In which we learn about good and bad types of friendship.
A prospector called Ironarm (I think we’ve seen him before, but I don’t remember for sure and I certainly can’t be bothered to check) comes crying to BraveStarr with an unlikely-sounding story. Apparently, Ironarm had found a rich vein of kerium, but had it stolen from him by a weird humanoid bat creature and a massive giant.
BraveStarr seems inclined to treat this story with the derision it deserves, but as it so happens, he’s just encountered three idiots called Kraver, Barker and Grumble, and he decides to try to pin the theft on them. Unfortunately, he’s got zero evidence, so he’s forced to let Kraver and Grumble go, although he’s able to arrest Barker, who was stupid enough to blow up a water tower directly in BraveStarr’s line of sight.
Kraver and Grumble, also being pretty dense, go and stand behind a wall and start yacking about what brilliant criminals they are. They are overhead by Orville, a child with a stutter who’s been hanging around the fringes of this episode making irritating remarks about having no friends. Orville is about to go and report back to BraveStarr, but he sneezes and thus it is that Kraver and Grumble capture him and decide to hold him hostage.
After taking Orville to a cave, Kraver unveils his silly bat-like wings and flies off to rob some more prospectors. He leaves Grumble in charge of guarding Orville, which is a mistake, since Grumble is just a big softy at heart, and he and Orville soon make friends. It turns out that Grumble only robs people because Kraver threatens to not be his friend anymore if he doesn’t, which is Orville’s cue to sagely point out that this means Kraver isn’t a real friend anyway. Grumble sees the logic and is just about to release Orville, but then Kraver returns and Grumble changes his mind again.
Luckily, BraveStarr, Thirty/Thirty and Fuzz manage to track Kraver back to his cave, and appear at the entrance crowing that Kraver and Grumble are under arrest. Orville alerts BraveStarr to the fact that Grumble is the weak link in this partnership, leading BraveStarr to get on his high horse and repeat Orville’s yammering about how Kraver isn’t a real friend. Unwilling to hear all this garbage again, Grumble turns on Kraver and assists in the arrest.
In today’s adventure…
It’s another little treatise on the nature of friends. If you haven’t grasped it by now, you never will, so I shan’t bother to summarise it.
Character checklist
Roll up, roll up, for all the fun of the fair, featuring BraveStarr, Thirty/Thirty, Fuzz, Orville, Ironarm, Kraver, Barker, Grumble, some dingoes, and two horrible children.
Insults
One of the horrible children kicks proceedings off by referring to Orville as “stupid” and a “stuttering kid”, and Kraver later follows this up by calling him a “rotten kid”. Kraver also twice describes Barker as a “fool”, and slightly enigmatically calls BraveStarr “Mr No-Star”. That’s just about it, other than the moment when BraveStarr subtly implies that Thirty/Thirty doesn’t have any friends, which seems plausible but is pretty insulting.
Strength of the Bear
It’s getting pretty difficult to care about this sort of thing after 52 episodes of it, but if you must know, BraveStarr uses the strength of the bear to throw a load of sand at a fire. He also uses it later on to play baseball with a massive boulder.
Speed of the Puma
In a similarly unexciting display of animal powers, BraveStarr puts on his puma speed to catch up with Barker, who is fleeing the scene of a crime.
Starr Rating
As is pretty common, it’s perfectly competent but nothing to write home about. It’s fairly heavy-handed on the subject of friendship and how friends don’t make you do bad things, but that’s a good message to be conveying. Both Orville and Grumble are pretty annoying, but I’m going to be generous and look past that. On the plus side, there’s some great animation work on Kraver this week: the shots of him unveiling his wings are very dramatic and give him a nicely malevolent air. In summary, it’s fine, but it won’t rock your world.
BraveStarr Episode Review Site 