Sunday 13 January 2008

Super Sam (2005) Brent Triplett

Watched as part of the 'Selection from the Collection Part 5' at the Phoenix Art Museum courtesy of No Festival Required.

Now this one was funny. In fact it was so funny that I looked for it after getting back home and downloaded it along with a few other Brent Triplett shorts that I'm starting to work through. It deals with the superhero of the title, played by Triplett himself, talking to a crowd of people after saving someone's life.

The story hasn't got anything to do with the lifesaving, it has to do with the metaphysics of superheroes. The old superheroes need supervillains concept has been done before, notably in Unbreakable, but I particularly enjoyed the additional insight here into superheroes having their own supervillains, the archenemy thing being a connection to treasure. The opening of the movie is a Dear John letter, from Super Sam's archenemy Cold Killer who chooses to leave their relationship to be an archenemy to someone else.

Also, Super Sam grew up with someone who became a supervillain, but their relationship as kids completely trumps the fact that one is a good guy and one a bad guy. They're technically enemies but being an archenemy is a monogamous kind of thing, so they keep their fighting exclusive. This unnamed supervillain is Captain Courage's archenemy, so he only fights Captain Courage and Captain Courage only fights him. It's like a statement of honesty that's been a bone of contention with me with classic American comics for years.

Oh, and the ending is joyous.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hey I just stumbled across this article and love it. I couldn't have described Super Sam any better myself.
Hank and Jed