The Key Word In "Secret Identity" Is "Secret"

I don't feel like waiting until next week to do it, and I'm in a posting mood, so why don't we talk about last night's episode of Who Wants To Be A Superhero? while we're here enjoying our time together.

Last week's episode (which I discussed this past Wednesday) saw the elimination and subsequent turn to villainy of Iron Enforcer, now given the new moniker of "The Dark Enforcer." This week's episode began with him making his presence known to the other seven superheroes, which made me chuckle thanks to Ty'veculus exclaiming, "What is this treachery?!" That one line was so over the top that it seemed like he'd been waiting to say it since the show started.

So anyway, now that he's gotten that little piece of business out of the way, it's time for the episode's first challenge. Each of the heroes is given twenty bucks and is sent to a local café one at a time, with the assumption that their choices for lunch would be judged on their superheroic worthiness. After everyone makes their purchases and returns to base, Stan Lee and Dark Enforcer revealed that just because the camera crew wasn't following them into the café doesn't mean they weren't being watched. That's when they informed the heroes of the challenge's true intent: the reason the camera crew didn't accompany them to the cafe was so they would be lulled into a false sense of security, and see if the heroes would reveal their secret identities to the actors playing their friendly waiter or waitress. And on that note, Dark Enforcer rolled footage from hidden cameras that had been set up.

The only superheroes that managed to pass were Feedback and Fat Momma, while everyone else gladly gave their real names after a little prodding. But guess who flunked the challenge worst of all? Monkey Woman. Not only did she give away her real name without even being asked, but she offered her waiter a list of websites on how to break into the acting business. Of course, ol' Stan The Man didn't take too kindly to that. He called Monkey Woman alone to the chopping block for the middle-of-the-episode elimination, and grilled her about those websites. She confessed to being an actress, which surprised Stan because she said she was a real estate investor during her audition for the show. So if you said that Stan cut her, an winner is you and a loser is Monkey Woman. And I had such high hopes for her.

At this point in the discussion, I should point out that according to her MySpace blog, although Mary "Monkey Woman" Votava has had a few acting roles, she really does work as a real estate investor so she can pay the bills. And apparently, Stan wasn't aware of her acting experience. If they do a season two, maybe someone should point Stan in the direction of IMDB. That is, unless the producers wanted some actors in order to put a dramatic spin on certain portions of the show. I mean, with a few exceptions, almost everyone on the show has been in a movie, had a few guest spots on TV shows, or both. Eh, what can you do?

So anyway, back to the show. So we've had our first elimination of the episode, and it's time for the next challenge. They were taken to the roof of their lair, where there's a damsel in distress on the roof next door. Each superhero was supposed to cross a beam bridging the alley between the two rooftops, then bring the woman back across. And to throw a wrench into the gears, Dark Enforcer gets the bright idea to put blindfolds on everybody before hitting the beam. So similar to last week, we get a test of bravery.

But once again, there's a catch. Turns out none of them left their particular roof at all. With the blindfolds in place, each of them actually crossed a beam situated on their own roof. And the damsel in distress they picked up at the end of the beam? The twin sister of the damsel next door. And believe it or not, every single superhero passed the test for a change.

Since everyone succeeded in the challenge, Stan called everyone together to inform them of a new challenge. The new challenge: to show them how difficult his job is, he asked everyone to nominate one of their fellow heroes for elimination. Creature nominated herself right away, stating that she didn't think she was as heroic as the others. Major Victory, Feedback, and Lemuria all did the same, each with reasons similar to Creature's. Ty'veculus nominated Lemuria, thanks to questions he had regarding her emotions and motives. And though she didn't want to name names at first, Fat Momma picked Feedback because of her belief that he's too hard on himself.

Up on the rooftop for the second elimination, there was once again a little more to the challenge than originally believed. Stan revealed that the "pick a teammate" test was to see who among the heroes would essentially take a bullet for the others. Noting that he wasn't going to question anyone's motives regarding picking themselves, he called both Fat Momma and Ty'veculus up to the chopping block. Stan pointed out that although Fat Momma failed the challenge, he believed that she picked Feedback because she was concerned for his well-being, while he also believed that Ty'veculus's motives were not as noble. And thus, Ty'veculus was asked to turn in his costume.

As episode three came to a close, we end with Fat Momma claiming that she thought everyone else was being less than genuine while picking themselves, with Lemuria stating in an interview that Stan will have to try harder to "psych [her] out" and that she plans on staying in the game no matter what.

That was quite an episode. As I said, Monkey Woman getting eliminated for being an actress is a little odd, considering that pretty much everybody on the show is an actor. But I guess that's the way things have to be. The show was taped back in May anyway, so it's not like anybody can fill some sort of grievance or anything. And I'm still cheering for Major Victory, whose comic I would totally buy if I got the opportunity.

Next week's episode looks really good, so let's see what happens then, shall we?