
Several superheroes created by Stan Lee in the s had a disability of some kind. Charles Xavier was confined to a wheelchair for instance. On his way home from school, he rushed to save an old man from being run down by a van carrying toxic materials illegally through the streets. Matt saved the man, but in the resulting crash lost his vision forever. An unexpected side-effect of the toxic materials that robbed Matt of his vision was that his remaining senses were enhanced to superhuman levels.
His hearing became so acute that he learned to focus it in such a way as to be able to detect the proximity of solid objects. After his father was killed for refusing to throw a fight, Matt studied hard to become a lawyer. He also used his athletic prowess, skills as both a boxer and martial artist as trained by the enigmatic man known as Stick, and his powers, to become the crimefighter Daredevil.
While the Batman comics have birthed numerous heroes, Jim stands out as one of the best due to his steadfast nature. Unlike Batman, who hides in the shadows, Jim is the face of law and order in Gotham. In a city often ravaged by gang war or held to ransom by lunatics like The Joker, Jim stands resolute. With the city relying on him to keep them safe, Jim has a huge responsibility. Jim is one of the few characters that has been represented in almost every adaptation of Batman.
Even when Robin is absent, Jim is usually present. With the exception of Alfred, Jim Gordon is the character most associated with Batman in assorted media and integral to the wider story of Gotham, and in particular, Batman. As Robin, Dick was the first sidekick of Batman and probably the most famous sidekick of all-time and made the role his own. Although trained by Batman, he added his years of experience as an acrobat making his fighting style unique.
In time, Dick grew out of his role as a sidekick and became much more. Leading the Teen Titans, and growing ever more competent in his own right, he gave up being Robin and became Nightwing.
As Nightwing, Dick moved away from Gotham although remained a steadfast ally of Batman and became a hero in his own right. Another non-superhero is Rick Grimes. Initially merely trying to survive in a world where civilisation seems to have collapsed, Rick eventually tries to build a community where people can do more than merely survive the apocalypse, they can thrive. After a time simply moving on from place to place, his group take refuge in an old prison. Attempting to bargain with the Governor, Rick is maimed when his hand is cut off. Eventually, the prison falls and his band find themselves on the road once more.
Finding the Alexandria Safe-Zone, Rick thinks he has found peace. Unlike many whiter than white heroes, Rick has done some terrible things to survive including killing people in a brutal manner. His actions sometimes make him cross the line and make him a full-blown villain, and his sanity is often tested. In the dystopian future of the post-apocalyptic 22 nd century, crime has all but taken over Mega-City one. The only thing that stand against crime are the police force known as Judges.
These elite cops do whatever it takes to eliminate the criminal element and prevent anarchy, including sentencing them to death and executing them on the spot. And again, costume changes consistent with this reading and not called for in the script tell the story. The final appearance of each of them looks more put-together - and also more like their allegedly deceptive personas.
It's all very confusing, as I stated at the outset. While I obviously would have preferred making them both more glamorous throughout, I thought the approach that was used with Olivia was not without its benefits. Kathryne Daniels gives Olivia a way of visibly thinking things through and of making intellectual and emotional connections that is convincing, and very appealing to watch. A more sophisticated Olivia would react differently.
Ethan, I think, is a harder role to make real.
He has built a career out of acting like an exploitative jerk, and the fact that he may have undiscovered fictional genius, even if one believes it which I found hard to do , and possibly an inner monogamous boyfriend, still, in the here and now, jerk is as jerk does. His journey out of that predicament is not cleanly or clearly sketched. Matthew Lindsay Payne does what he can with this construct, but it's very hard to pull off. Because it is usually easiest to write about what one knows, writers do tend to write about writers a lot. There are times this phenomenon can give rise to a kind of inbred quality, and there is some of that in this play.
For instance, I was wondering how many members of the audience got the reference to "FSG" in the publishing world. More importantly, the struggles of authors with the tendency to bare their souls and the equal but opposite tendency to maintain their privacy, no matter how fascinating to writers, are the kind of thing where a little bit goes a long way with the rest of us. Nonetheless, if the subject of writers is of interest to you, this play is a decent effort to come to grips with it.
And the play will certainly keep challenging you the way a puzzle does. It begins, no doubt portentously, with a question that it never completely answers Olivia to Ethan "Who are you? She later voiced him again for an unaired radio pilot, Sally in Hollywoodland However, it was not until that Oswald got his own color sound cartoons in two-strip Technicolor, Toyland Premiere and Springtime Serenade.
The Oswald cartoons then returned to black-and-white, except for the last one, The Egg Cracker Suite , released as a part of the Swing Symphonies series. Egg Cracker was also the only Oswald cartoon to use three-strip Technicolor. But before he was permanently retired, Oswald made a cameo appearance in The Woody Woodpecker Polka , also in three-strip Technicolor, which by then had become the norm in the cartoon industry. He also appeared in a theatrical commercial for the Electric Autolite Company, with his voice being provided by Dick Beals. His adventures, drawn by Al Stahl, were serialized one page to an issue for the magazine's first year, after which they ceased.
The original black-furred version of Oswald was featured, even though Oswald was by this time a white rabbit on screen. Oswald's second run in the comics began in , when a new Oswald feature was initiated in Dell Comics ' New Funnies , this time modeled after the latest cartoon version of Oswald and influenced by the drawing style of other Lantz comic book characters at the time. Following the typical development seen in most new comics, the New Funnies stories slowly morphed the character in their own direction.
Although successful, and Rogers was transformed into the peak of human strength, speed, and agility, the Professor was killed before he could replicate the experiment. The first Mickey Mouse film with a synchronized soundtrack, Steamboat Willie , reached the screen that fall and became a major hit, eclipsing Oswald. He was built to enforce the law, and uphold justice. The New York Times. Not long before Disney regained the rights to Oswald, Universal started marketing the character actively overseas. Unlike the whiter than white Captain America, Wolverine was a grey character from the outset. But Laemmle denied their requests and even terminated Mintz's contract, opting to have the Oswald cartoons produced right on the Universal lot instead.
These included Toby Bear, Maggie Lou the wooden doll, Hi-Yah Wahoo the turtle-faced Indian, and Woody Woodpecker —depicted as a mechanical doll filled with nuts and bolts hence his "nutty" behavior. In , with the addition of writer John Stanley , the stuffed animal motif was dropped, as were Maggie Lou, Woody, and Wahoo. Oswald and Toby became flesh and blood characters living as roommates in "Lantzville". In , Toby adopted two orphan rabbits for Oswald to raise. Floyd and Lloyd, "Poppa Oswald's" new sons, stuck around; Toby was relegated to the sidelines, disappearing for good in Later stories focused on Oswald adventuring with his sons, seeking odd jobs, or simply protecting the boys from the likes of rabbit-eating Reddy Fox and from con man Gabby Gator—a character adapted from contemporary Woody Woodpecker cartoon shorts.
This era of Oswald comics typically featured the art of Jack Bradbury , known also for his Mickey Mouse work.
Posts, Oswald comics tended to be produced outside the United States, for example in Mexico and Italy. Through the end of the 20th century, the foreign comics carried on the look and story style of the Dell Oswald stories. More recently, they featured a "retro" attempt at recreating the original Disney Oswald. In , Oswald starred in the digi-comic series Epic Mickey: Tales of the Wasteland , a prequel to the Epic Mickey video game, sharing what the Wasteland was like before Mickey arrived there. In , Oswald starred in the Norwegian Disney comic story "En magisk jul! It is based on and takes place in the times of the classic Oswald shorts from — Universal transferred the copyright of the character to Disney, and in exchange, Disney released Michaels from his employment contract, allowing him to sign with NBC.
The deal included the rights to the character and the original 26 short films made by Disney namely, most of the Oswald films produced from to Iger had been interested in the property because of an internal design document for a video game, which would ultimately become Epic Mickey.
Having Oswald around again is going to be a lot of fun. Around the same time, the Kansas City Chiefs and New York Jets made a similar deal, the Chiefs giving the Jets a draft pick as compensation for releasing coach Herm Edwards from his contract. Referring to this trade, Michaels said:. Oswald is definitely worth more than a fourth-round draft choice. I'm going to be a trivia answer someday.
Several Oswald collectors' figurines and a limited edition grayscale plush toy appeared shortly after the DVD set's release. The Disney Store also began to introduce Oswald into its merchandise lines, starting with a canvas print and Christmas ornament that became available Fall A standard-issue color plush toy matching Oswald's appearance in Epic Mickey appeared in late This was followed by an ongoing roll-out of clothing and other products at the Disney Store, various chain stores, and the Disney California Adventure theme park.
Using Ub Iwerk's sketchbook drawings in , archivists recreated a scene from an Oswald cartoon, Harem Scarem. Oswald is one of the main characters in the video game franchise Epic Mickey. The world of Epic Mickey is called "Wasteland" and it is similar to Disneyland but for forgotten Disney characters, including Oswald, [25] who rules the place. The Blot, the main villain of the game, put Oswald's wife in suspended animation by soaking her in thinner. The short Oswald cartoon Oh, What a Knight was also included as an unlockable cartoon in the game.
The re-discovered short Poor Papa was originally going to be in the game, but could not because Junction Point did not have enough time to scan the short into the game before its release. The Power of Two is a video game that was released on November 18, Mickey Mouse makes his return to the alternate world of cartoon wasteland, a place inhabited with 80 years of forgotten Disney characters and Disney theme park attractions. The two team up, with Mickey wielding a magical paint brush with the power of paint and paint thinner while Oswald holds a powerful remote control which can command electricity.
The Power of Two follows the previous game mechanics as well as adding a musical element. The characters of the game advance through levels with original music and lyrics. Each character will have a specific song that they sing and based on the choices one makes throughout the game, the music will change. The musical scores were created by Emmy award-winning composer James Dooley and lyricist Mike Himelstein. Unlike the previous game, Epic Mickey 2 features full voiced cut-scenes with Frank Welker Welker had also provided Oswald's vocal effects in the previous game as Oswald's first voice actor in a Disney's Oswald the Lucky Rabbit production Bill Nolan was Oswald's first voice actor in when Walter Lantz produced the Oswald cartoons.
Disney has also introduced authentic Disney character voices which provide direction from the various characters to the players. The game contains new ideas from Disney and supports gaming mechanics such as PlayStation Move. Shortly after the rabbit starred in a series of twenty-six black and white animated silent shorts between and , he became the first Disney character to successfully sell merchandise: Not long before Disney regained the rights to Oswald, Universal started marketing the character actively overseas.
Disney slowly reintroduced him with merchandise such as shirts, figurines and a DVD of his original cartoons. Also inside Mickey's meeting area, a doodle of Oswald and Mickey can be seen.
An Oswald costumed character showed up at the parks in Florida and California on the day Disney reacquired Oswald, but made no further appearances at the time. In , Tokyo Disneyland produced a float featuring Oswald for their first Easter holiday event. In , Oswald appeared with other old Disney characters on the Construction walls for Disney California Adventure Park's new entrance.
Oswald's Service Station is a s gas station housing a gift shop located at the north end of the street and features Oswald prominently in its logo. Disney California Adventure also sells Oswald merchandise, while next door Disneyland Park offers Mickey Mouse merchandise exclusively. He is carved into a tree near the exit door. During the s, the Oswald shorts, as well as Oswald himself, proved extremely popular and had received substantial critical acclaim. The Film Daily noted that the series was "one of the best sellers of the 'U[niversal]' short subject program.
The Moving Picture World noted Oswald was "good for a lot of smiles and real laughs. If the first of these new cartoon comedies for Universal release is an indication of what is to come, then this series is destined to win much popular favor. They are cleverly drawn, well executed, brimful of action and fairly abounding in humorous situations. Oswald the Lucky Rabbit is all of that. Some of his experiences are hilarious and breath taking.
With the release of Oh, Teacher , Moving Picture World wrote that it "lives up to the promise of the first