BATBEY #45: "Speak No Evil". If a thousand monkeys worked on a thousand typewriters, could they save this plot?
Granted, it isn't Hillary Bader's worst script ("Girl's Night Out" still reigns queen), but it isn't her most stellar effort. The plot revolves around an escaped gorilla who, as Terry observes, demonstrate shuman reason. It turns out a couple of scientists, in order to keep their grant and breed the next Koko, spliced him with human DNA and the same drug that the Splicers use to monkey (no pun intended) with their genetic codes (not exactly putting the best face on the scientific community). The gorilla holds a grudge against the naturalist who took him frrm his mother, a man who looks like an evil Marlon Perkins, comptete with an infrared eye. The confrontation between them is short and violent, when Batman tells him to go ahead and kill him--"just like any human". "I am not a human," replies the talking ape, sparing the poacher's miserable life. Once he's in custody, Bruce and Terry return the ape to Africa. Bruce offers to remove his powers of reason, but the ape refuses, saying as an intelligent beast, he would be of greater use to his kind.
A few good moments (like the scene where Howard complains about libraries being "too retro" and Dana defends the virtue of the printed page), but the whole think felt too animal rights-conscious and enviro-preachy for me. Shades of Captain Planet.

POK JJ #315
The crew meets a girl who raises a breed of Pokemon that can, like pigs with truffles, be trained to hunt precious stones called azurite. Team Rocket kidnaps one and tries to force it to make them rich--but it's only a baby and doesn't know how to find azurite yet. That's the irony--their poor Pokemon research skills always doom their ideas to failure (like when they sent Lickitung and Victoreebell against Muk several eps ago).
Meowth makes some really bad puns about rocks during a landslide (maybe he's a charter member of the Friar's Club), Brock goes gaga over the girl and gets dragged away by the ear (again), and Heracross takes a snack break in the middle of battle (which led to a great bit--ASH: What are you doing! This is no time for a snack break! MISTY: Wow--that's something I never thought I'd hear *him* say!)
Watch for the bit with Jessy on a throne drenched in precious jewels and gems. Work that ego, honey. Work it.

CRDCPT #14: This episode opens with Sakura frying dumplings. I usually boil mine (I tried deep-frying some once, and they turned black and hard and inedible). I wonder if the dialogue was translated properly; to me they resembled croquettes.
A neighborhood store is selling mock-Clow Cards, and several of Sakura's friends have bought some. Sakura realizes that one of them, the Shot Card, may have turned up there and been purchased. To make matters worse, if one utters its name, it turnes stalker/sniper and starts blasting whoever it sees. Sakura asks around and learns that *Mei-Lin* bought it, of all people. This Cardcaptor wannabe doesn't realize what danger she's in, believing the card to be just another cheap imitation, and utters its name. Li immediately becomes the primary target, until Sakura can confine the little frigger.
One can imagine at this point Li's looking at Mei-Lin and thinking, "I keep you around *why*?"
I still don't get Kero's obsession with video games. Though I suppose guardian beasts have to do *something* to keep occupied. What did guardian beasts do pre-Atari?
Sakura doubts herself, but Kero inspires her by telling her her that she can do whatever she puts her mind to. An excellent lesson when either capturing rogue sniper cards or frying dumplings/croquettes.

POK JJ# 316: "Illusion Confusion". I nodded off during this one, but I remember seeing a new Pokemon called Hoothoot (who looks like Woodsey the owl from the Forest Service ads) and can control dreams. Nastina the crone from "Holiday in Acapulco" was also there. And something about Team Rocket on a tropical beach.

XMEN #1: "Strategy X". Well, the long-awaited premiere of this series is here, and I admit that it looks promising. THat's what I generally say when I don't feel like making a decision one way or the other. Visually I like it, but it makes me nostalgic for the Fox version; my biggest concern is that we're a couple of steps above "X-Men Babies" (which I saw in a Mad magazine parody once). Since the characters are younger, a whole different voice cast is used here; Nightcrawler sounds like a kraut version of Cheech Marin, and Wolverine has a less-throaty voice and a *Texas accent* (odd for a Canuck). Storm, honey, lighten up on the blush, hmmmm?
The plot revolves around a froglike teen named Toad who Prof. X is considering recruiting--a total horse's a** and a sneak thief, but a mutie just the same and in need of help. After tussling with Nightcrawler, the two end up transported into the training area. Toad freaks out, running--or perhaps hopping--into the night. In actuality Toad is an agent of Mystique, who is the principal of a rival high school in the area.
Teen angst may be a ripe garden for this new series to grow in, as I imagine many 14-18 yr olds feel like mutants/freaks in their own right. Therefore I predict that if this show catches on, it will be popular with both teen and us twentysomethings who either fondly or not-so-fondly recall their adolescence. As long as it's well-handled and doesn't degenerate into a 22-min commercial for action figures, I will be sated.

MXSTL #202: "Fun in the Sun". Berto and Josh go to Hawaii for a little R&R (A working vacation for Josh, who is looking for information on Pearl Harbor naval vehicles for a school assignment), but they discover anything but. Giant tidal waves hreaten to crush the jewel of the Pacific. It turns out that L'Etranger is behind them, and while Max must break apart this Humungadunga from the inside, Berto must fight hand-to-hand with Ol' Skullface. It's little wonder Berto spends much of his time behind a desk playing with robotic pets (he has a cat in this ep).
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