BAT BEY: "The Call", part I.
We open in Gotham City, where a train robbery is in progress. It's stopped by a man who can reduce/enlarge himself at will by shifting his atomic structure, Micron. The robbery is thwarted, but the train is derailed, and Micron nearly killed in the process.
Cut to a dogfight over the city between Inque and the Tomorrow Knight (was this ep scripted before or after "Inqueling", I wonder?) While pursuing the gooey villain, they run across an elderly man dressed in green. Inque tries to take him hostage, but gets more than she barained for when he goes into a spin and splatters her like a weenie in the microwave. It's Superman. He's come with an offer to Terry to join the Justice League.
His reception with these Olympian gods is lukewarm at best--but gets hotter when Aqua Girl is nearly boiled alive in her tank. Terry goes on a mission with the JLU that ends in dsiaster when the War Hawk is killed in an explosion...and Terry is sthe sole witness. No one believes that only the Hawk got the distress signal and accuse Terry is lying. Then it gets worse...Bruce realizes Superman is behind the mysterious sabatoges that nearly did in Micron and Aqua Girl and killed the Hawk.
When Bruce goes into the cobwebby hidden chamber and unearths the Kryptonite, he says Superman has gone rogue before and only that rock will stop him. There's a story there that may or may not be revealed...
In the back of my mind I suspected Superman, but didn't want to admit it until the end. Is her senile? Was he exposed to red kryptonite? Is Mxy still around after all these years, up to his old pranks?
Superman's voice is aged and much different than his younger, Daly-voiced incarnation. Daly must be too busy with the new "Fugitive" series on CBS (which I haven't seen yet; to me the original was the best). I wonder if that was the same actor who voiced Supes in the early '60's serial with Adam West as Batman (who did the voice of the Grey Ghost, so certainly it would be a fitting juxtaposition to have Conroy work with another of the old guard).

XMEN: "The X-Impulse"
Kitty Pride, a strange girl who can shift her molecular structure to slide through solid objects, is recruited. She's scared and reluctant, naturally--the butt of the popular girl's jokes and the victim of a friendly and sympathetic-seeming teen who can generate seismic phonomenon. He only wishes to exploit Kitty by sending her into the principal's office after hours to swipe exam answers.
The animation is nice, better, actually, in places than Fox's (I especially love the looks of the ladies' eyes and lips). But the writing is askew. Kitty uses the word "like" a bit too much para mi, IMO. This is NY, doll, not the Valley. And the Wolverine/Sabretooth subplot felt too brief and tacked on. I mean, you expect a moron like Juggernaut to go wild and trash downtown, not a canny beast of prey like Sabe. He'd go for Wolvie in the great north woods or in an Arctic wasteland. At least the Fox series gave him that....and a whole ep of it, not a few measly minutes in a story focused on another X-Man...or X-Girl, as it may be.
And I still think Wolvie's accent is all wrong--he sounds like he should be hanging out in a juke joint in Houston, or maybe Juarez, not up around NY and Canuck-land.
But Kitty is fairly well-handled here, as far as torment and teenage angst go. "It's hard enough to be normal!" she cries at one point. But as Jean says, there is no need to hide behind masks.
Next week Rogue debuts--and if they lose her sweet vulnerability and her syrupy Southern accent, *I will be peeved*.

POK JJ: "Flower Power"
This one features another one of those outdoor carnical-type things, like "Kid's Day" and "Girl's Day". It appeares to be a cross between a talent show and a Reniassance Fair...a showcase of performing Pokemon.
The main attraction seems to be a pair of grass Pokemon that resemble bells and perform backflips..though one seems to have lost its edge and can't properly execute the big move that is supposed to be the main attraction of the act.
The girl who trains them talks about how dancing is similar to Pokemon battling, which reminds me of wrestlers and pugalists I've heard of who practice ballet to increase their gracefulness. Every trainer has an angle. Though I suppose it beats Prima's "The ice is nice"....
Look for Jessy and James' costumes. Graceful James redefines the term "sugar plum fairy"...and Jessy, as a flamenco dancer, has a very-easily misconstruable line about showing off her castinettes.
Look also for Jessy's piggery with some meatballs after the Rocketeers blow their money on another gadget that fails to reap Pikachu and that's all they can afford. "The last one is always the best." The boys seem to want to argue with her, but are too weak from hunger to bother.
And the ending? Boy, I thought the Rocketeers were a dizzy bunch before, but....

POK JJ: "Spinarack Attack"
When Officer Jenny asked Ash and co. if they were the mystery-solving teens she's heard about, my first thought was, "Pika-Dooby-Doo!"
Jessy and James seem to be modeling their latest crime spree after a villain called the Black Arachnid, or some such thing, who a century ago apparently stalked his victims and sent threatening letters to them telling them what his next move would be. A little creepy, actually.
The two J's are still browbeating Meowth to learn Payday, a ref to "Meowth Rules", and James is forced to surrender his bottlecap collection. Is there some significance to bottlecaps that makes James to reluctant to part with them? (It's noted that in one episode James also collects soda-can tabs, and there's a legend surrounding them concerning kissing, which is discussed at the Pokemopolis site. I wonder if his bottle top fetish is something along those lines, or does he just have a penchant for shiny things?)

JCA: "Bullies."
The dragon talisman is unearthed by Jackie and stolen by Valmont, who (gross!) gets it welded into his palm. Immediately he goes on a crime spree, spraying flame out of his hand like The Human Torch in an Armani suit. He attacks Capt. Black on one of his sprees and nearly kills him.
Jackie, meanwhile, faces the most horrible fate known to man: the parent-teacher conference. (Scream.) Jade beat the pus out of a bully at school, and Jackie has to teach her to curb her temper...but ironically he loses his every time Black's name is mentioned. Watch the scene where he turns a bookshelf into kindling with one hand.
The bully, rather than seeking revenge, goes to Jade to learn the "ancient art of butt-whup". And Jackie illustrates his point about controlling one's temper by tricking Valmont into sinking his boat and his scheme in a fit of rage.
Watch for the scene where Jade, Jackie, and Uncle Methuselah mop up the goons. DYN that a couple of goon extras look like something out of a Bill Plympton cartoon?

CRDCPT: "Stormy Weather"
I thought they'd had enough frigid weather with the ice card...but now a snow card is loose and wreaking havoc with three-foot drifts.
Sakura realizes that the mysterious woman in her vision is Ms. Mackenzie ("I can almsot see her face...."). Though I still can't fathom her angle or her connection to Yue, who Keros mentioned briefly once. Maybe that was a mistranslation, or a red herring tossed into the plot. Plus in the first ten minutes two flashbacks to eps not aired in the States--the wood card and the sleep card.
I wonder why Mei-Lin wasn't sniffling and sneezing like in the ice rink, with the ice card. Though maybe since it was a freak storm casued by magic, the temperature hadn't dropped enough to casue discomfort.
Li is still reluctant to ride Sakura's stick. "Are we going to go through this every time?" Keros grumbles. Is it because he's afraid his feelings for her might become apparent, or does his masculine pride think it unseemly for a girl to call the shots?
Watch the snow recede as Sakura flies over the valley. Maybe she should rent out her services to Mr. Plow.

SS: "They're Playing My Song"
It's the Afro-Reed Richards! The Rubber Band Man (which I think was the title of a calypso song) is making it hot for a rapper named Ice Pack (possibly a ref to the thankfully-deceased Two-Pack Shaker), who he believes stole his song.
The scene in the limo and atop the recording studio were priceless--I've always wanted to see one of those thug rappers get their comeuppance.
Virgil investigates and traces it to a producer who looks like a cross between Fat Albert and Iceberg Slim, who stole a track of music from a composer and never acknowledged him. "I steal a lot of things," he says shamelessly. He tries to kill of RBM in a bank vault, but Static frees him. Trouble is RBM wants to play hurt victim some more and take matters in his own pliant hands...and ends up doing an impersonation of a Bubble Tape on amerry-go-round for his trouble.
Interesting way this ep illustrates that immorality knows no bankbook limit. There are a lot of thugs who make six figures. *cough Kennedys cough*

MXSTL: "Amazon"
Did the writers get hold of an unused Captain Planet script? In the first ten minutes we're hit with stats on deforestation and wildlife death in the rain forests. I started squirming before the first commercial.
Seems Smiley's back. Why don't you die? You have been crushed in a rockslide, buried in magma and eaten by viruses. Just die, tin grin.
Psycho's plan involves cutting down trees and harvesting their sap to mix up a nerve gas "that makes cyanide look like laughing gas". The environmental whackos say that if you cut down a tree you're killing the chance of a cure for AIDS, whough they don't talk about the possibility of creating biotoxins, too. I find that funny.
A new girl in Team Steel. Bet you by the end of the season Max'll be smooching her too. Poor Laura.
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