#ppg comics

However, one of the major events from past episodes that actually get referenced more than once in both the comics and the TV series is Buttercup’s brief crush on Ace from The Gangreen Gang in the S1 segment “Buttercrush.” We all know that didn’t turn out too well, not just because he was too old for her, but also because he was manipulating her in an attempt to murder her sisters, and likely was planning on doing the same with her afterwards.

Bubbles tends to tease Buttercup about the fact that she had a crush on Ace at one point a few times after that episode, which, while not abnormal sibling teasing, is also kind of sad. I know that Buttercup was naive about Ace, and that Ace was their enemy. However, she was still a five year old girl being manipulated by a seventeen year old delinquent in an attempt to murder her and her sisters in cold blood. Blossom and Bubbles never even think to tell Buttercup that they are sorry that Ace turned out to be manipulating her, and that she got her heart broken by him when he betrayed her. They just tease her about it. They don’t seem to get that Ace’s abuse of her feelings for him was a really emotionally traumatizing betrayal for Buttercup to deal with since she genuinely believed he returned her feelings for him, and wasn’t just playing her to try to kill her and her sisters since this was her first major crush on a boy. She was low-key implied to have developed a low-key crush on her school friend Mitch Mitchelson, but that was really an innocent friendship between two kindergarteners who both love to hang out together and impress each other by being instigators, pulling pranks, and being tough because they both like each other. Buttercup genuinely thought Ace returned her feelings, and believed he would be like the Beast from Beauty and the Beast, who revealed himself to have a heart of gold in his love for Belle/Beauty. Not only was Ace too old for Buttercup, but he was playing her the whole time.

Granted, I don’t hate Blossom and Bubbles either, and I know neither of them really mean anything by it when they tease Buttercup about her former crush on Ace. They’re just teasing her, like a lot of siblings that age would tease each other for having an improbable crush. It doesn’t mean that they hate her, and don’t still love her. However, it still seems like Buttercup gets the least compassion and consideration from others when she’s in the wrong, she makes a mistake, or she shows an emotionally vulnerable side to them, including to her family. I know she’s the “tough one,” but that doesn’t mean she shouldn’t be allowed more moments of individual compassion and understanding when she messed up too. Sometimes, it felt like the writers of the classic cartoon didn’t get that, though I will admit they did her relationships with her family and friends somewhat better in the comics when she got focus in some of the issues from it.

Either way, Ace’s betrayal of Buttercup and her sisters obviously really stung because she beats his ass pretty angrily here when he’s caught committing crimes with the rest of the gang by her and her sisters:

Well, I actually just read issue #5 of the classic PPG DC comic books called “Holy Molar” that actually did the whole tooth fairy storyline a lot better because the writers of it didn’t turn any of the girls into villains to push a moral in the story. Instead, Mojo Jojo is actually the villain when he disguises himself as the Tooth Fairy to trick Bubbles to steal one of her teeth foe his own evil purposes after Buttercup accidentally knocked out one of her teeth when they were playing catch by his lair, which he spied them doing.

The whole story starts with Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup playing catch outside of Mojo’s lair. Bubbles gets distracted by a cute kitty cat, and the ball Buttercup threw for her to catch ends up smacking her right in the face by accident. Then, the girls realize that Buttercup accidentally knocked one of Bubbles’ teeth loose when the ball she threw hit her in the face after Bubbles spits it out.

There’s even a funny little joke where Buttercup grabs a hammer to try to smash out her own teeth to get money from the Tooth Fairy, but Professor Utonium catches her and stops her before she can go through with it because he doesn’t want her to hurt herself. It’s still way more cute, funny, and in-character than it was in “Moral Decay” when Buttercup suddenly did a complete personality switch, started deliberately abusing Bubbles with a sadistic grin on her face out of nowhere to try to smash out her teeth for profit, then began smashing the teeth out of innocent villains in the dead of night for profit in the same sort of manner, and the Professor came across as very uncharacteristically indifferent in regards to one of his kids getting hurt as comeuppance for their crimes and shady behavior that the writers made him too stupid to take notice of and put a stop to before it was too late.

I thought I’d show this to @umbramagna777 , @bubblesbenson, @umbramagnareviews, @icanbehardcore, @beecried-stuff, @buttercupishot, @buttercupistough, @lisathefan, @bananaaaasay, @kawaiisteffu, @sponfawn, @angeliclynx, @acedcop-lover, and @lunautonium, because I know you guys didn’t like“Moral Decay” either. The classic PPG cartoon was generally a pretty great show, but the writers were pretty mixed when it came to writing stories in which an Aesop was the main focus for one of the main characters. At best, we would get pretty well-executed morals that sacrificed little to none of what normally made the characters intelligent and/or sympathetic otherwise in episodes like “Boogie Frights,” “The Mane Event,” “Power-Noia,” “Super Zeroes,” “All Chalked Up,” “Beat Your Greens,” “Ice Sore,” “Paste Makes Waste,” or even “Ploys R’ Us.” At worst, we would get very poorly executed morals that got too needlessly and uncharacteristically hypocritical, mean-spirited, stupid, and/or warped for comfort by relying on unnecessary twists and character derailment for in storytelling and shock value in episodes like “Daylight Savings,” “Fallen Arches,” “Hot Air Buffoon,” “Moral Decay,” “Cover Up,” “Three Girls and a Monster,” “Slave The Day,” “Girls Gone Mild,” “Toast of The Town,” and “Sun Scream.”

But I do know that “Moral Decay” is pretty widely hated by the majority of this fandom for good reason, so I thought I’d post some screen shots of the PPG comic book issue that actually did a tooth fairy story much better than the writers on the show.