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akinoameShorter review than usual this time, thanks to the trouble I had in finding the episode, and the stomach flu. Cable's back, so I shouldn't have much trouble with watching it anymore. Can't promise anything about my health.
A webslinger makes his way across the city while fleeing from a pursuer on a glider. No, it’s not Spider-Man; Ben, as Spidermonkey, is on the run from a bounty hunter named Sunder, who is after the Omnitrix. Ben is cornered and reverts to human form, and Sunder raises his ax. Ben holds up his left arm to block, but the ax cuts right through, interfering with the Omnitrix and thus leaving Ben’s left hand from the wrist down severed, while his body is trapped in the Null Void. Acting on its own, Ben’s hand manages to find its way to Julie, who naturally freaks the hell out before recognizing the Omnitrix and calling in Kevin and Gwen. Kevin, naturally, laughs his ass off and starts making puns before getting to work trying to recover Ben. However, Sunder is still after the Omnitrix and comes after the trio, forcing them to fight with Julie using Ben’s hand and Omnitrix as a weapon. Meanwhile, Ben is trying to make his way through the Null Void to Grandpa Max’s old hovel to find some hope of getting home, but he only runs into trouble. Kevin finally puts together the device to bring Ben back home, but it won’t allow both body and hand to exist in the same plane, and the hand is sent to the Null Void. Fortunately, curious aliens activate the Omnitrix, allowing Ben to fight on Earth. Kevin realizes that they need the ax and his device in tandem to put Ben back in one piece, and after a difficult fight, Gwen and Ben finally manage to obtain it. Julie focuses the device’s beam on Ben’s arm while Kevin carefully tries to line up the ax just right, knowing that one wrong move will result in Ben’s hand being torn across dimensions and Ben suffering a very bloody and painful injury. But when Kevin’s hand proves a little too unsteady, Gwen loses her patience and just hacks away, hitting just right. The backlash of energy creates a swirling vortex of red energy, just as Sunder awakens and comes after them again. The vortex sucks him in like the gates of Hell, and Ben is restored and whole, while Sunder is trapped in the Null Void, where Ben’s made a few…friends.
This episode is ultimately a fun romp—the writer had done some episodes of Danny Phantom, and it certainly feels like an adventure Danny would have gone through. From start to finish, the point of it is to have fun, from Ben’s disembodied hand running around the place like Thing from The Addams Family to the bad puns made by Kevin and Ben as they prove they share the same sense of humor in the face of severed limbs and attacking bad guys.
A major source of the humor comes from the connection still present between Ben’s body and hand. In the beginning, when Ben tries to fight in the Null Void, his hand is still clenching into a fist and fighting on Earth. Ben can still feel his hand, including when a dog is slobbering all over it. The connection is strong enough that activating the Omnitrix allows Ben to morph as well, and with the Omnitrix relocated to his chest, it renders his hand a weapon. Julie uses Diamondhead’s hand as a blaster, but it causes crystal shards to be fired from the stump on his arm. While he’s crossing that perilous Mordor bridge last seen in “Voided.” As Julie, Gwen, and Kevin toss the hand around to try and keep it away from Sunder, Ben feels himself getting thrown in all sorts of directions, struggling to keep in control of his body. And again, while trying to cross the Mordor bridge. This episode doesn’t worry itself too much about much of anything, just enjoying itself as it goes along. And despite the standalone nature of the season thusfar, this episode seems to have come off as one of the stronger ones simply for not taking itself quite as seriously, even among other episodes that aren’t too serious either (such as gold-pooping aliens, boom-happy alien cattle herders, and an entire send-up of Red vs. Blue).
“Singlehanded” was written by Marty Isenberg.
A webslinger makes his way across the city while fleeing from a pursuer on a glider. No, it’s not Spider-Man; Ben, as Spidermonkey, is on the run from a bounty hunter named Sunder, who is after the Omnitrix. Ben is cornered and reverts to human form, and Sunder raises his ax. Ben holds up his left arm to block, but the ax cuts right through, interfering with the Omnitrix and thus leaving Ben’s left hand from the wrist down severed, while his body is trapped in the Null Void. Acting on its own, Ben’s hand manages to find its way to Julie, who naturally freaks the hell out before recognizing the Omnitrix and calling in Kevin and Gwen. Kevin, naturally, laughs his ass off and starts making puns before getting to work trying to recover Ben. However, Sunder is still after the Omnitrix and comes after the trio, forcing them to fight with Julie using Ben’s hand and Omnitrix as a weapon. Meanwhile, Ben is trying to make his way through the Null Void to Grandpa Max’s old hovel to find some hope of getting home, but he only runs into trouble. Kevin finally puts together the device to bring Ben back home, but it won’t allow both body and hand to exist in the same plane, and the hand is sent to the Null Void. Fortunately, curious aliens activate the Omnitrix, allowing Ben to fight on Earth. Kevin realizes that they need the ax and his device in tandem to put Ben back in one piece, and after a difficult fight, Gwen and Ben finally manage to obtain it. Julie focuses the device’s beam on Ben’s arm while Kevin carefully tries to line up the ax just right, knowing that one wrong move will result in Ben’s hand being torn across dimensions and Ben suffering a very bloody and painful injury. But when Kevin’s hand proves a little too unsteady, Gwen loses her patience and just hacks away, hitting just right. The backlash of energy creates a swirling vortex of red energy, just as Sunder awakens and comes after them again. The vortex sucks him in like the gates of Hell, and Ben is restored and whole, while Sunder is trapped in the Null Void, where Ben’s made a few…friends.
This episode is ultimately a fun romp—the writer had done some episodes of Danny Phantom, and it certainly feels like an adventure Danny would have gone through. From start to finish, the point of it is to have fun, from Ben’s disembodied hand running around the place like Thing from The Addams Family to the bad puns made by Kevin and Ben as they prove they share the same sense of humor in the face of severed limbs and attacking bad guys.
A major source of the humor comes from the connection still present between Ben’s body and hand. In the beginning, when Ben tries to fight in the Null Void, his hand is still clenching into a fist and fighting on Earth. Ben can still feel his hand, including when a dog is slobbering all over it. The connection is strong enough that activating the Omnitrix allows Ben to morph as well, and with the Omnitrix relocated to his chest, it renders his hand a weapon. Julie uses Diamondhead’s hand as a blaster, but it causes crystal shards to be fired from the stump on his arm. While he’s crossing that perilous Mordor bridge last seen in “Voided.” As Julie, Gwen, and Kevin toss the hand around to try and keep it away from Sunder, Ben feels himself getting thrown in all sorts of directions, struggling to keep in control of his body. And again, while trying to cross the Mordor bridge. This episode doesn’t worry itself too much about much of anything, just enjoying itself as it goes along. And despite the standalone nature of the season thusfar, this episode seems to have come off as one of the stronger ones simply for not taking itself quite as seriously, even among other episodes that aren’t too serious either (such as gold-pooping aliens, boom-happy alien cattle herders, and an entire send-up of Red vs. Blue).
“Singlehanded” was written by Marty Isenberg.
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Date: 2009-10-28 12:53 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-28 02:36 am (UTC)