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Kid Cosmic Series Thoughts/Review
I’ve been a casual fan of Craig McCracken and his cartoons, catching them on air here and there, until recently (well I say recently but it’s probably 5+ years now) when I really got into animation and decided to binge watch his cartoons. I can easily say that he manages to entertain me, make me laugh, and break my heart all at the same time within each of his shows and Kid Cosmic is no different. His unique and quirky characters are always a fun time. I have nothing but respect for his creations. Craig McCracken simultaneously makes his shows both a love letter to their genre and a deconstruction of it and Kid Cosmic is no different.
Kid Cosmic just dropped its final season on netflix and like a lot of people I have a lot to say about it unlike most people I didn’t get into kid cosmic until its final season dropped. So I spent the last few days having a binge of the series as a whole. As a huge fan of superheroes I loved how this show played with classic superhero tropes and brought its own spin to it. It was a really fun ride from start to finish full of the same heart, passion, and adventure that drew me to animation in the first place.
Now to get into my actual full thoughts.
I had so much fun with the characters. They all had this playful, heartfelt innocence about them that is a staple of many Craig McCracken characters that draws you in and makes you want to see them succeed. I especially loved Jo, Kid, and Papa G. I think Jo was my favorite character. I loved Jo’s arc and her growth into becoming a better leader. The fact that it was her empathy and anxiety/caution that made her the best fit to be a leader is something I really appreciate. I’m really liking this trend in animation that deconstructs/subverts the hard, tough, super prepared leader trope that many characters grow into or start out as. Especially with the way the show sent that message with Xhan and Flo. I really loved that Jo and Flo had such a strong relationship in the show and it was her mom that taught her how to be a leader even though she didn’t have a job that would conventionally put her in the place to mentor Jo in that way. Jo’s heart and intelligence are what make her both a great leader and a great fighter. Her fighting skill is also something I like about her. She doesn’t have the stone with the most raw strength, that would be kid’s telekinesis stone or Rosa’s growth stone, but she has the mind to use her stone to its full potential which makes her portal power really fun to watch in battle.
Kid’s relationships to Jo and Papa G are what elevated this show to me. Jo and Kid had an amazing sibling relationship and Kid and Papa G got the most emotional moments of the series. I don’t think there was a single dry eye when watching the scene pictured above. I know that this moment had me on the edge of my seat begging for Papa G to make it. The flashback to when he first took Kid in at the start of the episode being juxtaposed with this final scene hurt more than I ever thought it would. When he appeared at the beginning of the finale I have never felt so relieved over a cartoon grandfather.
I also loved how the third season really wasn’t afraid to critique and deconstruct or poke fun at comic book tropes. The perfect world, the parents returning from the dead, the long living mentor, the kid getting powers and immediately mastering them, etc. And how many callouts to Craig McCracken’s other works there were. It worked really well. I think the show became better with each season and that’s because it let itself do wackier and more crazy things with its superhero inspiration.
There were only a few things holding this series back from being one of the top 5 of 2021 for me. The first is that it took me a while to come around to Kid as the main character. Don’t get me wrong I felt he was well written and an accurate portrayal of what a kid who got powers would be like but I personally didn’t feel as strong of a connection with him as I did with Jo and I wasn’t as intrigued by him like I was with Papa G and I didn’t laugh at him as often as I did Chuck. He wasn’t one of my top 3 characters until season 3 came around and really made him grow on me (Which is part of why the 3rd season is my favorite). I never hated him but I was neutral about him which is something a protagonist shouldn’t be in a series to me. I think this is my most personal problem because I’m sure there were plenty of people who were able to relate to Kid and loved him from day one. I just wasn’t one of them but I wish I was.
The second is that I found the first season didn’t hit me nearly as hard emotionally as the second or third seasons (especially the third). It struggled with letting us sit with the most emotional moments. It used bathos a lot more then the other two seasons which I think took me out of the moment too frequently and I found myself taking a break from it more than once whereas I binged the second and third seasons. The second and third seasons weren’t afraid to let us stay in emotional moments without a joke to break the tension and really feel them which is something I really appreciated about them. I’m someone who loves drama and I think children’s television can tackle heavy themes in a unique way that sometimes hits harder than things that are rated mature but only if the show respects it’s audience and lets them experience them fully. Kid cosmic doesn’t do this as well in the first season as it does in the other two which disappointed me.
This wasn’t my favorite animated show to come out of 2021 but don’t take that as a slight against Kid Cosmic. Animation in 2021 was amazing both for films and for shows and the company it finds itself in for that year is phenomenal: Arcane, Invincible, Inside Job, Maya and the three, and centaurworld to name the standouts. It may not have been my favorite but it had just as much heart as the others I listed and managed to hit me in a different way. 2021 will have a special place in my mind when it comes to animation and kid cosmic will always be a part of that. I can’t wait to see what Craig McCracken does next.
I was in Chicago and saw this. Transformers 3 shootings!
