Review: Supermansion “The Long Chaun”

He whosoever holds this sword shall possess the power of SNOOOORE.

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Six months ago, Loki knock-off Ridan (Taran Killam) is apparently once again attempting to take over the Gods’ Realm, with his niece, Zenith, the only one able to stop him. Things seem to be going her way until Ridan’s true plan kicks in, with something occurring to Portia on Earth, sapping Zenith of her strength and allowing him to seize victory.

Picking up where we left off last week, Zenith’s mother gives everyone a quick explanation about Zenith and Portia’s connection, and that Ridan is using that connection to conquer to worlds at once. Rex elects to take the main League to save Zenith and Cooch, but not before Devizo gets in his head about letting people he claims to care about suffer from his inaction. The Gods’ Realm is literally going up in flames as the team tries to get their bearings, with Rex being given a leader sword for true leadership while Robobot gets the “I, Meatbag” from Futurama treatment and gets his own flesh and blood! They don’t have to go long without seeing blood, however, as Lex smashes some sort of Tribble dictator, gaining the respect of the rest of the tribe. This alliance does not help them much as most of them are taken straight to Ridan, while Ranger and Saturn end up on some side adventure that goes nowhere. Back on Earth, Courtney and Agony try to help Portia recover but are attacked by gremlins, and Ridan severs her and Zenith’s connection.

Cooch also finally reaches the source of the leprechaun problem, fighting and beating their king in mortal combat and earning one wish. She chooses to revive Brad…but this apparently too much to ask for. Luckily she has a rather specific back up wish, a supped up dragster, which manages to save Ranger and Saturn and then the rest of the team. Rex finally overcomes his sudden lack of leadership skills and gains the power of the leader sword, but not in time save Zenith. Oddly enough, Portia still lives, and makes her way to the other realm in order to fuse permanently with Zenith, and the Gods’ Mother kills Ridan.

The day is saved, Rex and Zenith-Portia say their goodbyes, Robobot becomes robo once more, and everyone’s ready to go home. And then a gremlin messes with the spell and sends the team to an alternate timeline! See you in the Fall!

OUR TAKE

There are times when Supermansion seems very dedicated to beating the clichés and weirdness of superhero stories into the ground with every ounce of its strength and mock its absurdity till its last breath, and those times make me very tired. Yet there are also times where it actually feels like the writers are having fun putting together their own world, as if they are finally able to put some of their imagination from their childhood into an actual superhero story. Getting into Zenith’s background and specific connection to Portia feels like one of those times, with an even mixture of influences from myth based heroes like Wonder Woman, Thor, and Captain Marvel (no, I am not calling him Shazam, dammit!). As said, Ridan feels a bit too much like a more famous Marvel movie villain to ignore, and I couldn’t help but feel like they kinda took the easy way out of making a more original fantasy world by just throwing in typical things like unicorns and leprechauns, but you get what you get.

But there’s also stuff that really just feels like it was just to fill time because it really added nothing else. Ranger and Saturn meeting sirens and some sort of octopus lady seems like one of those, and I said before I really wasn’t the least bit curious about Cooch’s deal with the leprechauns, but at least that ended up in a meaningful place. Also, are we just going to act like the Black Saturn mech suit from last episode never happened? Because I can think of about half the moments here where it could’ve really come in handy, even if it went right back to Courtney!