Weaponized empathy would by far be the best superpower at this point in time when half of the nation has traded ideology for “owning the libs.” People vote away their own healthcare in the name of hurting others they felt unworthy of the same and as Adam Serwer said, the cruelty is the point. He felt something, and it made the world a slightly better place. Why? Because he lost a dear friend to it and never wants to see another person go out like that. He’s an arch-Republican who nonetheless does everything he can to fight the opioid addiction crisis. Screengrab from Captain Planet What a gift it would be, a magic ring that would pierce the toxic smog of American conservatism.
#Captin planet ring gif drivers#
The self-loathing of the incels, the death cult of white fascism, the people here in Houston that don’t care if they endanger drivers on the freeway or desecrate a priceless landmark so long as they get to scream “it’s okay to be white”… Talking with them is often a pointless waste of time that merely helps them swell their numbers. So much of the world’s hurts are because disproportionately powerful people turn inward like a curled-up dog claw that pierces the skin, and in the resulting pain and rage they bite. Imagine being able to blast empathy and understanding at people the way Cyclops shoots eye lasers and insecurities. That’s not even counting conspiracy nuts digesting mind-pollutants like the man in Florida who tried to murder journalists and liberal politicians with pipe bombs or the Christchurch shooter who littered his manifesto with references to meme-culture and PewDiePie. Hate crimes are on the rise for the third straight year, with the normalization of violent bigotry by the Trump administration a contributing factor. There’s no knowing exactly how many people that swayed toward fascism and distrust of the American democracy, but the number is definitely not zero. How much could we use an anti-mind control ring like Ma-Ti’s right now? The Kremlin spent over $100,000 in Facebook ads at least on their psyop meant to influence the 2016 election. Thanks to his powers only Ma-Ti - the short one with a good heart - resists the temptation that leads his teammates into destruction. In the episode “The Conqueror” all the other Planeteers grab onto magic gauntlets from a fallen Earth spirit that make them more powerful in a rather obvious Lord of the Rings homage. In many episodes while everyone else is standing around deciding whether to throw fireballs or rocks at things it’s Ma-Ti who uses his ring’s telepathy and empathy powers to actually recognize threats and formulate plans. Screengrab from Captain Planet Ma-Ti’s primary power is actually listening. Only one of the villains actually had superpowers, so it’s not like Captain Planet was really needed most of the time except to make the work of a lifetime happen within a thirty-minute cartoon. This was an adventure show, sure, but very few problems can be solved by throwing a whirlwind at them and none of them on an institutional scale. If Gaia was handing out rings today, Heart would be the first one I dove for. Now that we’re living in the age of Trump though, I realize how wrong everyone was. If you had five children pretending to be Planeteers, you’d end up with two Wheelers and no Mat-Ti and absolutely no one would question why. Swagger got you to first base with the hot Russian chick empathy got you a pet monkey. I even made fun of his action figure once because it comes with a wagon clearly designed to drag his useless corpse off of the battlefield. He was like one of those poor X-Men who is just covered in multiple eyeballs or is a literal chicken.
This has universally been acknowledged as incredibly uncool. Unfortunately, the fifth and youngest Planeteer, Ma-Ti, got a ring with the ability “heart.”
It was as if a Mortal Kombat game got made into an After School Special. That’s why four of the kids got awesome powers like fire and wind. Screengrab from Captain Planet But, it was still the ‘90s, which gave us Doom and the WWF Attitude era and other painfully overcompensating things.
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