3 modern lesser known tv shows based on comic books.

 As a kid I would watch any movie ,cartoon or tv show based on a comic. Which it being the mid to late 70s meant I watched some good stuff,like the Superfriends every Saturday morning on ABC. And some crap like the first of the 2 made for TV Captain America movies.

Even skipping ahead till I was almost 18 and it was rare we got a good film,cartoon or tv show based on a comic. Sure there was stuff like Tim Burton's first Batman movie or Spiderman and his Amazing friends cartoon. But I would watch it all .

Now thanks to the explosion of the Marvel movies at the box office,and all the new streaming services their is demand for comic book tv shows,cartoons and  movies. With so many there is always a few that get over looked.

I figure if you are reading this blog you already know about stuff like Arrow and Flash on CW,Flash was decent for the first season and 1/2 Arrow on the other hand I never liked. And seems like I am one of the few that didn't watch all of Daredevil on Netflix.  No way would I have believed every 10 years ago that stuff like Preacher,The Boys and Sandman would get TV shows that are hits.

But as I said earlier there is some I feel get over looked. Here is my list of 3 that I think most people that enjoy comics or enjoy comic movies/tv shows/cartoons should check out.

Up first is the newest show on the list. Based on the famous underground comix Fabulous Furry Freak Bros is an animated TV Show on TUBI. Which means it is free. Each episode is close to 30 minutes long.

Now the comic was about the "adventures" of 3 stoners aka Freaks that lived in the 60s/70s.  It was a huge hit and even had it's own board game. In the first season of the cartoon these 3 get sent into the modern world. So the first season was about them and Fat Freddy's cat figuring out how to live in a very different world.

Good animation and a great voice cast,they got John Goodman as one of the bros,made this a can't miss show for me. IIRC new episodes hit TUBI on Sundays. Last I heard it was a huge hit and TUBI has comissioned a second season. 

AFAIK the comic is easy to find in various collections. I have read scans of the main series and it wasn't bad. 

So since I started with an Indie comic going to DC next. And the next show has had 3 seasons so far. Starting off on DC's short lived streaming service,which was a good idea but too nichie to survive,then folding into HBOmax,Doom Patrol  takes it's basic premise from not only the 60s Doom Patrol comics but also the late 80s thru mid 90s run from Grant Morrison.

Who are the Doom Patrol? Well they are a group of heroes/heroines that think they are freaks and hated by mankind. So a super genius in a wheelchair bands them together to fight crime. Yea I know sounds a lot like the X-men. And both teams appeared so close together there is little chance one was copied from the other. And like the X-men,Doom Patrol in the 60s wasn't a huge seller. It got cancelled and the writer killed off the entire team in their final issue.

Then in the 80s in the classic acclaimed New Teen Titans series Wolfman/Perez brought back Robotman. And the Doom Patrol's main villian team of bad guys. Then not long after that in a great annual of Secret Origins John Bryne retold the origin of the original Doom Patrol. Then retold the origin of the short lived revival of the Doom Patrol in the 70s. Then at the end of this comic it was strongly hinted that soon the Doom Patrol would come back.

When the comic did come back I loved it.But it wasn't selling well. So around issue 18 or so a new writer was brought on board and told "Do whatever you want. You got 6 issues to increase sales or the title is cancelled"

Grant Morrison was the new writer and he went wild. Killing off the DP members he didn't like. And even slowly over a few years bringing back most of the original members. 

So far,now I still need to finish season 2 of the TV show,the Doom Patrol series on HBOMax is really inspired by the Grant Morrison run. While also adding new elements.

You got Brandon Fraiser as the voice of Robotman.  Robotman was always my favorite on the team and Brandon is great as Cliff. Cliff was a race car driver. Got into a major accident and all that was saved was his brain. Which The Chief,Timothy Dalton as the leader of the Doom Patrol,puts CLiff's brain into this robo-body. Cliff is the defalt leader of the Doom Patrol.

Then there is April Bowlby as Rita Farr aka Elasti-girl. She was an actress,best known for her looks and many trips on the casting couch,who gains the ability to change the shape of her body. Her emotions control her body so once she gains these abilities she can't act anymore. IIRC in the Morrison run on the title it was revealed that when the original team "died" the only one that stayed dead was Elasti-girl.

Already mentioned that TImothy Dalton is The Chief. Who was the leader of the original team,and in the Morrison run comes back and has a nasty secret revealed about himself and the rest of the team.

Matt Borner as Larry Trainor aka Negative Man,is the other member of the original team. Well member of the original team that was there from the start. He got exposed to radiation while being a test pilot. This causes Larry to radiate radation out of his body. He is basically trapped in a lead cell to prevent him from hurting anyone. When he gets sent special bandages. Which stop the radation in his body from leaking out. Larry also learns that inside him is a radioactive duplicate. Who he can send out to do stuff.Larry so far is the character that is changed the most from the comic. Now I know that in Morrison's run and then in Rachel Polluck's run it is strongly hinted that Larry might be a gay man. In the show this isn't hinted it is flat out said.

In season 1 there is 2 other members of the team. First up is Diane Guerrero as Crazy Jane. Jane has 64 different personalities and each of them has their own superpower. Before this show all I had seen Guerrero in was Orange is a New Black. And well on that show she wasn't given much to work with. So I was a bit worried when I heard Diane had been hired to be Crazy Jane. I love Crazy Jane. She was my favorite member of the Morrison run of Doom Patrol.

Was suprised when I saw that Diane Guerrero is a great actress. She is perfect as Crazy Jane. Love how they have slowly introduced her alt personalities. Plus how like in the comic we are seeing how Cliff and Jane are falling in love. Maybe a slight spoiler,but when Morrison was leaving the title he asked if he could write his final issue as an ending for the series. He left it set up where the next writer could ignore what Morrison set up or use it. In this issue Jane is somehow in the real world. Trapped in a mental hospital. Jane is being told all her adventures with the Doom Patrol were not real. And the one thing that really gets to Jane is she is told that Robotman doesn't exist. Jane realizes she is gonna have to pretend to be better to get out. She does this. Gets out and goes to a bridge. Planning on jumping to her death. When out of nowhere Robotman appears. Tells her he has searched most of the multiverse for her. Then invites her to come with him and live the rest of their lives together on Danny the street. Great ending for a great comic. And one I hope they use on the show.

Now while he isn't an official member of the team yet on the show I gotta talk about Danny the Street. Danny is a sentient street. Who communicates by changing the text on the windows of the business on the street. Danny the street can travel and take whoever is on the street to anyplace in the world. After meeting him,assuming Danny is a male cause well Danny is usually a male name,the Doom Patrol starts using Danny the Street as their main form of transportation. Danny appears in season 1 and in season 2.

The last official member of the team in season 1,doesn't join into a bit into the season. That is Vic Stone AKA Cyborg.  Pretty sure in the comics Cyborg was never in the Doom Patrol. But he fits in perfectly in the tv show. Like the rest of the original members Cyborg feels like a freak. The actor playing him in this show is great. And I like how the FX crew managed to make Cyborg look so much like he did in the classic New Teen Titans comic. Keep hearing that DC wants Cyborg to be a huge hero for the company. Which is why he was added to the Justice League movie. So far besides the Teen Titans cartoon this Doom Patrol tv show is the only time I have seen Cyborg used right.

Most of season 1 is the team fighting MR Nobody and trying to figure out where the Chief has disappeared too. When this was airing it was one episode a week. And I didn't have the DC streaming service. SO whatever night it aired I knew which dailymotion channel was bootlegging it. Soon as they had their copy uploaded I would rip it and watch it.

When season 1 hit home video of course I grabbed it. Season 2 starts and I was doing a free trial of the DC Streaming service. Watched 2 episodes and my free trial ended. I figured I would just buy season 2 on DVD. I did that and watched 3  episodes and misplaced the dvds until recently.

Now my last show gonna goto Marvel. And to a property of theirs I am shocked they hadn't tried a live action show of before this. The show I am talking about is The Gifted. A 2 season long action/drama on FOX.

Set in the slight future,where all the X-men have vanished and the government uses robots to hunt down and capture mutants.

A dad who works for the government group in charge of capturing the mutants finds out his two teenage kids are mutants. These two are basically Fenris from the comics. Well power wise. 

The dad,mom and kids go on the run. And quickly get hooked up with the mutant underground. Which is made up of some great X-men characters that I rarely see used outside the comics. Warpath,brother of Thunderbird,is one. An Native American mutant. He is basically the mutant version of Captain America. Then there is Polaris,who in the first season is in jail. A lady mutant with magnetic powers like Magneto. Another is Blink. Blink can teleport. 

There is many other mutants introducedd in the 2 seasons the show got. Keep hearing that while the ratings were decent. The show cost a fortune to make. And wasn't getting good enough ratings to justify a 3rd season.

Well hope yall enjoyed that. Might do another of these soon. Cause there is shows like Legion,on FX and another X-men related show,Cloak and Dagger,2 seasons on ABC family. Or not from Marvel there is Constantine,DC show based on the same comic of the movie of the same name, and Umbrella Academy,based on a comic from Dark Horse wrote by the lead singer of My Chemical Romance.