This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer. You can find all my work at MJMunoz.com.
Welcome to Red Panda Report where I talk about and analyze episodes of the Red Panda,
which is inspired by the Shadow and other serial characters. He's Canada's greatest superhero.
And you can find every episode of Red Panda at DakotaRingTheatre.com, your address to adventure.
So, this is episode 10 of Red Panda Adventures that I'm going to be talking about. It's called The Ghost Ship.
And here's the copy written for it.
A cargo ship, hopelessly lost in the fog. From out of the darkness comes an eerie glow, brimming with it...
No, sorry. Bringing with it an impossible specter from the past and disaster.
Again and again, the terrifying scene is played out until the city can bear the attacks no more.
Our heroes take to the water to bring this menace to an end. But can even the Red Panda solve the mystery of the Ghost Ship?
Which I think is great. And again, I believe that's written by Greg Taylor, who's the writer and director of this episode,
which was originally published, released whatever, on May 13th, 2006.
And here we go. I'm going to go ahead and start talking about this episode.
So, there was an interesting thing in the beginning where Red Panda, in his civilian form, or his civilian identity,
showed up at a meeting of some of the city's wealthiest men, where, along with Police Chief O'Malley,
where they were talking about these Ghost Ship attacks, slash robberies, or whatever.
And it puts him on the right path to figuring out that this is some sort of heist that's going on in the guise of a Ghost Ship attack,
or, I don't know, hunting, or whatever. So that's pretty interesting.
And we get shortly after... So this episode actually starts with... It starts on a ship.
It reminds me of the Shadow episode called Sabotage, which is one of the episodes that I did a review of in the run-up to the official launch of Red Panda Report.
I did all these bonus episodes and special episodes where I talked about key... Not key, but like some fun special episodes of the Shadow radio serial,
all the way back from the 1930s, that this very much takes the form of, or is inspired by, like I mentioned earlier.
And it was really interesting, and this distinguishes itself from that in that it's not specifically Sabotage, or a Sabotage ring, or Spree that is taking place,
and there's no... There's a little bit of a similar vibe, but it's definitely its own episode, and I wouldn't accuse Taylor of stealing or anything like that.
It's just... It's very much inspired by it, which is not a problem.
And there are a lot of distinctions that set them apart from each other, so I mean, even if the core idea is the same, well, yeah, it's man versus man, isn't it?
It's crime versus criminals versus innocent people who are having their property rights violated.
And... Sorry. And it's interesting, because there is this theme that I will get to later, because I want to focus on the beginning of the episode.
We start off in the ships with the attacks happening, or the ghost, you know, the hauntings happening, whatever you want to call it,
and then we have the meeting of the men, and then it transitions into on a ship.
Well, I think... I can't remember if Red Panda and Flying Squirrel were talking or not, or if it went right into them being on a ship,
and then they have a discussion afterwards about how they got in there.
I think that's what it was, but regardless, there's this neat transition of them going onto the ship, and then Red Panda introduces himself as Mr. Simmons,
who's an insurance auditor, insurance agent type person, who's investigating what is going on with these ships and what this haunting thing is,
and he gives his name as Simmons, and I thought, ah, is this another instance where we're getting a red herring or a fake name for Simmons,
or will we learn someday perhaps maybe the Red Panda's real name, and it'll be Simmons? I don't know, or maybe it will be Simon something, you never know.
And that might be something I keep track of, although it might just be something I poke fun at and play around with as time goes on,
and we hear different aliases used by that marvelous masked mystery man.
So, again, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with that, but I thought that was an interesting detail.
Also, I think I'll save talking about the villain group for last, because it isn't a haunting.
Not that there couldn't be hauntings in the Red Panda's universe, at least that we know of so far,
but he definitely is skeptical of it being a haunting, and he suspects it's some other thing.
So I'm going to talk about the tech and devices that they had.
Red Panda mentions, he's carrying a ridiculous amount of gas grenades and gas canisters,
so I would assume one gas grenade covers a certain area, and a gas canister would cover several more,
three, four times the amount of a grenade, but regardless, we don't get that specific detail.
But we know he's carrying, I think, maybe a dozen total gas ordinances or gas rounds on his person,
in his coats of his, you know, his billowy trench coat and whatnot, and the flying squirrel makes mention of that,
and she says, hey, you know, I don't have all the room that you have,
and he says, well, why don't you wear the utility belt that I got you?
And this is kind of a cute moment between them. She says, it makes me look hippie.
And I don't think he comments on that, but it's kind of a funny moment between the two of them,
and it tips off that he has made her a utility belt that she is not yet wearing.
I believe she definitely embraces that utility belt at some point later on.
I can think of a specific episode, maybe in season two, where she's got to have it,
because she has too many weapons and gadgets on her to not have it.
So it's kind of cool to hear how her suits evolved or how her equipment has evolved, you know, through the story.
Another point of evolution of their tech and suits and gadgets is that they have specially made underwater versions of their costumes,
which apparently Red Panda still has a trench coat with it, so I don't know what makes it underwater.
Maybe it's moisture wicking so the water comes off of it really easily or something like that for them to infiltrate or skulk about
and not leave a bunch of water behind or who knows what.
Maybe it uses the wonderful power of static electricity to repel the water or eliminate the water once they've gotten wet or once they're out of the water.
I don't know. Could be an interesting thing to go into, but they have these different suits, so that's kind of cool.
And then one more thing I think is the last tech or gadget item.
Red Panda has a miniature portable set of navigational equipment, which I don't know if in the 30s they would have had that.
That would have been a common thing, but he definitely has it and he brought it with him in the ship.
And he speculates that whatever is messing with the navigational equipment on the ship is probably messing with his too
because he doesn't see anything wrong with it according to the equipment that he's brought with him.
So that's pretty interesting. And let me see. Is there another element to talk about with the lore here?
I don't think... I can't think of anything with the lore except for in this episode, as we explore the villains,
we get a very vague hint of who they are and what they are.
And I think from a meta perspective, because we know that this is in the 30s before World War II had begun,
before, you know, I think the rise of the Nazi party was only a couple years before World War II actually started.
But I could be wrong. It could have been up to a decade. I don't know.
Yeah, I know it's kind of a complicated mess because they're, you know, they're in the National Socialist Party
and they, you know, become fascistic, which means that they want to integrate the government into private industry,
which, you know, that's what socialists want too. They want... it's just these weird... it's just weird.
You can have... you can have socialists and authoritarians who are both interested in...
or who can both be fascistic, I guess is the point I'm trying to say.
So, you know, there's an authoritarian dimension to either of them and you can either be all about the people
or you can all be all about the state, but either way you make everybody bow to the big, you know,
single unit leader or oligarchs that keep the system in check to, you know, do the will of the people, so to speak.
But anyway, I don't want to get into that right now.
But, you know, and Red Panda calls it out specifically saying like, I don't know if you guys are fascists or...
I can't remember what it says. Do you see fascists, socialists, or garden-variety net jobs? I think I remember that part.
But anyway, he's saying he's not sure what their affiliation is, but they have snazzy uniforms,
which everybody loves in the Nazi uniforms, right? As well as their guns and their tanks and stuff.
Very well designed, very well crafted stuff used for absolute utter evil and, you know, garbage intention.
But anyway, you can still admire the quality of craftsmanship, I say.
And anyway, he makes that remark which makes me think these are proto-Nazis, but I'm not sure
and I don't think it's ever specifically identified, except there is a character later who is definitely a...
not a cutout for, but he's an agent of Hitler and the Nazi party, basically.
And, yeah, just spoilers. Nazis definitely become a big thing in Red Panda, so if you like Nazi punching and whatnot,
then, you know, strap in because that's going to satisfy you for sure.
But anyway, there's subtle hints to what these guys are and we don't quite know.
Their tactic is quite clever and I won't spoil it for you. You should listen to the episode instead
to learn exactly what these guys are doing. But I think it's pretty cool.
Of course, you know, in a cool mode of still murder kind of way. But anyway, that's fun.
Let me see what else. There wasn't really anything that detracted me from this,
except for maybe Kit was a little too obvious. Oh, okay, now I remember a couple other things.
Maybe Kit was a little too obvious because she was happy to be locked into a small room,
like a broom closet or something with Red Panda for an hour or two.
And, I mean, he either doesn't know she's dropping hints or saying little flirtatious things,
or he's ignoring it. I can't quite tell which because we do get him telling her,
Kit, actually behave yourself in this episode and then most episodes.
And sometimes it's about something a little cutesy with them and sometimes it's not.
It just kind of depends on the circumstance. So anyway, there was, I think I kind of want to wrap up.
I talked about the tech and gadgets. I talked about that. So that was kind of a bad moment.
A good moment. I don't know. It's almost there was almost a little meta thing
where I felt like the show was kind of making fun of itself and its cohorts
because Kit at one point asks Red Panda, you're just making this up as you go along, aren't you?
And he says, exactly. And then they execute their plan, which is pretty funny.
Oh, which reminds me, yes. So they did use the gas grenades and he seemed to have broken one of his rules,
which is telling a bad guy what the powers are because he said, hey, we're immune to our own knockout gas.
And he kind of says that mockingly and victoriously as he knows this guy's going out.
But people should know that. And I think this might be the second time that it was brought up.
I believe it was brought up with Dr. Professor Zombie, but it may not have been.
Regardless, that's one of the things they're not supposed to do when they're doing it here.
So I guess some people believe rules are made to be broken or made to be broken, which I think is silly.
But, you know, whatever. The other thing was Kit slipped up and called herself Kit
because she was known as Sally instead.
And she had to tell whoever it was that discovered that, that it was just a nickname that she couldn't get to go away.
So kind of interesting. Anyway, overall, good episode.
Kind of a simple episode, a little bit more like subdued, but also it had a lot of interesting things in it.
But definitely not as action packed as like a Professor Zombie episode might be or a Mad Monkey,
just to mention somebody who will come out, come into the show later on.
So anyway, that's all I have to say for now. Again, I like this. It was fun.
I would say I'd give it like a, I don't know, like a 6 or 7, 6.5 out of 10.
There's lots of other Red Panda episodes that are a lot better, but it wasn't bad.
So, I mean, you can't always be perfect, but it's all good.
And if it in fact does tie in with Nazi stuff later, it's definitely cool that that was being set up from season one, which I believe it was.
So anyway, with that, I'm going to ask or hope that you would be well and tell you that this is MJ signing out.
I hope you enjoyed that. Go to MJMunoz.com to leave any questions, comments, or other feedback you might have.
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