Episode 21 - Three Men and a Comic Book
8 July 2010
Synopsis: When Bart learns that he could buy the first "Radioactive Man" comic for only $100 he tries every way he can think of to get the money. Eventually he goes in with Martin and Milhouse to buy it but soon the paranoia of split ownership kicks in.
The Good: Again it's a focussed episode and again there is a clever morality underpinning it. Bart points out that the boys own selfishness destroyed the comic they had worked so hard to acquire but chose not to heed the lesson as you might expect. The Radioactive Man character is a nice generic shortcut creation to sum up most of the major DC\Marvel creations (see Best Joke). The show finds creative ways to satirise the past by showing old commercials where Radioactive Man shamelessly endorsed cigarettes.
The Bad: But this episode was badly paced with not nearly enough time being spent on the breakdown in trust between the three boys. Instead we get a long and dull sequence where Bart is trying to acquire enough money to buy the comic. The extended parody of old Mrs Glick seemed self indulgent as if the writers wanted to get every childhood memory onto the page. Although it did show Bart's passion by virtue of the lengths and efforts he was willing to go to achieve his goal, the time would have been better spent on Milhouse and Martin's personalities. In the end their conflict seemed hollow and too speedily reached.
The Wonder Years parody comes out of nowhere and is completely unnecessary. It's a joke which precedes the Family Guy era by a decade but demonstrates how jarring and unrealistic such moments are.
Best Joke: Radioactive Man is the most generic of heroes and gained his powers in the most generic of ways: by being near a nuclear explosion. The boys read these scenes with wonder and an invisible narrator takes us through it in dramatic fashion to simulate the boy's experience. Milhouse then announces with sincere surprise and amazement "So that's how it happened!" Really simple and effective satire.
The Bottom Line: A mistimed episode which otherwise could have been fun.
Feedback
Add your comments on this episode below. They may be included in the weekly podcasts.
|
’)