Wednesday, October 6, 2021

What If... Powerpuff Girls

Powerpuff Girls' main leads are iffy to me. Even during the Craig McCracken era, there was something about them that felt condescending, like they have a borderline black and white outlook most of the time. That clown who was corrupted by black and white ink? Beat the shit out of because he harmed the girls. Princess Morbucks, okay by all means don't let her in, but I'll get into that in another section. Sedusa, I'm still trying to rub that memory out of my head. Sandman, god forbid someone does their job. 

The way they went about their heroics implies something bigger would've been at work, but given that Craig had always been about comedies (as far as mainline programs go), I feel like he was out of his element most of the time.

Like with Teen Titans, I feel there were some missed opportunities. So...

What if

For Powerpuff Girls, when you get right down to it, it feels like they're setting up a big twist where the girls would slowly turn into villains, given their maturity and moral compass. It would help establish a moral grey between heroism and ego and leave people questioning how far apart they are from more contemporary villains. Heck, keep things neutral and let the viewer think for themselves.

Princess Morbucks didn't have to become a Powerpuff Girl, but this would've been a good opportunity to try some character development. After some time of being a villain, she'd blank off the map and resurface as a vigilante. Or perhaps something bad happens to one of the girls and Morbucks is reluctantly brought aboard due to her power matching those of the girls, where she would gradually understand the reason for prior objection and would gradually become more noble. 

Point is, it was a pretty big, pretty obvious opportunity.

How about an idea involving Sedusa's hair, where the cut shreds would have possessive tendencies and were the reason for Sedusa being evil in the first place (if staring into her eyes doesn't turn people into stone, cut out the Medusa allegory), they would take over Miss Bellum (perhaps as vengeance for the haircut situation) and make her evil, and thus the Mayor would get some development as he would take his position more seriously.

How much have the Amoeba Boys been established? I may've missed something, but why have them be amoebas? I'm thinking they'd be better off as ghosts, forced to walk amongst the living until they could establish themselves as true villains. It's a stretch... real big stretch.

Anything else would lead to exploring mental issues that would put the show in an area it's not aiming for.

But here's a bigger twist... make Blossom an antagonist.

There is good chemistry between the girls no doubt, but it feels as though Blossom is the most likely to crack at some point, with how seriously she takes her work. Over time she becomes more and more aggressive in fighting crime and winds up crossing a line she shouldn't have. This winds up turning the town against her, distraught that Townsville is siding with villains over a situation she thought she was in the right on causes her to run away, then resurface as a villain of her own, intent on taking down Townsville and the Townsvillains.

I also feel there was a better way to go about Bubblevicious, where Bubbles fights better when she's in a playful mood. She gets sloppier when she's angry and her frustration builds on people who consider her weak. It is when she comes to terms with whom she truly is that she reaches her peak in crime fighting.

There could've also been an episode where Blossom gets disillusioned when a female she idolizes turns out to be a hack and she loses her morale to fight crime, perhaps include a tender moment between her and Buttercup.

An inverse to that would be where Blossom idolizes a female who causes her to pick up bad habits, unaware that it's a villain manipulating her.

It's a bunch of thoughts...

No comments:

Post a Comment