Superman: The Animated Series, Season 2, Episode 10: Double Dose
This one is a lot more fun, in no small part due to our resident larger-than-life maniac, Livewire, being just so damned hilarious throughout the episode. Sure, Livewire's a Grade-A bitch, but she enjoys being a psychotic villain so much that it's not hard to like her. The team-up between Livewire and Parasite is geared so heavily towards Livewire, and there are huge chunks where Parasite just doesn't do much but lurk menacingly, but the episode seems content in portraying Parasite as a relative pushover among Superman's rogues gallery, someone with one of the more powerful skillsets in the setting, but is just so damn lazy to do anything, and too stupid to actually properly cooperate with Livewire.
Obviously, the team-up between Livewire and Parasite was doomed to failure from the get-go. Livewire wants Parasite to basically be her henchman, while Parasite spends every second scene trying to drain Livewire's energy and getting his ass shocked because of it, but damn if they don't make it entertaining. Superman himself is sadly still blandly written, but that's the curse that the character has to deal with especially in these earlier seasons. Which is why I appreciate how Superman is handled in Justice League and Justice League Unlimited so much, where they give him so much more personality and character despite vastly reducing his screentime.
The plotline's relatively simple, and unlike last episode's bland storyline with Metallo, the Livewire/Parasite double threat quickly has Superman jump from one setting to the next. First, fighting Livewire in downtown with that fire hydrant (the visual effect of Livewire blowing up the jumbotron TV is well done), then the hilarious flying-boat fight with a shotgun-wielding Parsite, and finally the final three-way battle between Superman, Livewire and Parasite.
Throughout it all Parasite himself acts like, well, a parasite. He's so content at sitting in his cell and watching David Letterman parody shows, and when Livewire shows up to drag him on a prison escape his reaction is more of a 'eh, why not?' Of course, he quickly gets back to his game at the end of the episode when he comes to his own and starts throwing both Livewire and Superman around, being legitimately scary -- I always love how Parasite's mouth just blend in to his purple gradients.
Livewire herself gets a crapton of great lines. To date, I'm pretty sure this episode has the most double entrendes in Superman: TAS, and we even get a relatively prolonged scene of Livewire sashaying and swinging her hips and chest in front of a row of prisoners, and she definitely tries to play up her sex appeal while trying to recruit Parasite. Mind you, Parasite's power makes a lot of sex jokes just unavoidable. "You can look, but you can't touch." "The boy scout brought protection!" (bonus for Superman actually being wrapped in a rubber suit) "When we're done, I'll give you a little taste.... of my power, I mean."
It's just such an entertaining episode through and through that's not boring at all. My only big complaint is the weird inconsistency on Livewire's powers. She seems to need to drain electricity from stuff, like the janitor's walkman, but then seems to be able to generate way, way too much electricity for stolen electricity. So maybe to jump-start her own electricity-generating powers she needs an initial jolt or something? I dunno. Overall, pretty fun stuff, for sure.
No comments:
Post a Comment