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Captain Planet
Captain Planet is a creation of the Planeteers' imaginations.
Take five Americanized preteens in the early '90s. (They all speak perfect English.) Have them imagine their favorite superhero buddy, and the result would look a lot like the briefs-and-boots catchphrase-spouting eco-champion we all know as "Captain Planet". The being summoned by the Planeteers' rings is a sentient manifestation of Gaia's power, but his image and personality are gleaned from the collective subconscious desires of the kids themselves. Had Gaia felt the need to summon her champions in another era, the resulting superhero would look, talk and act radically different.
- This may be the first point in history where five kids from around the globe could agree on a consistent theme for "Captain Planet". A hundred years ago, he may have looked like an unholy amalgamation of Musashi, Babalu Aye, Quetzalcoatl, Nikitich, and Davy Crockett.
- This would have been awesome if it could have been made to work.
- This is implied by the show. You're looking at a bunch of teenagers surrounded by '80s pop culture; what do you expect of them? Captain Planet's appearance is based on an amalgamation of the Planeteers themselves.
Captain Planet is a split personality of the villains.
All the various eco-villains are aspects of one villain. He split into all the villains and Captain Planet out of guilt for hurting the environment.
Someday, when he realizes mankind will never learn, Captain Planet will cause the extinction of the human race by killing everyone as fast as he can.
The Planeteers will be among his first victims, leaving nothing that can stand in his way.
- But then Hoggish Greedly will bring out a huge Landblaser, coat that wimp Captain Planet with crude oil and smog, and proceed to become The Duke of Pork, conquering the entire world with his machine.
- Unless Cap'n killed him with oxygen intoxication (AKA dry drowning) while he was sleeping. You know he'd kill people in their sleep. Before you ask, it's possible.
- But would he kill pigs in their sleep?
- Captain Planet as a Well-Intentioned Extremist and the eco-villains as anti-heroes who oppose him? It sounds like an interesting show.
- It would look something like this
.
Gaia
Think about it. How would humanity react if Gaia suddenly descended and cleaned the Earth up all by herself? They'd learn
nothing. They'd keep polluting and expect Gaia to clean up after them again. By NOT cleaning up after them and mainly trying to help them learn to take care of the Earth, she's preventing them from expecting a goddess from cleaning up their mistakes. She's willing to give the Planeteers the power to help out the Earth, including Captain Planet if they run into danger, but she still wants
humanity to clean up its own messes instead of relying on her to do it for them.
Though she definitely also wanted to pick people who were qualified for the job, she kept the gender ratio as equal as possible (and the candidates single and teenage) in the hopes that at least one couple would result. This was partially for practical purposes (what better way to initiate a new generation of Planeteers than to have them raised by the old guard?) and partially for more sentimental reasons (both wanting her "children" to be happy and potentially
wanting a small number of "grandkids" to love and tell
awesome/
sweet/
funny stories about their parents).
- That's probably the most adorable WMG ever, hands down.
Gaia and Zarm used to have a thing.
They broke up when she took a nap and he decided to kill off those pesky dinosaurs.
Gaia and Zarm are twins, or at least regular siblings, with a
Cain and Abel dynamic.
They both have dark hair, darkish skin and blue (or bluish) eyes, and they're pretty much equal in power. The biggest difference between them is their moral alignment. As we know, she's caring, loving and nurturing, at times calling herself a mother; he, in turn, is cold, cruel and ruthless, constantly trying to destroy her and everything she protects.
Now, here comes the actual theory. In the beginning, back when the world was new, they both lived in harmony, simply playing all around the planet. However, when the first living beings appeared and it turned out that the spirits were supposed to serve and protect them, Zarm started getting bitter, yet he still did fulfill this duty. Things changed forever upon the arrival of humans, though. While Gaia welcomed them with open arms, Zarm quickly grew resentful and jealous of them. Eventually, he rebelled and began seeking to destroy them, the first thing on his agenda being to lead them to the original sin. Gaia opposed him, which resulted in their first battle. Zarm fought with the intention to kill, so at one point, she combined all her powers in self-defense, thus unexpectedly summoning Captain Planet for the first time ever. Together, they defeated Zarm, banishing him and leaving Gaia as the only Spirit of Earth.
The Planeteers
Think about it: Wheeler is American, and Linka was initially Soviet (later Ukrainian). Since the first and second seasons aired in 1990-91, Linka was using the Cold War tensions (which were already winding down by the time the first episode aired) as a excuse. Why there were no overt Cold War references or Linka insulting Capitolism are a mystery to this troper. Of course, after the collapse of the Soviet Union on Christmas Day 1991, tensions between the two cooled down and resulted in them kissing in the fourth season.
Gi's parents were expecting her to be a boy.
Gi's parents (either due to the One-Child Rule or due to infertility issues) expected that they'd only have one child, and something led them to believe their child would be male. (Maybe it runs in the family.) So they chose the name Gi. When their child turned out to be female, they just gave her the name they'd settled on.
Wheeler is the real main character.
Think about it, he's made some good points about what the Planeteers do sometimes. He may be a Jerk, but he's probably the only main character who tries to reason with the others about doing stuff that's quite wrong, such as taking Endangered Species out of their habitats.
- Were we not supposed to assume Wheeler was the main character in the first place?
- Kwame is the leader of the group, so it wouldn't be a mistake to think he's the main character.
- It's not who's running things — it's a matter of identification. Wheeler is the only one to come from the USA. The cartoon was written by Americans and first shown in the USA. It's easier to write someone from your own culture than from a foreign one. Also, Wheeler was the most clearly flawed of the heroes; that makes it much easier to write him "realistically." It would take drastic measures to have a character in this position not seem like the main character.
- I think it would be more accurate to say that while Kwame is team leader, Wheeler is the Audience Surrogate. Basically where meant to see the story through Wheeler's eye's, more or less.
There is actually a good reason why Wheeler wound up with a ring.
All of the Planeteers show an understanding of ecology and the environment. But Wheeler seems to be the only who understands
humans and their cities, which are
part of the environment, and a critical part at that. As noted, the part of the ecosystem controlled by humans has a disproportionate influence over the others. But, any suggestions to save the Earth by wiping out humanity (or even human culture) is going to be rejected by most of humanity even if we're doomed either way. (See the remake of
The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008).)
Wheeler's role isn't supposed to be to hold the Idiot Ball, but to convert the unfeasible concepts of his fellow planeteers into solutions that work for cities and industries. But Wheeler is flawed in other ways, and the other kids tend to reject the good ideas with the bad, often with extreme prejudice. They are constantly neglecting a crucial part of their mission.
Ostracizing Wheeler = no compromise = no long-term solutions
This is why the Planeteers never seem to do anything that would truly help reduce waste and pollution in the world. The other four kids are out-of-touch with larger, more concentrated groups of humanity, since they all seem to come from rural or sheltered environments. Thus, they don't know what large cities need... And no, you can't just get rid of the large cities. Even if population control was put into effect immediately, there's still too much pre-existing population...
The other kids see pollution as the sole province of Jerkasses who do it for the Evulz. So far, most of the villains do pollute for that reason, but one wonders what would happen if everyone decided to take on the 'verse's equivalent of General Electric. Anyhow, because they are ignorant of the needs of cities, they never think of how to help. They rarely bother to talk to Wheeler about it because they class him as an 'ignorant human'.
Related theory:
The bearer of the Fire Ring has always been in charge of keeping the needs of civilization in balance with Gaia.
Fire does occur in "pristine" nature, yes, and there wouldn't be life on earth without the stuff it's made from. But it's not as ubiquitous or dramatic as water, earth, or air. And while most "Heart" forms need at least two of water, air, and earth all the time, they can coexist with the obvious forms of fire only on occasion.
Thus, most individual instances of fire, and most long-lasting instances of fire, in the age of humans have been made by humans to meet human needs and desires. Since humans are needed to make Captain Planet, their peculiar needs in the ecosystem must at least be considered.
This is why it's so hard to find bearers for the Fire Ring. Its bearer is to represent needs that even Gaia herself would rather not consider too closely.
Another potential reason why Gaia chose Wheeler as a Planeteer...
Gaia isn't fond of war, but she knows her team will be involved in combat, and that most of them have no experience with it. At the point Gaia sends Wheeler the Fire ring, he's saving a New Yorker from a mugger. Furthermore, at least two instances of Wheeler ending up as a
Distressed Dude ("
Beast of the Temple" and "
Don't Drink the Water") happen because he was with one of the other Planeteers at the time and prioritized his teammate's safety over his own. Wheeler is the team's backup bodyguard in case Captain Planet can't be summoned.
Ma-Ti and the Power of Heart
Self explanatory
The Heart Ring would've turned Wheeler into a male version of
Sailor Moon.
Wheeler is clumsy, ditzy and whiny almost as much as Serena/Usagi. Like her, he also had an
I Just Want to Be Normal wish granted, but took it back.
Sailor Moon's friends have elemental powers; her power is, basically, "Heart". Had Wheeler got the power of Heart, he would've become Sailor Moon!
Unlike the other rings, which are traditional elements-found-in-nature, Heart breaks into living things' minds and souls. This is
forbidden in most magical settings.
This implies that Gaia may be an Animal Wrongs Goddess, but only for plants and dirt (animals are fair game as long as they aren't harmed so much that the ecosystem is disrupted).
It explains Wheeler's Ark. Gaia knew it was the wrong thing to do but didn't care. As long as the ecosystem survived, her army of animal thralls was more important than anything else!
Ma-Ti can use the Power of Heart to give heart attacks.
If he can control people's hearts, then perhaps he can stop them.
- You mean Ma-ti is Kira? He can control more than minds with his power?
- He's not Kira unless he uses the power for that purpose.
We live in a reality where the show is a self-insert fic gone wrong.
In another world out there, there is a boy named Ma-ti. He likes the show Captain Planet very much, and wishes he could be a Planeteer, so he inserts himself poorly into the adventures with a power called Heart. Unfortunately, in this reality, we have to put up with the stuff goes on in his mind. And any adventure where he moves the plot along are just his fanfics.
Gaia gave Ma-Ti the Heart Ring because she knew he'd never figure out how to use it effectively.
Gaia states repeatedly that heart is the most powerful of all the rings, but all anyone else seems to say is that Heart is useless. The reason for this is that Gaia realized that the power of Heart, when used to its fullest potential, had a temptation for abuse so strong that almost nobody could wield it.
Just think! Heart grants the ability to influence emotions, read minds, find anyone, communicate telepathically, and who knows what else! It's the power over other living creatures! And you can't summon Captain Planet without it.
Her solution was to find someone who had the correct mind-set (kindness, love of nature, etc.) and a strong will, but who lacked the imagination to harness — or even recognize — the full potential of the ring. This gave the Planeteers all the powers they would need as well as the ability to summon Captain Planet, but ensured that everyone would stay on the correct path.
The Eco-Villains
Planeteer - Eco-villain correlations:
Linka- Duke Nukem; she's from the Ukraine, home of Chernobyl and the worst nuclear accident ever.
Wheeler- Verminous Skumm; both are city dwellers.
Ma-Ti- Looten Plunder; Ma-Ti has the Power of Heart, while Looten Plunder has no heart
Kwame- Sly Sludge; Kwame takes the long term view with ecology while Sly Sludge is short sighted
Gi- Dr Blight; Gi wants to be a good scientist, and Dr Blight is an evil scientist.
The Ecovillains are running a secret
Evil Plan.
Every effort of the Planeteers to fight the blindingly obvious ecological threats is time taken from fighting more subtle threats or from negotiating new non-superheroic solutions to existing problems.
The Eco Villains especially want to stop the Planeteers from spreading their solar powered technology.
Want to give that poor third world country solar roofs so they can all have electricity? Sorry, guys, Looten Plunder is going to turn Lake Michigan into a cesspool!
Possible Backstories for the Eco-Villains
Zarm— The true
Big Bad who's really behind everything. Like Gaia, he enlists humans to help him spread his agenda, but unlike her, he always does it in the form of a
Deal with the Devil. The Eco-Villains were originally ordinary people, albeit exceptionally greedy and amoral, who at various points made these Faustian deals with Zarm, knowingly or unknowingly, and became his agents on Earth to get revenge on Gaia for banishing him. Signing Zarm's contracts nearly always results in some permanent physical or mental damage to the contractee, a sign that they have "paid the price" to be in Zarm's service.
Hoggish Greedly— Once an ordinary crook with a severe case of Small Name, Big Ego and an equally severe ignorance of the environment, he was approached by a man who offered him a huge sales contract. He signed off on it immediately, only for the man to turn out to be Zarm in disguise. He then became the first of the Eco-Villains. As the price for signing the contract, his body was cursed into a grotesque pig-like form.
Dr. Blight— Once an esteemed scientist, her career was derailed by scandals regarding her unethical experiments. This pleased Zarm, who appeared to her as university representative offering her a grant. She signed it, sealing her contract with Zarm, but in exchange she was given a horrific scar on her face that could never be healed and was cursed to drive her insane.
Duke Nukem— Gaia has no problems with nuclear power per se, but its great potential for abuse made it attractive to Zarm. Duke Nukem was an unethical nuclear engineer who resorted to underhanded means to promote his unsafe power plant designs over his rivals' safer ones. Zarm appeared to him as a town spokesman bearing a construction contract, but when he signed it he was transformed into a radioactive monster.
Verminous Skumm— Once a nameless, homeless heroin addict on the streets of a major city, Zarm chose him because he represented the worst of humanity in terms of having a "polluted" mind. He approached him in a vision granting promises of power, and when he signed the contract he turned into a hideous rat/human hybrid, causing him to seek revenge on the human race who had been so cruel to him as a human.
Looten Plunder— Plunder didn't need Zarm to become a wealthy, immoral Corrupt Corporate Executive. He did that on his own. What Zarm did was grant him the ability to openly flaunt laws and treaties with his company's activities. While his physical appearance did not change after signing Zarm's contract, he was given such an overriding obsession with furthering his personal glory that he would never again be content to use his wealth generously.
Sly Sludge— A Brilliant, but Lazy sanitation worker who preferred to just throw everything into landfills than bother with recycling, Sludge was only reluctantly approached by Zarm— even Gaia knew his heart was in the right place. But after signing the contract, he became a filthy, foul-smelling Pigpen of a man with a love of trash. Uniquely, however, Sly Sludge was the only one of the Eco-Villains to ever successfully escape his contract, which he did when he performed his Heel–Face Turn.
The reason why most of Skumm's henchmen disappeared as the series went onward...
...is that the Planeteers, knowing the rat transformation is reversible and having some idea of the antidote, managed to catch several of Skumm's Rat Pack offscreen, turn them back to normal, and drop them back wherever Skumm kidnapped them from in the first place. After some time of dealing with this, Skumm focused his attention on the one particular, actually competent, henchman he has for the rest of the series.
Most living things don't tolerate pollution, but the villains thrive off it. They pollute, not
For the Evulz, but because a polluted world would be healthier for them. Their
Card-Carrying Villain status is just something they do to screw around with the Planeteers...
They are still villains. After all, they are (un)terraforming an inhabited planet in ways not compatible with the native life, and usually doing so to greater extremes than most of the natives.
- They're from a different planet. Their world is, by our standards, heavily polluted. To them, our toxins are vital. Their planet is becoming less habitable for them, so they are making a new home. They probably came from Venus, which is a highly toxic planet. That, or they are survivors of the planet Mars.
All the "villains" are being held prisoner by them, and are tortured by putting them in a reality where they are hated for "polluting the Earth". In reality, the villains are aliens who love our Earth. Their planet is like a sweet, backwards version of our Earth where oil and smog help the environment. But the "villains" aren't smart, so they do what helps their planet and it hurts ours. The so-called "heroes" know this but are bigoted towards aliens. With the help of an anti-
Lotus-Eater Machine, they torture them daily. Captain Planet is an alien who hates the planet that the "villains" are from, which explains the blue skin.
Zarm is a symbolic version of Satan.
Zarm was stated to be the original spirit of Earth who left in search of other worlds. Given Zarm's anger at Gaia, it's doubtful he left willingly and was probably forced to leave after his actions caused more harm than good. Now, he returns to Earth as more of a spirit and tries to coerce humanity into doing horrible things via lies and false promises. Religion aside, the idea of a spirit like this is very creepy.
Verminous Skumm hates humanity for oppressing him.
A half-rat mutant who hates humanity, who once stated ("Belfast") that he's familiar with humanity's capacity for hate, and who often uses that hatred for his own plans. He was "born in a sewer" according to the official website. He has to hide his face whenever he goes around the surface. It's easy to imagine him as a
Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds, hated by humans his whole life until he felt the need to finally strike back.
Face it, the war between humans and rats has gone on for thousands of years.
Gaia created the villains.
Why are all the bad guys
Anviliciously mustache-twirling evil-for-evil's sake
Card Carrying Villains? Because Gaia needed simplistic and obvious bad examples to point to. (Much like Ted Turner did.) She couldn't just give the rings to the kids and say "go clean up a landfill"; they'd be bored in five minutes. They needed action to keep it exciting. Why she
had to give the rings to adolescents is a mystery, but even money says they weren't her first choice.
- Umm, no. Gaia created humanity and everything else; humanity made the villains.
- And why did Gaia create humanity in such a way that humanity could create eco-villains? Most environmentalists will tell you that Humans Are Bastards far beyond any other species; how could Gaia have failed to predict this?
- Because mankind discovered original sin. In Greek Mythology, whence Gaia comes, Prometheus gave fire to man and hence dominion and power over the rest of the world; hence, Prometheus introduced man to original sin. He saw the error of his ways and repented. Previously, his punishment was to be chained to a rock and have his liver devoured by an eagle every day. Now he atones for his deed by being Captain Planet.
- Wait, fire is original sin? Okay, that makes some sense ecologically, but... it has unfortunate implications for whoever has the Fire ring. Maybe that's why Wheeler got picked for that one.
- This may be the reason why gingers get so much flak.
Seriously, what parent names their kid Sly Sludge? They must have been bullied relentlessly as kids, and everyone must have hated them. That is why they pollute for the sole purpose of being a douche.
Specific Episodes
Gaia sending Wheeler elsewhere/when wasn't just intended as shock therapy.
When Gi breaks through, a blink-and-you'll-miss-it comment indicates that none of the other Planeteers were more optimistic than Wheeler about their chances of getting through the ice in time after Captain Planet exhausted himself; it's implied that they went with Linka's plan solely on the chance that they wouldn't have to celebrate New Year's by burying Wheeler. But when Gaia sends Wheeler into the time stream (with a little help from MAL), he's not in the cave, and therefore not using up any of the limited oxygen. Gaia's plan wasn't just intended to prove to Wheeler that he made a mistake by refusing the Fire Ring; it also was intended to make sure her repentant Fire Planeteer had those extra few minutes of oxygen necessary to survive until the others broke the remaining ice.
Other Rings/Planeteers
There were other Power Rings, but...
Electricity was given to a Mid-American boy, and Metal was given to an Australian girl. They would've made Cap'n Planet slightly stronger. But then, those Planeteers had an interesting dialogue with Gaia:
Gaia: So, you come and summon Captain Planet. Electricity and Metal, as complementary elements, could give a power boost when necessary, to turn him stronger to his weaknesses, like pollution, or spilled oil.
Electricity kid: So, Gaia, I and Metalhead here have a small question to ask...
Gaia: Feel free to do so.
Metal kid: So, Captain Planet is weak to oil...
Electricity kid: But doesn't oil come from nature, too?
The day after, the two were missing from the team. They and their powers rings were never heard of again. The remaining Planeteers kept their mouths shut. Ma-Ti, the only one who asked what happened, had his power ring demoted in power.
That's it; if we take in consideration the natural disasters, Gaia surely is quite reactive about what's asked of her. She prefers to risk her creations than to answer Fridge Logic in a plausible way.
- That, but wood instead of electricity. And the reason they're not on the team anymore? Their rings got destroyed and turned them into a tree and the Geo-Cruiser respectively (that's why they don't share the technology- they can't). Sort of a Sealed Evil in a Can but with elemental powers instead.
There used to be an Electricity ring, but it became the Heart ring after a
Power Limiter was added.
The spiritual heart of a living being tends to be grounded in a brain, and its thoughts can be correlated to nerve synapses going off. Nerves work through electricity. Nerves also control the heartbeat of the literal heart.
Why is the Heart ring limited? Because raw electricity is one of the most powerful forces there is. If you can control electricity, you can ultimately control nuclear power; and in this universe, nuclear power corrupts. Gaia's refusal to control nuclear power directly led to the Heart ring being what it is - relatively limited, but relatively pure and thus, in its own way, more dangerous.
It's possible that the Fire ring once had a Power Limiter because fire is a manifestation of original sin. If that ring had fallen in the hands of someone like Ma-Ti, it would've just disintegrated or decomposed things. But it went to Wheeler, and so it was locked again because you simply can't give purified entropy to someone who's starting out that damaged.
There was a penguin... but not any more.
Ma-Ti kept using Heart on the penguin. It quit, taking its ring with it.
There was no Australian.
The Australian existed and had the vacuum ring.
But since
nature abhors a vacuum...There are seven planeteers.
The Australian and the Penguin (or member of a mysterious Antarctican native tribe), Lightning and Ozone respectively, are hanging out in Antarctica and filling the ozone layer back in, though not as quickly as it depletes (it has to be both, because Ozone is, in the lower atmosphere, most commonly found as a product of lightning). Only five planeteers are necessary, and only Heart is necessary to have a Captain Planet that didn't
Come Back Wrong. (This is
one reason why Heart is the most powerful of them all; it's the keystone power for activating the Captain Planet protocol). If one of the Planeteers was killed in the line of duty, then it would be possible to bring back one of the two reserve members until the regular could be replaced, at the cost of letting the hole in the ozone layer grow more quickly.
- Then why didn't they do anything when Duke Nukem and Leadsuit came to Antarctica to make the hole in the ozone layer larger? He had a whole factory set up there!
There are five other kids with Power rings.
All of whom are Australian. (Antarctica has no human children.) There's an electricity kid, a metal kid, a nuclear kid, a magnetic kid, and a vacuum/death kid. Take the above WMGs into consideration, and you'll see why Gaia doesn't like them.
The Australian had the Lightning ring and was kicked out of the Planeteers...
Because he thought
Rock'N'Roll Wasn't Noise Pollution.
The names of the Planeteers aren't their real names, but their titles.
Possibly as a
Legacy Character scenario, the 'first' Planeteers had those names and their successors assume those names in memory of the first ones. Hence why the female Gi has a boy's name and how Ma-Ti
eventually became an Indian man who fought Malachite.
There were two more planeteers.
An Australian power of wood, and a girl from Atlantis with the power of Metal
Crossovers
Wheeler is the Bizarro universe version of Fred from
Scooby-Doo.
First of all, Wheeler seems to be the most developed out of all the Planeteers, Fred on the other hand, in the early days,
had zero to none personality, then there comes the fact that Wheeler is the Lancer of the group, while Fred is the leader of Mystery Inc.
- Fred is also a blond in love with a redhead, while Wheeler is a redhead in love with a blonde.
Captain Planet is a Na'vi with his tail cut off and Gaia is Eywa's second cousin.
Gaia and Eywa are both spirits of nature on their respective planets, and they don't save the world directly. Captain Planet and the Na'vi are both blue and want to protect the environment.
- Cap is only six-feet tall, has green hair, and a man-shaped body. Perhaps Cap & Gaia are the Id & Ego of Eywa?
- He's an immature Na'vi.
- Oh, so Gaia gets killed at some point.
Captain Planet is the collective soul of all
The Smurfs.
are little blue creatures who live in tune with nature and have strange alchemical and magical properties while being on a first name basis with Mother Nature (though in their show, she looks like a Caucasian grandmother). The Smurfs must have created an
Aeon or
Summon Monster, either
via ritual suicide or from regular dying; rather than going to "Smurf Heaven" (which they don't believe in
because they're communists), their souls serve as fuel to power Captain Planet.
The Power Rings channel energy from the Smurfs.
Mother Nature designed the Smurfs as a form of Bio Weapon in case humanity caused problems (more than we usually do). The rings are simply channels to the Smurfy-energy.
Capt. Planet is Prometheus.
Gaia is name of a Titan in Greek myth. Prometheus is also a Titan.
- Sometimes, he acts more like Epimetheus...
- Hey, this could make sense when combined with a WMG below...
Terraforming Mars will make Ares good.
Tough to say, but Ares may be bitter at having killed his own planet and is trying to mess up Earth out of spite. If we ever do go to Mars and start making it habitable, Ares will feel
The Power of Love and
Friendship, mending his evil ways when life returns to his dead planet.
- Robert Zubrin is aware of this. If this theory is true, that makes him good. If the theory below is true, that may make him an evil Planeteer.
Terraforming Mars would give Ares the raw energy he needs to create more of his evil Planeteer rings and take out Gaia and the Planeteers.
Terraforming Mars would make Ares want to play Leonidas in a Martian version of
300.
This would probably wipe out any remaining life on Mars. It would also solve any population problems on Earth.
The Planeteers are the Forever People (from
The DCU), and Captain Planet is Infinity Man.
To note:
- Moonrider (shoots lasers)- Fire ring.
- Big Bear (changes density of things) - Water ring (works by changing the density of water).
- Vyking (Magnetism) - Earth ring (Controls iron in the rocks).
- Beautiful Dreamer (Telekinesis) - Wind ring (moves the air via telekinesis).
- Serifan/Serafin - Heart ring (Self-Explanatory).
- Infinity Man - Captain Planet (New Powers as the Plot Demands).
- Mother Box - Gaia.
The Forever People either got turned into rings or transplanted their powers into rings. Being hippies, they'd care for the environment.
The villains are
Carmen Sandiego's henchmen doing stuff in their spare time.
The show's artwork is similar to that of
Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego?. The villains' names somewhat resemble the
CS style - Hardley Worthit and Hoggish Greedly are just a hair's breadth of distance in groanitude. So, while Carmen steals landmarks with her
Mooks and one or two henchmen, her assistants train others by attempting to reach absurd levels of... eco-
unfriendliness.
Hoggish Greedly is a former Ghostbuster.
Hoggish Greedly used to be a Ghostbuster catching ghosts with the likes of Peter, Egon, Ray, and Winston. It's already clear that, with
The Real Ghostbusters organization, species is not a barrier to entry.
After he left that job, he accidentally struck oil. His greedy ambitions, his morbid obesity, and his name-change started then. He had tagged along Rigger and constructed a mobile offshore oil rig to get more cash.
The evidence is clear from the first episode of the show, "A Hero For Earth". Hoggish Greedly fires toxic waste/crude oil at Captain Planet to get him out of the cockpit of the Landblaster. But he shoots it from a gasoline pump that's attached to a backpack-like container on his back. At the time, he was wearing a dull-colored outfit with loads of pockets, a pair of tall black leather boots, and he had on a belt with several belt cases on it. Clearly, when he left, he kept both the outfit and the equipment.
The Kids for Nature were Planeteers in training, during the events of the show.
In the early 1990s, The Nature Company published a comic book called
Tales of Teratopia about five kids summoned to the magical island of Teratopia to fix environmental problems with magical necklaces that let them transform into animals.
They were meant to be a secondary team ("The Legion of Substitute Planeteers"?); they were being trained to help the main group, and their necklaces would have been more powerful if Gaia hadn't put so much energy into the rings. Because Gaia was busy helping the main Planeteer team, the KFN were trained in the pocket dimension of Teratopia by her deputies, the Wolf and Snake elders.
Since he's half-dead, he's not able to use the power of heart, and people became nastier.
Gaia got her claws into them before they could be contacted by their true parents and activated their dormant powers. They are now planning to use them to wipe out humanity, the source of the gods' power.
The Eco-villains are stereotypes because they're Gaia's choice targets. She hopes that continued exposure to them will eventually convince the Planeteers to take increasingly extreme measures to stop them, including genocide (it'll remove whatever groups the villains earn a profit from). Eventually, other, legit businesses will become targets in the Planeteers' pro-environment rampage.
Several thousand years ago, Atlantis was destroyed when a team of Planeteers did a
Face–Heel Turn.
Fortunately, she was able to push the responsibility onto Poseidon.
They're both portrayed by Whoopi Goldberg. We know that Guinan was on Earth during the late 19th century. It isn't a huge stretch of the imagination that she might have either stayed through the 20th century, or returned a century later.
The rings are sufficiently-advanced El-Aurian technology, and their misuse is ultimately responsible for much of the destruction wreaked during the Eugenics Wars.
The cartoon series takes place in the same universe as The Mask.
The basis for this guess is the shared link of Tim Curry and his characters in each cartoon. We know that prior to her facial scarring and insanity, Dr. Blight was once a good-natured scientist who worked with her lab assistant/husband Malcolm to create a computer AI. After the accident supposedly took Malcolm's life and left her insane, she reprogrammed the AI into her computer MAL and gave it Malcolm's face. What if Malcolm didn't die but had also been driven insane in the accident? Mask villain Pretorius sure looks a LOT like MAL, after all... and he was never given any sort of history in the series beyond the surgical removal of his own head to plant it onto a robotic body.
The Skaven are a race of rat-like, semi-humanoid beings who thrive on filth and decay while plotting the downfall of every other race in existence. They are untrustworthy, they are disgusting, and they tend to fail a lot because of their inborn cowardice. Skumm simply fell through a Warp rift and wound up on Holy Terra about thirty-eight thousand years before the "Current" series of events in 40K.
Over time people became so corrupted and held less regard for spirituality and bending that they lost their bending powers over time. Humans can no longer bend without magical aid, and the animals that could bend died out long ago.
Captain Planet and the Planeteers are the first wave of Gaia's
Counterforce And every time a team of Planeteers is defeated in a particularly dangerous way,
Primate Murder lives up its name.
He wields power over all four elements, and the sequence is even the same! (Earth, Fire, Wind, Water vs Water, Earth, Fire, Air). Heart could be what makes avatars able to go into the avatar state and bend all four elements. After lying dormant for man generations, Gaia needed a champion of the world, so she reawakened the avatar to bring balance to the world. Or just the environment...
- Also, it could be that there's a catastrophic event that leaves the world just about in ruins, modern technology being mostly lost, and the Planeteers won't need the rings to use their powers, forming the basis of elemental bending.
The Eco-Villains are trying to summon Hedorah the Smog Monster.
They worship Hedorah like a god, and are trying to summon him so they can pollute the world
For the Evulz. Of course, they forget that Hedorah holds no allegiances, would likely kill them, and Hedorah would pollute the Earth more than they wished, seeing as how several of them are not
Omnicidal Maniacs. And not even Captain Planet could stop Hedorah, and most importantly, Godzilla doesn't exist (unless Gaia created him), so Hedorah would be unstoppable.
A Teen Titans crossover will eventually happen
Either as a normal teen Titans special, perhaps Trigon and Zarm working together, or... a Teen Titans GO! episode. Because hearing Ma-Ti and Robin argue in the same voice would be hilarious.
Sequel/Reboot Ideas
There will be a new TV Series.
There
are plans for a film adaptation in the works, a new TV series wouldn't be unreasonable. Not to mention his appearance
in a fighting game.
- Considering all the reboot TV series that have been showing up, it's not too unlikely.
Plot: Sly Sludge, feeling particularly cheap/foolish, dumps a bunch of waste into Mount Etna, accidently awakening
Typhon, who then starts laying waste to the world. The Planeteers are then tasked with stopping Gaia's wayward child before it annihilates all life on the planet.
It would focus mainly on the Planeteers and give them more character development. Captain Planet will appear very little, if at all, and the show would just be called "The Planeteers". It would be darker and more violent, with people frequently being killed. The Planeteers will actually make use of their powers instead of standing around like whiny morons who give up easily and want Captain Planet to do all the work. Polluting factories would be blown up and the people running them would be tortured.
- It would be really cool to see a reboot as dark as Scooby Doo Reboot in Mystery Incorporated.
- Adding on to this: the main antagonist would be an Expy of the Shinra Corporation. In addition, the Planeteers are vilified by the government as a Neo-Luddite terrorist group standing in the way of "progress", while covering up their own atrocities against non-whites. The Planeteer lineup would also be different:
- Tim from America, holder of the Fire Ring and an advocate of using his powers to cleanse the Earth of those who would bring harm to Gaia
- Hans from Germany, holder of the Wind Ring, who was rendered an orphan after his family was executed for developing wind power and threatening the monopoly held by fossil fuels
- Wallace from Australia, holder of the Earth Ring, and a natural geologist seeking to make a clean-burning coal substitute
- Suki from Japan, holder of the Water Ring, who is Tim's love interest and often agrees with him on the use of violence
- Asha from Kenya, holder of the Heart Ring, an animal conservationist from Nairobi who protects the animals of the Earth by using her powers to turn her enemies against each other
- Juan from Argentina, holder of the Lightning Ring, who is the mediator of the team's conflicts
- Kwame is the only surviving member of the original Planeteers, the rest having been captured and executed; he serves as the team's advisor.
- When Captain Planet does appear, he doesn't spout horrible puns every few seconds, but is very serious without a hint of humor, and above all else, he can die, but is much like Captain Scarlet, in that he cannot stay dead permanently.
- I think if we were to bring back Captain Planet today the writers would be forced to take one of two options. It either would need to be updated to match the more doomsday rhetoric of the modern environmental efforts that would hurt it's marketability to a good chunk of the planet. Or they could instead play it up in the whole angle that the planeteers are the "we can make the world a better place" millennials who feel the world moved further away from their ideas since the 90s. Which would be a more interesting Darker and Edgier option but would put it right in the crosshairs of academic and internet culture. You'd need to assign it to writers who would be more riskier; otherwise, it would fizzle out fast.
If there is a sequel series, then the Planeteers will cross the
Moral Event Horizon in the first overpopulation episode.
But the writers will try to pass off basic decency as a
Moral Event Horizon.
Ted Turner
Hope Island was in the center of the Earth until Gaia sent the rings out; then Hope Island pops up on the surface for the Planeeters to use as home base.
Gaia woke up and sent the rings out because Hoggish Greedly drilled for oil and slightly damaged the ceiling in her room.
Someone or something has placed a
Power Limiter on the Fire Ring.
There is only
one person on Earth during the years of the show's run who could wield the Fire Ring as a good guy. One person among
billions — and he's not that nice a good guy. Clearly, someone has placed strict restrictions on who can use that ring.
It may be in the nature of the Ring. It is the Fire Ring, and in Greek Mythology—from which Gaia comes—fire is the original sin. There may be an upper limit on how pure someone using the Fire Ring can be and still get it to work. This combined with the lower limit for being a good guy at all and the implied age limit for all ringbearers would limit Gaia's choices. Finding someone who would not be tempted to corrupt the holder of the Heart Ring would narrow it down still further.
Still, exactly one person among billions...
- If anything, the fact that only one person could wield it correctly would indicate it doesn't have a power limiter. There's a strong suggestion that Gaia chose these specific kids to wield the rings specifically because they're good people who would use the rings to do good but also be wary of using them to their full potential, thus avoiding the team becoming a pack of Well-Intentioned Extremist terrorists. All the rings are dangerous, but fire is probably the hardest to use effectively without causing huge collateral damage or killing people. Wheeler is very restrained in how he uses violence (ring-based or otherwise) and shares the goals and values of the other Planeteers.
- Also, Wheeler is not the first or only member of the team to take a 10-Minute Retirement, and Gaia didn't go looking for someone else to replace Kwame, Ma-Ti or Linka either. Though Wheeler is the bearer who gets it emphasized, it seems conceivable that none of the Planeteers would be easy or even possible to replace.
