Sunday, January 31, 2010

Spotlight on Evil: Krang!

Welp, boils and ghouls, I thought today would be a perfect day to start a new segment on The 'Choke: Spotlight on Evil. This will be my chance to showcase some of my favorite villains in pop culture history. And what better way to kick it off than with that diabolical brain - Krang!?

Krang is one of the most excellently strange super villains to ever grace the small screen. According to his Wikipedia page:
He somehow took command of an army of Rock Soldiers under the leadership of General Traag, and stole the Technodrome, a powerful mobile battle fortress, from its creator Von Drakus. One day, an unexplained, bizarre incident occurred that caused Krang to be stripped of his body and reduced to a brain-like form, also resulting in his exile from Dimension X to Earth, along with his army and the Technodrome.

While on Earth, Krang allied himself with the Shredder, who, along with his robotic Foot Soldier army, moved into the Technodrome. In exchange, the Shredder had to design and build a new body for Krang, a human-shaped exo-suit. Shredder lived up to his part of the bargain in the season 1 episode [The Shredder is Splintered], in no small part because he was unable to deal with the Turtles and needed Krang's help. Indeed, in the season 3 episode [Shredderville], the Turtles have a dream of a parallel world in which they never lived, and Shredder had no problem taking over the world. In this world, Shredder abandoned Krang after his conquest was complete, leaving him with no body and a heavily-damaged Technodrome.

I bet you didn't know all of that. But, now I've got your interest piqued, fo' sho. Krang sure does have a lot of charisma for being nothing but grey (pink?) matter, I think we all have to give him that. Let's take a look at Krang in pop culture...

When I was a kid, I had all kinds of Turtle memorabilia, including, you guessed it, a bunch of toys. I had the Turtle Sewer Base, at least a hundred action figures, the Party Wagon, even the Technodrome...but my most prized Turtle possession? Krang in his robot body. That's right, I was the only one I knew that had it, and I felt like Ricky Schroder when the other kids would come over and gawk at my terrifically tall toy. Sure, I broke the little antenna off the top of his head, but dammit if he wasn't still a glorious sight to behold. Just look at the picture to the right and tell me that you aren't getting just a little bit jealous thinking about how much fun I must have had using that thing to break apart my Construx or trample my Gi Joes.

Of course, one of the absolute coolest things that I've come across recently is this T-shirt from 80's Tees. As you might be able to gather, the shirt is supposed to make you the android body with Krang resting comfortably, helming the controls that make you're dumbass move! How delightful! But, really, someone buy me this. Please, because I really do want it.

Also, don't hestiate to check out Paper Foldables for a sweet how-to guide on making your very own Krang origami. Which, has kind of always been a personal goal of mine...

That about raps up our first edition of Spotligh on Evil. I hope we've shed a little bit of lit on the wondeful creature that is Krang of Dimension X.

2 comments:

J. Astro said...

Excellent first choice and I am 120% (if not more) on board with this awesome new "Spotlight on Evil" column. :D

Jordan in Texas said...

Excellent. Thanks, J.!

Olympic Artichoke banners designed by Whalehead

Email us: olympicartichoke@live.com