Soldiers Of The Future!

Children's television has been a battleground since its inception at the very beginnings of the medium. There have always been watchdogs who kept close tabs on what was being beamed into the homes and psyches of tots, often raising a clamor when some show or other seemed either too violent or too sexy or too Commie or too something or other. In the late 80's the watchdogs had been on the prowl with a vehemence since the advent of ready cable television had unleashed new channels and new shows to fill up the hours. Cartoons based on toys were the rage with He-Man and G.I.Joe leading the way. Was Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future just one more of these? Yes and no it seems.

To begin with, the show was live action and most kids programming in the era was at the time animation, animation made cheaper by creators sending the work overseas and doing so to such an extent that Filmation might have been the last house standing domestically at the time. But Captain Power too was produced in a foreign country, Canada to be exact. Canada welcomed productions and offered sweet deals to get it and the producers of Captain Power - Landmark Productions in partnership with Mattel seized the chance.

So yes Captain Power was yet another toy tie-in show and so open to the charges that it was  merely a half-hour ad for the toys hawked by Mattel. The toys in question were interactive jets and suchlike (guns were absolutely verboten at the time) which would allow a kid to knock off the robots and tanks which were the primary cannon fodder on the show.

The show generated a tie-in comic book from Continuity Comics, the house which used Neal Adams as its primary visual guide. The story is set in the year 2147 and a great conflict dubbed the "Metal Wars" has torn the world apart and now a few ragtag human resistance groups fight against the machines led by a cyborg named Lord Dread. Called the Bio-Dread empire, this is a premise that takes a notion similar to that of The Terminator and explores it more closely in the years before Terminator 2 and Star Trek would battle The Borg. In fact the folks at Captain Power suggest the Borg are a rip off.

I've had this set of twenty-two episodes for a few years, getting it as a Christmas present some time back. I watched a few episodes, but something always caused me to stop. Well recently I made it a mission to crush all twenty-two episodes and really came to appreciate what the creators were trying to do even more. Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future was above average kiddie entertainment, the best kind which is intended for kids and adults at the same time.

Rip Off