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popculturebuffet · 1 year

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Dia De Los Muertos Special Part 2 of 2: el Tigre: The Grave Escape (Comission For WeirdKev27)

Hola a todos ustedes gente feliz! It's time for the second part of our day of the dead spectacular so I hope you lost souls are hungry as we dive into one roast beast of a show with El Tigre under the cut!

El Tigre was part of something that i'm endlessly fascinated from and will likely keep touching on on and off till the end of time.. or until my lifespan reaches it's natural end.. being devoured by geese: the 2000's superhero show boom, which was awesome as hell and I still have to get to Jake Long, Kim Possible (which I sorta count), My Life as A Teenage Robot and MANY more at some point. It was a grand time and i'm still shocked this is the second show from it i've fully covered but here we are.

El Tigre set itself apart from the already great pack though with it's simple but brilliant premise: It's the story of the tweenage Manny Rivera, better known as El Tigre, who's the son of the goody good super babyface hero White Pantera.. and Grandson of the ubervillian Puma Loco. And that my friends is the hook: Instead of being a straight up superhero or crimefighter like his peers, Manny is torn between being a superhero or a supervillian, exploring both sides of his heritage. Helping him out or sometimes just hanging around is his best friend, sorta love intrest and enabler Frieda, a wild spirit whose ironically the daughter of the local asshole police chief. And to the shows credit the cops are not potrayed as good guys just due to position, with Frieda's dad, while meaning well, not being the best guy.

It's a hook that simply slaps. Manny still fights supervillians and has his own rogues gallery of course, many of whom hate him in paticular, but instead of just fighting the good fight he can often be motivated by his own selfish motives and impulsivness. He can also fight dirty, with the most memorable bit to me being from when he ended up fighting a bunch of senior citizen supervillians he bonded with.. and collapses their retirment home on them. They surivive, this cartoon's heavy on slapstick and very light in tone, but it's still not something you'd see Danny or Jenny pulling unless the villian was REALLY that strong or terrible. It gave the series it's own unique flavor.

It's also one of the two thigns, the other being the flash arc the return of barry allen which i've just added to the giant pile of things I need to cover, that cemented one of the superhero tropes I love the most: Legacy Heroes. The sense that this mantle the hero is wearing has a long history before them and will after them and that whoever picks it up matters. While Manny's only the second El Tigre, we'l lme the first in a moment, he's the latest in a long line of super heroes and villians and it's hard to pick which side of his lienage to go with and which beloved family member to turn his back on. It also makes the lack of him making a choice for some time easier to swallow as it's understandable a 12 year old both dosen't want to pick between his guardians, and wants to really think this out.

So naturally having never seen this episode in full I was excited to plunge into the Grave Escape. In addition to being a Dia De Los Muertos episode from Jorge freaking Gutieerz, series creator and awesome dude, it dives into that legacy as Manny meets every previous rivera.

So I was expecting a bit of an epic.. and what I got.. was…

The Grave Escape isn't a terrible episode, but it's underwhelming espeically since the setup is decent: Manny as he's grown older has gotten tired of day of the dead and while he feigns excitment for his Dad and Grandpapi's sake, he has no real intrest in it. This works as a lot of kids get disillusoned with holidays and it's a classic trope for a holiday special. The only part of it that dosen't it is Manny not believing in the Land of the Dead despite his famlies collective deadliest foe being.. Sartanna of the Dead. Whose the villian of this episode. It dosen't help both Manny and his father get their powers from magic and it's heavily implied Puma's mech suit is also magic powered. So yeah he has NO reason to not belivie this is possible.

He's not the only one though as Sartanna, fittingly enough, has a day of the dead plan: create a giant monster from the forgotten dead. It's simple, but it works, tying into the holdiay's themes of rememberance and Manny's own mistakes without making him responsible.

Said colossus easily trounces our three main characters and frieda.. and sends Manny and Frieda into the land of the dead. The Land of the dead is beautifully drawn and designed, and it's awesome that Gorge got to really expand it with book of life. I especially love how he draws calevera's, with a real flair to it. We also get a LOT of good comedy from Frieda whose entirely useless marevling over how awesome it is being a skeleton bones while Manny has to keep reminding her that if it finishes she dies… which never really takes. I do agree with her that being able to store a bird in your ribcage would be dope though.

The problem is that while we get the grand occasion of meeting all the past rivera's who wielded the various powers, and as expected of Jorge their designs are dope.. their ALMOST all interchangable, half being good half being bad. I mean one of the is Manny's great Grandfather, Grandpapi's DAD. But other than a brief hug between the two when the rivera's head ot the surface there isn't a lot. The conflict between them and Manny, them being mad he ate their offerings but eventuallyc oming to respect him and Manny becoming contrite, works well enough, it's why the episode is again mor e

Than actually bad, there's just no real personality to them. I get that Jorge likely coudln't get the runtime he wanted and this would've worked better as an hourlong, so I can't fault him there, and that he assumed there'd be more seasons where they could likely have flashbacks, but even with the small time other than one of them being a pirate, there's really nothing special other than neat designs.

Thankfully while most of them have no real personality we do meet one whose actually intresting and if Jorge was going to just pick ONE and stick with it this was the one. El Tigre. No not Manny.. THE ORIGINAL El Tigre. The first rivera and the one whose belt Manny inherited. He's a neat glimpse at what Manny could be both in good and bad ways: the good is that he shows off new powers Manny likely woudl've gotten had Nick not been nickleloden and we got more seasons: extending his claws, a firey roar, and the ablility to summon an ancient tiger spirit, an abliity that could be something all rivera's could do with their respective animals if they tapped into it but as seen by their confusion something Papi and Rudlopho haven't learned of. There's a lot of potetial here that's sadly untapped thanks to teh series short run, seriously Paramount give it a revivial come on.. or at least put it on there COME ON.

The bad.. is that El Tigre I didn't pick a side.. thus he developed two personaliteis instead, one a hero, one a villian and flip flops between the two. It shows that if Manny dosen't pick a side or find his own path between them, it could destroy him. And the potetial is there: Manny's being asked to pick between the two people he loves the most and can't just pick both: while his grandpapi and dad will always love him whichever side he chooses will turn one of them into an enemy. It's a stark cautoionary tale while also showing that this man is damn badass, kind and the kind of cool masked vigliante Manny could be no matter what side he chooses. The two are also great togehter with El Tigre Senior easily accepting his younger legacy and helping tutor him. It's also nice in that while Pantera and Loco take intrest in Manny there's no agenda to push him to a side here. El Tigre I just wants to help and leaves Manny in the hands of his family to figure it out, knowing whatever he decides, it's his path and he'll take one unlike him.

The finale is also awesome. Naturally the two sides split off into heroes and villians and it takes Manny shouting them into working together to save the day? how? (Something out of my butt)

yeah while the "Rivera Super Awesome Macho Blitz" is well.. super awesome, it comes right the fuck out of nowhere. I checked it's wiki entry: it wasn't in any other episode before this. Manny just brings it up as a possibly suicidal super move. It is a neat one, as it's a fastball special but instead of just throwing a guy, each rivera accelerates like ar ocket, then slowly one breaks off leaving the last one as a human bullet, with Manny having to pull out the ancient tigert spirit which WAS actually foreshadowed , to get to the finish line. It's an ass pull sure.. but it's so gloriously cool to see all the riveras in one attack that's so neatly thought out it dosen't matter.

So the rest of the Rivera's head into the sunset, Manny has a newfound respect for tradition, and everything is good. This episode.. is as I kept saying okay. it's not at it's full potetial but it's still enjoyable, still has good worldb luiding and tha tfinal attack really is something great. It's just too short for it's own good but what we have is still pretty great. Thanks for reading, consdier joining my patreon and viva los muertos.

#el tigre #manny rivera #jorge gutierrez #nickelodeon #dia de los muertos #frieda suarez #white pantera #puma loco #sartana

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