If you’re one of the many people who’ve felt a certain superhero fatigue in recent years, it might not be the superheroes themselves that are getting you tired. It might be that you’re tired of all the empty shows that have nothing to say. Entertainment is great, but entertainment with substance is better. Luckily for you, the complete series of the early 1990s Captain Planet cartoon, including all six seasons, is coming to DVD for the first time on October 15. Pre-orders are open now on Amazon.
$77
The spirit of Earth, Gaia (Whoopi Goldberg), has awakened in the late 20th century and is quite dissatisfied with the way human civilization seems to want to exploit the Earth as much as possible without concern for the health of the environment or the people who have to live on it. Gaia tries to remedy this by giving a group of teenagers, one from each continent, superpowers that will allow them to fight pollution and summon Earth's greatest defender, Captain Planet.
There's no word on what extras this DVD set might include, so don't expect much beyond the episodes themselves. And while you might be tempted to wait for a Blu-ray edition, that seems unlikely – there have never been any official HD editions of Captain Planet, and the streaming copies that are available are all in SD quality only. For the foreseeable future, this DVD set will be the definitive version of the Captain Planet series when it launches on October 15th. It's currently selling for $77 on Amazon, but the pre-order price usually drops before release – if you order now, Amazon will give you the lowest price it hits before launch day.
Captain Planet is fondly remembered today for its very pointed endorsements of environmentalism and real-world green efforts. Captain Planet may be much harder to cast these days, given the politicization of the debate over human-caused climate change that has continued to grow in the decades since Captain Planet first aired.
Captain Planet premiered in 1990 with a pretty star-studded voice cast, including Whoopi Goldberg, Meg Ryan, Martin Sheen, Jeff Goldblum, LeVar Burton, Ed Asner, and Dean Stockwell. The series ran for six years, though it's technically split into two separate shows: Captain Planet and the Planeteers for the first three seasons, and then The New Adventures of Captain Planet for the final three seasons. The reason for the split is that Hanna-Barbera took over production after season 3, so the distinction is mostly legal.
And here's a fun fact for the nerds out there: one of the many villains in Captain Planet is a character named Duke Nukem. This particular villain is sort of the Thing from the Fantastic Four and has no relation to the video game character that was created around the same time as the series premiered. There's actually a version of the original Duke Nukem game where he's called Duke Nukum because of this – but since the Captain Planet villain wasn't trademarked, the video game protagonist was able to keep his original name.