Cartoons That Adult Geeks Can Enjoy

If you remember fondly back to your childhood then there’s a good chance that those Saturday morning cartoons played an important part in your weekly ritual and were one of the more exciting things for you to enjoy.  You may as a result then find yourself missing having these colourful and action packed shows to watch and wishing that there was something as bombastically entertaining on TV now. Well the good news is that there actually is – there are many great action cartoons on TV today and many of them are just as entertaining as they ever were, if not more so thanks to the modern sensibilities and plotting, and thanks to the better animation and special effects.

The problem is that many of us in our older age don’t look – because we don’t know about these great cartoons or because we are worried that it’s a bit geeky. Well yeah, it is a bit geeky, but it’s also a lot of fun and a great way to get a very short snippet of light hearted entertainment that really captures the imagination. At the same time because these scenarios are drawn they are able to really create huge action set pieces that even Hollywood couldn’t afford to recreate live. If you love comics, then there’s no reason not to love these shows, so here we will look at some of the best cartoons for adult geeks to try out.

Super Heroes

If you like your super heroes and were as big a fan of The Avengers as pretty much everyone else on the planet, then you will probably enjoy some of the great super hero cartoons on TV at the moment. Why not for instance start with Earth’s Mightiest Heroes which is a cartoon adaptation of the Avengers. For the last few series it’s been heavy on the action and light on plot, but recently it has started moving more towards plot and character development again. Or if you’re more of a DC fanatic then perhaps you would prefer the animated JLA show which has tonnes of great character moments and a large roster of heroes.

Team series of course however always struggle to create quite the same focus on the characters as solo ventures, so you might also want to try out Iron Man Armored Adventures. This is a great show that uses CGI to depict an alternate ‘teenage’ version of Tony Stark. If you follow the comics then you’ll enjoy seeing many of the classic armors, characters and storylines reimagined – and you can even see an adaptation of the Extremis storyline which is rumoured to be the main focus of the next film.

Or for something a bit different, while it’s not strictly superheroes, it was one of the kings of Saturday morning cartoonage: Transformers. The current Transformers show is called Transformers: Prime and it’s the most true-to-form adaptation of the series since the original – even featuring much of the same voice work as the G1 series and film. It has great animation and action scenes and surprisingly sophisticated plotting and scripts for a kids show – you should certainly check it out.

Anime

While the above examples were designed for kids however, anime is something that never was and has always been targeted at an adult audience. One of the most popular anime shows at the moment for example is The Last Airbender which was recently adapted into a film (unsuccessfully many felt). Check it out in its original form and if you’re a fan of fantasy action then you shouldn’t be disappointed.  Meanwhile there are plenty of classic anime series to check out such as the Transhumanism focussed Ghost in the Shell which has had many incarnations, or the Cartoon Network favorite Dragon Ball Z for some seriously macho and over the top posturing. If you like wrestling then Dragon Ball Z is a cert for you.

John Gam is an entertainment bloggers and writes review on cartoons and animated films. You can read his latest review on The Legend of Korra episodes.