Trashtastic Team-Up: 7 cult superheroes that need to join forces
Even before Disney acquired the ingredients to perfect money making alchemy, there was a shit ton of comic book influenced cinema. To keep it simple, I whittled my list down to seven members and omitted officially licensed comic characters that have had cult or "b movies" over the years like The Punisher, The Phantom, and The Fantastic Four. It's also not a definitive list of fringe superheroes or even necessarily my favorites, just who I personally think would make an entertaining, well rounded, B-team super-squad.
Doctor Mordrid
Shut-in criminal psychologist/grumpy landlord Anton Mordrid (Jeffrey Combs) is secretly a powerful wizard sent to our realm to protect the sorcerer's stone and prevent the gates of hell from opening. Kids are spoiled now. In my day we didn't have a legit Dr. Strange film, we had Doctor Mordrid, and we fucking liked it. Well, I did anyway.
Origins:
Doctor Mordrid (1992) was conceived as an official adoption of the Marvel comic, but when the license expired before production, the project was slightly retooled with some name changes. Though now, it may seem like a poorly aimed precursor to Asylum-type marketing, the Full Moon property is a lot of fun and beat the pants off the made for T.V. official film that we had before it (though that one has its merits as well). Combs is gold in literally everything, and despite not respringing for the official rights, the film shows surprising love for its (unofficial) source material.
Powers and Abilities:
Master of magic, expert on spooky shit
Role in Team:
Toxic Avenger
Everyone's favorite bullied teen turned lumpy nuclear do-gooder is probably the most obvious pick on the list. He is a patriarch of trashy mutant heroes, confusing parents since 1984. He even had a fucking cartoon show and toyline when I was a kid. In more ways than one, he would be my fantasy team’s Captain America, if Captain America squished heads and punched holes in people.
Origins:
1984's Toxic Avenger and its runaway fanbase helped shape Troma into the underground cinema staple it is today. The mutant hero has returned for three more full-length sequels, most recently Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV (2000).
Powers and Abilities:
Super strength, sporadic invulnerability, handy with a mop, can piss acid
Role in Team:
The Black Scorpion
Undermined cop by day, leather-clad vigilante by night, Darcy (Joan Severance) is determined to rid her city of organized crime in retribution for her father's death. Donning a modified dominatrix outfit, the take-no-shit brawler dispatches goons with a Batman-like collection of toys provided by her mechanic (Garrett Morris), all while making time for steamy anonymous romance with her partner Bruce Abbott.
Origins:
After first appearing in a Showtime original movie produced by Roger Corman in 1995, Black Scorpion returned for a sequel and a short-lived series (with another actress). I reviewed the first film in-full awhile ago.
Powers and Abilities:
Highly skilled fighter, police department connections, comes with Alfred like engineer sidekick
Role in Team:
Wade and The Mandroid Unit
When it isn't in the hands of evil disgruntled scientist Drago, Mandroid is the handy robotic avatar of the wheelchair-bound ex C.I.A. agent Wade (Brian Cousins). Together with his homie Benjamin Knight (Michael Della Femina), who can turn invisible (but doesn't like it), the two fend off the attacks of Drago (Curt Lowens) and his goons, when not macking on each other's girlfriends and fucking up science experiments.
Origins:
Wade and Mandroid hail from back to back, straight to tape epics made in 1993 that come off as a mix of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Robocop, and Fantastic Four with Full Moon’s district brand of cornball story telling. The first movie, Mandroid (1993), primarily serves as a feature-length set up for the symbiotic man/machine relationship and sometimes gets called boring--but I dig it. Legend has it that the team was slated to return after the sequel Invisible: The Chronicles of Benjamin Knight (1993), but a third film never came to fruition.
Powers and Abilities:
Sluggish metal appendages, gun hands, inconsistent technical abilities, shitty luck
Role in Team:
Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D.
Last time we saw Harry Griswold aka Sgt. Kabukiman in a full-length movie he had taken a turn for the worse and his drinking had become a severe issue (Citizen Toxie, 2000), leading to some awkward moments between him and Toxie. I assume things are going at least a little better as he currently hosts a lounge themed YouTube show. I see the potential for a Winter Soldier thing going on there, only with increasingly greasy behavior and substance abuse as opposed to a metal arm, some mascara, and a new edgy persona.
Origins:
Sgt. Kabukiman was the product of a strange partnership between Namco and Troma, which ended awkwardly with his stunted PG-13 debut in 1993. Despite being a trusted rental favorite and giving the world the original Troma Car Crash, Kabukiman never received the acclaim of his more famous labelmate. Although he has made several cameos since then, he has yet to see a real sequel for his inauguration film.
Powers and Abilities:
Flight, can pull (possibly offensive) cartoon weaponry from thin air, narcism
Role in Team:
Problematic teammate
The Double-D Avenger
The movie itself is mostly bad puns about boobs, homemade generic costumes, and PG-13 strippers, but the idea of a modern-day Kitten Natividad kicking the shit out of bad guys brings me great joy.
Origins:
The Double-D Avenger was an early 2000s low budget feature by William Winckler that reunited Russ Meyer stars Natividad, Haji, and Raven De La Croix as over-the-top comic book characters with weaponized cleavage.
Powers and Abilities:
Superhuman strength, possibly more (She mostly just used her bust in some way, which works well enough), dildo sword fighting skills
Role in Team:
The Meteor Man
After being hospitalized by a chance encounter with a space-rock and a dumpster, school teacher Jefferson Reed (Robert Townsend) develops a plethora of powers which he then uses for random acts of community service. My team needs a moral compass, and a super-powered district employee with a “eat healthily and brush your teeth” kind of attitude fits the bill nicely. It was either him or Bibleman. I rented the shit out of Meteor Man’s tape back in the day, and I don't fucking trust Bibleman.
Origins:
The Meteor Man (1993) is the brainchild of writer, director, and star Robert Townsend, the man who gave us the underrated 80s comedy Hollywood Shuffle (1987). The VHS adventure feels more like an unused kid show pilot than a feature film, only with a shit ton of cameos including Naughty by Nature and Cypress Hill as warring street gangs.
Powers and Abilities:
Many-- (including but not limited to) X-Ray vision, healing factor, unbelievably effective community outreach
Role in Team:
Resident Paladin and walking P.S.A. with a cape
Even though Shared universes are big stuff these days, I'm unlikely to ever see a crossover event with a group like this. It would take a collaborative effort from several studios along the lines of Who Framed Roger Rabbit with more cleavage and the addition of human blood. But then again, I never thought I would see an Avengers movie either, and here we are. If a series of Marvel movies had come out at this scale in 1998, little RevTerry would have shit himself and died of excitement. There is a decent chance Disney will own every intellectual property soon, and that will dissolve some of the potential hurdles. Shit, if it made money, the "House of Mouse" would probably guarantee the release of one a year with supplemental material. I hear they are even going to let Deadpool keep swearing after the FOX merger. On second thought--please don't let them take any more superheroes.
Who would you include on your cult film hero dream team? Who would you leave off? How do you feel about the current state of comic book films? If I let you touch my comic collection would you wash your hands first? Let me know in the comments below.
Who would you include on your cult film hero dream team? Who would you leave off? How do you feel about the current state of comic book films? If I let you touch my comic collection would you wash your hands first? Let me know in the comments below.
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