Recap / With This Ring Episode 93

Episode 93: Jungle Gym

Takes place 15-18 March 2012.

Short version

The Accala tribe, where Hugo Danner recruited his army, resurfaces, and turns out to have been continuing to produce and use his formula; they now intend to take over large portions of South America and reforest it, and Paul decides against intervening.

Longer version

Overgirl begins to settle in on Earth 16, accompanying part of the Team on an investigation of mysterious damage to a logging operation in the Amazon jungle. The attacker turns out to be a Danner enhancile, one of hundreds created in secret by the survivors of Hugo Danner's original campaign. Doctor Munro accompanies them on a visit to negotiate with the enhanced tribespeople, and is revealed to be, not Hugo Danner's son, but Hugo himself, the idol of the first-generation enhanciles. They immediately accept him back as their leader in a second campaign to regain independence and sovereignty over their jungle.

The Renegade learns that after his use of the Anti-Life Equation, the cage containing it is damaged, and he makes plans to travel to Equestria to purge it.

The meaning of the title is unclear, but "jungle" likely refers to the mission location in the Amazon. "Gym" may refer to the fact that Paul considered the mission to be an easy one suitable for training new or weaker team members like Overgirl and Rocket.

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• Appeal to Force:
  • Among Paul's many arguments for Raquel stepping back and giving Overgirl a chance is the fact that Overgirl, unlike Superboy, has heat vision.
    Paul: I'm not asking you to calm down a little because you're black, I'm asking you to do it because, firstly, her seeing you as a rational person undermines what she's been taught about black people, and second, because it means that if I've horribly misjudged the situation she's less likely to kill you.
  • The Accala tribe wants Brazil and the surrounding nations to restore the Amazon rainforest. And "wants" in this case means "will use super strength to destroy every government structure they can find, and laugh off any counterattack, until you agree."
• Barehanded Bar Bending: This is used to demonstrate to a Brazilian government representative that yes, the Accala really do have super strength. Even a child with hands too small to properly grip the steel bar still leaves finger indentations - and then accidentally flicks the bar into another girl's head, causing no injury, just annoyance.
• Berserk Button: Don't suggest controlling plants with anything other than Green magic to Euanthe the dryad.
• Boxing Lessons for Superman: Overgirl teaches Earth 16's Kryptonians some of the martial art "Torquasm-Rao", which looks like tai-chi and helps Kryptonians focus their powers to become stronger and tougher. Apparently it's also capable of more exotic effects.
• Civil War: The Accala intend to fight the Brazilian government, and have their allies fight their respective governments, if their demands of sovereignty, deindustrialisation, and reforestation are not met.
  Cauã: Here, Orange Lantern, is what we want.
  I approach, and what they want… Appears to be virtually all of the country, save for the most heavily populated coastal cities. A lot of it hasn't been densely forested for over a century. This isn't keeping the jungle as it is, this is full-on reforesting on a scale that no advanced nation has ever performed.
  And it's not just Brazil that's on the chopping block. There isn't going to be all that much left of Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia or Peru, and Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana will cease to exist.
  Paul: That's a hard sell. What are you planning on doing with the people living there?
  Cauã: They can keep living there. But there will be no more of these cattle farms. No more of their industry. We will tear it all down and restore our jungle. If they cannot live with that then they can leave.
• Cordon Bleugh Chef: Paul gratefully lets Overgirl take over Canis' turn on the dinner roster.
  Paul (internally): Though he has backed away from his initial idea of having an elimination tournament for would-be diners to prove that they are worthy of being fed, his… Ideas about flavour and texture combinations would make Heston Blumenthal say 'that's a bit out there'.
• Double Standard: Paul points out to Raquel that Canis Minor is objectively far more evil than any Nazi, having personally led armies to exterminate everyone and burn everything they find and not at all ashamed of it, yet Raquel doesn't object to his presence on the team in the same way that she objects to Overgirl, perhaps because she doesn't have the same emotional investment in fighting Apokolips that she does with racial issues.
• Everyone Is a Super: The Accala tribe has had access to the Danner formula for long enough that most members are now enhanced, and some people from surrounding tribes too.
  Paul: They'll never need tools, let alone science or technology. They can outrun cars now. Tear down trees with no need for chainsaws. As long as they can make the Danner formula they don't even have a use for draught animals.
• Faking the Dead: Under Lex Luthor's direction, Hugo Danner allowed everyone to assume that he was missing, presumed dead, and took on the identity of his son, Arnold Munro, who had died (anonymously) several decades earlier.
• Flashback: To the aftermath of Episode 10, Tracers, with Lex Luthor following up on Paul's tip about the Danner formula, and finding Hugo Danner in a Brazilian prison.
• A God I Am Not: Hugo Danner said he was just a man, but the tribes he visited had never seen abilities like his before, so they wanted to call him a god. They eventually settled on "Man-God".
• Godwin's Law: Somewhat deconstructed. Raquel doesn't want to hear any of Paul's arguments about how Overgirl hasn't actually committed any crimes and could be redeemable, since Overgirl is literally a Nazi, and that's enough for Raquel to conclude that she's evil.
  Paul: The point is, though she would take part in a genocide if asked, she never has. Likewise, she hasn't ferreted disabled people out of hiding to send them to the camps because there aren't any. She hasn't had the opportunity to do the evil she'd be willing to do. What she's actually done is crime fighting and disaster relief. So is she evil-
  Raquel: Yes.
  Paul: -or a good person working for an evil state?
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: The Accala want to repair the Amazon rainforest, but would displace millions of people to do it, plus inflicting billions of dollars of direct property damage and indirect loss of livelihood. The various South American governments have allowed and authorised grossly irresponsible and destructive exploitation of the rainforest for many many years, and would maintain that status quo given half a chance, but they don't want an actual fight if it can be avoided. Paul isn't inclined to fight for either side, except to protect civilian bystanders.
• Half-Breed Discrimination: Overgirl hates the Brazilian government more than the Accala.
  Overgirl: The jungle people are racially inferior to Aryans, but the Portuguese have made themselves mongrels. That is worse.
• I Have This Friend: Dr Munro asks Paul what he thinks Hugo Danner should have done differently. Since Hugo Danner is Arnold Munro's father, Paul doesn't assume it's suspicious.
• La Résistance: The Accala tribe and some of its neighbours plan to use their enhanced army to demand that a good-sized chunk of South America be returned to their control and reforested.
• Liquid Courage: Doctor Quinzel needs a double whiskey before she's ready to talk to Paul about how to deal with Overgirl.
• Mutually Assured Destruction: Paul discusses with Doctor Munro (actually Hugo Danner incognito) the likely effects if the Danner formula had been made widely available after Danner's original campaign, and concludes that the Cold War would probably have turned hot and pulled in every other country that had managed to produce a significant army of super-soldiers.
• Nuclear Option: The Renegade plans to visit Equestria in order to have his Anti-Life fragment cleansed with the Elements of Harmony. With contingency plans for side effects including petrification, banishment, and reversion to his unpowered teen self.
  Renegade: I don't think those side effects will be worse than the Anti-Life Equation.
• Super-Speed: Kid Flash reports that the Russians are facing a cult with enhanced speed, and they want access to the Garrick formula to combat it, but thanks to his alchemy study, he might be able to instead produce a temporary version.
• Super-Strength:
  • Squire finds evidence that a logging site was attacked by someone enhanced with the Danner formula. It turns out that some of Hugo Danner's surviving associates still know how to produce the formula, and they have enhanced hundreds of people in the intervening years.
  • Lois Lane accepts Danner enhancement from Paul. This may have interesting repercussions next time someone tries to threaten or kidnap her. (It might also make her relationship with Superman safer.)
• Takes One to Kill One: Not fatally in this case, but in order to keep administering the Danner formula to pregnant women who have themselves been enhanced, the Accala have taken to injecting it using their own sharpened fingernails.
• Thought They Knew Already: Squire figured out that Arnold Munro was actually Hugo Danner, which surprised Orange Lantern... which surprised Squire that he didn't. She figured that OL knew and was covering for Luthor due to their friendship.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Accala do have a point about the destruction of the Amazon through reckless farming practices. However, their plan to destroy all the infrastructure of civilisation and return everyone to subsistence farming is perhaps going too far.

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