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Spoilers follow for <\/strong>Bass X Machina<\/strong><\/u> Episode 1, \u201cUntil Then… I’m Bass Reeves.\u201d The full six-episode season is available now on Netflix.<\/strong><\/p>\nThe latest animated production from Studio Mir<\/u> (Devil May Cry, X-Men ’97, My Adventures With Superman, etc.) to make its way to our airwaves\u2026 or streaming waves \u2013 whatever we\u2019re calling them these days \u2013 Bass X Machina is, based on this first episode, a fun and violent excursion into the world of the steampunk Western, but with an eye to Black history. Or rather, alt-history, since this series gives us a Wild West where robots and cyborgs are the norm, even while the face-in-the-dirt killin\u2019 remains as ruthless as ever.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\nBrian Tyree Henry, who also is an executive producer on the series, voices Bass Reeves, or this world\u2019s version of Bass Reeves, who of course in reality was a historic lawman; an ex-slave who went on to become a Deputy U.S. Marshal, Reeves has been portrayed in movies, TV and elsewhere many times over the years, perhaps most notably in recent years in Damon Lindelof\u2019s Watchmen (where his legend inspired that world\u2019s first superhero, Hooded Justice<\/u>).<\/p>\n
As the first episode starts, Reeves explains in VO how, after the Civil War, the Union Army was \u201csaddled with thousands of Black soldiers they didn\u2019t know what to do with. And after having known the horrors of war, some of these soldiers didn\u2019t know what to do with themselves.\u201d Some chose the life of the gun in the West, some became Buffalo Soldiers, and \u201csome legendary few\u2026 became lawmen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Only when we first meet Reeves, he\u2019s a bounty hunter, not a lawman \u2013 a fact which is driven home immediately when he shoots two opponents without thinking twice about it. In fact, he\u2019s also part machine, utilizing a steam-powered arm which has replaced his real appendage at some point in his violent history. Quick flashbacks\/dreams to some blood-red past event indicate we\u2019ll eventually learn the story of how he came by that arm, but not today.<\/p>\n
The action in this first episode is fun and bloody, with a dynamic range of camera moves and angles as Reeves, for starters, shoots the heck out of a gang of crooks.
\u201c<\/span><\/span><\/div>\nThe action in this first episode is fun and bloody, with a dynamic range of camera moves and angles as Reeves, for starters, shoots the heck out of a gang of crooks during a train heist. Bullets enter (and exit) foreheads with style, while the speed of the racing train and pyrotechnics of a Gatling gun add to the overall excitement of the opening scene. Henry\u2019s Reeves also establishes his general apathy towards his opponents right out of the gate, such as when, after dispatching one fellow\u2019s two brothers, the man cries, \u201cYou took my brothers away!\u201d Henry\u2019s Reeves dispassionately responds, \u201cYou\u2019re back with \u2018em now\u201d before finishing the guy off with a single shot. Dang.<\/p>\n
After an opening credits sequence that further hints at Reeves\u2019 origin story, complete with propulsive theme song by Janelle Mon\u00e1e, the series\u2019 main storyline is established. A scientist named Dr. Eugene Starr has gone missing, apparently into the Native American territory called the Badlands. But not just any scientist: It seems Starr, or someone close to him, has been experimenting on the \u201cmagic metal that\u2019s going around\u201d \u2013 and using it on people. Whether or not this magic metal is the same substance that has made \u201cboilertech\u201d commonplace in this world is unclear, but regardless, human experimentation is clearly a topic of interest for Reeves, who says that his arm \u201cwasn\u2019t lost. It was stolen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tati Gabrielle voices Dana Starr, a young woman who is the niece of the missing scientist and an engineering genius who winds up playing sidekick to Reeves. She\u2019s able to build handy gadgets while also calculating things like, say, how much time Dr. Starr has left to live after the possibility of \u201cpredation, murder, dysentery, despair.\u201d (The answer is three days.) Mon\u00e1e also voices Reeves\u2019 wife Glory, and we learn that the couple have two sons as well. But Reeves can\u2019t rest \u2013 or be a father and husband \u2013 while he knows that the key to his past could be lurking out there with Dr. Starr\u2026<\/p>\n
<\/p>\nTati Gabrielle voices Dana Starr and Brian Tyree Henry voices Bass Reeves in Bass X Machina.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/output><\/p>\n
Created by LeSean Thomas, who\u2019s also worked on series like Yasuke, Cannon Busters, and Black Dynamite, Bass X Machina finds a nice balance between the Western tropes, retro-sci-fi tech, bloody violence, and animated style. By the time Episode 1 winds down and Reeves and Dana are heading off into the Badlands to begin their journey \u2013 one on a horse and the other on a makeshift boilertech scooter \u2013 it\u2019s clear that this has not just been the beginning of a beautiful friendship, but also of a cool new animated world.<\/p>\n
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