User Reviews

The little prologue in which someone is generally always about to die is such a grim and undeniably fun part of the show! In this case it's a young man hitchhiking in the desert at night who is dragged under the ground by something large and unseen... Okay, whilst investigating some strange goings-on involving mysterious radiation in the Las Vegas desert, Max and crew find themselves facing the insane and upbeat wrath of Dr.Robert Scorpio, a scientist who has lived underground in a fallout shelter in inconveniently close proximity to a nuclear testing sight for so long that he's developed a most extraordinary immunity and dependency on radiation to live, and has got a little demented over the years and has plotted out a scary master plan to irradiate the whole world so that he can finally return to the surface - oh and he has four genetically-engineered giant scorpion servants that are all named after characters on the "I Love Lucy" show! "That is an unusual giant scorpion". Apparently being giant isn't enough to qualify as unusual for Virgil, but I sure wasn't expecting it to grow its claw back and shoot lasers! I thought the animation of all the scorpions was very well done, they looked pretty menacing and cool. And I actually find Dr.Bob to be one of the more alarming villains of the series in that, apart from the radiation immunity and possible longevity he's just a man, and is scary like a crazy person is, being so charming and polite and wholesome one minute, and flying off into a paranoid rage the next. The sinister shadows on his face are excellently done in the scene where he decides that Max is 'the enemy' for sure and grabs his rifle. And I loved that whole bygone era 50's pie-on-the-windowsill angle on the character, I thought it was a great and different concept to use for a bad guy. I find the story of this one to be one of the most impressive that they came up with from the original and vague idea of the toy, which was the scorpion-shaped, toxic-themed Doom Zone "Mighty Max Stings Scorpion", which I dimly remember not being one of my favourites because when you cracked it open there wasn't all that much to it compared to many of the others. Those toys were all about the miniature landscapes and subtle details for me. This series was such a product of its time, and every other episode is a tribute or homage to some kind of old monster movie or horror sci-fi and fantasy pop culture in one form or another. And I just mainly enjoy about this one what I do about most of them. The fun, the humour, and the sense of dangerous adventure. It makes me smile every time, watch this stuff! 🦂