Twelve-year-old Chloe Lovejoy has a rather strained relationship with her mother, to put it lightly. Chloe has been sent to live with her grandmother in California so that they both have some space. Before long, however, Chloe discovers some startling secrets. Grandma Ivy is none other than Mother Nature herself. Moreover, Chloe herself is the latest in a long line of women who are destined to inherit the power of Mother Nature. Chloe's got a lot to learn, and she'll have to master it quick. There are dark forces at work that want to claim the power of Mother Nature for themselves.
I've had a pretty good track record with Gen-Z Media shows, and Become Mother Nature bowled a turkey for Gen-Z Media. That's a bowling term that means to get three strikes in a row; if you get it in the first frame of a bowling match it is called a sizzling turkey. So, when I first started listening to this podcast, I figured it was a standard urban fantasy show. Hey, nothing wrong with that, I love urban fantasy. However, the more I thought about it, I realize that I could better describe Becoming Mother Nature as a superhero audio drama. It's a little unconventional, but it's there. Chloe finds herself in possession of extraordinary powers, has to figure out how to master them, has a sidekick, and has to take down a man who is basically a supervillain.
I'm all in favor of more superheroes with magical urban fantasy style origins. Mother Nature is one of those characters, like the Sandman or the Tooth Fairy, that everyone knows of, but not many people can actually tell you anything her. There's a lot of wiggle room for interpretation. William Joyce certainly found a lot of wiggle room with his Guardians of Childhood book series. You might be familiar with its, criminally underrated, film adaption Rise of the Guardians.
Personally, I think Becoming Mother Nature is a really fun take on a superhero origin story. I also appreciated that does touch on import life lessons. If there is a moral to Becoming Mother Nature, it is that you should be kind to other people, because you don't always know what they're going through. As I've stated, Chloe and her mom, Laurel, have a somewhat strained relationship. However, for as often as she screws up, Laurel does genuinely love Chloe, and wants to do right by here. Of course, at lot of Laurel's issues stem from the fact that she and Grandma Ivy had their own issues. Ivy did love Laurel, but her duties as Mother Nature meant that she couldn't always be there when Laurel needed her. It also meant she couldn't explain to Laurel why this was. Well, actually, I think a case can be made that Ivy should have been more trusting of Laurel in that regard. The Mother Nature powers always skip a generation, and are passed from grandmother to granddaughter.
I also like what the audio drama did with Felix. He's a boy that Chloe befriends, and he quickly becomes her sidekick/mentor. Felix, superhero fan that he is, practically jumps at the chance to be Chloe's sidekick. Felix works mission control for Chloe, and also provides moral support and guidance. Hmm, interesting. In these sorts of stories, it's usually the girl character who provides emotional support and advice. Nice to see Gen-Z Media mixing things up a bit. It was also nice to have a girl and boy as just friends with no hints of romance between them. Though, that might in part have been due to Chloe and Felix's age.
Of course, every superhero story also needs a supervillain. Becoming Mother Nature has Duncan Sunshine. He's a hotshot weatherman, and local celebrity, in the town the series takes place in. He's also been completely obsessed with Mother Nature ever since Grandma Ivy saved him during a storm when he was a little boy. More specifically, he wants to claim the power of Mother Nature for himself. So, he's kind of like Mr. Crocker from The Fairly Odd Parents, but as a genuinely threatening and competent villain. Duncan has a sidekick of his own in the form of his daughter, Raye O. Sunshine. She is involved in climate change activism, and claims she wants to save the planet. In reality, however, she's only in it for the fame and attention.
When I first listened to Becoming Mother Nature, I thought that Raye's name was spelled R-E-I. So, I envisioned the Sunshines being Asian-American. But I guess they were supposed to be more the blonde-haired blue-eyed All-American looking type.
I've often wondered if weathermen secretly get excited whenever severe weather happens. It's probably a lot more fun reporting on that than it is when everything is calm and relatively peaceful. As Duncan himself notes, storms tend to be great for the ratings.
Now, I did very much enjoy Becoming Mother Nature, but it does have a few issues. As I've said, Duncan's evil scheme is to steal the powers of Mother Nature for himself. The first step was to weaken Grandma Ivy, so he could take her out of the picture. How does he do this? Why, he builds an array of satellites that are capable of manipulating the weather, somehow launches them into orbit, and screws with weather systems across the world. Uh, what?
Why does Duncan even need Mother Nature's power? He's pretty much there already. He could probably become incredibly rich if he patented his satellites, or failing that, could make a bunch of money by auctioning them off to the highest bidder. Granted, the government can force you to suppress your inventions if they consider them a significant threat to national security. And Duncan does seem power hungry enough that he wouldn't just stop at weather manipulation satellites. So, I suppose I can let that one slide.
A bigger issue I had is that the Mother Nature powers, and their rules, were very inconsistent. At one point, Chloe freezes a puddle to test her powers out, and as a result, there's a sudden cold snap across the entire continent of South America. That just seems disproportionate. One of the big themes of Becoming Mother Nature is about the need for balance. Chloe has to find a sense of balance within herself if she wants to truly embrace her role as Mother Nature. It is also important to use the Mother Nature powers to help keep the world in a state of balance. I'm just saying, freezing a puddle causing South America to freeze just seem a bit too disproportionate.
I will say that the secret Mother Nature command center was cool. I especially loved the globe that shows real time weather events. It really added to the superhero feeling of the series. I also really loved that Grandma Ivy had a pet opossum named Oscar. He eventually becomes Chloe's pet. I admit, Oscar's not all the consequential in the grand scheme of things, but I like possums, so he made me happy.
The biggest issue with Becoming Mother Nature happened towards the end of the season. As such, we're going to have to get into spoilers. So, if you don't want that, either turn away or skip down a few paragraphs.
This is your last chance. Sure you want to keep going?
Well, if everyone who wants out is gone, let's get into it.
Duncan scheme is to get Chloe to give the powers of Mother Nature to him. There's a big spell book/user's manual for the Mother Nature powers, and one of them is transference. It is the spell that officially passes the powers of Mother Nature from person to person. So, Duncan successfully tricks Chloe into giving him the powers by pretending he'll be her mentor. Except, they don't go to Duncan, they go to Raye. Raye does mention some rule saying that only women can be Mother Nature. However, Duncan makes a remark that suggest he made-up to rule to get Raye to cooperate with his schemes. But, as previously mentioned, Raye really did get the powers.
Uh, how exactly does that work? If a man attempts the transference ritual, do the powers go to his closest living female relative instead? Oh, but we aren't done yet. Chloe may have given the powers away, but never fear, she doesn't need silly things like spell books or transference rituals. It turns out the true power was deep within her all along. So, she taps into her innate Mother Nature power to defeat Raye. Not only does the contradict the previously establish rule, it also comes completely out of the blue, with little to no foreshadowing. Then again, the rules were pretty inconsistent to begin with.
At times it felt like the writers were coming up with the rules on the fly, and this discarding them as soon as they jotted them down. That, or they painted themselves into a corner and just went "You know what, screw it."
Now, I don't want to sound too harsh or negative here. Overall, I did very much enjoy Becoming Mother Nature. It's a Gen-Z Media show, so you know it's going to have excellent voice acting, music, sound effects, and sound design. It will also add that in Cupid and The Reaper, season two of The Natureverse, Chloe's powers and portrayed much more consistently. The rules and also greatly simplified, and are followed consistently. And yes, I will review Cupid and The Reaper before long.
Well, there you have it. Becoming Mother Nature is a good, if slightly flawed, superhero origin story. It is an enjoy story on its own, and sets things up for later installments in The Natureverse.
I think that should do it from me for now. I will see you guys next time.
I've had a pretty good track record with Gen-Z Media shows, and Become Mother Nature bowled a turkey for Gen-Z Media. That's a bowling term that means to get three strikes in a row; if you get it in the first frame of a bowling match it is called a sizzling turkey. So, when I first started listening to this podcast, I figured it was a standard urban fantasy show. Hey, nothing wrong with that, I love urban fantasy. However, the more I thought about it, I realize that I could better describe Becoming Mother Nature as a superhero audio drama. It's a little unconventional, but it's there. Chloe finds herself in possession of extraordinary powers, has to figure out how to master them, has a sidekick, and has to take down a man who is basically a supervillain.
I'm all in favor of more superheroes with magical urban fantasy style origins. Mother Nature is one of those characters, like the Sandman or the Tooth Fairy, that everyone knows of, but not many people can actually tell you anything her. There's a lot of wiggle room for interpretation. William Joyce certainly found a lot of wiggle room with his Guardians of Childhood book series. You might be familiar with its, criminally underrated, film adaption Rise of the Guardians.
Personally, I think Becoming Mother Nature is a really fun take on a superhero origin story. I also appreciated that does touch on import life lessons. If there is a moral to Becoming Mother Nature, it is that you should be kind to other people, because you don't always know what they're going through. As I've stated, Chloe and her mom, Laurel, have a somewhat strained relationship. However, for as often as she screws up, Laurel does genuinely love Chloe, and wants to do right by here. Of course, at lot of Laurel's issues stem from the fact that she and Grandma Ivy had their own issues. Ivy did love Laurel, but her duties as Mother Nature meant that she couldn't always be there when Laurel needed her. It also meant she couldn't explain to Laurel why this was. Well, actually, I think a case can be made that Ivy should have been more trusting of Laurel in that regard. The Mother Nature powers always skip a generation, and are passed from grandmother to granddaughter.
I also like what the audio drama did with Felix. He's a boy that Chloe befriends, and he quickly becomes her sidekick/mentor. Felix, superhero fan that he is, practically jumps at the chance to be Chloe's sidekick. Felix works mission control for Chloe, and also provides moral support and guidance. Hmm, interesting. In these sorts of stories, it's usually the girl character who provides emotional support and advice. Nice to see Gen-Z Media mixing things up a bit. It was also nice to have a girl and boy as just friends with no hints of romance between them. Though, that might in part have been due to Chloe and Felix's age.
Of course, every superhero story also needs a supervillain. Becoming Mother Nature has Duncan Sunshine. He's a hotshot weatherman, and local celebrity, in the town the series takes place in. He's also been completely obsessed with Mother Nature ever since Grandma Ivy saved him during a storm when he was a little boy. More specifically, he wants to claim the power of Mother Nature for himself. So, he's kind of like Mr. Crocker from The Fairly Odd Parents, but as a genuinely threatening and competent villain. Duncan has a sidekick of his own in the form of his daughter, Raye O. Sunshine. She is involved in climate change activism, and claims she wants to save the planet. In reality, however, she's only in it for the fame and attention.
When I first listened to Becoming Mother Nature, I thought that Raye's name was spelled R-E-I. So, I envisioned the Sunshines being Asian-American. But I guess they were supposed to be more the blonde-haired blue-eyed All-American looking type.
I've often wondered if weathermen secretly get excited whenever severe weather happens. It's probably a lot more fun reporting on that than it is when everything is calm and relatively peaceful. As Duncan himself notes, storms tend to be great for the ratings.
Now, I did very much enjoy Becoming Mother Nature, but it does have a few issues. As I've said, Duncan's evil scheme is to steal the powers of Mother Nature for himself. The first step was to weaken Grandma Ivy, so he could take her out of the picture. How does he do this? Why, he builds an array of satellites that are capable of manipulating the weather, somehow launches them into orbit, and screws with weather systems across the world. Uh, what?
Why does Duncan even need Mother Nature's power? He's pretty much there already. He could probably become incredibly rich if he patented his satellites, or failing that, could make a bunch of money by auctioning them off to the highest bidder. Granted, the government can force you to suppress your inventions if they consider them a significant threat to national security. And Duncan does seem power hungry enough that he wouldn't just stop at weather manipulation satellites. So, I suppose I can let that one slide.
A bigger issue I had is that the Mother Nature powers, and their rules, were very inconsistent. At one point, Chloe freezes a puddle to test her powers out, and as a result, there's a sudden cold snap across the entire continent of South America. That just seems disproportionate. One of the big themes of Becoming Mother Nature is about the need for balance. Chloe has to find a sense of balance within herself if she wants to truly embrace her role as Mother Nature. It is also important to use the Mother Nature powers to help keep the world in a state of balance. I'm just saying, freezing a puddle causing South America to freeze just seem a bit too disproportionate.
I will say that the secret Mother Nature command center was cool. I especially loved the globe that shows real time weather events. It really added to the superhero feeling of the series. I also really loved that Grandma Ivy had a pet opossum named Oscar. He eventually becomes Chloe's pet. I admit, Oscar's not all the consequential in the grand scheme of things, but I like possums, so he made me happy.
The biggest issue with Becoming Mother Nature happened towards the end of the season. As such, we're going to have to get into spoilers. So, if you don't want that, either turn away or skip down a few paragraphs.
This is your last chance. Sure you want to keep going?
Well, if everyone who wants out is gone, let's get into it.
Duncan scheme is to get Chloe to give the powers of Mother Nature to him. There's a big spell book/user's manual for the Mother Nature powers, and one of them is transference. It is the spell that officially passes the powers of Mother Nature from person to person. So, Duncan successfully tricks Chloe into giving him the powers by pretending he'll be her mentor. Except, they don't go to Duncan, they go to Raye. Raye does mention some rule saying that only women can be Mother Nature. However, Duncan makes a remark that suggest he made-up to rule to get Raye to cooperate with his schemes. But, as previously mentioned, Raye really did get the powers.
Uh, how exactly does that work? If a man attempts the transference ritual, do the powers go to his closest living female relative instead? Oh, but we aren't done yet. Chloe may have given the powers away, but never fear, she doesn't need silly things like spell books or transference rituals. It turns out the true power was deep within her all along. So, she taps into her innate Mother Nature power to defeat Raye. Not only does the contradict the previously establish rule, it also comes completely out of the blue, with little to no foreshadowing. Then again, the rules were pretty inconsistent to begin with.
At times it felt like the writers were coming up with the rules on the fly, and this discarding them as soon as they jotted them down. That, or they painted themselves into a corner and just went "You know what, screw it."
Now, I don't want to sound too harsh or negative here. Overall, I did very much enjoy Becoming Mother Nature. It's a Gen-Z Media show, so you know it's going to have excellent voice acting, music, sound effects, and sound design. It will also add that in Cupid and The Reaper, season two of The Natureverse, Chloe's powers and portrayed much more consistently. The rules and also greatly simplified, and are followed consistently. And yes, I will review Cupid and The Reaper before long.
Well, there you have it. Becoming Mother Nature is a good, if slightly flawed, superhero origin story. It is an enjoy story on its own, and sets things up for later installments in The Natureverse.
I think that should do it from me for now. I will see you guys next time.
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