Resident Evil 5…

…is awesome.  While it’s not quite a good a game as RE4 (who knew ancient “Africans” had laser technology?), playing it with someone in the same room is super-fun…which is why I haven’t had the time to prepare a substantive update for today.  Or possibly for the rest of the week.

Lacking the story chapter I was planning on finishing for today, I go to the ol’ standby: pimping somebody else’s awesome TMNT or Gargoyles related work.  Today, it’s this awesome lil’ Karai-themed AMV by  Japanese TMNT fan doraguxoru:

The title, from what I can gather from my sketchy Japanese, is read as “Watashi wa baka* na musume datta“, or “I was the stupid daughter”. The creator, however, translates it as “I was my stupid daughter”, which…doesn’t quite make sense.

—-
* I literally did not know what the second kanji in “baka” was until about five minutes ago. Now I’ll never forget–yay!

MoNY Timeline (1997-2009)

This is the third part of the overall timeline for the relevant events in the shared Gargoyles/TMNT-verse. The first can be seen here, the second here.

People who’ve been following this section will notice a gap in the time-line–specifically, between 1994 and 1997, or the time-span in which the Gargoyles series takes place.  Why the omission?  Because I have nothing to add to that time period, which would mean that by including it here, I’d be copying other people’s work (particularly, that of the awesome people at Gargwiki) wholesale without adding anything of value.  Plus, all that text would be a bitch to format.  So if you have to know what happened in that period of time, you can just check their timeline: 1994, 1995, 1996.

Also, note that, unlike Greg or the wiki, this timeline does not cover every event in TMNT–I’m just not dedicated enough to assign a date to every single event.  This is mostly just a guideline in order to have an idea of when each important event occurred; however, this should not be taken to mean that these events aren’t canon.  Also, as with the other installments, the list is subject to later additions, which will be announced in their own blog posts and then added here.

ETA: Small alteration: I added an item down over at “March 2009”.

Such Waste: “Garbageman”

“Greetings, filth.”—The Garbageman

Written by: Eric Luke
Original Air Date: April 5, 2003
Teaser Narrator: Donatello
Introduces: The Garbageman; The Professor

Synopsis:

Teaser: The turtles infiltrate what appears to be a large landfill, avoiding various searchlights and patrol vehicles.  They climb over a mountain of garbage and stare in horror at what appears to be a concentration camp amidst the trash.  A pond of orange slime marks the center of the camp, and something is rising from within…

Theme song.

As a pair of homeless men scour through garbage bins for recyclables, a large, black garbage truck follows them silently.  Eventually, the truck makes its prescence known and, after chasing the pair, it uses a pair of extendable mechanical arms to capture them.

Inside a  garbage dump/ tent city/shantytown, the turtles (with the exception of Mikey, who’s skateboarding through the trash so as not to get bored and annoy the others) are doing some scavenging of their own, looking for materials for their lair.  They walk towards a group of homeless people and thank their leader, a man they call The Professor, for a shopping cart he’d lent them.  The Professor has some gifts for the turtles: a largely-undamaged circuit board for Donatello, and a comic book for Michelangelo, both of which they’d found among the trash.  The turtles, in turn, have some blankets and clothing for The Professor and his people.  The Professor waxes philosophical (which is apparently something he is prone to doing) about the origin of the universe and how the succession of Big Bangs and Big Crunches could be taken to mean that, like the things they are currently giving each other, everyting in the physical world is composed of particles which are, in effect, recycled.  Donny comments that he himself has just finished a book on the Big Bang, and offers to lend it to The Professor.

Raph notes that the tent city seems emptier than usual, which it turns out is indeed the case.  The Professor tells the turtles of rumors he’s heard: people say that somebody has been silently kidnapping homeless men and striking fear in the heart of the community.  His name is…the Garbageman.  Upon hearing the name, the turtles laugh good-naturedly; however, as they prepare to leave, Donatello asks The Professor to keep him updated on the missing people.

Some time later, The Professor is  proselytizing on the space-time continuum when the tent city is attacked by a familiar garbage van.  Although the various homeless try to escape, the van makes off with several of them, including their leader.

Some time later again, Donny rides into the now-wrecked shantytown (presumably with the book he’d promised his friend).  As he sees the city empty and with copious evidence of wrongdoing–including huge tire tracks–he calls in his brothers.  Leo asks Don to search the ‘net for anything about missing homeless, but Don’s already done that, with no results–nobody cares.  Time to hit the streets–or, as Mikey says: “It’s trench-coat wearing time!”

It’s also montage time, as we see each turtle speak with different groups of homeless people in an attempt to obtain information.  Once that’s done, they return to the lair, where Don collates the data and determines that the kidnappings have all been taking place near the docks.

The docks.  Mikey, once again betrenchcoated, sits in front of an oil-drum fire, trying to draw The Garbageman out.  The fish ain’t biting, though (which might have something to do with the fact that the Battle Shell is right there), and the turtles are about to call it a night when the Garbage Truck appears.  Before it can snatch the turtle, the Battle Shell–driven by Raph–makes its entrance, picking up Mikey and slamming into the garbage truck.

The truck attacks the Battle Shell with its claws, but eventually decides to just drive away, using things like a flamethrower and buzz-saws to try to lose or disable the turtles’ van.  The turtles, in turn, try to stop the truck by ramming it or firing missiles at it, with no effect.  Finally, the garbage truck creates an oil slick which causes the Battle Shell and almost makes if fall into the river, if not for its built-in grappling hooks.

Stymied, the turtles watch as the garbage truck drives off a pier and into the river.  It doesn’t sink, however; instead, it floats towards an offshore landfill.

Back at the lair, Don has found some info on the landfill–particularly, that it’s the best-run landfill operation in the United States, a fact that Leo immediately finds suspicious.  “Something stinks on that island, and it aint’ the garbage.” Mikey says, doing a bad Ah-nuld impersonation.

The turtles swim towards the landfill.  Once the arrive, they avoid the searchlights and patrol trucks as they climb over a mountain of trash and see the concentration camp set-up seen in the teaser.  The turtles watch as their friends are made to work in chains to trawl through the trash with not a moments rest, kept in submission by trigger-happy guards armed with shock-sticks.

There’s an orange lake in the middle of the camp, and the turtles watch as the enemy garbage truck surfaces from within.  After releasing its newest captives, the truck opens, revealing…well, this:

The turtles are suitably disgusted.

The terrapin foursome listen as The Garbageman gives an “inspirational” speech about how his slaves were nothing more than human garbage until he’d given them purpose–recycled them–by using them to build his fortune.  The landfill camp is just the first step, he announces, in what will become his empire. His discourse is interrupted by The Professor, who declares that the Garbageman is wrong: living on the streets was infinitely preferable to their new conditon as slaves.  This pisses The Garbageman off, and he orders his guards to silence the insubordinate.

Finally, finally, the turtles decide to strike.  Wasting little time with the mooks, they free the prisoners, which then attack the guards which whatever they can find. After checking in on The Professor, they turn towards The Garbageman.  “It’s garbage day, fat man,” Mikey say.  “Time to take your can out to the curb”.  Like all of Mikeys quips this episode, it falls flat.

Despite the various weapons in The Garbageman’s mini-tank, he’s no match for the turtles; eventually, they drive him back to the river.  As he sinks, the turtles, realizing that he probably can’t swim, uncharacteristically attempt to stop him from drowning.  He’s nowhere to be found, however, which means he’s perfectly position to torment the viewers once again.  Ugh.

Sunrise.  The community of homeless watch as the various mooks are taken to the mainland in what I assume is a police ferry (it’s unmarked).  The Professor informs the turtles that his community has  decided to remain in the landfill camp, since it has food and shelter and various thrown-away things they could use.  Raph warns his friend to watch out for the Garbageman “Something that evil always comes back.”  Upon hearing this line, Mikey becomes disappointed–how come Raph can make those kinds of lines works and he can’t?  “Quit recycling the old ones, Mikey,” Raph says.  “Keep looking for something new.”

—-

This is by far the worst episode of the season, and one of the worst in the series.  It’s oddly paced, features a completely unappealing villain, presents some weird inconsistencies, and feels oddly preachy in parts, to boot.

To be fair, the premise isn’t bad at all; the story may have never stopped feeling like a discarded Captain Planet plot, but I feel it could have worked on those terms.  Even with Oroku Saki already filling the show’s “corrupt corporate executive” spot, having a relatively mundane Looten Plunder type of character as the villain could have helped give the story some genuine weight and made for a genuinely unsettling.  As it is, it’s actually a pretty decent episode until the Garbageman shows up and ruins everything (more of this in a minute).   The set-up is a pretty nice one.  It’s always made sense to me for the turtles to befriend homeless people, and having them being kidnapped into secret slavery is something that always seems scarily plausible.  However, by the time the villain actually gets introduced, it’s too late to do anything with him but have him beat down.

The Garbage Man has exactly two things going for him: he manages to look as disgusting as the writers clearly wanted him to be, and he’s voiced by the always-awesome Mike Pollock.  Aside from that, he’s an easy favorite for the “worst original character in the series” title.  His motivation, if it can be called that, is undercooked.  The conceit that he is also a successful businessman feels incredible, in the original meaning of the word.  He does not feel like a physical threat, and doesn’t really have a thematic connection to the turtles.  His ability to recruit mooks seems dubious, particularly when The Foot is hiring across town and doesn’t require one to wear a gas mask.  All in all, a bust. Unfortunately, this isn’t the last we see of him–he’ll get a sequel episode next season (and one which manages to be even worse), and he’d have gotten a third episode (one which *shudder* would have revealed him to be Hun’s separated-[as in “cojoined twins”] at-birth brother) had it not proven too dark for 4Kids and (mercifully) scrapped.

On the other hand, I really like this episode’s other featured character, The Professor, and wish he’d shown up more in the series.  I just really like the idea of a guy talking philosophy and quantum physics  with the people least likely to be interested.  Plus, I’d really like to learn about his backstory.  And for those people paying attention to my stories, yes, he is aware of The Labyrinth and its unusual citizenry in the Monsters-verse.

This episode features two largish inconsistencies with what we know or will know, which are never really adressed.  The first is the ambiguity surrounding when exactly the turtles met The Professor and Co.  The context seems to suggest that they’ve known each other for a while–longer than they’ve known Casey and April, at least–except that that doesn’t really jive with everything we’ve learned about the turtles so far, which seems to suggest that April was their first human friend.  The second is the turtles’ decision to try to save The Garbageman after they cause him to sink, which again, is inconsistent with what we see of them in the future.  You can see why the scene is there–the turtles still aren’t allowed to leave bodies behind, and given the character’s physique one can’t just assume he’ll swim to safety–but given their blatant and explicit attempts to kill the Shredder later on, it feels out of character for them.

Fortunately, the following episode is a far better one, as the turtles finally meet the Shredder, and we get the second (which is actually the first) part of their origin story.

Random thoughts:

• This episode features a pair of homeless men with a not-terribly funny running gag: one talks about the action, bemused, while the other responds with an “yup”.  The bit will be reused in the season three Christmas episode, although not with these two particular extras–apparently, the animators weren’t paying too much attention and animated the guys in the picture above instead.

Illuminati P.O.I Profiles: Takeshi Yoshihama

Name: Takeshi Yoshihama
Known Aliases: Master Khan
Birth Date: October 16, 1970
Nationality: Japan
Occupation: Foot Clan Member; Self-proclaimed leader of the Foot’s New York Branch (2008-       )
Affiliations: Foot Clan
Notable Abilities: Highly-developed martial arts abilities.

Takeshi Yoshihama is the latest scion of the Yoshihama family, one of the oldest families to serve under the banner of the The Foot Clan.  A member of the organization since birth, he, like most such “legacies”, studied at Kensei Academy.  After graduating in 1987, he quickly joined the ranks of the Foot Ninja in Japan.

In 2001, Yoshihama–now going by “Master Khan”–was one of the Foot Ninja who transferred to Manhattan as part of Oroku Saki‘s push for control of the city’s underworld. There, he was assigned to Dojo Director, placing him in charge of various Foot recruitment and training facilities.  He remained in this position until 2007, when the Foot abandoned their New York operations in the wake of their heavy losses in the 2007 Apocalypse; choosing to remain in New York, he has  since  been working with other disaffected clan members to restore the group to its former strength with him as its leader and retake the city away from the Purple Dragons, an enterprise that has met with mixed success.

Yoshihama has also gained a measure of acclaim in the professional mixed martial arts circuit, becoming a mainstay (and occasional winner) of tournaments throughout the world since 1995, including at least one turn as “The King of Fighters”.

Conclusions: Khan’s initiative in reforming The Foot against the Saki family’s wishes would seem to indicate that, unlike most Foot higher-ups (cross-ref:  Saki, Karai; Oroku, Sawaki; Mason, Hunter), he is not, strictly speaking, a Shredder loyalist, and may be turned to The Society’s side given the right incentive.  Given the continuing necessity of having a foothold in the New York underworld, and our lack of success in that arena during the last decade, it is imperative to explore this possibility.  That said, his current difficulties establishing a foothold against Mason’s forces suggest that he may be open to a resource sharing alliance if it will mean reestablishing Foot dominance.   His schism from the “legitimate” Foot Clan also suggests a level of dissatisfaction with its current leader, Karai Saki, which might also be used to our advantage–he may find the opportunity to depose and dispose of her too tempting to dismiss.

On a more personal level, Yoshihama seems to place great stock in martial arts skill.  It may be possible that offering him the opportunity to fight stronger opponents–for example, Lady Macbeth–will be all that’s necessary to assure his cooperation.

Should more forcible methods be required, please note that he apparently maintains good relations with his family, particularly his younger brother.  Using them as bargaining chips if it comes to that should not be discarded.

See also:

• Foot Clan
• Oroku Saki
• Karai Saki

—-

Last updated: September 1, 2008

Apology Double Dose

So I’d been working on a second installment of the the Illuminati Person of Interest Profiles for today, but it’s 9:00 p.m. here, I’m nodding off, and I still need to shower and finish practicing Japanese before going to sleep, so there’s no way I’m finishing on time.  Expect that update tomorrow.

More importantly, I’ve neglected to give some credit where it’s due.  Last Monday’s story chapter could not have been possible without the aid of  TMNT fan Mark Pellegrini (a.k.a. “DrSpengler”) who helped me make sure that the Japanese used in the chapter was as accurate as possible.  If you haven’t checked it out already, go visit his blog, TMNT Entity–it’s a great resource on some of the more obscure pieces of the franchise’s history.

And Now for Something Completely the Same

Nah, not really–it’s actually something a bit different: an essay on one of the newest cartoons to hit the streets Cartoon Network.  No, not the awesome Adventure Time With Finn and Jake–the other one.

—-

For the past few weeks, I’ve been watching Generator Rex, one of Cartoon Networks new offerings.  Created by Man of Action, the consortium of comic book creators who previously created the aggressively unambitious  Ben 10, it is…well, a disappointment.

PREMISE! A science experiment gone horribly wrong (or horribly right–it hasn’t been elaborated upon yet) has coated every organism in the world with nanites.  Every so often (about once a week, conveniently enough) these nanites will mutate one of those organisms into a super-powered EVO (a.k.a. whatever the creators want), which will as often as not cause chaos and destroy America’s property values and morals.  Only one organization has the resources to stop EVO’s: NERV Providence, a paramilitary group of ambiguous jurisdiction under the control of White Knight, the one man in the world who is not infected by nanites, and who has no problem with the concept of “destroy the village to save it”.  Providence’s secret weapon is Rex, an amnesia-laden fifteen-year-old EVO kid with the ability to a) turn parts of his body into machines or weapons of different types and b) restore most EVO’s to normal by rendering the nanites altering their bodies inert.  Other characters include Agent Six, who can best be described as the love child of Batman Beyond‘s Old Man Bruce Wayne and Agent Bishop; Doc Holiday, Official Providence Hot  Scientist; and Bobo Haha, who’s there because focus groups have determined that  snarky talking monkeys are quote-unquote hilarious.  While there’s a fair bit of cliché in the concept, there’s also a whole lot more promise.  A world in which everyone, at any moment can turn into a monster?  That sounds awesome.

One thing to note is the fact that Rex is the first non-Star Wars American action cartoon in Cartoon Network to garner a PG rating, which in theory would allow it a latitude not usually seen in western cartoons when it comes to what it decides to show, and would allow more complex characterization and more realistic depictions of stuff like life, violence, emotion, sexuality, and death. Generator Rex‘s creators obviously enjoy this new-found freedom: their first episode features the Providence Red Shirts attacking a rampaging Evo with guns that actually shoot bullets; kills off those very same Red Shirts a few minutes later; and has Rex dispose of Big Bad Apparent Van Kleiss by vertically (and bloodlessly) slicing him in half with a nanite-created sword, things they could hardly do with their previous work.  For people frustrated at the industry insistence that American action cartoons must be targeted at kids above all else, this shift is a promising development.  While cartoons like Gargoyles, the DCAU, Ninja Turtles, and Avatar: The Last Airbender showed that a lot could be done under the ol’ TV-Y7-FV rating, there are still thresholds that can’t be crossed–the battle in Gargoyles #12, for example, would not have made it to TV, no matter how awesome the show’s S&P representative was.

While Generator Rex attempts to bring some nuance to the usual cartoon fare–ZOUNDS!  The good guys knowingly work for an outfit that is scarcely better than the threat they deign to eliminate!–it is, unfortunately, far too inconsistent to take advantage of these potential plotlines.  One particularly glaring example is Rex’s policy on killing, which goes from a Ninja Turtles-like ” killing is okay when the person is unambiguously evil and/or actively trying to kill you”  stance to “no killing humans ever” (in apparent contrast to Providence, whose policy appears to be, “cure, contain, or kill” with severe emphasis on that last one) to “killing EVO’s is okay even when you can’t confirm their humanity.”   Given that this is the sort of thing that forms a character’s core values, the ambiguity suggest that either a) he has none, which would be an interesting detail if they were at all interested in pursuing it,  b) the writers don’t know what they are, or worse c) they don’t care.

This sort of inconsistency can be seen all over the show’s writing.  Their world is radically different from ours–remember, anything anywhere can turn into a rampaging monster at any time–except when the writers want to make it just like ours, which is most of the time.  White Knight is a ruthless operator who would not hesitate to destroy New York to kill the EVO’s inside and secretly wishes that he were Gendo Ikari…except when he’s incapable of doing anything to curtail his subordinates’ constant and open insubordination.  Agent Six and Doc Holiday are veterans that have been forced to make various compromises in working with Providence, except when the writers try to convince you that they’re really stand-up guys.  Rex acts like the average teenager (or at least Man of Action’s idea of a teenager, which is not at all the same thing) when the only thing he remembers is his five years as Providence’s (who, we’ve established, is not particularly inclined to raise a child in a manner that makes for healthy development) ward.  The writers seem to want both create a world with Neon Genesis Evangelion-style moral complexity, but are unable to reconcile it with their desire to create another Ben 10.

Thing is, that clash doesn’t need to exist.

Gargoyles, Ninja Turtles, Avatar: The Last Airbender.  These three shows managed to create conflicts that were more than just about good and evil, worlds that felt developed and real, and characters who seemed familiar and relatable while embracing the ways that they differ from us avarage mortals.  There are shows where actions had consequences, characters had consistent moral codes (which does not necessarily mean they were good ones) and did not require “oh, he’s just a teenager” as an exuse for their mistakes.  Characters like Karai, Broadway and Zuko had moral crises that children could understand and process, and were still palatable and relatable to older teenagers and adults.  All in all, they, even within the constraints of that pesky ol’ TV-Y7-FV rating, managed to portray life, violence, emotion, sexuality, and death in as mature a manner as they could.  And they were awesome, without spending every waking minute trying to convince us of that fact.

With its premise, production values, and level of support, Generator Rex could do a lot to help skittish TV executives accept the idea that cartoons needn’t be tailored just for kids, and that they can include complex, more “mature” ideas.   All it needs to do is, man up, grit its teeth, and actually decide to implement them.

A Castle is Not a Home: “Enter Macbeth”

I defeated you in your home–you think I wouldn’t be ready for you in my own?”–Macbeth

Written by: Steve Perry
Original Air Date: January 6, 1995
Introduces: Macbeth; Clock Tower Lair
Timeline placement: December 27, 1994 – January 4, 1995

The episode begins, strangely enough, with a montage of people doing everynight things: Broadway is preparing some broth; Hudson is watching TV as Bronx savors a bone; Lexington and Brooklyn play poker; Goliath reads in the library. Finally, we get Xanatos, first in a scene of him laying on his prison bed, and a second one when comments on the quality of prison food inside the commissary. “Just like mom used to make…if mom was a prison cook.”

A day later, Xanatos is discussing with the visiting Owen what to do about the gargoyles once he’s free in a week’s time. While he doesn’t want to kill them—too wasteful—he can’t have them in his home when he returns. Enter a man in a prison guard uniform, who appears to be aware of Xanatos’ conundrum as is willing to take the gargoyles off the millionaire’s hands. His name? Macbeth.

One week later, dusk. Macbeth waits atop Castle Wyvern when he is found by Elisa (who is walking with the aid of crutches thanks to her injury last episode). Elisa tries to drive him away, but Macbeth refuses to budge, introducing himself telling her that she “protects no secrets”, since he knows all about the gargoyles. Both humans watch as the sun goes down and the gargoyles wake up.

Now awake, the gargoyles, cautious if not downright suspicious, ask Elisa who the stranger in their home is. Macbeth answers by asking the gargoyles to leave their home and move into his. The gargoyles flatly refuse, and Broadway asks him to leave. Macbeth refuses, instead attacking the group with a combination of moves and weaponry. Using a gun that shoots electrified nets, he traps Lexington, Bronx, and Brooklyn, and he’s in the process of dealing with Goliath when Owen interrupts complaining that Macbeth’s contract did not give him a license to destroy the castle (the fight has destroyed a segment of a wall and begun a small electrical fire, which isn’t all that bad, considering all that has and will happen to it during the course of the series). Macbeth agrees, and decides to leave, taking Lexington, Brooklyn and Bronx with him in his airship.

In the aftermath of the battle, Elisa once again tries to convince Goliath that remaining in the castle is not an option.  Goliath’s position remains unchanged: they’ve lost everything but the castle, he argues; he’s not willing to give that up as well.  He takes flight to look for his kidnapped clanmates, ordering Broadway and Hudson to remain behind and protect their home.  Once he’s gone, Elisa turns to the remaining gargoyles, which appear to agree with her, although they do not wish to disobey Goliath.  Elisa argues that Goliath had ordered them to protect their home–something the castle no longer is.

In a transitional scene, we see a bit of Macbeth’s castle home, focusing on a stained-glass mural of what appears to be Macbeth standing before a hovering female Gargoyles (could it be…SATAN Demona?). Then we head to the dungeons, where Brooklyn, Lexington and Bronx are trapped in two different cells (Lex and Brook in one, Bronx in the other).  Brooklyn asks Lex who Macbeth and Lex replies that he’d once heard Goliath mention Shakespeare’s play.  Macbeth watches the conversation from his security room.

Back at Castle Wyvern, Broadway and Hudson have decided that they will indeed leave the castle, but not without the Grimorum Arcanorum.  As they and Elisa approach the tome, they’re stopped by Owen, who in a display of supreme badassery drop-kicks Hudson and pulls a gun on Broadway, before it’s swatted away with *thwack* from Elisa’s crutch.  The danger now past, Broadway throws Owen, allowing Hudson a chance to retrieve the tome.  Their objective completed, the three clanmates leave Xanatos’ majordomo behind.

Inside Macbeth’s dungeon, Brooklyn repeatedly taps  their cell’s electrified bars out of sheer boredom.  Lexington, noticing how the lights dim in rhythm with the taps, speculates given the power output that the electrification seems to require, it might be possible to divert electricity from Bronx’s cell by having it flow into their’s, allowing the gargoyle beast a chance to escape.  Their plan works, and he does; the escape, however, does not go unnoticed by Macbeth, who smiles at this development.

As Goliath glides over Manhattan, he notices Bronx causing a ruckus as he runs through a rather busy street.  Goliath lands and asks the gargoyle beast to lead him to the others.

Macbeth watches as  Goliath and Bronx arrive at the castle; by the time the two gargoyles burst through the door, he’s at the hall to greet them personally.  Goliath orders Bronx to free Brooklyn and Lexington, leaving him alone with his enemy.  Macbeth taunts his opponent, saying that if he could defeat the Gargoyle in his home, there’s no way Goliath will defeat him in his.  He turns tail and runs deeper into the castle.  Goliath follows, avoiding and/or destroying the different deathtraps that ‘Beth has installed within it.

Finally, Goliath arrives at a room equipped with a maze of mirrors.  Frustrated, he asks Macbeth why he’s orchestrated such an elaborate scheme in order to capture them. Mac Findlaech  explains that it’s not them specifically he wants: they’re just bait for his true quarry: the clan’s “queen”, Demona.  Goliath asks if ‘Beth knows Demona.  “Know her?!” the human replies.  “I named her!”  A trap door opens beneath Goliath, sending him to a dungeon/torture chamber.

Macbeth, now carrying a torch, joins Goliath continues his explanation: with the Manhattan clan captured–the last of their kind, he notes–Demona will have no choice but to come and rescue them.  Upon hearing this, Goliath begins laughing: Macbeth couldn’t be more wrong, he explains.  “She is our enemy.  She wouldn’t lift a talon to save us.”

Realizing that all his planning has been for naught, a demoralized Macbath drops his torch in a what appears to be an ancient barbecue and begins his retreat.  Goliath isn’t letting him getting away that easy, though, and attacks.  As Macbeth tries to fend off Goliath and escape, both combatant knock over the barbie, which causes its very determined and very flames to expand and spread all over the stone floor–so not only the dungeon filthy, but it’s not up to code either.  Macbeth disappears in the confusion, but Goliath quickly finds his escape route–an iron maiden/secret door.  The chase continues.

In the other dungeon, Bronx frees Lex and Brooklyn by literally ramming his head through the bars and remaining there until electrical system shorts itself out.

As his castle burns in defiance of the laws of God and Man, Macbeth arrives at his weapon display/armory, and picks up a sword to continue the battle; however, it’s all he can do to hold his own against Goliath.  As the gargoyle strips him of all his weaponry and grabs him by his duster collar, Macbeth slides out from his coat and escapes.  Goliath turns to follow, but stops when he sees his now-freed comrades.  The four gargoyles make their escape and watch as Macbeth flies away on his airship and how the villain’s castle collapses.

As the foursome glide back to their own castle, Goliath hears Broadway calling to him from a rooftop below (apparently the one where Goliath met Elisa for their first “date”) and sees that he’s accompanied by Hudson and Elisa.  Pissed, he demands to know why they’re not protecting the castle as he ordered; Elisa, nervous but resolute, explains that they don’t live there anymore.  Broadway and Hudson back her up, saying its suicide to stay, and that their home isn’t a place, its them, the clan.   Still pissed–although his anger is now directed to Xanatos rather than at his clan–Goliath accepts the truth of what they’re saying.  Before accompanying to their new home, however, he has one more thing to do.

Owen, now remembering that he doesn’t have a Roomba or fairy godmother to do his cleaning for him, is sweeping up the pieces of shattered glass from the Grimorum Arcanorum’s broken display when Goliath enters the room with a message for Xanatos.  “We’re leaving.  But we’ll be back.  We’ll be back to claim that which is ours.”  Owen replies that he will deliver the message and continues sweeping.

After taking one last look at not-his castle, Goliath leaves.

Not a tag: Xanatos arrives at the castle and is greeted by Owen, who informs him of the loss of the Grimorum and shows him a video of Macbeth assault.  Xanatos has other things on his mind, however: he’s home.

Some hours earlier, the gargoyles inspect their new home; the inside of a broken-down clock tower.  Although it lacks the creature comforts of the castle, they all agree: this could be home.

—-

Anybody watching this episode for the first time will probably think the same thing…the animation!  IT BURNS!  This is by far the worst-looking episode of the canonical Gargoyles series, which is sad, because the episode is an important one.

I love Macbeth, and animation aside, it’s hard for him to have gotten a better introduction than the one he gets here.  Not only does he manage to surprise Xanatos, he gives Goliath and Co. the biggest beatdown they’ve ever gotten from an unenhanced human.  Plus, he gets some rather good lines, has an awesome design and voice actor.  All he’s missing is the awesome electric gun which will later become his trademark.

Of course, the kicker here is ‘Beth’s implied relationship with Demona.  While the exact nature of the relationship is later elaborated upon in season 2’s “City of Stone” arc, Weisman has stated that they had little idea of what that relationship was when they produced season 1, even as they hinted at it.  While nothing in the latter episodes contradicts this one, some of the scenes here seem a bit weird in retrospect; I’m not entirely sure why ‘Beth think why She who betrayed him and could not (would not?) prevent the death of the remaining Gargoyles in Scotland would save her perceived comrades.  Granted, Macbeth’s actions always had a thin veneer of desperation, but I wonder if the episode would have gone the same way had the writers known the entire history beforehand.

The theme of this episode is, of course, home.  It’s been an important theme in most of the episodes so far, and here it comes to a head, as the Gargoyles finally admit that they have lost theirs.  More than the blood and the character deaths, the way it handles this arc is what I feel most distinguished Gargoyles from its brethren, at least this early on.  The loss of a home, if not quite a universal experience, is one that a lot of people will be familiar with, and handling it in a manner that feels honest presents a challenge for most cartoons, since the topic is neither funny nor action-packed*.  Ninja Turtles, despite a lot of destroyed lairs, limited itself to the odd scene, never devoting more than seconds at a time to the matter.  Gargoyles, more daringly, made it the focus of an arc, and to their credit, their handling of it is pitch perfect.  Goliath’s stubborn refusal to leave, and his frustration when he’s forced to agree that he has no other choice feels startlingly real, as does the rest of the clan’s hesitation and Elisa’s insistence.  The characters all manage to hold different views that feel true and makes sense for each of them, and more so when we eventually learn that protecting the home is something that nears biological imperative for them.  One wonder if Elisa was entirely aware of that last bit; if not, would her opinion on the matter have changed had she known?

In the end, the Gargoyles are driven out of their old home and into the (in my opinion, natch) cooler Clock Tower.  In this aspect of their fight, at least, Xanatos wins, and even when the Gargoyles return at the end of season 2, they’re there as Xanatos guests/tenants.  Is the castle their home then?

Random thoughts:

• A close inspection of the timeline reveals that by the time this episode ends, the Gargoyles have gone through both their first Christmas in Manhattan and their first New Year’s Eve offscreen, which begets the question of what they did during those holidays.  I can only imagine that Xanatos, ever the gracious host, got them personalized X-mas gifts, while he in turn got nothing from them.
• One wonders if the animation is to blame for the unrealistic way the fire moves thorough the third act.  The fire starts in a room that seems to be devoid of  flammable material, and yet it quickly spreads all over the castle, and I can’t help but be bugged every time I see it.
• Ian Pérez’s moments in denseness, part 49: It wasn’t until reviewing this episode for this essay that I realized that when Macbeth refers to Demona as Goliath’s queen, he doesn’t mean it literally, but as part of the chess metaphor he’s currently using (“you’re just the pawn”, etc).  Thinking about it, I can’t decide if ‘Beth is simply using an imperfect metaphor for the way it sounds, or if he’s actually implying that she’s the most powerful gargoyle like the queen is the most powerful piece?
• There’s a lot of problems with scale in this episode.  Net-guns are a standard Western Animation weapon, but I don’t think they’re supposed to be able to fit in something no larger than your average handgun.
• Yet more evidence that Owen is awesome.  One wonders if he would have actually shot the Gargoyles, and if so, what Elisa would have done about it.
• This is the second time we see Goliath reading, which I’ve always thought is a rather cool touch, particularly since that sort of casual reading is very rarely presented in television, despite how important it is.  Also, it’s a much better approach to promoting reading than the pseudo-PSA the writers sneak into this episode about how maybe they should read up on Shakespeare–were I a stupider man, that would just makes me want to become illiterate.
• One thing that bugs me about Macbeth’s approach inside the castle is that never seems to try to take advantage of Goliath’s disorientation.  He’s already proven that he can be a physical match for Goliath, so why doesn’t he try it.

—-

* Which isn’t to say that the actual loss of the home can’t involve action or violence–the creators of TMNT seemed to take perverse glee in having the Turtles’ various homes destroyed by their enemies, and Gargoyles itself will eventually feature the destruction of the Clock Tower lair by missile; however, dealing with the emotions produced by that loss once the action stops is something else altogether.

Electric Boogaloo, Chapter 6: Lauren Stanton

“Hey, Chung! Is that you?”

Detective Tri Chung recognized the loud, unselfconscious voice immediately: Lauren Stanton, newspaper reporter for the Daily Globe and, on any given day, one of the top five people whose face the detective did not wish to see. So close; another second later, and he would have been inside the men’s restroom and safely out of sight. Maybe it wasn’t too late; pretending the sound of his name had simply come from a particularly particular (and random) gust of wind, he opened the restroom door, entered, and hoped that decorum would keep the reporter out.

It didn’t work. With the customary chutzpah Chung couldn’t believe he’d once found attractive, Stanton followed him into the restroom and parked herself in the urinal next to his.

“Oh, good, it is you. So, how’ryou doing?”

“Fine…until a minute ago.” Chung grunted. Courtesy, he’d learned years ago, did not get you anywhere with Stanton. While rudeness wasn’t much more effective, it at least made him feel better. “What do you want?”

“Same thing as always. I’m working on a story, and I want to run a few things by you, make sure I’m on the right track.”

“And you’re sure it has to be me that you ask these questions to? You know, Vivian still doesn’t let me talk to you.”

For a moment, it seemed like a barb had actually gotten through to Lauren. He could have just imagined it though, as the reporter then rolled her eyes, all mock indignation. “Not my problem. I’m not going to tell her. Will you?”

Tri said nothing; the damage had already been done. “Fine. Can we just…not do it here?” he finally answered, using his head to gesture towards his nether regions. “Let me finish, and we’ll talk at the library.”

---

The courtroom library was empty save for the librarian and a couple of others, which lent the area preternatural (even for, well, a library) silence. This, in turn, amplified every sound Tri made to a level that made the detective afraid to move, lest his noise reverberate through the room and bring unwanted attention upon himself.

Lauren, on the other hand, had no such compunctions. Even with her so-called library voice, her entire being screamed “loud” to such a level that she’d attracted the librarian’s disapproving gaze even before the reporter had said anything. Not that Lauren had noticed.

“So basically, I’ll just tell you what I’ve got so far, and you tell me if I’m on the mark–is that okay?” she asked. She had her a notepad at the ready, despite the recorder she’d laid on the table. “So what’s this about ‘The Shredder’?”

Over the next half-hour, Tri did his best to answer the reporter’s questions truthfully, while avoiding the subjects Miller had forbidden his team from mentioning. As the interview went on, the detective grew increasingly more impressed with the amount of information the reporter had managed to dig up on her own. While she hadn’t learned everything, she’d put the pieces together and had correctly determined the cause of the war and the players’ role within it. Granted, most of the information would be useless in the hands of the police–it was mostly cobbled up from anecdotes and hearsay from various anonymous and non-anonymous sources, but that was, after all why Lauren had sought him out. As the interview continued, he felt himself getting more comfortable despite himself. Him and Lauren–just like old times. Funny how one night can change things.

“Okay, one final thing,” Lauren said. “How goes the massacre docks investigation?”

“We’ve made progress, is all I’ll say,” Chung answered–although personally, he wouldn’t call it that. Elisa Maza had told the detail about her encounter with Tony Dracon, and while Gordon had apparently found it worthy of follow-up–hence today’s visit to the courthouse–Chung himself had found the tale too suspicious by half. While a quick look at the records seemed to confirm that there had indeed been some strange business with the parole board and some big-time mobsters*, his suspicions about Maza’s encounter remained, particularly when it came to Elisa’s claim that Dracon’s life would be in danger if he was brought in. Even in the unlikely case that it was true, it wasn’t Elisa’s call to make. As for “Mr. Touch and Mr. Go”? Please.

“Well, thanks for everything, Tri,” Lauren said, as she place her notepad back in her purse.

“Whoa whoa whoa, Lauren. Is that it? If I’m going to risk my marriage talking to you, you better have something I can use. I can’t be doing all the giving.”

Lauren rolled her eyes once again, although this time, the gesture was accompanied by a smile. “You’re learning. Fine–I got this tip from an unsolicited phone call, so I don’t know how useful it is, but I heard that The Five are sending one of their own–guy named “Tony Jr.”–to Baltimore next week to score the drugs for operating capital. You might want to check that out.”

“Hmm…both suspiciously vague and suspiciously specific. Sounds like a setup. Anything else?”

“Nothing you can use or don’t already know–y’all know about the hockey-mask wearing vigilante, right?”

“Since early last year.” He’d been the subject of at least one police alert, but after realizing that his targets were all members of the Purple Dragons, they’d unofficially agreed to ignore him. After the gang war had begun, he’d even begun hearing expressions of gratitude among the force, an idea Chung didn’t like at all. “Anything in particular about him?”

“Not really. He’s around, he scares the crap out of people–that’s it. Well, I’ve gotta run. Bushkin’s going to have my ass if I don’t give him something by tonight. See you around, Tri.”

Tri followed Lauren outside the courthouse and then went his own way. He removed his cell phone from his pocket, and considered the potential hypocrisy of calling Miller with sketchy, second-hand information, decided that he could live with it, and made the call.

*          *          *

Ashi-gumi

(Redirected from Foot Clan)

The Ashi-gumi (足組, literally “Foot Group”), also known as the Ashishizoku (足氏族, “Foot Clan”), is the name of the largest Yakuza group operating in Japan,  with an estimated membership of 50,000 members and interests in prostitution, illegal gambling, smuggling, drugs, money laundering, extortion and real estate.

Bingo, though Longer, as the Wikipedia™ page came into view–his trip to the public library had not been wasted.  He hadn’t been expecting much from his online search, but given his failure to obtain any information from Kessler and Miller’s inability to get the detective back on regular rotation, he didn’t have many other choices if he wanted to continue on the trail.  He was surprised at the amount of information there seemed to be–he’d expected obsessive secrecy to be a given when it came to crime groups.  After opening a separate window for “Yakuza” for later perusal, he continued reading.

History

Although its current incarnation was founded in 1918, the Ashi-gumi has been in existence as the Ashishizoku since Japan’s Heian period, when it consisted of a tightly-knit group of brigands under the command of a man commonly referred to as the Kiruhito (literally, “person who cuts”, although the title is popularly translated as “The Shredder”) .  Often acting as mercenaries, the group existed in this form until 1600, when Tokugawa Ieyasu began using them for various purposes in his bid to unify Japan under his rule. Led by the then-Kirihito Saki Keiichi, the Ashishizoku proved instrumental to Ieyasu’s victory in the Battle of Sekigahara and the establishment of the Shogunate.  After Ieyasu established himself as shogun, Keiichi was granted the title of daimyo and his own territory within the Satsuma province, and many members of the Ashigumi were given the status of full-fledged samurai.

Despite their new legitimate status, the Ashigumi continued their involvement in illicit activities, acting as the Tokugawa clan’s extraofficial enforcers and secretly undermining various rival daimyos via espionage, theft, or assassination.  They also had covert involvement in the operations of the lower Tekiya (Peddlers) and Bakuto (Gamblers) classes, which further increased the clan’s coffers.   Although these activities were an open secret among Japanese nobility of the time, the Tokugawa’s patronage and their large numbers made the group unassailable.

After the effects of the Meiji Restoration restored power to the emperor and dissolved the daimyo system, the Saki Clan severed its ties to the Ashishizoku, leaving the group adrift.  While most of its members belonging to the samurai class became thieves or beggars, the ones operating as Tekiya and Bakuto continued operating under the leadership of Ameyama Shinji.

Longer was not an educated man; he knew the bare basics of U.S. history, and could name every president since Nixon, but anything relating to any other country was just Greek–or Japanese, as the case might be–to him.  Still, he felt he’d managed to get a good grasp of the gist of the Foot’s existence.  He moved on.

The modern Ashi-gumi

In 1918, the Foot Clan reorganized itself in accordance with the structure of then-fledging yakuza groups such as the Yamaguchi-gumi.  Now calling themselves the Ashi-gumi, the group quickly took over several smaller groups, quickly becoming one of the most influential organized groups at the time.

Since 1959, when it bought its main rival for the sum of 9 billion yen, the Ashi-gumi has been the largest criminal group in Japan, controlling up to 80% of the organized crime in the country.  It has also greatly expanded the scope of its operations into fields such as real estate, banking, and the stock market.  It is also heavily involved with politics, donating money several prominent members of the National Diet.

With the ascendance of current Ashi-gumi boss Sawaki Oroku in 1984, the cartel has also been expanding outwardly.  A 2001 joint report  by Japan’s National Police Agency and Interpol concluded that the group had operations in countries such as Russia, South Africa, and Mexico.  Since 2004, there have also been reports of significant Ashi-gumi activity in the United States, particularly in Hawaii.

Longer was growing frustrated: although the information was interesting, little of it was actually useful, and what little was useful was disillusioning.  The mafia was bad enough, but whoever the Foot were, they seemed to be operating on an entirely different level.

The Mon Controversy

After the Saki clan cast the Ashishizoku adrift in 1866, the criminal group continued using their protectorate’s mon (crest), the three-toed dragon, as their own.  The gesture remained unchallenged until the Ashi-gumi was officially founded in 1918, when the Saki Zaibatsu, headed by descendants of the Saki Clan , decided to take legal action to reclaim their family symbol.  After a protracted legal battle, it was decided that both groups’ claims to the symbol were legitimate, and since then both groups hold a joint trademark on the mon, and both currently use it as their official logo.

With that, Longer remembered where he’d seen the symbol from; the Saki Technologies building had been one of New York’s newest landmarks, and the same symbol that had adorned the dead man’s costume (now safely hidden inside his backpack after he’d  “retrieved” it from evidence control) could be seen across the city.  He made a mental note to check up on the company later on–in his book, anybody who willingly and knowingly decided to keep a logo associated with organized crime merited watching.

With his allotted time at the computer quickly winding down, Longer logged into his e-mail account and began composing a message.  After Miller had contacted him with news of his failed attempt to get him on the detail, it had become clear to Longer now that, barring a sea change in the NYPD’s makeup, he would never again do proper police work.   If he wanted to fight this war, or stop Ruffington, he’d need to try something else and after seeing that man in the Foot Clan costume, he now had an idea of what exactly that was.

Hey sis, Longer began.  Here’s hoping everythings okay in LA.  I need your help.  You worked on the costumes for that Justice Force movie, right?

*          *          *

Need to discuss elements of case with you. Free for lunch?

That had been the message Lin ( Koyobashi.Lin@nypd.nyc.gov) had received from Hacker (conspiracydebunker666@yahoo.com) earlier that day.  Despite the weirdness of the set-up–why just not talk in the office?–she’d fired back an e-mail agreeing with him  at a nearby Nightstone’s coffeehouse. When she arrived, she was unpleasantly surprised to see that the F.B.I. agent had apparently arrived some time before her, displaying more diligence than she usually like seeing in anyone who wasn’t part of her team.

“Lin.  Glad you could make it,” Hacker said, looking up from his copy of The Atlantic. “Do you plan to get something, or would should we just talk?”

“I’ve already eaten, thank you,” she said, as she sat opposite him on his table.  “So what is it you wanted to talk about?”

“Well, off the record, I found a couple of things…off with our experience with Kessler, and I wanted to see if you’d come to the same conclusions I did.”

” ‘Off’ is an understatement.  It’s like we stepped in the middle of a Christie novel.”  She gave a mock-shudder.  “And that Longer…I’m sorry, but the man is not normal.”

“Actually, it’s not him I was thinking about.  There’s something wrong with him yes, but I hardly he think he would have called for us if he intended to murder the man.”

“I’d say the opposite.  If you want to murder a man that’s being watched, the last thing you want is to be the only person with the opportunity to do so.”

For a second, Hacker seemed to consider this possibility.  “You’re probably right.  Still, I don’t think he’s responsible for it.  I think you are.”

If Hacker was expecting a heated reaction or outright denial, he was going to be disappointed.  “I’m sorry, I don’t get your meaning.”

“I’m saying that you, Lin Takahashi–not Koyobashi–are an agent of the Foot Clan sent to infiltrate the N.Y.P.D. to monitor and hinder the investigation on the gang war.  You killed Sean Kessler, and unless you want me to expose you, you’re going to have to do what I say.”

__

* One case in particular–that of Jack “Diamondback” Trent, who had been given 20 years for manslaughter and yet had been out in three–stood out.  Chung had been directly involved in that case, and distinctively remembered that the sentence had included no chance for parole.  The discovery had been the cause of much internal swearing on Tri’s part.

The Great Ten: Gargoyles Characters

Okay, so not really: “great” implies that there’s some sort of objective thought behind this, when there really isn’t; still, I really like DC Comic’s “The Great Ten” mini-series* so I thought I’d give it a shout out.

But no, this is just a list of my favorite characters in the Gargoyles-verse, done so I could figure out who they were and so that y’all may have some idea of the though processes behind my stories and reviews.

10.  Fox Xanatos (neé Janine Renard)

Fox is the type of character I ought to love, in theory.  She’s hot, smart, ruthless–a femme fatale to the core, and the one person who can keep up with David Xanatos.  While If she’s not higher on that list, it’s because a) I feel that she isn’t used in this capacity enough–half the time she’s feels like simply a satellite character to Xanatos, and given that she only appears occasionally, her ass-kicking moments are few and far between, and b) more superficially, the animators tend to put her in some spectacularly unflattering looks.

9. The Weird Sisters: Phoebe, Seline, and Luna

“City of Stone” was one of my first episodes, so seeing these three appearing everywhere right of the bat being all mysterious was one of the things that told me, “okay, this is cool”.  While they didn’t quite live up to their potential–they are far less interesting as the Archmage’s minions than they are as manipulators in their own right–they’re characters I’d really love to see more of.

8. Elisa Maza

A splash of normalcy and light in a painting characterized by weird and grey, Elisa embodies all of the positive elements of what TV Tropes calls The Chick archetype.  She works insanely well in the world they’ve created and which she, in turn, makes work.   While I’d like to see more of her outside her relationship with the Gargoyles and her role as a policeman, I am always glad to see her.

7. Demona

While Demona isn’t my favorite villain in the series, there’s no questioning that she’s a damn good one.  She’s dangerous–she almost wipes out the planet’s population once–but not in a way that makes defeating her seem improbable or jeopardizes her coolness.  He’s cunning.  She has understandable and clear motives–you can understand where she comes from, even if you consider her a monster.  Plus, she has two advantages over characters like the Joker and Green Goblin: a) she’s consistent, since she hasn’t been pulled every which way by a series of writers with differing ideas on what she should be (at least outside fan fiction) and b) she’s female, which in a genre where Big Bads are overwhelmingly male makes her unique.

6. Goliath

Leaders, particularly competent ones, are usually accused of being boring–it’s the basis for the “Standardized Leader” trope described on TVTropes.  While Goliath is indeed a tad on the dry side, he’s far from uninteresting, and everything I want in a leading man: he’s sympathetic, capable without being perfect, and possesses the ability to learn from his mistakes–he even has a bit of a sense of humor.  The fact that we occasionally see him read helps.  While I don’t really believe he works without a dynamic supporting cast to complement him–part of my problem with the world tour was that its cast consisted of three “straight men”– he does an excellent job of unifying the cast.

5. Halcyon Renard

Halcyon makes the list for one simple reason: there’s simply no one quite like him. An old man made bitter by the inability of humanity to live up to his standards, who owns an airship?  Okay, you’ve got my atention.

4. Anton Sevarius

The mad scientist has been a staple of the superhero genre for decades, making it important for any newer iterations of the concept to stand out in some manner.  While Sevarius adheres to the standard in many ways, voice actor Tim Curry and the script imbue him with equal parts menace and fun, both of which makes him yet another stand out villain in a series filled with them.

3. Macbeth

He’s an immortal old man with a kick-ass look and sound (Gimli!), an awesome origin story and a mindset that allows him to be used believably in a variety of stories as both ally and antagonist.  How can he not be awesome?

2. Owen Burnett.

Like the cliche says, good help is hard to find.  In a medium filled with incompetent or comic-relief lackeys, Owen stands out for being just as badass (in his own way) as his boss.  Need some mocha, some files, or merely to discreetly dispose of an inconveniently dead Lithuanian prostitute?**  Owen’s your man.***

1. David Xanatos

Finally.  The big man.   Demona is a better Magneto; Xanatos is in a class all of his own.  Like I said with Goliath, learning from ones’ mistakes is a trait I value in protagonists, and seeing an antagonist apply that to himself–and use it to succeed, no less– blew my mind. What’s more, the traits that make Xanatos Xanatos are ones that have not yet been succefully duplicated in western animation (although he does have analogues in other media: see Lord Vetinari and Grand Admiral Thrawn, who embody many of the same characteristics), which means that his particular brand of awesome has held up incredibly well over the decade and a half since the show first aired. The fact that my first few episodes (“Vows”, “City of Stone”) also portrayed Xanatos at his most awesome also help.

—-

* Really DC, cutting down the series from ten issues to nine?  You really do suck sometimes.

** Not that Xanatos would ever cavort with prostitutes, Lithuanian or otherwise.  He’d find 98% of them too uninteresting.

*** Apropos to nothing, I’m also fascinated the idea that he has a significant other that we haven’t met (at least I think that’s what Greg has said–somebody please tell me I have not imagined this)–what kind of person would he/she be?

Sucker-punched: “Fallen Angel”

“Listen up, hairballs: it’s gonna take a lot more than chains to bring down Casey Jones. YOU HEAR ME?! I won’t rest until every last one of you Dragon clowns is behind bars…OR PUSHING UP DAISIES!”–Casey Jones

Written by: Marty Isenberg
Original Air Date: March 29, 2003
Teaser Narrator: Casey
Introduces: Angel; Angel’s grandmother

Synopsis:

Teaser: A bruised Casey has been cuffed upside down to an X-shaped cross, which is lowered via pulley into a wrestling cage in plain view of the public. He explains how he’s having a bad everything day thanks to Hun, who is acting as MC at a Purple Dragon fight club event. The Foot enforcer explains to his audience how tonight, they’ll get a chance to get rid of a hated enemy. In a cute moment, audience stares confused, as they have no idea who the guy in the cross is…at least until he’s made to wear his trademark hockey mask, which causes them to cheer in anticipation.

Theme song.

Dragonface and the Purple Dragons break into an electronics’ store as part of a test for Purple Dragon initiates. One of these is Angel, a pink-haired girl of about thirteen. As they prepare to leave with the loot, they’re ambushed by four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and one Casey Jones.

As the turtles make short work of the Dragon rank and file, Angel tries to escape. As she looks behind her to see if she’s being followed, she crashes into Casey, who, surprise, surprise, actually knows her. He reveals his so-called secret identity to her, which gets her to stop.

Casey demands to know why Angel is “making the biggest mistake of [her] life” by joining the Purple Dragons and asks her to quit while she still has a chance. Angel is having none of it, however; she explains that the Dragons are “family”, and that once she passes a second test (the robbery was the first) she’ll be a full-fledged member. Using her bag of loot as a cudgel, she sucker-punches Casey and climbs over a chain-link fence to make her escape.

As the turtles rejoin Casey, he explains the backstory: Angel lives in the same neighborhood as Casey, and he’d made a promise to her grandmother that he’d keep her out of trouble, a promise he vows to keep.

Later that night, an unmasked and trenchcoat-wearing Casey follows a couple of Purple Dragons into a warehouse, which the street gang has converted into a fighting ring. An MC (Dragonface?) announces that tonight, Purple Dragon wannabes will fight members of the group for the opportunity to join–the second test. As narrative convenience would have it, Angel is the next initiate to enter the ring, where two Dragons twice her size will be her opponents.

Casey watches silently as Angel handles her opponents with some skill, and it’s not until he sees one of the Dragons preparing to hit her from behind with a piece of wood that he decides to intervene. Putting on his mask and taking out a baseball bat, he enters the ring. He doesn’t get a chance to be very effective, though, as he’s soon knocked down by a punch in the gut. “Hello Jones,” says Hun. “Long time no see.”

As Hun smacks Casey around, he explains that yes, he’s always known that Casey Jones was the vigilante who’d been “disrespecting” the Dragons so much. With ridiculous ease, he takes Jones down, breaking his bat in two in the process. Once his opponent is down, he orders the dragons to lock Casey up for later. Angel, looking horrified, runs away unnoticed.

At the turtles’ lair, Don is tinkering with the Battle Shell. He explains to his audience of Mikey that once he’s done, they’ll be able to control the Armored Truck via remote. Mikey notices the remote control on the table, and being the “press first, ask if he should press later” kind of turtle he is, he, well…you get the idea. The Battle Shell springs to life, driving itself through the lair and causing damage until it stops by crashing into a wall. Once everyone has recovered from this impromptu bout of excitement, Splinter explains that while he thinks that the Battle Shell is a wonderful machine, and that he never wants to see it in his home again.

At the Purple Dragon Battel Warehouse, Casey has been imprisoned in a cell and chained to the wall. As he tries to free himself, Hun enters the room. The Purple Dragon head honcho taunts Casey by bringing up his father’s store, and explains that he’s organizing a little “smackdown” for the privilege of killing The Vigilante. As Hun leaves, Angel enters the room via the roof. Apologizing for Casey for getting him into this situation, she tries to channel her inner Jill Valentine and pick the lock to his cell. After she fails, Casey tells her to go for help, and instructs her to head to the abandoned warehouse at the corner of Eastman and Laird and ask for Raphael. Which she does.

One off-screen explanation and one transition scene later, Angel and the turtles (disguised in what Mikey describes as “kind of a hip-hop/cat-burglar/stormtrooper” look) enter the Purple Dragon Warehaüs* of Wrestling, where Hun’s little smackdown is about to start. The Casey-bearing cross from the teaser has been raised to the catwalks, so the turtles decide to split up; Angel, Don and Mikey will rescue Casey, while Leo and Raph will keep everyone’s eyes on the ring by taking part in the smackdown.

The plan goes well; using the spotlights to blind the Purple Dragon Stage Crew, Angel gives the turtles a chance to take them down unnoticed and free Casey (whom they re-arm with a baseball bat they’ve bought with them). However, although Leo and Raph outmatch the Purple Dragons by a fair margin, one of them accidentally manages to disrobe Raphael, blowing his cover. Hun is not pleased.

Upon seeing his masters’ enemies before him, Hun enters the ring to confront them. Despite being outnumbered two-to-one (and later four-to-one, after Mikey and Don join the fray) the Foot enforcer proves more than a match for the turtles (particularly since television standards dictate that Leo can’t use his swords on him); shrugging off most of their attacks, he eventually brings down the wrestling cage on them with his bare hands. As he takes Leo’s swords and prepares for the finishing blow, he is sent flying by a surprise *thwack* on the head from Casey’s bat, which leaves him stunned on the floor.

With Casey freed and their main opponent out of the fight, all that’s left is the escape; using the Battle Shell’s remote control, Donny summons the armored truck into the warehouse. However, Casey isn’t ready to leave yet; heading for the now-helpless Hun, he lifts his baseball bat for a finishing blow FOR GREAT JUSTICE. Before he can do so, he’s stopped by Angel, who doesn’t want Casey to make “the biggest mistake of [his] life”. Casey quickly agrees, and leaves with her on the Battle Shell.

The turtles drop Angel and Casey off at Angel’s grandmother. They watch as Grandma thanks Casey for keeping Angel safe and asks him to stay for pie. As all three humans enter the apartment, the turtles drive off into the night.

—-

Of all the TMNT protagonists, Casey Jones was the character most likely to get shafted in adaptations. His role gets drastically reduced in the first cartoon; he’s completely absent from the Archie series and The Next Mutation; and gets reduced to a cameo in the third movie after being completely absent from the second, even after being an integral part of the first. As we get to his first character focus episode eight episodes into the new series, it becomes clear that this will not be the case here.

The “killing your hated enemy is bad” speech is a time-worn tradition in comic books and Western animation.  An interesting point here is that it’s Angel who talks Casey away from killing Hun–she’s the only one that can**.  Not only is she the one who can most clearly see the practical repercussions (the turtles are hidden, and exist completely outside the law; they can, and do, get away with killing scores of people–Casey, April, and other humans can’t), she’s the only one in the episode that actually believes it.

Although Raph talked Casey away from killing purse-snatchers in “Meet Casey Jones”, this was not meant as a condemnation of vigilante killing per se; the turtles, raised in Bushidō by Splinter, don’t actually believe that.  “A warrior cannot live under the same sky with the murderer of his kin” the saying goes (at least, according to Usagi Yojimbo); according to Eastern thought, Casey would have, in fact, been obligated to kill Hun.  Fortunately, Casey’s morality, although skewed, is not his friends’: given how awesome Hun turns out to be, it would have been a shame to kill him off now.  Still, given how entrenched the themes of revenge are in the original comic book, I’m glad they could be translated in some (less explicit) manner into the cartoon.

In any case, how does Casey’s decision stack up with his quote above?  I’m not entirely sure, and the fact that he just seems to go along with Angel’s plea with no internal struggle doesn’t help.  Perhaps he truly doesn’t want to mess with the Foot, or maybe he just realized that he’d be traumatizing her friend (who, it’s worth noting, seems quite fragile behind her initial bluster) if he’d gone through with it.

In this episode, we also continue discovering things about Hun.  Last time, we learned that, contrary to stereotype, the guy had some smarts on him.  Here we also learn that the initial impression one gets of him is also correct, and that the guy is indeed as tough as he looks–but that’s not the most interesting thing about him here.  For the first time since that brief flashback in episode four, we see Hun independent from the Foot, and we learn that while Saki may have given him strength, power, and even some insight, but he wasn’t able to fully assimilate him.  Hun is still a Purple Dragon, and at the end of the day, that’s who he’s loyal to.   He might have traded up for a fancier appartment, but he hasn’t forgotten where he came from.  It’s an interesting character note that sets him apart from other Dragons (the trope, not the gang), and makes him one of my favorite characters.  Eventually we’ll see that aside from the Shredder, his loyalty to the Foot is dangerously variable, but that’s not for a while yet.

The rest of the episode is okay–the plot is something that you’d get in Static Shock or Captain Planet, and it’s done in a way that subtly (read: I’m probably hallucinating things) seems to indicate that the writers just wanted to go through with it as fast as they could.  Angel meets Casey *ZWIPP!*  Casey gets captured, Angel gets contrite * ZWIPP!* the turtles rescue Casey.  Episode over.  Still, Angel’s an alright character, and one that I wouldn’t have minded seeing more of (the other episode she’s heavily featured in, “The Darkness Within”, merely uses her facilitate the plot).  I also find it somewhat interesting that they allowed her to be as young as she is–I get the feeling that another series would have probably made her a couple of years older.

Random thoughts:

• While the series has a consistent group of about a dozen distinct Purple Dragons we see regularly, this episode creates about a dozen or so more to fill the fight club–an impressive little feat, given that creating extras is usually a pain.  Even so, they clearly weren’t using them in any consistent manner–you can see the Dragon with the afro teleport from guard duty to catwalk duty to being downstairs after being knocked unconscious a minute before.
• The CG used in this series is excellent.  The scene where the Battle Shell runs wild switches between a traditionally-animated version of the truck and a CGI version, but you’ll have to pay attention to notice.
• While the fact that Leo can’t use swords on humans has always been noticeable, this is the first time it’s actually jarring.  Leo, the guy isn’t watching–juststabhimalready!
• I like that Hun is so blasé about Casey’s “secret identity”–it’s a realistic touch.  Still, I find it kind of odd that he apparently remembers burning down Casey’s father store–it doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that he’d keep with him.
• On that note, we once again have the weirdness caused by having “burning down the store” eventually be supplemented by “killing his dad”.  One can excuse Casey fixating on the first one–it’s the one he was actually present for–but to have Hun mention the first and not the second just seems weird in retrospect.
• This doesn’t have to do anything in particular with the episode, but I really wish the show had managed to use Angel as a gauge for how much time has passed in the series.  It almost happens–her season 3 model looks slightly older than the one for this episode (it helps that she loses the earings by then), and her Back to the Sewer model looks older still, but it’s undermined by having her using her season 1 model in season 4.
• On a somewhat similar note: while Angel pretty definitively biracial (or at least ambigously brown), does she look somewhat Asian to anybody else?
• It’s silly as hell, but the entire sequence with the turtles in disguise–complete with surprisingly bearable hip-hop-ish background music–is hilarious.  How can you not love the pic above?

—-

* Apologies to Chris Sims.

** Aside from probably April, but she’s not in this episode.  She won’t be seen again until episode twelve, which I initially found all kinds of surprising, seeing how prominent she usually is in adaptations.  Can you imagine Elisa being missing for six episodes?  I can’t.