Teaser: Action Man helps teach Jacques some martial art moves, but Jacques is soon captured by Doctor X who tries to force him into revealing the location of Action Force Headquarters. Jacques, defiant, says nothing, but in an attempt to send an SOS to Action Man, he inadvertently leads him into a trap!
REVIEW DONE BY : Manetoys
PERILS AT PERIGEE
The adventure begins at an airforce base in southern California. Where two men guarding a jet plane are snatched off screen and replaced with Skullmen. Again, I’m noticing a sever lack of decent security. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Action Man was the only guy that actually WANTS to save the world. Dr. X boards on to the plane where it’s pilots are tied and gagged. One of the Skullmen is seen at the thingypit. Dr. X takes off only to discover that the fuel tank appears to be low on fuel and screams in frustration.
At Action Force Headquarters, Norris alerts the team of the theft. (Norris seems especially um… large in this episode, doesn’t he?) Anyway, he mentions that the jet is fully computerized and is loaded with missiles and smart bombs. With this, he could start a war, but he’s low on fuel. He demands a fuel tanker or he’ll blow up half of Hollywood. I personally say, as long as it’s not Disneyland, I don’t care.
Once taking off in the Action Force Jet, Action Man puts on magnetic gloves and climbs down onto the stolen jet by climbing down the tube that refills the jet. Once it’s refueled, Action Man blows a hole in the jet and climbs in. But Dr. X finds out and AM is greeted with Skullmen. Action Man decides to leap out and open his parachute. Dr. X makes the obvious assumption that if “Action Man is here, so is Action Force.†So he fires a missle at AM and the team tries to help. The missile barely misses him, but singes his parachute and responds to it in a “Houston, we have a problem†sort of way by just saying “Guys, I have a problem.â€
The Missile heads towards Hollywood and even makes a cool shot right through the “O†in the Hollywood sign. J’ock locks in on the missile’s command channel and contacts Dr. X and teases him saying “This is your captain speaking and kiss your missile goodbye. It’s mine now.†J’ock attempts the same “O†move X made but it doesn’t go as well and kinda knocks the O over. More calmly than you’d assume one could while falling from the sky, Action Man kinda reminds them that he IS infact falling from the sky. Natalie seems unaware that his parachute was on fire ‘cause she wonders why he doesn’t use it. They fly underneath him and Action Man is caught by Knuck and the missile plunges harmlessly into the water.
Back at Action Force Headquarters, J’ock seems depressed. It seems he’s sick of being stuck in a wheelchair and wishes he could take care of himself. Action Man gets the idea of putting him in a zero-g room so he wouldn’t need his chair for a little bit. J’ock wants to learn how to defend himself and Action Man tells him “To move like the master, you must think like the master.†Which triggers a memory flashback of an old temple and a man in kind of a buddah robe scolding him. He wonders where he could have learned this.
As they train, J’ock actually manages to flip AM over. Their training session is interrupted though when Natalie tells them they’re wanted at the COM link. Norris informs them that the plane was stripped of its weapons around the edge of South America.
Naturally, Action Force has to get those weapons from Dr. X. Once they take off, they arrive at the European Space Agency where Action Man finds lots of Skullmen. Whatever’s going on, it’s a doozey. They need a way to get in without alerting them and Natalie conveniently looked at the center’s blueprints before they came down so she knows all the access tunnels and hatches. So through there, it appears J’ock has hacked into the system in the classic R2D2 style and learns that Dr. X is going to launch 2 rockets. He can stop them, but it’ll take time with the amounts of security encryptions in the system. As he does this, Action Man orders the others to find another way to stop the rockets. Preferably a faster one.
Meanwhile, Dr. X monologs about how soon they will be in space and Action Force will be indisposed. Gangrene however whines about how he doesn’t want to GO into space because it’s “Cold and airless.†Dr. X then makes a crack about how space is a vacuum, like his head. Now really X, was that necessary? There’s a bleep on his screen and he sends some Skullmen to the area Action Man is.
Back to the good guys, J’ock manages to hack in, but Skullmen attack just as he does. Action Man manages to fight some of them off, but once he, he discovers that J’ock has vanished from his chair. Action Man gives a red alert and tells them to take out his supply rocket as he goes after them. Elsewhere, there’s a flood of water that prevents the supply rocket from launching. As Dr. X watches, he runs to the elevator to the next rocket with Gangrene and boards the other rocket. As the elevator ascends, Action Man grapples himself onto the bottom of it and follows. He calls the others, telling them to return to Jet Extreme and return for pick up. He then ambushes Dr. X. X ells him “You may have stopped my supply rocket, but that’s all you will do unless you want something bad to happen to the boy.†He then points to J’ock, who is being held by a skullman and Gangrene. They then go in the rocket and it takes off. Action Man then manages to escape on their helicopter, which is OBVIOUSLY NOT Jet Extreme.
Oh well. The rocket enters space and does it’s usual detachments as it flies towards the Russian space station. Dr. X begins his usual brag saying that once Station Extreme reaches “Perigee†which is the lowest point of orbit, he will lauch his smart bombs at it and blow it to bits. J’ock tells him that he doesn’t know the quardrents, (I know, I misspelled it) but Dr. X reminds him that HE knows. Despite Gangrene’s offer to use some truth serum on him, Dr. X says he has something just as good and more unpleasant in mind. He then has him thrown into some locked room where J’ock finds a radio spectrometer and begins to take it apart.
Back on Station Extreme, Knuck makes a comment hat if J’ock were here; he’d be able to find himself real fast. Just then, they pick up a signal from the Russian space station. Afterwards, on the station, J’ock here’s Dr. X and Gangrene coming and quickly puts the radio back as it was. Gangrene pleads with him to let him use some hypnosis techniques he knows but Dr. X of course refuses. If Dr. X wasn’t going to let him DO anything, why’d he bring him along? Can’t be for conversation. All he does is whine. Dr. X tells him that J’ock has already helped them. Dr. X isn’t stupid after all.
He purposely put J’ock in that room so he’d use the radio to bring the team there, kill them there, and take over Station Extreme. I have to admit, that’s awfully clever. Action Man launches a shuttle from Jet Extreme and heads towards the station. Hmm, shouldn’t Action Man be wearing some sort of space suit? I mean, I don’t care if I’m just taking a shuttle to a station, if I’m gonna be in space, I want a suit! But I guess that’s he’s Action Man and I’m not. Anyhow, Dr. X sees his shuttle coming and fires a couple of missles at him. J’ock then flips over the skullmen holding him captive into the screen Dr. X was using, smashing it but the missiles continue to follow Jet Extreme’s warm engines anyway. Then one of the missiles chases after Action Man’s shuttle as the other one continues after the jet but they dodge in time and smash the missiles into each other. Dr. X though is none the wiser and thinks the missiles have done their jobs. As Dr. X remains beside himself, Action Man sneaks onto the station, blows some skullmen away, and drives Dr. X crazy when he relizes he’s on board. Dr. X orders Gangrene to ready the emergency reentry vehicle ready and grabs J’ock. Once Action Man appears, Dr. X threatens to hurt J’ock but the two wink at each other and J’ock flips over Dr. X, sending him into the reentry vehicle.
Afterwards, back at Action Force Headquarters, the whole team stands in the zero-g room in ninja clothes. Action Man says that even though Dr. X got away, he learned never to mess with anyone on his team. Knuck says he wishes he could’ve seen Dr. X’s face when J’ock flipped him. J’ock takes hold of Knuck, says “Want a mirror?†and flips him over just the same way and tells him “That’s the look.â€
So, what have we learned about Action Man’s past today? Well, mainly that he remembers a temple and that he had some sort of Tibetan monk teacher that was displeased with something he did, but we still aren’t sure what.
FINAL VERDICT: Decent episode. I liked for one, how this episode took us all over the place. First we’re in a desert air force, then somewhere in South America, and finally up in space in a Russian station. So you never really knew what the whole story was right away. I also liked how the spotlight was on one of the more underused characters this time, J’ock. I felt it was nice to give the guy that’s usually helpless in a fight the “final punch†of the episode.