iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 13h

Here's the space drug from Outland, Polydichloric Euthimol! Next week we'll see what it does in Terminator 2. (It's mentioned in Wing Commander 3, too.)

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 20h

Sounds like you're right! Pretty interesting setup to hear about for 1995.

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 21h

Here is the not at all insane person spreadsheet I was making, initially to figure out what the story behind the WCA delays/episode swaps were. The green Street Fighters are all incorrect but I haven't found a way to confirm what the actual order/cadence was.

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 22h

We know this because the dates for the four part Action Extreme Team crossover event that aired together are correct for Wing Commander Academy ad Mortal Kombat (Saturday November 16 1996) but they don't match up at all on the other two. The Savage Dragon date isn't even a Saturday!

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 16/10/2026

Your regular reminder that Wing Commander is Street Fighter adjacent and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 16/10/2026

Evolution of the Strakha stealth fighter:

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 16/10/2026

Q. Do Dorkirs have a similar layout to the ConCom? A. Umm.

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 16/10/2026

Q. Okay why was Angel in the boarding party? A. Seeing this in the script bothered Peter Telep so much that he pre-emptively came up with a backstory in the novelization about how she had previously trained aboard a captured Dorkir which had a similar layout to the ConCom.

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 16/10/2026

Q. Why was Angel in the boa--wait, was there really a magazine called Sci-Fi Teen? And it had a Wing Commander pin-up? A. You'll never guess what that centerfold is.

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 16/10/2026

Q. Is that also what's going on with the Starlog covers? A. This is actually a different photo that's Saffron Burrows' Angel wearing the armor instead of Blair.

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 16/10/2026

Q. Was the poster that Digital Anvil came up with roughly eight trillion times better than what FOX eventually approved? A. Yes.

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 16/10/2026

Q. Why do all the tie-in books have the marine armor on the cover? A. FOX refused to sign off on a poster before the print deadline for the books.

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 16/10/2026

Q. Did the action figure look anything like the actual costume? A. Hmm.

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 16/10/2026

Q. Did the C-524 Space Armor also show up in the direct-to-video film Retrograde (2004) starring Dolph Lundgren? A. Yes.

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 16/10/2026

Q. Do you have any lore about the space armor? A. Yes! It's called C-524 Space Armor and the Confederation Handbook has a whole page about it.

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 16/10/2026

Here are some cool photos of the marine armor from the Wing Commander movie (courtesy of a Propstore auction listing)!

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 15/10/2026

New Privateer 2 screenshot mystery just dropped! Compare this shot to the same entry in the game. The ship graphic is wrong in the game and right in the magazine... and that correct ship art isn't in the final game at all!

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 15/10/2026

Alright, I’ll come clean about my terrible bird war bias. Back in 2007, I got to do a lore manual for EA for the Wing Commander XBLA game and I took the opportunity to name all the unidentified ship classes ftom Wing Commander III and… I named a freighter type after Kelly Clarkson.

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 14/10/2026

My wife used my office for a call with her editor today and can you believe she had to take down some of my fine art first?!

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 13/10/2026

Did anyone ever notice that the Siege Tanks in Dune 2 look like Ziggy?

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 13/10/2026

Oh and let's again praise Madhouse for getting the fingers right on Krulan and the other Kilrathi. There should be four, not five! Not every episode gets this right.

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 13/10/2026

But as he says 'good Kilrathi', we have one final cut to Gharal flying away. That's because the plan, never realized, was to have Gharal grow to become the Hobbes character from WC2-3. He would've joined the cadet squadron in the second season under the callsign Renegade.

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 13/10/2026

We end on a pretty shocking conversation (for a 1996 cartoon) between Blair and Grunt. Grunt says we can never make peace with an enemy like that. Blair tries to argue but Grunt ends the episode explaining that if he'd been on Repleetah he'd know that "there aint no such thing as a good Kilrathi."

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 13/10/2026

Krulan of course would rather jump into the sea, a fist raised defiantly as the squid monsters converge and drag him to his death.

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 13/10/2026

The rescuers make short work of the remaining Jalkehi, though Archer can't bring herself to shoot down one of them (because of her having to execute Blizzard last week). Blair corners Krulan on the edge of the volcano. There's no where to run, you have to surrender.

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 13/10/2026

Gharal leaves and the others go to hunt for Blair and Grunt. We cut to space and see some new ships: a cameo from a Wing Commander III Longbow and Maniac, Archer, Payback and company flying 'modern' Sabres (we saw old ones in The Last One Left).

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 13/10/2026

Gharal says they must return to warn the Prince that there's a human carrier nearby. Krulan says that even though Gharal is "Thrakhath's pet" that he is still in command and they must hunt down the humans that have dishonored him.

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 13/10/2026

The Kilrathi arrive first! A flight of Jalkehi, the heavy fighters from Wing Commander II. We'll see them a couple times on the show. They're led by Gharal nar Hhallas, who we briefly met THE LAST ONE LEFT.

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 13/10/2026

The squids keep attacking and Blair ends up giving Krulan a gun, against Grunt's protestations. Krulan immediately betrays them and explains that there's no such thing as a word of honor, he was just fooling these dumbass humans.

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 13/10/2026

Grunt wants to execute the prisoner but Blair, who is young and idealistic and would never do a genocide, says they can't do that. Krulan swears by his Klingon-y "word of honor" that he won't betray them if Kilrathi SAR arrives first.

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 13/10/2026

The rifle matches the marine ones from the flashback! Just as all seems lost it's... the squids to the rescue! Blair saves the Kilrathi who reveals his name is Krulan nar Ragitagha, callsign Vengeance. And he's voiced by Ron Perlman in his second appearance on the show!

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 13/10/2026

The Kilrathi pilot ambushes them and Grunt tells Blair his laser rifle is in his pod, a "souvenir of the corps." Blair tries to turn the tables on the Kilrathi pilot and they wrestle...

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 13/10/2026

And just like last week, their orange vests disappear between acts!

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 13/10/2026

Space pilot Mark Hamill has to repair his starfighter that's half-submerged in a swamp? Where do they come up with these ideas?! Grunt reveals he knows the paralysis is temporary and thanks to Mark's line delivery their interplay seems... weirdly flirty?

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 13/10/2026

And we end the act with night falling and a cut towards mysterious creatures at sea swarming towards the island! The press kit says these are called "Piscean Arthrosquids" which, again, is just great. See you soon, squids.

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 13/10/2026

Little bug guys! These are also foreshadowing. This is a LONG first act, too.

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 13/10/2026

USA used to run a TV spot that is sadly not preserved but it had a lady that did the backgrounds on the LA side of things talking about how the island they reach is based on the one from the original King Kong.

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 13/10/2026

If you watch carefully you can see the last Dralthi pilot also ejected. First appearance of the standard Kilrathi ejection pod we'll see a bunch of times on the show.

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 13/10/2026

Grunt can't move! The ejection has caused his paralysis to return. Blair tractors him in... and then his ship flames out, too, and he's forced to ditch on Pisces. (I will criticize this plot beat as it's not predicated on anything, his ship just stops working.)

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 13/10/2026

Our heroes are ambushed by a flight of Dralthi! Grunt is hit and ejects. Blair finishes off the Kilrathi and goes to rescue Grunt's pod before it crash lands on the nearby planet. (The press kit for the show tells us it's a water planet named Pisces.)

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 13/10/2026

Grunt takes a nap during autopilot and flashes back to a MASH on Repleetah. A nurse tells him he's temporarily paralyzed but it's bad enough that he's going home. He begs her to keep it off his record so he can enlist with another service and keep fighting. A plan that makes perfect sense.

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 13/10/2026

Weird Scimitar computer! Grunt mentions wanting to blow up a Kilrathi troop transport to take out a thousand of them at once. That's a specific nod to lore from Wing Commander II! And Blair says he'd rather take out Prince Thrakhath's flagship, which is foreshadowing for the series finale.

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 13/10/2026

Grunt and Blair are flying a patrol together. You can see fighter colors are normalizing. Grunt is orange and Blair is blue. We learn Grunt "left the marines to join the Academy" as they chat through autopilot.

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 13/10/2026

Turns out it was a flashback! Grunt is now a fighter pilot daydreaming in the briefing. And we get a rare look at some of the rare background cadets. In the back row that's WEASEL, EASY and BULLDOG.

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 13/10/2026

How does he blow up the Kilrathi drill tank? Why by using an original series tricorder, of course... I mean an explosive charge.

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 13/10/2026

Grunt (full name: Hector Paz) blows up a tank but he doesn't make it away from the blast. His knee pad is ripped right off his body!

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 13/10/2026

They've got a bazooka guy! A laser bazooka guy! Come on that rules.

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Ben Lesnick @banditloaf.wcnews.com · 13/10/2026

"They're coming through the snow!" True to our GI Joe pastiche, the Kilrathi have DRILL TANKS. I thought this was the dumbest thing in the world when I was an obnoxiously serious teenager; now I think drill tanks are amazing and my teenage self was a real doofus.

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