5 Point Discussion – Blood Blockade Battlefront & Beyond Episode 8: “Desperate Fight in the Macro Zone, Part 1”

Leo meets a hyper doctor from the micro-verse hunting down the World’s Most Dangerous Microbe! But how much danger can a germ really cause? Remember, if you like this article and 5 Point Discussions, please share it on Facebook or Twitter! It really helps. And if you’ve got any comments or questions, please hit me up @SageShinigami.

1. Because that’s what you do, Leo.
Perhaps it’s because I thought this episode would focus on the character who’s clearly based on Carnage, but I started to analyze much of this episode through some Marvel Comics lenses, and I really started to realize just how much Leonardo and Peter Parker have in common. Certainly, Leo lacks all of Parker’s Spider-Man-y powers, but has his own unique (and helpful) abilities, and more important than anything, he has an obvious form of the dreaded Parker Luck. Things just constantly go so poorly for him that it’s almost comical, and yet he always pulls himself together and is as big a part in helping to save the day as any other member of Libra.
This episode starts off with him walking a random street in Hellsalem only to be yanked into an alley in order to get robbed (which is a level of bold that I don’t even think they have in real New York), only for him to get smacked in the head with a tiny meteor-shaped object just after barely surviving. As it turns out, he’s somehow one of the first people in Libra to come into contact with a being from a microscopic germ-verse, which is just so Marvel that I’m starting to wonder where Mr. Fantastic and Iron Man are.

2. While we’re at it, they totally snuck their own version of the Hulk into this story. At the start of the episode Leo is hanging out with some helpless chump named Riel (because outside of Libra, Leo is almost always *the* most capable person in any gathering he’s in) when the two of them get accosted by a pair of giant monsters demanding all of their money. Riel runs away and leaves Leo alone with the monsters, and we later find himself cursing his lack of strength when he runs into a being named Gemnemo, a conscious microbe with the desire to transform beings at the cellular level. Gemnemo gives Riel the ability to continuously gain strength, becoming larger and more muscular the more he’s attacked and the more frustrated he gets. Sound familiar? I feel like this could only be more obvious if he wore a pair of purple jeans.

3. I keep wanting everyone to join Libra, but that’s because every new character creator Yasuhiro Nightow introduces is so fascinating that I want to learn more about them. This week’s latest important is Li Gado, a “hyperdoctor” that fights against pathogens with his own personally designed super-weapons. He’s basically Leezle Pon crossed with IDW’s Minimus Ambus. He builds a flea-like exosuit to keep himself from being harmed by the air, then creates an even “larger” mechanical ball in order to interact with the giant world and arrest Gemnemo. It feels like there’s so much more that can be done with the character after this–so much so that I’d be sad if he wasn’t included in more stories…and angry if he said subsequent appearances don’t involve him piloting larger and larger robots with which to thrash things.

4. I was sincerely hoping this would be an episode about one of the most interesting pair of characters on the show: Deldro Brody & Dog Hummer, but alas that’s not the case. We DO get a bit of focus on them though, and I was a bit caught off-guard at what we learned. For one, they’re both massive art geeks–Libra actually has the city clear out the art gallery so the two of them can have a tour of the place and check out the Paul Cezanne artwork.
For another, they actually get along quite well–in contrast to their Marvel counterparts where the symbiote always seems like it’s at odds with its host or the host has to become dark like the symbiote, instead Brody has become more like his host Hummer. A former serial killer, his time inside Hummer’s body has made him not mind being used to save little kids from imminent danger and protect the city with his powers–presumably because as a member of Libra he’s allowed to lay waste to the city as much as he wants so long as innocents aren’t hurt.

5. Next Episode: They waste the incredibly short preview with jokes regarding Zapp being able to understand Sonic because he’s a “monkey”, which is kind of a stupid joke but eh, here we are. Still, I’d bet on a bittersweet ending to this story if only because this doesn’t seem like something that’ll just be undone and everything goes back to normal. This is one of those cases where I’d prefer to be wrong, though–Leo loses enough without having to lose a friend, too…
Blood Blockade Battlefront and Beyond is available for streaming on Hulu and Crunchyroll.