‘Adventure Time’ Creator Debuts Offbeat ‘Bravest Warriors’ Web Series

Adventure Time, the most notable work from creator Pendleton Ward, is unlike anything else on TV; it has the ability to be both plainly stupid and whip smart at the same time, making it enjoyable for viewers of all ages. If you’re not familiar with the show, which now airs on Cartoon Network, the best place to start is with the utterly crazy pilot from a few years back, which went viral on YouTube.

Adventure Time has been a huge success, but Ward is beginning to branch out. His newest project is Bravest Warriors, a web series that could do for the sci-fi genre what Adventure Time did for fantasy. The first episode of the series has been released on the Cartoon Hangover YouTube channel.

Bravest Warriors, which revolves around the adventures of a young team of heroes in outer space, works on a basic level as a saccharine cartoon adventure through the cosmos. However, there is a lot of brilliant comedy hiding underneath, perhaps to an even deeper level than Adventure Time. The inexperience and ultimate failure of the team (the warriors simply abandon their mission to avoid risking death) works as a brilliant satire of nepotism (the Bravest Warriors’ parents were much more distinguished heroes.) I’ll stop before I sound too elitist and hipster-y, but suffice it to say, the series is enjoyable on multiple levels.

Though Ward is billed as the creator of Bravest Warriors and brings his signature animation style to it, the writer and director is Breehn Burns, who wrote the Mondo-distributed Dr. Tran series. “Breehn is really passionate about making sure all the scifi elements are there, that everybody loves.” said Ward in an interview with io9. “They’re going to make it super funny. If you know Dr. Tran, it’ll have that really fast-paced super-bizarre vocabulary that Breehn uses.”

Cartoon Hangover bills itself as “the home for cartoons that are too weird, wild, and crazy for television. ” With that in mind , expect Bravest Warriors to push the envelope in a way that Adventure Time cannot. This series is going to be totally mathematical.