Episode 3: Mindok the Mind Menace
A lot to cover in this alliterative episode. The evil General Zoa and his lieutenants come upon the ruins of a NASA space center in their amphibious war vehicle and enter in search of the “ice people” their leader, Mindok the all-powerful wizard, has tasked them with finding. Thundarr, Ariel and Ookla see them entering the center and go after them, thwarting their mission despite Zoa’s magic gem staff, which Thundarr breaks. With Zoa and his goons in retreat the heroes discover the “ice people” who are really NASA scientists who have been frozen in suspended animation presumably for a space mission that was waylaid by the apocalypse. Thundarr cuts them out of the ice with this sun sword and after waking like napping children the scientists are horrified at the sight of Ookla as well as their nightmarish new reality. Things only get worse when Mindok himself arrives, and having punished Zoa and his men by shrinking them and inprisoning them in what appears to be a snow globe, absconds with the scientists to his island stronghold. Determined to save the scientists for some reason, Thundarr cuts an old space capsule in half and they use it as a raft to travel to Mindok’s stronghold. Unfortunately the island is guarded by “firewhales”, horned whales that shoot fire from their horns, one of whom swallows Ariel at the commercial break cliffhanger.
Thundarr rescues Ariel from the whale’s mouth and Ookla headbutts another whale and swimming to shore Ariel grouses about Moks smelling bad when wet (Ariel’s got jokes). We learn that Mindok’s reason for wanting the 2,000 year old scientists is that he was once a NASA scientist like them — hence his cool astronaut helmet — whose body was destroyed in the cataclysm. But thankfully his brain survived through wizardry and now he needs them to build him a kickass robot body, which for some reason he needs to fly the war machine space ship he has built. As they are working on that the heroes invade the stronghold but Mindok captures them with magic snakes, pictured, and shrinks them down to be imprisoned in a snow globe. The scientists complete the robot body and implants Mindok’s living brain into it.
Mindok takes his war machine space ship to terrorize a ruined city which I have to assume is Orlando. Thundarr frees himself and his pals from the snow globe with the sun sword, which magically reverts them back to normal size. They go after the warship on horseback, jumping onto its hull via a toppled skyscraper and getting inside, horses included. They battle Mindok in the cockpit by and his ruined robot body causes the ships control into orbit, and the heroes, on horseback, jump free of the rocket and land in the water, somehow surviving the fall.
The scientists explain to our heroes that Mindok’s undying brain will now orbit the world forever, and that they are cool with their new life here in the apocalyptic wasteland and plan to use their ancient knowledge to maybe help people and do some exploring. Ariel hopes they’ll all meet again soon.
This one was a satisfying brain-boiler with many great WTF moments. I like to think it mostly took place in Titusville Florida, hometown of my wife Jennifer Yarbrough. 5 stars.