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Timing Killed The Television Star – A Flashback To M.A.N.T.I.S.

Welcome to the sixteenth installment of Flashback to the Present.  I’ll be your contributing writer, Charles Knauf. 

Right now I’m typing this in the back of the San Diego Convention Center, using the limp body of a Storm Trooper as my table; the bastard actually told me, Darth “Are you an angel” Anakin Vader Skywalker could beat Superman.

I had to knock him out on principle alone.

Anyway, in honor of San Diego Comic Con, I’m going to focus on a little superhero show that not only predicted where medical science was going two decades later, but the character and themes are pretty much what are considered hip today. 

…and that show’s name is M.A.N.T.I.S.

M.A.N.T.I.S., or Mechanically Augmented Neuro Transmitter Interception System, is a Sci-Fi show that premiered on Fox and held out for one season – 22 episodes total.  It was produced by Sam Raimi (yeah, that dude) and developed by Sam Hamm (writer of both Batman and Batman Returns).

The story goes like this: the super-wealthy Dr. Miles Hawkins (Carl Lumbly) was struck in the spine by a bullet during a riot that left him paralyzed.

Using his vast fortune and scientific knowledge, Hawkins created an exoskeleton that not only allows him to walk, but gives him powers beyond that of normal human beings.

Sounds pretty cool, right?

Now to what I was mentioning above.

The first thing you will notice is something not too prevalent, even in today’s entertainment industry: the protagonist, Dr. Hawkins, is black.

Nowadays, people are blown away when Marvel announces Captain America’s shoes will be filled by Samuel Wilson, or that an alternative reality Spider-Man will be Miles Morales; but M.A.N.T.I.S. was an original IP that featured a successful, wealthy, intelligent black man as its protagonist.

As a writer I was taught that story and character mean everything; therefore, nuances like race or religion are only there to serve said story or character.  Thus, even mentioning the issue is as silly as saying “Jeeze, you should pat yourself on the back for making your protagonist 45 years old!”

However, you have to admit that if companies today are receiving all sorts of praise for diversifying their catalog of characters, then you must give a nod to M.A.N.T.I.S. doing it 20 years earlier.

The second thing is how oddly accurate Hawkins’ M.A.N.T.I.S. suit is to what the medical and military community is developing.

Granted, M.A.N.T.I.S. had a costume department and it was the mid-90s so the look was defiantly more style than substance; but put the suit next to Argo Medical Technologies’ ReWalk (recently approved by the FDA) or Project TALOS (Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit) that DARPA, NSRDEC, and RDECOM are developing.

Unfortunately, I think the only issue that plagued M.A.N.T.I.S. was timing.

M.A.N.T.I.S. was structured like a CW superhero show well before Smallville, Arrow and the newly announced Flash; a heavy focus on the characters wrapped around a few action sequences without really getting into a darker realism (i.e. The Shield, The Wire, etc.).

The
problem is the fans that carry the above noted CW shows either didn’t
exist in 1994 or they were too young to matter.  Today there is a
healthy dose of 15-35 year-olds flooding the market.  The ratings
definitely reflected this fact.
 
Not to mention as the
ratings dropped, the network tried desperately to change things up
mid-season drastically changing course from the original storyline.



Turning back and watching it once more, one glaring problem was the special effects.  It was difficult, as was most television at the time, to shake the date stamp that is early-90s effects.  It also can’t escape the sometimes campy, 90s writing that drags it down at times.

Overall, I think it was an interesting concept that was well before it’s time; seriously, it is a crime the mythos of this show isn’t currently explored.  If you have some extra cash and some time I would recommend checking it out on Amazon or even seeing if you can pick up the complete DVD series on the cheap.

Now, back to comic con, a stale pretzel and a date between my fist and a chubby Deadpool; jerk cut in front of me in the line to meet Kevin Sorbo.

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