First up, Mexican wrestler superhero movies from the 60s!
Superargo: A former Mexican wrestler who looks like he's wearing a red version of The Phantom's costume battles a mad scientist who's captured athletes and turned them into cyborgs. This was from the 60s and the cyborgs made me think of what Borg would have looked like if they had been part of the original series. The funniest part is earlier Superargo says his costume is bulletproof yet when he's climbing up the stairs with some escaped prisoners and the bad guy fires a gun, Superargo ducks and lets some poor schlub get killed. Our hero!
Neutron the Atomic Superman: No he's not Superman, but he's A superman with the power to...shave his chest and punch people? He doesn't even have a cool car. Basically some shirtless guy in a wrestler mask has to foil the plan of a guy with his head wrapped in bandages who has an army of crappy "death robots" led by a midget dressed like a lumberjack. Since this was made in Mexico it features bad dubbing along with crappy effects and acting. While there are three guys who could possibly be Neutron, we never find out which one it is. Or maybe like Scream they take turns. Though really the cops should just have them take off their shirts and see who has the least chest hair.
Samson the Silver Maskman vs the Vampire Women: Samson is pretty much like Neutron only he has a cool car. He has to battle a cult of, wait for it, vampire women. Who are really done in by their own stupidity. I mean if you're vampires why would your lair have windows for sun to shine in and kill you? Duuuuuh. This was an MST3K episode notable for it's the last episode with Dr. Forrester's henchman TV's Frank. During one of the intermission skits Torgo from Manos the Hands of Fate (played by host Michael J Nelson) invites Frank to "Second Banana Heaven" with other sidekicks. One riff I liked is during a wrestling match Crow says, "So this is the sport John Irving wrote about so eloquently." I wouldn't have got it in 1994 but now I get it. (If you've followed my blog a while maybe you do too. Or not.)
With the success of Superman in 1978 there were of course some imitators that were not very good. These two were made in Italy or maybe one was Spain but either way they were both foreign productions attempting to cash in on another movie's success.
The Pumaman: Long ago aliens visit the Earth and left some magical mask that would be guarded by the Pumaman. Years later the mask is stolen by Donald Pleasance. And thus a new Pumaman needs to be found to stop him. So this big Aztec guy goes to England to bestow the honor on some whiny, dorky scientist. Who then gains the power to fly awkwardly with his ass in the air. And his hands can rip through stuff and somehow he can walk through walls. Mostly his power is whining. It's kind of like the Seth Rogen Green Hornet where the ethnic character does most of the actual work while the white hero is a total dumbass, only instead of an Asian guy it's the Aztec guy. One of the unintentionally hilarious things (besides the effects, especially the "flying") is that most people say "Pooh-ma-man" while Donald Pleasance says "P-You-ma-man." This was an MST3K episode with skits where the bots get Mike to wear ridiculous clothes to become a hero and then make a mask like in the movie to control singer Roger Whittaker.
Supersonic Man: This late 70s movie from...Spain? Italy? Brazil?...whatever is a mockbuster of Superman, though it has more in common with Flash Gordon or that really lame 70s Captain America movie. The Wonder Woman and Incredible Hulk TV shows look like The Dark Knight compared to this cheesy production featuring a superhero whose main power seems to be not being able to lower his arms to his sides. There's even one of those 50s-era boxy automatons to menace the hero, whose catch phrase is "May the force of the galaxies be with me." Hmmm, I seem to have heard that somewhere before. The bad guy played by Cameron Mitchell looks like he stole William Shatner's toupee and a drum major’s uniform. On the plus side Supersonic Man is able to at least fly without is ass in the air, so there's that.
Firehead: This 1990 action movie is filled with head-scratching questions. Like, why do they call him "Firehead" when he shoots lasers or whatever from his eyes? What the hell does "bigger than a hog's dick on Sunday" mean? And how did they get legendary actors Christopher Plummer and Martin Landau to appear in it? The plot is that "Firehead" defects from the USSR to America and starts blowing up factories working on some secret government project. Chris Lemmon (son of Jack) is brought in to investigate and with some female agent they track Firehead down and join with him to overthrow Christopher Plummer and a bunch of guys who dress like extras of The Prisoner. It's a pretty corny movie with a cornier theme song. Besides the hog's dick line there was also another animal-themed goody: cleaner than a wolves' tooth--that's their wording. I don't know what either of those expressions is supposed to mean.
A cinematic universe of all these heroes would probably make about 50 cents.
A cinematic universe of all these heroes would probably make about 50 cents.
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