Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future #1

[ozaline]

By Neal Adams and Peter Stone, after a teleplay by J Micheal Straczynski

8/24 pages

Comments

[coldfury]

I loved this show as a kid. I was forever upset that I couldn't convince my parents to buy a toy to let me help Captain power.

[dr_archeville]

Ooh, I loved this show, never knew there was a tie-in comic!

[alicemacher]

Did the kids' show have that rather... intense scene up there with Lyman going mad?

[ozaline]

Well Captain Power had a few intense scenes in it, but no, the actual episode went a bit differently than the script shown in this comic.

In the final version of the episode this was adapted from, the flashback scenes are shown from a point after Lyman Taggert had already started his war on humanity, and Stuart Gordon Power was setting up the resistance, and creating the Power Base™ society hadn't completely fallen, but they were losing the war.

In the episode Taggert actually got his scars quite a bit later than his melding with Overmind. He lures Stuart to Volcania, by capturing Jon and a fight erupts between the two, which ends up causing an explosion. Stuart prevents Taggert from fleeing the explosion hoping to stop the war by having both of them die... of course Overmind is able to save Taggert with some cybernetic implants, bringing him, "one step closer to the ideal, the machine [was] within [him], and [he was] within the machine."

[icon_uk]

I remember the toy series, but as the UK didn't get the TV series until many years later (on rental VHS IIRC) it was something of a lost cause for this side of the pond.

I do remember the fuss about some of the extremes this kids action adventure series went to in terms of romance, implied sexual relations and other things not normally found in such shows and which didn't really help it find it's market.

The proposed second seasonm, despite sounding fascianting, wouldn't have made life much easier, either

[jmacq1]

Huh, I don't remember much in the way of implied sexual relations but I was 11 or so at the time so it may have gone over my head. I do remember an implied romance between Captain Power and "Pilot" but it was no more or less obvious than the romance of most cartoon shows at the time ("Of COURSE the square jawed leading man and the only female recurring character have a romance!") until the episode where Pilot sacrificed herself (where she spelled it out). I DO recall it being controversial for "violence" because of the interaction between the toys and the show ("Shooting" the screen and whatnot). Also I remember digging the hell out of the show.

I remember loving this comic too, since I missed the "origin" episode when the show first started airing (caught it later though).

[ozaline]

The CNN report on the controversy doesn't really go into the romance or the violence being the biggest problem, just the misunderstanding that you NEEDED the toys to watch the show, when it was just an add on.

As for implied Sex? Yes there is at least one scene that does that. Where Hawk meets up with an old lady friend from the Army, they share a kiss, and the next time we see them they're putting their clothes back on (just their jackets, at that point), and the woman's second in command IIRC is a little embarrassed to walk in on them, even though there's nothing to see at that point.

[ozaline]

It actually got pretty good ratings. (as mentioned in the CNN clip, I liked bellow), and really I think the more adult themes were written in a way that would go over a young child's head (I know they went over mine). It's funny that I wasn't aware of the controversy at all, there was a lot of shows my parents wouldn't let me watch even if they were slightly crass, but they had no problem with Captain Power. And a lot of my friends at the time watched Power as well.

I certainly remember the Power Rangers controversy a few years later.