Sean Akizuki's Fantasy Critic

With the  Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection game around the corner -- I was tempted to visit one of the most popular villains ever. Yes, I'm talking about Doctor Doom who was first introduced as the recurring enemy of the Fantastic Four. However, as time passed, Doctor Doom became more and more distanced from his most recurring foes. That would be a peculiar thing since Doctor Doom's backstory starts with the Fantastic Four, having met Reed Richards in COLLEGE, and had a rivalry ever since. How did Doctor Doom become more popular than the Fantastic Four? The answer may lie with the Spider-Man franchise. Spider-Man may be more popular than the Fantastic Four. I'm no avid comic book reader because of the overdoing of retroactive continuity. However, in the 1960s, Spider-Man would also clash with Doctor Doom. Doctor Doom also fought with other more popular villains like the Avengers, Hulk, She-Hulk, and the Uncanny X-Men. Having fought with several superheroes BETTER than ...

  I guess Marvel does have a huge cycle, right? A bit of research will tell us Toei Ltd. once had a Marvel license, later Haim Saban acquired a Marvel license before getting a license from Toei, Disney later bought Marvel and later the Power Rangers brand, and then it's a weird cycle. Nothing's really completely original at all. I could go ahead and praise Haim Saban for doing Knights of Tir Na Nog though it's clearly not all that original. Heck, Toei Ltd. does seem to have a habit of making fun of a lot of stuff. One such case was when Japanese Spider-Man  or Supaida-Man was created. Sure, I expected it to be somewhat alike yet different. Instead, it's very different. The hero Yamashiro Takuya meets an alien who's the last of his kind. Yamashiro loses his father to the Iron Cross Army. Later, Shinji meets a Garian who gives him spider powers. Shinji Todo was famous for playing several villains such as General Hedder from Denji Sentai Denziman and God Neros' hum...

If there's anything where Saban actually did right (or even better) than his famed alliance with Toei to create Power Rangers -- I think it's actually his alliance with Marvel Comics and Stan Lee in order to produce Marvel-based cartoons. I would say these are still superior over what new school Disney has to offer IMHO. I could remember a few of Saban's adaptations of Marvel where I can appreciate it for not borrowing footage from the source. My favorite cartoons produced by him involved X-Men , Spiderman and the Marvel Action Hour -- where Saban Entertainment and Marvel Comics were in alliance. Hmmm... should I mention that he was partly involved with Nintendo and DIC for the Super Mario Bros. Super Show where the less successful sequels no longer had his involvement. I guess everything started with well -- the X-Men cartoon which was so successful it ran for so many episodes. Sadly, it ended with a dangler where Apocalypse returned into the body of Fabian Cort...