Spoilers follow forBass X MachinaEpisode 1, “Until Then… I’m Bass Reeves.” The full six-episode season is available now on Netflix.
The latest animated production from Studio Mir (Devil May Cry, X-Men ’97, My Adventures With Superman, etc.) to make its way to our airwaves… or streaming waves – whatever we’re calling them these days – 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’ remains as ruthless as ever.
Brian Tyree Henry, who also is an executive producer on the series, voices Bass Reeves, or this world’s 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’s Watchmen (where his legend inspired that world’s first superhero, Hooded Justice).
As the first episode starts, Reeves explains in VO how, after the Civil War, the Union Army was “saddled with thousands of Black soldiers they didn’t know what to do with. And after having known the horrors of war, some of these soldiers didn’t know what to do with themselves.” Some chose the life of the gun in the West, some became Buffalo Soldiers, and “some legendary few… became lawmen.”
Only when we first meet Reeves, he’s a bounty hunter, not a lawman – a fact which is driven home immediately when he shoots two opponents without thinking twice about it. In fact, he’s 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’ll eventually learn the story of how he came by that arm, but not today.
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.“
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 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’s Reeves also establishes his general apathy towards his opponents right out of the gate, such as when, after dispatching one fellow’s two brothers, the man cries, “You took my brothers away!” Henry’s Reeves dispassionately responds, “You’re back with ‘em now” before finishing the guy off with a single shot. Dang.
After an opening credits sequence that further hints at Reeves’ origin story, complete with propulsive theme song by Janelle Monáe, the series’ 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 “magic metal that’s going around” – and using it on people. Whether or not this magic metal is the same substance that has made “boilertech” commonplace in this world is unclear, but regardless, human experimentation is clearly a topic of interest for Reeves, who says that his arm “wasn’t lost. It was stolen.”
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’s able to build handy gadgets while also calculating things like, say, how much time Dr. Starr has left to live after the possibility of “predation, murder, dysentery, despair.” (The answer is three days.) Monáe also voices Reeves’ wife Glory, and we learn that the couple have two sons as well. But Reeves can’t rest – or be a father and husband – while he knows that the key to his past could be lurking out there with Dr. Starr…
Created by LeSean Thomas, who’s 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 – one on a horse and the other on a makeshift boilertech scooter – it’s clear that this has not just been the beginning of a beautiful friendship, but also of a cool new animated world.
Verdict
Bass X Machina revisits the legend of Deputy U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves, adding a steampunk twist to what is essentially an origin story for this version of the lawman. We know how he started, and we know what he’ll become, but how did he get from there to here, and how does the mysterious evil that lurks out in the Badlands connect to his story? That’s what these six episodes will be about, and based on this first installment, creator LeSean Thomas is bringing a stylized, violent, and action-packed spin to this world, while Brian Tyree Henry gives the title character a reserved if subtly tortured demeanor.
