He could run rings around the planet, but he was helpless if knocked on his back. He could think fast enough to burn out video games when playing them, but took days to grasp why "public rest-rooms" didn't have pillows.

     Best of all, Fastback was constantly inventing new uses for his super-speed powers... much like the Silver Age Flash did. Making tornadoes, making his after-images into a holographic army, vibrating the molecules of his own body... if the Flash could do it, he could try it. But the Silver Age Flash was a scientist, and Fastback was, to put it gently, a perpetually unemployed hick.

     I always chose to view this as a sign that ANYONE could better himself, if he tried hard enough... and at its best, the series justified my faith. Watch ol' FB in the segment below: you can actually SEE the little wheels turning in his head. The fact that he sometimes failed just made him even more sympathetic.

     Finally, a quick word about Little Cheese, the group's only non-charter member, who barely had time to join before the series got cancelled.

     Just in case that cannibalistic business above was NOT disturbing enough for you, try this on for size. Chester Cheese was the beloved son of a famous mouse scientist, a widower. He was also the shortest star in high school basketball, until the day he encountered the sleazy corporate fatcat known as Fatkat. Fatkat orders him to lose the biggest game of the season, ostensibly because of some stupid wager he's placed on its outcome, but really pretty much just because he CAN.

     Chester refuses, belts Fatkat a good one, and runs out of the building. To all appearances, he runs for miles to get home and tell his father and the police about this development...

     ...and nearly trips over Pop's CORPSE.

     It takes about three pages for Chester to deduce what the narrative makes staggeringly obvious: that Fatkat is responsible for the murder. Partly to teach Chester a lesson, partly because his Dad had some discoveries worth stealing, and partly... just because he CAN.

     A lot of super-heroes are orphans. Superman is, and Spider-Man, and Batman AND Robin, and many others. However, Chester shares with Spider-Man an unusual distinction: he gets to have fate yell at him: "Hey! LOSER! Your beloved guardian is dead! And guess what! IT'S ALL ***YOUR*** FAULT!"

     Now combine this with Chester's principal super-power (acquired just after his orphan status), which is... um... to get really, really TINY. Now stick him in a team where some of the members can juggle chainsaws for fun.

     Perhaps you can see how a tiny inferiority complex might develop in that tiny hero... and watching Chester struggle to beat it gave the series some of its more endearing moments.

     Next page: exactly why this series rules, and how it changed my life. Click here.