Bearmemesofficial's Creature and Character Design Analysis Hub. Currently on: Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure! & Mystery Incorperated.
WARNING: This blog is 16+, main moderator is a fully grown adult and reading this content is accepting that some of this material may not be appropriate for all ages - Reader Beware.
Sup, name's Bear, or BMO. I am an amateur Character and Creature Designer who is currently designing my own Tabletop Boardgame. In-between now and then, I want to dip my toes into criticism and analysis to help finetune my own tastes to better understand what it takes to design fighting monsters.
Currently I am focused on Skylanders, reviewing its Main Characters (Specifically those tied into the games main gimmicks).
Tags
#bmospeaks - Refers to posts where I address readers directly. Such as through asks or comments.
#bmoreviews - Refers to the main posts of this tumblr, aka, my creature design reviews.
#nonbmoreviews - Obviously refers to any posts that aren't reviews.
All Fandoms and Characters will be noted in the tags.
Socials:
BlSky Account: Bear/Memes/Official without the slashes
Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/bearmemesofficial
Devn.art: TheBearmemesOfficial - Hobbyist, Artist | DeviantArt
Decided to add my Ko-Fi to my pinned post on the off-chance someone wants to buy me a coffee so I can draw and talk about monsters on the internet more.
Let's return to our regularly scheduled Skylanders Reviews with our next Fire Elemental, Ignitor!
[Image: Ignitor is a sentient ball of fire nestled within a squat suit of armor, the armor being a metallic blue with silver accents. His body is the armor more or less, which is mostly just a large helmet with the leg and arm pieces of the suit growing out of it. The helmet almost shares the same head shape as Optimus Prime. The top of the helmet is open, allowing tendrils of fire to flow out of it like hair or plumage. He wields a flaming serrated sword.]
Ignitor, formerly called Ignatius when he wasn't a sentient suit of armor, was once a regular knight of unknown species until a witch tricked him into wearing a supposedly "fire-proof" suit of armor to help him fight a dragon. Turns out, the armor was cursed, so the moment the dragon's fire touched him he was turned into a fire spirit. The cursed steel of his new shell bound his flaming spirit to the armor, leading to his current form.
He retains his personality, and now seeks out to find the witch who tricked him while working alongside the Skylanders. Cursed armor, sentient fire, and cursed armor filled with sentient fire are a classic fantasy trope that makes sense for this world so I'm glad to see it here.
His design is rather simple, but I like his funny proportions. One has to wonder if he became a head with limbs ala Modok before or after getting cursed. It's also nice to know that Ignatius took the curse in stride and never lost sight of who he was. Ignoring the potential spelling error in my reference guide, there's not much else to him. Besides it specifying how terrified he was of facing the dragon before the witch tricked him. Guess it's hard to read the fine print when you're shivering your timbers.
His simple design seemed to be his downfall, as he doesn't even have an exclusive skin for any of the mobile games. Which is a shame.
Motto: "Slash and Burn!" I mean, he does do that I guess. Pretty basic even if it's a threat he can carry through. 2/5.
3/5, a good entry that's been a bit forgotten. Carry on Sir Ignatius.
We return to our regularly scheduled dragons with our first instance of a full-blown Echo Fighter, aka Camo!
[Image: Camo is the Leafeon to Spyro's Eevee, a plant elemental that shares the purple dragon's body type and facial structure. He has green skin, and rather than scales, leaves cover almost every inch of his body. He has thorns in place of horns and spikes, with a trail of them going down his back down to the tip of his tail. The thorns are as yellow as his claws, and the leaves on his chest and stomach, with smaller thorns even lined up where his eyebrows would be. His eyes are as red as tomatoes, with large black pupils and yellow irises. On either side of his eyes are a small collection of oval yellow scales. The leaves on his back are large and spiny, with a long flat leaf acting as his tail. His ombré legs go from green at the knees/elbows, to red all the way to his toes. He has small red thorns coming out the sides of his feet.]
I have mixed feelings about this character, as he's a pretty good design for a Spyro skin - but it's really weird that he's meant to be a second character.
He first started out as an Eastern Dragon, sharing no resemblance to Spyro in his beta figure. He was called Sun Dragon, but the only remains of that in his canon appearance is the fact that he incorporates photosynthesis in his moves.
Camo is a Dragon-Plant hybrid who was hatched in the roots of the Tree of Life. He has a magic green thumb that not only allows him to grow produce quickly, but also ripen them to the point of exploding. Obviously, after nearly having a melon blow his head off Eon thought this guy's Plant Warfare would benefit the team.
He also joins in the numerous attempted murders of an NPC named Hugo by planting veggie bombs in the guy's salad. The book adds that he's also Eon's personal gardener, and hates the shade - outright calling him a sun worshipper.
His powers are mostly focused on his gardening skills, including the previously mentioned Melon Bombs with some thorny vines thrown in for good measure.
He doesn't really get anything else besides a Season 2 Figure, which decides to give him a large set of thorny bull horn-like thorns on the sides of his head. His head (T)Horns are also redesigned to resemble a Mohawk more.
Motto: "Fruit Punch!" I respect him for reclaiming it. 4/5.
2/5, a really good design held back by the fact that it looks too much like a green Spyro. I especially want to shout out the color choices, they are very pretty.
Remember when Boomer used to be like, an actual name someone would have. I mean, it was mostly used for slacker characters in 80s cartoons and the occasional 90s surfer. Then old people tried to start fights with the kids they abandoned to screens and a bad economy and now we're here.
Yeah, that's a Boomer alright.
[Image: Boomer is a squat green goblin-like Troll whose head is nearly the same size as its entire body. He has bat-like ears as long as his upper arms, and short furry legs the same color as his beard and ear hair tufts. He also wears blue metallic gauntlets and clawed boots. It appears he wears no other clothing, as its mostly just more copper-colored fur covering his body. His Troll nose is almost carrot-shaped, while his large copper-colored eyes have different sized irises that make him look a little unhinged. He carries a bag on his back full of dynamite sticks.]
An odd little guy, Boomer is a Tech Elemental due to being a demolitionist. Trolls are said to love explosions, but Boomer strays from the pack due to his distaste for war. He turned his back on his own battalion to protect a town, soon becoming the first and only troll to become a Skylander.
He has typical gremlin characteristics, being too manic for his own good. Despite this he's remarkably kind, and it's stated this was the main thing that made him misunderstood by other trolls - though it's stated that before joining the Skylanders that his favorite past time was blowing sheep up.
He still does it; he just denies it when asked now.
He went through a few redesigns since being Bomb Troll, one of the beta five alongside Red Spyro and Tarclops. He started off much meaner looking, and even older. It's stated in the reference book that he's fairly young, in a way that implies he might be underaged (though not a child).
This won't be the last time the Skylanders employ child labor.
He also got a Leprechaun skin in the app game.
Motto: "Bring the Boom!" Basic but good. 3/5.
2/5. He isn't bad, just not all that much if you can tell by how little the franchise does with him. He's a fine character, even if he looks more like a goblin than a troll. Yes, there is a difference.
As you can tell by our episode's title, today Mystery Incorporated tackles the Chthulu mythos! Gotta love those weird ugly squid gods, and the fact that their writer chickened out when it came to describing them only adds to their charm. Everyone loves designing creatures that can "break" the mind of anyone who looks at it directly.
Scooby-Doo was neither the first nor the last children's show to tackle this topic, but MI is our first real representation of it for the franchise. Let's talk about it and the gang's first college tour.
Backstory: The gang are all driven to the Darrow University by their parents whose motives are far different from their children's. Meanwhile, the college is playing host to two popular writers who couldn't be any more different. Harlan Ellison is a no-nonsense tightwad whose work is more "respectable" than the cosmic horror tales written by H.P. Hatecraft - this universe's version of our H.P.
One of Ellison's fans disparages the works of Hatecraft, and is swiftly attacked and kidnapped by the main villain of those stories. The gang mostly stumbles into this mystery by accident, preoccupied by their early brushes with college life. Daphne becomes a communist, Fred is put through homoerotic hazing, and Shaggy points out that he's no longer voiced by a vegetarian in a very unsubtle way.
Velma is the one who actually came to meet Ellison at a book signing, and the gang soon cross each other's paths before finding Ellison being terrorized by green Squidward.
The gang still have their hang-ups, much more strained thanks to everyone's love troubles. They even get distracted from the mystery thanks to their previous college antics, until Char Gar Gothakon attacks Shag and Scoob directly. When the gang confronts Hatecraft, he first gives them the "whispers from another world that I translate into the best-selling written word" spiel. However, to dispel the beast he decides to reveal to an entire class of people the truth.
He made it all up, there is no dark force from an alternate dimension giving him material to write. This upsets his number one fan, but that pales in comparison to how badly Charizard Gengar Gothita takes the news. The Gangrene Illithid kidnaps his creator and takes him back to Hateman's house, which is also where the Ellison fan was being kept prisoner in.
Chary Gary becomes another attempted murderer, deciding that Hatecraft deserved an appointment with the ground after a trip to the roof. The gang distracts the monster long enough to save both Hatecraft, and Char Gar Gothakon, when they nearly fall off the roof. They finally muzzled his tentacles, a trick Fred learned from his college buddies, solving the mystery you already did several minutes ago.
Design: Char Gar Gothakon is a humanoid octopus-human hybrid wearing cultish robes, obviously based on Chthulu and Illithids from D&D. Octopus-faced monsters are just awesome, with the sea creature they're based on already being some of the coolest things on our planet. Did you know all of them are venomous, and some of the best hunter-killers in the sea? They're like wolves in that way, creatures we can both hype up as supernatural omens of death and real-life predators you don't mess with.
Char Gar Gothakon: The Beast with no name, is rather lanky despite how stocky its wearer is. It has diamond-shaped eyes with orange irises and yellow sclera and pupils. It has a globular smooth head and wriggling tentacles encompassing most of its lower face. It's body, especially its "forehead", is covered in skin patterns resembling green splotches like the markings of a frog. It also has small siphons, two on each side of its head, in place of ears. Another easy to miss detail are the gillman-like fins on its forearms.
Its outfit is rather flamboyant, resembling a priest's dressing with a turned-up high collar that's too large for its already giant head. Its shoulder pads are gigantic and connected to the rest of the outfit by the belt. It's belt and bicep bracelets are all gold.
It doesn't even wear a shirt, the middle piece of its outfit being mostly made-up of intersecting strips that expose its shoulders, ribs, and V-line.
Honestly, it's a pretty slutty costume. Besides it's vertical striped long skirt it also wears fingerless elbow-length gloves that also have gaps to expose MORE of its skin.
For powers, it uses a sonic screech that's powerful enough to Launch a grown man onto a car's hood. Its face tentacles can also stretch out, revealing a large circular maw full of sharp teeth underneath, to entangle a victim. The tentacles also stretch and contort in a way that shouldn't even be physically possible since they were taken from a real dead octopus.
Reveal: The true culprit turns out to be Hatecraft's own superfan and student assistant, Howard E. Roberts (named after Robert E. Howard). He decided to bring Hatecraft's monster to life to get back at the haters. However, when Hatecraft declared himself a fraud the superfan decided that the author needed to be destroyed. He made his sonic death blast technology with the help of his college courses by the way.
It is actually through deriding their fans that Ellison and Hatecraft find companionship with each other, leaving the gang to discover the archived documents stolen by Mr. E left in the Mystery Machine.
The plot thickens.
5/5, Western Media needs more Mindflayer rep. Nice Gregorian Chants by the way.
See, you can talk about Lovecraft without mentioning his cat being named after the N-Word.
Oh, a Skylander I actually have good things to say about! Slam Bam is our second Water type Skylander, but in this case he's one that represents the Ice portion of the element.
[Image: Slam Bam is a muscular, humanoid yeti with icy blue skin and white fur. He has a wavy short beard and medium length hair on the top of his head. Slam Bam's face is a bit compressed, with large yellow eyes and a larger mouth full of sharp teeth. It's ears and nose are oddly small, however. Its digits are tipped with dark blue claws, and fur covers his legs from the waist down to the ankles. His most noteworthy feature are his four arms, all four of his wrists being covered in hair.]
Slam Bam tackles a specific species of monster, Yetis, and decides to give them two sets of arms to help him stand out. From his lore we know he spent most of his time isolated on a small patch of ice before Kaos destroyed it, leaving Slam Bam stranded on an iceberg before washing up on Eon's turf.
The reference book goes a little deeper into his bio, stating that his isolation was on purpose and that Kaos blew up his glacier to find out what the secret ingredient to Slam Bam's snow cones was. He also dislikes hot, spicy foods and is a frosty guy who takes time to warm up to others.
Slam Bam's alternates include this "Legendary" figure, with golden armor (and golden claws on his feet for some reason?) and a darker blue color to his whole body. In fact, he looks a little like Beast from the X-Men.
For his racecar design, he wears spiked armor like his legendary form but its made of ice - he also wears skiing goggles now.
Finally, we have a Surfer counterpart that's only available in a spin-off app game that gave several Skylanders gimmicky alternate skins. Here he's a Summer Yeti, with raw pink skin and pale blonde fur. He wears beach shorts, and has a lei slung over his body. He's now a surfer, his surfboard having the symbol for his element carved into it.
Motto: "Armed and Dangerous!" Pretty sure Doc Ock already used this. Classic pun though. 2/5
4/5, a cool yeti guy. I have one of his figures and to express his ice powers his figurine was made with semi-translucent blue plastic which looks cool.
So um Yeah, we've covered 1/4 of the original thirty-two Skylanders, now we gotta' talk about Double Trouble.
[Image: Double Trouble is a um, "Shaman" character. His face is actually a tiki mask, with a rectangular shape that extends his forehead to a higher position. His mask has canine-like teeth surrounded by a rectangular, carved in lips, alongside a carved unibrow. There are also five additional quadrilateral markings above his unibrow that almost resemble SpongeBob's eyelashes. You can see his lime green eyes through the mask. There are several feathers decorating the sides of the mask, alongside a grass-skirt with a leather...fanny pack maybe? Its latch is tied around a cartoonish bone, and you cannot see any legs under his skirt so that's a cool detail I guess. Anything not covered up by his "traditional" garments reveals that he has blue skin, with humanoid features. He wields a staff topped with a crystal, with metallic fixtures surrounding it, and with more feathers decorating it.]
So um, remember the Witch Doctor and Shaman monsters from the OG Scooby-Doo series? Kids franchises really loved those wooden masks!
Okay these masks are really cool, and they are a great representation of cultures - especially with how humans all have the same idea of using artificial faces to intimidate others or put on performances.
But like, this is...not good right? I can't really say the devs who designed this guy deserve a 1000 years of misfortune for not being all that culturally sensitive, but look at him.
Better yet, look at the fact that most of his in-game dialogue is just different iterations of Ooga Booga. No seriously.
I am not comfortable with this, like his species is apparently "Tiki Man"??? I feel like if you want something Tiki inspired that has no connection to the culture actually connected to that imagery, you could at least make up a new name for it? Video Games are a half-visual media, so the connection would be easy to make through design alone. Here it feels kinda lazy just to call something "Tiki [Blank]", like calling the stars and stripes a "Flag pattern" in a world where America doesn't even exist.
The Tiki stuff is just aesthetics by the way, there is no other cultural influence because it's very clear he's mostly based on African Shaman stereotypes.
His backstory is basically the same as the Zebra from My Little Pony, and his name comes from the fact that he ate a special plant that gave him the ability to create clones with his already expert magic. The first positive I can give this character is that I enjoy him getting along with his clones despite the fact that they're all tiny bombs mechanically.
It gets even weirder because one of his beta figure designs is just a normal elf-eared wizard with no Tiki elements. Perhaps it was deemed too similar to Eon, but with a few redesigns it could've worked. Even taking Chompy Wizard into account.
Motto: "Boom Shock-a-locka!" I did not like writing this review. 1/5.
One. He gets one. The Bone Chompy of Death.
Did I mention that I will not do a full creature design review of the original Scooby-Doo! Where are You roster of monsters for reasons this review makes apparent.
Yeah, you read that right, and no, there is no episode actually called that. You see, the next few episodes couldn't produce enough material to make separate posts for them - especially when compared to the college episode - but I felt like giving you all a gift with an extra-long review covering the designs and stories of the next three episodes. Battle of the Humungonauts, Howl of the Fright Hound, and The Secret Serum. Let's call this the Break-up trilogy.
In these episodes Shelgma finally breaks up and created the first fracture in the group, leading to the hilariously f*cked up and nonsensical plot point of Shaggy picking his dog over a human girl woman.
This sounds like a progressive plot point for a Family Guy episode.
Let's get into this.
Backstory (Part 1): A giant ape-man interrupts the sheriff and mayor's (Fred's Dad) date at a tiki bar by destroying the locale, a scathing critique of Polynesian Appropriation in western media. This draws the gang's attention, which is necessary as Velma has reached her breaking point when it comes to Shaggy's inability to commit. She makes an ultimatum, alongside with Scooby, that Shaggy needs to pick one of them already. Fun fact, this is the first episode where the gang officially calls themselves Mystery Incorporated in the story.
Fred attempts to mend the cracking group dynamic by getting everyone uniforms, much to the group's embarrassment. As the group investigates, it's soon revealed that there are two Humongonauts - one red and another green.
As the Humongonauts continue to wreck different buildings in Crystal Cove, the gang first suspect an escaped Ace Attorney character named Rusty Gnales as the man in the mask. The gang hits there first snag however when the next Humongonaut attack targets Rusty.
With help from Mr. E, Velma puts together how to draw both Humongonauts to the same location. Once the two encounter each other, they duke it out before finally landing into a trap.
First Reveal: The culprits are first seen on-screen when they are unmasked, but both characters were revealed previously through their advertisements! A really cool way to give the answer away without making it too obvious. The Humogonauts turn out to be Max and Jax Minner, twin brothers who were both circus strongmen before entering the Insurance business. They were rivals since one of them transferred to a rival circus, the Humongonaut costumes actually being leftovers from one of their previous acts.
As rivals, they targeted buildings insured by the other to ruin their sibling's business - and Velma got them together by insuring an abandoned dock under both companies.
Design(s): The Humongonauts are two giant humanoid creatures believed by the sheriff to be aliens. Obviously based on the hokey costumes of B-Movie Monsters, the Humongonauts share the same design but with different colors. Despite their large size, they are rather squat proportion-wise, with elephant-like furless legs and gorilla arms. Their faces are orc-like, with wavy boyband member hair and goblin ears.
Interestingly, their biceps and abdomens are hairless like their face, but they also have small scale-like details. Speaking of their faces, there are markings going around their temples and over their eyes that almost resembles a domino mask - though they don't meet in the middle over the bridge of their human noses.
Overall, I find them charming and serviceable, but not that interesting in the long run. I love how they look like heels for a local hometown wrestling tournament who are clearly just there to get beat on by the town's golden boy.
Final Score for The Humongonauts:
2/5, not too interesting but fun bad guys of the week.
Backstory (Part 2): While the last episode had Shaggy avoiding the conversation entirely, this one tackles it head on before leading us to the infamous break-up scene. Before we get there, we must first deal with the Terminator homage sharing the love triangle's screentime.
A rabid and powerful dog has begun a series of random attacks, the first of which being the tour bus Velma's mom drives. Its collar gets left behind while escaping, one remarkably similar to Scooby's. With this evidence the Sheriff decides to detain Scooby-Doo in a mental hospital/prison made specifically for intelligent, and very dangerous animals.
One such case being Professor Pericles, the talking German parrot/mascot for the old Mystery Incorporated. Pericles disposes of the guard for a minute to give some esoteric warnings to the gang, right before Mystery Inc checks up on Scoob to reassure him that they are indeed planning on solving the mystery.
Their first suspect, a boy named Jason, is considered since he's a whiz at robotics and has a crush on Velma. However, he proves to have an alibi and kicks the gang out of his house after they accuse him.
The scary dog then targets the gang, and later on Scooby himself, afterwards. The final showdown begins at the Animal Asylum for the Criminally Insane, where the guards go all out on trying to stop the "Fright Hound". A fire then starts, melting away its fur to reveal that it was a robot all along.
The robot dog then chases Scoob and the gang when they escape the asylum, following them into an abandoned factory where a Forklift-certified Scooby tackles his shadow head on. With the help of the dangerous machinery surrounding them, they proceed to brutally wreck the robo-dog until it stops moving.
The gang then spot the true culprit controlling the machine, before snatching them up with a crane. With the mystery solved, Shaggy reveals that he ultimately chooses Scooby-Doo after realizing how important he is to him.
Velma takes this badly.
Also, the bird breaks out of Arkham Asylum.
Second Reveal: The true culprit is actually Mrs. Wyatt, Jason's Mom. It's actually never even made clear why she did it like this, since attacking Velma's mom did no favors for her son's relationship with the gang. She used her experience with Military-Grade Robotics to create the Fright Hound to help protect her son in a weird, slightly incompetent way.
Design(s): The Fright Hound begins as a large dog the same breed as Scooby, with similar features as well. It's eyes and muzzle, however, are more realistic when compared to Scoob. Its eyes glow red, and long fangs jut out of its mouth past its heavy jowls.
It looks even cooler when its false skin melts off, revealing a terminator-like endoskeleton in the shape of a ferocious dog. Oddly enough, it also looks a bit like a giant robot rat. I really love this design, especially its second form, and it can look legitimately frightening in some shots.
Final Score for The Fright Hound:
5/5, it's motives leave a lot to be desired, but you can't say it isn't an awesome freaking design. So cool.
Backstory (Part 4): Our final episode for this review begins at an auction ran by Daphne's Mom, Nan Blake. It's interrupted by a Vampire who proceeds to swoop in and steal a painting that nobody else wanted.
The episode follows the fallout of Shelgma's breakup, Velma still peeved off over getting second place to a dog. This causes the boys and girls to split up momentarily before the Vampire's crime spree draws them back together to the same clues. Daphne and Velma begin to track Nan Blake's movements, as Daphne's mom has begun sneaking out late at night.
With a little forceful help from Mr. E and his assistant, the gang soon realize that the Vampire is actually stealing ingredients for an Eternal Youth Potion found in an old magazine.
Using this knowledge, they eventually capture her before she can acquire the last item on the list - Daphne being convinced that it's her mom as a real vampire.
Right before she can drive a stake into the Vampire's chest, killing her mom regardless of her undead-ness, the Orlokian removes her mask to avoid dying a painfully brutal death at the hands of a Prep.
Third Reveal: See that vampire-looking lady next to Daphne's Mom? Yeah, that's Sheila Altoonian and she's the Vampire. Resentful of Nan's natural beauty, she attempted to create the potion to avoid aging despite its dubious origins.
Yeah, everyone in the fandom agrees this is top 3 weakest motives in the series.
Design(s): I actually really like this design! It's almost like a Comic Book Villain whose a Vampire, like Morbius, and it fits the show much better than glitter boy. She's a pale bald woman, with features reminiscent of Count Orlok - the best one to do it since Big Drac.
She has an interesting costume, consisting of a heavily modified cape and full bodysuit that cuts off at the elbows and knees. Her cleavage is on full display, and her collar, like all good vampires, is popped open way wide. She wears a black choker and her eyes glow purple.
Her cape and suit are actually structured, in-canon, to use the same physics a Flying Squirrel uses to become airborne. Thus, she could fly and swoop around large, enclosed areas like a real vampire could.
Final Score for the Vampire
3.5/5. Not too original or complex, but I love its sleek design and campy appearance - I feel like a Drag Queen could probably elevate this look further though. Otherwise, a Flying Squirrel Countess is hard to dislike even with a bad motive.
Today's Freak of the Week is a more serious take on a creature type seldom seen outside of Children's Fantasy, Gnomes!
Yep, for years the fair folk and their kin have been delegated to just tiny humans with magic - ignoring years of folklore and cautionary tales that describe these creatures as actual monsters born from the earth with all sorts of nasty plots in their minds.
We have since turned around once again, around the same time superheroes started to scoff at tights in their shows and movies to an annoying degree, and as we get more public domain horror movies expect ANOTHER switch back to sincere fairy tale fodder.
But until then, let's talk about this parkour elf and his blue cheese touch.
Backstory: Crystal Cove has a Reneissance Faire! Which the gang attends, displaying all their personalities in the costumes they chose to dress in. Notice how Shaggy and Scoob are dressed like pirates? Well that's plot relevant!
An Evil Gnome has been terrorizing the faire, attacking those who come as pirates despite the medieval themed dress code. I don't know why, I'm pretty sure by 2010 pirates as a fandom were already petrified by a certain Disney Franchise's later films.
Yep, Petrification! A really cool power that's seldom used, but when doesn't it look cool? I love the iridescent glowing blue veins that grow on the victims as they freeze in place. Neither freezing them in ice nor encasing them in stone, but still immobilizing them in a way that would be indistinguishable from "real" magic.
As for the rest of the plot, you may have started to notice that almost every gang member has been getting kidnapped at some point to give the gang something to act irrational over - Velma and Scooby fighting over the parrot from Shaggy's pirate costume when he's taken for example, giving Daphne some reprieve.
Mr. E offers his two cents on Shelma at the end of the episode, for reasons that'll become apparent later.
As the day goes on and the suspects, all dwarves or otherwise very short people, are dismissed, the gang finally trap the athletic Gnome with a good old pit. But not before Daphne actually gets to one up the gnome, using the one thing all fairies and other anklebiters fear - steel!
Design: The Gnome is a classic fairy tale creature, and I love how MI's version has been redesigned to keep all the goofy, fantastical elements in place without straying too far to make it scary. It wears tattered clothing barely held together by some stitches where the sleeves connect, consisting of a simple tunic with red pants. It has boots, though it could also just be black wrappings around its feet. It also wears black gloves, metal arm bracelets with large bolts attached to them, a buckled sash, and a large, stitched-up red gnome cap.
Its face is where it gets really good, with regular humanoid features exaggerated as they would be for a regular gnome - mostly a large nose and ears that stick out - but made extra freaky with beady yellow eyes with no irises, only red pupils. Its skin is also warty and a decrepit, green-tinged blue. Its eyes are even sunken in, making it look more like a corpse that's begun to mold.
Its powers include the ability to run and hop like a trained athlete, leaping around so fast he can't be captured or evaded, alongside a touch that paralyzes. This actually makes him one of the more physically threatening foes the gang's faced. And I like that the applies to a goofy man with a cowboy mustache and long beard tied into pigtails.
Reveal: Daphne evades the paralysis touch by hiding steel gauntlets under her dress, catching the gnome off guard. He then tries to escape but only ends up trapping himself in a previously failed spike pit. Once captured it's revealed that of the three main employees of the ren faire, it was actually the pirate-supporting jester Gill Littlefoot all along. He tried to frame his wife, the pirate-hating queen, in order to get control of her money.
I am not qualified to discuss any potentional ableism displayed by Patrick Warburton in Scooby-Doo Mystery Incorporated.
5/5 Really cool take on a classic archetype seldom used for Horror, and so well executed that I think it'd actually work well for its own folk horror movie like The VVitch. I am genuinely surprised by how much I like The Evil Gnome.
P.S. I love the explanation that the petrification was caused by the toxin of a made-up species of Jellyfish. I love when shows tries to explain away gimmicks by using an exaggeration of real-life biology, like how Pufferfish toxin can be used to create "zombies".
"While just an egg, Cynder was stolen by the henchmen of an evil dragon named Malefor and raised to do his bidding. For years, she spread fear throughout the land until she was defeated by Spyro the dragon and freed from the grip of Malefor. But dark powers still flow through her, and despite her desire to make amends for her past, most Skylanders try to keep a safe distance… just in case."
Read that bio alright? Yeah, that's basically all my knowledge on this character.
[Image: Cynder is a quadrupedal dragon with many similarities to Spyro, almost being the same shade of purple as him. She has magenta accents instead of mustard yellow ones, specifically for the webbing of her wings and her stomach plating. Her horns, wingtips, claws, and the tip of her tail are made of steel. She wears steel, spiked bands around her front legs/"wrists" and neck as well. The tip of her tail resembles the head of a spear, while her short horns go down the sides of her head - three on each side parallel to one another. She has a short snout, blue eyes, and magenta gecko-like patterns on her forehead.]
The Skylanders Netflix show gives her a few episodes of note, though she only has a slightly bigger role than Crash Bandicoot in the overarching story. Though Malefor, who's her dad I guess(??), is the one to tease Spyro's secret origins which we never got to see because the show ended on THAT as a cliffhanger.
Why did they make her neck so long in the show?
As for the game, she's an Undead Skylander purely because of her connection to evil. It's a bit odd, and I am honestly surprised Toys for Bob didn't pull a Pokémon when they got new elements later. Her dark evil powers seem to only center on electricity, called "Spectral Lightning". She can also call upon a ghost for allyship and burst forward as a shadow.
I feel like I'm missing a lot of history regarding this character, and would not be surprised if there was some hidden history regarding DeviantArt fandom groups and whatever ships you wanted to see her in.
Motto: "Volts and Lightning!" Okay??? 1/5.
3/5 Chompies. The Renamon of Spyro I guess? Tried not to let my lack of knowledge of Spyro canon conflict with the design itself, so I decided she and Spyro can share scores.
Welcome back to Scooby-Doo Mystery Incorporated, and now we're getting into a problem many reboots and adaptions face - what happens when you try something different. Today's episode isn't really that special, serving as a bridging point between the next stint of episodes focused on the gang's love lives.
Except for featuring the Hex Girls of course.
Not to overshadow the main villain, which would be extra funny considering their backstory, but come on that's what y'all are here for.
Yeah, they got a bit of a redesign since their last few appearances in the two billion direct to DVD films. Fans DID NOT like this, and in a later episode they had to actually address the backlash while also scrapping these outfits for the original ones. They also steal Luna and Dusk's hair dye and gave Thorn's highlights a diminished role.
My personal opinion? Eh, I would've preferred a middle ground between the two, but for reboots I encourage designers to go all out since it's their own thing. So for Mystery Incorporated I would've either kept the redesigns or gave them completely brand new looks a second time. The OGs have a more cohesive aesthetic, but I like how MI experiments by giving each girl their own Alt style. It's probably Dusk who could probably use a new outfit though, since her Tank Girl getup doesn't mesh as well as Thorn's "Pagan School Girl" and Luna's "Lesbian Thespian" outfits do. Actually, maybe one of those Scene Kid reconstructions of School Uniforms would've worked better?
Oh yeah, this nerd.
Backstory: Like most lesbians Velma is a massive fan of The Hex Girls, snagging front row tickets for the Scooby Gang just in time for them to witness a "Phantom" try to murder Thorn on stage. As with every mystery the gang decide to take it upon themselves to do the cop's job to keep the concert going while protecting the band.
This leads to an exploration of the show's two main ships, Fredphe and Shoob - again, yes really.
This show is really good trust me on this.
Scooby outright calls Shaggy a cheater for going to prom with Velma instead of hanging out with him like they always do, and replaces Mathew Lillard with a wooden dummy much to Shaggy's chagrin.
Fred meanwhile comes out as nonbinary a teenage boy with emotions as he finally grasps Daphne's romantic interest in him. All thanks to an entire song written by Daphne where she uses Fred's special interest to get through to him.
Behold, one of the best songs made for a television show in history.
Before this spectacular moment of audio interposed with occasional Zelda CDI-level animation (to be fair are you even looking at the animation in the first place) we got some Phantom shenanigans. Mostly him responding to Scoob and Shag's ability to warp time and space by just setting them on fire, probably the most effective thing one these guys have attempted so far.
Design: Obviously a homage to The Phantom of the Opera, and as we go through the series, you'll start to notice a lot more homages that Wikipedia will kindly point out for you. Though you can also see a bit of Comic Supervillain in his design, so much so that he doesn't seem to fit with the show's own aesthetic. He wears a black full body suit with a gigantic, taller than his own head, Dracula collar and grim reaper-esque hood. He has a fabricated piece of his outfit that goes over his shoulders like Football Pads, but with a sleeker design as it attaches his cape to the main costume. His cape is black but its interior is lined with a sparkling holographic material.
His mask, belt, boots, and glovers are all made of golden mechanical pieces, as they actually allow him to charge up bolts of electricity to fire at the teens in our show. This tech is never explained, and he really only uses it a few times before forgetting he has these weapons at his disposal.
His mask is the best part of the outfit, legitimately cool while evoking a gas mask. It's almost like it was made out of several pieces asymmetrically stuck to each other with large bolts, like if C3PO was mangled in an accident and put back together with recolored bits of R2-D2. There are several short, cylindrical ports on his gauntlets, boots, belt, and mask that occasionally glow green.
Reveal: Shaggy, with an extensive knowledge of obscure musical groups as we'll be shown time and time again, recognized the shiny material of The Phantom's cape as belonging to a One-Hit Wonder named Fantzee Pantz. And once that's discovered it's pretty obvious that the other suspect, The Hex Girl's manager, is not the culprit as he was just as responsible for Fantzee's obscurity as THG.
No, the true culprit is the girl's songwriter, who first attempted to sabotage them through badly written songs but was thwarted by the girl's talent and popularity - So he then turned to just trying to kill them, and Daphne. He ends up taking Scoob's dummy to jail with him, but the original duo patch things up by then - letting us look back at Velma who got sidelined so badly this episode.
2/5 Goofy as hell design for a goofy character, probably the most "Villain of The Week" we've encountered so far. In fact, he'd probably fit in better in Miraculous Ladybug than this show. Not that bad otherwise, just not as impressive.
Welcome back to Skylanders Review: Spyro's Adventure edition. We'll be tackling our first Air Elemental with Lightning Rod, a character I don't actually have much to say about!
[Image: Lightning Rod is something called a Storm Titan, Blue Skinned Humanoids who have an entire Nimbus/Cloud instead of legs. He has green eyes, a large broad nose, and Chesnut brown hair. He's most likely based on Greek/Roman Gods, especially those who wield Lightning Bolts as weapons like he does, and thus he has long, magnificent hair and a full flowing beard. He's wears nothing to avoid covering up his massive pecs and shredded abs, but he does wear spiked golden bands on his wrists.]
Lightning Rod here is actually a trope I really like, even if he's otherwise quite plain when it comes to the Skylanders roster. I just like the silhouette of characters whose entire lower body is made up of condensation. The nimbus, aka clouds that are more solid than you'd think, are just cool and it makes sense to include a character that uses them in the first batch of Air types.
LR here is not a god despite his design, as Storm Titans are just the species that occupy the Cloud Kingdom he came from. His lore states that he was a Hometown Celebrity and was celebrated with praise and statues in his image. However, he found this life unsatisfactory and was immediately intrigued when Spyro visited the kingdom and told his own tales of adventure. LR was hooked on the stories and followed Spyro to seek Eon's audience in the hopes of becoming a Skylander as well.
He's another character that's fallen to the wayside, only getting a few scant appearances in the several spin-off books for the games. Even his second figure was just a new sculpt that doesn't change anything besides how many bolts he has.
Oddly enough the Complete Collection book I use as a secondary reference has an entirely different backstory, stating that Lightning casually blasted away Kaos when the little guy tried to take over a sporting event. This impressed Eon enough to get Rod recruited.
I do like the small detail that he can be distracted with his own reflection.
Motto: "One Strike and You're Out." A good Motto, not only does it tie into his power set, but it also incorporates a brag since in baseball it takes Three strikes before you're out.
2/5 Chompies out of Five. I can't really justify giving him anymore, since compared to other Skylanders he's rather forgettable. That doesn't mean he isn't a necessary representation of his monster archetype. He avoids a 1 thanks to Pretty Privilege.
Genuinely wondered if the read more was necessary.
Last time we tackled Underaged Pied Pipers, and now we get to a meaty episode. Specifically, one that homes in on the fact that this Scooby-Doo series is focused on continual story-telling instead of the episodical antics of series past and future (except for Velma but that's an entirely different conversation.)
...
If there's ever a continuation of this specific adaptation of Scooby-Doo I would not be surprised if they did the Scrappy joke with that version of Velma ESPECIALLY with what's revealed in the finale.
Anyway, a Ghost Girl has been kidnapping teenage boys and the Prom is tomorrow!
Backstory: The prom approaches and the Shaggy/Velma/Scooby love triangle (yes you read that right) begins to hit its full stride as Shaggy has to choose between his best friend and his girlfriend..?
Meanwhile a new girl named Alice May transfers to the gang's High School, at the same time as rumors beginning to spread that a dead girl has been snatching up unsuspecting boys in her ghostly limousine. Daphne begins to have suspicions that these two new girls have more in common, all the while Alice May has been trying to Alicia Keys' Fredphe despite the two not being a couple yet.
Too old of a reference um... she's trying to Ariana Grande Fredphe. Yeah sure, will update this in the 2030s maybe.
I do not care about the romance in this show. Do you? Let's move on.
Daphne takes initiative, doing most of the investigating while everyone else is preoccupied with their prom troubles - mostly because solving the mystery of the week will probably solve HER prom troubles.
I found a Mr. Enter Animated Atrocities Template used for this episode while googling it, so um, yeah. Enjoy that psychic damage caused by those five words.
Eventually everything comes to a head at the prom, where Daphne, unable to convince Fred that Alice May is a ghost, instead convinces him to skip out on his date to hang out with his friends. This peeves off Alice May, so she crashes the Prom to get revenge. This thankfully lets everyone put a pause on their issues to capture her before she ruins the night completely for several members of the Chan Clan and those two homophobic gay jocks.
Design: Side note it's hard to find high quality images for this girl compared to her peers. So, Alice May might be one of the simplest monster designs in the show. So simple that the monster is called the "Ghost Gir", and everyone else calls her Alice May in both disguises. As a Ghost, she carries an aura of an urban legend you'd hear in the 90s to encourage teens to not leave the house with someone your parents don't approve of.
She's a sallow emaciated ghoul, full of sharp points in every part of her design. Her face is stretched thin with the skin pulled taut over an oblong skull that has about 10 vertices (I counted). Her dark purple hair is long enough to reach past her shoulders but a lot of it is tied up into a top knot/ponytail. She wears a torn-up patchwork prom dress that's various shades of green, with matching elbow-length gloves and a purple fabric wrapped around her waist.
I love her face, with no nose besides a skull's nostril hole and asymmetrical eyes where one is more shrunken in than the other. Her lips also remind me of a Clasky Csupo character, like she's a human extra from Aaahh!!! Real Monsters. Or maybe Frankie Foster from Foster's Home if her skin was worn by a Grim Fandango skeleton.
Reveal: Did I mention that she's just called Alice May whenever its convenient? There are no other suspects, so once trapped it comes to no surprise that the culprit is Alice. Earlier in the episode, the gang investigated a graveyard Alice May used as her home address and found a mausoleum containing clues related to an early case - The Creeper!
Yep, the show makes the previous adventures of Mystery Inc canon since episode 1, having an entire museum dedicated to them as "Real Hauntings" to draw in tourists. The show also implies that the shows involving The 13 Ghosts and Scrappy-Doo also are canon, but they are more one-off jokes that ignore the fact that those shows had actual monsters that would ruin the logic of the show if they were 100% canon.
Flim-Flam is in jail by the way, much like Deacon Carlswell - the original culprit behind The Creeper.
Alice May reveals that she's Carlswell's daughter and sought vengeance against the gang for getting her father arrested when she was young. We even get a flashback to her childhood...
Which was all fake.
After being arrested, she gets bailed out by a Mr. Ed Machine, who reveals himself to be an associate of Mr. E.
Mr. Machine also reveals the Alice was working for Mr. E as well, the whole convoluted scheme being a way to push the gang into investigating a long-standing mystery in the town.
One regarding the original Mystery Incorporated, who disappeared years ago searching the cove for a mystery that should've been left buried.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
3/5, a pretty good if simple design even if it doesn't hold a candle to 60% of the show's bestiary.
We have now passed the threshold of main characters, covering both Spyro and the trios he's been a part of (for a total of five characters) and now we get into the rest of them! Yep, we'll be going through the rest of the Skylanders by the following order: Magic, Water, Tech, Life, Fire, Earth, Air, and Undead.
I am at a crossroads with our next entry from the Earth typing, Bash, our first of many non-Spyro Dragons.
[Image: Bash is a quadrupedal dragon without any wings, making it look a bit like a dinosaur. It has dirt brown, rocky hard skin with a dirty, yellow-colored underbelly. It's claws, teeth, spikes, and horns are the same shade of yellow. Instead of a thagomizer, its tail is tipped with a stone shaped like the head of a Morningstar (spiked ball). It has two rows of spikes running down its back and tail parallel to each other, and it has three spikes running the sides of all four of its legs. It has six horns in total, two on top of its head and more running down both its temples. Its horns are almost positioned like a crown. It has bright red eyes and a red tongue.]
Remember Rock Dragon? Yeah, this is what became of him. Elevated to named character status, you can see from the beta figures below that they played around with body types, he even started out with the nostrils of a hippo. He's a bit hard to talk about since he's been tossed to the wayside, having little to no appearances outside the mainline games. All five previous Skylanders I reviewed had been featured in comics, spin-offs and the show to some compacity and comparing their wiki pages Bash's is rather pitiful.
I guess he's like Finneon, he's sort of just there but by virtue of statistical probability there has to be SOMEONE who has him as a top fave. He's got a good gimmick anyway, able to roll up into a ball and launch himself with extreme speeds. You gotta' love Pinball powers.
He even got a slight redesign later on, giving his tail and organic Morningstar gold plating. This second design accentuates his Dino-qualities even more. They even built a rather flat looking golden crown onto his head, with three Loki-esque golden horns positioned like a Triceratops. So he must have sold some units to get this small amount of attention, right? And that's not even including the baby.
Or maybe he was just a creator's favorite who got by thanks to legacy.
His lore explicitly states that being a flightless dragon is rare, and we arrive to a bit of a Scootaloo situation where Bash wishes he could fly like others. His pinball schtick actually came about from his attempts to get into the sky, and through constant trial and error he toughened up his skin until it was as hard as rock.
He joined the Skylanders, and it's mentioned that he gets touchy when people mention his flightlessness. : (
Motto: "Rock and Roll!" It makes sense but it's still pretty boring. 2/5.
3/5 Chompies for the Proto-Chicken version of Sisyphus.
