History Film / Pumaman

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_pumaman_1.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:[[Franchise/StarWars That's no moon]]; that's the gods' spacestation.]]

''Puma Man'', also known as ''The Puma Man'', ''The Pyooma Man'', ''The Pyewmaymin'', or ''L'Uomo Puma'', is a 1980s superhero movie produced by Italians in English.

The plot? Our villain is Dr. Kobras (Creator/DonaldPleasence in a shiny futuristic muu-muu), who has gotten his hands on a huge golden Aztec mask, which contains alien circuitry that allows it to control minds. He plans to use it to dominate world leaders, and already has a collection of papier-mâché heads signifying his mental conquests. Only one man can stop him: the eponymous Puma Man, the scion of a line of "man-gods" sired by ancient spacefaring Aztec alien puma things. He's an American living in nearby UsefulNotes/{{London}}, so Kobras sets off to determine who his foe is by hurling potential candidates out of windows. Only the Puma Man could survive that, y'see.

Our hero is Tony Farms (Walter George Alton), an American paleontologist who is quickly discovered by Vadinho (Miguel Ángel Fuentes), an Aztec priest of the space-gods. The hulking holy man becomes Tony's mentor by hurling him out a window, chasing him around a university, and breaking into his apartment to aggressively push his belief system and fashion accessories. Tony is understandably reluctant to get involved in all this, but after mind-controlled love interest Jane Dobson (Sydne Rome) is used to lure him into a trap, Tony finally accepts his heroic destiny and a magical Aztec belt, transforming into the mighty Puma Man!

Now firmly allied with Vadinho, Tony sets about mastering his puma-derived superpowers to get the sacred mask out of Kobras' hands. He can see in the dark, sense danger, "leap" great distances (or fly, the writers don't seem to be sure), teleport, and feign death quite convincingly - you know, standard puma stuff. Oh, and his fingers can act as super-strong "claws", which Vadinho belatedly remembers to mention in the middle of a major battle. And possibly super-strength, which he uses to flip a car over and break the ropes he's bound with late in the movie, but not much else. Anyway, with these skills in hand, Tony heroically attacks Kobras' mansion stronghold, is ''soundly'' defeated, gets caught by Kobras' hypnosis, retreats, loses his superpowers through Kobras' mental commands, is nearly DrivenToSuicide by Kobras' [[MindScrew mind games]], and heroically plays dead until the villain's minions go away.

Vadinho then leads his ''own'' assault against Kobras, using a suicide belt to bluff his way inside. The Aztec resists the villain's hypnotism and demolishes his command center, while Jane Dobson smashes Tony's papier-mâché head, removing Kobras' mental control over him and restoring his powers. Puma Man quickly teleports to the rescue and helps the Aztec take down wave after wave of mooks, prompting Kobras to make a run for it. In the end, Tony is ''barely'' able to overcome an elderly bald man and cause Kobras' helicopter to crash, the golden mask is recovered, Vadinho gets beamed up by the alien-god-things, and Tony and Jane join the Quarter-MileHighClub.

It was the featured film in [[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S09E03ThePumaman an episode]] of ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000''.
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!!''Puma Man'' contains examples of:


* TheAllegedCar: Tony's dorky little Eurocompact counts, given that Vadinho can tear it apart with his bare hands.
* AndIMustScream: The characters are very aware that they are under Kobras' control, but they are tormented with excruciating pain if they go against Kobras' orders.
* ArtisticLicenseGeography: Stonehenge is ''not'' on the coast... or above sea level...
* AncientAstronauts: Traveling in space bathyspheres. Who apparently look like pumas, have terrible taste in fashion, and tend to leave mind control artifacts laying around.
* AnimalThemedSuperbeing: Type II (Animal Alias). His powers are only vaguely catlike, though.
-->'''Mike:''' I don't mean to be picky, but pumas aren't really known for flying...
** Vadinho does refer a few times to the Great God Puma, so Puma Man may derive thematically from a catlike Aztec ''god'', not from the cat itself.
* AndStarring: Both Sydne Rome (billed as "Special Guest Star" - [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiqiRyFKUQM she was popular on the Continent at the time]]) and Miguel Ángel Fuentes he gets a "With").
* AngelUnaware: When Vadinho [[spoiler:[[ButNowIMustGo is about to leave with the aliens at the end]]]], a question occurs to Tony.
-->'''Tony:''' Tell me the truth, Vadinho; are you one of them?\\
'''Crow (as Vadinho):''' Who, me? [[InformedJudaism No, I'm Jewish.]]
* BadassNative[=/=]BadassPreacher: Admittedly Vadinho's a preacher of the most ridiculous religion since Happyology, but it still counts!
* BadassNormal: Again, Vadinho, though how "normal" he is (he's strong enough to rip apart cars with his bare hands, and can magically heal himself) could be up for debate.
** Given the fact he is just a portly old man, Kobras is able to physically grapple with Tony during his attempted helicopter escape despite the fact Tony is both super strong and able to rip apart metal and stone with his "claws".
* BaldOfEvil: Kobras. "Someday I hope to be as bald as you, sir."
* BrandishmentBluff: Vadinho bluffs his way into Kobras' mansion with a bomb strapped around his chest to get near Kobras' command center.
* ButNowIMustGo: The gods at the beginning of the film. [[spoiler:Later, Vadinho, who hitches a ride back to the Andes Plateau from the gods when the mask is recovered.]]
-->'''Mike:''' [[AnalProbing And the dim sound of an anal probe can be heard as they leave.]]
* TheCallKnowsWhereYouLive: Quite literally, as Vadinho even confronts Tony in his home.
* CharlesAtlasSuperpower: In a scene deleted from the [=MST3K=] version, Vadinho lifts up the back end of Tony's car off the ground to stop him from escaping, rips the lock and handle off of door of the car and once blocked inside, rips off the steering wheel and bends the gear shift to escape. Granted, Tony drives a tiny classic Volkswagen Beetle, but it is still impressive.
* ChestInsignia: If Tony ever forgets what the MacGuffin looks like, he can just look at his shirt.
* TheChosenOne: Tony, allegedly. But everyone knows the ''real'' hero of the story is Vadinho.
* ChromaKey: Badly, badly done.
* ComboPlatterPowers: Puma Man's ''[[NewPowersAsThePlotDemands displayed]]'' powers include SuperStrength, SuperReflexes, flight, teleportation, intangibility, the ability to see in darkness, a DangerSense and [[FlightStrengthHeart the ability to send himself into a death-like coma]].
* CoversAlwaysLie: Take a good hard look at that poster up above. Now go watch the movie. Now laugh derisively.
* DangerSense: An awkward implementation. It manifests by giving him a headache and/or a dizzy spell several minutes before the actual danger occurs, and gives him no indication of what the danger will be or where it'll come from. Worse, half the time he just ignores it. (For example, Vadinho warned him that his life would be in danger at the Dutch embassy, his danger sense goes off at the Dutch embassy, but he's still taken completely by surprise when Kobras' thugs attack him at the Dutch embassy)
* DestinationDefenestration: Remember, the best way to spot your local Puma Man is to chuck people out of windows until one of them survives. The film puts a little ''too'' much effort into making us wonder if maybe Vadinho's one of the guys who's chucking random Americans out of windows looking for the right one, with how he stalks around wordlessly looking all creepy, tearing through all obstructions with his bare hands to get to Tony, and then suddenly grabbing him and shoving him out a window. Since he actually works for the aliens sponsoring Pumaman, you'd hope he'd have less murder-y methods for finding the right guy at his disposal. But it turns out it's not Vadinho, however -- there's a quick [[FreezeFrameBonus glimpse]] of the ''two'' people, neither of them Vadinho, who throw one of the other victims out a window -- but the movie doesn't go out of its way to make that clear.
* TheDinosaursHadItComing:
-->'''Jane:''' So dinosaurs became extinct because they no longer knew how to love each other. Is that right?\\
'''Tony:''' Exactly. And I wouldn't want our species to end the same way.
* DrivenToSuicide: Kobras uses the mask to convince Tony to commit suicide. Vadinho prevents it.
* DrivingADesk: Tony's flying scenes:
-->'''Mike''': He has the power to rear-project major cities!
* DullSurprise: Tony Farms, for the most part.
--> '''Tom:''' At all times he has the look of a man who's been hit with a fish.
* DumbBlonde: She seems like a nice girl and all, but holy crap is Jane ''not'' the sharpest tool in the shed. It might by slightly justified as Jane spends most of the movie under Kobras' control.
* TheEighties: Though the film came out early on in 1980, meaning it had most likely been filmed prior to the end of TheSeventies, not to mention the disco-esque music & other things.
* EleventhHourSuperpower:
** Because his {{mentor|Archetype}} ''forgot to mention'' that "your hands are claws" during the earlier orientation. Though Tony might have been able to extrapolate this from his name if his powers weren't so random.
** Later, he is told he has the ability to [[spoiler:fake his own death just as Kobras commands him to kill himself. This apparently satisfies the command, because the compulsion is gone when he wakes up.]]
* FakingTheDead: [[spoiler:Heroically! Witness as Puma Man fakes his own death so Kobras will leave him alone]] and he can let Vadinho do everything!
** MoreHeroThanThou: Even depowered, Tony ''did'' insist on going along with [[spoiler:Vadinho's suicide mission]]...
** MoreExpendableThanYou: ...but Vadinho ''really'' insisted on going alone. With his fist.
* TheFashionista: Jane has to wear a lot of very odd outfits -- i.e., the "S&M Day at the Field Museum" look -- and she pulls it off for the most part.
-->'''Tom:''' A Zubaz top, a [[LabcoatOfScienceAndMedicine lab coat]] and a veil ... it works.
* GlassCannon: Tony is super strong and fast and can fly, but the one thing he's lacking from Superman's standard FlyingBrick package is the immunity to bullets, so Tony has to dodge gunfire.
* {{Herald}}: Vadinho, it's one of his jobs, telling the hero he's TheHero.[[note]]Read 'the hero' as 'Tony Farms, the character the script tells us is the main protagonist'. Vadinho obviously has no need to serve the Herald role to ''himself''.[[/note]]
* HealingFactor In the [=MST3K=] version, Vadinho's injuries from being beaten up by Kobras' mooks are unexplainedly healed. A scene removed from [=MST3K=] has him doing a ritual to heal all his wounds.
* TheHero:
** Ostensibly Tony. He's the title character, he has some decent super powers (albeit with some of the worst special effects supporting them) which he gets a handle on how to use really quickly, and he has he occasional good idea to drive the plot forward (like sneaking a tracker into Jane's car to find Kobras' hideout). But he also has no willpower to resist the very artifact he's supposed to be the protector of, in addition to being smarmy, whiny, and not very bright overall.[[note]]The actor was probably going for "charming and roguish", but he missed the mark by a mile.[[/note]]
** This makes Vadinho, ostensibly the sidekick and/or mentor character, much more deserving of The Hero title. He's the only one who knows what's going on, and he's the only one actually effective in battle. In a scene cut from the [=MST3K=] version, he displays enough strength to ''lift the rear wheels of Tony's car off the ground'', and is able to tear his way inside to warn Tony about a trap at the embassy (Tony goes anyway, falls into the trap). Which raises the question: ''why does he need the whiny git in the first place?''
* HeroicWillpower: [[spoiler:Vadinho, naturally has the willpower to resist the mind-control mask. Even ''Jane'' is able to overcome it instead of shooting the Puma Man.]] But our "hero," Tony? Nope.
** VillainousValor: Once the tables have turned and Tony has Kobras in the eye of the mind-control device, even he is able to better resist it than Tony, leading to his escape.
* HighAltitudeInterrogation: Puma Man grabs one of Kobras' mooks and flies him up high in the air and repeatedly drops him to lower heights until Puma Man is satisfied with the information he receives.
-->'''Mike:''' Help! I'm falling at a sixty-degree angle, breaking all the laws of physics!
* HotScientist: Jane Dobson. Yes, really, Jane is supposed to be an archaeologist.
* IdiotHero: We're probably not supposed to come to this conclusion, but Tony is clearly not a bright man. His theory on the dinosaur's extinction also make one question his qualifications as a paleontologist, though that may have just been a terrible attempt at a pick-up line rather than what he believes. He's very much DistractedByTheSexy in that scene.
* IMeantToDoThat: There's a debate whether the movie was intentionally trying to be goofy with the way Puma Man flies. [=MST3K=]'s Paul Chaplin believes this was a form of subtle humor on the part of the filmmakers while the rest of the writers believed everything was done seriously.
** His pose was probably intentional (he's trying to imitate a four-legged "pouncing" pose rather than a Superman-like flying pose), but the terrible special effects are probably not intentional.
* IntangibleMan: Tony can walk through walls as well as teleport.
* LandmarkOfLore: Stonehenge. Don't ask what it's got to do with the Aztecs.
* LanternJawOfJustice: Vadinho's got a pretty serious case of this. Which works, considering he's far more heroic than our titular 'hero'.
* {{Leitmotif}}: The happy bouncy "flying" music. Mike and the Bots start writing lyrics for it after a while, as if it were a commercial jingle.
-->'''Crow:''' When you want the flavor of bacon in a dip....
* LegacyCharacter: The Puma Man is handed down from father to son, for at least two previous generations according to the film (Tony's father and grandfather).
* TheLoad: Tony. [[spoiler:Though, to his credit, he ''does'' figure out a way to find Kobras' mansion and even kills Kobras at the end, though with far more trouble than a guy with superhuman attributes should really have against an elderly man.]]
* MacGuffin: The Mask. Doubles as a MindControlDevice.
* MagicalNativeAmerican: Vadinho uses a ritual to heal himself after taking a beating, is strong enough to tear apart a car barehanded, and has the gods on speed-dial.
* MakeItLookLikeAnAccident: When Tony is FakingTheDead, Kobras' [[TheDragon Dragon]] Ranker suggests they plug Tony's seeming dead body to make sure he's dead. Kobras overrules him, saying it would point to murder, not suicide. Of course, the question must be asked: who would know and who would ''care''? (It's been established that Kobras controls the police and government at this point.)
* {{Mayincatec}}: The film creators apparently did a smattering of work on early American cultures and then threw it all out and went with whatever they thought looked or sounded cool. (They thought wrong)
** Vadinho is described as Aztec but lives on "the Andes Plateau," site of the Incan Empire.[[note]]The Aztecs were located in central and southern Mexico. Even at their greatest extent they never came anywhere close to the Andes Plateau, which is entirely located in South America.[[/note]]
* TheMentor: Vadinho, although his teaching methods leave a lot to be desired.
* MightyWhitey: Vadinho is far more capable, but Tony is the main character, because.
** And it runs in the family as Tony's father was also the Aztec's mighiest protector instead of, say, an Aztec.
* MileHighClub: With Tony And Jane at the end.
* MondegreenGag: Tony's friend Martin somehow mishears (or misremembers) "Puma Man" as "Sandwich Man".
* MySignificanceSenseIsTingling[=/=]SpiderSense: Tony gets headaches when trouble's around. Well, sometimes; he still walks obliviously into traps and ambushes several times.[[note]]To be fair, he was never in danger with Vadinho, so being "attacked" by him wouldn't set it off. And sometimes he just ignores its warning.[[/note]]
* NeglectfulPrecursors: Despite Vadihno's claims that "Each man is free" as a mantra of the gods, they left a mask on Earth that controls people's minds.
* NeutralFemale: Tony gets beaten up by thugs and Jane just sits around looking like she has a slight headache.
* NewPowersAsThePlotDemands: Since the Puma Man's powers are never actually defined, pretty much anything he does counts as this. He will constantly be informed of another power ''just in time'' for him to use it right then and there. [[spoiler:He even discovers the power to temporarily die right when Kobras is trying to make him do just that.]]
** His powers are whatever Vadinho tells him his powers are.
** A superhero based entirely around the [[MagicFeather Placebo Effect]]? That sounds like a ''way'' better movie than this!
* NinjaPirateZombieRobot: This is an Italian movie. Set in England. About an American. With Aztec superpowers.
** Also the [[{{Mayincatec}} Aztec]]/[[AncientAstronauts alien]]/[[NeglectfulPrecursors precursor]]/[[PhysicalGod gods]] who apparently [[LandmarkOfLore built Stonehenge]], [[MarsNeedsWomen bred with humans]], and may or may not [[MindScrew have anything to do with pumas]].
* NoSell: Vadinho no sells a jump kick during the fight at the end.
* NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent: Jane Dobson is the daughter of the ''Dutch ambassador.'' We get no explanation for her (or her dad's) lack of a Dutch accent.
* NotQuiteDead: [[spoiler:One Of Puma Man's powers.]]
* NowYouTellMe: [[spoiler:The world leaders ponder Kobras' security ''after'' they're already in his mansion and effectively in his power.]]
* OlderSidekick: Vadinho.
* OurGodsAreDifferent
-->'''Mike:''' Whole ''Bible'' thing? Bunch of hooey. It's all about aliens and spinnin' globes.
* PercussivePrevention: When a de-powered Tony tries to stop Vadinho from [[MoreExpendableThanYou going on a suicide mission]], the priest floors him with one punch.
-->'''Servo:''' Yes! The Aztec speaks for all of us!
* PointlessDoomsdayDevice: While not technically a doomsday device, the mask is capable of controlling men's minds. For a race that has as a motto "Each man is a god, each man is free," there seems to be no conceivable reason for the aliens to have created this.
* PornStache: Worn by many of the villains. May explain some of the awkward sequences. ([[SpecialEffectFailure Maybe not.]])
-->'''Servo:''' My mustache makes me fall sideways!
-->"Sam Elliot is Ted Turner in ''The Gregory Peck Story!''"
* PowerIncontinence: Once Kobras gets a hold of Tony's mind, he starts affecting his powers before attacking his mind.
* PowerPerversionPotential: [[spoiler:[[MileHighClub Apparently doing the nasty while hovering in mid-air]] is "the only way to make little Puma Men."]]
* [[DrivingADesk Rear Projection]]: Dear ''God'' is it misused for major SpecialEffectFailure. Note to producers: keep the camera ''steady'' for the flying sequences.
** Director Alberto De Martino said that the producer had bought a special camera in Germany for the flying effects, but his technicians didn’t know how to use it properly. To avoid going over schedule, they shot all the flying with bluescreen in two days.
* RummageSaleReject: The Puma Man - Khaki slacks and a half-cape/poncho?
-->'''Mike:''' They gave him the Captain Dork costume by mistake.
* ScrewThisImOutOfHere: Tony's first instinct after learning invulnerability is NOT one of his powers is to fly away. Vidinho quickly points out that since Kobras knows Tony is the Pumaman there's no place Tony could hide.
* SecretLegacy: Not that you'd want to put "the Puma Man" on your resume or anything...
* SatelliteLoveInterest: Jane. A character so lacking in personality that she barely qualifies as a cardboard cutout. And yet she still manages to prove herself to have more HeroicWillpower than our "hero" by managing to repeatedly resist (if not completely overcome) Kobras' mind control when he was completely unable to.
* ShapedLikeItself: During the introduction, the gods assure us that the Puma Man will have all the powers of... a Puma Man (thereby justifying NewPowersAsThePlotDemands).
* SingleLineOfDescent: The opening narration by the space-god establishes that ''all'' of his son's male-line descendants should be Pumamen, but Tony is apparently the only one.
* SissyVillain: Kobras. And yet our "hero" Tony '''barely''' manages to take him in a one-on-one fight.
* SoundtrackDissonance: The main theme would be more at home with a contemporary {{sitcom}} than a superhero film.
* SpheroidDropship: The Ancient Gods' ship, which on the poster is rendered suspiciously similar to [[Franchise/StarWars the Death Star]].
* SpaceClothes: Kobras' shiny futuristic muu-muu thingy. Which is actually an improvement over the sweaty leather S&M jacket he's wearing when first introduced.
* SpiderSense: Tony has a brief dizzy spell when he "senses danger." He tends to end up in danger anyway.
* StrongAsTheyNeedToBe: Inverted. The Puma Man can tear apart an old Jaguar (car) with his bare hands and rip into a brick wall, but has trouble overcoming Kobras in a struggle.
-->'''Mike:''' So, ripping through metal doors, no problem; subduing stocky senior citizens, that's another story.
** It's inconsistent whether he's supposed to have actual super-strength, or just super-strong finger "claws" to rip into things. It's mostly shown as the latter, but at one point he lifts up a car and flips it over, and late in the movie he easily breaks ropes that were binding him [[spoiler:when he recovers his powers.]]
* SufficientlyAdvancedAlien: Those starfaring Aztec god-aliens.
* {{Superhero}}: Not a very good one, but a superhero nonetheless.
* SuperHeroOrigin: His dad was secretly a Puma Man; then, one day, an Aztec introduced him to defenestration.
* SuperReflexes: Puma Man doesn't have invulnerability or enhanced durability, he has this instead.
* SurvivalMantra: "Each man is a god... each man is free... each man is a god..." [[spoiler:it helps Vadinho resist the mask's mind controlling power.]]
* TeleportersAndTransporters: One of Puma Man's many powers.
* ThemeMusicPowerUp: A bouncy little synthesized tune that surprisingly fits the goofiness of the superhero.
* TooDumbToLive: One of Kobras' henchmen tries to shoot Tony during the previously-mentioned HighAltitudeInterrogation. For once in the movie, Tony is justified in calling ''someone else'' an idiot -- pointing out to the thug he's interrogating that if he shoots Tony while they're hovering, Tony will drop the thug to his death.
* TransformationTrinket: The Belt.
-->'''Mike:''' You know, my mom had a pair of earrings that did the same thing.
* TricksterMentor: Vadinho
* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: At one point, Tony teleports into his friend Martin's fire truck and asks him for a tracking device. Martin has no idea that Tony became a superhero up to this point, but seems only mildly surprised by Tony's outfit (he thinks it's an advertising gimmick, including misremembering Tony's superhero name as "Sandwich Man") or by the fact that ''Tony just teleported into the seat next to him''.
* UpgradeArtifact: The Belt. Tony has some powers before he puts it on, but the belt unlocks the rest.
* VoodooShark: As mentioned in WhyDontYouJustShootHim, below, Kobras telling his thugs not to shoot Tony to make sure he's dead really makes no sense. Kobras had no problem [[DestinationDefenestration chucking four people out of high rise windows in broad daylight]] ''before'' he controlled half the government and the police force. The man can literally get away with murder and already has. It's obvious that the real reason he tells them not to shoot is because then the rest of the movie would be Vadinho cleaning things up by himself and then spending the rest of his days living with the guilt of having gotten TheChosenOne killed stupidly. It would have actually made more sense if the thugs just hadn't even brought it up at all.
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: It's unclear where Kobras' second-in-command Ranker disappears to. He spends most of the movie by Kobras' side, acting as his mouthpiece and sounding board, but after checking whether Tony committed suicide, he's reduced to a background character with no further lines. When Vadinho starts fighting in the climactic final battle, Ranker is taken out with one punch and then vanishes entirely, even though all the other nameless thugs take multiple hits from both Vadinho and Tony and keep coming back for more.
* WhyDontYouJustShootHim: When Kobras' thugs find Tony playing dead, Ranker suggests putting a bullet in him to make absolutely sure. Kobras says no, because he wants it to look like an accident, [[FridgeLogic although since by this point Kobras has mind-controlled half the government, you have to wonder why.]] Put another way:
-->'''Mike:''' ''[as Kobras]'' No, that would be cheating.
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It was the featured film in [[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S09E03PumaMan an episode]] of ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000''.

* {{Mondegreen}}: Tony's friend Martin somehow mishears (or misremembers) "Puma Man" as "Sandwich Man".

** Vadinho is described as Aztec but lives on "the Andes Plateau," site of the Incan Empire.

-->'''Mike''': He has the power to rear-project entire cities!

-->'''Mike''': "He has the power to rear-project entire cities!"

--> '''Tom''': "At all times he has the look of a man who's been hit with a fish."

--> '''Mike:''' Help! I'm falling at a sixty-degree angle, breaking all the laws of physics!

* AndStarring: Both Synde Rome (billed as "Special Guest Star" - [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiqiRyFKUQM she was popular on the Continent at the time]]) and Miguel Ángel Fuentes he gets a "With").

[[quoteright:153:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/puma_man.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:153:[[Franchise/StarWars That's no moon]]; that's the gods' spacestation.]]

* HighAltitudeInterrogation: Puma Man grabs one of Kobras's mooks and flies him up high in the air and repeatedly drops him to lower heights until Puma Man is satisfied with the information he receives.

* MakeItLookLikeAnAccident: When Tony is FakingTheDead, Kobra's [[TheDragon Dragon]] Ranker suggests they plug Tony's seeming dead body to make sure he's dead. Kobras overrules him, saying it would point to murder, not suicide. Of course, the question must be asked: who would know and who would ''care''? (It's been established that Kobras controls the police and government at this point.)

* TooDumbToLive: One of Kobras's henchmen tries to shoot Tony during the previously-mentioned HighAltitudeInterrogation. For once in the movie, Tony is justified in calling ''someone else'' an idiot -- pointing out to the thug he's interrogating that if he shoots Tony while they're hovering, Tony will drop the thug to his death.

* RummageSaleRejects: The Puma Man - Khaki slacks and a half-cape/poncho?

* EleventhHourSuperpower: Because his {{mentor|Archetype}} ''forgot to mention'' that "your hands are claws" during the earlier orientation. Though Tony might have been able to extrapolate this from his name if his powers weren't so random.
* TheEighties: Though the film came out early on in 1980, meaning it had most likely been filmed prior to the end of TheSeventies, not to mention the disco-esque music & other things.

* ComboPlatterPowers: Puma Man's ''[[NewPowersAsThePlotDemands displayed]]'' powers include SuperStrength, flight, teleportation, intangibility, the ability to see in darkness, a DangerSense and [[FlightStrengthHeart the ability to send himself into a death-like coma]].

* DrivenToSuicide: The Mask convinces Tony to commit suicide. Vadinho prevents it.
* DrivingADesk: Tony's flying scene:
-->'''Mike''': He has the power to rear-project entire cities.

** At all times he has the look of a man who's been hit with a fish.

** MoreHeroThanThou: Tony ''did'' insist on going along with [[spoiler:Vadinho's suicide mission]]...

** Ostensibly Tony. He's the title character, he has some decent super powers (albeit with some of the worst special effects supporting them) which he gets a handle on how to use really quickly, and he has he occasional good idea to drive the plot forward (like sneaking a tracker into Jane's car to find Kobras' hideout). But he also has no willpower to resist the very artifact he's supposed to be the protector of, in addition to being whiny and not very bright overall.
** This makes Vadinho, ostensibly the sidekick and/or mentor character, much more deserving of The Hero title. He's the only one who knows what's going on, and he's the only one actually effective in battle. In a scene cut from the [=MST3K=] version, he displays enough strength to ''lift the rear wheels of Tony's car off the ground'' to keep Tony from falling into a trap at the consulate (Tony runs away and falls into the trap anyway), and is able to tear his way inside. Which raises the question: ''why does he need the whiny git in the first place?''
* HeroicWillpower: [[spoiler:Vadinho, naturally has the willpower to resist the mind-control device. Even ''Jane'' is able to overcome it instead of shooting the Puma Man.]] But our "hero," Tony? Nope.

* IdiotHero: We're probably not supposed to come to this conclusion, but Tony is clearly not a bright man. His theory on the dinosaur's extinction also make one question his qualifications as a paleontologist (though that may have just been a terrible attempt at a pick-up line rather than what he believes).

* MakeItLookLikeAnAccident: When Tony is FakingTheDead, Kobra's [[TheDragon Dragon]] suggests they plug Tony's seeming dead body to make sure he's dead. Kobras overrules him, saying it would point to murder, not suicide. Of course, the question must be asked: who would know and who would ''care''? (It's been established that Kobras controls the police and government at this point.)
* {{Mayincatec}}: The film creators apparently did a smattering of work on early American cultures and then threw it all out and went with whatever they thoughts looked cool.

* MightyWhitey: Vadinho is far more capable for a hero, but Tony is the main character, because.

* {{Mondegreen}}: Tony's friend Martin somehow mishears "Puma Man" as "Sandwich Man".

* SatelliteLoveInterest: Jane. A character so lacking in personality that she barely qualifies as a cardboard cutout. And yet she still manages to prove herself to have more HeroicWillpower than our "hero" by managing to resist Kobras' mind control when he was completely unable to.

** It's inconsistent whether he's supposed to have actual super-strength, or just super-strong finger "claws" to rip into things. It's mostly shown as the latter, but at one point he lifts up a car and flips it over, and late in the movie he easily breaks ropes that were binding him when he recovers his powers.

* TooDumbToLive: One of Kobras's henchmen tries to shoot Tony during the previously-mentioned HighAltitudeInterrogation. For once in the movie, Tony is justified in calling ''someone else'' an idiot.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: It's unclear where Kobras' second-in-command Ranker disappears to. He spends most of the movie by Kobras' side, acting as his mouthpiece and sounding board, but after making sure that Tony committed suicide, he's reduced to a background character with no further lines. When Vadinho starts fighting in the last scene, Ranker is taken out with one punch and then vanishes entirely, while all the other nameless thugs take multiple hits from both Vadinho and Tony and keep coming back for more.

Now firmly allied with Vadinho, Tony sets about mastering his puma-derived superpowers to get the sacred mask out of Kobras' hands. He can see in the dark, sense danger, "leap" great distances (or fly, the writers don't seem to be sure), teleport, and feign death quite convincingly - you know, standard puma stuff. Oh, and his fingers can act as super-strong "claws", which Vadinho belatedly remembers to mention in the middle of a major battle. And possibly super-strength, which he uses once to flip a car over and then never again. Anyway, with these skills in hand, Tony heroically attacks Kobras' mansion stronghold, is ''soundly'' defeated, gets caught by Kobras' hypnosis, retreats, loses his superpowers through Kobras' mental commands, is nearly DrivenToSuicide by Kobras' [[MindScrew mind games]], and heroically plays dead until the villain's minions go away.

Vadinho then leads his ''own'' assault against Kobras, using a suicide belt to bluff his way inside. The Aztec resists the villain's hypnotism and demolishes his command center, while Jane Dobson smashes Tony's papier-mâché head, removing Kobras' mental control over him and restoring his powers. Puma Man quickly teleports to the rescue and hops around in the background while the Aztec takes down wave after wave of mooks, prompting Kobras to make a run for it. In the end, Tony is ''barely'' able to overcome an elderly bald man and cause Kobras' helicopter to crash, the golden mask is recovered, Vadinho gets beamed up by the alien-god-things, and Tony and Jane join the Quarter-MileHighClub.

* DestinationDefenestration: Remember, the best way to spot your local Puma Man is to chuck people out of windows until one of them survives. The film puts a little ''too'' much effort into making us wonder if maybe Vadinho's one of the guys who's chucking random Americans out of windows looking for the right one, with how he stalks around wordlessly looking all creepy, tearing through all obstructions with his bare hands to get to Tony, and then suddenly grabbing him and shoving him out a window. Since he actually works for the aliens sponsoring Pumaman, you'd hope he'd have less murder-y methods for finding the right guy at his disposal. It's clearly not Vadinho, however, as a [[FreezeFrameBonus glimpse]] at the ''two'' people, neither of them Vadinho, who throw one of the other victims out a window, but the movie doesn't go out of its way to make that clear.

* TheHero: Vadinho. He's the only one who knows what's going on, and he's the only one actually effective in battle. In a scene cut from the [=MST3K=] version, he displays enough strength to ''lift the rear wheels of Tony's car off the ground'' to keep "the hero" from escaping, and is able to tear his way inside. Which raises the question: ''why does he need the whiny git in the first place?''

* HypercompetentSidekick: Vadinho has no superpowers (certain scenes cut from the [=MST3K=] version of the movie suggest that he ''might'' have super strength, but even that's questionable) but kicks about 2000% more ass and does most of the heroics that theoretically should be performed by our hero. Plainly, the movie should've just been about him in the first place.
--> '''Crow:''' So basically the hero is ''this guy'', it's time we accepted that fact.
* IdiotHero: We're probably not supposed to come to this conclusion, but Tony is clearly not a bright man. His theory on the dinosaur's extinction also make one question his qualifications as a paleontologist.

* MySignificanceSenseIsTingling[=/=]SpiderSense: Tony gets headaches when trouble's around. Well, sometimes; he still walks obliviously into traps and ambushes several times.[[note]]To be fair, he was never in danger with Vadinho, so being "attacked" by him wouldn't set it off.[[/note]]

* NonActionGuy: Puma Man, the hero who jumps around a little bit then lies down and lets Vadinho deal with all the hard 'hero' work.

* PinballProtagonist: Puma Man, the ChosenOne, does absolutely ''nothing'' of use throughout the movie, besides killing a little old guy. It's Vadinho who gets the real action.

* SatelliteLoveInterest: Jane. A character so lacking in personality that she barely qualifies as a cardboard cutout. And yet she still manages to prove herself to have more HeroicWillpower than our "hero" by managing to resist Kobra' mind control when he was completely unable to.

** It's inconsistent whether he's supposed to have actual super-strength, or just super-strong finger "claws" to rip into things. It's mostly shown as the latter, but at one point he lifts up a car and flips it over.

* {{Superhero}}: We use the trope here loosely.

* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: At one point, Tony teleports into his friend Martin's fire truck and asks him for a "position indicator." Martin has no idea that Tony became a superhero up to this point, but seems only mildly surprised by Tony's outfit (he thinks it's an advertising gimmick, including misremembering Tony's superhero name as "Sandwich Man") or by the fact that ''Tony just teleported into the seat next to him''.

* WhyDontYouJustShootHim: When Kobras's thugs find Tony playing dead, one of them suggests putting a bullet in him to make absolutely sure. Kobras says no, because he wants it to look like an accident, [[FridgeLogic although since by this point Kobras has mind-controlled half the government, you have to wonder why.]] Put another way:

* TheEighties: Though the film came out early on in 1980, meaning it had most likely been filmed prior to the end of TheSeventies, not to mention the disco-esque music & other things.
* EleventhHourSuperpower: Because his {{mentor|Archetype}} ''forgot to mention'' that "your hands are claws" during the earlier orientation. Though Tony might have been able to extrapolate this from his name if his powers weren't so random.