Eco Superhero Comebacks Edit
Captain Planet Makes A Very Green Return From The 90s

Look out oil-drilling villains, there is one tough, green, mullet-wearing dude back in town, and his name is Captain Planet.

From the mind of Ted Turner, Captain Planet and the Planeteers was a big hit in the early 90’s on the Cartoon Network and almost became a feature film starring the voice of Tom Cruise. But then it was shelved, MIA, as countless real-life eco-disasters unfolded.

But now he is back, starting today, thanks to the Mother Nature Network. MNN.com, called the “green CNN” by Time Magazine and features a wealth of green news and resources (and a tech blog by yours truly). And the latest addition to the roster is the Captain Planet crew.

For those of you either too young or too old to remember, the premise is that Gaia, one hot Native American mama played by Whoopi Goldberg, awakes from a hundred year slumber, only to discover that her planet is on the brink of collapse.

She creates 5 magic rings, one for each element (the 5th element is love of course!) and gives them to these cute teenagers in 5 different continents. When they put their rings together, Captain Planet is born.

In the first episode, he kicks Ed Asner’s ass, quite a freaky villain. But he escapes, sure to cause more environmental trouble in subsequent episodes.

It’s quite a coup to bring back these cartoons online. MNN has a pretty sweet embeddable video player, and you can subscribe to hear all the famous character actors of the day battling our planet-loving heroes.

Here’s a short list of some of the cameos: Ed Asner, Levar Burton, Tim Curry, Phyllis Diller, Danny Glover, Whoopi Goldberg, Jeff Goldberg, Neil Patrick Harris (as a boy), Helen Hunt, Margot Kidder, Meg Ryan, Martin Sheen, Sting and Elizabeth Tailor.