Who Want's To Be A Superhero - Oi Vay! Pilfered Pottery and Captured Comic Creator
Episode 1 Recap by J.G. Bird June 27, 2007
Why a Superhero number two? Because it's like the comic books - if you read #1 and like it, you can't miss the next installment. It's labeled Issue #2 and overblown character hi-jinks and interactions with mere mortals are what bring me back for more. What's not to like in getting a comic book cover filled with your face and your best heroic pose. This is what each contestant is seeking - Immortality, and being made into an action figure!
Via clips from an eleven city search, you see that there are more than enough people to fill a lifetime of new comics. Believe it or not, you may get your biggest laugh from watching the antics of one of the non-selected, Homeless Man. He plays it up great for the camera and for Stan Lee.
Last season's winner, Matthew Atherton, as his alter ego, Feedback, whisks each of the ten contestants from their normal lives; assisted by special effects. The participants' secret identities, on the show so far, remain unknown. But others on the Internet have the info. Here they are listed by occupation and hometown:
Ms. Limelight (Trisha Paytas), Barista, Los Angeles, CA
Basura (Aja De Coudreaux), Oakland, CA
Hygena (Melody Moody), Homemaker, Sherman Oaks, CA
The Defuser (Jarrett Crippen), Police Detective, Austin TX
Mr Mitzvah ("Sir Ivan" Wilzig), Multi-Millionaire, East Hampton, NY
Parthenon (Dan Williams), College Professor, Orlando, FL
Mindset (Phillip Allen), Cashier, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Braid (Crystal Clark), Bloomington, IL
HyperStrike (John Stork), Circus performer, Chicago, IL
WhipSnap (Paula Thomas), Security officer, Hollywood, CA
Once delivered to the Superhero lair - Feedback counsels, "Show you have what it takes!"
Stan Lee welcomes them all via big-screen TV and hopes they'll enjoy getting to know each other and the lair, with its labeled beds. Parthenon likes the décor big-time. I wish that I could imagine that having Stan Lee watching everything you do is like Big Brother, but it's not nearly to that level of intrusion and intrigue. But right away, drama strikes. It appears Stan Lee has been snatched from his own secret headquarters. The bad guy voice that replaces him on-screen sets the heroes into action immediately. They divide into two teams. At the hostage site, an aqueduct channel ends at a ramped platform loaded with heavy-duty sprayers and wind machines. This is the challenge to overcome.
They are warned that all levers must be held in the off position and valves closed. And something else is key to Stan's continued safety. A key is hidden in plain site at the discarded grocery cart at each team's start point. If either team fails, the dark hooded figure proclaims, "Stan Lee will have created his final comic book." Mwah-hahah! Yeah, right, and I suppose you think he'll give up his SAG card too, eh?
Blue Team consists of: Defuser, Braid, Ms. Limelight, Parthenon, Basura
The Defuser has a good strategy in having all of them linking arms to walk against the wind and reach the platform. Once there, and confused why the water and wind won't stop , the group of them hurry back for the shut off key, beating the four minute clock by a good half-minute.
Red Team consists of: Hyperstrike, Mindset, Hygena, Mr Mitzvah and WhipSnap.
On their approach there's no strategy, they just run forward; into the fray. Just a single person, WhipSnap, scurries back for key. The force of wind throws her down to her knees, from which she recovers, and still claims the key, but their time runs out.
It's clear to see that some are more help than others. Braid is just pitiful looking captured on video as she's walking away from the challenge site with her drenched synthetic rainbow clown braids slapping against her back. There are the contestants' horrified reactions to the fact that they did not save him. What does it mean?
Removing the dark, obscuring cloak, the smiling face in the video screen reveals that Stan Lee staged his own kidnapping, and acted the part of the villain.
WhipSnap goes off alone once the group returns to the lair. Defuser reminds her how strong they had to be to get this far, and leads them all in a group shout of "Excelsior!"
Kickin' back at bedtime, Defuser professes he's 32, while Limelight is eighteen. But Mr. Mitzvah, who knows how old he is - he's probably not telling, but I tell you, he's got a tan like George Hamilton and that's got to be a giveaway to his age, or his expendable cash, or.... Never mind, you probably don't even know who George Hamilton is, right?
A new day dawns and Stan alerts the team to a robbery in the nearby warehouse district. They must go see Mr. Long. That's a proprietor's name, dears, not a superhero moniker. Each has two minutes to get information from Mr. Long on the facts about the case of the missing vase. How come I'm suddenly thinking of the Scooby Doo Mysteries theme song? The real test is to get the clues in super heroic fashion.
Most of the super-rushed heroes only draw out one actual clue on average about the facts in the matter. Defuser has a straight-to-the-point approach, but the demeanor is wrong. Mr. Mitzvah, taking a similar approach, can be renamed, The Fast-talking Interrogator, yet he does locate the most important clues. To both, Mr. Long says, "Why you yell at me?" Yet Defuser and Mr. Mitzvah both have it pegged about the same, the guy is not forthcoming. They both find him evasive, and thus, suspicious.
Ms. Limelight is just intimidated, poor mite. Several of the guys show off a little to appease Mr. Long's questions about their individual superpowers. Braid prattles on about at least four of her powers and her personal battle cry, or something.
Other women are unable to get past Mr. Long's perceived leering, forward approach in putting them off-task asking questions about their sexy costumes.
I think Mindset's super "shoulder parabolas" cover his ears too much. When Mr Long queries, "That thing on your chest…How does it work?" Mindset hears, "How do you walk?" Duh. And he thinks he's the thinking hero in this group?
When they leave the scene of the crime, Defuser and the rest of the group (I wouldn't call them a team at this point) react to the scene of their partly disassembled transports. Many of them scramble at Defuser's authoritative, barked directives to find and reassemble their vehicles. What is missed? And what does their benefactor, Stan Lee witness? Most of them completely ignoring an older woman nearby, having difficulty loading a walker into the back of her car. Two of the women do ask if she needs assistance. Only one of the heroes assists a nearby delivery man carrying an overload of boxes. A "lost" Bassett Hound dutifully posed under a LOST DOG flyer several yards from the warehouse parking area gets no attention.
Is it any wonder, that already, Stan-in-a-box has ordered the contestants to the roof of the lair for the dramatic elimination? Some contestants air their predictions: that Mr. Mitzvah isn't fitting in, or that one of the youngest will go first.
By the way, if you hate uncertain commercial break lengths, nearly every segue back to the show replays the very tail end of the prior segment.
The first elimination from the Lair: Braid
In the wind tunnel challenge, tire jacking, and even interacting with others in the Lair, Braid is too laid back. Actually she was standing around fiddling with the tips of her braids during the "helping others" challenge masked as a tire jacking. Being distracted from the activity of the group could have helped her see the clues that were all around them. But she is too wrapped up in her own hideous hair world.
Everyone receives Stan Lee's evaluation on their involvement or choices which held them back. With the example of Braid's lax heroics, Stan Lee warns the heroes to be certain to involve themselves. Even the best comic book adaptations require the movie audience to suspend disbelief. Stan Lee requires even more of you and his contestants. He welcomes "true believers." In watching the "Who Wants to be a Superhero 2" show, be willing to laugh along with the quirkiness and crocodile tears, the defensive responses as well as cheerleading.
About J.G. Bird
J.G. Bird has been writing for three-quarters of a lifetime, over-analyzing and using big, yet appropriate words in an on-going dialogue with the universe. She works at a great metropolitan newspaper, but has never used the broom closet to change into a costume. Both the Internet and Reality TV give her the power of flight. You'll find her portfolio here. You may contact her at walkinbird@writing.com.
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