Outhouse tvphile Nightfly critically reviews Stan Lee's Superhumans on The History Channel.
Stan's collection of Superhumans did not impress me this week. I try to make my own fun with this series by envisioning these four (4) person profiles as fantasy superteams assembled for a very few very select missions. What mission would ever require these guys? Of the three 'superhumans' with reliable powers, not subject to interpretation, the best was a Forrest Gump styled forever-runner... and the weakest (would-be) superhuman presented thus far has to be this week's oddball beatboxer. Yeah, I said Beatboxer.
Bendy Daniel Brown Smith spent most of this week in America, beginning in heavenly Marin County, California (serene home of Lucas' famed Ranch) where endurance runner Dean Karnaze exploits a chemical imbalance in his system to do superhuman things like run 50 marathons in 50 days then run all the way back home again. Born from a single (magic?) bottle of bad tequila, Ultra-Marathon Man amazingly creates less lactic acid the longer he runs... physically, nothings to stop him from running continuously every minute till he dies (of old age, or whatever).
Next stop, Boston. Professional Wrestler John Ferraro (stagename: Gino Martino) demonstrates unseemly headbashing skills into numerous objects, involving the most bloodshed seen in a profile to date. Dubbed by Stan The Human Anvil, Ferraro may not literally have the "indestructible" head he claims, but his skull density is just over twice as thick as normal. This one had to be seen to be believed.
Still trekking easterly (towards Scotland), DBS stopped in NYC to hear and be threatened by slightly off-putting 'musician', Kenny Muhammad, a.k.a. Human Orchestra. As a musician myself, it gives me no joy to condemn this choice of 'superhuman.' Yes, he has a physical abnormality, which seems to pass for 'super' on this series... but I'd wager his kind of body/throat variance could probably also be found among some bird callers. Will Stan present a specialized Bird Caller as the next Superhuman? Cockatoo Man sounds spectacularly similar to an actual one?!? No thanks. In my book, the real Human Beat Box (Fat Boys) is more superhuman, as is the sound efx guy from Police Academy (a.k.a. Michael Winslow).
Lastly was an even more questionable Superhuman based out of Edinburgh, Scotland. Christopher Robinson a.k.a. Future Man has mastered a degree of subconscious control over his dreamstates that allows him to foresee the future. That he a) lucid dreams and b) keeps a pad handy to note them (throughout the nite) isn't what makes Chris 'superhuman', it's that his incredibly high degree of accuracy has led him to work with multiple gov't intelligence agencies across the globe. After dreaming of the Lockerbie air tragedy, he began heroically offering his disaster dreams to world powers to do with what they wish. Whether Future Man passed the test DBS posed him (or not) I'll leave for you to judge.
Most of the women I've known have had a dream or two come true...my grandpa could move logs in the fire with his bare hands cuz MS had destroyed any feeling (nerve endings) in his right arm... even as a child with a coloring book and crayons in my hands I didn't consider my grandparents superhuman?! (except when they helped me track down elusive issues of my favorite comics by driving all over town to comb through spin racks!!!!)
Let's hope Stan assembles a better, more Super, team for us next week. Not every physical abnormality does a Superhuman make.
Till Next Time.
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