'Who Wants to Be a Superhero?': The only thing we have to fear

We begin another episode of Who Wants to Be a Superhero? with a little quiet musing by the remaining contestants. They're down to the final five, see, half of the original group, and that's getting the gang down. Nothing picks up the spirits, though, like an attack by Dr. Dark.

Holy spoilers, Batman!

Dark's latest plan is to divert power from Los Angeles, which will cause blackouts. Because Los Angelenos never deal with rolling blackouts, apparently, and would be driven to panic without their sweet sweet electricity. At first I wonder why Feedback wouldn't deal with this, but commercials show me he's busy starring in a movie called Mega Snake. And the Internet tells me the movie is already a few years old, so they must've shoehorned in the Feedback footage. Probably not the "starring role in a Sci-Fi original feature" he expected upon winning.

Anyway, Dr. Dark has kindly booby-trapped the power station with our heroes' worst fears. And wow, if these are there worst fears ... just last night I dreamed my driver's license and Chicago public transit card were rotting before my eyes, and that threw me into a panic. When Dark rigs up something like that to test our heroes, I'll give him mad props. This challenge, though, is still fairly cool, and I found myself wondering how easily I could tackle it.

See, the first bit involves crawling through a small pipe. That leads into a marginally less small room filled with creepy crawlies. Once there, each hero has to grab one fuse and then crawl back out. Oh, and the time limit is six minutes.

Whip-Snap goes first, and the fuse room has a couple of disinterested rats. She grabs a fuse, crawls away and then freaks once outside. Parthenon is afraid of snakes. I think about his lifestyle, and the jokes pretty much write themselves. Sure enough, snakes have joined the rats in the creepy-room. Parthenon gets a fuse, squeals when he accidentally grabs a snake, but recovers and leaves. Hygena is next, but the grime doesn't seem to bother her. Nor do the newly added spiders. She does okay, but freezes on seeing a snake on her way out.

Hyper-Strike says he hates spiders, and I expect flying piranha to be added. But nope, they stick with spiders, and he does well. Defuser is last, and is claustrophobic, and also is a strapping young man. Sure enough, he gets stuck in the pipe. For just long enough to go to commercial -- when we come back, he's free, and pulls the last fuse with three seconds on the clock. Excelsior!

As a reward, the gang gets to go out for dinner, and I really wish I'd known earlier that they were stuck in the lair. I mean, how great would it be to see live late-night streams of these folks having to try to live up to Stan Lee's standards? Anyway, our heroes dine at a fun Mexican restaurant, with Stan's admonishment to act like heroes while there. Uh-oh. Sure enough, the gang is beset by an unusual number of children. They handle themselves well, but when it's time to pay up, Stan's left them in the lurch. Geez, first he dresses like Dr. Dark and fakes his own kidnapping, and now this? Who's the real villain?

Our heroes, though, are more forgiving and bus tables to pay the check. Back at the lair, they're confronted again by Dr. Dark, who claims to have dirt on each contestant. Yes, this bit is as goofy as it sounds, with one exception. Whip-Snap goes first, and the dirt on her is that she basically stalked a guy she liked ... by sleeping outside his second-floor window one night. While copping to this, she also admits to stealing his car keys, and I have to wonder why the heroes even bring up these capital crimes.

Hygena's husband says she wants to learn to dance burlesque, which is marginally racy, I suppose. Hyper-Strike botched a trick and was fired from one circus; he does said acrobatic feat four times in a row to prove he learned from that, and this is the point when I started hoping he wins. Parthenon has ... a room decorated in a pirate theme. Shocking! Except that Stan says, "Pirates -- I never would've guessed it." And he's not being sarcastic. I was friends with one gay couple who decorated their entire carriage house in very cool theme rooms, and I sort of wish I could do that to my condo now.

Defuser's sin is getting sloppy drunk and demolishing a men's room, not out of anger but out of clumsiness: He fell on a sink, broke it, staggered back, hit a partition, knocked it down, causing some of the ceiling to fall ... good times. I think back on the dirt Dr. Dark could have on me, and realize I can never go on this show. Damn.

Time for mission reports, and I'll sum up by saying they go against Whip-Snap. Who cries.

It's time for elimination, and on the block are Defuser (for giving the kids part of his costume, some jacks); Whip-Snap (for falling apart under pressure); and Hygena (for not being a leader). Defuser and Hygena go with the bland, neutral defense of still having so much to learn. I hate that, because it says absolutely nothing. Then again, Whip-Snap does worse, once again blaming her failings on her hard life and saying she deserves to stay. Heroic! And, she's gone.

As the episode ends, Dr. Dark creates an evil Stan Lee clone. Villainous!