Sometimes, you see a one-shot comic or cartoon and you realize that this has so much potential, but then you learn that there's never going to be any more to it. Such is the case with "The Modifyers", a one-episode pilot that was briefly considered by Nickelodeon but was passed on.
The plot focuses on the young, brave, and slightly mischievous Xero, an agent for a secret mystery-cracking organization called "The Modifyers" who operate in a strange city of abstract visuals and unusual characters With help from her small sidekick/transforming tool Mole and her own power of disguise, she has infiltrated the organization of the evil Baron Vain as "Lacey Shadows" and is competing with one of his henchmen for possession of a valuable object. However, when she tries to deliver the object to her boss, Xero ends up losing track of it, and she ends up getting pulled into more trouble.
The graphical style is incredibly rich and detailed, kind of like Steampunk meets Dr. Seuss, with some 60s spy flair and a bit of magical girl influence for good measure. The characters have such flexible expressions, and you can't help but look when Xero smiles. Mae Whitman delivers a pleasant vocal charm as Xero, and Jeff Bennett and Paul Rugg provide equally-memorable dialogue.
If anything bad can really be said about this, it's that the plot is a little underdeveloped, but since this is a pilot, it's not so much a flaw as it is proof that so much more could've been done had this achieved full show-status. Hopefully, somebody in the higher-levels of TV programming will someday take another look at this and decide to give it a shot.
The plot focuses on the young, brave, and slightly mischievous Xero, an agent for a secret mystery-cracking organization called "The Modifyers" who operate in a strange city of abstract visuals and unusual characters With help from her small sidekick/transforming tool Mole and her own power of disguise, she has infiltrated the organization of the evil Baron Vain as "Lacey Shadows" and is competing with one of his henchmen for possession of a valuable object. However, when she tries to deliver the object to her boss, Xero ends up losing track of it, and she ends up getting pulled into more trouble.
The graphical style is incredibly rich and detailed, kind of like Steampunk meets Dr. Seuss, with some 60s spy flair and a bit of magical girl influence for good measure. The characters have such flexible expressions, and you can't help but look when Xero smiles. Mae Whitman delivers a pleasant vocal charm as Xero, and Jeff Bennett and Paul Rugg provide equally-memorable dialogue.
If anything bad can really be said about this, it's that the plot is a little underdeveloped, but since this is a pilot, it's not so much a flaw as it is proof that so much more could've been done had this achieved full show-status. Hopefully, somebody in the higher-levels of TV programming will someday take another look at this and decide to give it a shot.