West meets East: Stan “The Man” Lee goes anime!
(Copied from Blog)
Mostly known as Stan “The Man” Lee (Wiki details here). Pretty much known as the man living the dream, closest godlike being into creating his own world, The Marvel Universe. What is the Marvel Universe? Well, you see, when authors write things like Harry Potter or Twilight, its no different from making a very big island full of characters. But happens if you push that a bit further, like making not just one .. but multiple worlds of characters, different time lines, alternate realities and all that? What if you made an entire universe of all original characters living in a comic reality that can somehow relate to our very own reality? That is what the Marvel Universe is. Similar to Star Wars and Star Trek, fictional characters that we grew up reading and the characters have been “living” with us for many many years.
Sure, there are people going, “Oh Iron-Man/Spider-Man/Fantastic Four/Hulk/etc is bad ass! They are all NEW MOVIES!” .. but these guys are as old as its creator, Stan Lee. I always get amazed to see new viewers first experiences when watching these “new movies”. But currently in our world, the movie industry is running out of new ideas, so what do they do? They dig up old ones! Why? Because its either we forgot them (except me, i love reading about them) or the people are just too young to realized they already existed. So people would ask “What is Marvel Comics? Is it new?” which usually let me end up saying “Boy .. Marvel Comics was around before you even existed in the world or maybe diapers!”
Enough of the old stuff chat and in with the new .. Stan Lee extended his reach to the Japanese anime industry, where instead of being immortalized in his comics, series or movies .. he is now immortalized in an anime called Heroman! (Wiki details here)
Personal Summary: Boy finds broken electronic remote control toy abandoned by rich kids that do not appreciate anything. Takes it home, fixes it, somehow gets zapped by an alien ray that caused a weird lightning storm to pop up, zaps toy and poof. Its alive! Heroman! Heroman in its full form has the colors of Captain America (Red, White, Blue .. duuuuhhh). The anime is set in an american typical teenager comic theme: Teenagers, high school, jock bullies, cheerleaders .. sound familiar? Like the typical American comic. The art is done by Bones, whom are responsible for awesome animes like Eureka Seven, Sword of the Stranger and the current (and previous) Fullmetal Alchemist!
Heroman = Ben 10 (Has a watch), Captain America (The colors), Iron-Man (The tech), Back to the Future (“Nearly Mad” Scientist friend), Alien Invasions, .. and the final touch .. tossing in some Transformer fonts!
When i first saw episode 01, i was amazed .. and guess who made a cameo appearance? “The Man” himself!
I went all Fanboy/Otaku mode the moment i saw this. Looking forward to more of the series! Who is Stan Lee? Why is he important? Summary? The God of all that is Superhero Fiction! What was he involved in? Plenty!
The list of what he got involved in:
* Wolverine
* Fantastic Four
* Spider-Man
* X-Men
* Heroes
* G.I.Joe
* Transformers
* Blade
* Daredevil
* Elektra
* Hulk
* Captain America (movie coming soon)
* Thor (movie coming soon)
* Avengers (movie coming soon)
* .. and the list goes on starting from the 1940s to 2010!
George Lucas has retired and Steven Spielberg is close to retiring as well .. with these two movie/fiction gods gone, that would make Stan Lee the last fiction god from the old ages that lived thru black and white television and lived long enough to see the age of Bluray and mp3s!
Stan "The Man" Lee, Creator of all that is Marvel Comics.
Same hairstyle and shades .. the never changing .. was it a coincidence?
The moment he turned, it was bloody obvious!
Face front, True Believers! Hail the Mighty Marvel Marching Society!
Yes, I'm a comic book geek too, and have been since my early childhood.
MMM?
Fill me up!
Im aiming to meet him up this year at SD Comic-Con!
i envy u!
japanese spider man LOL!
There was a Japanese Spiderman Sentai series in the 1980s. You can find it on Youtube. Spider-Man could summon a giant spider robot to beat up the badguys when they supersized it. ROFL.
He also had a big Megazord-type robot leopard called Leopardon. Yeah.
You're right! And that became the precursor to Super Sentai formula starting with Battle Fever J! (Of course, Battle Fever J's predecessor, Goranger and JAKQ, doesn't have robots. But still part of it.)
Change, Leopardon!
Still got a ton of my old marvel comics from the 70-80s and treasure them! EXCELSIOR!!!(and I don't mean the coffee shop in Tokyo either. LOL)
JOEY WHERE'S MY COFFEE???
oh yes, that was the scene!
I remember that scene!
If only Stan-san could speak Japanese and make a cameo voice role...
I've never been much of a fan of superhero comics, but I've definitely been enjoying Heroman. It might be rather cliché in parts, but Stan Lee has been writing more than long enough to use clichés competently. It's nice to see an East-West collaboration to add something a bit different to the new season, and I'd like to see more cross-cultural shows.
yeah the marvel comics nowadays, you just cannot predict anything anymore. which makes it mind boggling! Movies are revamped modernized versions with a less complicated storyline. Simple and sweet! XD
For example, Dr Doom in the F4 movies was barely "Doom" .. where after 40 years of Doom, no superhero/magician/country on Earth could attack him, because it would be an act of War which would allow doom to completely crush a country with his high tech army. Like i said .. comics has just gone completely complicated and its hard to just read it now, if u compare it to Garfield. ROFL.
He's going to be in FanExpo in Toronto Canada this summer in August.
I'm so going to cosplay as Joey if I can....and get his autograph too!!!
OMG i wanna kill you with my blaster!
Just viewed the 2 episodes last nite... Full of cliches but quite awesome...
Lina <3
BTW, Joey in Japanese accent sounds a lot like Joy... ^^;
Yeaaah!
First Ultimo the karakuri doji with a colaboration of a certain shonen jump mangaka
now Heroman! This is so rad!
"Hey Joey, fill me up!"
Have you watched the Stand Lee videos on the official site btw? I think he's doing one per episode or something. Hearing him speak Japanese in a -strong- American accent is just too funny ^^;
not yet but that would be real funny!