The sad story of the Tin Man.
Last time on Creature Commandos,
we got a brief history of the Bride. Back in the 1860s she was made by Dr.
Victor Frankenstein as the future companion and bride of his creature; this
version being dubbed Eric. While the animation was a success, the Bride
immediately freaked out upon seeing Eric and spurned his advances. Over an
unspecified amount of time, Victor helped the Bride learn and grow mentally,
the two of them forming a connection that culminated in him giving her a
Tourmaline necklace and then the two of them banging one out. Eric saw them and
ultimately murdered their maker, assuming Victor was standing in the way of his
and the Bride’s love. She attacked him, set the castle on fire, and so began a
centuries-long cat and mouse game between them. In the present, the Bride and
Nina search around the ruined castle until Nina finds the necklace. They’re
then attacked by Circe. The Bride holds her and the Sons of Themyscira off for
a while but is ultimately defeated when Circe turns her arms into tube-men and
shoves her from the roof. Nina gets her helmet broken by a gun shot and passes
out from lack of water beside her. The boys, meanwhile, were delayed by Ilana
patching up Rick Flag’s injuries after his fight with Phosphorous… and then
insisting on getting some silver fox, if ya know what I mean. They rushed to
the castle, following Nina and the Bride’s tracking implant after he’s
finished. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?
We begin with the cavalry arriving
at the ruins of castle Frankenstein. GI Robot wants to go in guns blazing, but
Flag tells him to hold off until they figure out what’s going on. As he
explains the plan, GI Robot has a flashback to his first mission with Easy Company
back in WW2. He’s affectionately known as Tin Man by his unit. They’re ambushed
by a squad of Nazis and all hell breaks loose. It takes GI Robot a few minutes
to assess the situation, but once he determines they’re surrounded by Nazis, he
goes into kill mode. He turns himself into a spinning gun turret and mows the
Nazis down, killing all of them in seconds. After the fight, his team salute
him at a bar, saying that he’s forever a member of Easy Company, and while
clearly confused by these signs of affection, GI still cracks a smile.
Back in the present, Flag waves his
team in and then burst into the castle to find the Bride tied to a chair with
tape on her mouth. She is screaming at them through the tape, the team think
there’s a trap of some kind until they pull the tape off. The Bride says that
everyone left already. GI Robot asks about “Friend Nina,” and is told she was
taken upstairs before the Sons left. He rushed up to find her, while Flag takes
the time to chew out his resurrected warrior. GI Robot finds Nina in a bathtub
with barbed wire across the top to trap her inside. GI Robot frees her and says
that while he’s disappointed there are no Nazis to kill, it’s lessened by
seeing her alive. Nina says she can’t leave the water as her helmet was
destroyed, but she had a spare at the castle that GI Robot could get for her.
Thinking that a waste of time, GI Robot just lifts the ancient tub with his
incredible robot strength.
The others realize that this was a
distraction to get them away from the Castle and rush back to the truck to get
back there. GI Robot arrives and shoves Nina’s tub in the back before getting
in after. As Flag tells Alexi what’s happening, namely they were lured away so
the Sons could attack the castle, GI Robot has a flashback to an interview he
did on a talk show after the war. He’s clearly confused by the attention, and
is distressed when he scans the crowd to find no obvious Nazis in it. He
promises to dispatch any nazis in the crowd, and when the host says that he’s
sure there are no Nazis here, he points out, “That is exactly what a Nazi would
say.” We shift focus to General King talking with a Dr. Magnus. King points out
that GI Robot wasn’t really built for this kind of publicity moment, with
Magnus correcting him and saying that he prefers to call his Robot and AI. He
notes that GI Robot has obviously developed some kind of personality and is
fascinated by it. King says they’ll be retiring GI Robot from the press circuit
and offers to hand him over to Magnus for his studies.
We cut to sometime in the future
where GI Robot powers back on. He’s hanging by some mechanical arms and is
missing his lower half but that doesn’t seem to bother him too much. Dr.
William Magnus introduces himself, and GI Robot asks if Magnus is a Nazi or if
there are any Nazis to kill nearby. Magnus says he isn’t and says that GI is
pretty obsessed with Nazis. GI Robot points out that killing Nazis is literally
what he was built for. Magnus asks what GI Robot wants. GI Robot says that what
he wants is irrelevant, he has a mandate to kill Nazis. Magnus asks what he’d
do if, hypothetically, GI Robot didn’t have a directive. GI Robot says that
he’d like to see Easy Company again… and kill Nazis with them. Magnus tells GI
Robot that the war was 20 years ago, so he has no idea where Easy Company is
now. GI Robot starts listing off his unit’s names and asking if they ring any
bells, but Magnus says he hasn’t heard of any of them. He says that GI Robot
will help him a great deal, not to kill Nazis but to build the next generation
of automaton.
At the Palace, Ilana is awoken by a
guard, saying they’re under attack. He tries to get her to safety, but has his
upper half blown off by an RPG. Two Sons Dude bros spot her and chase after
her. The Creature Commandos pull up to the Palace gates but are still a ways
out. Ilana runs but is captured by one of the goons that slaps her on the ass.
We learns Circe ordered them to kill her on the spot, but the goon thinks it’d
be a waste to just kill her and says he wants a ‘good time’ with her. Ilana
claws his face with her nails, gets dropped and runs to a room she barricades
herself in.
The Creature Commandos pull up,
killing a dude with a grenade as they slide in. The combat types wade in, The
Bride shooting, Phosphorous melting bullets to ash before microwaving some
goons, and Weasel being a rabid animal. One of the guards brings Nina her spare
suit, but she asks what he expects her to do about anything. He says she can
join the battle with it… right before taking a bullet to the brain.
GI Robot flashes back to when he
was basically an antique collecting dust. We learn from the guy selling GI
Robot that Magnus got what he could from GI Robot, and after that he bounced
around from lab to lab until the government sort of just forgot about him. He’s
bought by a military collector named Sam. He brings GI Robot back to his home
and cats, fills him with gas and powers him back up. GI Robot powers up and
asks for Sam’s name and Rank. Sam says that he’s just a guy, that he always
wanted to serve but he’s got a bum leg. He shows GI Robot around his house and
his collection of military hardware. They have a nice night with Sam’s cat and
watching WW2 Movies. Later, Sam dresses him up in a hat and coat, taking him
out to meet some ‘friends’ of his. You’ve all seen the next part. Sam brings GI
Robot to what turns out to be an American Nazi rally. GI Robot notices several
Nazi tattoos and gear on the men, but doesn’t act until they unveil a swastika
and name themselves the Hub City National Socialists Club. GI Robot says “Oh
boy, Nazis.” We then get a fight scene in two different eras. In the present,
GI Robot asks if the Sons are Nazis, and Flag tells him ‘yes.’ Past and Present
GI Robot goes on a spree, mowing down Nazis and Sons of Themyscira. We see that
Magnus did keep his promise to upgrade him, giving him a antigravity unit and
more guns, turning him into an even more efficient spinning death turret. GI
Robot is arrested for killing the Hub City Socialists and put in prison with
the Creatures. As GI Robot cackles with delight at getting to kill Nazis again
after so long… Circe arrives and destroys his head. She then flies to the
palace.
In the palace, Ilana gets her hands
on a gun and kills the two goons chasing her. But then Circe bursts in and
starts throwing her around with magic. Ilana tries to bargain, saying that
she’ll give the sorceress whatever she wants. Circe says that she wants her
dead. But before she can kill Ilana, Weasel bursts in and rips into her with
his teeth and claws. Circe tries to escape, but Weasel clings on, causing her
to crash. Phosphorous then grabs her by the face and hits it with an atomic
blast. Flag looks on in horror, and the Bride tells him that he wanted
monsters, so that’s what he got.
Nina finds GI Robot’s head. He’s
still functional, but barely. He says how happy he was at getting to kill Nazis
with his friend, Nina. He says what a beautiful day it is, and dies as he says
Cheers to the Tin Man.
With the others, Circe is still
alive, she is a goddess after all. Badly burned, face mangled, and in serious
agony, she says they’re all idiots and have doomed the world. Well… crap.
So, I have figured out the formula
to this show, where we’ll get the backstories of each of the commandos as we go
and learn that they’re all a lot sadder than when they first appeared. I’m both
excited for and dreading Weasel’s. Seeing GI Robot go from the high point in
his life, fighting Nazis with soldiers that love and respect him, to a curio for
collectors is genuinely sad. I do respect that Dr. Magnus did upgrade GI Robot,
but the fact he just used GI Robot up and passed him off to the next person is sad.
He’s a machine that outlived his purpose and is clearly aimless. I glossed over
it during the fight, but towards the end of his montage we see him in prison,
sitting on his bed, motionless, for what is clearly years. He’s covered in
cobwebs, dust and spiders by the end. It’s just sad. And while him getting taken
out is also sad, I’m at least glad he went out doing what he love… killing
Nazis. The fight with Cersi was shockingly brutal. Weasel was straight up
maiming her with his claws and teeth there. I know that this is a mature series
and it’d be silly to not lean into the violence that a cartoon can allow for, I
just wasn’t expecting to see a goddess get her face clawed and burned like
that. Phosphorous went for the eyes and that is absolutely brutal. And Cerci
claiming that this will somehow doom the world is… interesting. I’m curious to
see what she means by this and how the team will handle it. Obviously, Flag
might have something to say about this given his recent… experience with the
princess. But we’ll have to wait and see where it goes. See you later.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/viewer-log-ep-3-142215617
Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social
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