Harley Quinn: Season 5 has ended. It delivered as I had hoped with Lois Lane rubbing elbows with the titular Harley and Ivy (though not as much as I'd have liked), with the show tickling my fancy more through Bane and Clayface, per their comical, highbrow ventures. Oh, and Frank's birthing "metamorphosis" was a nice, marginal surprise and as such, acceptable. (I wasn't as keen on Bruce Wayne's disintegration in the wake of Lena Luthor's rejection, even if he did make a virile comeback. I don't enjoy seeing my childhood hero reduced to a blubbering fool, though I realize the situation is implanted more for irony than beloved convention. I'd have also liked Catwoman in the long-term mayhem, but hey, I guess one can't have everything, with an overload of characters already involved as it is.)
The big surprise was Brainiac. I knew he'd make his presence known, but presumed he'd be an interloper at best and most, teasing his desire to shrink Metropolis throughout. To say the least, when he became the episodes' main thrust, I was thrown, but by no means in a bad way.
The retelling of Brainiac's story was quirky, which is no surprise within Quinn's whacky, alternate plane, but beyond the guffaws that swirled, the classic antagonist projected depth. In other words, he was more confused and sorrowful in his villainy than hateful. At times, he was as identifiable as any decent human, caring for his android family and their "simian" pet, Koko, who he even kept alive in his mind well after the poor creature's death.
With this said, I realize that Harley Quinn: Season 6 has gotten the green light, but I wouldn't mind a Brainiac spinoff, maybe a cerebral prequel to what this Harley season revealed, emphasizing Brainiac's old, domestic life, in what could then evolve into something akin to The Jetsons.
And speaking of spinoffs, I finally binged Kite Man: Hell Yeah! I know I should've absorbed it sooner, but as I've said in prior posts, it's tricky for me to catch everything that's out there due to my stacked schedule, and this one kept slipping through the cracks, nudging me every so often, only to get sidestepped yet again.
Nevertheless, I like Kite Man as much as Harley. That Chuck Brown is an underdog villain, and on an underscoring level, more virtuous than not, is easy to digest.
Hell Yeah! even gave me another substantial heaping of Bane, and the big bruiser sure did shine within that Cheers-geared (Noonan's) backdrop, and even further through that totally rad, back-to-the-'80s, Portal Potty sojourn, not to mention his nostalgic, action-packed return to the League of Shadows Pit, his catchy, rap number at the ill-fated, Sexiest Villain Alive show, his sneaky, Hamlet-like stab at writing a Brainiac musical/play, and last but not least, his fatherly nurturing of the cute yet dissatisfied Goldilocks. Much of this exaggerated stuff doesn't match the traditional Bane by a mile, but that's why the setup is so humorous (and not anywhere near as condescending as it proved with bumbling Wayne). Anyway, I got a kick out of the results.
Now, getting back to Kite Man, who do like and (as far as bad guys go) respect (even when for an edgy episode, he became the overbearing Beast Mode to press a valuable, life lesson), I'm even more impressed with Golden Glider. When she engaged in that nude-fight, sauna scene, I couldn't help but be enthralled. I'm a huge, Kekko (Keiko) Kamen fan, so that sequence left me bewitched, excited and begging for more. (On the more sensitive side, Golden Glider's mother/daughter "reconciliation" was as complex as it was austere, thanks in no small part to Malice Vundabar's smug interference; the rift was also a disconcerting contrast to the series' stapling slapstick.)
I probably shouldn't dig these dissentient, animated offshoots as much as I do (for one, I still struggle with Lego Batman and its endless tributaries); but these particular, DC/WB shows do tend to lure me, and once I'm involved, I stay settled. They're nowhere near as gross as The Boys and work well for hitting the fleeting spot when I'm having breakfast or supper. On this basis, they rekindle the comfort I tapped from cartoons I watched in the early mornings and late afternoons of my youth (before or after school, that is), only with sailor-blushing vulgarity sewn in. For me, that's progression.
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