I discovered The Collectibles because the theme song for their series is Kirby Krackle’s “I Wanna Live in a World Full of Heroes.” And the song fits the description of the webseries quite well, too. The Power Posse is a group of superheroes brought together by a corporation, CorpCo, to form a team. So, yeah, not only do superheroes exist, they have agents and even corporate sponsors. It makes a certain amount of sense, actually.
The team consists of six core members: SuperStar, UltraFemme, Shield Maiden, The Quick, Death-Wish, and Crimson Pike. We join them just after The Crimson Pike has suffered a career-ending pelvic injury. CorpCo needs to replace him, and they are also hinting that some other big changes may be coming, especially in the leadership.
I won’t go into too many spoilers here, but The Power Posse seem to me like a mix of DC and Marvel heroes (at least in terms of powers), but with all of Marvel’s heroes’ problems. On the DC side, Super Star is rather like Superman, UltraFemme is Wonder Woman, and The Quick is (obviously) The Flash. There’s even a secondary character called Agua Man. And, yes, he is actually Latino. Shield Maiden is more like Sue Storm, while Death-Wish is clearly The Punisher (although he has a sidekick called “Ennui” who is, ironically, ridiculously chipper). Rounding out the team is the psychic secretary, Receiver. Instead of a phone, she just uses her powers to connect callers with the rest of the team.
The series itself is really funny. I particularly like Super Star’s rather clueless optimism. He always tries to find the best from every situation, even to the point of ridiculousness. Death-Wish, on the other hand, believes that there is a conspiracy and that someone is running things behind the scenes. And, of course, he knows who it is. Agua Man is a drunk whose powers are usually overlooked, even when they could actually come in handy. The rest of the team often talks about him as if he isn’t present, which is probably why he drinks. I mentioned before that CorpCo is looking to replace Crimson Pike. One of my favorite potential replacements has to be Shrink Ray. His power is not what you think, which makes for a really great episode. And then there’s the best guest appearance: Kirby Krackle themselves. Kyle’s role is especially great; he plays CorpCo’s lawyer who never actually speaks, but instead whispers corrections into Jim’s ear (particularly ironic since Kyle is the lead singer and Jim doesn’t talk much). Very funny stuff.
The Collectibles is a fan-supported series. They take donations on their site, but even cooler than that is their merchandise. I’m planning on picking up at least one of the pint glasses, but I haven’t yet decided which character to get (I’m pretty sure my wife would kill me if I bought them all…).
So take a few minutes and watch the first episode (I should point out that some people have mentioned that there are audio problems on the first episode. I didn’t notice, but it’s worth noting that the audio does get better after a couple of episodes). I have a feeling you’ll be hooked just like I was!
