Webtoon Review: Stretch Armstrong and the Flex Fighters
In the near future of Charter City, the metropolis has been largely transformed by the innovations of tech billionaire Jonathan Rook. Rook Unlimited supplies the maglev trains, communications devices and security systems the city uses, and even sponsors a top high school. But within the city lurks a monster. And when three teens are accidentally exposed to the wonder chemical Flexarium, they gain powers which they’ll need to defend Charter City.
Overachiever Jake Armstrong is generally stretchy and becomes Stretch, nervous Nathan Park can create flying squirrel style gliding membranes as Wingspan, and brash new kid Ricardo Perez becomes able to increase the size of various body parts as Omnimass. Jonathan Rook opts to respect their secret identities and outfits them as his personal superhero team, the Flex Fighters. This disgusts his chief of security, Malcolm Kane, who is dragooned into training the boys.
The Flex Fighters are soon protecting Charter City from Flexarium-powered villains created by Stretch Monster, a being with powers similar to Stretch’s, as well as the mysterious “ninja” Blindstrike and their employer, a scientist known as Dr. C, who has a grudge against Mr. Rook.
In addition, the boys must deal with schoolwork, bullies and possible romance.
This 2017 series was inspired by the 1970s toy line, but bears little resemblance beyond the stretching thing. While I figured out a few of the twists almost immediately due to my long experience of superhero shows, the series actually does a good job of hiding the twists from the casual viewer. One in the second season in particular is more difficult to spot coming–some folks might have felt it a bit of a cheat.
The second season changes things up a bit as the Flex Fighters go from the city’s heroes to hunted criminals (but only when they are in costume to help people) and add a new team member. Then there’s that huge twist, and had a third season been greenlighted, a fifth Flex Fighter would have joined (you can see them in the last end credits) and presumably things would have become even more desperate for our heroes.
If there’s one big flaw in the series besides the lack of a proper ending, it’s that supposedly clever villains don’t think of very simple methods of tracking down the Flex Fighters’ identities so that the high school antics part of the show can continue in the second season.
There’s some nice action effects as stretching lends itself to some wild fights.
A decent enough series for fans of teen superheroes, but you will have to look up some fanfic for closure.
