Article #44
Look! It’s Giant, Molten, Zombie Jesus!!!
OR…
The
Festive Easter Entry ala Gatchaman!
I
thought it’d be a good time for a little change of pace. It’s Easter, and what better way to celebrate
the death and resurrection of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ (well, for
Christians anyway), then putting up a slightly different entry on a website
called comicbooktidbits? If you can
think of a better way of celebrating this holiday, I’d like to hear it!
Well,
no, I don’t really want to hear it. I
was being sarcastic. Sarcasm doesn’t
translate well on the printed page though.
Could explain why I’m banned from oh so many internet chat rooms… ahem…
So,
rather than focus on a comic book for this entry, I’ve decided to take a chance
of posting an entry on a childhood favorite of mine, the classic TV cartoon
Gatchaman (or Battle of the Planets as we folks in North America came to know
it). I loved that show as a kid, and it
probably helped start this whole lifelong indulgence in cartoons and
comics. At least that’s what I tell my
psychologist. And there was a Battle of
the Planets comic book too, so it sort of fits in.
I
recently managed to get a few DVDs of the unedited Gatchaman series to try and
recapture my youth, and it doesn’t disappoint.
Well, Gatchaman doesn’t disappoint, I don’t know about Battle of the
Planets. See, Gatchaman had more
“mature” aspects to its stories, with people dying, cities getting decimated,
some truly tense moments and, well, it wasn’t dumbed down for kids like Battle
of the Planets and so much other stuff is in North America. It’s amazing the different philosophy
regarding child entertainment between Japan and the USA back in the 1970s. Ah well, anyway, I can’t recall the last time
I’ve seen an actual Battle of the Planets episode anyway.
There
was one particular entry on the disk that I found… interesting. As you can tell, it has something to do with
Jesus and his monumentous resurrection… sort of…
Yes,
that’s the visage of Jesus Christ on what appears to be Mount Rushmore. Well, not actually Mount Rushmore, but a
reasonable facsimile thereof. Seems a family
of carvers have been slowly adding Jesus to the mountainside over generations
as a symbol of world peace. Honestly, I
can’t complain with that sentiment. I am
amazed, however, that any government would allow a single family (which
currently consists of a single girl, the last of her line I suppose) work daily
on their own on a mountainside for what I can only presume are decades, totally
unsupervised. Think about it, that’s
like someone saying they want to build a giant statue in New York harbor BY
THEMSELVES over a period of 100 years, and the government saying, “Sure buddy,
knock yourself out.” The Statue of
Liberty would only be a pair of feet by now.
We soon
discover that, coincidently enough, a giant, lava covered, zombie shuffling
Jesus is spotted nearby at various times wrecking havoc, destroying towns and
things. And what does a giant, lava
covered, zombie shuffling Jesus look like?
I thought you’d never ask!
Fun Fact
#1: Isn’t it freaky how much Jesus looks
like he could be a member of Led Zepplin?
Our boy
sure looks peaceful, even when he’s stomping a flaming mud-hole in some town’s
ass. Soon enough the authorities are
aware they have a problem here, and who do you call when a giant monster is
terrorizing your town? Well, there’s any
number of folks really, but this being their show, I think you’d better call
the Gatchaman team!
Anyone remember
the Friendly Giant TV Show? Look up,
waaaaaay up!
From
left to right we have Jun, Jinpei, Ken, Ryu and Joe (or Princess, Keyop, Mark,
Tiny, Jason for you Battle of the Planets aficionados). Heroic figures all (although on Battle of the
Planets Tiny was a “space burger” chronic overeater and Keyop couldn’t speak
aside from weird chirps and clicks, which never made sense to me). Honestly, I must have been held back in
school at least once because I would try to repeat the gibberish Keyop spoke in
vague attempts to try and understand his weird language.
So,
Gatchaman is on the case, and they soon run afoul of the monster figure of
Christ. After a harrowing close call the
team crash lands in the water and exit their downed craft, the God
Phoenix. Gatchaman notes that the giant
monster didn’t enter the water – something about molten lava not mixing well
with water. GENIUS!
Nearby,
Joe comes across a cross, because crosses are left in sea side rock beds all
the time…
Fun Fact
#2: Contrary to what you may think, the
gas being emitted is steam!
While
staring at the cross, Joe starts to put two and two together, realizing that
the giant monster looks familiar. I
suppose it helps that the cross is actually a crucifix…
…and
that the visage of Christ here looks almost exactly the same as the giant,
molten monster. To be fair, throughout
this episode no one is making fun of any religious beliefs or anything of that
nature. The fact is, the only ones truly
desecrating Christianity are the villains, which makes sense because, well,
they’re evil.
Isn’t
it weird to see a crucifix in a children’s cartoon show, though? Especially in modern, watered down children’s
entertainment, something like this is pretty rare. I guess in Japan it’s no big deal because
Christianity isn’t a major force like it is in North America.
Continuing
with the story, putting two and two together the team heads for the giant
mountainside to check out their hunch and…
Do you have a
tissue? I think I’ve got something up my
nose.
…the
giant carving is there, along is a conspicuously long, black booger hanging out
of the nose! Mighty suspicious if you
ask me. Investigating further the team
finds the girl sculptor investigating her family’s life’s work as she feels the
sculpture has been changed. Going deeper
into the mountain the team then comes upon a hidden Galactor base (Spectra in
Battle of the Planets). Galactor wants
to claim Earth for their own, and routinely send out giant mechanical monsters
to destroy and frighten the populace in their attempts at world conquest.
They’ll never
find us up here!
While
conspicuously hiding, the team observes Galactor’s foul plan. Seems they need the giant head of Jesus as a
basis to create their monster. Each time
they take the head out of the mountain, roll it to the base and dip it into the
lava and through “super-science” (or just plain, old voodoo) a lava monster is
born!
I’m getting
dipped in molten lava, yay!!!
He
looks kind of happy to be getting a lava dip, isn’t he? You know, you have to wonder, why did
Galactor only bother with Jesus? I mean,
why stop there? Wouldn’t folks be
equally terrified if a 40 storey molten Abraham Lincoln or Teddy Roosevelt were
stomping on their house? Heck, a 40
storey molten ANYTHING would work equally well, and they probably wouldn’t lead
Galactor’s sworn enemy Gatchaman to their secret base! Sigh, there’s me, trying to apply logic to a
cartoon show again. Sorry folks.
Having
seen enough vile villainy, Gatchaman springs into action!
Whoops, so much
for the Galactor on-site job safety record!
Take
that Galactor scum! Now, if this were a
Battle of the Planets episode, someone would probably state that the man just
dropped into the molten lava was okay because his special green suit protected
him, or something equally lame. Since
this is Gatchaman, however, this sucker FRIES!
How’s that for peace on Earth!
That’s what you get for desecrating a national landmark!
After
dealing with Galactor’s multitude of henchmen who all look alike and dress
alike (like the green shirts and blue shirts in G.I. Joe), the Gatchaman team
goes after the lava Jesus. And how do
you stop a molten, zombie shuffling, giant Jesus? Apparently just lead him to water, and he’ll
just get extinguished, crack up and fall…
Looks like
someone took a permanent swim in the motel pool, doesn’t it?
Okay
then, turns out our Buddy Christ was an android, or robot, or something, given
all the suddenly conspicuous metal bits.
Why Galactor would create a lava monster right next to the sea is anybody’s
guess. We’ve already tried logic to this
show once before, and that path leads to
madness!
Having
successfully saved the world, Gatchaman return the girl to the mountainside and…
Oh crap!
The
poor girl, who seems to be the last of her line, has to start ALL OVER
AGAIN! Not only that, but there’s a huge
gaping hole where her original carving was!
Gatchaman, being the true heroes they are, merely watch on as the girl
goes about her work all alone. That’s
it. That’s how the episode ends. Kind of bittersweet, isn’t it?
I
guess, in a way, you could say Galactor actually finished AHEAD in this
episode.
Yeah,
that was pretty bad…
…ahem, until
next time, Happy Easter!