The sad life of Dr. Alex Sartorious
Last time on Creature Commandos,
we learned a bit about Eric Frankenstein. The creature was found by an old
Romani woman named Donna that nursed him back to health. He bonded with Donna
and her dog, Ivan, but ultimately decided to leave to chase his Bride. Donna
was heartbroken at the thought of being alone… and Eric took care of that. He
bashed her brains in, is what I’m saying. In the present Flag and Eric
investigated Prof. MacPherson to show that Ilana isn’t a threat. They learn
that Prof. MacPherson had in fact been murdered and replaced with a
doppelganger. Said doppelganger is revealed to be Batman villain Clayface. Eric
and Flag try to sneak away, but Clayface finds them and starts wailing on them.
Eric is able to stop the clay menace by grabbing an electrical socket and
electrocuting it. Flag had been beaten 3/4ths of the way to death at that
point, and he begs Eric to go warn the Bride and the others they’d been duped. Meanwhile
the Commandos land in Pokolistan. Flag is able to get in contact with Ilana,
who orders her men to kill the Commandos. The Commandos get ambushed, but they
kind of slaughter the knights, including Alexi, and are separated. Enough
recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?
The episode begins with Gotham City
at night. A doctor named Alex is thrown out of the back of a moving truck. He
tries to get away, but some goons get out, follow and grab him. He’s dragged
back to the car where Gotham Gangster Rupert Thorne tells him that he’s not
going anywhere. We get a scene transition that shows Alex’s face being replaced
by Phosphorous, so ya, this is our flashback star of the episode. The glowing
green man is somehow dodging Pokolistan guards by hiding in a dumpster. He
climbs out and starts walking away, whistling a merry tune.
At the palace, Ilana’s new guard
captain Sergi is confused why the Commandos would want to kill her after they’d
been their allies. She tells him that they’re being misled by Cerci, according
to Flag. Sergi insists on taking her to their bunker, but she refuses to hide.
Nina runs from guards about as well
as a fish lady might. She thankfully bumps into The Bride, who almost shoots
her in shock, but realizes what happened at the last second. They duck into a
building, which turns out to be a brothel. Some guards saw movement and head
over to investigate. The Bride notices the owner of the brothel and tells the
woman to hide them or she’s losing her head. Nina scolds her for being so
hyperbolically violent, but the Bride isn’t listening. The guards come in, but
the working girls play coy and cover for the two until they leave. The madam
tells them to go, but the Bride says they’ll be staying until the heat is off.
Nina tries to make the best of the situation and suggests they play a game,
like Scatagories.
Jumping back to the states, we find
Waller and John rushing a very injured Rick Flag into surgery for the many
wounds he got fighting Clayface. Waller introduces herself to Flag’s doctor and
asks what the hell is going on. The doctor isn’t sure, just saying that Flag
was beat to hell, he’s in a coma, has a broken back, and multiple contusions.
They do know a monster dropped him off, and after John lists off a few
categories for them, a nurse tells them it was a green seven-foot-tall man with
bolts on his head. John recognizes Eric’s description and tells Waller about
him stalking the Bride for going on two centuries. Waller realizes that Flag
told Eric about the hit and that stopping it, according to Circe, might start
WWIII. She orders ARGUS operatives to watch all flights going out of the area.
We jump to a private jet where a
pilot goes to check out his passengers, finding Eric had massacred them. He
gives the pilot a long winded schpeel about his plans, that boils down to, fly
me to Pokolistan so I can be reunited with my Bride or die. The pilot tells his
copilot that everything is fine and they take off.
Meanwhile, Weasel flees into the
wilderness around the Pokolistan capital where he’s surrounded by wolves. Oh
no.
Phosphorous barely dodges the Royal
Nights, using his powers to break into a house to escape their search teams.
The photos he finds in the house remind him of his son and wife, back when he
was Alex Sartorious. He did whatever scientist in fiction does and trusts some
gangsters when they promise to fund his research. His research being a means of
treating cancer through radiation. He mentions that this treatment might have
saved both of his father and her mother had it existed. We then cut to Alex’s
family dead in front of him, laying in a pool of blood. Thorne, framing Alex
for their murder as he sobs, has his men get his hands all over the body,
murder weapon, and smears their blood on his face. Phosphorous is pulled out
his flashback by the little girl living in the house, who takes the glowing
skeleton in her house better than I would have. She says a word in
Pokolistanese that Phosphorous guesses means hungry.
Weasel is confronted by wolves, but
his antics with a stick seems to get the wolves on his side almost immediately.
Being something between a man and beast works out sometimes, I guess.
The madam suggests that maybe Nina
and the Bride might consider working for her, saying that her customers would
love a pair of girls as… strange as them. The Bride scoffs at this, saying that
they have more respect for themselves than that. The madam scoffs back, saying
that the Bride has no respect for herself as she clearly wants to die. The
Bride pulls a gun on her, but Nina tries to get her to stop. They’re
interrupted by a pair of johns stopping by… where the hell is Pokolistan where
they’ve got what appear to be a pair of Irish migrant workers?
We cut back to Weasel who is
clearly having a spectacular time running with the wolves.
Phosphorous got the girl some
cereal and sat with her while she ate. The girl doesn’t speak English,
obviously, as she doesn’t react to Phosphorous talking to her, saying that he
really wishes she hadn’t come out… as he doesn’t want to leave any witnesses to
his passing. We flashback to Alex’s lab, where he’s still sobbing about his
murdered family as Thorne rifles through his research. We learn that while
Thorne was funding the cancer research, part of the deal was allowing Thorne to
share the results with some buyers. The buyers being the nation of Bialya, a DC
fictional nation staple that’s in this universe currently under fascism. Alex
gave him faked research, which the Bialyans were able to see through. They find
Alex’s research, and to cover it all up, throw Alex inside his machine and
power it up. Thorne explains it’s the age old story of a nuclear scientist
going crazy, killing his family and then committing suicide by atomizing
himself. They throw the switch and blast him. The result transforming Alex
Sartorious into Dr. Phosphorous. In the present, the little girl giggles at the
‘smiling’ skeleton in front of her. Phosphorous says that “It looks like I’m
smiling too, doesn’t it? … But I’m not.” That’s so damn ominous.
At the brothel, they hear a scream
and madam Gyurov goes to check it out. One of the johns from earlier smacked
the girl he was with, who’d smacked him, but because he was hurting her. Gyurov
tells him to get out, but the john reveals he has Metahuman powers and that
he’ll do what he likes. Gyurov says that Metas are fine in her house but no one
is allowed to hurt her girls. He smacks Gyurov and goes to abuse the girl, but
Nina breaks a bottle over his head. His brother comes in and he says they’re
going to kill all the girls. The Bride instantly blows the brother’s brains
out. She then beats the piss out of the surviving brother despite his
electrical powers, and rips out his heart. They leave, but the girl they helped
thanks them. Nina tease the Bride for being softer than she acts and they strut
off into the night.
Weasel wakes up surrounded by
wolves. IN his mind, we see Weasel has associated the girl that died with Ilena
and gets up to go help her.
In the past, Dr. Phosphorous leaves
his lab, cackling madly and plotting vengeance. He goes on a rampage, breaking
into Thorne’s mansion and slaughter him and his family, and then all the men
that had helped with his family’s death. Phosphorous tells the surviving goons
that he’s taking over Thorne’s business and they can either get with it or die.
We see a very sad montage of Phosphorus getting high on his new drug kingpin
lifestyle juxtaposed against the happiest memories of Alex Sartorious. Seeing
him dance in a pimp hat opposite him dancing with his bride at their wedding is
heartbreaking. The fun stops when nonother than BATMAN comes bursting in.
In the present, the girl’s parents
wake up hearing their daughter shrieking. They rush outside to find Phosphorous
throwing their daughter up in the air and catching her. He apologizes, saying
they were just pretending to fly. He asks directions to the castle, and the
befuddled mother points the way. He thanks her and struts off.
Everyone starts to converge on the
Castle. Weasel, the Bride, Nina and Phosphorous meet outside it. Flag is out of
surgery but not awake, Waller begging him to wake up so he can help her figure
out what is going on. The Princess is outfitting all her guards with power
armor. And Eric lands, giving the pilots a fat stack of bills and breathing in
the Pokolistan air. This should be a memorable finale.
Ya know, I don’t think I’d have
guessed that Dr. Phosphorous used to be a family man. Rupert Thorne is never
exactly a good dude, but his frame up idea is downright sociopathic. Stabbing a
man’s family to death and then basically soaking him in their blood, traumatic
is an understatement. The idea that he could cure cancer with that machine is
pretty nuts, but not as much as using medical test data to do radiation
research. But that’s comics for ya. The fact that the stoic, vaguely creepy Dr.
Phosphorous is dealing with some intense trauma all this time is on brand but
still incredibly sad. I was legit worried he was going to hurt that kid, but
I’m glad he seems incapable of harming children despite his otherwise total
disregard for other people’s existence. Like I said earlier, the scene cutting
back and forth between Dr. Alex Sartorious, respected scientist, husband and
family man, and Dr. Phosphorous, amoral sociopath, metahuman and drug kingpin
was cool but sad. Plus who can say no to a Batman cameo? The Bride and Nina’s
side story was pretty neat too. I was shocked to hear Shohreh Aghdashloo’s
voice coming out of the madam’s mouth. She pops up in the strangest of places. Her
observations about the Bride having a bit of a death wish are spot on. And I
liked that Nina is proven right that the Bride is a bit softer than she acts. She’s
a scary undead lady. And Weasel playing with wolves was sweet. All I’ve gotta
say on that. See you tomorrow for Halloween (at time of writing) and the
finale, have a good night.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/viewer-log-ep-6-142462152
Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social
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