Welcome back to part 2 of "Why Heroes is the Best Show Ever"! For those of you who care, I apologize for my lateness in posting something for you to giggle at while surreptiously checking Myspace.com at work. For those of you who don't care, suck it. I really have no excuse, other than the fact that as with most things in my life, I got bored with writing and kind of forgot about it. There have been a few more characters added to the show since last time, and since I had to skip this week's episode to showcase my useless knowledge of John Grisham novels at trivia on Monday, there may very well be more that I don't know about. As before, I have not remembered any of the characters actual names, and have described them, usually in some sort of offensive way, by one of their physical or emotional attributes. I have also given them a numerical rating of 1 to 10 on the basis of their superhuman abilities usefulness against regular crime as well as super crime. And here we go!
Shiny Indian!
Shiny Indian is so named due to the fact that either because of the stress-inducing situations he finds himself in, or just through a lack of general cleanliness, he always appears to be glistening slightly as he broods in his wifebeater. His character is central to the shows plot, as his deceased father was the geneticist responsible for looking into a microscope and realizing that the DNA of someone who could fly looked different from that of a normal person. As of yet, he's displayed no actual superpowers, unless you count the ability to magically translate both his speech and that of any other Indian he encounters into perfect, upper-class English. It's kind of offensive; I mean, every time they show two Japanese characters conversing, they do so in their native tongue, with helpful subtitles to translate their gibberish for all of us filthy round-eyes in the audience. But literally every Indian character sounds like they should be attending a tea party at Dame Thistleberry Mountcastle III's garden party in Southampton. I guess the writers felt that the guttural pronunciation of Indian words might be unpleasant for some viewers, but I think it would have been funnier if they had gone all out and made all of the characters sound like Apu from the Simpsons. As not showering and being able to perfectly speak the language of the nation that raped and conquered your country don't count as superpowers, Shiny Indian receives a rating of "0" against both normal crime as well as super crime. Actually, I guess I should give him a "1" against normal crime; his pungent stench might be able to drive off potential muggers by itself, and if someone does manage to grab him, his oily texture no doubt makes him very hard to hold on to.
Radioactive Caveman!
While it would be an awesome plot twist if this guy was actually some sort of time-displaced Neanderthal, he just reminds me of the disgruntled caveman in the Geico commercials. On a side note, you have to wonder who does their marketing. I mean, it takes balls to walk into an office full of board members and CEO's and pitch a cockney gecko and racially disenfranchised cavemen as your primary advertising campaigns. Anyway, his powers aren't really under his full control yet; so far, he's killed his wife by giving her cancer and then accidentally burned down his house. So it's safe to assume that it's going to be a while before he's out foiling bank robberies with his incredible ability of being what amounts to a large barrel of toxic waste with legs.
Rating against Crime: 7
I've never been mugged, unless you count one time in New York when I was walking down a fairly deserted street and a homeless guy jumped out at me and demanded my wallet. I responded by saying "What? No.", and then kept walking as he stared at me in frustrated hobo rage. I mean, I'm sure I was incredibly lucky that instead of watching me walk me off he didn't stab me multiple times with a rusty knife, but my point is that these kind of things tend to happen very quickly. At the very best, a potential criminal will slowly be rendered sterile after he knocks out Radioactive Caveman with a pipe and is going through his pockets for change.
Rating against Super Crime: 9
Being able to give someone cancer is actually pretty helpful when dealing with supervillains. This is because as they've got you chained to the ceiling of their death lair hanging over a vat of hydrochloric acid filled with genetically modified crocodiles who are immune to hydrochloric acid, you'll have the secret satisfaction of knowing that they'll die horribly over the next few months as they describe in detail all the things you could have done to stop their nefarious plot. Of course, this makes him the superhero equivalent of a suicide bomber, but if you're really a hero, you won't mind being eaten alive so that Mr. Terror won't be able to conquer the earth because he's too nauseous from his chemo.
Soulful Black Guy!
Soulful Black guy has one of the best powers on the show; he's able to alter his molecular density so as to become intangible, which enables him to walk through walls and escape any confinement. I've labeled him "soulful" due to the fact that he's been framed for a crime he didn't commit and is on the run from the law with his illegitimate son. As a consequence, he almost always looks like he's about to cry while delivering important life lessons to his disinterested child. The one thing I'm curious about with his powers is how it works with his clothes; why don't they just fall through him whenever he phases through a door or whatever? The first time he used his powers was to walk through a wall and surprise his ex-girlfriend; I'll bet she would have been a lot more surprised if he had been ass-naked when he reached out and grabbed her. The way comic books usually solve these kinds of dilemmas is by having the character mutter nonsensical crap involving "unstable molecules" or something, because hey, if there're molecules involved, it must be because of, like, science, which explains everything! I guess it could also be because anything he's in contact with is automatically rendered intangible with him, but if that's the case, why aren't his shoes left behind each time? Does he always have to wear sandals? Math is hard.
Rating against Crime: 6
This is another one of those powers that's great in a pacifist sort of way; if somebody comes up to rob you, and you refuse, and they try to shoot you, you can just become intangible and the bullets will harmlessly pass through your body. Of course, you're then left awkwardly staring at the person who just tried to kill you, I guess until you decide to disappear into the ground, or the mugger goes off to rob someone who doesn't have fantastic powers. This also poses a problem if you're somewhere crowded; you're not much of a hero if you smile triumphantly as the bullets painlessly go through you and straight in to the eyes of a baby that's standing behind you.
Rating against Super Crime: 7
It'd be a great power to have if you had to fight your way into some supervillains subterranean arctic fortress; it wouldn't matter how many Ice-Ninja's were sent to stop you, you could just walk through all of them with no ill effects. The problem arises once you actually get to the heart of the Eskimo Spy's (think about the name, it's clever) fortified compound. What do you do then? I guess you could find a white sheet somewhere and then, when he's not looking, jump out from a wall and yell "BOO!", but that only works once and usually only on older supervillains with weak hearts.
Hot Psycho Girl!
Hot Psycho Girl has the interesting ability to generate a split personality with superhuman strength when presented with a dangerous situation. Her other persona is more assertive and seems to be motivated solely by self-preservation; she takes action, usually by killing people, and apparently fucks like a champion. She's able to converse with her alter-ego via mirrors, and usually has no memory of anything that's happened during the time the other personality was in charge. In the medical community, we have a name for this amazing superhuman ability; it's called disassociative identity disorder. She exhibits all of the classic signs and symptoms: it occurs as a reaction to stress, she's potentially stronger than she usually is, and the other personality takes charge of problems that her original mind is too scared of to handle. I think it would be really funny if, at the end of the show, they reveal that she doesn't really have any superpowers, she's just batshit fucking insane.
Rating against Crime: 10
Being able to manifest an alter ego during times of danger that not only has the ability to rip a potential robbers arm off, but also has absolutely no moral problem with doing so pretty much guarantees that if you do get your purse stolen, you'll probably wake up ten minutes later with it back on your arm and a decapitated head stuffed inside of it.
Rating against Super Crime: 5
One of the defining characteristics of Hot Psycho Girl's other personality is that it's driven purely by the need to protect herself and her son. Since this is the case, I'd imagine that if she responded to the Danger Alert in the Hero's Tower of Justice, she would probably just fuck, then kill whoever had called her before robbing the place blind. I'm kind of curious as to how her power is going to interact with those of Emo Haircut; since he can copy superhuman abilities, will he develop a vamped-out split personality that likes to fuck as well? I hope so, the idea of him talking to a sultry bad version of his pussified self in a mirror is pretty funny.
The Jerry-Curl Kid!
I was originally calling this character "Afro-Kid", but upon closer inspection, it actually looks more like his head has been dipped in Soul-Glo rather than permed. He's the interracial offspring of Soulful Black Guy and Hot Psycho Girl, and has the power of ethnic confusion in addition to being able to mentally control machinery. The only demonstration of his powers so far has been watching him use a payphone that had been out of order before he touched it, which, when you think about it, isn't really that impressive. There's an electrician named "Big Pete" out there somewhere who can do the same thing, albeit having it take a little longer.
Rating against Crime: 3
I guess this sort of comes down to what the definition of a "machine" really is. If somebody comes at you with a gun, does that count as a machine? Could the Jerry-Curl Kid make the gun fall apart, or turn around to shoot it's owner? It also depends on location; if you're mugged somewhere like Tokyo, a city built completely out of robots, you could use the environment to tremendous advantage. If, however, someone tries to rob you in Cowfuck, Georgia, where the magical gift of fire has only recently been stolen from the gods, you're pretty fucked.
Rating against Super Crime: 8
I'm going to go ahead and give him a pretty high rating, mainly because almost all supervillains rely way to much on technology in their world-domination schemes. At the very least, they have a robotic henchman or cyborg assassin or something the Jerry-Curl Kid could turn against its master. The one exception is, of course, criminal ninja organizations, whose strict adherence to the code of their ancestors prevents them from realizing that in a sword fight, the guy with the gun usually wins. So the Jerry-Curl Kid just has to stay away from ninjas, and he should be fine. Unless they're robot ninjas, which would just be awesome.
Hiro!
I've saved Hiro for last, because he is, almost certainly, the greatest character ever created in the history of television. I seriously break into a smile whenever he's on screen; his cheerful, chubby bumbling is so adorable that if he ever does actually fight any supervillains, they'll give up just seeing how happy it makes him to win. Upon being told that a future version of himself carries a katana, he responded in exactly the same way I would have: he got this faraway look in his eyes, smiled, and murmured "I....had a sword." This future version of himself also spoke perfect English, which makes me wonder about the actor portraying him. Is he fluent in both Japanese and English, and just tries to make his English sound like it belongs in a Godzilla movie? That's actually pretty impressive; I speak passable French, but if you asked me to speak it in a way that made me sound like I was as stereotypically bad at French as possible, I wouldn't even know how to begin. Or does he just speak Japanese, and have to spend weeks being coached by a language instructor to be able to say a few lines in our barbarian American tongue? He seems to have won the random allocation of superpowers lottery; he can stop time, teleport, and travel to the past or future just by scrunching up his face and thinking about it really hard. He looks like he's straining with all of his mental and physical might every time he uses his powers, and I really wouldn't be surprised if he shits himself a little bit whenever he does something miraculous. It must kind of suck showing up in the past with dirty underwear; it really does diminish your credibility if you're there to warn people about a coming apocalypse but can't get anyone to talk to you because you smell like an outhouse.
Rating against Crime: 10
As long as he's given a few minutes to tightly close his eyes and simulate taking a huge dump, ordinary criminals have got no chance at besting Hiro. And there are so many possibilities, too! Obviously, you could be boring and just stop time and run away. But if you wanted to get creative, you could use the time stop to replace your assailant's gun with a huge dildo or a fish or something, then pants them, and then laugh when they look down at their useless weapon and uncovered genitalia. Or you could stop time and get the robbers wallet, find their driver's license, figure out where they're from, then go back in time and brutally murder both them and their entire family! No? To much? This is probably why both God and genetics have decided that if there is going to be some kind of future world-devastating catastrophe, I won't be one of the ones who gets superpowers and is charged with saving humanity.
Rating against Super Crime: 9
The only reason he doesn't get a "10" in this category as well is because while being able to stop time is fucking cool, not being able to do anything else kind of diminishes its effectiveness. Say the Incredible Hulk is rampaging through downtown New York, and Hiro is the only one available to deal with the crisis. He bravely confronts the mindless brute, and, once again by closing his eyes and almost soiling himself, is able to bend the very fabric of reality and halt the inexorable march of time itself. He gazes wondrously at the shards of glass from a broken window suspended in midair, and gently carries a young schoolgirl out of the way of a falling telephone pole. He then removes her underwear, to do whatever weird thing it is that Japanese people do with used schoolgirl panties. Turning back to the Incredible Hulk, he contemplates his options. He first walks over to him and begins uselessly pummeling the Hulk's chest with his tiny Asian fists, and then, panting heavily, attempts to kick him in the groin. As this has no noticeable effect due to the Hulks steel-hard skin, he once again ponders a solution. But before he can think of one, his concentration lapses, time reverts to normal, and the Hulk crushes his skull like an eggshell. See? Not that useful.
And that about wraps it up. There's one other chick that hasn't been featured that heavily, and has the ability to alter the inflection of her voice and make people do whatever she wants. So far, she's only been able to get a recovering heroin addict to do more heroin, which I can't imagine is that hard to do. I also think it's kind of funny that they cast a slightly homely-looking woman for this part instead of some drop-dead gorgeous actress. I guess it's more believable that she has superpowers if it's shown that men will do whatever she wants because her voice gets all funky and not just because they think they might have a chance at fucking her. Anyway, if I still haven't convinced you to watch the show, I probably wouldn't like you anyway, but seriously: best new show of the year. Watch it.
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