Ah, nature, man's oldest enemy.  Ever since our most distant ancestors evolved from aqua-yaks, nature has been out to get us.  Even if you take the more traditional view of human origins, the fact that nature hates us is in the Bible too (Look it up, it in the Book of, um, Qarl, you know the one with all the hamsters).  Either way, Planet Earth has always been trying to wipe us out before we could beat her back into the kitchen of the solar system to cook us some dinner, and always have we remained one step ahead.  In the early 1990's though, that almost changed (or maybe it was the late 80's, meh).

Captain Planet.  That name ring a bell?  It should, in fact he is nothing short of the sworn enemy of everyone out there who's not merely the personification of nature sent to wreak vengeance upon mankind (I think that's probably most of you).  Let's take a closer look though, shall we, at the one super hero even more lame than Aqua Man (that's dorky swim team Aqua Man, by the way, not totally sweet hook-hand goatee-having Aqua Man).

First, let's start with Captain Planet's foolish quisling teenage metaphorical helper monkeys (one of whom had his own literal helper monkey; that's just how deviois this show was).  There were four or five of them, one for each element.  They used the four old-school ignorant elements instead of the hundred-odd ones we know about today, partly because it would make the credits way too long and partly because then you'd have kids with powers like Radon, or Strontium, whose only power would be to kill people mercilessly, and some with powers like Unneleptium, who would decay into their constituent subatomic particles in a fraction of a second.

First, there's the always important street savvy white guy with a heart of gold.  Let's call him the Fonz, shall we?  His power was Fire, which you could tell because he had red hair.  Seriously, anytime someone has the power of Fire, they've got red hair, it's just how the universe works, don't question it, you fool.  Fonz's only other character trait worthy of mention (besides his tendancy to leave scorch marks on the planet-sofa, was his totally unrequited love for Helga.

Helga was from Eastern Europe, because it's the only part of Europe aside from Great Britain that's not totally wack (go ahead, think of the countries in Western Europe, most of them hate us because of our totally sweet pop culture and regular bathing habits).  Helga was as cold and frigid as the nose on a Ukranian Slarnth Beast and had the power of Wind.  According to the Captain Planet website (no really, somebody made one) she enjoys music and solving the toughest of problems, and dresses like she wandered into the juniors section of Goodwill during a Power outage and just threw on any damn thing she could find.

The next Planeteer hailed from Africa, because otherwise this show would have been whiter than Scooby Doo.  His name was LeVar Burton, and his powers were fixing starship engines, talking with androids, and making reading fun for kids (but don't take my word for it, da do doot)  Also, his power was Earth.  His other power was talking just like a black guy from America, except most of his sentences started with "Back in Africa..." (Should you, gentle reader, ever find that most of your lines start with "back in _insert native land here_" know that you have become a meaningless cookie-cutter diversity character, and go out in a blaze of glory at your soonest convenience)

Next came Generic Asian Woman Planeteer.  Her power was Water, and living up to pretty much every positive sterotype ever for Asian girls on TV.  She was a marine biologist, surfer, linguist, computer tech support, and expert builder of railroads, who always felt bad because the Fonz's heart belonged to another and LeVar Burton thought she was a skanky ho (with good reason, I might add).

Alas, we now get to the littlest Planeteer, Monkey Boy.  Raised by a tribe of wild lemurs is some generic South American country, Monkey Boy wasn't originally supposed to be a Planeteer at all.  However, one day when he was on a visionquest with his adopted brother Senor Mucho de Eeps, he ate one too many poisonous toads and found his way to the Planet Cave (or maybe it was the Planet Submarine, or the Planet Fonz's Mom's Basement, it doesn't matter really) and owing to the fact that he was twelve years old and only spoke monkey, they gave him a mood ring, told him his power was Heart, and mercifully refrained from eating his monkey brother.  According to the website, he was also the most caring Planeteer, which is a nice way of saying he was the most useless Planeteer.

Finally, we get to Captain Planet himself.  He was greenish, had a soccer kid haircut and was some kind of a nature spirit (like Jimmy Carter)  Every time all the Planeteers had proved their worthlessness for the episode, they'd call on him by putting all their rings together while the villian of the week, kindly stood by waiting for them to summon the one thing that could foil his evil scheme.  He was weak against pollution, cheesburgers, MTV, nuclear radiation, and monkeys (Monkey Boy was, in fact, part of the failsafe plan in case Captain Planet ever went rogue).  The nuclear radiation part never seemed to make much sense to me, since he seemed to be blatantly solar-powered, and last time I checked, the Sun is pretty much made of nuclear radiation, but maybe he Captain Planet didn't know this, and all his friend liked watching him make an ass of himself like that.

Also, there was some blue-haired Oprah woman who lived in their Cave/Submarine/Fonz's Mom's Basement and gave them their missions.  I think she was some kind of Earth-Goddess, because she wore a toga and had a computer that spit out holographs.

They had about a dozen different villains on the show, but they really all wanted the same thing, so we'll just average them out and get....Dick Cheney.  What did Dick Cheney want you ask?  To destry the environment.  Really.  He didn't want to, say, mine a bunch of diamonds while not caring about the enviroment, or possibly make a fortune selling whale parts while not caring about the environment; nope, he just hated the environment.  This is somewhat akin to Bills Gates spending a jillion dollars to steal a thousand baby seals, coat them with plutonium and drop them in a rainforest full of handicapped puppies.  Honestly, I never saw a villain on the show do anything the least bit profitable. Ever. Maybe if Captain Planet had just set Dick Cheney down and explained the basics of modern economics to him, he might have given up his evil ways and started a business where he'd carve baby names into old horseshoes or something, but no, Captain Planet just had to bust in there like Kool-Aid Man, punching crap and killing minions, all in the name of nature (kind of like environmentalists do today).

Finally, every show would end with a little PSA, like GI Joe and He-Man always did, only the Captain Planet one was always about helping the environment.  Don't listen though; the stronger the environment is, the easier it'll be for it to sneak into your house  tonight and punch you in the face.  Go kick a few whales instead, it'll keep Mother Nature in her place (Canada).

On the subject of unnatural yet awesome things, tune in tomorrow to learn about the future of Teacup Mammoths, and what they may mean to you. Captain Planet and the Teacup Mammoths, by the way, would be a totally sweet name for a band.