MEATBALLS 2 (1984), MEATBALLS 3 (1986)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: (1) *poor*, (2) *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

I've only seen all three MEATBALLS films once before, but I decided to revisit 2 and 3 simply because both, unlike the first film, boasted a little metaphenomenal content.

The writers followed the same "battling kids' camps" as the first film, but with two new camps that share the same lake and a more overt concentration on absurd farce. Richard Mulligan runs a more or less normal camp, while Hamilton Camp administers a bizarre "military youth" camp. The two have been contending for years in an annual boxing match, and Mulligan invites a tough street-kid named Flash to be the camp's champion. Flash is uninterested until he catches sight of a pretty young thing (Kim Richards), whom he hopes to impress. There's really not as much sex as one might expect of this sort of cheesy sequel. The other camp-girls, borrowing from 1981's PORKY'S, lay plans to expose the innocent girl to her first sight of a "pinky." Also, a couple of randy camp counselors keep trying to hook up, with the female counselor played by Misty "HEE HAW" Rowe. Other thesps include Paul Reubens in four separate "blink-and-miss-him" roles and John Larouquette as a swishy soldier.

The sole fantasy-element is an extremely lame ET swipe, where the kid-alien enters the camp's activities at his parents' behest and bonds with all the younger kids, who are only too happy to have their own ET mascot. The alien, dubbed "Meathead," does a few unimpressive telekinetic tricks and is played by Felix Silla.

By comparison MEATBALLS 3, though also an absurd farce, benefits from jettisoning the whole camp-competition schtick. It starts with porn-star Roxy Dujour (Sally Kellerman, getting a rare shot at a main character since her career took a downward turn). Roxy is apparently having real sex on one of her flicks, and it's so good she bites the big one. She ends up at St. Peter's Gate, where the official there says Heaven doesn't have a problem with sex workers. But still Ms. Dujour (named for the 1967 Bunuel film BELLE DUJOUR?) has to prove herself-- and for some reason, sex-friendly Heaven wants Roxy to help a nerd named Rudy get laid. If Roxy can't do so by a certain time, it's off to the hot place for her.

Rudy (Patrick Dempsey) is seen bidding farewell to his clingy mother as he departs for a new job at a lakeside camp. All the camp's customers are teenagers or older, and one other employee is a girl, Wendy (Isabelle Mejias), who's a nerd like Rudy but whose affection Rudy cannot perceive. Rudy is relentlessly teased by hot girls and guys, though oddly enough, he does NOT make one particular same-age enemy, which happens in most teen sex comedies. Instead, Rudy's enemy is an older guy, a boisterous, middle-aged biker named Mean Gene (George Buza), though this opposition isn't immediately evident. Mean Gene bullies Rudy a little and allows other customers to bully the low-level employee. But everyone at the camp steers clear of Mean Gene, He's noteworthy for keeping a woman-- presumably his wife-- confined in a upstairs room in Mean Gene's domicile, and for going ballistic on anyone who even looks at "The Love Goddess" (Shannon Tweed) longer than Gene thinks appropriate.

 It doesn't take Roxy long to convince Rudy that she's a real ghost, and that she's come into his life to help him score. Roxy's willing to let Rudy do her, but since she's insubstantial, that's not an option. So she gets Rudy to clean up his look and act less like a nerd, and at first she's doing her best to get the youth laid any way she can. But the longer she's in Rudy's orbit, the more Roxy starts to care about him, and to notice that the age-appropriate Wendy would be the best match. So she uses her power of telekinesis to cock-block the boy when he tries to get it on with another age-appropriate girl (but one with a loose attitude) and also with an older female. Rudy gets tired of her interference and tells her she's just like his mother, which pisses Roxy off. She gets summoned back to Heaven for a reminder of the fate that awaits her if Rudy doesn't get his cherry popped.

Independent of Rudy, a bunch of raucous teens learn that Mean Gene's going to be away for a time, so they make a huge party out of inviting a famous "stud" to seduce the Love Goddess. Rudy, fed up with Mean Gene's bullying, attempts to take the stud's place. This leads to a goofy fight when the biker comes back, though I'll give away one schtick: the Love Goddess is not Gene's wife but his married sister, and so he's simply an overprotective brother. The Goddess intervenes on behalf of Rudy by conking Gene with a baseball bat, though of course she doesn't have sex with Rudy either.

In the end, Roxy does return to Earth to help Rudy hook up with the still-willing Wendy. Apparently, even though Rudy does not get laid by movie's end, apparently Heaven lets Roxy off the hook, since she does get into the Pearly Gates and everyone's happy. Though it's a dopey teen comedy, I did feel the main characters played Kellerman and Dempsey had good chemistry and made the movie more fun than it would've been without those actors. 

                              

SPACE MONSTER WANGMAGWI (1967)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

I term the dominant function of WANGMAGWI "sociological" simply because the main plot involves aliens sending a giant monster down to 1960s Earth to kill all the humans and leave Earth free for colonization. While such a plot was a perfectly serviceable excuse for a giant-monster rampage, the writers seem confused about how to properly go about defenestrating the populace of a planet.

At the outset of the film, the unnamed aliens seem utterly confident that the Earth-people can do nothing to save themselves from the solitary, skyscraper-high creature-- presumably named "Wangmagwi," though I never heard the name used. The creature proceeds to rampage through Seoul, though its model-streets have been largely been cleared of people. So it's not clear how the aliens expect Wangwagwi to extinguish humanity. Keep stomping through cities and crushing people until, decades later, all the humans are dead?

Jets assault Wangmagwi's scaly hide with no effect, so the monster does have a Godzilla-like level of invulnerability. Yet when we hear Korean military men discussing the situation, they're reluctant to employ a nuclear bomb against the monster due to collateral damage. But if the monster succeeded in killing all the people in Seoul, then the Koreans could bomb him, right? Not until the climax does the subtitling for the aliens *seem* to indicate that Wangmagwi actually CANNOT survive a nuclear attack. Indeed, when the giant finally wanders out into the Korean countryside, the military makes one last jet-attack while planning a nuclear strike. At that point, the aliens just throw in the towel and remotely cause Wangmagwi to self-destruct. What? Was this the aliens' first defenestration? If not, clearly they suck at it. 

There's just enough combative action to keep the film in that domain, though the Koreans weren't able to make Wangmagwi's rampage as effective as even the lesser Japanese efforts. The humans are pretty forgettable-- a couple of clowns who bounce routines off one another while fleeing the chaos, and a young couple whose wedding is interrupted by the big critter. In fact, Wangmagwi channels his inner Kong by kidnapping the bride-- though technically the aliens are controlling the monster remotely, so her kidnapping makes even less sense than if the giant did it of his own will. The only human who has a good arc is an urchin who somehow clambers onto the giant's body, manages to work his way into the creature's ear and wound he inner ear with a knife. He also detaches the device with which the ETs control the monster, though this doesn't have much effect on the outcome. A heroic pilot rescues the boy and the bride before Wangmagwi destructs.

This kaiju flick was lost for a long time. In terms of film history, I'm glad a copy was found, but it's pretty small beer.

        

MONSTER SEAFOOD WARS (2020)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological*

Japan turns out so many hyperactive comedies than it's almost a surprise when one of them-- namely, MONSTER SEAFOOD WARS-- takes the opposite approach. Here the premise is loony but all of the performers treat the proceedings in a restrained, deadpan manner.

Amateur scientist Takuma, who works for his parents' seafood restaurant, invents a chemical that can enlarge small animals into giants. I think he does so with the idea of being able to create big creatures to supply the restaurant, but he's not responsible for unleashing his "food of the gods" upon urban Japan. A rival, Hikomi, steals the chemical and dumps it in the sea, where it creates three gigantic kaiju: a squid (Irkalla), a crab (Kanilla), and an octopus (Tokalla). There are a few scenes where the big beasts display ancillary powers, and of course there's no explanation for these.

The main joke is that when Japan's defense forces can't stop the goony giants, the government creates a special department SMAT, Seafood Monster Attack Team. (Nice of them to use English for their acronym even though the film is subtitled.) For some reason Hikomi is part of this team despite his having created the crisis, and so is Nana, Takuma's childhood sweetheart. Takuma joins the team too, and they strive to find ways to thwart the monsters, with weapons like vinegar-blasters and a giant chef robot who, at the climax, turns the creatures into sashimi.

The movie's best joke is that while the defense forces battle the kaiju, small parts of the sea-monsters' bodies get sliced off, and somehow these get marketed so as to become great dining delicacies. So the movie is not just "The Monsters That Ate Tokyo," but "The Monsters Tokyo Ate." Though Takuma and his romance with Nana is mild fun, the monsters are the stars as they provide the narrative vector.   

WAR OF THE GOD MONSTERS (1985)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

Though a fair number of American giant-monster movies are subcombative-- not least the one that started the deluge in the 1950s-- Asian kaiju flicks tend to be combative, following the GODZILLA model in one way or another. But such is not the case with this ultra-obscure Korean monster-flick-- though the reason for this development is less aesthetic than budgtary.

In short, none of the giant monsters in WAR were created for the film but were derived from clips taken from tokasatsu TV shows, mostly from one ULTRAMAN serial or another. Of course none of the various Ultramen appear, so all the clips just show five monsters-- none of whom appear together-- appearing to menace cityscapes or refineries and getting shot at by jet fighters. This ephemeral activity doesn't move the movie into the combative realm, and at movie's end the monsters just go away, since the main characters of WAR have no budget with which to get rid of the invading beasties.

Yet I enjoyed WAR for the three central characters-- Doctor Kim, a widower whose scientific reputation was ruined for predicting monsters would be spawned by climate change, his little daughter Sohee, and Kang, a young female reporter who infiltrates Kim's house for a news story by pretending to be a housekeeper. The climate change idea is silly and not supported by even horror-movie logic, but the human story-- that of father and daughter mourning the loss of Kim's late wife-- kept me interested because of the skill of the three actors involved.

Though I've not seen all the films directed by Jeong-yong Kim, the sensitivity and light humor he contributes to the setup could not be more different from my impression of him as a maker of chopwacky kung-fu films, like BRUCE LEE'S WAYS OF KUNG FU. I still can't rate the mythicity highly, but the human drama is at least passable.               

 

THE CHALLENGE OF THE LADY NINJA (1983)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

Though CHALLENGE is one of the many "marvelous ninja" films, the creators don't just throw random powers out in all the scenes. Usually the titular lady ninja Wu (Elsa Yeung) fights with her enemies with hand-to-hand arts or with swords, while only occasionally resorting to abilities like illusion-casting. To be sure, there's a scene toward the end in which a rival ninja burrows through the ground like a mole. But for most ninja-flicks, that's restrained.

It's WWII, and the Japanese occupy large parts of China. Despite this state of affairs, Chinese national Wu has managed to live in Japan for 17 years, learning all the arts of the ninja from her master and a fairly small number of adherents. After Wu survives a rigorous baptism of fire, she wins her "ninja badge" and is subsequently informed that her father in China has been murdered. Worse, the murderer appears to have been Lee Tung, fiancee to Wu, who's become an agent for the Japanese and is rounding up Chinese dissidents. Wu doesn't spend much time emoting about losing her dad; in no time she's back in China, planning to execute her traitorous ex-fiancee.

She's not able to get past the guards of Lee Tung's compound, though, so she tells some friends that she's going to enlist a quartet of women-- all total strangers, by the way-- to help her pull off her assassination, arter she gives them a few days of ninja training. This is the weakest section of the film, but fortunately, the script doesn't expect the viewers to pay much attention to the four sidekicks, aside from an ex-prostitute who furnishes some sexual humor. Better, they're really just extra hands and don't detract from Elsa Yeung, the only martially skilled performer, getting most of the action. 

The sidekicks are merely necessary when Wu decides that the only way to get a shot at Lee is to knock off his highly-skilled bodyguards individually. These scenes are the film's highlights, particularly for a scene in which one guardian fights by flinging spider-webs (!) while another, a female wrestler (Yin Su-li, seen above at left), engages Wu in a fight within a watery basement. Wu is nothing if not prepared: she comes wearing a bathing-suit decorated by hand-imprints. What this is supposed to mean back in WWII China is anyone's guess.   

Once the bodyguards are eliminated, there's nothing much left but a big face-off between Wu and Lee-- though in contrast to most chopsockies, there is a twist ending that works pretty well. It's a low-budget ninja-flick with minor sexploitation elements, and for what it is, it's decent diversion.     

A SMOKY MOUNTAIN CHRISTMAS (1986), UNLIKELY ANGEL (1996)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: (1) *fair*, (2) *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

When Dolly Parton made these two made-for-TV fantasy movies, one ten years after the other, she certainly didn't need the money thanks to her consistent musical success over the years. But as I thought about it, Dolly's appearances on TV were probably more important to mainstreaming both her persona and her musical work than the big screen. Only three of her theatrical films scored big with audiences, and I'd argue that even with the best writers and directors available in Hollywood, her folksy nature wasn't the sort of thing Hollywood was good at channeling. TV, though, may also have offered Dolly and her people more control over her role in the projects. And aside from all the business considerations, Dolly *seems* to me like the sort of performer who genuinely enjoyed doing her thing, and TV has the advantage of being able to disseminate lots of material, very quickly.

The story of A SMOKY MOUNTAIN CHRISTMAS is credited to Dolly (one of two TV-films whose scripts have her name on them) and to a journeyman writer of TV scripts, William Bleich, while the director was Henry "Fonzie" Winkler. While Dolly's public persona was that of a country girl who never deserted her roots, SMOKY begins with Dolly's character Lorna, also a country singer, being estranged from her roots-- for about five minutes. Lorna gets fed up with Hollywood and decides to take off for a cabin in the Smokies, just to get away from it all, She leaves so precipitately that her manager thinks she's been kidnapped-- which never becomes important to the story-- but a paparazzi named Harry knows the truth, and he tails Lorna, thinking to find some great story.

Well, there's a great story in SMOKY, but it's named "Snow White," which is what Dolly and Bleich were re-arranging for their Xmas effort. Shortly after Dolly gets stopped on the road by randy cop Jensen (Bo Hopkins), she goes on her way, and then Jensen is "pulled over" by a comely lady on a horse, one Jezebel (Anita Morris). Not only does their conversation establish that Jezebel is a bonafide Smoky Mountain witch, she also tips the writers' hands by asking Jensen "who's prettier?"

And in case that parallel doesn't sink in for some viewers, Dolly and her colleague throw the next folklore-motif right in the audience's face-- for who does Lorna meet at the cabin, but seven little people? Okay, they're seven orphans who escaped the orphanage, and most of them don't parallel the famous Disney versions. Except one kid, who alone doesn't welcome the lovely visitor to the cabin, who might as well be called "Grumpy." But he's overruled by the other children, who are happy to adopt Lorna as their makeshift momma, one complete with songbird talents. Lorna's motives in accepting the gig are more dubious. She wanted to get back to her roots so that she could create new songs, not an ersatz family. But her maternal instincts come to the fore, and eventually she finds herself defending "her" kids from the evils of child services. (Given Dolly's biography-- that she and ten other kids were raised in a one-room Tennessee cabin-- nostalgia for her early years was probably more important to her than any strong arc for Lorna's character.) 

She even finds a "prince" in the form of a mysterious recluse named "Mountain Dan," played by none other than Lee Majors. Dolly and Majors don't have any romantic chemistry, but the script is pretty much sticking the "Snow White and her Prince" on the backburner in favor of more kid-stuff.

Witch Jezebel offers more narrative interest, and director Winkler does his best visuals with the sorceress showing off her mountain-magic. Her motives too don't bear much examination either, Since Jensen doesn't keep pursuing Lorna, Jezebel's enmity is explained by her misperception that Lorna is a "White Witch." This eventually leads to Jezebel trying to put Lorna into a deep sleep with a magic pie (a little "Sleeping Beauty" dropped in), and though Lorna is saved from eternal rest, it isn't through her romance with her Prince. Anyway, the main thing is that Dolly smiles a lot and sings some forgettable songs, so there was a little fun to see the country girl face, and defeat, rural magic.

But there's not even a modicum of fun to be had with the ten-years-later UNLIKELY ANGEL. Oddly, it starts out with another version of Dolly, known this time as "Ruby," who initially sounds like she sleeps around quite a bit-- though the language is purposefully vague, in case any kids might be watching. Ruby dies in a car crash and finds herself at the Pearly Gates. She meets Saint Peter (Roddy MacDowall), who tells her she's not admissible to Heaven, unlike most of her family, because she was selfish and only did what she wanted in life. But she can redeem herself if she returns to Earth and brings together a widower and his estranged kids. However, she's not allowed to have any romantic relationships herself, because, after all, she's dead.

Th writers might have found some balance between Ruby's original selfishness and her intention to be a Good Samaritan to the widower and kids. But the script doesn't follow through on the imputation of selfishness. As soon as Ruby becomes housekeeper to the widower-- for whom she eventually has feelings, of course-- she turns into a super-cheery version of Mary Poppins. There's no clear villain this time, only the ticking clock of Heaven's whims-- and all the kid-stuff that was moderately diverting in SMOKY is just boring here. Again, Dolly smiles and Dolly sings, so for those things alone, ANGEL isn't a total loss. 

Meager as these TV-films are, they're probably Dolly's best offerings in metaphenomenal entertainment, when compared with her ill-advised guest appearance on an episode of Seth MacFarlane's wretched STAR TREK imitation THE ORVILLE. Despite her "larger-than-life" nature, Dolly was probably better suited for sassy but down-to-earth comedies and doleful melodramas. But given how many other gifts she had, it's too much to expect her to be good at *everything.*

                

DOUBLE AGENT 73 (1974)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny* 
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

I'll start by picking on the title of this infamous dog. Yes, everyone knows that that the "73" denotes the size of the knockers sported by star Chesty Morgan, and I suppose the "double" is thrown in to remind the intended audience that there were a whole *TWO* 73-inch breasts on display throughout much of this micro-budgeted production.

But the exploitative title provides more amusement than most of the script for AGENT, co-written by director Doris Wishman. A "double agent" is expressly a agent of one government who infiltrates another such agency, pretending to be loyal to the second group while actually funneling intel back to the agent's original employer. But that's not the case with Morgan's character Jane Tennay (IMDB claims it's Jean Genet, which I think must be someone's inside joke, but probably not Doris Wishman's). Jane is just an "agent." Her employers want to find out who's smuggling in drugs with aid from the Communists, so they give Jane a list of suspects. The entire plot involves Jane going from place to place and becoming acquainted with the suspects in order to suss out their criminal endeavors. In practice, though, Jane always fails to fool her targets, and there's some violence, with Jane managing to kill her opponents. Frankly, it would have made more sense if Jane's agency had just directed her to kill off all these crooked types, since she ends up playing the role of assassin anyway.

But if she was just an assassin, she wouldn't have need the gimmick that obliges Jane to expose her mammoth mammaries every 15 minutes. The agency somehow sticks a mini-camera into her boobs, and every time she kills or at least incapacitates a foe, she takes his picture with her tit-cam. Again, the info doesn't really seem to do the agency much good when they get it at picture's end, and certainly doesn't justify the bosses installing a self-destruct device in the camera, one that will destroy the evidence and keep Jane from falling into enemy hands. To be sure, Jane returns to her bosses before this happens, but she does not seem to resent the strategy in any way.

Wishman's gimmicks, by the way, were the only thing that interested me in reviewing this dull flick. Her tit-cam doesn't qualify as a diabolical device, but her cut-rate arsenal-- including am exploding lipstick and a spiked earring she can fling to kill an opponent, as with a shuriken-- certainly make the grade. She even has what appears to be an "acetylene ring," for when she's tied up in her last encounter with the main villain, she uses *something* to burn off her ropes. These weapons are the only things that mark Jane as a combative type, for there's no indication that Jane can fight. To be sure, no one else in the movie can fight either-- and that's probably because the exigencies of fight choreography would have strained the film's budget. (Jane does stun a guy by hitting him with a tit, though.) 

But there's no similar excuse for the banal dialogue, or for Wishman's over-reliance on extreme close-ups to cover for the fact that so little is happening. The sex scenes are brief and mediocre, as if Wishman was convinced that the near-constant display of the Size 73's was her film's only selling-point. She showed the same attitude in her only other film with Morgan, the earlier DEADLY WEAPONS, which I'll probably never review because it was even duller than AGENT, not to mention purely naturalistic. Of course, no one in the movie can act worth a damn, but since Morgan is the star, her deficiencies take center stage. Further, her sagging boobs aren't likely to inspire lust in any but the most breast-fixated. 

It's a shame that there were never that many female superspies in cinema, but Chesty Morgan adds nothing to their ranks. AGENT isn't amusing enough to be "so bad it's good," but I suppose it's interesting to wonder why Wishman undertook such a project. I still haven't fully evaluated her repertoire, but AGENT will probably add little luster to any such analysis.  

LEGEND OF THE SEEKER, SEASON TWO (2009-10)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, sociological*

The first season dealt with the relatively mundane threat of warlord Darken Rahl's dominion of the SEEKER fantasy-realm. Season Two, however, concerns a more cosmic threat. The three heroes-- Richard, Kahlan, and Zedd-- managed to kill Rahl, but in so doing they open a rift between the living world and the world of the dead. The Keeper, malefic ruler of the death-realm, uses this opportunity to seek the world's destruction, unleashing zombie-like beings called "banelings" and installing the ghost of Darken Rahl as his lieutenant. The heroes must find a mystic artifact, the Stone of Tears, in order to seal the gap between the worlds.

This time, though, the three heroes get a fourth ally. drawn from the ranks of the Mord-Sith, the priestesses of pain and torture who normally serve the head of the Rahl bloodline. Early in the second season it's revealed that the father of Darken Rahl wished to spawn a second son who would overthrow the first one, and that second son was Richard. Cara Mason (Tabrett Bethel) decides that as a Mord-Sith formerly loyal to the previous Rahl, she now must follow Richard's band as they seek the talisman that can save the world. Her decision is aided by the discovery that the priestesses who recruited Cara betrayed her-- but even more so, her choice to walk the heroes' road represents a desire to reaquire her lost humanity. That said, though the trio of Richard, Zedd and Kahlan worked well, Cara adds a refreshing new element, as her ruthlessness and acerbic attitude add considerable "edge" to the proceedings.

As in the first season, the showrunners alternate between simple, "done in one" predicaments and the more "cosmic" events. The Mord-Sith Denna returns to cause the Seeker-group more trouble, and a new group of enemies, the Sisters of the Dark, are prominent in Season Two; they seek to control the magic of the Rahl line that Richard has inherited. The vague mythology behind the fantasy-verse is established as a duality: the female Creator engendered the world, but her consort envied her love for humans and sought to destroy her children. In the best tradition of the Miltonic deity, the Creator exiled her consort to the afterlife, so that he became the Keeper. Toward the end of the season, Darken Rahl is able to come back to life, playing a lone hand against both his infernal master and his half-brother Richard.

The most mythically complex episodes all congregate toward the end of the season, such as--

"Bound"-- This story exemplifies the "Wizard's Second Rule:" the greatest harm can result from the best of intentions. Nicci, the most formidable of the Dark-Sisters, casts a spell that imperils Kahlan's life. The spell can only be broken if Kahlan contacts the spirit of her long-dead mother, but this necessitates making contact with Kahlan's long-estranged father. Kahlan's father Frederick tyrannized his two daughters after their Confessor-mother passed away-- but he too was the victim of tyranny, as he was forced to love, marry and procreate with Kahlan's mother. The dispelling of ghosts from the past proves more effective than the cancellation of Nicci's magic.

"Desecrated"-- a magician, Cormac, abducts Cara and Kahlan to force Richard to dispense justice upon the leaders of a village that sinned against him. A ticking clock inheres in the fact that the two heroines are confined in a tomb where the air is running out. Cara and Kahlan, despite often competing with one another, now compete to see which of them can sacrifice her life for the other, resulting in a hand-to-hand battle.

"Extinction"-- Rahl has returned to the living world, and because he knows his brother needs the help of the fairy-like Night Wisps, he orders the delicate creatures massacred. Kahlan finds and saves one pregnant Night Wisp and charges Cara with getting the fairy to a spawning-ground, which makes for more scenes both amusing and touching as the hard-bitten warrior-woman has to call upon her softer side to keep the fragile entity alive.

"Eternity"-- the Seeker-group encounters a Mord-Sith named Dahlia. She claims that Cara spawned a son with Darken Rahl during her service to him, and then Rahl now wants to use him as a pawn. Cara won't agree to let this matter distract from their mission to use the Stone of Tears to save the world, but the others are more humanitarian in nature. It's a trick, of course, for Dahlia, despite having had intimate relations with Cara in the past, is working for Rahl. Cara is captured and subjected to new tortures to restore her allegiance, and at the end of the episode, Cara seems to have been turned.

"Tears"-- The final episode of Season Two starts with Zedd having rewritten the past to restore Cara to normal. Then it's a race to reach the site where the Stone can used to seal the rift, so of course Richard gets separated from his allies. This separation prefigures other shifts in loyalty, with the sorceress Nicci enslaving Kahlan and the Keeper taking over the body of a young boy whom Richard trusts. Unfortunately the final season does end with some dangling plot-threads, as both Rahl and Nicci remain at large once the world's been saved, and Richard and Kahlan still can't consummate their love for Various Reasons. I said earlier that SEEKER may have been a little too much a "straight" magical fantasy to be as successful as XENA and HERCULES, and that still seems like the most likely reason for its brief shelf-life.

             

SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY (2026)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, psychological*

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

The substantial improvement of the third and fourth MCU/Sony SPIDER-MAN films, in comparison to the "meh" first and second films in the series, moves me to posit a symmetry between NO WAY HOME and BRAND NEW DAY.

HOME is about how the hero responds ethically to villains.

DAY is about how the hero responds ethically to monsters.

I'm sure I could be cooking up this symmetry out of my on preoccupations. Still, all four of these MCU/Sony spider-projects have shared in common two writers-- Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers-- so that's one real-world symmetry. And until the fourth in the series, Jon Watts directed them all, only to be replaced by Destin Daniel Cretton. But even if none of the previous raconteurs had returned, whoever worked on DAY would have been obliged to deal with the dangling plotline from HOME: the mind-wiping spell that restored the secrecy to Spider-Man's secret identity but also caused his two best friends to forget they'd ever known Peter Parker.

Now while NO WAY HOME probably owes some debt to the 2007 comics-story ONE MORE DAY, BRAND NEW DAY movie bears little resemblance to the 2008 comic of the same name. DAY's script forces Peter Parker (Tom Holland) to revert to a status not unlike that of the 1962 comics-Parker: an antisocial loner. Having been cut off from his boon friends MJ and Ned (Zendaya, Jacob Batalon), Parker chooses not to seek new acquaintances, but to devote all of his time to being Spider-Man. Even his confidante on the NY police force, Jean DeWolff, intuits that the hero is burning the candle at both ends. But there's a new menace in town, and this time it's not a familiar face from the Spidey rogues' gallery, but a monster-- albeit a monster with a hero's name.

I belabor this point because audiences don't respond to monsters the same way they respond to villains. Some reviewers were understandably ticked off to learn that the mystery menace-- a psychic able to remotely possess and control innocent people-- is named after the classic X-MEN character Jean Grey. This Jean Grey shares none of the history of other Jean-iterations, so while I wasn't crazy about the usage of the name, I wasn't as scandalized as those other reviewers. I will castigate the writers for making Grey *seem* to be a diabolical villain for the movie's first two acts, when they show her executing some mysterious grudge against the government agency Damage Control. Then the writers shift gears in the third act, making Grey a monster obsessed by the wrongs done her by the agency, more "sinned against" than embracing the life of sin, as do proper villains.

Yet I cut McKenna and Sommers a small break on the storytelling problems of DAY. I admire how the relatively new concept of Jean Grey's monomania against Damage Control-- for reasons I'll skip over-- acts as a mirror to the hero's obsession. This Spider-Man didn't lose his Uncle Ben, but "with great power there comes great responsibility" remains his watchword. But just as Grey loses herself in her obsession-- so much so that it never occurs to her to tell Spidey why she has a mad on for Damage Control-- Parker in effect neglects his "responsibility" to himself. The spider-DNA within his system begins to mutate the hero, at least partly due to his emotional trauma. This makes it tough for him to cope with the many pawns Grey sends against him, as well dealing with more unscrupulous crusaders, like the Punisher, making his debut in a live-action Spider-movie.

I'd find it easy to believe that the main reason McKenna and Sommers only name-dropped Jean Grey because some higher-up demanded some X-reference in DAY, just because the impending DOOMDSAY movie will reboot the MCU Universe to include the X-Men and other "Disney acquisitions." This possibility should seem probable to any viewer who suffered through ABC's godawful attempt to shoehorn The Inhumans into the AGENTS OF SHIELD universe. But the film's other major crossover proves far less problematic. After Spider-Man experiences his own "Hulk-out" moment due to his mutations, he has a smidgen of good fortune when Bruce Banner lectures at a Big Apple college, allowing Parker to get some advice about controlling one's inner monster. Unfortunately, this also puts the power of the Hulk into Jean Grey's clutches.

I'm not giving away much in divulging that the only cure for Peter Parker's malady is a return to the status quo from just before the worldwide revelation of Spidey's identity. I'm still not in love with these iterations of Parker's besties, but Zendaya and Batalon acquit themselves well-- though it goes without saying that all the support-cast proves secondary to Holland's performance as the wall-crawling bad-luck boy. DAY has its share of good character moments, but the movie wouldn't have become such a box-office phenomenon if it were not also, to invoke Martin Scorcese's terms, an entertaining roller-coaster ride. The biggest downside to this DAY is that Tom Holland probably doesn't have many more years to play the web-slinger, even though the character's finally been purged of all the extraneous MCU elements of the first two films.

                             

      

          

SUPERMANSION SEASON THREE (2018-9)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological*

The final episode of Season Two set up the gimmick for Season Three. Titanium Lex defied her adoptive father Doctor Devizo by saving Rex from death, but Devizo turned the situation to his advantage. Because Devizo and the Injustice Club helped repel the Subtopian invasion, the government gives the Club permission to move into the Mansion and join the League.

HOME IS WHERE THE SHART IS-- Hijinks ensue as the League and the Club attempt to share living space. Lex acts as liaison since she's been a member of both groups, and her loyalties are still divided. Though she saved Rex's life, she didn't tell him that Devizo betrayed him-- apparently because she still has feelings for her adoptive father. Groaner tries to break things off with Black Saturn but then becomes jealous as Saturn spends more time with his sidekick Ringler (aka Portia's former bf Courtney).

MASTERS OF LEX-- For the first time, Lex treats both Rex and Devizo as her fathers, by trying to provoke them into getting angry/protective when she dates a promiscuous vigilante, Max Penalizer. Robobot starts telling white lies to make life easier and ends up creating a death cult.

MY COUSIN KITTY-- A flashback reveals how Cooch was transformed from a regular cat into a cat-humanoid and how Rex took her into the League. Now Cooch's original owner sues to get back Cooch (and for $1 million damages), so Robobot becomes a lawyer by downloading countless David E Kelley TV shows. Groaner, irritated at having been eclipsed by Ringler, plans to expose Saturn's most humiliating secret. Lex is perturbed that aside from Penalizer, no men seem to want to approach her, and even Saturn, the ex she deemed far beneath her, ignores her entirely.  

ILIGA THEIR OWN-- Although Rex manages to get Devizo's team moved to a new location, the villains steal furniture from the Mansion, forcing the heroes to go shopping at the superstore Iliga (parody of Ikea). The man in charge is the League's foe Ivan Whiff, and in addition to selling shoddy furniture he plans to take over the world with Swedish supervillains. One of these villains, Bugula, has a hate for Black Saturn and nearly breaks his back. This is doubly significant because in an earlier episode Saturn pretended to be a Bane-like villain named Mange -- but here the doofus hero gets the treatment the comics-Batman got when Bane busted Batman's spine. In other news, Lex learns from Robobot that her insect-DNA has been emitting pheromones, so that she repels human males. (Again, no mention yet of her bisexuality since Season One.)

BROKEBACK SATURN (G)-- In a first-class spoof of the Batman-Bane comics-storyline, Saturn remains bedridden at the Mansion when a new menace arises. To cope with the menace, the government enlists Ringler to don a suit of super-armor and to become Saturn's replacement-- thus forming a parallel to Brokeback Batman being briefly being replaced by an armored "new Batman." Saturn is aghast to see citizens liking the new Saturn better, and showing more nerve than sense, leaves his sickbed and assumes the Mange ID, the better to trick Ringler into surrendering the armor. As for the threat, at first it looks as if Cooch's purely imaginary tormentors, Irish leprechauns, are real. But the 'chauns (as Cooch calls them) are part of a greater supernatural evil that has possessed Portia Jones, with which the League must grapple in the ensuing episode.

THE LONG CHAUN-- This follow-to "Brokeback Saturn" is the closest thing to a poor episode yet, as the League journeys to the god-realm, occupied by Zenith's people, the leprechauns and assorted fantasy-creatures. Such scenes as Zenith fighting her evil uncle Ridan and Robobot turning human are under-developed, and the only bit that works involves a big finish to Cooch's antipathy to leprechauns.

SUMMER VACATION SPECIAL (G)-- The third special is the best of the five, delivering a fine spoof of Hawaiian vacation stories. Rex meets a retired Barack Obama, Ranger tries to impress a USO audience with corny old routines, Robobot endures a timeshare, and Black Saturn holds a secret that may allow a shark-man to conquer the surface.

BACK IN BLACK TO THE FUTURE (G)-- A coda to "Black to the Future" posited that even though the League prevented the birth of Gamora, a future version of American Ranger will become just as much of a tyrant. At the end of "Long Chaun," the heroes are flung out of the god-realm into the Tyrant-Ranger. Saturn's dim brain finally realizes that his future self is married to Future Groaner, and Cooch meets "the Bureaucat," a button-down version of herself. But this time the Future-Tyrant isn't what "he" appears to be, for *she* is actually futuristic Titanium Lex, whose insect-DNA has mutated her into a soulless monster. When the League returns to its own time, Lex must figure out how to restrain her evil nature.

OPTIMO REX-- While the League is gone, Sgt Agony uses Rex's DNA to make a Rex clone, Optimo Rex, who's as even-tempered as Rex is cranky. Moreover, Devizo's team has taken over the Mansion, forcing the original League to move into the Club's rundown hovel. Rex takes the downgrade badly and becomes a near-supervillain when he makes a Devizo clone to get even. 

SYMPATHY FOR BLACK SATURN (G)-- Cooch protects the rock-monster Liplor from Devizo, and Robobot tries to help Lex control her transformations. But the A-plot concentrates on two clans of monsters. one of vampires and one of werewolves, seeking to convert Saturn to their cause, in a clever spoof of UNDERWORLD. Courtney gets turned into a vampiric valet. 

 

COMICARNAGE-- The League attends a comics convention, where Rex runs into his previous team, "Da League," who are even lamer than his current heroes. Geek jokes abound, with an odd subplot devoted to David "American Werewolf" Naughton turning into a real wolf-monster.

JUNGLE ALL THE WAY // DEBBIE DOES DEVIZO-- Agony talks the League into playing "Expendables" for a rescue mission on a tropical island. The heroes soon learn that it's a prison for international supervillains, and that one of the prisoners has devised metal gauntlets which harness the powers of numerous criminals. The gauntleted villain is Debbie Devizo, formerly Doctor Devizo's wife, who committed adultery with Rex. For revenge Devizo lured her to the island so that she became part of the prisoner population, becoming tough and embittered. She hates both Rex and Devizo but will leave Rex alone if he allows her to murder Devizo. Lex for her part fears that the only way to stop Devizo is to transform into her mantid self. When she does so, Debbie gets defeated and returned to the island-- but Lex's return to normalcy is only temporary.  

A PRAYER FOR MISTER T-- It's SUPERMANSION's Thanksgiving special. Devizo invites the League to the Mansion, resuming a tradition in which Rex and the Doctor competed to see who could produce the best turkey dinner-- though Rex always cheated by having the Mansion's maid Margery do the cooking. This time Devizo gives Margery the week off, and so Rex overcompensates by injecting his turkey, the titular "Mister T," with steroids, creating a turkey monster that promptly lays a bunch of monster-eggs. In other news, Black Saturn gets dissed by his family when he tries to horn in on their holiday, and Margery makes her first on-screen appearance. 

RUN, RANGER, RUN-- After Lex defeats Debbie Deviso, she goes into hiding to master her insect nature, and Saturn has to cope with Groaner's new girlfriend Harley Qu-- er, Patty Mime. But the A-tale concerns the Russian super-soldier Soviet Slayer to challenge Ranger to a ROCKY IV-like boxing match. Ranger is initially spooked by the Slayer's great power, but during the match he rallies, winning the fight but reaching a "detente" with the Russian. At episode's end, it's revealed that Robobot and Devizo secretly have Lex caged in the basement.

TEACHER AND THE GOOF-- TV executives want to get rid of the titular hosts of a long-running children's education show, so they hire Cooch and Liplor as new additions to the program, whom the executives hope to use to edge out Teach and Goof. But Teach is a fanatic who has got rid of all previous co-hosts, so Rex and Robobot intervene. In a dovetailing plotline, Ranger meets a son he begat back in the forties, meaning that Ranger is faced with a eighty-year-old man.

BACK TO THE ISLAND-- Rex finds out that Devizo and Robobot are seeking to cure Lex, but their only hope is to obtain a "power retardant" invented by Debbie-- whom the Doctor returned back to the prison-island. Cooch and Liplor take over hosting the kids' show, with "Meta-Zenith," a fusion of Zenith and Portia, as a guest. Saturn wangles a position as casting director, so he uses his new authority to invite both Groaner and Patty Mime to audition for the same role. hoping to break them up. When Rex and Devizo reach the island, Debbie-- now an ordinary woman-- removes their powers with the retardant. The three of them ramble down memory lane, revisiting the way Debbie, in her superhero ID of Heartshine, fell in love with Devizo, but also sought love with Rex. But this time, Debbie reveals that her Heartshine-power sapped love from Devizo, so he's not entirely responsible for his villainous career. Nevertheless, Rex booby-traps Debbie and obtains the retardant. However, Agony finds out about Lex's threat, forcing Lex and Robobot to go on the run.

BUG HUNT-- While Robobot and Lex go looking for a cure, the artificial man begins to harbor feelings for Rex's daughter. Rex calls the League together to locate the fugitives, while back at the Mansion Debbie, confined to a cell, seeks to get into Devizo's head. The fugitives find an eccentric horse breeder, whose son has access to the DNA of Lex's dead mother. Lex acquires the DNA but transforms into her monster-self, after which she and Robobot must flee again from Agony's forces. The League shows up, chaos ensues, and all the heroes but Saturn are imprisoned.

SATURN'S SIX-- Agony's forces chase Lex, but she managed to conceal her mother's DNA in Robobot's body, thus putting a potential cure in Devizo's hands. Saturn, seeking to free the League, tries to recruit a team of six liberators, but only gets three others: vampire Courtney, his butler Bunsen, and Commissioner Gomez. Saturn dons the Black Saturn armor, but he's still unable to beat Optimo Rex-- though surprisingly Saturn's overall plan works, freeing the League from prison and Courtney from his vampire status. But Agony and his people launch a killing attack on Lex, causing her to morph into a mantis-monster.

BAD LEX-- While Lex slaughters most of the Agony team, Devizo finishes his "gene ripper," though he's not sure it will save Lex or kill her. Lex's mutation gives her the power to resurrect her victims as "drones," and now Bad Lex plans to extinguish humanity with nuclear bombs. Rex refuses to take the gene ripper with them, but Devizo arranges things so that Debbie follows the League with the weapon. Rex keeps Debbie from shooting Lex, but amid the chaos Debbie's own plan coalesces, forcing Devizo to give up his humanity to save his adoptive daughter. The villains return to normal and leave with Devizo, now in total Luthor-mode, and though Lex is at least dominantly normal, the League mourns its fallen member, Robobot.

WORLD WAR TREE-- SUPERMANSION's last outing, an "Earth Day special produced about half a year after the series finale, has the League (including a conveniently rebuilt Robobot) show at an Earth Day celebration. However, eco-terrorist scientists bring a device that turns three sequoia trees into rampaging monsters, and the trees escape with Cooch. Rex seeks out his old "Da League" member Planetessa because she's a "Captain Planet" refugee and can talk to trees. Instead, Planetessa puts Rex and Lex in contact with Mother Earth, and so Planet Earth is saved, even though the League manages to set the sequoia forest aflame.    
             

        

     
 

EMBRACE OF THE VAMPIRE (1995)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, sociological*

The first time I watched this softcore erotic-horror item, I found it largely formless, popular only because of TV-star Alyssa Milano put her goods on display. Now, even though parts of EMBRACE are as derivative as a Harlequin romance, the flick feels a bit like a semi-complete jigsaw puzzle.

Though most of the film takes place on a 1990s college campus, a prologue establishes the centuries-old bonafides of The Vampire (Martin Kemp). The bloodsucker never uses a name as such, though centuries ago his human self was "a nobleman." He meets a lover, also unnamed, surrounded by very banal romantic imagery (woman riding on a white charger to meet her swain, reclining in a glade strewn with red blossoms). However, after the woman, a royal maid, has sex with the man, she departs-- and out of the forest come three naked vamp-girls. They perform one un-vampiric ritual-- placing around the guy's neck a chain with an ankh attached-- before gang-fanging him and making him a bloodsucker too. Why do forest-vamps venerate ankhs? That's one of the puzzle pieces, though much later a minor character comments that the Egyptian symbol represents "sexual powers." So in the EMBRACE universe vampires are nothing but carnal sexual desire.

The scene shifts to that nineties college, where The Vampire plots to seduce Charlotte (Milano), the first reincarnation of the nameless maid the vamp once loved. The script can't be bothered to say why the near-immortal nobleman didn't make his still-living love into one of his kind; that would distract from the main scenario. Charlotte is due to turn 18 in three days, which presents the Vampire with a ticking clock. He wants to turn her while she's still virginal, and she's apparently keeping her boyfriend Chris at a distance because she has some ambivalence about having sex before 18. There's a brief remark about Charlotte having been raised at a nunnery, but the root of her ambivalence to sex is not explored. The fact that Charlotte's father is not mentioned might suggest, in a more nuanced movie, that Charlotte suffers from a father-complex, which the Vampire is going to exacerbate-- though again, too many missing puzzle-pieces to render speculation fruitful.

The Vampire also has some rules: he can save himself from an "endless sleep" if he turns this reincarnation of a lost love (which in itself makes the heroine more of a daughter-figure). But he can't attack her; he can only persuade by sending her hallucinatory images. Oh, and an ankh, which Charlotte starts wearing in place of a cross that Chris gave his reluctant paramour. Though the Vampire's mostly seen on his own, he knows some fellow bloodsuckers, as he sends a seductress named Marika (Jennifer Tilly) to cause Chris to sway from the course of true love. He doesn't give up on love, but Charlotte gets more in touch with her Inner Tart.

In the end, true love does win, though none of the three players in the triangle are interesting (while the support-cast is worse). Kemp's been critiqued for an underwhelming performance, but he really had almost nothing to work with, given this ragtag conception of a vampire. Charlotte's not much better, but she does function as the story's eminent presence: sort of a combination of the two females from Stoker's DRACULA. She's sensible, wait-for-marriage Mina getting in touch with her lubricious Lucy. Of course most of the sex-imagery is banal too, but one tends to expect that in DTV offerings.   

                  

SUPERMANSION SEASON TWO (2017)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological*

The season starts with the mansion and Robobot rebuilt, and the reference in the last episode to "new candidates" for the League of Freedom is blown off in one joke. Season Two does reach out to the former member (and Wonder Woman analogue) Zenith, a celestial goddess who shares the body of a mortal talk-show host Oprah W-- I mean, Portia Jones. The fugitive Injustice Club figures into more plots this season. but the only ones worth mentioning are Devizo, Groaner. and Lex Lightning, still full of passionate hate for Titanium Rex but no longer inclined to morph into a male version of herself. Curiously, though she was ostensibly raised by Devizo, there's nearly no sense that the two of them have ever had a father-daughter relationship.

VIRTUAL REALITY BLUES (G)-- Cooch misses Brad, so when Ranger tells her Brad's in heaven, she wants to become a Christian to join him, but she gets hinky about baptismal immersion. When Saturn learns Groaner's alive, he crushes hard on his nemesis, resulting in many embarrassing moments.  More importantly for ongoing plotlines, Devizo steals a computer file containing Rex's greatest secret, and when Rex descends into a VR world to recover the file, Devizo and Lex are waiting for him. To Rex's good fortune, a rendezvous between Saturn and Groaner crosses his path in VR and a goofy time is had by all.

SCHOOL ME ONCE-- Rex plots to get Zenith back on the team, and that leads the League to "go back to school," i.e., the university of which Ranger and Saturn are alums. Saturn's old frat is ashamed of him, while Cooch is enlisted to be the school mascot. The upshot is that Portia does rejoin the League, but mainly to help the heroes upgrade their tarnished reputation.

THE LEAGUE OF CHEESEDOM-- Portia's first move is to use the League's images to merchandize a pizza place, "the League of Cheesedom," on the advice of her boytoy Courtney. Ranger becomes attracted to Portia when she scolds him and Saturn gets Groaner to perform on stage. Menace arises when Robobot, who's taken on the persona of a rebellious teenager, reprograms a band of animatronic robots, who promptly go berserk. Best line:

ROBOBOT: "I thought I'd found a family, but they ended up being bloodthirsty monsters." 

REX: "That's pretty much every family."

I DON'T EVEN HAVE TO USE MY J.K.-- With Portia's encouragement, Oscar winning actor J.K. Simmons floats the idea of a Titanium Rex movie, but only if Rex is willing to reveal his deepest secrets. It's all a Devizo plot, which goes a lot better than Lex's short-lived takeover of the Injustice Club. Lex has her first meeting with Rex since he shot her in the face, and it's an ambivalent encounter.

 

BLACK TO THE FUTURE (G)-- This one's a knowing satire of time-travel stories like X-MEN's "Days of Future Past." A future-version of Black Saturn changes places with the current version and he warns that his era will be turned into a hellscape by Gamora. the spawn of Zenith and American Ranger. The League must prevent the two of them from procreating in the current era. There's a brief scene showing Zenith's paradisical all-female domain. Good payoffs on all plotlines this time.

BLAZARMAGGEDON (G)-- The villain Blazar was devolved to a monkey earlier, but it turns out that Blazar was an alien herald of a Galactus-sized humanoid, Asteros, who plans to destroy Earth. For once Ranger gets the best plotline, as he goes space-mad at the meaninglessness of the cosmos.

THE GURMAN FILES (G)-- Two sex-heavy plotlines diverge here. In one, Ranger wants his wife to sign their divorce papers, and to that end he and Portia seek out Gloria at a fetish-convention, leading to Dueling Dominatrixes. In the other, Black Saturn tries to go solo (albeit with Courtney as a sidekick) to solve the mystery of kidnapped 1970s models. Rex, who is to some extent a father-substitute for Saturn, falls under suspicion because he knew the models in his youth. With the League's help, Saturn finds the kidnapper and his victims, but also that one of the models is his own mother, and that Rex boned her numerous times.

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT LIPLOR (G)-- Rex's big secret is revealed to the public and the League-- that he came to the surface looking for new worlds for his people, the Subtopians, to conquer. Rex let his people think him dead so that he could use his powers to protect humans (and to chase tail). But now Rex's older brother Dax reaches the surface with his rock-monster slave. Dax is disgusted that Rex didn't use his beacon to summon an invasion-force, so he takes the initiative. Rex and the freed slave defeat Dax, but now the government deems Rex an enemy agent. To protect his friends, Rex pretends complicity and flees.

LOGS DAY JOURNEY INTO NIGHT (G)-- Rex takes the identity of a lumberjack to conceal himself but still finds himself forced to battle injustice. The other heroes have been forbidden to crusade, but it turns out that Dax managed to send a message to his people. Robobot deduces that because Lex stole the anti-magno rod from the mansion, the League must make common cause with the Club. Unfortunately, Devizo has the rod now, and he seeks out Rex. In addition, the Subtopians reach the surface.

TITANIUM LEX (G)-- Within a short space of time, the Subtopians conquer Storm City while holding off all counterattacks from the government. Both the League and the Club are in hiding, and Devizo brings Rex back to the city for his own reasons. Devizo shows off the anti-magno rod and announces that they need more of the element to repel the invaders. Despite lots of bungling by the heroes and villains, Lex acquires the needed ordnance-- and though she plans to leave Rex to the mercies of his evil brother, she can't resist returning to save her dad, killing her Uncle Dax. Rex almost sacrifices himself in the stratagem that banishes the Subtopians, but Lex rescues him again, and agrees to join the League, but under her new name, Titanium Lex. But more trouble for Season 3 looms, as Doctor Devizo is put in charge of the heroes' future.

WAR ON CHRISTMAS-- Cooch, who believes in Santa Claus, releases from captivity an evil imp, Skibumpers (a clear analogue of Mxyzptlk). The elf grants Cooch's wish to make Santa real, forcing the League to cope with the chaos. This and one other special were filmed before Season Two, so Portia and Courtney don't appear, though on streaming the specials are lumped in with the second season.

DRAG ME TO HALLOWEEN-- In this Halloween offering, Ranger is almost seduced by a sexy ghost, Robobot is "possessed" by malware, and Cooch uncovers a malevolent dentist. The best plot involves Saturn and Groaner trying to score at a Halloween party, with more homoeroticism resulting.                         

  

SUPERMANSION SEASON ONE (2015)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological*

At first glance SUPERMANSION, a stop-motion animation series launched on the defunct service Crackle, might seem to be in exactly the same vein as Cartoon Network's acidulous ROBOT CHICKEN. Both of MANSION's creators had CHICKEN associations, with Matthew Senreich billed as the CHICKEN co-creator while Zeb Wells worked on the CN program in assorted creative capacities. Further, CHICKEN frequently used superhero-themed blackout gags that revealed the writers' geek-level knowledge of superhero comics, while MANSION is obviously about nothing but superheroes. However, I consider CHICKEN an irony and MANSION a comedy, and I define the difference here as being the degree to which the characters' world is effed up.

 MANSION's main focus is to bombard the viewer with sexy/slapsticky jokes about the six superheroes, the League of Freedom, who watch over Storm City and/or the world. The humor's crude but inventive, and most episodes are at least fair in mythicity (I've used "G" to denote the ones rising to the "good" level). The League members all derive from well-traveled genre tropes, to wit:

TITANIUM REX-- the League's leader and the "Superman" of the group, though he arrived in Storm City not from outer space but from a civilization beneath the surface. He came to the surface world as a young man but as he's old now, implicitly he's been a superhero for some forty years.

COOCH-- a former housecat evolved into a feline humanoid. Drawn from various heroes with animal-like characteristics, like both Spider-Man and Spider-Woman.

BRAD-- A mountainous crusader who, like many other heroes who are enhanced through chemistry, only has power as long as he takes steroids.

BLACK SATURN-- A thorough parody of Batman, Saturn is conceited and stupid, sounds like a whiny baby most of the time, and has recurring encounters with a Joker-like villain, "the Groaner," which relationship eventually turns homoerotic.

ROBOBOT-- A spoof of android heroes like Vision and Red Tornado, constantly questioning his identity due to his artificial origins. In Season One he converts to Judaism and takes the name Jewbot.

AMERICAN EAGLE-- A super-patriotic WWII hero in the mold of Captain America, and one who, like the Captain, got unnaturally preserved for decades until reaching modern times. This is the weakest character, used almost exclusively to assert that his patriotism is infused with racial and religious chauvinism.

GROANER'S WILD-- Rex's irresponsible teammates have abused the League's government budget so badly that a governmental bean-counter, Sgt Agony, is assigned to rein the heroes. Saturn's dialogue with the Groaner establishes the hero's pathetic need for the validation of an "arch nemesis."

THEY SHOOT OMEGA PETS, DON'T THEY? -- The League comes across what seem to be amiable super-pets, but the name "Omega" suggests their nefarious nature.

LET'S TALK ABOUT REX-- Despite Rex's many powers, including a titanium hand that can morph into various weapons, his battle with the villain Blazar makes the public wonder if the hero isn't too old for superheroing. Despite many age-jokes, Rex does get a little validation from his team of goofballs.

A SHOP IN THE DARK-- Rex invites the Defense Secretary for dinner at the Mansion to wangle a higher budget from the government. Rex thinks the deal's sealed because as a teen the Secretary was the kid sidekick of American Ranger, but of course everything goes wrong with the dinner. At least when it's revealed that the Secretary is a gay man, his relationship with Ranger remains platonic.

PUSS IN BOOKS-- The terminally distracted Cooch must pass a college-level test to stay in the League. 

LEX (G)-- A hot young costumed woman, Lex Lightning, shows up at the Mansion asking for Rex, and the geriatric bladesman assumes it's a groupie. Instead she shows him her titanium hand and claims to be the offspring of one of his many hookups. Since Rex doesn't know what the name "Lex" means in another super-universe, he tries to bond with Lex, endeavoring to teach her how to fly-- though he also runs out on her, showing his paternal reluctance.        

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S REAM-- Jewbot experiments with his feminine side, Saturn goes clubbing, and three Leaguers get trapped by an evil gym membership. 

BRAD MEDICINE-- The company that makes Brad's steroids cuts him off, causing him to shrink back to his original size. His friends try to get him back on the sauce.

UNFORTUNATE SON-- Lex gets a look at Saturn's home life, where the latter is always seeking the approval of his uptight parents, who prefer his more practical-minded younger brother Dudley. Jewbot, however, learns that Dudley is a drug dealer.

BABES IN THE WOODS (G)-- Apparently sympathetic to Saturn, Lex plans to have sex with him on a League camping-trip. Saturn is willing but has fears of Rex punishing him for crossing a line. Rex has his own secret, revealing to Ranger that he Rex has been sleeping with Ranger's 80-something wife. Ranger unfriends Rex but still comes to the team's aid against killer hillbillies.

THE INCONCEIVABLE ESCAPE OF DR DEVIZO (G)-- Doctor Devizo, imprisoned in a Mansion cell, informs Rex that he plans to escape. He almost does, only to be thwarted by Lex Lightning, thus making the other Leaguers look bad. Ranger, having tasked his elderly wife with her infidelity, plans to commit his own transgression, but his plans go astray.

LEXANITY (G)-- Rex won't let Lex join the League, so when another superhero team is formed by a billionaire, she accepts that offer of membership. The highlight is Saturn acting the fool as he tries tp get into the new group-- until the ending, when Jewbot learns a secret about Lex and she chops off his head.

LEX AS A WEAPON (G)-- The Big Reveals: Lex is the bisexual offspring of Rex and one of his old villainess-flames, and since childhood Lex was raised to hate Rex by Devizo. Lex releases the evil doctor and his Injustice Club from their cells and incapacitates all the Leaguers. Devizo plans to unleash the Mansion's nuclear missiles on the world, but Lex becomes frustrated at her inability to torment Saturn with his having slept with a bisexual. She assigns Groaner to torture Saturn, but when Saturn proves to be the only hero who appreciates Groaner's villainy, Groaner releases Saturn, who frees his friends. Rex and Lex have a brief but intense battle on both physical and psychological levels. after which Lex escapes, albeit with her eyes (temporarily) burned out. Further, Brad ends up sacrificing his life to save the world. This probably stands as the show's best episode, dependent though it is in other continuity.

ADDENDUM: In the above review of "Babes in the Woods," I said that Lex "apparently" felt sympathy for Saturn, by which I meant that the writer(s) wanted viewers to think that. Having seen Season One before, I knew Lex intended to betray the League, so everything she did was oriented to that end. However, she really does not gain any advantage by sleeping with Saturn and is generally disgusted by him. Her only probable motive was that she knew her real father would disapprove of her dating Saturn, and that she mainly wanted to honk him off. On a deeper level (or as deep as a fictional character can get), Lex also wanted to know that Rex gave a shit what she did, and this is supported by Season Three's "Masters of Lex," wherein Lex dates a scumbag to draw a reaction from both her fathers.