Superman Analogue: Captain Planet
32Sometimes the power fantasy of a superhero type is a little different. In the case of Captain Planet, "the power is yours!"
Master Thread: https://twitter.com/CaseAiken/status/1346189702580342785
Original Thread: https://twitter.com/CaseAiken/status/1082767732091875328
Original Text: I'd like to thank @fakemikecoast for suggesting today's Superman Analogue, Captain Planet. When you move away from comics, I think you'll find that a whole bunch of characters lean on the comparison in order to round out the premise for their existence.
In this case, the character is dedicated to eradicating pollution. There's a lot going on here and I'm going to have to take a moment and detach myself from my generation because I feel like he was ubiquitous to early 90s cartoon watchers.
The show wasn't really about Captain Planet, but rather a group of activist teens as lead by Gaea the living embodiment of the Earth as voiced by Whoopie Goldberg. Kwami, Wheeler, Linka, Gei (?), and Monte...I think I got those right.
Each of the youths were given a ring that commanded a classical element (Earth/Fire/Wind/Water plus Heart). This is a particularly 90s show, with multiculturalism being heavily emphasized. It's patently absurd, but the goal of being better for the planet is hard to fault.
The teens would go through a cycle of investigating something that was bad for the environment (inevitably a super villain) and then summon Captain Planet, who was some kind of avatar for their combined powers, when things got rough.
Taken from a certain point of view, Captain Planet resembles the archetype that Shazam/Captain Marvel originally embodied (when viewed as Billy Batson being a different character than Captain Marvel). Really Captain Planet was just a MacGuffin for the real hereos, all of us.
Now, the series was absurd, the villains were tongue in cheek, so I find a bit of amusement in reflecting on them, but when I was a kid I took this 100% serious. In order for the bad guys not to win, we had to all do our part to save the world. Nuance would have been helped.
Was it propaganda? Yes! But then, Superman was shilling for the government from almost day 1, so... meh...
He had plenty of Pun-tastic villains but I'm a sucker for a good evil doppelganger and Captain Planet had the fun rival, Captain Pollution.
Quick tangent: I am of the opinion that several early Marvel female heroes had awesome powers and would be some of the most impressive flagship powerhouses had they been male and written more aggressively, but were relegated to supporting roles out of sexism.
Crystal of the Fantastic Four and Avengers shares several of the same powers as Captain Planet, minus the super strength, but also not weakened by people littering. She can control ALL OF THE CLASSICAL ELEMENTS! However, who knows who she is? Anyway, end tangent!
Anyway, #CaptainPlanet has shades of Infinity-Man and other super powered babysitter stories with an extreme political bent that probably could have used some shades of gray. He's pretty well remembered, unlike other cartoon #SupermanAnalogues. Did you see the Don Cheadle spoof?
Superheroes get political or are used to tell a specific morality lesson and Captain Planet was NOT SUBTLE, but that doesn't make him wrong. I spent a lot of time mocking the production quality but in retrospect who cares? As a kid he was a guy fighting the bad guys. We need that
Images:
The still images were all from either the show itself or promotional images for the 90s Captain Planet animated series. Most of the video is from the Captain Planet animated series. There are clips from the Captain Planet NES games which should be obvious which. When I reference the "Don Cheadle" video, that's a clip from the "Funny or Die" Captain Planet spoof. The Robot Chicken reference is from that series. The Rick and Morty reference is a clip from the "Planetina" episode of Rick and Morty.
Certain Point Of View is a podcast network brining you all sorts of nerdy goodness! From Star Wars role playing, to Disney day dreaming, to video game love, we've got the show for you! Learn more on our website: https://www.certainpov.com
Join us on Discord: https://discord.gg/wcHHer4
PODCAST SHOWS:
▶ Men Of Steel - https://www.certainpov.com/men-of-steel
FOLLOW US:
▶ Twitter: @certainpovmedia, @caseaiken, and @menofsteel14
▶ Instagram: @certainpovmedia
▶ Website: https://www.certainpov.com
#CertainPOV #Podcast #Podcasts #captainplanet #superman #manofsteel #menofsteel