Kim Possible: Two of A Kind?!?!?!?!??!

4:47 PM · Jan 16, 2021 "drakken got himself a man"

 

 

 

 

 

 

In my last blogpost I talked about Spirou et Fantasio, a Franco Belgian comic series about a super tough young red haired hero, a doofy blond best friend who gives into vice easily, and their sometimes talking animal sidekick.

Today, I'm gonna talk about Kim Possible, an American animated series about a super tough young red haired hero, a doofy blond best friend who gives into vice easily, and their sometimes talking animal sidekick.

3:51 PM · Jan 16, 2021 "i think kim possible is a spirou et fantasio adaptation..."

I did a lot of research on whether or not Kim Possible was at all inspired by Spirou, and came up pretty emptyhanded. From what I can tell, Kim Possible's inspirations are characters such and James Bond, James Kirk, and various Marvel superheroes. From what little I know about these topics, this seems to make sense. In addition, Kim Possible was also inspired by the can-do attitude of the creators' daughters.

Spirou is a bit of an ouroboros of the self, so finding inspiration is a bit harder. Artists tend to put their own modern touches on Spirou, though they're usually inspired by political climate (Fournier) or the rising popularity of manga (Morvan and Munuera). If you go all the way back to Rob-Vel, the inspiration for Spirou is somewhat autobiographical, going back to his work on transatlantic liners.

Ultimately, the similarities between Kim and Spirou are the fault of convergent evolution. Some aspects like Rufus weren't even added to Kim Possible til later in production. BUT. Let's ask ourselves a question:

How good of a Spirou et Fantasio animated adaptation is Kim Possible? Is it better than, say, 2006's Spirou et Fantasio: Two of a Kind?

Measuring the quality of an adaptation is one thing, but comparing two different shows is another. We'll need an episode with a similar plot to measure how well each adaptation does its thing. So let's go with a basic, but modern enough for the 2000s prompt: Fantasio gets sucked into a video game. 

So the episodes we're going to be testing the waters with are "Game Plan" and "Virtu-Ron."

In the Spirou 2006 episode "Game Plan," we start out with the gang hanging out at the beach when Fantasio and Zaoki go inside. Zaoki tells Fantasio about the new VR helmet she got from a friend that literally sucks you into the game. Fantasio, being a lover of modern tech, is eager to try it out. A good starter for our friend Fantasio. As for Zaoki, she's a new character created by the show, and is the daughter of Zorglub, one of the villains. After this series, another Zorglub daughter, Zandra, would appear in the Zorglub spinoff comic. Zaoki is a fun character. I don't have any problems with her.

"Virtu-Ron" takes a little longer to get us into the video game world. We see Ron, the Fantasio for this series, trying to impress Zita, who could really be any random woman character who strikes Fantasio's fancy. (While I do wish Zita played a more prominent role in the show, as far as a Spirou adaptation, this treatment does track.) 

Kim, our Spirou, spends a considerable amount of time complaining about eating gross food with the family and all the nerdy MMO stuff going on. Making Spirou a teenager with a family is a very questionable move, as the comics tended to keep Spirou's parents a secret. Worth noting they completely ditched the bellhop motif, something that came about with Yoann and Vehlmann's comics. These details add little to the show, so changing them doesn't affect my enjoyment. However, Spirou's patience is usually a lot more worn by these sorts of flights of fancy of his friend Fantasio, going from acceptance to annoyance, while Kim maintains a mild annoyance throughout. It's still nice to see our Spirou show emotions though. It's something I enjoyed from the Franquin era. 

Wade also helps Ron with the game. I guess the best comparison for Wade would be Count de Champignac: The team's smart guy and considerably older rather than younger. Wade is also big on tech rather than mushrooms. Overall, I would say Wade is the weakest of the adapted Spirou characters.

Back to "Game Plan," Spirou and the Count try to communicate with Fantasio and Zaoki in game, now joined by Zaoki's friend Eliza (a one off character). Spirou shows a lot of concern for his friend and needs him back, despite the fact that they were basically just making a home for a turtle. However, he's not as emotive as he ought to be, at most laughing whenever Fantasio does something silly. Champignac mostly serves to be the techie smart guy, in a matter almost identical to Wade. The main difference is the Count's interest in mushrooms has been brought up once (as a minor detail). Fantasio on the other hand spends most of his time complaining, which is funny.

Then to Virtu-Ron, we get Rufus yelling at Kim to enter the game as well. Rufus, is our team's Spip, and the most noticeable difference about him is that he is Ron's pet, while Spip in the series is Spirou's pet. This leads to a less than perfect friendship between our Spip and our Spirou, which is instead given to Spip and Fantasio. Rufus is also more willing to jump to action than Spip, who wishes he had a normal owner.

Spip in "Game Plan" is pretty typical of Spip from the comics. A goofy squirrel, who, in this adaptation does not speak, but it is evident that he does not want to be here as our players make it through the levels.

Rufus played a stronger role in "Virtu-Ron" revealing himself to be the tunnel lord. This is pretty cartoony for a Spip and honestly seems more like a Marsupilami move, though it is entertaining.

In terms of actual sticking to the characters, Two of a Kind has Kim Possible beat. However, I would say Ron is a better Fantasio adaptation than Fantasio, and characters like Kim and Wade come pretty close to Spirou and Champignac. Kim Possible's characters are also a lot more well-rounded, and the show itself is pretty entertaining, so despite the differences, it's pretty up in the air for me still

Off the most insane tangent I've been on on this blog to date, let's actually talk about Kim Possible as its own show.

6:44 PM · Jan 14, 2021 "KP was one of my favorite shows when i was a kid and i dressed up as her one halloween"

This wasn't the first show on the Disney Watch I had enjoyed as a kid. I've already mentioned Bonkers and The Little Mermaid, but it was special for me. Kim feels like this prime girl power character. I'm not sure if it's the nostalgia goggles, but instead of being #girlboss like a lot of modern female leads, she just feels like a hero. Maybe it's the inspiration from male heroes creating what is ultimately this teen girl hero who feels right.

Though honestly, I don't think I would like her if she were a real person.

Watching Kim Possible as an adult made me think back on my own high school years, and how Kim and Ron would fit in them. I could see myself taking a lot of the same classes as Kim, especially if she was in AP classes like myself, and I could see her getting on my nerves with her type A personality and impatience toward uncool things. Just a little.

I feel like I discussed Ron a lot in my Spirou analysis; however, I do have a bit of a hot take about Kim x Ron. I think them dating is fine, but they're ultimately going to break up, once the realization that Ron has gender envy toward Kim hits. This is mostly based on the body swap episode.

Drakken and Shego are the villains who show up the most, and they're really good.

4:59 PM · Jan 16, 2021 "shego is so funny im gonna end up wifing her at some point huh?"
5:40 PM · Jan 17, 2021 "idk if i wife shego yet. i might if i watch more tho"
3:56 PM · Jan 17, 2021 "shego being the disabled ally of the show was not something i was expecting but good on her..."

I continued to watch past my 13 episode rule, and I ultimately came to the conclusion that yeah, Shego is kind of... yeah.

Drakken's funny on his own, and not to continue my trans coding characters in this show, but I do get a bit of a nonbinary vibe from him, considering the reaction from when his birthname is thrown around. Maybe a bit of an any pronouns guy? What do you think?

Though I guess I have some evidence against it.

4:58 PM · Jan 17, 2021 "drakken's on queer eye????????????????//"

THIS IS SO SAD!!!

When I watched it way back when I always assumed other villains showed up more. Especially DNAmy, who was only in 3-4 episodes. It was pretty weird how absent villains were.

10:38 PM · Apr 3, 2022 "he wants to be goku"

 

 

 

 

 

Also Monkey Fist is the worst one.

I think something Kim Possible lends itself to well is the use of tropes. I know I and many others complain about shows being too tropey, but Kim does it very well. Various concepts of the show such as "Girl who advertises herself for odd jobs gets a distress signal" and "The villain has a rival who is another villain and the two get confused often" have been rotating in my mind for such a long time.

It sticks to its continuity too, which I respect for an episodic cartoon!

I think all of my problems with Kim Possible come about around season 4, and it's not horrible, but it is really weird.

The first thing I notice is that everyone is more present. This isn't a bad thing. There's a lot of characters I love to see! Monique is here more. Wade is here more. Team Go is here more. Yori is here more. I love all those guys.

But Barkin is also here more... Barkin is here so incredibly often.

Though it may disappoint the Patrick Warburton fanboys and also my mother, I don't like Barkin. He's unpleasant to be around, and his dynamic with Ron, especially in the fourth season, makes me feel sorry for the both of them.

Season 4 Ron is also pretty bad. Watching Virtu-Ron felt like such a breath of fresh air... Heck, even the 2019 movie felt like a breath of fresh air. Season 4 Ron comes off as very immature, very unready for a relationship, and kind of a very unhealthy person in every regard.

Also season 4 is just like really fatphobic and transphobic and keeps pushing this joke that Brick Flagg is four years older than the main cast (which was pretty outta left field).

There were a lot of good episodes, including the finale. I'm really happy with how KP ended, both in So The Drama and Graduation. Both gave conclusions but kept things up in the air.

2:17 PM · Jan 17, 2021 "kim possible 2020 jim and tim get vinyl"

I also watched the movie, and while this has no bearing on my ratings, I thought it'd be nice to talk about too. (Season 4 hardly did as I realized the other three seasons were even greater than I had though.)

It's a pretty good movie. A bit anachronistic in the way only loser nerds, care about, but I enjoyed it. Ron and Shego were kept pretty in character, which is all I can ask for!

The Kim of this movie is a bit more emotionally vulnerable, which I like and dislike. On one hand it adds to Kim's character, but on the other, it feels so counter intuitive to this hero character girls have. But on the other hand she's like 14 here so I can't complain too much.

Also wasn't the biggest on the change from cheerleading to soccer, not because I care deeply about Kim's cheerleading skills or anything (some of the cheer scenes in Kim Possible are the most poorly animated scenes of the show), but because I've never seen American high schoolers get pumped about soccer. Usually lacrosse, basketball, and volleyball were the go-tos. Softball too I guess, but you can't do cool tricks in softball.

There was also no Monique. Which sucks. Though Monique was the new girl, so maybe she'll show up in a sequel? Maybe this adaptation will show us the light and make everyone Kim x Monique shippers, which I'm still convinced will be post endgame after Kim and Ron break up.

Ultimately my biggest beef with the movie is how absolutely wrong they got Dr. Ann Possible. In the film, she teams up with Kim and kicks butt, which, while it is a girlboss moment, Ann Possible in my mind is characterized by being a brilliant neurosurgeon, but never wanting to do anything else ever. Speaking as someone in the neuroscience field myself this is a mood and a half and we the lazy neuroscientists are being silenced.

Anyway I got to talk about a show I like, so you don't get to complain about my complaining anymore

Overall Rating for Kim Possible: S Tier