One of the most blatant examples of this was, of course, one of my favorite cartoons from the time period, Mighty Max. Of course, the creators of the show had a bonus in that they could extend out further than just the basic premise of "kid fights evil around the world" and develop actual plots and backstories for characters. Where they came from, who they knew, who they cared for, these were all touched on by the program more than it ever needed to be to move merchandise.
I'll admit I'm saying this as someone who never, once, ever bought a single Mighty Max toy product.
So let's look at the third episode, which is surprisingly light on two of the three main characters!
We open in Egypt, specifically inside the Sphinx (which has a sunroof, who knew?) where a young man is strapped to a large stone block (say, an altar of some kind) with a bunch of hooded figures around him. There's not really any mystery as to what the figures are, since they have very serpentine builds, there's snake fixtures all around them, and the show is called "Snakes and Laddies." The young man has an ankh necklace resting on his chest, and when the moon moves to just the right position the ankh starts glowing and the young man screams.
I'm...just going to assume he's dead now.
Current Casualties: 2 (I'm ignoring all the brains removed from their former hosts in the previous episode, and I'm not including the one alien who got hit by a truck, this is purely for bystanders)
We jump to a museum, where Max's class is on a trip. Everybody has to be paired up, and Max is sincerely hoping to be paired up with a blond girl whose name is, I'm not kidding, "Jiffy."
Nice shoulder pads, Jiffy.
Jiffy, of course, could just be another ditsy blond who doesn't care a thing about the museum and just wants to be popular...but the show writers decide to go in a completely different direction. She's apparently a bookish girl who finds being around history "edifying." I know adults who don't use that term correctly.
Jiffy, however, gets paired up with Max's friend Felix, and Max gets to hang out with one of his other friends, Bea. She doesn't take being "second choice" very well, and isn't afraid to let Max know what a pain he is focusing so much on "Jiffy."
For the record, she's the girl I mentioned last time who seems to know Max's whole "Mighty One with a teleporting hat" deal and is completely cool with it. At least, she is until Max pulls her into a tomb (you know, the things the sarcophagus is stored in) to "surprised Jiffy," not noticing that his hat starts glowing brightly as they climb in.
We cut back to the Sphinx, where Max and Bea land inside the structure. Bea and Max start looking for another portal (which, as Max points out, could go "anywhere" but I guess it beats the alternative of hitchhiking back), but a trap door sends them both plummeting down to the snake tomb from before. Bea starts looking for a way out while Max's eye is caught by a familiar-looking ankh necklace hanging from a sarcophagus. He snags it, and a loud voice booms through the chamber that they will suffer for disturbing the "ankh of power." It's not the most imaginative name, but it gets the job done, I guess.
Bea and Max flee dark figures in robes (spoiler alert: they're snakes) and find themselves trapped in a hallway. Nearby hieroglyphics, however, give them a way out as it seems Virgil was around when the building was constructed and managed to get his own message carved in. Also, there just happens to be a portal there to lead them to Paris. Because Virgil apparently "knows all," I guess.
Oh, and the rest of the glyphs are apparently someone's sketch book for supermodel fashion, including one woman who apparently decided to let it all hang out to Max's upper left.
Max and Bea manage to get back to the museum just as the bus is leaving out, but can't hand in their worksheets. Bea explains that hers got left behind in Africa (and holds up a spear as proof) and Max claims that a French dog ate his, offering a model of the Eiffel Tower. Because obviously these are ridiculous reasons, the teacher doesn't believe them, but man I wish I had that hat. ...and a map. The map is rather key.
On the bus, Max switches seats with Felix (while Jiffy drones out about how much she loves her math book and word problems...seriously, where was this girl when I was in school?) and offers the ankh to her as a present. She loves it, and Max blathers on like an idiot.
Later, with Bea and Felix at his place, Max gives Jiffy a call to find out if she likes the necklace, and she's extremely grateful he's calling. Apparently a whole bunch of figures in black robes are at her front door and she wants them to go away so she can study for a test.
Oh, and these figures in dark robes are emerging from a giant sand tornado.
First lava monsters and now this, I'm pretty sure property values in whatever town this is are going to plummet before too long.
Max and Felix prove entirely useless (fun fact, holding a rope between two bikes and pedalling really fast towards a crowd isn't going to get you anywhere), but Bea is able to take about a dozen or so by herself with some slick bike skills and even saves Max from one with a well-placed flower pot. I'm starting to think the hat went to the wrong person.
The snakes capture Jiffy and take her back into the tube, leading Max, Felix, and Bea to rush back to the museum which...is closing. Max tries to reason with the security guard with a lot of talk about "love" and "danger" but he isn't buying it, so Bea simply pick pockets his handcuffs and cuffs him to a railing so they can run in.
I swear the hat's on the wrong person. I really do.
Felix, however, gets grabbed as they go past, so I guess he's out of the rest of the episode.
At the Sphinx, the snakes are preparing for their next sacrifice using a tied up Jiffy, and she's introduced to the true "evil" of the episode, a mummy named "Venom." Clever. Except not.
Venom apparently absorbs life force through the ankh (yeah, that earlier guy's dead), and while Max and Bea are held prisoner, he starts the ceremony to steal Jiffy's life. Max, however, has a brilliant plan to save her as the ankh starts to shine and sizzle.
He says "excuse me" to the bad guys, runs forward, jumps on the altar, grabs the ankh, and kicks the mummy in the face. The simple plans are always the best ones, I find, and "boot to the head" is the simplest plan there is.
The mummy is able to grab hold of Bea, however, and Max offers a trade, the necklace for her life. Jiffy, of course, pouts because "he already gave the necklace to her" and we need someone to become unlikable because we can't have two girls in Max's life, I guess. The mummy, in his eagerness, burns himself on the ankh as he tries to pick it up, and Bea kicks it back over to Max and bolts to join them as they all make a break for it.
Venom, however, has a back-up plan. He summons the spirit of Apophis (who takes the form of one of those fireballs that chases Mario in the original Donkey Kong) for help and asks for help to destroy those who interfere with "the ankh of power." Apophis has the absolute best response ever before he vanishes again:
"Oh, very well."
The whole structure starts to shake, and the giant serpent from the room comes to life. It chases the heroes down a hallway and proceeds to smash apart the side of the Sphinx to chase them into the desert.
May I point out I love the fact that this show just does not care one bit about the consequences of anything that happens? In the first episode a lava guy destroys a road, kills a shopkeeper, and melts walls. Last episode a spaceship and alien guts were left all over the road. This episode the Sphinx gets a hole punched in it and it probably won't be referenced again. I can actually see a superhero functioning like this if he's informed early enough of where bad things are going to happen. He arrives, leaves devastation in his wake as he defeats giant serpents and monsters and then vanishes before anybody can get the slightest idea of who he is.
Max, Bea, and Jiffy are confronted by the snake and Venom at the top of a pyramid (which I thought were smooth-sided, but this one was apparently imported from South America, which you can actually see in the above picture), and Max does what might be one of the manliest things I've ever seen: he gets into a fist fight with a mummy on top of a giant snake's head. When this fails, though, he takes the ankh and chucks it into the snake's open mouth. This makes the snake explode for no reason.
Max, Bea, and Jiffy get back to the museum to bribe the guard into letting Felix go with fresh croissants from Paris, Bea is ecstatic they were able to find their study sheets (...I really wish we could've seen that addendum to the story), and Jiffy complains about not being able to study for a test the following day.
Oh, and the post-episode info? Max discusses the history of the pyramid, including how many bricks make it up and the fact that between the three great pyramids there's enough stone to build a wall around France.
I...actually did not know that. Good on you, Mighty Max. I learned something.
The Good:
We have a much more effective villain this time on a grander scale than "one starship full of aliens wants to harvest human brains." Venom doesn't really do anything incredibly dumb (his underlings, though, are another story), and we even get a momentary appearance (sort-of) of an Egyptian God. This is more of the epic-style storytelling I remember from this program.
Also, Bea's a great add-on character, able to hold her own with Max when it comes to "daring-do" and even overshadowing him a few times in the smaller battles.
The Bad:
While I like the fact that Jiffy wasn't just "the popular girl" she got annoying really quickly and seemed to have no appreciation for the mess she was in. She didn't care about serpents in robes travelling through space/time tunnels (a wormhole, you might say, linked to Egypt a- no, no Stargate references!), she felt bad for the snake when it died, and blamed Max for "stealing the necklace from the nice mummy" in the first place.
I really hope we don't see her again.
No comments:
Post a Comment