Excelsior!

Who Wants To Be A Superhero?… Finale!

Well I think next week I’m gonna pick the Defuser again to be eliminated… oh, er NO it’s over. The 2-hour finale of Who Wants To Be A Superhero? came to it’s dramatic conclusion with the Defuser taking the title of Stan Lee’s next great superhero. Needless to say I’m not surprised the Defuser won… AFTER I learned a lot more about him that wasn’t revealed before. This police detective is a total comic geek. He plays video games all the time, has his bathroom made up in a hulk theme and has thousands of comics in his garage. That’s right. The Defuser was a total ringer. Check out the superhero after show interview with Feeback here. It’s so obvious now. I had thoughts at the beginning that he might win, but I gotta hand it to the editors. They made it seem like he was always on thin ice. But it was fun anyway so who cares.
Stan managed a few surprises this time around. The biggest being that there was no elimination. Yes, the Defuser, Hyperstrike, and Hygena, were all allowed to continue to the finals. It kinda makes sense though, I really had this feeling that Hyperstrike and Hygena were gonna be in the final round, but The Defuser had really done a lot towards the end to win me over as well. Everybody really stepped up to the plate. Hygena, by offering herself as bait for the dogs, found a perfect way for her to offer a plan and participate despite the fact that she doesn’t have the physical prowess or strength of Hyperstrike or the Defuser. And the two guys? Well, they performed heroically while getting savagely bitten by the slobbering doggies, so they all came through the challenge with flying colors.
One of the funny things about the episode was the fact that they all equally screwed up during a visit to a TV studio and the interview with Kennedy by revealing lots of personal information about themselves. They all let their guards down but it didn’t cost the heroes in the end.

There were several touching moments as well:

When the superheroes all received action figures based on their characters, their inner geeks came racing to the surface. It was a nice light moment that helped reduce tension.

When they realized that no one was going to be eliminated and that all three would proceed to the finals, the look on their faces was priceless. Hypestrike said it best when he said there was a nomination not an elimination. Too be honest, I liked the fact that Stan didn’t eliminate anybody; it kept things interesting and spread the joy around.

Stan talked to the heroes individually, and the Defuser and Hygena’s stories really stood out. The Defuser broke down when he talked about his sister and his family needing a hero when he was young, and Hygena cried when talking about losing a her baby late term, but that show had helped her grow and she realized that she had the strength to try again. Hyperstike’s story wasn’t tragic but it did reveal how he took childhood teasing and turned it into a motivator to excel.

A really good choice was having the heroes meet their families before the final decision was made. Last season they brought them out after Stan’s decision and it was anti-climactic because we didn’t know who they were and what was going on. This time the loved ones helped build dramatic tension and provided nice cutaways, instead of shots of bored, confused nobodies in the audience.

There were a few things I didn’t like though:

The promotional trailers for each character were terrible. Why were they fighting medieval monsters, and dragons in the woods? Superheroes are a very urban, street fight kind of a thing. Ugh, They also recycled some footage from last year’s trailers. Hyperstrike’s had some redeeming quality using Toho Godzilla and Rodan footage. But in general they sucked hard. It was a nice reminder that this program is broadcast on the same station that the shows SCIFI Original Pictures.

Dr. Dark’s final confrontation with the heroes was a bit of a let down. They just blasted him after the stunt-training segment and left him there. There should have been some sort of bigger payoff and the superheroes should have handed him off to the authorities as part of their final victory. It was a lame end to a villain that helped make the show.

There was a missed opportunity as well with Dr. Dark. They should have allowed Dr. Dark to make some sort of funny final statement from Jail. It would have helped close the show.

I enjoyed this season for the most part although, it lost some of the freshness factor by being a second season. Stan and the gang will need to mix it up if they do a third season so it doesn’t get stale.

Stan's after show interview with Feedback here