I understand that Thundercats was a kids show, and that good always triumphed over evil at the end of the day, but even in the more adult orientated Wildstorm comics the mutants never stood a chance.
As I was reading the WS Thundercats and Thundercats the Return books last night, I felt frustrated by the mutants stupidity, weakness, and inability to put up a decent fight. Bumbling idiots would be the right definition. Even the newly revived Grune was taken care of in short order. (One of my fave bad guys)
In the American adaptation of GoLion (Voltron), Sven was “injured” by Zarkons forces thus having to leave the Voltron team. This gave the bad guys a real sense of “evilness”. They “hurt” the good guys.
I wish that in Thundercats the writers would have had the mutants done something along those lines in order to have given them a real sense of evilness. A bunch of bad guys to be taken seriously, not a bunch of big-for-nothing bafoons.
Sometimes I’d feel sorry for the Mutants for not being able to something serious to the Cats (I don’t mean killing one of the Cats, but something serious enough like an injury that would put one of them out of commision for a while so that the others would have to learn to function without him/her). But, like you, I did end up feeling sorry for Slithe and company when they were reduced to being the comedians from Planet Blun-Darr instead of the menaces they were originally meant to be.
Well, they were consistent…They would never give up on trying to harm the TCats. IMO the fact that the bad guys were always defeated doesnt show that they were pathetic, instead it showed how powerful the Thundercats were
True, they were consistent. What I didn’t like were the writers turning the Mutants turning into comic relief over time. They did that with Mumm-Ra to a certain extent and they certainly did it with Ma-Mutt, much to my annoyance.
Of all the mutants it’s usually Vultureman who gets the raw deal - since more likely than not his plans fail becuase someone else messes up.
On another note, there are a few “good” bad guys… Mostly the Neutral type. Captain Scheiner being the bets example imo - he manages to trick them quite a few times. Grune, of course is a classic and it’s really a pity that they didn’t use him more than they did.
(My personal theory is that he was the one who defeated Mumm-Ra during the “second age” of earth, but that’s for another topic.)
All in all it’s the same pattern everywhere - heroes meat evil character. The evil character is so strong it takes their combined efforts to stop them. Next tyme them meat 2-3 heroes manage to dispatch him, after that 1, until a hero could dispatch all evil characters at the same time.
That’s true for almost everything, including the case of “they hurt X so bad he has to quit” since that’s just a method to get the audience to feel more for the heroes.
Well it was a thing of the times when the thundercats were out. It wasn’t popular to have likeable villians or villians which have redeeming qualities, which is a shame as it adds a new dimension to the story. If anyone has seen Record of Lodoss War, you’d know what I mean.
Well the Thundercats always explained the situation well with the Mutants both the scaly and furry ones as well as the lunar ones.
The original Mutants never got together for the common purpose of defeating the Thundercats. One of two of them always had some sort of side angle working in the background they thought would benefit only themselves. The ulterior motives always backfired on them and they lost the day.
Added to that later on…the Lunataks were too concieted and self motivated to make too big a victory over the 'Cats. All of the Mutants and their character flaws were their own worst enemies and it was the Thundercats who merely helped their self inflicted butt kicking along.
I don’t feel any pity for the Mutants and we know the Thundercats had to win in 25 minutes everyday but I would have liked to have seen a little less of Jaga and the Sword Of Omens clearing things up.
Yes. They were the comic relief, but then it got absolutely ridiculous: what I liked about their characters were that they could be dangerous sometimes but would eventually get their just due. The fact that they had such brilliant plans and would be foiled with complete stupidity - that’s why I felt bad. Some of those plans were great.
The Circus-Train stuff with the Mutants was embarassing - I am a fan of the stupidity of it all, but.. it was harsh to see The Lunataks get all the attention over the Mutants.
