Titan Maximum Comes to Adult Swim Sunday 9/27

Titan Maximum. Surprisingly not a new brand of condoms made for geeks. Unfortunate, since it’s literally and figuratively an untapped market.

Titan Maximum is actually the latest Adult Swim series from the minds behind Robot Chicken, Moral Orel, and the writers of various acclaimed Marvel and DC comics. Created by Tom Root and Matt Senreich, you have to know that Seth Green is going to be involved. He executive produces and, of course, provides the voice of one of the series primary characters, the douchebaggy villain Gibbs. Other Robot Chicken regulars Breckin Meyer (Palmer), Rachel Leigh Cook (Jodi), Dan Milano (Willie), Eden Espinoza (Sasha), and Billy Dee Williams (Admiral Bitchface) round out the cast. Chris McKay of the now canceled Moral Orel stop-motion series directs and fan favorite Marvel and DC comics writers Geoff Johns and Zeb Wells lend their writing talents to the stories.

This perfect storm of geek talent has churned out a solid half hour (well 22 minutes) debut episode that will likely find a place among the other classic Adult Swim half hour series like the Venture Bros and ummm…. well, does Family Guy count since they’re only reruns? Don’t know. Doesn’t matter. For fans of either Robot Chicken or Moral Orel, there’s a few things you have to get used to. No more scattershot, lack-of-attention-span satisfying mini clips. Titan Maximum actually tells a single fully-scripted story in 22 minutes. And the characters look more like the stop-motion Moral Orel characters than they look like supersculpey-enhanced action figures and Megos, so there’s a consistency to the look and feel of the characters across the board.

Ah, but what is it about, you say? Well, Titan Maximum is a giant robot that’s formed out of 5 spaceships controlled by 5 cocksure young pilots. More than a few geeks out there will find this concept familiar, since pretty much of Japan’s modern popular culture is built around the concept of way too many young people having control over massively powerful robots that beat the crap out of stuff and destroy everything. If you know what I’m talking about, I can assure you that Titan Maximum has the prerequisite headstrong hero type, the surly second in command bad boy, the sweet and spunky good girl, the sexy bad girl, the lovable fat guy, the kid sidekick who stays back at the base and worships them, and, oh yeah, a monkey. But the guys behind TM weren’t satisfied with just sending up the genre. They took the concept and the characters to their logical conclusions. Without spoiling too much, let’s say that youth fades, not everyone is cut out to fly a giant robot appendage, and goatees are almost always the first sign that your friend will one day become a world dominating douche. Oh, and Leon steals the show without speaking a word. But I think the creators knew that would happen (he does bear a striking resemblance to a certain stoopid monkey).

If you’re a fan of the humor found in Robot Chicken, Moral Orel, and Venture Bros, or you just happen to be facing the TV most Sunday nights with the channel turned to Cartoon Network when you should be cramming for that Monday first period test or maybe even sleeping, then this show’s for you. It’s even more fun if you can appreciate the obvious nods to classic Japanese anime like Voltron or Battle of the Planets (sorry, *ahem* I meant Gatchaman) or anything particularly Gundam-like.

Titan Maximum premieres this Sunday, September 27th, at 11:30pm as the newest part of Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim lineup.