It's a pretty safe bet I won't go for anything with Mario in it.
Maybe I'll just gather up a stack of random DVDs and pick one at random.
If anybody has a request, let me know! I'll see what I can do to accommodate it. And remember, the more painful it is, the more I'll resent you for it when I'm done.
But anyway, let's get right into the episode, because I can't wait to watch this one again. It's one of the few I can honestly remember almost every scene from, and my inner cartoon fan (the younger version of it, anyway) is almost giddy.
"The Maxnificent Seven." I see what you did there.
Don't worry if you can't make out much about the supporting characters, I'll go into them as they show up.
As you might recall, Max had an ongoing problem with Skullmaster having an army of zombies, something that apparently shows up as a recurring theme in his nightmares as they actually pull him apart.
This is how the episode starts, depicting a child being murdered by zombies. Take that, The Walking Dead. Mighty Max has all the horror of your series and Tim Curry's creepy voice to back it up.
Now once we just get Max taking on a meth dealer and planning advertising campaigns in the 60s and 70s, the trifecta will be complete.
So, what do you do when you have recurring nightmares like this? You go to St. Louis and talk to a chicken. Virgil explains that there are essentially two choices for Max: he can free the souls of the doomed from Skullmaster so they won't hunt him across the planet any more, or he can wait for them to kill him. Not much of a choice, really.
Oh, or there's the third option, gather enough heroes together to "tip the cosmic balance."
As Max is quick to point out, "Wait a minute, so I've been risking my neck all this time, and you're friends with Batman?!"
Virgil, however, is quick to point out, "No, real heroes." Because in a world with dragons, forever living viking warriors, and a giant tentacled eyeball, a grown man stuck in permanent adolescence fighting under the belief that he can end all crime with a bunch of gadgets is just ridiculous.
So who are these heroes? Well, the names Virgil reads are Modjadji, Jonayaiyin, Hanuman, and Beowulf. Yes, that Beowulf. Whoever the rest of these people are, let's hope they're half as impressive.
Virgil is also quick to point out that Max has to lead these heroes, since he is the "cap bearer." So, first destination? Denmark, where Beowulf is a washed up wrestler. No, seriously. Look at him.
Okay, first off, that man is huge. We're talking taller than Norman, and Norman looms over almost everybody he meets.
Max manages to shame Beowulf into donning his warrior garb again by pointing out that the wreck in front of him couldn't possibly the guy who ripped off Grendel's arm, and Beowulf swears that the warrior spirit remains within him. One hero down, on to the next one.
The next one is Jonayaiyin, and according to a story I found by Googling the name, he's a Native American hunter who slew some of the greatest animals to be the enemies of humans, including an entire family of eagles that used to feed their young human mothers and their children.
He's not quite as impressive looking as Beowulf, but manages to prove himself when he shoots an arrow, spearing a rattlesnake right through the mouth and pinning it against a tree.
Next is Hanuman, the actual monkey king from Hindu legend, and an actual deity. Where's he living? At a zoo in Nepal, apparently having given up the life of a hero for a life of pampering from humans.
Well, that is until Norman, Beowful, and Jonayaiyin jump into the pen, wrestle him to the ground, tie him up, and drag him along with him protesting the whole time. So that leaves just one hero left, Modjadji. So we have a washed up wrestler, an old man with a bow and arrow set, and a monkey king who doesn't even want to be there. Not really the heroes we were hoping for, let's hope the next one is better. What's she going to do?
Oh, okay. She'll just wrestle a rhinoceros into submission. Right. Okay, so, we have one established butt-kicker on the team (who apparently has quite an interesting past with Norman, if you know what I mean).
Max gathers all the heroes together in his basement (remember? The portal's there) and starts suffering severe second thoughts. All the other heroes attempt to give him a pep talk save Hanuman who tries to get Max to join him on a walk around the world instead, destiny be hanged. Donning the cap, Max squares his shoulders, accepts his destiny, and...
...leads the heroes right into a trap.
Let's discuss the minions at Skullmaster's command for a minute.
Let's see here. We have the lava creatures like the ones Max fought way towards the start of the series, who apparently got a power upgrade in that any time you cut a chunk off of one (say, what Norman does with his sword), you create more lava creatures.
We have multiple two-headed hydras who not only have four legs to walk them across the ground, but also two grasping claw hands.
We have giant skeletal turtles with bone shells taller than Beowulf.
We have giant crab monsters.
We h- wait a minute.
Over there on the left...aren't those the snake creatures previously serving an Egyptian snake god or something? Skullmaster managed to recruit them? How? Craigslist?
Max gets a bit of coaching from each of the heroes as he tries to maneuver his way through the battlefield involving using his intuition, staying brave, and other such heroic things that people say to muster up the spirits of someone whose destiny is to fight Tim Curry on steroids.
I'm particularly fond of Beowulf wrestling with the red guy up above there and saying "Let me show you a little trick I once taught a guy named Grendel." And then the red guy screams as Max continues on.
Max continues up to the cave where the crystal lays, the only illumination in a cavern that's pitch dark otherwise, and let me just say that I still get chills when I hear Tim Curry say "Welcome, Mighty One. Enter, and die."
So, with the enemy you're destined to face lying in wait, what do you do? Well, you get the stereotypical floating heads above Max's own repeating their advice to him, and then Max starts running in slow motion as his theme music kicks in.
My younger cartoon-watching self is pumped.
Max manages to do a diving grab at the crystal and thrusts it over his head as Skullmaster's sword comes down, shattering the crystal with a huge explosion and releasing all of the souls. This, of course, makes him rather angry, and we get another great speech from him as he corners Max.
However, there's one more monkey Skullmaster has to get off his back. A literal one, anyway, as Hanuman jumps him from behind and clings on for dear life. Max tries to get Hanuman to follow him, but Hanuman insists Max goes alone, saying "It's...my destiny."
Max gets back to the others and pleads with them to go back and save Hanuman, but Virgil explains they have to run so his sacrifice won't be in vain. But, man, we're talking about a trickster god here, right? Surely he'll be okay.
Current Casualties: 35
...well, then. Skullmaster corners the heroes near the lava waterfalls where the exit portal is, and while Jonayaiyin shoots his last arrow (with a rope tied around it) into a passing dragon, Beowulf and Modjadji keep Skullmaster's forces at bay. Norman ties the rope around himself and scoops up Max and Virgil. Max calls for the others to hurry, but Modjadji states back that if they don't hold Skullmaster back, none of them will escape.
...well, I mean, surely Jonayaiyin could come with. He's out of arrows! What's he going to do to giant crab monsters?
Anyway, Norman gets yanked off the ground as he, Max, and Virgil are pulled to the portal. They land back in Africa (near the tree where they met Modjadji), and morosely walk away as Virgil once again repeats something about "destiny."
Current Casualties: 38.
They actually do a really good job with the animation here. Maybe it's the blurriness of the time it came from, but Max's slumped shoulders and expression really indicate he's barely holding it together as they walk off.
Max sets up a small memorial for the heroes, leading me to wonder just how he got their equipment to put on it. I can accept he carried Hanuman's helmet with him, but the arrow, Norse helmet, and spear? Maybe his mother just had them lying around.
Oh, for the after show Max explains about how every culture has heroes, and how something can be learned from each one. It's a pretty positive message, and one that might have helped some kids start reading stories past their own native culture.
The Good:
This episode really cranked the action up to eleven. Yes, they had to fit what would normally be an epic two (or three) part story into one half hour, maybe even four if you needed a montage sequence of them getting the heroes back in shape for epic adventure, but what they put in tied itself together pretty well. "We're heroes, let's go be heroes." Simple, to the point, and well done.
It also really gave us an intimidating sense of just how powerful Skullmaster is. His armies seem endless thanks to the miracle of looping footage, but the small sampling of each of the forces, plus the fact that we're seeing him using old villains (or they were just thrown in as an Easter egg, perhaps), shows a rather prominent power level. He might not be able to conquer the world overnight as he is, but when you add a million unstoppable zombies to the mix (and possibly the ability to make more with the crystal), it's easy to get a sense of why he needs to be stopped.
It's great to get a wrap up to a dangling story thread, as well. It's officially the end of season one, and the ended it with heroic deaths, a villain swearing vengeance on the hero, and even a bit more character history from Norman.
The Bad:
The whole "destiny" thing got played out pretty early. Virgil's only been harping on it pretty much every episode, so to hear it over and over again in this one left me wanting to wave my hand and go "okay, we get it, move the story along!"
Plus, you know, always falling back on "you have to do it because you're destined to do it" is a pretty big cop-out, storytelling-wise.
I...don't really have much else to say that's bad about the episode, except for the fact that the St. Louis arch looked rather ridiculous.
Overall:
By far my favorite episode so far, and probably in my top three of all time. It had everything a young man wanted in a cartoon show where you could imagine "in other circumstances, I could be that kid with the cap." It managed dramatic tension, intense action, and even some heartbreak as we realized that these characters we just met wouldn't be making it out alive. It's even better that they used real heroes from stories, because I think after I saw this episode I actually went out and read Beowulf again.
But what am I going to do after this adrenaline-pumping, heart-racing series? Well, we'll see, but I wouldn't be surprised if I had to resort to my geekier side and rolled a die to see what I got.
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