'Super Crooks' Review: Netflix's animated series leaves you rooting for the villains
For all you long time Mark Millar fans, 'Super Crooks' the 'Jupiter's Legacy' spinoff series makes for a great watch. The anime series seems like a combination of 'The Great Pretender', with regard to the opening and closing sequence animation, and 'Invincible', seeing that it has its fair share of blood and brains being splattered around.
If you're looking for other animated series to check out, you might want to consider -- 'Castlevania', 'Arcane', 'Invincible' and 'Yasuke'.
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Set in the 'Jupiter's Legacy' world, Johnny Bolt is a young kid who dreams of growing up to be a superhero. When his powers finally awaken, his dreams of saving people take a dark turn when he accidentally electrocutes people in a pool because he has no control over his power. Johnny learns early on the extent of his powers and then begins a life of petty crime. Johnny is in a committed relationship with Kasey, a villain with powerful psychic abilities. Even though she yearns to live a normal, crime-free life, the duo decide to join a crew and take on one massive heist. They are nearly successful until Matts, the supervillain who runs a totalitarian criminal organization, steals their enormous payout. Johnny, who finds himself out of prison after five years, rounds up the crew one last time to help their old member Carmine, the mastermind behind their first heist.
While the animation and the fights make for a great watch, keeping up with who exactly is in cahoots with who does get confusing. However, if anything, the level of corruption the show aims to display paints a realistic picture about the villain organization, The Network, that takes a cut from every crime committed by villains. However, if they are caught, they end up in Supermax, a prison, with no consequences to the Network. In turn, the Network pumps in money in the prison to keep it up and running. With an influx of superheroes vs criminals, the Network helps keep the criminal business alive, which keeps the superheroes busy. The series goes on to show that Johnny, and the crew, hope to break out of this cycle. And then comes the narrative that not all superheroes are good, with The Praetorian being the most corrupt one of them all. The series most certainly has layers to it, and makes for a great watch.
'Super Crooks' premiered on Netflix on November 25, 2021.
