Behold!
Dedman O’Deadly
in all his gothic-barbaric skullular glory
impenetrable void eyes resting upon high bony cheeks anti-gazing from an elaborately wrought pseudo-medievalist helmet mask
wielding a heavy sword in his right hand, giving the deathly one leave to use his left hand to gesture airily and ironically during various monologues and marketing presentations
O’Deadly took his name from the marquee outside a neon adorned comedy club wherein someone billed as ‘DYLAN O’DEADLY: THE QUIPPING SLAYER’ is assumed to be headlining.
O’Deadly, during most of a full episode of Justice Prevailer, strolls about a gaudy entertainment district, taking in the sights, speaking philosophical nostrums, and occasionally slashing the souls from hapless victims to power his experimental heart, ‘ventually saving the life of a corporate honcho who’s being menaced by a squad of Citizens Band radio slang obsessed toughs.The grateful corporate scumbag offers up both his soul and his riches to O’Deadly, who uses these newfound resources to conjure up a monster army to bedevil Justice Prevailer.
This is all in the accursed second half of the Justice Prevailer series, when budget cuts and injuries significantly reduced the scope and scale of the fight scenes. The producers decided to emphasize stalkery horror sequences over spectacular pyrotechnics and bone crunching martial arts battles. By the time the final episode rolled around, the production was down to a single functional stunt performer, so all they had was Justice Prevailer, all on his own, shadow boxing with stationary monster suits on surrealistic, noirish sets while O’Deadly verbally hectored him from some abstracted mystical realm. This culminates in Justice Prevailer’s cat-suited personal secretary Valky crying out for him to return from the land of the dead. But a Prevailer must stay the course. And so he marches towards the smug death’s head visage of Dedman O’Deadly who mockingly gestures from the deck of the producer’s yacht, which has been hastily dressed to resemble some kind of a ghost ship for the grand finale.
I didn’t like any of this. I thought it was both trifling and lame. I spent years putting together my own fan filmic ‘correction’ in order to provide a proper ending to the saga of Justice Prevailer . . . which itself became controversial . . . thus inspiring other ‘corrections’ from other fans even more entitled than me, if you can believe that!
I guess there’s still no definitive ending to Justice Prevailer. Myself and a few others are the hardest of the hardcore fans. We keep making these damn fan movies, always trying to top each other. One day, we’ll all meet inside an abandoned warehouse for the final battle to hit each other with clubs while hidden cameras record such a blunt force apocalypse. On that day . . . we’ll all get to be winners . . .
