Sunday, December 10, 2017

Animated World of DC Comics: Freedom Fighters: The Ray (2017)

CW Seed's latest animated DC offering is Freedom Fighters: The Ray, which focuses on a modern-era itineration of the Golden Age hero, who was introduced to viewers during Crisis on Earth-X 2 weeks ago.

Russell Tovey (ex-Being Human) reprises as Ray Terrell, aka The Ray, as this series is a prequel to the recent live-action 4-parter. On Earth-1, Terrell is just an ordinary dude who just lost his job due to corporate downsizing, after a fashion. When his Earth-X counterpart arrives on Earth-1, well, as the series shows, we'll see how Earth-1 Ray ends up joining the Freedom Fighters.

Jack C. Harris, a long time writer-editor at DC, and Joe Quesada, now at Marvel, were credited with creating the modern Ray, ignoring the character's Golden Age history. Meh. Sometime after that late 90's miniseries ran its course, Terrell was rebooted as gay, I think, by a different set of creators. Harris & Quesada had teased a hookup between Ray & Black Canary in their book, as I recall.

Anyway, the first 6 episodes were released on Friday, with more to follow to complete the bridge to Crisis on Earth-X. Melissa Benoist (Supergirl) reprises as Overgirl. However, Stephen Amell & Grant Gustin (Arrow & The Flash, respectively) chose not to play their evil counterparts, although The Flash co-stars Carlos Valdes & Danielle Panabaker are heard here, as is Iddo Goldberg, who reprises as the voice of Red Tornado from an earlier appearance on Supergirl.

Let's scope out a sample clip.



I'm guessing the remaining episodes won't be out until after the holidays, although I could be wrong about that. What we have now is totally slammin'.

Rating: A.

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