| REVIEWS: MOVIES & DVDs | COMIC BOOKS | VIDEOGAMES | WEB SITES & MORE Finding WildC.A.T.s by Mike-oh
I was at Virgin Records last Saturday, killing an hour with my son and hoping the slain hour would include a copy of the Ultimates Avengers DVD as a trophy. The hour was nearly completely vanquished when I saw it. The WildC.A.T.s DVD. I snatched it up right away. This thing has been out for months but never to be found. I can only imagine the price on this thing. A "complete season." That's like a two disc set. What am I going to have to pay for this? $21? Whince. $25? Agony. No way I'm paying $30. I turn the rarity over in my hands and fail to comprehend the price for more than even a few moments. $40! It mocked me. There's no way this cold be worth $40. Maybe it was? But there's no way in hell I can spend that much on a Saturday morning cartoon that didn't last more than one season and convince my wife that it's really worth it. Damn! Killing our hour just ended in a miserable whine like the air of a balloon rushing out of the stretched end. I left Virgin Records with my son and dropped him off at his band recital thing. I was still thinking about the WildC.A.T.s DVD. Could it possibly be worth $40? Afterall, I had been keeping an eye out for this thing for months and had never found it anywhere. But $40? Well, I reasoned, I haven't seen it because it's so good. And everyone else knows about it. And they grabbed every copy out there except Jim Lee's own personal copy he keeps under his pillow for safe keeping and this over-priced one at Virgin Records protected by a grossly inflated and ill-mannered pricetag. I picked up my cell phone and called Richard at Zeus. "Do you have a copy of the WildC.A.T.s DVD?" I queried. "Is this Mike?" Richard responded. Curses. I prefer to do these kind of things as anonymously as possible. He recognizes my voice. I've obviously been talking too much at the register when I'm making my comic book purchases. Anyway, I go ahead and admit that it's me and tell him I'm trying to get a handle on the value of this DVD. Richard informs me that he's never seen a copy of it either. I begin to believe that my suspicions are true. This is probably the greatest animated series even made. And all that stands in my way is $40 bucks and a return trip to Virgin (can it still be a Virgin on a return trip? Hmmm...) I tell Richard that I had in fact, seen a copy of it at Virgin Records for $40. I expect him to advise me to go back there right away and grab it before someone else does. I get no such advice. He didn't even seem impressed that I had seen one of these rare gems. I'm pretty confused at this point and as I hang up the phone I slip into a sort of malaise that renders me unable to make any decision at all. My car keeps rolling towards my house though, so I decide shrewdly to go with the flow. After a while, I remember that it's the Ultimate Avengers DVD that I really want, and I begin plotting my next attempt to acquire a copy. I'm thinking a trip to Target might do the trick. I get home and my wife wants to run an errand. It's not going to take us anywhere near a Target. But we will pass Movie Trading Company so I agree to the errand. At MTCo I have to rent a copy of March of the Penguins which we still hadn't seen, so I take care of it first. Then I begin looking around for the Ultimate Avengers. It should be on the New Releases shelf. Not there. So I try the Animation shelf. Not there either. I check under "A" for Avengers and under "U" for Ultimate and wind up with 0 in each case. But that "U" is awfully close to "W" so I glance a little further and there it is. Twice in the same day. Like within a couple of hours of each other even. And separated by miles of North Texas pavement. Two copies of WildC.A.T.s: The Complete Series in the same day. So now I'm thinking, as my hand moves slowly towards the precious package, how much is this going to cost me? MTCo is always less than Virgin. They're like polar opposites on price. So I'm guessing $30 or maybe $20. I would happily pay $20. I roll the rare video collection around in my anxious hands to reveal the price—a mere $5.99, USED. $5.99!?!?! How is that possible. I look around. Not really because I think someone is going to take it but more like I want to make sure I didn't slip into one of those daydreams where you get spaced out from being distracted so much that having to concentrate for a minute causes a mild case of dizzy disorientation. I shake my head. Yep. $5.99. USED. USED is not a problem for me. I quickly recalculate the value of the sought after DVD. Richard, unimpressed. Retailers, not carrying it. Someone watched it — maybe bought it — and returned it USED. Maybe this isn't the greatest animated story ever told. Maybe it sucks. But you know what? At just $5.99, it just doesn't matter. I slap it on top of March of the Penguins and head for the cash register. A few minutes later I find myself rushing to my car and remembering that I left my wife in the store. I've passed the security station so all I can do is stand there like a dope and shout her name. We meet back in the car moments later. I explain to her that I just bought this DVD that was selling for $40 at Virgin Records. "I only paid $5.99." She usually is impressed with big savings but had no real appreciation at all for a WildC.A.T.s DVD at any price. No matter. We continue our errands and end the trek with a romantic dinner at Giovanni's, an Italian restaurant we'd never tried before. It was good. But who cares? "What about the WildC.A.T.s DVD," you ask? Right. That's what I had been wondering the whole time. We head back to the house and without looking too anxious, I pop both DVDs into our player. I'm tempted to watch the Jim Lee interview first but I have to see what an episode of the show really looks like. I never saw it when it was on television. It came and left too quickly. Now I can watch it whenever I like. The only problem with that particular freedom is how much the WildC.A.T.s Complete Collection completely sucks. It sucks and blows. Mostly it's the terrible voice actors. But then, the quality of the animation is pretty God-awful, too. You would think that maybe the storyline would be good. But then again, the WildC.A.T.s storyline was never that good in the comics either. What made the comics so good was Jim Lee's awesome art. But come on! Isn't Jim Lee like the Executive Producer of this thing? Surely he would have done something to stop them from destroying his precious WildC.A.T.s. As it turns out, no. I watch the Jim Lee interview and quickly learn that according to Lee, this is just a Saturday morning cartoon for little kids so it is what it is. Which for Lee was basically a chance to have his creation turned into a highly compromised animation designed to pacify small children while their parents try to sleep in late Just This One Time Dammit! There it is. The WildC.A.T.s DVD sucks. I guess I'm glad to have it added to my collection. And I'm thrilled that I didn't spend $40 on it. That little chapter in collecting comic book DVDs is over. And now it's back to my quest for the Ultimate Avengers. Wish me luck. Oops. I almost finished this article. And then I heard some of you whiners out there complaining that I all I did was gripe about getting the DVD and then quickly gave a three sentence review that boiled down to the DVD being awful. How can you really judge the DVD based on that? Well, don't. If you're a fan of Jim Lee's or of the WildC.A.T.s, then go find your own copy. I'm sure you'll enjoy it. And if you're just wanting to add to your collection, try not to pay more than ten bucks for it cause it just ain't worth it. If you're looking for entertaining comic book action on video, look elsewhere. This one is painful to watch for you. If you want a more in depth critique of the content of the DVD, forget it. I'm not wasting anymore of my time on this one. Not as long as there is an Ultimate Avengers DVD out there with my name on it. |
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