Watched the "Home Insecurity" episode of Venture Bros. (a show I have come to love with an unholy passion since pal Bombasticus turned me on to the Season 1 DVDs) last night. In the middle of the episode, I started wondering (in the minutia-crazed manner of all obsessives) about Baron Ünderbheit's ninja henchmen.
Ünderbheit is pretty clearly of Eastern European descent. His first name is Werner. He lives in the requisite lightning-kissed, craggy mountain Mad Scientist Castle. He rules over the country of Ünterland, enforcing his dictates through the application of Ünderlaw. If nothing else, the sheer mass of umlauts surrounding him quite clearly brands him as Germanic. Were that not enough, one of his chief lieutenants (before he got rid of his disloyal ünderlings) was called Girl freakin' Hitler.
Granted, taken together this evidence (language, geography, Nazi sidekick) could be spun to imply Herr Baron is from, like, Paraguay or somewhere, but it's best to stick with the simple eurocentric explanation, since the alternative doesn't change the parameters of the fundamental issue.
Which is this: why does a Germanic super-villain have ninja henchmen? Why does someone from Eastern Europe (or Paraguay; see, it doesn't really matter. In fact Germanic Paraguayan ninjas might even be more @#$%ed up...) rely on footsoldiers who look like Mortal Kombat rejects?
Besides, aren't ninjas supposed to be shadowy killers who kill from the shadows, rather than marginally competent goons? Is the costuming supposed to strike unwarranted fear in the hearts of opponents ("Oh $*@#! Ninjas!") giving the Ünterland nonjas a momentary, but potentially decisive, advantage?
That's better than the result of sending henchmen into the field in traditional Ünterland attire ("Look! They're wearing lederhosen! And adorable Tyrolean hats! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"). While the net result of enemies pissing themselves in laughter is arguably equivalent to pissing themseles with fear, nobody likes to be made fun of, especially not ruthless dictators who are already insecure on account of their disfigurement.
So, if we stipulate there is a strategic advantage to ninja henchmen, we're left to wonder how Ünderbheit came to his interest in the shadow warrior aesthetic. Did he watch a lot of anime in college? Did he make Yakuza contacts through the Guild of Calamitous Intent? Does he just really like sushi? Did the construction of his prosthetic jaw require specialized knowledge of cybernetics that could only be found in Japan? Did he get a good deal on the uniforms?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Did the construction of his prosthetic jaw require specialized knowledge of cybernetics that could only be found in Japan?
If this was a comic book plot and I was the editor, I'd go fer this one (but then, maybe that's just me...)
[WORD VERIFICATION: ouzwe - an anise-flavored liqueur native to Ünterland which is traditionally served in a mix with fruit punch...]
If this was a comic book plot and I was the editor, I'd go fer this one (but then, maybe that's just me...)
Given that Ünderbheit is an as thinly-veiled as is required to skirt charges of copyright infringement pastiche of Doctor Doom, you may be on to something. After all, if Von Doom's cadre of inscrutable Tibetan techno-lamas had the chops to create a nuclear-powered suit of battle armor, surely Japanese cyberneticists have access to even more rarified technology.
This is the guy feeding the scorpion into Doc Venture's room? I got the feeling that he was either an outright contract player (and so could be hired out from a more authentically "neenja" clan or other organization) or else was some kind of special high-level Ünderöperative -- someone like Catclops, only instead of being a cat mutant he had a ninja outfit.
After all, the Baron allows some individual initiative among his senior staff, he just doesn't countenance betrayal.
Also Ünderland could be one of those truly disturbing Teutonic countries with deep occult ties to Tibet and other Asian cultures, so maybe that's where he gets his ninjas from.
Yeah, it's the scorpion guy, but then later in the ep. there's a bunch of those guys facing off against Monarch's strike team, so it would seem to encompass more than a single specialist Ünderöperative.
It's possible Herr Baron orders them in bulk from Tibet, but they all had Germanic accents, so we have to assume they've been in Ünterland for a while.
I kind of read them as on the same level as those faceless-masked Hellfire Club agents that used to run around making Imperial Stormtrooper-competent trouble during Claremont's initial run on The Uncanny X-Men.
Post a Comment