Book Review: The Paperback Apocalypse

In the course of researching my next novel (and how I love the fact I don’t have to think up new hooks for these articles) I came across Robert M. Price’s The Paperback Apocalypse, a wonderfully thorough overview of fundamentalist End Times literature. Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins’ Left Behind series is neither the first nor the most interesting entry in the field, which has a long and storied history. Left Behind only did for Apocalypse novels what Straight Outta Compton did for Gangsta Rap, propelling the sub-genre into national prominence. The Paperback Apocalypse functions as a road map through this Tribulation territory, with Mr. Price, a professor of scriptural studies at Johnnie Coleman Theological Seminary, as our ecumenical tour guide.

Our Humble Author doesn’t skimp on this trip, making sure to take the scenic route. We begin with genesis—the god Yahweh’s genesis in the moral power struggle between priests and prophets in fifth century Israel. Once an ass-kicking, plague-bringing, god of kingship and nationhood, Yahweh El Elyon morphed into his more-familiar, judgmental self after the Babylonian Exile. With Israel’s upper classes carted off whole hog, the laypeople were (ahem) left behind to puzzle out what the hell could’ve happened. How could their mighty God desert them so callously?

A quick glance at the lives of the prophets provided what we now call the Deuteronomic answer: Israel and Judah’s sins caused God to withdraw His favor. Surprise: it was all King David’s fault. His Royal Highness’ wandering penis had condemned the whole nation. Even if the priests and kings returned (as they would, relatively soon, with the support of Persia’s self-deifying emperor) it could all happen again the next time someone in high office violated the covenant. Better to believe that, someday soon, God would flex his warrior-king muscles and upend the whole status quo, returning to cast the priests into Gahenna. With God dwelling among them, Israel would become a land of priestly people, with all the world’s pagan kings reduced to servile servants of the restored Temple.

Meanwhile, the returning priestly aristocrats did what aristocrats like to do and cracked down on the people’s ad hoc worship. From Persia they brought with them a view of the world we now call Manichean, though back then it was simply Zoroastrian. A Persian prophet and (alleged) contemporary of Moses, Zoroaster taught that all the world’s a battleground between the forces of Good, represented by the god Ahura Mazada and Evil, represented by the antigod Ahriman. Balanced but not equal, Good would surely win out in the end, but until then every human deed, and every historical event, was a proxy battle in their Great War, its outcome a point for one side or the other.

Put these two beliefs together and you’ve got fertile ground to grow yourself a Revelation. Ground lain, Price devotes chapters two through six to an almost-exhaustive dissection of the modern fundamentalist Apocalypse. “Messianic Prophecy”; “The Gospel of the Anti-Christ”; “The Second Coming”; “The Secret Rapture”; all receive point-by-point, Scriptural refutation from our author, who swings a mighty big theological pipe. Actually, he’s Dr. Price, a fact I had to find on the Internet, despite his receiving the degree (in systematic theology from Drew University) twenty-six years before writing this book. Do I smell false modesty? Or is Dr. Price preemptively dodging the anti-intellectual arrows fundamentalists so-love to throw at anyone who questions their beliefs?

Price confesses a personal interest in Apocalyptic literature (calling it a “guilty pleasure” the same words we around this corner of the internet use to defend our love for Bad Movies) but never once mentions his own falling-out with fundamentalism. This isn’t about him; it’s about the indefensibility of modern fundamentalist beliefs. Price (rightly) identifies the “faith” of the Rapture Ready as a collection of half-baked misinterpretations, compounded by willful ignorance of the very Bible they claim to idolize. Like a certain Golden Calf I know, their doctrine breaks under the weight of all these scriptural quotations, from Isaiah to Revelations, which Price helpfully restores to their historical and cultural context, something beyond the keen your average, jumped-up, Southern Baptist.

With a firm grounding in the genre’s “classics,” Price jumps to the early twentieth century, and the first End Times novels. Given the fundamentalist condemnation of novel-reading as a sinful, worldly pursuit—like drinking, whoring, and card playing—its no surprise the first real entry in the genre comes in 1905, with Joseph Birbeck Burroughs’ Titan, Son of Saturn: The Coming World Emperor - A Story of the Other Christ. Now if that’s not a rip-roaring, full-throated, modernist title, I don’t know what is. Can’t you just picture Henry James off to the side, clucking his tongue at it?

From thence we move straight on ‘til morning—past Left Behind (which, fittingly, receives its own chapter at the very end) and right up to more-modern, less-successful, and (believe it or not) less-well-written entries in the genre. Raise your hand if you’ve heard of Hal Lindsey’s Blood Moon. Or William A. Stanmeyer’s Catholic-toned Day of Iniquity: A Prophetic Novel of the End Times. Or James BeauSeigneur’s Christ Clone Trilogy. Or Pat Robertson’s own entry, The End of the Age.

If you have, by now you’re probably pretty pissed at my flippant dismissal of your faith. (I invite you to utilize the Comments button below, and please don’t hesitate to describe the yawning torments of hell awaiting me in the Next World.) If you haven’t heard of these books you probably don’t care, except in an academic sense—marveling at the genre from a distance. Like most speculative fiction (call it “mainstream” as Price does when he reviews "mainstream" Apocalypse novels, like The Stand), fundamentalist End Times novels are the center of a multibillion dollar, international media industry, with more published every year. More, certainly, than anyone could read in a lifetime devoted to the subject.

Thankfully, Dr. Price reads these things for fun, and presents this book as a gift to us. Half-Biblical exegesis, half-book review anthology, The Paperback Apocalypse is just the ticket if you’d like a superficial knowledge of the genre and a thorough knowledge of how to refute its theological underpinnings. Unlike Dr. Price, I make no bones about my personal stake in both projects.

The Struggle For Today is Not Alltogether For Today; It is For a Vast Future Also

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New Review

Though I missed the true anniversary of Columbine (April 20th--ten years baby), I offer up this review of Zero Day as my own private observance.

Morning News

And now the news. It must be Wednesday.

First, a headline that speaks for itself, so much so you won't see anything like it on this side of the pond: U.S. air strikes kill dozens of Afghan civilians.

The police chief Watandar said Taliban guerrillas had herded civilians into houses in the villages of Geraani and Ganj Abad, and these places were then struck by war planes. "The fighting was going on in another village, but the Taliban escaped to these two villages, where they used people as human shields. The air strikes killed about 120 civilians and destroyed 17 houses," he said, admitting, however, that the death toll was imprecise.

And while we're at it, here's an article from last year which vindicates decades of American culture warrior paranoia. Turns out I've been wrong all these years and violent video dogames inspire violence in children...provided those children join the military.

Fancy yourself as a tasty videogamer? [That's what my girlfriend tells me.--D] Then you might soon want to pursue a career in the army. Joypad dexterity, that most 21st-century of skills, is poised to assume a key role on the battlegrounds of Afghanistan and Iraq, now that defense contractor Raytheon has announced plans to use videogame technology in its unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones.

There's a lot of messy connective tissue running between these two articles. Neither acknowledges the fact that, as war becomes more depersonalized, with cause further and further removed from consequence, we're going to have to get used to these civilian casualties. In a strange way we already are. We deny them (literally: see last August's raid on the village of Azizabad) but, since we supplied them, that only make sense. Our military's had a long, tawdry love affair with "strategic" bombing, consummated during World War II. Either we'll continue to shut our eyes to true cost of this poisonous, codependent relationship, or at last reach a point where we can no longer put up with with the overwhelming amounts of bullshit involved.

We are, as a nation, not quite there yet. We'll see how long it takes this "Long War" (oh, I'm sorry, "Overseas Contingency Operation") to break through our national self-denial.

Last note: Minion of the Long War by C.G. Estabrook.

As the World Burns (And Encouraging Message of Hope from Your Humble Narrator)

Much as I despise the American Empire, I live here too, in the heart of a major American city I’d just as soon not see reduced to a cloud of ash.

Yet it is inevitable. Someone, at some point, will acquire the Bomb and use it, a fact previous generations understood. Visions of nuclear apocalypse are less popular now, with the Cold War a distant memory and the Terror War fast receding into the black hole at the heart of American national memory. Still, they do have their own, sick utility, insomuch as they inspire personal, national and international efforts to put the genii back in the bottle. A foolish dream, perhaps, and hard to hold in an era where non-martial dreams are ridiculed and despised, but it’s mine, nevertheless.

Others dream of phantom enemies. In a report released two weeks ago, as open, armed conflict resumed across northern Pakistan, David Albright—that is Dr David Albright, president and founder of the Institute for Science and International Security—warned “the public” (which, according to my handy English-to-Think Thank-ese dictionary, means “Congress”) that “the security of any nuclear material” produced by Pakistan’s ever-increasing number of nuclear reactors “is in question.”

It’s not enough that al Qaeda-allied crazy folks are sixty miles from the capital. It’s not enough that the Pakistani military is, even now, bombing the northwestern portions of its own country back into the Precambrian Age. It’s not enough that this violence has displaced millions, killed thousands, and enraged untold multitudes who won’t hesitate for a moment to join up with the next charismatic asshat who comes riding over the mountainous border, intent on recruiting fresh martyrs to the cause. No. They have to have dirty bombs, too.

From The Power of Nightmares:

Book Review: Kids Who Kill by Charles Patrick Ewing

I’m toying with the idea of turning this blog into research journal for the last two months, rolling it around in my mind the way you’d roll an unwanted interloper in feathers after dousing him with honey, or hot tar. The old injunction, “Write what you know,” is a challenge, not a straightjacket. The implicit corollary, “Learn more and you’ll be able to write more,” is my engine, driving a lifetime of education in subjects most schools would rather not touch. Like school shaootings.

In the course of researching my next novel (which is one of those wonderful sentences writers get to write, the kind that just glow at you) I’ve learned a lot about school shootings. Except that’s not exactly accurate. I’ve remembered a good ninety-eight percent of the more memorable stuff, since it began right around the time I began to pay attention to the world outside the bounds of my small, Midwestern town. The ten-year anniversary of Columbine (which I allowed to pass unnoticed) helped me tremendously in this. Time magazine even resurrected it’s deliciously sensationalist article on the subject from December, 1999, reheating the case’s particular blend of hash.

The Portland Community College library provided me two not-so-excellent books on the subject this week. Published ten years apart, they nicely bookend that extraordinary heyday of youth-perpetrated violence still blithely refer to as, “the 90s.”

One end, Charles Patrick Ewing’s Kids Who Kill, rests in 1989. Despite the copyright date (1990), Kids Who Kill is an unabashed product of the 1980s, filled with lucid accounts of heinous “juvenile” crimes, subdivided into chapter-length categories. Its chapter titles read like prime time, news-magazine show bumpers: “Family Killings,” “Senseless Killings,” “Cult-Related Killings,” “Gang Killings,” “Little Kids Who Kill,” and my personal favorite, the nebulous “Crazy Killings.”

Author Ewing is an all-but-invisible presence through all this, filling each chapter with capsule descriptions of theme-specific cases, drawn from the best mainstream media sources of his time: the Boston Globe, the Chicago Tribune, UPI, the New York and Los Angeles Times. A source citation page totally devoid of web addresses is a strange artifact to find, from another, alien time…much like the book itself. Ewing’s tone is equally foreign to those of us on the other side of the great Faux News divide. After a decade and a half of personalized news, delivered unto us by news personalities (celebrity anchors, talking heads, snakeoil information salesmen, pundits), Ewing’s case studies seem fleeting, callous, bite sized examinations of events that garner round-the-clock, team coverage these days, and passed unnoticed in a world just coming to grips with the end of the Cold War and the dawning of our current New World Order. A typical entry, chosen at random, reads like the ticker at the bottom of your TV screen.

[F]our New Jersey youths—members of a much larger, self-proclaimed group of “Dotbusters”—beat a thirty-year-old Indian man to death in a city street. According to the police, these “Dotbusters”—who took their name from the red bindi mark worn on the foreheads of married Indian women—were responsible for numerous violent attacks against Indian and Pakistani immigrants. The youths in this particular case, who ranged in age from fifteen to seventeen, denied any racial motive for their brutal attack. Instead, they insisted that they attacked the Indian man because he was bald. Though charged with murder, they were convicted only of assault.

Another example:

On July 10, 1989 a fourteen-year-old Chicago mother was trying to watch television. After being interrupted several times by her one-month-old son who would not stop crying, the girl smothered the infant with a disposable diaper. The teenager was charged with murder, but a judge ruled that given her “previously clean record” she would not be tried as an adult.

And so long as I’ve Fair Use on my side, have one more:

In January 1988, seventeen-year-old Leslie Torres, a homeless New York City youth, went on a seven day “cocaine-inspired rampage”—a spree of armed robberies in which he killed five people and wounded six others. When arrested, Leslie told police that he committed numerous killings and robberies to support his $500-a-day addiction to the street drug [sic], crack. Charged with murder, he pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

Testifying on his own behalf, Leslie told jurors that crack caused him to eel like God, but that he saw the Devil whenever he looked in the mirror. After examining Leslie, a psychiatrist testified that the teenager suffered from “cocaine induced psychosis” at the time o the robberies and killings. The jury rejected Leslie’s insanity defense and convicted him of murder. Finding that the seventeen-year-old “showed utter and total disregard for the sanctity of life” and “would kill again” if ever released, a judged sentenced Leslie Torres to sixty years to life in prison.

One hundred seventy pages of this is enough to make you take a bite out of capital-C, Crime, whilst simultaneously saying, "No" to the drugs and fantasy role playing games that are destroying our nation’s youth.

If the past is another country, writers must be anthropologists. A good anthropologist will take heed of a culture’s fears and superstitions. Kids Who Kill suggests that a peculiar fear of youth slumbers at the heart of our culture, occasionally rearing its head to freeze us with a Cobra gaze straight out of Rudyard Kipling. It rose up in 1990, and again in 1999, events building upon themselves, sprouting intertwining threads of correspondence and coincidence.

None of which has anything to do with Kids Who Kill, which is a strange, haunting little book that, in its final pages, suggests four commonsensical “known factors” common to killer kid cases: “child abuse, poverty, substance abuse, and access to guns.” School shooters of the now-familiar type (spree-killing monsters in black coats stuffed full of weapons) lying downstream from Ewing in the course of history, go unexamined. History responds in kind by refusing to vindicate the dire predictions Ewing puts forth in lieu of conclusion in his final chapter, “Juvenile Crime in the 1990s.”

There, Ewing predicts that juvenile homicides will reach “record high proportions” by the year 2000, ignorant of the fact juvenile homicide as a whole would peak in the recession years of 1992-3, years of riot and tumult, when American nonchalantly joked about being broke. (A bit like now, come to think about it…) Ewing leaves himself little time to flesh out his “known factors” or do anything more than refer back to a few previously described cases by way of illustration. There’s little analysis here (besides a few tables), and no discernible political agenda. When this book saw print the culture wars that drive (and define) today’s non-fiction publishing industry were barely a glimmer in Rush Limbaugh’s eye. If our wider, societal obsession with vicarious violence bares any blame for creating killer kids, Ewing does not say. Instead, he reminds us that Ronald Regan’s eight year “war on the poor” sure as shit didn’t help. Matter of fact (Ewing says, in his own detached, Joe-Friday, just-the-facts-ma’am way), Reganomics did plenty to exacerbate the four “known factors,” factors ignored and/or exacerbated by the then-current administration of George (HW) Bush.

Busy building a New World Order, America would go on to largely ignore Ewing’s slim little book, or its dire warnings for the future. Each of his four “known factors” remained in operation, resurfacing ten years later in the Great Explosion of school shooting and killer kid literature of 1996-9…some of which we’ll turn to next time, as our research into this negative image of the American dream continues.

Note: Special thanks to Anonymous for catching my Freudian slip involving the author's name. I was thinking of earwigs.

Philip K. Dick Android Built: Facist Overlords of Not-Too-Distant Future Claim "Apocalypse Imminent"

What does he dream of?

Godzilla the Series: An Exercise in Over-Analysis (Part VIII)

Episode 9 - Hive

On the vaguely-Pacific island of Santa Marta, a species of enormous, animate plant disturbs a band of youthful-looking looters, come to scavenge the island’s hastily-evacuated luxury resort.

H.E.A.T. arrives after the credits, and team lead Nick Tatopolus is quick to claim the moral high ground. “We’re not just here on their word,” meaning the looters. “The resort company also asked us to check it out.” The increasingly-annoying Randy, for once, delivers some useful information with his follow-up quip. “And he asked in the universal language: moolah.” We know now that H.E.A.T., like the Ghostbusters before them, work on spec, no doubt offering “Professional megafauna investigation and elimination.” Or “innovative, giant monster removal solutions.”

Whatever the case, an underwater thermal geyser spills Our Heroes onto the beach, wreaking their trusty inflatable motor raft. While Nick and Randy hotwire it, Craven, Elsie and Monique carve a path inland through the surprisingly lush foliage between beach and resort. Don’t volcanic eruptions tend to thin out jungles? And what’s Elsie talking about “underground nuclear tests” back in the 50s? This whole set-up spells BAD in big, blinking letters and you’d think someone (Nick, say?) would suggest staying together, at least until the boat’s fixed.

But no. Our team splits up. “Something inside the ash,” Elsie theorizes as they truck on, “must be acting as a super fertilizer.” Who died and made you Team Botanist, Doctor? Weren’t you a paleontologist a few episodes ago? Or are you just talking to fight the heeby-geebies? At least Mendel gives into them honestly; “Help me! Their alive,” he shouts, accidentally falling into a tangle of vines.

Elsie decides to climb a tree and gather samples, splitting the team up yet again. Mendel at least has the good sense to protest. Nevertheless, he melts at a wink from Elsie, so we know he is whipped.

At the hotel, French Fry and Cowardly Scientist find plenty of vicious vines. Retreating into the hotel, they also find a hive-full of pick-up truck-sized bees. Monique breaks an ankle evading them and still manages to keep Mendel alive. Her disdain is palpably French as they flee into the hotel’s ventilation system.

Offshore, Nick and Randy fix the boat. The island's active volcano has, of course, fucked with their communications, forcing them inland…right into the island’s vines. Godzilla arrives, apparently just in the nick of time (pun intended—that’s why I used italics)…until the vines ensnare him as well.

Now, let’s talk about fluctuating superpowers. About Superman turning back time by flying around the world. About He-Man holding starships in place with some magic lasso She-Ra stole from Wonder Woman. About Aquaman, cira Superfriends, and his glass jaw. About many a Decepticon taken out with one punch. I’m talking about Godzilla being unable to wrench himself free from a bushel of triffids. Why? So Nick and Randy can rig up a laser on site out of whatever they’ve got in their backpacks. Times like this, I wonder about Dr. Nick; he could be MacGuyver in disguise, befriended by a giant reptile. If so, I wish he’d hurry up and tell Godzilla to crush Nightrider.

Laser-equipped, Nick and Randy stand by at minimum safe distance and watch Godzilla trim the verge. And just when the series has lost me, it wins me back: a giant bee descends from the sky to snatch Randy away. Can I hope for the slow, painful death of this show’ s Odieus Comic Relief? There’s no real harm in that…is there?

No. Because you’ll remember the hive, which consumes most of the hotel. Nevertheless, Mendel and Monique (through sheer cartoon luck) happen to come out of the vents in the Queen’s Throneroom—formerly an Olympic sized swimming pool. Her Majesty needs all the space she can get though. Like so many cartoon monsters in this pre-digital age, Her Majesty will radically change size and proportion throughout the fight scene to come. As will Godzilla, who arrives to wreak havoc on the beehive, along with the hotel it just so happens to occupy.

Since we know H.E.A.T. works on a pay-for-play basis, I’d love to see someone try to deduct collateral damage to their assets out of Dr. Nick’s quoted price. Does Nicky start low or play high ball? He does seem to have the giant monster hunter market cornered, but how long will that last? Where’s the South Pacific’s answer to this shifty bunch of gaijin? (In a future episode, that’s where.) Where’s the army? Assuming there were underground nuclear tests “in the 50s,” what’s to say the Go’ment gave up its stake in this little bit of radioactive paradise? Maybe the whole “resort company” thing is a front—like Monique’s “casualty and property insurance” business.

A better episode than I remembered, Hive gives everyone something to do, even if that something amounts to “get captured.” Randy gets captured by a Killer Bee only to be rescued by the surprise team of Monique and Craven. She, of course, grows to respect Craven and his contributions to the team, and all it took was yet another traumatizing adventure in Science.

Elsie gets captured by giant vines…who don’t seem to do much beyond grab you and pull you above the treeline. Nick rescuers her with his new laser, and you can tell the boys in marketing really wanted to paint Nick as an Action Hero. Not only does he rescue the redheaded damsel with his handmade (rather Ghostbuster-like) blaster, he gets to catch her in his arms, a nerdy Fabio impersonator straight from a Harlequin Romance cover…if, that is, small armies of underpaid South Korean animators drew Harlequin Romance covers.

Godzilla’s neigh-invulnerability comes to the fore here, as the Big-G at last gets a decent fight scene under him. After the wrestling matches with El Gusano and the Orange, Candy-Striped Ooze, Godzilla’s had a run of low budget opponents. Not so with the Queen Bee or her hive of Killers. Having already survived the ocean’s depths and the U.S. military (who so-handedly dispatched the “first” Godzilla in 1998’s movie…which I really should get around to reviewing here at some point or another), Randy’s “Lizard King,” (no, honey, that’s Jim Morrison) survives a lot of crap in this episode. Bee stings, volcanic eruptions, hazardous falls, Randy’s one-liners…this Godzilla could give the Tick lessons in poise, and it’s nice to see…even if it does shoot any dramatic tension this show had left in the head. No, not the foot; the head.

The tropical resort provides a nice twist on the usually-monotonous Jungle Fight…though I always hate how easy it is for giant monster movie makers to lose perspective in natural settings. The tendency is to film (or animate) at your creature’s eye level, as once again our human heroes flee, leaving the volcano to clean up after Godzilla.

Clean up it does, wiping out the whole island in the tradition of Godzilla vs the Sea Monster. Godzilla survives, of course, to Nick’s evident delight. So, despite some weak spots in the middle, and the usual complaints, a good monster time is had by all. This is the most “traditional” episode so far, sharing its setting, plot-structure, and resolution with many an SF film “from the 50s.” I could rattle of a whole baker’s dozen of them (and those are just the ones that end with a spontaneous volcanic eruption). But then again, if you’re reading these words, chances are you can too.

Africa by Basil Davidson

Simply the best English-language documentary about the continent. Ever.

Godzilla the Series: An Exercise in Over-Analysis (Part VII)

Episode 8 – What Dreams May Come

In Queens, a fifty-foot, six-limbed, godawfully ugly thing interrupts an obnoxiously “Nu Yawk” couple’s spat over the electric bill, reducing their five-story walk-up to scrap. Morning finds H.E.A.T. there (minus team-spy Monique), as they seem to be the only municipal agency at work in New York. Seriously, where is the Fire Department? Isn’t this a city in recovery from perpetual Godzilla attacks? Why does anyone still chose to live in this New York? But then again, why does anyone chose to live in Metropolis? Or Marvel Comic’s version of the City That Never Sleeps?

In any case, the team finds plenty of residual ionization, but actual, physical evidence eludes them…until a frantic phone call from Monique interrupts Our Heroe's search. The as-yet-unnamed creature is making its presence known down by the MTA bus depot. Team lead Nick and Mendel Craven (the Designated Cowardly Lion) leave Randy and Elsie to pick among the ruins, and on each other. Their constant sniping will be this week’s B-story, as each attempts to rest control of the teams Executive Officer position from the other.

Meanwhile, Nick and Craven join Monique at the MTA. Again they seem to be the only public servants in sight, rescuing civilians from the depot’s garage even as the still-nameless monster tears the place apart. Our (human) Heroes’ imminent demise once again appears at hand…until Godzilla, the real hero of the piece, stomps his way out of the ocean and into an inconclusive fray. The misshapen mutation appears to feed on electromagnetic energy, and reacts to Godzilla’s blasts of radioactive breath the same way mosquitoes react to type O-pos. Things look bad for Nick and his half of the team (who’re once again caught between the battle, and once again, survive uninjured, despite the flying buses and falling lizards all around) until Godzilla head-butts the creature into a cloud of debris…where it vanishes without a trace.

Stymied, H.E.A.T. reconvenes at their “high tech” condemned building of a headquarters. Elsie and Randy, for all their interpersonal sniping, managed to uncover something back in Queens: the one apartment in the whole building untouched by the destruction. That’d be the apartment of a Mr. Sydney Walker, an employee at the…MTA bus depot…who hasn’t been seen (at home or work) for weeks.

For all my disdain for Randy (I have a mild hatred for all characters who presume to speak for the audience) we occasionally think alike. “I see where you’re going with this,” Randy says. “Walker hates his job and everyone around him. So when he accidentally mutates into a giant bug zapper, he decides to get his revenge!” (Pause.) “What?”

"That Crackler thing can’t be a human mutation,” Mendel counters. “It’s not even alive.” Rather it appears to be a walking electromagnetic field—a walking, stalking, size-changing hologram, ripped out of its holodeck and set loose upon the world.“‘Crackler?’” Randy asks.

"Well, what would you call it?”

Indeed. Typically, the first scientist to discover a new organism gets the honor of christening it. Nick, never one to be a jealous fuck (except when his girlfriend’s involved), allows Craven’s name to stand as he doles out assignments. Elsie and Randy will proceed to Manhattan Neural Research Center, the last place anyone saw Sydney Walker alive (in human form, at least). Craven and Monique will join Nick for a little pleasure drive around the city. “Let’s go Crackler hunting,” Nick says. Do I detect a hint of relish in his voice? Methinks yes.

On their own again, Randy and Elsie gain access to the Center, despite Center personnel’s apparent obsession with security. “Looks like Walker isn’t here,” Randy says. “And he isn’t in room 213.” “Well,” Elsie counters, “let’s not pay him a visit.” Upstairs, they find two anonymous scientists and one sleeping man with more EEGs strapped to his head than a grand maul seizure patient.

Seems Mr. Sydney Walker checked himself in complaining of insomnia. “To put him under,” the male scientist explains, “we enhanced his Theta brain waves. That was…a week ago. We haven’t been able to wake him since.” Each attempt’s only achieved a slight increase in brain waves activity—accompanied by a massive electromagnetic discharge. “We assumed that dissipated into the atmosphere,” because that’s just what you’d assume…until the Humanitarian Environmental Analysis Team comes knocking. In the usual, haphazard way common to scientists in American media, our team hammers out a hypothesis through phone conferencing.

Seems like Walker (who’s psyche test “suggested intense repressed rage,” according to one of the Neural Research Center’s whitecoats—and you still went through with treatment? You bastards practically asked for a giant monster to hatch out of that man’s head), comatose state notwithstanding, controls the Crackler unconsciously, dreaming it into being and dreaming himself into the driver’s seat. Another Theta spike appears right on cue, setting up our final fight scene…and the predictable resolution.

Weird though this episode may be, it carries all the hallmarks of an American comic book icon. Yes, that’s Len Wein, co-creator of Swamp Thing, still slinging words from the trenches of American children’s television. (Show’s what happens to those unfortunate comic book creators who never secured the rights to their characters—hold them dear to your heart, boys and girls. Corporate American would like nothing more than to mine them for all eternity while paying you a pittance.) Being the case, you’ll find quite a few tropes from 70s-era comics scattered throughout the episode.

It begins in media res, with exposition (especially scientific exposition) delivered in clumsy blocks of dialogue, often in the middle of a fight scene. In the tradition of 70s-era team books, H.E.A.T. voluntarily splits itself up into more easily-managed micro-teams. This allows Nick, Monique and Craven to remain busy while Wein focuses our attention on the main characters: Elsie and Randy. Their separate and disparate skill sets do end up solving the case, despite the obligatory friction. Obligatory because, without it, how could you bring these character’s through a dramatic arch in twenty-two minutes or less? Bully to Wein, then, for not shoving that resolution in our face. It comes in a quiet moment during the final fight scene, as Godzilla’s battle with the Crackler tears apart Shea Stadium, not in a South Parkian, “I’ve-learned-something-today” moment…but with the simplest of gestures: an offered hand, by Elsie to Randy…who’s just been knocked across the room by an electric shock. You can see Randy’s entire character summed up in that rash but well-meant attempt to unplug Walker and shut the Crackler down. Of course his ad hoc, ask-questions-later tactics are going to run afoul of Dr. Elsie Chapman, team paleontologist. My only complaint is, since this is a kid’s show, its sympathies obviously tilt toward Randy; in the end, he’s always right. Even his “I see where you’re going with this” comment is more on-target than anything H.E.A.T.’s three scientists come up with—and that’s a bad sign all around. Do you want the punk kid to be the smartest one in a room full of “professional” monster hunters? I think not.

Standard monster movie tropes are bent over backward to provide a human interest story, parallel to and grounded by the big-ticket mayhem. Our monster turns out to be little more than a man with a lightning rod strapped to his head—a tiny, repressed, pathetic little man, who frees himself from his internal monster with a little help from Randy and some spontaneous, Primal Scream therapy (continued shades of the 1970s). Having confronted his trauma, Walker sinks into a crying jig as Randy consoles him with quite words: “No problem, dude. It’s over.” And just when I start to wonder about wishful thinking, Elsie steps in to give us an aside: “Except for the years of intensive therapy.” Amen, sister.

By provoking Walker into a shouting match, Randy (somehow) destroys the Crackler’s supply of emotional fuel. Godzilla, having battled the Crackler across Flushing Meadows (bye, bye, Unisphere), dissolves it with a well-timed fireball—miraculous, considering all previous attempts to nuke the Crackler only made it stronger.

In the end we have here a good stand-alone episode…that could’ve used a second draft and a little more thought put into its wacky excuse for physics. A little more money might’ve helped out as well, populating the otherwise-deserted monster scenes with fleeing civilians and/or useless human authority figures. By now I’ve probably worn your ears off with my complaining about Godzilla’s ancillary role in his own show, so there’s little need to reheat that hash here…except that Sydney Walker’s story, with its shades of Bruce Banner (the greatest giant monster in comics) has put me in that frame of mind. I liken Godzilla to Lou Ferrigno’s Hulk—a destructive force that shows up, no more than twice an episode, to solve things with a maximum amount of collateral damage. Is this the best role a giant monster can expect? Can we do nothing more without swinging wide into King Kong territory? And exactly what’s to become of that little Theta wave-amplifying, monster-creating, dream machine? No self-respecting “number one monster hunting team” in the world would just leave the damn thing sitting around the Manhattan Neural Research Institute.

Would they? Really?

Godzilla the Series: An Exercise in Over-Analysis (Part VI)

Episode 7 – Leviathan

As a white-bearded, New England sea captain (complete with a little anchor on his hat) nervously checks his watch, Drs. Prolorne, Hoffman, and Sopler explore the mysteriously-pulsating alien starship they’ve found lodged in the Atlantic seabed. “Radio carbon dating confirms my hypothesis,” Prolorne tells us. “This ship is over ten thousand years old.” Unfortunately, its security systems (complete with pink, wriggling tendrils that seize our Scientists and drag them, screaming, into the darkness) remain spry as ever.

On the other side of the credits we find H.E.A.T. steaming toward what Monique Dupre calls “the Hazard Abyss.” Seems Dr. Mendel Craven’s locked on to a suspiciously terrestrial source of tachyon transmissions. “That’s impossible,” team-kid Randy Hernandez declares. “For human science, maybe.” Mendel counters. “So…what? Little green men?”

Indeed, as we see, once H.E.A.T. finds that stereotypical sea captain, and his boat, floating above the transmission source. Mendel recognizes it as “Dr. Prolorne’s ship,” though last I checked, xenobiologists weren’t exactly running around burning money on research vessels…except in Michael Crichton novels. But what do I know? In any case, Mendel has a professional chubby for Dr. Prolorne, and he’s sad as anyone to discover that the good doctor is now three days lost below the waves.

And so goes any chance for H.E.A.T. to discover where Dr. Prolorne makes his paper. (Probably the same mysterious source that puts gas in the Heat Seeker’s tank…unless H.E.A.T.’s burdening the French taxpayer through Monique’s Hearstian expense accounts). “ ‘Under no circumstances are you to come down after us,’” the unnamed Sea Captain quotes. “Those were Dr. Prolorne’s exact orders.” And if you recognize that voice, give yourself two points; that’s Ron “Hellboy” Pearlman commanding Prolorne's tub. The Good Doctor must be rollin' in it like Scrooge McDuck.

Before Dr. Nick can grow any more indignant at Captain Pearlman’s obedience of orders, Godzilla arrives, scaring the bejesus of everyone not named Tatopoulos. "Relax people,” Nicky says. “There’s no reason to panic. He only looks dangerous,” a patent lie, and a fruitless exercise in cross-species understanding. Godzilla (oblivious to Nick’s shouted commands) sniffs at the ship, casts his head about, and dismisses it with a straight-arrow dive, down, down, down…to the bottom of the sea.

Following in a secondary submersible (commandeered with a little help from Monique and her concealed weapon…no, really; that’s not a double entendre at all—she actually walks around with a gun under her arm, much to Nick’s further indignation), it’s not long before H.E.A.T.-proper encounters problems. Mendel does nothing to help Randy’s latent claustrophobia, reminding him (and us) that, once you drop past two miles, “the spray from a hairline crack will cut you in half.” Then the dinosaur arrives.

Identified as a Cryptocleidus by team-paleontologist Elsie Chapman, its menace is somewhat countered by the fact that human technology will always move faster than natural organisms sixty-five million-years-adapted to their environment. Always. Oh, and Godzilla arrives—convenient, considering his last known location. Our human heroes presently descend, leaving the Big G to fend for himself and thus disappear from the remainder of the episode.

Below, a massive, spine-ridged hulk of an alien ship lies, half-buried in the silt. Docking, it’s not long before equally-spiny, scale-skinned, guard dogs (“bred from ancient dinosaurs”—as opposed to all those new ones) assault the team. Fleeing through a conveniently-opened portal (which seals shut behind them) they find Dr. Prolorne…who warns them to leave, “immediately.”

“This is a very delicate First Contact situation,” Prolorne declares…though he’s willing to spare time for some exposition. "This ship crashed near the end of the Cretaceous Period. They’ve spent most of that time in stasis, of course; broadcasting an automatic distress beacon…human technology had to reach a level advanced enough to detect it.” Monique questions the intentions of their "hosts.” Dr. Nick requests some face-time. “I’m afraid I can’t allow that,” Prelorane deadpans, sealing H.E.A.T. into their anonymous-looking room with a masterful command of these alien control panels.

But not for long. With N.I.G.L.E.’s tachyon-detector guiding them, H.E.A.T. soon finds the control room—and the bulb-headed, Sumo-bodied, six-limbed, dual-tusked, telepathic beings within. “[Y]our race,” one of them declares, floating over for a meet-and-greet, “is ready to be assimilated. Your cities, machines, infrastructure, will serve my people well….Those who cooperate will find the new order satisfying…even stimulating.” (Ewww…) Those who do not will, apparently, receive telekinetic bitch-slaps and forced brain-drains.

Here we have the classic “Aw-shit-alien-invasion” situation. It’s the end of the world as we know it. Will anyone feel “fine” by the time these aliens are done? Will aliens “assimilate” (oh, that word) the earth? Will Dr. Craven’s professional respect for Dr. Prelorane turn him into a planetary Benedict Arnold? Will Godzilla show up in time to deliver unto us a climactic, underwater fight sequence? And just where the hell is he, anyway? Isn’t this his show?

Well…yes and no. And while H.E.A.T.’s moody, atmospheric travails inside the alien ship are all well and good, they begs the question: Why is Godzilla here at all? Omit him, and you’re left with a fairly decent, half-hour, sci-fi/horror show, complete with action, betrayal, and a creepy, cliff-hanger ending that practically broadcasts itself…while sliding right by Dr. Nick and his little band. They’ve obviously never watched a monster movie, or alien invasion film, in their whole freakin’ lives (not even Randy, Token Urban Youth that he is).

H.E.A.T.’s ignorance and Godzilla’s relative-absence are the only real causes for griping I can find here. Both elements are, in their own ways, necessary—the latter because of budgetary and time constraints; the former because…well, we’ve got to set up future episodes and reoccurring villains somehow. Can’t turn all of Nick’s old college buds into Evil Geniuses. Someone’s got to pick up the slack. And there is no trump card in the whole of Kaiju eiga quite like the Alien Invasion.

Japanese speculative fiction would have us believe that aliens are simultaneously Out There…and relentlessly scheming to get Here, take over our planet, strip its natural resources, and convert us all into chattel slaves…or three-course meals. During the original series (1954-78) Godzilla (and his “friends” among Earth’s terrestrial monsters) beat back no less than five separate alien incursions. Since the New Millennium, G’s put three more notches in his figurative belt (most recently in the derivative, over-hyped, headache-inducing, Fiftieth Anniversary blowout, Final Wars), and that’s just film. Godzilla’s video games and comic books inevitably throw down the Alien Invasion card as a framing device, with good reason. Simple and direct, it bolsters what might otherwise be a sorry excuse for a plot, allowing Godzilla to play Hero by providing a credible threat much more dangerous to humanity than he is, or could ever be.

Now’s not the time or place to plumb those depths. (Plenty of time for that once we come to this series’ vision of the Monster Wars.) At the moment, I’ve got the creeping suspicion that episode-writer Michael Reaves (veteran writer of Gargoyles, the under-appreciated Phantom 2040, and the best Batman movie in all creation, Mask of the Phantasm) had no idea what to do with Godzilla for the balance of this episode. Our titular character is, once again, left (literally) floating on the margins. Human stumbling around is all well and good but the best daikaiju creators keep their monsters well integrated into the main action…or, at the very least, well-occupied off screen.

While G’s underwater battles against the Cryptocleidi (once the episode gets around to them) are novel, they suffer from the slow pace and low drama common to cinematic scuba-diving scenes. James Bond and Creature from the Black Lagoon fans know what I’m talking about: it’s terribly hard to make a fight scene riveting when everyone’s moving at half-speed. Episode director Tim Eldred does his best to counter this by keeping the episode’s twin fight scenes short and to the point…robbing them of the visceral impact we get inside the alien ship.

It’s obvious all the eye candy went into the Leviathan and its pisonic crew of mind (if not body) snatchers. Bully to the design team for going all out on the place. They’ve obviously seen a few alien invasion pictures, and do a fine job bringing us their own (albeit in miniature, and sanitized for The Children's protection). The episode title is itself a nod to 1989’s Peter “Robocop” Weller vehicle of the same name, and the darkened corridors of this Leviathan echo that one in tone if not substance. H.E.A.T. brings a cloying sense of claustrophobia with them, into the ship. Randy’s freak-out allows us, the audience, permission to share his psychosomatic feeling, and few things put Fear in the stout of heart like the thought of all that water… pressing down…on you…burr, baby. Very burr.

Profiting, not in spite, but largely because of Godzilla’s absence, “Leviathan” stands as a high point of a first season, paradoxical and shambling, much like Godzilla himself. Jesus, I’m already into overtime and longing to be get back to safe, solid ground, where I can take easy potshots at the series obvious flaws.

For that join us next week, when the going shall get Weird, courtesy of Len Wein, co-creator of Swamp Thing.

Godzilla the Series: An Exercise in Over-Analysis

Episode 6 – Cat and Mouse

Plot: As New York City slowly but steadily rebuilds itself in the wake of Godzilla’s first “attack,” our pre-credit teaser finds an unfortunate homeless man beset by a giant, mutated rat.

Cut to…some mid-town restaurant, where Dr. Nick Tatopoulos and WIDF News Correspondent Audrey Timmonds attempt to have A Talk. You know, one of those annoying “Don’t You Think Its Time We Defined Our Relationship?” talks, gratefully interrupted by separate calls to both participants.

While Audrey and cameraman “Animal” Polatti chase down rumors of giant monsters making life hard on Bowery bums, Dr. Nick and H.E.A.T. deploy into the subway, where something is literally chewing its way through Con-Ed’s best-laid pipes, plans, and walls. The inevitable complaining and clowning around ensue, proving too much for H.E.A.T. Token Badass, DGSE Agent Monique Dupre.

Back at base, Monique tells Dr. Nick, ”I am tired of being the only professional on this so-called team.” Nick’s all-too quick to let his French Secret Service agent go but, “Alas," she says, "it is not your permission I require.”

Godzilla’s arrival paves over this potential team schism, once again almost crushing his nominal human companions as he climbs out of the East River. How he avoids that, or something similar (like sweeping them into the East River as he climbs over their heads, pushing walls of water ahead of himself) is a miracle of cartoon physics.

Further miracles abound as Godzilla peruse the first of the giant rats that’ll miraculously evade him throughout the episode, causing “comical” mishaps on par with old Warner Brother’s cartoons. For example: the rat (big as a small horse) manages to sneak its way uptown, where Audrey and Animal are on location, handing out cash for monster stories. Reversing to dislodge the rat from its perch on their Ford Newsvan’s roof, they succeed in backing right up the top of Godzilla’s foot—he having stealthily arrived on the scene without so much as a fleeing populous to proceed him.

In fact, the New York of this crazy, parallel dimension is eerily deserted, making it that much easier for three rednecks—Bill, Dale, and Earl—to sneak into the city with their pick-up truck full of rocket launchers (helpfully labeled “Army Surplus”). Finding Godzilla in the midst of his rat-hunt, lead-redneck Dale aims to bag the Big G, and succeeds only in re-destroying the Chrysler Building, which suffered so much during the summer of 1998.

Still, Major Hicks attempts to calm the City’s excitable Mayor (no longer named “Ebert”) with humanitarian caveats. “Our options are limited until the city is evacuated,” he says…riii-ight. I’m sure the Pentagon might have a thing or two to say about that, Major. For all their talk of “defense” and “honor,” I hear they’re still big on “acceptable losses” down there. I doubt they’d hesitate to give the green light with Godzilla on a rampage…in New York…again…Still, somehow, Hicks manages to buy H.E.A.T. the two hours necessary to track the rat to its subway home…or their home, as it turns out.

Yes, there’s a whole colony of giant rats quietly breeding below New York’s streets…what else is new? With the team separated by mass rat attack, it's up to Audrey, Animal and Randy to save Nick and Monique from the jaws of death. Meanwhile, above ground, Godzilla fights his own, over-long battle against ever increasing numbers of rodents, human and otherwise.

All threads align in an abandoned subway platform somewhere below the city, with Godzilla literally bringing the house down, leaving human Heroes and Rednecks alike trapped below ground. It's Audrey who leads Major Hicks to their burrow, saving the day. And all without resolving a single issue raised earlier in the episode. The credits find our lovers standing alone under a New York streetlight, right back where they began, going their separate ways.

Analysis

What should be a rip-roaring good time of an episode instead becomes a testament to the true limits of this series, pulling its punches at every turn. Few things were harder in pre-computer animation than crowd scenes, or the kind of complex visual effects we take for granted now a’ days. This episode, then, is a relic of late twentieth-century, the Age of Pokemon, when American imaginations were not so well acquainted with images of death and destruction, and we worried about the effects realistic portrayals of such would have on The Children.

The result is a—dare I say it—childish little romp that robs its audience of excitement by robbing its subject of dramatic weight. Nothings appears at stake here; so what if Nick paints nightmare word-pictures of a rodentine apocalypse? He and his little band appear to be the only people left in New York City anyway. Even without pressure from the area’s top reptilian predator, the rat’s will dissolve into cannibalism soon enough.

As always, I have my questions to fall back on. Like what keeps Audrey from cashing in on her…ahem…intimate relationship with H.E.A.T.? Nothing held her back during the movie, where she flagrantly abused Nick’s trust for the sake of her career. Should we assume her continued silence indicates growth, as a character? If so, it’s made her an even less-interesting figure, and she has every right to have an official Talk with Nick about the state of their relationship.

In the Tarot deck of Giant Monster Movie Protagonists there is no Major Arcana more superfluous than The Chick. You know the type. Faye Wray set the Golden Age standards for the role, with Momoko Kochi’s Emiko Yamane the first Chick in Godzilla history. It’s taken sixty years for stronger women to inhabit the role, attempting to flesh out its barebones requirements, the easy way being to combine The Chick with that other, often-superfluous Arcana, The Reporter.

Audrey is not the first Chick to play the dual role, but she is an uneasy mixture, a volatile chemical. Having literally no place in the show’s format or Nick’s life, her presence strikes a sour note in what was fast becoming a harmonious symphony of destruction. I am grateful that writer Steven Melching reversed the usual Cinderella role here, with Audrey coming to Nick’s rescue (leaving Godzilla to once again do all the work for none of the credit). But I’m also saddened that, after this, The Series’ creators would find only one other role for her to play—the role of Damsel in Distress.

Monique, for all her temporary bitching, at least has a role to fill, and skills to contribute to the team, and proves herself invaluable against the rats. She leaves the episode convinced H.E.A.T. is much better led than not, realizing what everyone in the audience already understands: only a sad sack like Dr. Nick could possibly control this unruly bunch of teenagers.

I very much include Godzilla in this. He comes off the worst for the whole episode, barred by children's television censorship from actually catching his prey. Wouldn't want an explosion of rat gore spoiling The Children's Saturday morning. I certainly hoped for it, and it was sadly disappointed. My snarky comments during the synopsis should reveal my feelings as well as anything...though I'll state it plain if there's any doubt: Cat and Mouse is a low point early in the first season of a show obviously hobbled at the gate.

Tune in next week for greener pastures, and the coming of Leviathan...

What if the American People Learned the Truth?

An uplifting series of rhetorical questions from Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX 14th)

Godzilla the Series: An Exercise in Over-Analysis (Part IV)

Episode 5: The Winter of our Discontent

We open in New York City’s seemingly-endless harbor, with the World’s-Number-One-Monster-Hunting-Team, H.E.A.T., in hot pursuit of Godzilla, their itinerant seventh member. (Can’t really call him “a silent partner” with all those roars, now can we?) Godzilla, in turn, pursues the call of an unidentified signal beacon straight to a pile of fresh-caught fish. Whatever Godzilla’s cognitive powers, I can easily see him wandering into such an obvious trap. I expect better from Our Human Heroes, who nonetheless react with shock when a flight of ten-foot-long, mechanical insects begin to strafe the Big G, mightily pissing him off.

These “Cyber Flies” arrived courtesy of the series’ first human villain: Cameron Winter (David Newsom), described by H.E.A.T. member Elsie Chapman (channeling her inner twelve-year-old) as “the world’s richest, most-hunkiest CEO, not to mention the biggest techno-guru.” Such hunkiness is beside the point for team lead Nick Tatopoulos, who spent more than enough time with Cameron Winter at their (unnamed) mutual college. Indignant, Nick accuses Winter of “drawing Godzilla out for target practice.” Cameron owns up to his little trap, which Godzilla easily muscles free of, enjoying a fine fish dinner on Cameron’s time after scrapping the last Fly.

But this trap has the dual purpose of, as Cameron says, “Confirming [Godzilla’s] connection to the illustrious H.E.A.T. team.” About time somebody fucking noticed. “Why don’t you come ashore and tour my facility? I always prefer discussing business face-to-face.”

“I have no business with you, Cameron,” Dr. Nick retorts via-bullhorn, warning his teammates: “Anything Cameron Winter has to offer always has strings attached.”

Nevertheless, Nick yields to the democratic process. “Nobody’s ever seen the inside of Solstice Technologies,” Randy Hernandez informs us. (Not even its employees?) DGSE Agent Monique Dupre casts the tie-breaker, offering to breech the place herself, dig up whatever there is to dig on Cameron Winter, and scratch “Penetrating Solstice Technologies” off the French Secret Service’s Spring 1998 "To Do" list.

The rest of H.E.A.T. gets a guided tour from “the man himself” as a distraction. Cut straight from the Lex Luthor mold, Cameron wastes no time making his guest feel unwelcome. “Nickels was too busy dissecting garden slugs to hang out with the rest of us,” he explains when Dr. Mendel Craven makes the mistake of asking into his and Nick’s past. “We called him 'Nickels,'” Cameron says, “because nickels were all he was ever going to earn.” He insults Craven’s pet robot, N.I.G.E.L. (“I can’t imagine what you could do with a budget”), freaks everyone out with talk of advancing mankind to the “next stage…once Congress comes to its senses about that cloning thing,” and captures Monique in mid-spy with the aid of remote-controlled Doberman Pinschers. “Neural stimulators,” Cameron explains, calling the dogs off with the touch of a button. “Makes for much happier pups.”

With the full team before him, Cameron makes his pitch: “I want you and your little band," he tells Dr. "Nickels," "to come work for me. I can offer you full government cooperation, first-rate facilities, and very generous salaries. I can even make your academic problems go away.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, man,” Randy says.

Cameron, undaunted, continues, even as the team walks out en masse. “We both know mutation-biased weapons are the next wave,” he says to H.E.A.T.'s collective back. “Why not be ahead of the curve for a change?” Gee, Cameron, could it be all the death and destruction waiting just around the bend in that curve? I think so.

Godzilla, as is his want, tables any further philosophical debate with an ill-timed attack on Solstice’s walled-off, private inlet. Casually butting the wall aside, Godzilla seizes an unfortunate mini-sub, shaking it like a dog with a rat in his teeth. Fortunately for all involved (or, at the very least, for Nick’s conscience) that predatory head-shaking dislodges a man-sized neural stimulator from Godzilla’s ear-canal. Instantly, the Big G halts, his rampaged nipped in its technological bud. With a wave and a shout from Nick, Godzilla drops the sub and returns to sea.

Enraged, Nick and Co. storm out. “It’s a wild animal, Nick,” Cameron shouts after them. “How long before it turns on you?” (About ten more episodes, but don’t worry, we’ll get there.) Cameron, being eee-vil, spends the rest of the episode wasting valuable company time on a clandestine torture campaign meant to rile Godzilla all the way up. It succeeds, with ultrasonic, underwater signals driving the Big G so batty he nearly roasts H.E.A.T. HQ—just as Randy’s academic adviser drops by for a check-up.

Seems there’s more to Young Master Hernandez than meets the eye or ear. “He’s been looking out for the environment with my organization,” might sound good coming out of Boss Nick’s mouth, but it won’t move your GPA up. Or make those pesky “prior disciplinary actions” disappear. A certain hunky techno-guru just might have the cache for such a feat…to say nothing of a handy little device that’ll ensure Godzilla’s continued loyalty...but that would be wrong. Right?

Faster than you can say, “Judas Goat,” Randy’s hijacked N.I.G.E.L. for a midnight, monster ear exam. Discovered just as the neural stimulator comes online, Randy walks out of the resulting row with his boss/mentor. Tres pissed, Nick orders Mendel to extract Winter’s hardware…but it’s already too late. Neural stimulator installed and ready, Cameron Winter begins literally pushing Godzilla’s buttons, directing the Big G up from the depths (thirty stories high) and straight into the klieg lights and sirens of (fictional) Fort Berkley, on the Jersey shore. Monster, meet the U.S. Armed Forces. Insert scenes of fiery destruction here.

Secure inside his super-secret science fortress, it’s no wonder Cameron gets cocky enough to Monologue. All he has to do is wait for the audience—Nick and Monique—to attempt another break-in. They do so, get captured, and here we are. “Now,” Cameron says, “imagine an arsenal of Godzillas. Not just Weapons of Mass Destruction but, more importantly, my own personal cash cow. If I had a partner to help me work with these critters…well…it would be mutually beneficial.”

Nick throws this second deal back in Winter’s face as he must, being the hero and all. But we’re down to the wire so it must be time for Randy to show up and redeem himself. Presently he does, sending a flock of confiscated Cyber Flies out to destroy the neural stimulator and draw off the military’s fire. Returned to the Free Will Brigade, Godzilla escapes the Combined Forces full wrath. Cameron Winter goes to jail. “I put in a call to Major Hicks,” Randy informs us. “He’s real interested in you.” Let’s see: what is the minimum mandatory sentence for throwing a giant monster at your friendly, neighborhood military base? Does it depend on how much lobbying money you can throw around on Capitol Hill?

Winter doesn’t even bother with the question, having eyes only for Nick…and Nick’s scaly protégé. “Be seeing you, Nickels,” he says as uniformed MPs lead him away. “You can bet on it.” So can I.

Analysis:

Well, it’s about damn time we had a real, human villain with real human motivations to spice up the show. Every one of the six and a half billion people on the planet this show calls home is effected by Godzilla’s presence whether they live near coast or desert. That’s the power of science fiction: the ability to chart and graph the social, the historical, and most importantly, the human effects of random, radical element; a bastard child of Science and Technology, say.

Godzilla remains that through and through, the one constant element in a series that swings wildly in terms of quality. This is one of the higher-caliber episodes, if for no other reason than the Big G’s rampage through Fort Berkley. This is the first overt action Godzilla’s taken against human opponents. Unfortunate, that, but here it is. The show’s producers removed Godzilla in his natural moral environment episodes ago…which, if you’ve never watched a Godzilla movie (what the hell are you doing here?) is largely a landscape of slate-grays. This forces the audience to chose which side it’s really on and rare is the person who won’t go for a vicarious thrill by rooting for the monster to win…which he does, undoubtedly killing more than a handful of servicemen and –women, decorously off-screen, in the process.

And even that’s alright, since the G-man’s exempt from responsibility due to mind control from afar…not for the last time, either. Villainous monsters are the only beings on this show allowed to place humans in jeopardy…and those monsters need-not be multi-eyed, giant worms. They can look just like you. Or me. Or Dr. Nick, with white hair and a Van Dyke covering up any lack of design originality.

I kid series character designer Fil Barlow. Winter is obviously designed as a foil for Nick in every respect, visibly and philosophically. Hard science vs. the quick buck; Mr. Moneybags vs. Dr. Nickels; there hasn’t been such a clear-cut division between these two opposing forces since Peter Parker and Norman Osborn duked it out atop the Brooklyn Bridge. Consider this exchange:

Nick (pointing to the neural stimulator, recently ejected from Godzilla's ear): You mind explaining that?

Winter: The neural stimulators work like a charm on my attack dogs. Only made sense to try it on yours.

Nick: Where do you come off?

Winter: Like he’s your property.

Nick: Goodbye, Cameron.

Winter: It’s a wild animal, Nick. How long before it turns on you?

How long, oh Lord, how long? Not long, since Cameron’s already arranging that by the time he asks. His “arsenal of Godzillas” is exactly the kind of thing I imagine when I consider the science-fictional implications of a giant monster’s co-existence with the so-called “real world.” Monique, too, is right on the money when she strings Cameron along during his monologue with a question: “What do you gain from attacking your perspective clients?”

Cameron affects shock at the idea. “Me? Godzilla’s attacking them. I’m just the guy who’ll get the contract to replace all that damaged weaponry. Ka-ching.” Gotta admit, here’s a man after my own heart, and I love him as I can only love a good villain.

But if you want to talk about turning, let’s talk about Nick’s true pet: Randy Hernandez, who here proves himself the weakest link in H.E.A.T.’s chain, selling his team (including Godzilla) out, and placing the entire world in Hey-Some-Rich-Asshole-Has-Godzilla-on-an-Electronic-Leash Jeopardy. (A little known round of the game, held between Double and Final.) For their own good, of course. People usually do their worst with the best possible intentions. I know I do.

What, exactly, does Dr. Nick intent do to? Zip, zilch, and bupkiss, it appears. Where other shows might string the fallout from such a betrayal over the course of several episodes you’ve got to remember we’re in the land of Fox Kids. No problem exists that cannot be solved in under twenty-two minutes. The episode’s coda finds Randy back at his “low-rent, community college,” doing some “catching up.” We’re to assume all lingering trust issues lie settled with no hard feelings anywhere, least of all in Saint Nickel's heart.

If Nick Tatopouls really does intend to lead the world’s Number One Monster Hunting Team, he’s got a lot to learn about personnel management. The only member he seems to focus on is Godzilla and that creates its own problems. Cameron Winter is only the first to exploit Nick’s connection to the big lizard. This little incident should’ve served as the “wake-up call” Monique identifies.

Come to think of it, just how strong is that connection? And what in God’s name is it based on? Does Godzilla understand English? Nick seems to think he does. He speaks to the creature VERY LOUDLY …AND VERY…SLOWLY…as if addressing a brain damaged football player. Hate to break it to you, Doctor, but that’s a giant, fire-breathing lizard you’re fucking shouting at. I’d think you of all people would appreciate this fact and treat it with some fucking respect. No need to go with the Brain Box: how about a microphone? Have Monique wire up a cufflink or a shirt-mic or something and just talk to Godzilla for God's sake, like you’d talk to any member of your team. Better security. No more bullhorning your way into every damn situation. There are worse men and women out there that Cameron; people that make your old college classmate look like Barney Fucking Rubble. Frankly, Nick, you’re putting the world at risk every time you stand out there like Joshua and try to shout down that three hundred foot wall. A wall that stares right back at you with all the puzzled amusement of an untrained mutt.

Is Godzilla laughing at his adopted parent? To quote a Hernandez of my acquaintance, “I think so.” You don’t need to get up very early to have a good laugh at Dr. Nick’s expense.

Next: Godzilla vs. The Rednecks