Que the music. No, the good music!

I don't know about everyone else, but when I was a kid there was one thing I held above all else in the world. My cartoons. I liked Power Rangers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Transformers, but none of them help a candle to the super hero shows. I'd sit down to watch them every weekend, and if my dad didn't have something to do, he'd watch them with me, because he grew up with these characters, and he wanted to see what I was learning about them. From the interest he saw that I had with these characters, he started hunting down the cartoons he watched as a kid, so I could see them, and see how he got into comics. The thing I could never get past on any of them was the themes. With that in mind, I'm going to share the themes from then and the themes we grew up with, to show you how far we've come.

First of is The Hulk.

And now the theme from the show that started after the movie by Ang Lee.


Next is one of the few old themes that most people know, Spider-man.

Here's the little known Spider-man and his amazing friends.

And now, the 90's version.


Everyone knows about the Adam West Batman show, and how campy it is. Well, that just makes the theme even funnier to watch.

And then, when Bruce Timm, who previously had started Tiny Toon Adventures finally got the go ahead to make a Batman animated series, he did the unexpected. He used a Danny Elfman score for a cartoon theme. (Thanks for the catch)

The music and art style went together so well, and I doubt it will happen that well again.

I know that most people that have been in an arcade of any type have seen the X-Men arcade game. It is arguably one of the biggest arcade games of our generation, but did you know it's based off of a failed tv show?

And then a few years later they released the show that everyone remembers.

And then a few years after that ended came X-Men Evolution.


The next stop on our comparison trip will be the slew of Iron Man cartoons. The first one if from around the same time as the Spider-man show.

Then came the first season of the 90's show.

And then the second season, which was much better all around.


The last comparison we make is of the Fantastic Four shows. I put them here because when it aired, it was the second show of "The Marvel Action Hour" placed behind, you guessed it, Iron Man. Speaking frankly about the themes, I think this is the only show who's theme got worse on the remake. But I'll let you judge for yourself.

And now the 90's version.


Having gone through the whirlwind of cartoon themes, I know I'm a little tuckered out, so I'll keep the writing to a minimum. These shows were fun and the themes really show you where we were at the time of release, and for that you can't bash too much. Some of the younger readers my notice that we're missing a couple theme songs. Namely the newest Spider-man, Iron Man, and Batman themes. Here's the deal. I didn't watch them, so I left them out. And before you ask, yes, I watched X-men Evolution. I was just young enough when it came out to not know any better about how bad it would be.

So did I miss any other themes. Do you feel jaded that your favorite didn't make it? Let us know! We're always open to new ideas! And speaking of new ideas, do you have a post you want to see made? Tell us in the comments, or e-mail us, and we just may write it!



If you're still reading, I've got something special for you. Extra Credit Videos. I couldn't include them in the meat of the post, because they aren't being compared with a remake, but they're too good not to share.

Captain America


The God of Thunder: Mighty Thor


I dare you to get through this one.

Is there a closet in the Bat-Cave?

I was looking through my dad's old comics with him some time back, and was astounded at some of the things he had. He's has X-men #1(but it's coverless, which sucks). He has a large number of Fantastic Four, Spider-man, and even a few Power Man(almost all of which are coverless, or half-coverless. He was a kid and didn't care what condition they were in). But the comic he had that shocked me more than anything was this.


I picked this up out of the box and immediately started cracking up. He asked what was so funny, and through my tears of joy, I barely got out "what the hell is rainbow batman?" He then explains the story, which I guess makes since for the time, but it still raises some questions.

Here's how it goes. Dick Grayson is publicly heroic as himself(instead of Robin, if you didn't know) and everyone knows that Dick is hurt. He saw some criminals at the same time, and can ID them, but if he goes out as Robin injured, everyone will figure it out. So Batman's first idea is to dress up in all sorts of different colorful batsuits to draw all attention to him and away from Robin. The culmination of these is the rainbow suit.

It's questionable as to whether this was a simple good idea badly executed, or an underhanded way of telling everyone Batman's sexual preference(rainbows are a gay rallying point after all). I personally don't care. I just find the comic hilarious. You can make your own inferences, it's your right to.

This next picture is one I ran across while looking for the above images, which I've seen before, and it always seems to at least make me smirk.