Green Lantern – Steam Lantern

Steam Lantern – The enemy

There’s nothing more rewarding than having children. That is until they get home from school and assume that the television belongs to them. Cartoons are a staple diet of any parent with a young child and they usually breeze over me.

Today, though I caught the name of a Green Lantern episode called Steam Lantern. I was naturally curious, so I watched it. What I was faced with was an episode of Green Lantern set in Victorian England – well actually a planet in an alternate dimension that was one large Victorian London – with fair maidens, solid iron automatons, pipes, grime, dirigibles and a Green Lantern with a steam powered jet pack.

The attempt by the animators was actually very good. They used English actors for the Victorian people and thought of how everything there would work if it was powered by steam.

I’ve posted some screenshots so you can see for yourself:

Steam Lantern

Steam Lantern – Damsel

Steam Lantern – Dirigible

Steam Lantern – Automatons

Steam Lantern – Face Off

Steam Lantern - Burning a steam powered flying machine

Steam Lantern – Burning dirigible

Steam Lantern – Damsel in distress

Steam Lantern – Time for tea

Then, I was put through an episode of Ben10. It was a dreary episode where a teenage Ben10 was swapped with the body of a young boy Ben10 through a rift in time. The helpful scientist person was a professor. When he first appeared, the teenage Ben10 (in the young Ben10’s body – are you still following?) asked “When did the professor go steampunk?”

There was the professor with Victorian clothing on, goggles and a marvellous cane with an eye set into it. I’ve posted a screenshot here too.

Ben10 with a steampunk time traveller

It’s great that steampunk is becoming more prominent in everyday life. What I really like is the fact that people dealing with it (in this case, the animators) are actually doing a good job at using it. It’s not just sticking some cogs here and there with a brass pipe popping out the top.

Bravo!