Supergirl S04E10 Review: Anti-Alien Paintball Gun

Supergirl, Season 4, Episode 10: Suspicious Minds

Supergirl's fourth season seems to have a bit of a pattern of introducing a character as a morally ambiguous character, only to reveal that he/she is totally evil all along. With Benjamin Lockwood, it was deliberate and well done -- we're introduced to the villain first, and then we get a 'how did we get here' flashback origin episode that details how he was originally a tolerant, nice man who ended up being consumed by his hatred and racism. With Colonel Haley, we were originally presented with a pretty interesting and complex character, someone who's by all accounts reasonable and wants to protect the people, but just has an underlying streak of nonchalance about aliens -- they're tools, not people.

And where Lockwood's transformation from a racist to a full-blown cult leader made sense, Haley's... doesn't. Mind you, the actress does relatively good work with what she's given with, but the involved writing basically turns her from Alex's superior officer who butts heads with her over how much control she has to... to basically a Grade-A asshole who's just one step away from being Challenge of the Super-Friends era Lex Luthor. Honestly, it's a pretty huge disappointment, where this episode not only reveals that she has been partaking in the torture and weaponization of aliens for what's implied to be decades, but also isn't averse to using torture on her own soldiers just to find who Supergirl is, and then make her life a living hell.

The way we reach this end-point is also pretty damn convoluted, even by CW superhero standards, and basically drops the ball on so many other interesting plot avenues... and it's not just the potential of Haley as... well, as basically a Quentin Lance style character. Instead she's just a full-blown villain, and at this point it's so much more black and white, which is, again, far less interesting than what it could've been. Again, I'm not sure if they're just rushing through things with Haley to get her over with for the cliffhanger to the next episode (ALEX HAS AMNESIA OH NOES CONVOLUTED DRAMA!), but there are definitely better ways to do it than this.

The Morai (Moray? Morae? Morey?) are a huge, huge wasted concept, too. The idea that these invisible aliens that a section of the US government basically raised as children and flat-out tortured to coerce them into basically becoming assassins is a very interesting concept. I'm not sure if or how this relates to the current political climate because I don't really give a shit, but the concept is a pretty solid, interesting sci-fi one. Hell, they even have the excuse to not have a lot of budget because everyone but Supergirl can't see more than a shimmer. The execution? Not so much. The aliens have a sympathetic reason, but they barely get enough screentime to be anything but the enemy, and for what's basically a bunch of brainwashed, traumatized people, the cast seem far more panicked about how to fool Haley instead of... I don't know, helping these scared alien kids that are so traumatized that they're willing to stab themselves in the neck at the prospect of being under Haley again. It's also implied early in the episode that she's the cause of the Navy SEAL soldier going missing in a cover-up, and at that point it's a bit bizarre that their course of action isn't "get her out of the DEO right now".

This whole detective run with J'onn and Supergirl is pretty neat as they piece together the conspiracy around the Morai, but, of course, this happens concurrently with Haley cracking down on the whole DEO and interrogating everyone one by one to get Supergirl's secret identity out. Of course. If you need any doubt that Haley is anything but reprehensible and a monster of a human being. Wouldn't it be so much more interesting to have Haley's bombastic hunt into Supergirl's secret identity (and the subsequent mind-wipe) actually be a dilemma because Haley's just someone doing her job, admittedly with a bit of a mean streak? Nope, she has to be this super-evil alien-baby-torturing mastermind too. Such a waste.

And then we get the plot contrivance that is the Locker Room Supergirl Secret Identity Club, which is... it's a sensible thing to have, actually, considering how flippantly casual Supergirl is in working with the DEO, but it's not something that's ever been brought up or implied, ever, that the no-name grunts at the DEO even has an inkling that Supergirl even has a secret identity. And if anything else, only five of them knows? Of course, while the Brainiac interrogation and compartmentalization bit is fun, the whole thing is just so someone we don't care about can break the news to Haley. And that someone immediately gets killed (or mauled) by the attacking Morai. Of course.

Anyway, the Morai attack, Brainiac has some fun plan involving paintball guns (which is adorable), Supergirl saves Haley who immediately goes into a villainous speech about how "your life belongs to the government now, if you so much as disobey we will RUIN your life and your friends" and gets socked by Alex. Shoehorn in a guns-are-bad-even-though-we-are-a-military-organization speech... and I get it. Guns are bad, gun control is good. But of all the things that gets Alex into a long, crying speech about how she wants to quit the DEO, it isn't Haley interrogating agents, or Haley focusing on Supergirl to the exclusion of everything else, or discovering that Haley has been basically enslaving aliens and using them as assassins. Nope, it's the usage of live rounds. I agree with Supergirl's sentiments most of the time, but the way they're executed in the story isn't particularly good this time around.

J'onn shows up and agrees to wipe Haley's mind, Identity Crisis style, but I really do feel that it happens very casually, with quite literally a single line of dialogue acknowledging J'onn feeling that it's a mistake with Manchester Black a while back. That's literally it. It feels awkward -- like it could've easily been an episode's worth of drama, especially in a show like Supergirl. But then it just happens... only so that Haley can come back with a random blobby Truth-Seeker alien to continue the identity hunt, causing a different sort of drama -- the fact that Alex's mind has to be wiped in order for the DEO to fool the Truth Seeker. And, don't get me wrong, Benoist and Leigh have great chemistry and that's a genuinely touching scene as Supergirl is very upset at being in a world where Alex doesn't know who she is. But the extremely convoluted way we reach this point, and the fact that, y'know, presumably J'onn can put Alex's memories back where they were (or, y'know, fucking quit the job, all this moral high ground isn't worth your sister), so the moment kind of partially fell flat for me.

The B-plots of this episode aren't particularly thrilling either. We've got a great cold open of "Red Daughter" Supergirl clone fighting against tanks and jets and shit, which is just this long, long looming thread that I really hope isn't going to be a major disappointment. We've got make-up date night with Lena and James which... my god, Lena Luthor gets exponentially less interesting when she's interacting with James, huh? And we've got Brainiac 5's pretty adorable attempt to recruit Nia Nal into the little Super-Friends club that he, J'onn and Supergirl are making, complete with a sitcom date misunderstanding and shit. The Brainiac stuff is pretty cute because it happens in small doses, but everything else is kind of a huge 'm'eh'. 

Ultimately, it's an episode that has so much promise on the conceptual stage. And from acting and general execution, it's a pretty solid episode. But pick apart the actual story, and this is a pretty disappointing episode, honestly. 

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Neither the Morai nor the Vertullarian are from the comics, as far as I can tell. Or if they are, they're pretty dang obscure. 
• J'onn's original Silver Age career was indeed a PI, before writers decided to make him a full-time member of the Justice League. 

My Hero Academia 214 Review: Blacklash

Boku no Hero Academia, Chapter 214: Our Rebellious War

Huh, it really struck me how truncated the past dozen or so chapters of My Hero Academia has been now that it's back to full length. With the past couple of mini-arcs being focused on combat and fighting scenes, it really struck me how much more I have to talk about in this chapter compared to the previous ones (oh, yeah, so-and-so fights so-and-so; someone's quirk gets revealed). Not to put down the previous chapters or anything, because I bet when read as a whole entity or binge-watched it's probably not as bad, but that is indeed the pacing problem with giving out a couple of pages per week. 

We get a bit of an extension of the previous chapter's Aizawa moment when he tells the Vlad and All Might to let the fight continue because both of his favourite students, Shinsou and Midoriya, are still fighting to win. And it's an interesting bit where Midoriya initially refuses to fight Shinsou while activating his potentially-unstable quirk, fully intending to fight Shinsou and Monoma quirkless, wanting to still get victory despite his shortcomings. Pretty responsible, actually, even if he does end up using Black Whip later on. 

We actually get to see Ashido and Mineta show off some improvements of their quirks. I've been slowly watching the third season of the anime, and at this moment I'm around the point where they're training the limits of their quirks in summer camp... and it is actually pretty neat. Ashido's acid abilities now have improved to actually launching acid blasts when previously it's more localized, while Mineta shows off a surprisingly interesting usage of his bouncing-ball quirks by lobbing them all over the place and setting up personal trampolines to actually bounce around similar to Gran Tourino. And also use a huge bouncing shield to block an attack from the twin-impact Saiyan-scouter kid. 

And it would genuinely be impressive, because so far all of Mineta's huge moments in the series have either been in support of other heroes (Midoriya and Tsuyu during the USJ arc) or by using his balls as traps or as subterfuge (during the final exam). This is a genuinely badass moment... which, of course, he capitalizes by 'accidentally' slamming his face into Ashido's boobs. It's... it's actually kind of funny, and he at least gets immediately punished by being used as a projectile. The line between whether Mineta's lewdness is offensive or hilarious is a very, very fine line, but this one's actually kind of funny. 

Interestingly, we get a genuinely neat moment from Monoma where he monologues about how he's basically accepted that he's always going to be a second-rate character, and there's definitely a hint of potential darkness when he notes that he's "happy to be the guy that opposes the main guy". Actual translations differ on this line, and I'm actually interested to see if this is hinting for something bigger for Monoma. Is he going to be an actual villain or anti-villain or something? Or is this something leading to more depth revolving around the character? Monoma's a character that has been little more than a running gag (who I honestly didn't realize was a proper character in the manga until, like, the summer camp arc). Interestingly, he apparently managed to sort of copy One For All, but it's either an actual feint, or he can't utilize the strength. It's not made clear, and I'm actually curious what it means. 

Midoriya jumps to grab Shinsou's tentacle-bandage things and Uraraka basically uses Midoriya himself as a weapon in lieu of Midoriya using his own quirk(s). We get a fun little badass montage of Aizawa teaching Shinsou about the importance or practice and mastering things, and we get a pretty badass moment of Shinsou pulling down a bunch of pipes with his tentacles... and in response to this, Midoriya... uses Black Whip. Of course. It's clearly just a small part of what Black Whip is, I think, but he's definitely got it under control and I'm kind of bummed that it happened so quickly. Of course, it's just the cliffhanger and the story might surprise us in some way, but I really don't like the idea of Midoriya just getting all these extra quirks without putting in the hard work. While the rest of the chapter is pretty good, I am still kind of ambivalent on Midoriya apparently being able to utilize Black Whip almost safely without any repercussions from the previous chapter other than fighting quirkless for like all of a minute. We'll see. 

Young Justice: Outsiders S03E09 Review: The Nuclear Option

Young Justice: Outsiders, Season 3, Episode 9: Home Fires

Oh man, this episode was... it answers a question that has been lingering in the minds of everyone watching superheroes from day one and looking at super-smart villains like Lex Luthor or the Calculator or Ra's al Ghul and wondering why they don't just strike at where it hurts. The family. And it's not like a superhero's secret identity is the most secure thing in the world, especially when they've been operating a while and gather together with their superhero buddies both in and out of costume.

And here? Here, attacking the families of the heroes is treated as the 'nuclear option' for the villains, who know that if they ever cross that line, it's a line that they can never, ever walk back from. It's more pragmatism than anything, because you don't want Superman and the rest of the Justice League on a massive manhunt for whoever shot Lois Lane in the head. And a good chunk of this episode features a mysterious sniper watching as the spouses and children of superheroes (some of them superheroes themselves) gather at the West-Allen household for a huge meeting, and this mysterious sniper continues to count the many, many mortal civilians that walk into this house.

And it's pretty chilling to see these people laugh and crack jokes with each other. The episode does go pretty hard and fast and introducing the wife of so-and-so or the child of so-and-so, which might be a bit overwhelming, but the gist is that these are the many, many family members of our heroes. Indirectly, it also explains the absence of some of the Justice League/Team members that we haven't seen in a while. Apparently, Red Tornado, Bumblebee and presumably Guardian are all just busy enjoying the civilian life, and presumably Will/Red Arrow retired for the same reason. Still no answer to where the first Aquaman disappears off to, though, even if his wife and son shows up for this gathering. (Also conspicuously missing so far? Lagoon Boy, another Atlantis-based superhero).

We get a whole lot of fun moments like Red Tornado entertaining the kids with his little cyclones, or Bart Allen running around after the Tornado Toddlers with Iris constantly screaming at Bart to stop calling Baby Don "dad", or the fun little conversation of the wink-wink-nudge-nudge on whether Will and Artemis are sleeping together. They're just housemates, jeez -- I feel like that's something that the showmakers pre-emptively directed towards the fandom.

Interestingly, despite mentions of an assassin (Lobo) elsewhere in the plot, turns out that the sniper trying to murder the loved ones of our superheroes isn't part of some master Light plan. It's Ocean Master, not seen since season one and mentioned to be 'disgraced' and kicked out of the Light's inner circle at the beginning of season two. Now in full Ocean Master garb and ready to unleash vengeance with Neptune's Trident, Ocean Master rants to Lady Shiva, a representative of the Light, that he will have his VENGEANCE, and that, yes, he is aware of the consequences for he is the mighty Ocean Master.

At which point -- and it's a genuinely shocking shot -- Lady Shiva just straight-up slices Orm's head off mid-rant. Yes, Ocean Master genuinely thinks that he's a big-shot that can take on the world, but the Light is definitely not ready for a Justice League that's going to put Priority #1 in hunting and exterminating the Light. It's genuinely interesting that the Light ends up being the one employing one of their enforcers, Lady Shiva (taking over for Slade in the second season) to eliminate Ocean Master who has clearly shown that he's a massively loose cannon willing to cross a line that should not be crossed, which will lead to 'mutually assured destruction', as Shiva puts it. Considering how seemingly in-control of the good guys the Light is in the first and second season, it actually makes a whole lot of sense that the villains just plain want the good guys to assume that the Light is still in the dark about their secret identities.

We get a genuinely haunting scene of the clueless superhero family gathering joking in the background as the visuals of the shot go from the bloodied corpse of Ocean Master amidst a room filled with weaponry, to a fade-out leading into an empty room. Pretty great stuff.

The other big A-plot of this episode is a bit less interesting, since it's ultimately an extended fight scene. The Light contracts the bounty hunter Lobo -- who is always a treat to see in this show -- to murder Forager. And their side of the story starts off with some fun Outsider adorableness, with Forager initially confused on how to properly greet humans, leading to some training exercise of Nightwing sniping Geo-Force with a rubber bullet mid-conversation with dr. Jace. Geo-Force gets into an argument with Nightwing, noting that the training exercise proves nothing and is pointless -- leading to Nightwing's glorious snarky comment of "proves you need to train for surprise attacks", which, of course, almost predictably leads to Lobo's literally bombastic arrival.

And the subsequent fight is pretty amazingly choreographed, and is the first real extended fight sequence we've had for a while. We get a lot of great bits of Lobo just tanking everything the Outsiders throw at him, and the Super-Cycle even gets to fight Lobo's space bike for a bit. Lobo ends up just tanking everything the Outsiders throw at him -- Black Lightning's lightning blasts, Geo-Force's magma, Halo's beams... we get a surprisingly gory bit of Halo being stabbed straight through the chest with Lobo's chain-blade, and while part of me do like the sudden increase in goriness in this season (Orm's head being sliced off is another example) I am not okay of the show devolving into "do terrible mauling to Halo since she can regenerate". Give the poor kid a break!

Of course, it's not just Halo that gets mauled in this episode, because Lobo quickly smashes what appears to be a rolled-up Forager into cracked bug goo, which... yeah, the animation team did a really good job of making it look and sound like a squashed bug. With Lobo gone, Forager shows up all naked and "goochy", which is a pretty predictable bait-and-switch. Overall, it's a great action scene, topped off with the most amazing line from Artemis: "welcome to the fake-your-own-death club". Oh god, that's hilarious.

Meanwhile, over the episode, a bunch of random news reports and discussions show off other happenings in the world. Apparently, Eduardo Dorado Senior has opened a metahuman youth center, where last episode's two brainwashed villains -- Livewire and Mist -- are sent to rehabilitate. In a great continuity nod to the previous season, apparently Neutron and Ed Dorado Junior are there as counselors! Wonder what happened to the other Runaways. In a moment of less acceptance, though, Prince Gregor has continued to support Quraci refugees, but not metahumans.

We also learn who's been distributing the Goode VR consoles that we've been seeing pretty obviously shown throughout the season, and I am actually kicking myself in the butt for not realizing it a bit sooner. It's Granny freakin' Goodness, in her civilian guise of "Gretchen Goode". In a particularly interesting bit, we get Gretchen Goode arguing with G. Gordon Godfrey on live television, and I absolutely love Godfrey lambasting everything from the metahuman 'delinquent center' to Bruce Wayne to just being a racist ass towards the metahuman kids. Godfrey has had a smaller role in this season, but knowing what I do about the real allegiances of Godfrey and Goodness, it's definitely an interesting stance to show them as apparent rivals.

The bookends of this episode is the most interesting ones, showing shadowed figures attending a meeting led by Queen Bee and Vandal Savage, showing them contracting Lobo. Turns out, as always, the Light is behind everything. We get to see the revamped council of the Light, with Savage, Luthor, Queen Bee and Klarion still being on it, while we've got newcomers Ultra-Humanite (he's got a cool voice), Deathstroke... and Granny Goodness. It's a pretty great introduction of her, even to viewers who aren't aware of her real powers. We learn that, yes, they did plan to protect the superheroes' families; and that the Lobo attack is just something to test if Nightwing (or rather, Grayson) is indeed behind the new Outsiders team.

Ultimately, a very solid episode. It could've been a pretty standard episode showing off the new Light members, introducing Granny Goodness and having a huge fighty-fight scene with Lobo... but the whole concept of the villains protecting the heroes' children is such an amazingly told and executed storyline that this episode honestly went from good to pretty fantastic. Am I sounding like a broken record already? Good, because Young Justice IS that good. Watch this show.

Roll Call: [Changing the 'others' label to civilians and others to fit those that are more neutral]

• Heroes: Aquaman II, Black Canary, Captain Marvel, Kid Flash, Forager, Superboy, Geo-Force, Batman, Miss Martian, Red Arrow, Rocket, Bumblebee, Tigress, Halo, Sphere, Red Tornado
• Villains: Queen Bee, Vandal Savage, Lobo, Kroloteans, Ocean Master, G. Gordon Godfrey, Granny Goodness, Lady Shiva, Klarion, Ultra-Humanite, Deathstroke , Lex Luthor
• Civilians & Others: Cat Grant, Iris West-Allen, Don Allen, Dawn Allen, Eduardo Dorado Sr, The Mist, Livewire, El Dorado, Neutron, Mera, Arthur Jr, Snapper Carr, Gregor Markov, Lynn Stewart-Pierce, Jennifer Pierce, Anissa Pierce, Lian Nguyen-Harper, Amistad Ervin, Traya Sutton, Lois Lane, Jonathan Kent Jr, 

DC Easter Eggs Corner: [potential spoilers ahoy!]

• Granny Goodness is perhaps one of the most well-known of Darkseid's minions, appearing in practically every cartoon adaptation that Darkseid shows up in. Granny Goodness is a hideous crone from Apokolips that is deathly loyal to Darkseid, and is charged with brainwashing and training a cadre of warriors -- the Female Furies -- that are fanatically loyal to Darkseid. 
• Lady Shiva, a.k.a. Sandra Woosan, is the antagonist to minor DC superhero Richard Dragon, and is known as the most skilled martial artist in the DC comics universe. Initially training to avenge her dead sister, she ended up rising among the ranks of the League of Assassins, becoming on par with various other martial art masters like Batman, Richard Dragon and David Cain. She's been heavily associated as an antagonist to both Batman and various Gotham-city-related characters. 
• I had to check, but this episode marks the first appearance of Lois Lane, Superman's love interest and wife, as well as daredevil reporter and the most prolific damsel in distress of DC comics lore. 
• -deep breath- THE SUPERHERO KIDS! (We've covered Lian Harper, the Allen twins and the Pierce girls before)
• Arthur Junior (parsed as 'Artur' without an H in the credits) is the son of Aquaman and Mera. Interestingly, in the comics, Arthur Jr was brutally killed by Black Manta in the comics as a baby -- evidently, this Arthur escaped the fate that befell his comic-book counterpart. 
• Traya Sutton is the adopted daughter of Red Tornado (John Smith) and his wife, Kathy Sutton, a girl that was saved by Red Tornado from war-torn Bialya.
• Amistad Ervin is the son of Rocket and her boyfriend Noble.  
• Jonathan Samuel Kent is the son of Superman and Lois Lane, introduced relatively recently in 2015. While various 'Elseworlds' have had Clark and Lois have a child of some sort, Jonathan Kent II is the real 'canonical' child of the two.
• Bumblebee and Herald have a child in the Rebirth rebooted comics, an as-of-yet unnamed daughter. 
• Bart called Don and Dawn Allen the "Tornado Toddlers", a reference to their comic-book name, the Tornado Twins. 
• Orm finally calls himself by his comic book moniker, Ocean Master, for all of two seconds. He's wielding Neptune's Trident, a plot device in the comics. 
• One of the children is reading a comic book of Blue Falcon and Dynomutt, which is a reference to the old Hanna-Barbera cartoon Dynomutt, Dog Wonder that's a pastiche of 70's-era superheroe cartoons. 

Daredevil S03E13 Review: The Man Without Fear

Marvel's Daredevil, Season 3, Episode 13: A New Napkin

Yeah, this is an episode where it does some things amazingly well, and some things pretty poorly. So let's get through what I disliked about this episode first. Both Wilson Fisk and Matt Murdock's characterizations... don't really work. I really don't quite understand what Matt's going through in this episode. When the previous episode ended, he was ready to go back into "must kill Fisk" mode, understandably enraged at how their in-the-system plan failed miserably and ended up with Ray Nadeem dead. Hell, he was torturing Felix Manning for information at the beginning of the episode, Batman Begins style, by hanging the poor man off the ledge! And we get a protracted scene of Matt basically setting Bullseye loose to get his vengeance on Kingpin based on the newfound knowledge that Kingpin ordered the hit on Bullseye's "girlfriend" Julie.

But then Matt... seems to have a change of heart off-screen, going back in after Bullseye and engaging in a three-way fight while protecting Vanessa and stopping Bullseye from killing Kingpin? Kind of? It's honestly pretty bizarre, and I'm not sure when, why and what caused Matt's sudden change of heart. Did it happen before he went into the building? Did it happen during the fight, and that series of angry screaming just Matt working with his internal demons? If it's the former, then we're missing a crucial scene where Matt either struggles with himself or gets told off by someone that killing isn't the right way. If it's the latter, then the show just isn't doing a good job at communicating it at all. For a show that has spent the last 12 episodes building up this struggle on where Daredevil should or should not kill Kingpin, there is nearly nothing in this episode that explains why Daredevil ultimately chooses the "not" option, beyond the vague monologue by Foggy about how Matt's Catholic and therefore has to believe that everyone can change.

Which, again, fair enough if Matt is inspired by Nadeem standing up last episode or some shit, but the fact the sequence of episode is extremely uneven ends up hurting this a lot. Somehow, after all this, Matt ends up back to his season one bubbly happy buddy mode at the end of the episode, which is yet another character change that feels unnaturally earned, as happy as it is to see our three main characters hanging out together.

Anyway... the episode sort of centers around Kingpin and Vanessa's marriage, and the speech between the two are definitely well written, about how they're "all broken", and that they have to find someone whose broken pieces fit with yours. Meanwhile, everyone else is trying to bring Fisk down, with Daredevil torturing Felix Manning, while Foggy tries to warn officer Mahoney that someone's (Matt) trying to murder Wilson Fisk. While Mahoney does relent and commit the "C-team", he just wants to eat popcorn while Fisk gets killed, which... again, considering what Fisk has done, it's hard not to blame Mahoney for having that sentiment. For a show that really wants to push the idea that "killing the bad guys is bad", it really does a poor job at making Foggy's side of the story actually feel like the correct answer.

(Meanwhile, as part of Kingpin's plan, Nadeem is framed for the murder of that one agent at his house, while Daredevil is credited as the ultimate mastermind).

Karen does definitely bring up a good point -- considering the insane reach Fisk has, what if killing Fisk is the only way? And honestly, I don't think the show or Foggy do actually deliver any sort of satisfactory answer to this question beyond a vague "if he crosses that line, he'll never be able to forgive himself". Foggy ends up being dragged into the FBI by a summons, and they get him to... talk and represent Nadeem's widow, who claims to want to cooperate, but just wants to hand over NRay Nadeem's last video to Foggy.... which is basically another recording of his witness speech. Because they didn't think of making one last episode, even as a backup plan? Karen and Ellison basically make this one last testimony viral, coincidentally and dramatically going into everyone's phones just as Fisk and Vanessa are doing their wedding dance. Not sure why this particular mass media trick is counted as credible when nothing they tried have been admissible, but eh, okay, whatever.

While all this is going on, Dex goes off to check a certain freezer room where Julie Barnes' body is being kept, as instructed by Daredevil... and... I'm not sure why Kingpin's men didn't dispose of her body more securely, to be honest. Dex breaks down, and basically dons the cool Daredevil outfit to go and murder Wilson Fisk himself, with the added creepiness of showing up to the wedding while driving a van with Julie's frozen corpse on the other seat.

And then, of course, just as Kingpin himself gets discredited by Nadeem's completely-believable-final-will-and-testimony, Bullseye shows up and attacks, with Daredevil also showing up to stop Kingpin and Vanessa from being killed because of vaguely-implied reasonings that I have to think hard to headcanon. Oh, and because Daredevil only protects named characters, he doesn't stop Bullseye from killing any of the corrupt FBI agents in the room that get karmic deaths... even though they're mostly about as much to blame as Ray Nadeem was, doing bad things in the name of protecting their families. This show's morality about who to spare is very weird. Also, very convenient that Bullseye kills all the ones we know are corrupt, but doesn't kill any of the other guests.

Still, as much as I have a problem with the motivations and lack of explanation on anything that's going on in our characters' minds, the actual melee-a-trois between Bullseye, Daredevil and Kingpin is actually pretty fun, even if it's something that feels like it's somewhat out of place in Netflix's more grounded style. I don't mind it, though. We get a bit of a scream standoff between Kingpin and Daredevil as they wreck the set of Kingpin's fancy hotel room, and we get a bit of a back-and-forth as Bullseye tries to murder Vanessa several times, while Daredevil and Kingpin's priority is to protect Vanessa. And the constant back-and-forth of all three characters fighting each other is pretty great!

Not sure why Vanessa is sort of just standing there, though, even though she has been insisting on the whole "be smart, run now" bit prior to the fight starting. There's also a bizarre editing bit where Kingpin audibly tells Vanessa that he'll meet her "downstairs"... and she runs up a set of stairs, and quite literally stops halfway dumbstruck for a while. Considering how well-done Netflix fights have been, these feel like particularly weird choreography.

Ultimately, Bullseye gets smashed by Kingpin onto a brick wall, seemingly breaking his back and leaving him convulsing on the floor, and it's not until like ten minutes later when I realized that, huh, that is it for Bullseye. I was genuinely waiting for when he was going to jump back in and attack one of the other characters, but we just have a punch-fest between Kingpin and Daredevil, and was definitely ready to snap Kingpin's neck when... Vanessa crying no stops him? Or something? And then we get Kingpin telling Daredevil to... kill him, because he'll never stop hunting Karen and Foggy? Again, considering how Kingpin's priority has been to be with Vanessa, this particular line of thought just feels particularly bizarre. It's just there, of course, to be a temptation for Matt to declare that he won't kill Kingpin, and screaming that "THE CITY BEAT YOU! I BEAT YOU!". And I won't lie, it's a powerful moment because both Charlie Cox and Vincent D'Onofrio sell the hell out of their performances. In the heat of the episode, I was certainly sucked into it. A couple of days later, though, I just really feel like this character moment was unearned for both Daredevil and Kingpin.

Of course, Daredevil ends up giving Kingpin an incentive to stay in prison -- if he ever goes after Foggy and Karen, Daredevil will go after Vanessa, by revealing evidence that she was the one that ordered the hit on Nadeem. Again, this feels absolutely flimsy, and, again, considering how far-reaching Kingpin's reach has been, it feels kind of weird that this genuinely vague threat (not even a recording?) was what made Kingpin stop and agree to accept his defeat. I don't personally mind the fact that Daredevil uses Vanessa as leverage, since I can buy that it's the one thing Fisk isn't willing to risk losing, but the execution feels slipshod.

We get a fun, cathartic bit where officer Mahoney arrests Kingpin, and forces him to get into the car without even getting a chance to say goodbye to his wife, with the pretty badass one-liner: "did you give one to Agent Nadeem?" That's Kingpin out for the count, I guess. It's... it's a pretty hot-blooded climax, if nothing else, even if I've made my complaints about the finale pretty clear. It's at least satisfying from a confrontation standpoint.

And we get a couple of final epilogue bits. We get Matt talking with Sister Maggie about Father Lantom, and a fun little speech about how God's plan is like a beautiful tapestry, but men can only see the tragedy on the back side of said tapestry, basically forgiving Maggie for abandoning him, noting that all of the tragedy in Matt's life has led him into becoming a hero. We get Father Lantom's funeral and a pretty great speech about the man, and the whole "Man Without Fear" moniker.

There are some other fun fluff scenes afterwards. Matt thanking Karen for sticking by him and helping him see the truth about himself; Foggy and Tower's little interaction; Foggy and Marci's little speech; Foggy telling his brother that they're free from Kingpin's blackmail because of lawyer stuff... and, of course, the titular napkin. Daredevil admits that being Matt Murdock isn't bad, and the trio decide to set up "Nelson, Murdock and Page". As noted, this is individually a pretty d'awww scene, even if the transition of Matt back into happy smiley Matt feels abrupt.

The final scene, which likely isn't going to be followed upon following Marvel-Netflix's unfortunate cancellation, is Bullseye being outfitted with some Adamantium Cognium skeleton by Dr. Oyama (so the metal isn't okay, but the character is?), while his eye has apparently been transformed into concentric rings.

Still, other than that Bullseye teaser, the episode actually does manage to tie up the Daredevil storyline pretty neatly. Matt's regained his humanity and returned back to his buddies, while Wilson Fisk is brought down. I have made my problems with this episode particularly clear, though, and this is where I draw the line at spending so long at Karen and Dex's flashbacks, both of which take up nearly entire episodes of their own. As much as it's interesting, those could easily be pared down (as is Nadeem's earlier episodes) to make room for more scenes that would actually put Fisk and Matt's respective character arcs at a far more natural development. Also, considering how much Dex was built up over the season, Bullseye didn't really have that much of a dignified end, huh? He just goes full on psycho, and is just a crazy angry supervillain dude. Kind of a disappointment. Ultimately, though, Daredevil's third season is... it's better than the second one, that's for sure, and a good bit better than a whole lot of Marvel-Netflix's more recent efforts (better than the second seasons of Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist for sure) but at the same time, it is admittedly pretty over-hyped. Granted, it does maintain a pretty solid run throughout the season, and only really feels like it dropped the ball in this episode. Ultimately, though, for all its faults, Daredevil's third season does close Marvel's little Netflix series with a huge bang. 

Young Justice: Outsiders S03E08 Review: Innuendos Everywhere

Young Justice: Outsiders, Season 3, Episode 8: Triptych

This episode is an... interesting one. The comparisons to the Light, where various different standalone episodes end up being pieces in the Light's bigger plan, is definitely apt. The episode takes place with three different sets of the cast recapping about their various escapades against the meta-human trafficking ring (totally run by the Light, but we haven't actually gotten confirmation yet), all of which is told in a reverse-chronological order with Shade's evolution tying them all together. And to the show's credit, I didn't catch that the bearded man in the JLA segment and the bald man in the Robin segment are meant to be the same person until the episode's final scenes clued me in. Turns out that various members of the Justice League, Batman Incorporated (guess that's what we're calling it) and the Outsiders are in contact with each other, working together to give the other teams plausible deniability. It's basically a combination of what the Light and the Team were doing back in the first season, only on a larger scale. The episode itself is set relatively well, working pretty neatly as a standalone episode while also building up into something bigger. 

Also, being mostly standalone gave the writing team the opportunity to sneak in a whole lot of fun innuendo, which isn't something I tend to take note of, but this episode had a particularly large quantity of them, I think. From the whole "fence" discussion between Superboy and M'gann, to every single line spoken out loud by Livewire, to "Mad Pants-ter" to the now-memetic "you've never had black lightning" line... yeah. I love it. It's fun. 

Anyway, let's talk about the episode itself. The first part of the episode, as told by Oracle and Nightwing, is a recap of a simple battle between the Outsiders and a group of villains doing the most supervillain thing ever -- stealing a chunk of fancy machinery from STAR Labs. We get a couple of pretty fun villains, including fan-favourites from other DC cartoons Livewire and Shade. And Mist! And, of course, I have to give a shout-out to Shade's redesign for this show. which features an absolutely fucking creepy porcelain mask with black eyes and glowing red pupils. A lot of fun, great dialogue between the three of them, too. 

Livewire, Shade and Mist do their thing and battle against STAR Labs' goons, and their backup, Cheshire, ends up getting shot. The Outsiders are assembled in response to this robbery, and they take off towards the airport where the bad guy squad are with Dr. Moon, who's treating Cheshire. This is one of our first proper outing for the newer members of the Outsiders, and they get some pretty badass scenes! Geo-Force uses molten rock to stop the plane from flying off, and everyone joins into a fight. We get Black Lightning fighting against Livewire for some requisite "we have the same powers" scene. Nightwing fights the very reluctant Mist, and ends up freezing her just as she's chocking him. The Exile Hivebros fight against Shade, and it's... it's pretty badass. Shade's usage of shadow teleportation ends up with some fun visuals, and his taunting over 'keeping' Geo-Force in the shadow realm ends up causing Halo to unleash a burst of... blue light? White light? It ends up burning Shade so much that he ends up spitting out Geo-Force and retreating. Success, and we get a pretty thrilling action scene out of it. 

Meanwhile, after punching Dr. Moon in the face, we get a fun conversation between Artemis and Cheshire. The conversation starts off with more business than anything, with Cheshire telling Artemis that while she doesn't know who, exactly, runs the League of Shadows, we get the revelation that it's ran out of Santa Prisca, the island prison. We also get a pretty great scene from Artemis telling Cheshire to "GO SEE YOUR KID", because, well... Cheshire isn't the best mom out there. It's a surprisingly tender scene where Cheshire admits that she still loves Lian, telling Artemis to "hug her for me", but at the same time puts the mission as an assassin as her priority first and foremost. A pretty interesting motivation for this recurring character, actually! 

And then we cut to the second 'story', with Robin reporting back to Batman. Especially exciting is the fact that this is actually the first time we've seen the Batman Incorporated group actually do anything. This time around our focus is on a group I'll be affectionately calling "Robin's Angels", where Robin leads a group of new characters -- Spoiler, Arrowette and Orphan (!!!) -- to hunt down classic Batman enemy Mad Hatter, who's apparently released on parole. 

I don't think the show really ends up doing a particularly good job at making the other three feel like proper characters, though. Orphan's mute and pretty reckless, and she's probably the one with the most unique personality out of the three girls. Spoiler and Arrowette are competent and badass, but that's about all there is to them -- it's the same problem that the B-team back in season two has, and something that's still plaguing poor Tim Drake here. 

Still, the sequence of events is pretty cool, as they quickly discover that 'Mad Hatter' is actually a mind-controlled Clayface. We get some pretty fun visuals as Orphan makes liberal use of Clayface's non-fleshy body to do some pretty interesting action scenes that involve a whole ton of dismemberment. We get a fun bit where Spoiler yells loudly at the mind-controlled Clayface to fool him into returning to protect Mad Hatter.

And Mad Hatter, as always, is pretty creepy. Not as creepy as the version from Gotham, but still a pretty creepy character as we focus on him brainwashing a bald metahuman (who we later learn is Shade, prior to the Outsiders mission). It's countered with a fun undertone perfectly delivered by voice actor Dwight Schultz. "You had to protect me? From what?" -Robin's Angels arrive- "OH OH OH! YES! PROTECT ME!". Another stand-out line is "what part of Maaaaad Hatter don't you get?" Hatter actually manages to escape with his thrall, causing the building he's based out of to blow up with self-destruct bombs. Robin's Angels manage to escape, and we get quick confirmation from Robin that Clayface's parts are reforming, so he definitely isn't dead. Great moment from Robin trying to save Clayface, though! As entertaining as Hatter is, though, this is probably the most boring out of the three sequences. Doesn't help that Robin, Spoiler, Arrowette and Orphan are kind of undeveloped characters -- Robin in particular, considering he's been around since season two and we haven't really learned a whole ton about him. 

The final 'story' is told between holo-Diana, M'gann and Kaldur'ahm, who note that their report involves something that happens several weeks ago -- and the presence of Brick places this right after the Bowhunters episode, where the prisoners are being transported to Belle Reve when they're attacked by motherfucking Sportsmaster. Turns out that the whole convoy is actually a Justice League sting operation, and it's actually pretty neat to see the JLA actually do something after being neutered for the majority of season two. We get some great lines from Flash and Captain Marvel... even if they do admittedly get fucked over by a hockey puck. A sonic hockey puck, but still. 

Sportsmaster and Abra Kadabra attempt to free the two prisoners -- Brick and a bearded man who we learn is, again, Shade -- but despite the arrival of Rocket and Aquaman (it's so weird calling Kaldur that!) to help subdue Brick and Kadabra, Sportsmaster ended up absconding with Shade in an alley. Poor League! We get a fun delivery from Brick moaning about his bad luck, while the superheroes note that he's actualyl dodged a bullet. 

And then, after this story, we pan out to see that all of the conversations between the Bat Family, hologram Diana, Miss Martian and Aquaman are actually taking place in the Batcave, and we learn that the three events are interconnected via a three-step plan of acquisition (Sportsmaster liberating existing meathumans from prisons), coercion (a.k.a. Mad Hatter's brainwashing) and utilization (using them to do evil shit like steal STAR Labs machines), with the added confirmation that Clayface, Livewire and Mist were all prisoners that were abducted by Sportsmaster. This ends up sort of tying into the whole bit where all previously-seen metahumans have been mind-controlled. 

As a fun little coda, we get a short flashback to Robin using Mad Hatter's control machine to free Clayface from any future mind-control, and the relieved sigh from Clayface is actually pretty heartwarming. 

We also get the surprising debut of a new villain that has been sponsoring this particular sequence of villainy -- Stagg Industries! Which is definitely a familiar name for anyone that's familiar with the Outsiders. We learn that the evil corporate businessman Simon Stagg has been orchestrating a lot of this, and has basically taken the place of Baron Bedlam. Apparently Superboy and Miss Martian, presumably after the aforementioned "mending fences", has arrested Stagg off-screen.

It seems to be case closed for this particular villainous group, except that Stagg apparently wanted to steal a Reach device that reads "metahuman failsafe", something that's probably going to play heavily into bigger episodes down the road. Stagg himself ends up meeting Shade -- in a full suit and tophat getup after being freed by Cheshire -- and presumably getting killed for using him. 

Meanwhile, Wonder Woman ends the episode with an armour-piercing question. It was badass and all to see the good guys pull a bit of a chessmaster plan and disrupt Stagg's plans in all three phases, but Diana also points out that what they're doing isn't different from the Light, making use of different teams that don't know that they work together (specifically citing Cheshire and Sportsmaster from this episode's villains), and Robin's particularly poorly-phrased note that they're the Anti-Light ends up causing Wonder Woman to compare them to a darkness creeping amongst the heroes, especially when Batman outright notes that this is all for plausible deniability for their more illegal endeavours. Right now what they're doing is still in pretty good taste, but it's the same question raised as the first two seasons of Young Justice -- at what point do the black ops team go from pragmatic solutions to criminals themselves? 

Roll Call:

• Heroes: Oracle, Nightwing, Black Lightning, Tigress, Geo-Force, Forager, Halo, Batman, Robin, Orphan, Aquaman II, Miss Martian, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Captain Marvel, Rocket
• Villains: Shade, Mist, Livewire, Cheshire, Doctor Moon, Clayface, Mad Hatter, Brick, Sportsmaster, Abra Kadabra, Simon Stagg
• Others: Helga Jace, Dr. Silas Stone, Casey Klebba, Harvey Bullock, Rene Montoya

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• The Shade, a.k.a. Richard Swift, was a Flash villain that was famously featured in one of the first crossovers between the Golden and Silver Age heroes, menacing the first and second Flashes (Jay and Barry), forcing them to cross Earths to fight him. He had an ability to control shadows with his cane, but later retcons would have him as a far more intricate villain, being an immortal from the Victorian era that alternates between being a villain and a hero, with his main enemies being various incarnations of the Flash and Starman. 
• Livewire, a.k.a. Leslie Willis, was a 'shock jock' that often badmouths Superman on air until an accident involving a lightning bolt channeled through Superman's body transformed her into a being that can manipulate electricity. While initially introduced as a one-off supervillain for Superman: The Animated Series, she ended up popular enough that she was adapted into the mainstream DC comics. 
• Mist, a.k.a. Nash Nimbus, is based on the second incarnation of the Mist. The original Mist, Kyle Nimbus, was an enemy of the superhero Starman, with the ability to transform his body into a gaseous form, an ability inherited by his daughter. She was far more conflicted against battling Starman compared to her father. Most infamously, she was the mother of Starman's daughter after drugging and raping the superhero. 
• Dr. Moon is a minor but constantly recurring Batman villain, basically acting as a surgeon for various villains like the Joker, Dr. Cyber, Tobias Whale and the Suicide Squad whenever they need a doctor. 
• Mad Hatter, a.k.a. Jervis Tetch, is one of Batman's classic enemies. A twisted, friendless man, Jervis Tetch had an obsession with the works of Lewis Caroll, particularly with kidnapping young women and making them the 'Alice' to his 'Mad Hatter'. In addition to his twisted attempts to recreate Alice in Wonderland, Mad Hatter's modus operandi tends to revolve around his love for hats, as well as implanting mind-control technology within said hats. 
• Orphan is one of the many, many alter-egos adopted by Cassandra Cain, most famously known as the second Batgirl. A mysterious, mute girl with extremely high abilities of martial arts, Cassandra Cain is apparently the daughter of the world-renowned assassin David Cain. Refusing to become an assassin like her father, she ended up looking up to Batman and Orcale, and ended up using a modified version of the Batgirl suit to become the second Batgirl. 
• Simon Stagg, boss of Stagg Industries, is the main villain for the comic-book Outsider superhero Metamorpho (who's the only 'main' Outsider member in the comics to not have shown up at all in the show). Stagg is a recurring enemy to Metamorpho, the Metal Men and other superheroes, and relatively recently showed up in live-action in Flash's first season. 
• The two officers that arrest Simon Stagg are not named, but bear heavy resemblances to Harvey Bullock and Rene Montoya, two recurring police officers from Gotham City that often show up in Batman-related material. The two being paired together is likely a reference to how the two of them functioned as a unit in Batman: The Animated Series. 
• Dr. Silas Stone is, of course, the father of Victor Stone (a.k.a. Cyborg) in the DC comics. 
• The STAR Labs guard is identified by the credits as Casey Klebba, who is a supporting character for Vibe in the New 52 reboot. Like his role here, he's also head of security of STAR Labs. 
• Wonder Woman mentions off-handedly that the Justice League's spaceship that she is using to contact them is called the Javelin, a reference to the JLA's ship from Justice League: The Animated Series and Justice League Unlimited. 
• It's been confirmed via supplementary material before, but this episode makes it explicit that the Clayface in Young Justice is Matt Hagen, who in the comics is the second Clayface. 

Digimon Reviews, Episode 10: Vamdemon, Piemon and Some Spooky Boys

Version 3.0 of the Digimon Pendulum Virtual pet was the "Nightmare Soldiers", which is all sorts of demons, vampires, spooks and ghosts! This is a V-Pet that featured a bunch of old favourites like Garurumon, Meramon, Devimon and Bakemon, and was the one where WereGarurumon debuted in! While it seems that we've cleared a huge chunk of the population of Pendulum 3.0 out of the way, Digimon Adventure and arguably the entire franchise's biggest villains debuted in this particular virtual pet, so we'll see how this goes -- depending on how verbose I get, I might have to cut this into two segments.
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Mokumon

The Baby I stage for this virtual pet is good old Mokumon here, a Digimon that I've always found charming! It's just a little puffball of smoke with a little bit of embers on his forehead. Look at that face! That just screams "mischievous" yeah? Mokumon's a creature made entirely out of smoke, with an adorable drooling monster mouth. Mokumon's design has always been a bit more complex than most of the blobby Baby I's, and I always mis-remember him as a Child-level or a Baby II-level. A pile of smog with a little candle on his head is a perfectly acceptable pre-evolution to PetitMeramon and Candlemon down below, for sure! I don't have much to say about Mokumon -- he was ignored throughout Adventure and 02 and merely had a brief bit role in Tamers as little creepy buggers that manifest in the real world to flummox the resident men-in-black organization. I don't have much of an opinion on Mokumon, if we're being honest, but it's a pretty pleasant design.

 6/10. 

PetitMeramon (a.k.a. DemiMeramon/PetiMeramon)

PetitMeramon (the translation of the "buchi" prefix tends to flip-flop between petit and peti) is just a ball of fire with little hands, ghostly eyes and a stitched mouth... and would be uninteresting on its own. It does, however, form a neat set with Mokumon, Candlemon below, and, of course, good old Meramon! It's basically Meramon's stitched-mouth face, reduced to a mere floating Pac-Man head with little itty-bitty fire hands. Not the most creative design, but definitely a fun little pre-evolution for Meramon. PetitMeramon had a brief cameo in Frontier before a trio of them became a villain-of-the-week in Savers, basically characterized as pyromaniac children that eventually got so excited they merged together into a Meramon. Overall, it's not a design that's particularly exciting as a standalone creature, but one that's pretty fun as a set.

 5/10.

Candmon (a.k.a. Candlemon)

Candlemon is a rarity in that he's one of the few Digimon I refer to almost exclusively with his English name, because while "Kyandomon" is a perfectly fine name, when it come time to revert it into a romanized version, "Candmon" and "Candlmon" just sort of eliminates the vowel in kyando and that makes typing his name feel kinda wrong. Eh.


Anyway, Candlemon here is one of the three available Child-stage evolutions for the Nightmare Soldiers virtual pet, and I genuinely wouldn't have thought up of the idea of using poltergeist phenomenon to act as the default Child-stage for a lot of spooky guys. As a staple phenomenon in haunted house tropes, though, Candlemon is certainly an appropriate spooky monster, and I absolutely love everything about this guy. The fact that he hops around with a lower body that's just the candle holder, the fact that he has little waxy arms that are near-permanently in a "OoooOOoOoOo" position, or the fact that the fire burning on top of his head is a PetitMeramon, I've always found everything about Candlemon to be pretty charming. The profile notes that Candlemon straight-up dies when the fire on his head runs out, so it might be its "true" form, animating the bigger candle body like a puppeteer? But Candlemon's wax face is so expressive!

Candlemon's always been a favourite of mine from a design standpoint, and it's a bit sad that he's only really shown up in a single episode of Frontier. There was a whole village of the guys, mind you, and they can evolve into a Wizardmon, which has honestly stuck with me as one of the more distinctive early episodes of Frontier. Frontier has a pretty awful and same-y opening, but the Candlemon episode always stood out to me. While nowadays Candlemon's default Adult-stage evolution are Meramon and Wizardmon, the video games allow Candlemon to evolve into a whole lot of fire-themed and ghostly-themed things. Anyway, a pretty dang good design.

 10/10.

Bakumon (a.k.a. Tapirmon)

Bakumon here is based on the baku, a mythological dream-beast in Japanese culture, and also the Japanese word for a tapir, because they decided that the adorable tapir's appearance was so odd that they gave the designation of a dream-beast to it. Bakumon's a neat enough representation of both meanings of the baku, being a mainly tapir-like beast with a bunch of accessories -- namely the same holy ring that Tailmon has, and a fun little helmet that seems to foreshadow its evolution into Mammon below (although there's no real proper adult-stage pachyderm between the two).

Apparently Bakumon was born out of data of medical equipment that scanned the human brain, which is why it has a taste for eating dreams. I've always liked how the rear legs of Bakumon sort of just drift into smoke, adding a neat little connection to Mokumon and making Bakumon just that much more ephemeral and interesting than just a tapir. Bakumon, interestingly, eats nightmares, stores them and the barfs it all up upon its enemies. We get a neat bit of connection in the profile that notes that this is apparently similar to Digitamamon's technique,  adding a fun little connection with a different Perfect-level. It's had a bunch of cameo appearances over the years, being a waiter in 02, a random 'wild'  Digimon in Tamers and, interestingly, used a villain of the week in Frontier, but recently a Bakumon ended up being a major plot point in Tri, which I won't spoil here in case some of you haven't watched it. Anyway, I've always liked this little dream-tapir. He's neat, even if he doesn't do anything particularly novel.

 5/10.

PicoDevimon (a.k.a. DemiDevimon)

PicoDevimon here is a little bugger I really like! PicoDevimon is renamed DemiDevimon in the dub, a name that I'll concede actually rolls better of the tongue, but I did watch the entirety of Adventure in Japanese, so PicoDevimon is the name I associate with this guy. PicoDevimon here is a Child-level version of Devimon, interestingly, but while Devimon was heralded as a pretty damn powerful monster among Adult-level Digimon, PicoDevimon is a tiny, shifty little quisling! He's also one of the longest recurring characters in the Adventure anime, where after defeating Big Bad Etemon, PicoDevimon ended up shadowing the scattered chosen children and try to basically get them to be trapped in the digital world. Of course, PicoDevimon is merely the toadie of a far, far more dangerous being -- Vamdemon, the third Big Bad and easily the longest-running one in Adventure. PicoDevimon ended up serving the archetype of a silly minion, this little dude that isn't much of a threat to the good guys and more of an annoyance... but still able to cause some damage by directing Vamdemon's seemingly-inexhaustible armies of monstrous Digimon. It does bring the children's competence into question, though, when at one point they blindly trust a being that shares its surname with Devimon.

PicoDevimon's official profile notes that it's a "familiar" meant to be used by higher-ranking demons like Vamdemon and Devimon, but it's also apparently the being that managed to lure the original Devimon from being an angel to a demon? Hilariously and apropos of nothing, PicoDevimon's method of attacking is to throw a bunch of hypodermic needles at its enemies, apparently intended to either draw blood, vampire-style, or to straight-up inject viruses.

PicoDevimon's design isn't half-bad either. It's a bat, at a glance, but ends up being more of a unique look, with its entire body being a head with wings and claws. I always loved the fact that he's got a pair of smaller wings under the big one, always loved his anatomically-inaccurate giant bird talons, and his shit-eating grin really sells the fact that he's a mischievous little devil. Also loved how the leathery parts of his  body end up forming a facsimile of Devimon's Batman-esque cowl. Oh,  and the mask is stitched in parts, because of course it is. It's a design that perhaps seems simple, but honestly is pretty creative. PicoDevimon's one of the best big-bad-guy minion I've ever seen, and like most of these "mouthpiece" minions, poor PicoDevimon met a grisly end at the hand of his own master. PicoDevimon would appear in Frontier, Savers and Hunters as minor adversaries or cameos, and is basically omnipresent in all the video games. Overall? A pretty damn good baby-devil.

 9/10.

Hanumon (a.k.a. Apemon)

Wow, I don't remember Hanumon at all. Hanumon (renamed Apemon because Hanumon's a bit too close to the Hindu deity Hanuman) here is one of the possible Adult-stage evolutions in the Nightmare Soldiers Pendulum virtual pet, which is... kind of bizarre? Everyone else is some sort of a demon or plays with a Halloween trope, or evolves into one, but Hanumon is just... kinda there? I guess he carries a big-ass bone on his back that is kinda-sorta related to skeletons, maybe? But I've never really liked Hanumon's design. He's this gangly ape that's yellow for some reason, carries a big bone, and has a lot of random accessories latched on like the random ring and bracelet and those random red fur-tips. His Bandai profile notes how he's very rarely seen and hides around in forested areas, so maybe he's meant to be Bigfoot? I dunno, though. I've never really liked Hanumon as a kid and I am genuinely surprised to see this dude listed as having appeared as villains-of-the-week in 02 and Xros Wars. I just never found this honestly pretty boring ape all that interesting. As it is, he's just kind of an ape cosplaying as Goku -- neat as one of the many different types of Digimon available, but not one I'll ever look at and go "oh yeah, that's cool".

 4/10.

Dokugumon

I always liked Dokugumon! Obviously based on a spider, I really did like Dokugumon's design a lot. Its head manages to combine the weird triple-jawed helmet-faced look of Kabuterimon but add its own spin on it, namely having the eight beady spider eyes be embedded into it. Oh, and it apparently took fashion tips from Devimon, because none of its legs look the same! It's got devil horns, it's got leather straps on its second pair of legs, mummy wraps on the third pair... and the rear-most pair is extra-large, while its front legs are gripping its red anime hair (many spiders actually do have hair, so Dokugumon gets a pass on this). Oh, and there's a big-ass skull on his abdomen! It's a pretty dang badass-looking design, honestly, and something with so many details really shouldn't work, but it kind of does, and ends up as a pretty neat-looking combination of a hairy, shaggy tarantula and venomous spider tropes. And in the anime, Dokugumon is shown to basically be able to do anything a spider can -- spin webs, shoot hair, shoot poison... pretty fun! Also always love the detail that his front legs are always gripping his hair.

Despite his impressiveness, though, Dokugumon is a 'mere' Adult-level, and while his original anime appearance in Adventure was pretty dang scary and protracted, subsequent appearances in 02, Tamers and Savers have sort of downgraded Dokugumon into little more than a nuisance that relies on swarm tactics more than actually battling. Interestingly, Dokugumon's official profile noted that Dokugumon was initially a gentle spider-type Digimon that was corrupted by a computer virus and is transformed into its feral, evil stage. Dokugumon, unlike Snimon and Roachmon, actually has a Perfect-level spider evolution that it can turn into, although they were clearly not meant to be evolutions of each other, Arukenimon, one of the main villains of 02. It's neat that at least one of these neglected Adult-stages actually got an evolution, yeah?

 9/10.

KoDokugumon

So while KoDokugumon (lit. Small Dokugumon) here has never really appeared anywhere else other than Adventure and Xros Wars, as mass-produced minions of Dokugumon, it's apparently Dokugumon's younger stage -- either a Baby I or a Baby II depending on the source. And it's basically a Dokugumon without his gothic makeup and far less of  a rockstar hair, and a less crazy-looking mouth. Interestingly enough, its abdomen looks like a bee, and it is always seen in the anime swarming when summoned by Dokugumon (in Adventure) or just swarming around like feral beasts. Interestingly, KoDokugumon is one of those oddities that has only appeared in the anime without being acknowledged by any video game or trading card or official Bandai profile, despite having a unique appearance. Meanwhile, "Otamamon (Red)" and various "Veemon (Black)" got their own profiles. What gives, Bandai? Anyway, KoDokugumon is a neat little accessory to Dokugumon up there. I like it. 

 7/10.

Wizardmon (a.k.a. Wizarmon)

Aw yess Wizardmon! Among the spooky boys we're reviewing in this page, other than two of the arc villains Vamdemon and Piemon, the most prominent one is easily Wizardmon (sometimes Wizarmon). Initially introduced as merely one of Vamdemon's minions, and Tailmon's partner-slash-confidant, we get the long revelation that Wizardmon's been helping Tailmon out since her childhood, and even as a member of Vamdemon's army, Wizardmon's someone who is intent on helping out Tailmon. It's an interesting subversion because Wizardmon's machinations and impact is perhaps one of the biggest factors as to why Vamdemon ends up falling in Adventure, but unlike most characters in these sort of shows Wizardmon is shown to be pretty damn weak. Sure, he's impressive considering what he can do -- shoot lightning, shoot fire, heal people at one point... but at the same time, he's so utterly outclassed by Vamdemon in simple power levels. Hell, even a good chunk of Vamdemon's army outclasses Wizardmon! But he ends up being able to get the plot devices out of Vamdemon's hand so many times, and even straight-up sides with the good guys for the final couple of episodes in the arc, before performing a "jump in front of an attack" heroic sacrifice. And with the exception of the gangland-style execution of Gotsumon and Pumpmon, this is the first and most epic heroic sacrifice in Adventure before the Dark Masters start raking up bodies of our allies like flies in their own arc.

Wizardmon ended up being so goddamn popular due to his pretty charming personality (he's a very laid-back drunkard for what, on paper, would be a badass Gandalf-style character) and so vital and intertwined with Tailmon's story that he ended up returning as a ghost in 02 for a single, haunting episode, and even gets a brief cameo in Tri. (Frontier also used a Wizardmon as a villain-of-the-week, but that Wizardmon was a lot less memorable)

Wizardmon's design is pretty neat, too, making Wizardmon look absolutely frumpy and chunky. He doesn't look like a pushover, sure, but he doesn't look like an athlete like some fantasy wizards tend to be displayed as. He's got enough accessories to look a bit complex -- the zippers, the Tamagotchi staff, the skull-hat, the rune cape -- but it doesn't clutter his design. Sure, he's still a humanoid Digimon and that's ever-so-slightly annoying, but as Adventure shows... he is more of a scarecrow creature under that mask with pale skin, spiky ears and stitches in his mouth. Yeah, from a design standpoint Wizardmon isn't the best (although he clearly looks a fair bit better than a lot of the post-Tamers humanoids).

Wizardmon's profile notes that he's apparently an immigrant from another dimension, making him, like Nanimon and Digitamamon, a homage to another one of Bandai's products -- the short-lived Magical Witches series. Apparently, being an outsider means that Wizardmon is able to master sorcery -- otherwise known as high-level programming language. Yes, Wizardmon, like Piccolomon, straight-up hacks the damn digital world to summon flames and shit. Overall, a damn good character and a respectable design. 

 9/10. Bonus points for the anime.

Evilmon (a.k.a. Vilemon)

EvilmonIntroduced in a Wonderswan game, Evilmon here doesn't actually appear in the Pendulum Virtual Pet, but thematically fits into the Halloween-y spooky theme of the monsters here, so I'll cover him here. Renamed Vilemon in English (because Devimon is okay, but "Evil" isn't?), Evilmon is meant to be a 'grunt' Adult-level demon minion, a bit more powerful than PicoDevimon but nowhere as powerful as your Devimons and your Phantomons. Evilmon's pretty ugly and ghoulish, but that's what they were going for,  I suppose? I've never been particularly fond with Evilmon, honestly. He's got some fun design features, with his ear-bat-wings, but that gigantic grinning mouth has always been kind of a pass for me.

Evilmon was introduced pretty late in Adventure as a large swarm of demonic minions for Piemon, but this was basically so the returning allies the Chosen Children have gathered have something to punch. Evilmon would be minor enemies in 02, a villain of the week in Tamers (summoned when Culumon accidentally drew a Pentagram while playing with chalk, no less!), a villain of the week in Savers (posing as a friendly deity or something, I think? He did have a couple of PicoDevimon buddies) and becoming a bunch of recurring Lion King hyena cackling goons in Xros Wars. Actually, the Evilmon trio in Xros Wars might easily be their most prominent appearances, being a trio of faithful henchmen to secondary antagonist Lilithmon... but all people ever talk about is the one time the Evilmon became lingerie.

Anyway, I've never liked Evilmon much, but they definitely fill in a neat niche as an appropriately ghoulish, sniveling grunt demon. It's a neat niche among all these evil Digimons. He earns a neutral rating of 5/10.

 5/10.

DeathMeramon (a.k.a. SkullMeramon)

Since Meramon is a possible Adult-level Digimon in "Nightmare Soldiers", we get a proper Perfect-level evolution for Meramon in DeathMeramon (renamed SkullMeramon in the dub, because the word "death" isn't okay, but the concept of death is) who is basically just fucking Ghost Rider and Jason had a baby, and pumped it full of steroids. Look at this motherfucker! He's metal as shit. With a muscular body wrapped from neck to waist with chains, and also on fire,  and a lower body wearing pants with fire patterns and a skull-cap, and that head? That head's just a creepy metal mask with some crazy rocker blue hair. And, again, this is a humanoid monster that's designed pretty damn well. Look at how badass he manages to look! DeathMeramon and Wizardmon looking more humanoid ends up being an actual plot point, because it allows them to actually wander around Tokyo with trenchcoats and blend in with the humans while Vamdemon's larger minions like Gesomon and Raremon are far, far more conspicuous.

DeathMeramon ends up battling Sora, Mimi and Tai at Tokyo Tower, after stalking them for a while with a hilarious trenchcoat and a hat. I've always found DeathMeramon pretty damn cool, honestly. And besides, DeathMeramon's profile notes that he might not be quite as human as he seems, because his attack involves "melting down the metal within his body" and vomiting it out. Is DeathMeramon a Terminator in addition to all the American comic-book nods? Whatever the case, though, DeathMeramon ends up playing the part of a 'slasher villain' among the Nightmare Soldiers' horror aesthetic, and my god what a badass dude this guy is. I like DeathMeramon a lot.

 8/10.

Pumpmon (a.k.a. Pumpkinmon)

Pumpmon (lengthened as Pumpkinmon in the dub) is a pretty damn funny little bugger, isn't he? I've always loved jack-o-lanterns and jack-o-lantern monsters. Whenever they go for the "pumpkin head with a scarecrow body" route, though, they always go for gaunt and gangly, which is pretty damn effective... but for Pumpmon? Fuck all that, his body is an adorable stitched-together doll! And he's got a goddamn axe embedded into his pumpkin skull, and a green cape! The Bandai profile explicitly notes that Pumpmon is a plush toy with a pumpkin head, but unlike all the spooky ghosts in this page, Pumpmon doesn't mean anyone any harm, and just wants to play around. It is still a Perfect-level Digimon, though we never actually see Pumpmon be quite a badass in the anime, with most of its appearances having Pumpmon face off against an enemy that outclasses him a lot, or have him be a bystander.

Pumpmon appeared in Frontier, Savers, Xros Wars and Hunters as minor characters, with some of them not even getting a line of dialogue, but, of course, its most memorable appearance is in Adventure in an episode I alluded to with Gotsumon earlier. Gotsumon and Pumpmon make a pretty bizarre pairing, don't they? A pair of toddler-sized Digimon with a very mischievous streak running around seeing all the sights of the human world, when they should be embracing their internal monsters and blowing up the city? Pumpmon actually does manage to stand up a little against his evil boss Vamdemon at the end of the episode, and shows off his skill -- manifesting a car-sized pumpkin and dropping it on the enemy -- but, sadly, as we know, the two get straight-up murdered by Vamdemon.

Anyway, Pumpmon is an extremely fun Halloweeny design! I really like him.

 10/10.

Phantomon (a.k.a. Fantomon)

Phantomon (sometimes translated as Fantomon) here is the chubbiest Grim Reaper you'll ever see! The Perfect-level Phantomon here is the designated evolution of Bakemon (who was also available in the Nightmare Soldiers virtual pet, of course), and I always found him to be pretty fun! He's a simple design, a sheet ghost with a cowl covering two glowing eyes in darkness, and just enough accessories to show that Phantomon is fairly stronger than the likes of Bakemon, but not enough to clutter up the design. The runes on the inner side of his cape (similar to Wizardmon!), the little eyeball necklace, and best of all, that gigantic golden scythe that has a little flail attached to it. Phantomon's profile is pretty neat, too, describing him as appearing just right during the final moments of a person, with that eyeball on his neck acting sort of like a crystal ball to allow Phantomon to see dying people. That cloak also apparently leads to another dimension, heavily implied to be the afterlife.

Of course, in practice, Phantomon is nowhere as eldritch and powerful as the personification of death itself, and is treated just like any other Perfect-level Digimon. One that's frankly quite low when compared to other spooky Perfect-level Digimon. Still, Vamdemon's most powerful lieutenant that recurs through a huge part of the Vamdemon-invades-Tokyo arc is a Phantomon that leads a huge army of Bakemon. Phantomon never really shows any sort of proper personality like PicoDevimon, though, just being a silent, serious general... who ends up getting taken out by a glancing blow in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment during the final battle with Vamdemon when Angemon and Vamdemon are clashing. I actually missed Phantomon's death animation as a kid, and kept expecting him to show up again considering he's been a huge presence in the preceding episodes. Phantomon also appeared as brief secondary villains in 02 and Frontier, and, interestingly, would receive a proper Ultimate-level evolution a couple of years down the line.

 8/10.

LadyDevimon

LadyDevimon here is easily one of the more popular monsters in the franchise, and you can probable see why. She's a hot dominatrix demon-lady, but I dunno -- having the demon temptress be the sexy humanoid definitely fits her theme a lot better than plant-lady Rosemon or the angelic Angewomon. And besides, LadyDevimon doesn't go for blatant skin-showing like Angewomon does, instead going for the 'sexy' route of skintight leather clothing. Just like Angewomon is a Perfect-level that outclasses Angemon, LadyDevimon is a Perfect-level that outclasses Devimon. Also, Devimon can evolve into LadyDevimon because what is gender? I do like that LadyDevimon isn't just straight up a lady demon in the way that other, lazier future designs (Lilithmon, for one) would be. She still shares Devimon's freakishly long arms and claws -- or one of them, at least, leading to a pretty neat asymmetry. She's swapped out Devimon's leather belt fetish for a BDSM chain fetish, too. Hell, that left chain is bolted straight into her flesh, for an extra level of hardcoreness. Her costume still has a lot of skulls, bat-symbols and stitches all over, though.

Easily the most interesting feature in LadyDevimon is the fact that she's got a little buddy hanging over her shoulder like some sort of ghostly familiar made out of shadows, but closer inspection reveals that the flame-buddy actually has the same consistency and is connected to LadyDevimon's leather outfit, meaning that it's the section of LadyDevimon's shirt that used to cover the now-exposed left sholder. It's even got a set of stitches as a mouth! I've never noticed that the lower part of her sleeve actually curls up into another face, too.

Surprisingly, though, outside of the TCG games that sexualizes the hell out of anyone with boobs, LadyDevimon tended to be played straight in most of her appearances. Sure, LadyDevimons are sometimes portrayed as a bit catty, but what Japanese female villain isn't? She first shows up as Piemon's only lieutenant in Adventure (a stark contrast with the other three Dark Masters, who had a lot of minions), going into a cat-fight against Angewomon that the cast lampshades. 02 featured a different LadyDevimon as one of the three lieutenants of Daemon. This one got whacked with a skateboard. In Xros Wars, the final arc included a vampire-themed zone, which was patrolled by three LadyDevimon, one of whom had a red suit. Overall, LadyDevimon might be a fanservicey humanoid character, but unlike most examples of this trope, LadyDevimon still functions pretty well as a monster. I'm surprised to say that I actually like her design unironically as a monster. I started this review off thinking I was going to go in another direction, actually.

 8/10.

Mammon (a.k.a. Mammothmon)

There are a lot of Perfects in this one, huh? Mammon here (renamed Mammothmon in the dub, another change that I actually prefer) is a scary-ass mammoth monster! I was genuinely flummoxed to find that Mammon was introduced among the "Nightmare Soldiers", but then as the very first Digimon enemy that rampaged in the real world in Adventure's Vamdemon arc, Mammon has always held a special place in my heart due to how unsettling that goddamned face was to me as a kid. I knew as a child pretty quickly that all animals can be pretty dangerous and they're not always cute Simbas and Dumbos and Baloos, and elephants are always particularly scary considering their immense size. And Mammothmon (screw Mammon, Mammothmon feels more natural to type out) plays on all the tropes you'd expect from a scary pachyderm. Shaggy coat, ragged ears, scary fang full of teeth, prominent toe-claws... it's the same way they make a lot of the earlier Digimon more monstrous. But then you get to Mammothmon's face, and realize just how bizarrely alien it is thanks to some pieces of metal bolted on to his face and trunk, with nothing but a golden carved eye in the center. That was such a striking mental image to me as a child, especialyl with how the metal parts actually blended in well with Mammothmon's real flesh, and this dude ends up being way scarier than it should even before it starts wrecking buildings with its massive size.

Again, I found it a shame that there's no Adult-stage that connects Bakumon to the Perfect-stage Mammothmon considering how similar their metal-plate head deal looks. I mean, sure, in the original Pendulum V-Pet Bakumon can turn into either Garurumon or Hanumon, which in turn evolves into Mammothmon. And that's not counting the large amount of games both of them appear in with interconnected evolution lines. I get that, but there isn't any sort of continuity. Oh well. I also do like the mismatched tusks on Mammothmon, which is oddly asymmetric with the right one having patches of flesh grafted on to it.

Anyway, Mammothmon is pretty dang cool. He's noted by his bio to be a creature that was once extinct, but unleashed upon the world. Kinda similar to Plesiomon and Ikkakumon, then? Also, that eye on Mammothmon's head is apparently magical and can see into the future. As you can imagine, Mammothmon's used as antagonists in several series -- 02, Savers and Xros Wars -- thanks to just how scary it looks. Great monster.

 9/10.

SkullMammon (a.k.a. SkullMammothmon)

Mammothmon gets an Ultimate evolution in this V-Pet, and it's a design that has never actually shown up in any piece of media outside of games. And I honestly kind of forget SkullMammothmon here exists. Because for all the praise I heaped on SkullGreymon, SkullMammothmon here has always been underewhelming. Sure,  it's all bones and is an undead, but the bones end up looking so sleek and artificial, and losing the feral shagginess and uncanny weirdness of the metal mask stapled to a fleshy animal ends up making SkullMammothmon a lot less impressive than regular Mammothmon. I do like the little spherical "heart" that SkullMammothmon has in his ribcage, which is neat. Interestingly, SkullMammothmon's profile notes that despite being a spooky elephant lich, SkullMammothmon still counts as a Vaccine type because it bears a grudge on all Virus-type Digimon for being the one that 'killed' it and turned it into an undead skeleton elephant. Also loved the fact that apparently its attack is launching its vertebrae like little daggers? Overall, though, SkullMammothmon has always been sort of underwhelming.

 4/10.

Boltmon

Poor, forgotten Boltmon. Boltmon here is an Ultimate-level Digimon, and tended to be associated with either DeathMeramon or Andromon (although, as Digimon tended to be, there's a lot of things that can turn into this thing). Boltmon's obviously based on a Frankenstein's monster, and the Bandai bio even notes how he was constructed at around the same time that Andromon was, in an experimentation to make a more organic powerhouse... but Boltmon's emotions run rampant due to his fleshy parts, and this causes him to rampage and be uncontrolled, a reference to the Frankenstein novel. Boltmon's design actually has a fair bit of fun bits to him, like the nails on his arms or the weird-ass gas mask or the wires jutting out haphazardly from his chest. Oh, and he's got a big-ass battle-axe, too, which I always found neat. Poor Boltmon was sort of ignored, though, having a glorified cameo in both Tamers and Xros Wars, and was only used in the V-Tamer manga to die twice just to show off the power of an actual character. Boltmon's... okay, but I really can't find much to say about him that isn't "a'ight".

 5/10.

Vamdemon (a.k.a. Myotismon)

Welcome to what is probably the best villain in Digimon. Or at least Adventure, anyway. While Vamdemon would suffer tremendous villain decay when he is brought back to life eventually, the original buildup and introduction to Vamdemon was pretty damn badass, with a short arc just focusing on PicoDevimon fucking with the kids and alluding to a greater master, and then when the Chosen Children actually face off against Vamdemon... he doesn't even care to fight them, letting his lieutenants and minions absolutely demolish our heroes. Even Etemon and Devimon flexed their muscles a little in their first appearance! And Vamdemon's plan? Invade the god damned human world, leading an army of kaiju-sized monsters to straight up infiltrate Tokyo and to track down and kill the fabled "Eighth Child", the only one with enough power to kill him. The fact that he's consistently shown to be dangerous, calculating and having endless amounts of resources doesn't hurt either, and both Japanese and English voice actor really nailed it in playing this Machiavellian monster. Oh, and he also goes around in a carriage, unleashing fog around Tokyo, and sucks the blood of random women in the street while waiting for his army to go around and kill a small child. And he sleeps in a coffin in the daytime, too!

(Oh, Vamdemon was renamed Myotismon in the English dub, after Myotis, a genus of mouse-eared bats. Not the vampire bat, though.)

Of course, Vamdemon's design is... it's basically Dracula with anime accessories. Sure, he does have a couple of neat features like sharing Devimon and Angemon's really long arms and fingers. But other than his weird lime-green wrist-cuffs, Vamdemon's design basically goes for a "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality by mixing dark blue, black, red and a dash of gold, making Vamdemon look both sophisticated and scary. Plus there's that fun little masquerade domino mask deal going on, that helps to break up his face a little. Vamdemon is nominally the evolution of Devimon in video games, although a lot of other spooky stuff can also turn to Vamdemon -- they tended to have to work for it, though.

Vamdemon is noted as the King of the Undead, with the Digimon World game giving Vamdemon an entire Haunted House to lord over, and, obviously, being an overlord of an insane army in Adventures. From a design standpoint Vamdemon wouldn't be so impressive, but the sheer badassery he brings with him ends up setting a pretty high standard for a lot of future Digimon antagonists, one that not a lot can match. Vamdemon's got a lot of awesome powers, too, among them unleashing a gigantic stream of bats (like Gomamon, straight-up animal bats) at the enemy, creating a giant whip made out of blood, spreading mist everywhere to empower himself, causing mere humans to fall asleep at whim, and, at one point, turning Lilimon into... stone? Okay? Eh, whatever the case, Vamdemon's pretty damn badass. Not bad for a Perfect-level!

 9/10. +3 points for anime

VenomVamdemon (a.k.a. VenomMyotismon)

Of course, Vamdemon is a mere Perfect-level, and while he was seemingly killed by Angewomon and all the other Perfects, a couple of episodes later heralded his ominous rebirth and evolution into... this thing! Standing taller than skyscrapers is Vamdemon's Ultimate-level evolution, VenomVamdemon (or the much clunkier VenomMyotismon in the dub). In Adventure this was a form achieved after the dying Vamdemon absorbed the remaining minions he has, and turns into this pretty fucked-up abomination. And... and I'm... not quite as impressed with this thing as regular Vamdemon, honestly. Sure, the super-long arms are pretty neat, and the tattered devil wings are kind of neat, but the way the colour scheme just breaks up from a smooth red bony structure into furry black pants has always struck me as kinda weird, and I've always felt that VenomVamdemon's puffy Garurumon shoes are weirdly mismatched. I do like the rather neat decision to keep Vamdemon's head just as-is, though, with the transformation of his mask's rims into horns, and making his hair a bit more raggedy. I suppose I shouldn't really complain that much, since all in all this is still a neat demonic vampire. He's suitably menacing for the two episodes he shows up in, though, really showing off just how powerful an Ultimate was, because he's the first Ultimate-level to show up in the anime. Interestingly, in the games, VenomVamdemon was introduced as part of the ".5" version of the Metal Empire virtual pet, which mainly features robots, although that might just be because VenomVamdemon debuted in the anime first? I dunno. 

Interestingly, VenomVamdemon's profile notes how much Vamdemon hates this form because Vamdemon is a civilized gentlemanly vampire, god damn it, and Vamdemon takes pride in his intelligence and reason. VenomVamdemon is a creature of pure brutish instinct, just roaring and destroying and swearing vengeance on all of his enemies.

However! In what is perhaps one of the most bizarre sequences in the anime, partway through the battle, an attack that landed on VenomVamdemon's crotch exposes a "true form" hiding within a maw-like opening on VenomVamdemon's crotch. And it's this little black glob with Vamdemon's mask, a screechy voice and two stubby arms that seems to be the actual, reasoning consciousness of VenomVamdemon? Um, what? This is never really explained beyond the kids figuring out that this was VenomVamdemon's weak point, just like a Legend of Zelda boss's eyeball, and decide to kick a goddamn part of a building into the poor crotch-thing, and then have WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon unleash their respective attacks on VenomVamdemon's crotch-baby. It's... it's got to hurt, yeah? If nothing else, the crotch-baby is the thing I remember most about VenomVamdemon. 

Overall, honestly quite underwhelming as a design and slightly messy, but one that I still respect for what it's trying to do. 

 7/10.

Piemon (a.k.a. Piedmon)

Finally, we've reached this dude. Piemon here, named after the French word for clown, pierrot, was the final Big Bad of Digimon Adventure (Apocalymon was a bonus boss battle and a plot device rather than a proper character), and the apparent leader of the Dark Masters, a coalition of the Digital World's most powerful Ultimate-level monsters, including last week's MetalSeadramon. Monster clowns have been a common trope since Joker and Pennywise, but Piemon here ends up being pretty dang creepy nonetheless. I'd have easily waved him off as a gangly, unsettling clown if not for his portrayal in Adventure. He's got a gloriously snazzy outfit with some fun exaggerated proportions, and I've always been a fan of the huge clown shoes and Piemon's flashy poker-card based mask. Never really liked the weird backwards-pointing orange clown, though. There's also a stage magician vibe that went into Piemon's design, with the card theme on his mask and the swords apparently being a reference to the "cutting a dude in a box" trick.

Piemon's nowhere quite as long-running as Vamdemon, having to share the spotlight with his three other teammates, but ends up really selling the point home of being an unstoppable juggernaut, as well as being revealed to have menaced the digital world for a long, long time.  A flashback episode showed that Piemon has been fighting against Gennai (the digital world's "antivirus" of sorts, not quite a Digimon but not a human) and the forces of good since even before the Chosen Children arrived, and actually battled a previous generation of Chosen Children -- a throwaway line of dialogue that ended up being an important plot point in Tri twenty years later. Piemon doesn't do much other than be threatening and be absolutely domineering in power, but that's all he needed to do.

In battle Piemon is able to draw the swords sheathed onto his back, and the anime have some fun showing him japer about with the blades, which he can apparently teleport anywhere. Also, he's able to use a cloth to turn people into keychains, and the little blue teddy bear he's clutching in his official art is probably one such victim. Interestingly, Piemon's profile notes how he's shrouded in mystery, and this 'demon-man' Digimon's true form is apparently unclear and that he appeared out of nowhere.

 7/10. +3 points for anime. 

Demon (a.k.a. Daemon/Creepymon)

In the ".5" update for Nightmare Soldiers, Piemon was replaced with Demon (or Daemon, the cooler spelling IMO) here. The thing, though, is that Daemon began life in the V-Tamers manga as the main villain in darkness, before being included in the video games, and, most memorably, as a major villain in 02. V-Tamers' Daemon is a generic power-hungry anime villain, which worked for the more light-hearted tone of the manga, but 02's Daemon was... interesting? He was shown as this mysterious cloaked figure that interacts with the other main villains of the later parts of 02, pulling the strings of everything that's been going on and corrupting some of the heroes, but due to 02's inconsistent pacing, the Daemon storyline ended up being aborted and Daemon ends up just slinking back into digital hell or wherever he came from and allowed a different villain to battle our heroes -- one of the reasons why 02's latter episodes are so gosh-danged messy. Still, I've always remembered Daemon to be pretty neat, this mysterious presence.

And while "Cloaked" Daemon was... kinda neat, as much as it ends up unfortunately resembling the KKK. I've always been extremely disappointed with Daemon's true form, though. I get what they're going for, to give a far more beastly creature... but I dunno. Daemon ends up looking like an Evilmon on steroids more than anything, and honestly looks a lot less impressive than his sinister cloaked self. There have been attempts to make regular Daemon a lot more impressive than his Bandai artwork, but I've never actually liked Daemon's design all that much.

There's the neat detail that his claws can stretch out, which the official artwork displays, but that doesn't really mean much when your regular Adult-stage Devimon can basically already do the same thing. Daemon does look pretty monstrous and you can kind of tell that the original designers wanted him to be the ultra-supreme-badass leader of the devils and demons of the digital world. He's apparently a fallen Seraphimon, too. And while Daemon is supposed to initially be the super-badass ultimate evil, later series, video games and profiles would reveal that Daemon is a member of a group of Seven Great Demon Lords, based on the seven deadly sins. Daemon ends up being given the title of the Sin of Wrath, and... and, well, Daemon does look pretty beastly and angry, I suppose. Overall, though, I've always found Daemon to be pretty dang underwhelming. I did find it funny, though, that the English dub, when censoring Daemon's name, ends up going for... "Creepymon?" Really?

 6/10.

... whew, that's a lot. We covered three of the Digimon franchise's biggest villains in Daemon, Vamdemon and Piemon, as well as a major lore character in Wizardmon, and a bunch of classic designs among them, too! We'll see if I get this verbose in the next session.