In the Star Trek episode “The Devil In The Dark” a mining operation on some planet is being attacked by a “monster” that has already killed dozens of people, burning them alive so almost nothing remains. The Enterprise arrives to help and the crew investigate. They discover that the so-called monster is a silicon lifeform and it seems to be intelligent. Further investigation and mind-melds reveals that the lifeform is the Horta, and it is a mother, trying to protect its eggs from being destroyed by the mining. There’s no real enemy here, just a misunderstanding to be overcome.
I consider this to be a sort of ideal episode of Star Trek. They come across new life, they are in conflict at first, but over time they realize that the alien isn’t a monster, it is a person of its own kind, with a different way of life. Different, but no less real. It’s about learning to communicate and deescalating a situation from a horror story to a first contact.
And, of course, the alien is not humanoid in appearance at all. Its a rocky blob that we are still asked to care about because it is a living being. Not every episode of Star Trek can be this, but I appreciate every one that is, and always want more.
I’m always kind of surprised the Horta has not become a more iconic part of the franchise. I have read that there have been attempts to show more of them in cameo roles and that there have been Horta in Starfleet in books and stuff, but it has yet to happen on screen. It’s a shame.
It’s not a bird or a plane or anything like that, it’s faster and powerful than some other things. The usual start. Then we get a pretty standard plot as well: a mad scientist uses fancy technology to threaten a city, Lois does some investigation and gets in trouble, Clark becomes Superman and saves the day.
I like this one, but there’s not a lot to it. There’s only really two things I feel really merit discussion at the moment:
1) It’s Manhattan. The city that the man is threatening is definitively stated to be Manhattan, but we’re still dealing with our Daily Planet cast and the building there. It seems that Metropolis is NYC in this one. Definitely the kind of thing that people who like the trivia will enjoy.
2) The villain of the piece is a never-identified Native American man trying to reclaim the land stolen from his people. I can’t claim to be the ideal judge of this sort of thing, but I find this to be an impressive depiction of a Native American man for a cartoon from 1942. To start, when he states that his people are the rightful owners of Manhattan, Clark doesn’t deny it outright. That alone feels amazing to me.
But it also impresses me that the man isn’t depicted wearing stereotypical “Indian” garb. He’s just a man in a suit. And his whole scheme is a sci-fi thing with a cool underwater base and electric machines to cause explosions. I genuinely think that in comics even three decades after this cartoon, if they wanted to have a Native character trying to get land back he’d be wearing a loincloth and feathered headress and have a bow and arrow or tomahawk and summon forth the spirits of nature or something. This guy is all “Maybe modern science will make you think differently” and I like it.
Otherwise, it’s mostly a very generic Superman cartoon, with the usual great animation.
