Super Capers

Premise

Would-be superhero Ed Gruberman, who possesses no super powers, must join a team of misfit heroes-in-training known as The Super Capers. Having only faith, Gruberman must travel through time to uncover an evil plot involving some gold bullion, a fiery femme fatale, and a criminal mastermind with a dark secret about Ed's past.

"Ed Gruberman" is also the name of the impatient student from the skit Ti Kwan Leap skit by The Frantics.

Story

The story begins with a woman (Christine Lakin) in a red outfit being followed through a dark alleyway by a mysterious man who clearly has criminal intent. As she corners herself in a dead end, Ed Gruberman (Justin Whalin) arrives to save the day. The woman, calling herself simply "Red" reveals to both of the men that she has super powers, disabling the robber whom Ed strikes with a 2x4, sending him through the window of a law office. Red kisses Gruberman passionately before disappearing into the night, and he is left standing as the police come to arrest him.

In court, Gruberman is standing trial for viciously attacking an "innocent bystander" the mugger being defended by Roger Cheatem (Tom Sizemore) is flattened by the judge (Michael Rooker) who takes sympathy to Gruberman's story of how his parents were killed after an accident at their circus wound up with them being killed by a short bus. In particular his fascination and respect for the television superhero the Dark Winged Vesper, with whom Ed shares his orphaning (and lack of powers unbeknownst to the court). Ed is fined $1 for the payment to the law firm's window and sentenced to a halfway house to super heroes whose powers still have not yet been developed. Ed is taken there by a cab driver (Adam West) who proclaims he too was a superhero once, named the Manbat. When he arrives, he meets Sarge (Tommy Lister) who is the Capers' human liaison and other superheroes; Puffer Boy (Ray Griggs) who, when he gets frightened puffs up like a puffer fish, Herman Brainard (Sam Lloyd) who has the power to move objects with his oversized mind, Will Powers (Ryan McPartlin) the vain and most super powered member of the group, and Felicia Freeze (Danielle Harris) an ice powered girl with whom Ed develops an immediate attraction to. Along with the unimaginative "Q" also known as Herbert who has a robot similar to a tiny version of Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator whose primary invention was an RV fashioned after the DeLorean DMC-12 time machine from the Back to the Future films, complete with a flux capacitor, which they cannot tell actually works because the RV cannot get up to 88 miles per hour.

The group is called out on a mission to stop Captain Sludge (Jon Polito) a diminutive super villain with powers of super speed and his minotaur minion, and in a show of panic, Gruberman prays for help. Thinking he has the power of "Prayer" Will sends him out to fight and he supposedly forces a lamppost to fall onto the minotaur, allowing the heroes to be victorious and earning Felicia's eye. However, Gruberman's world begins to fall apart, when he and Brainard attempt to follow the suspicious judge incognito, and Ed is set up for stealing millions in Gold Bullion and sending them to a Swiss Bank account, which the number was found conveniently in his pocket. He is sent to visit the Judge, Red, his accomplice makes an appearance who reveals that the Judge is the Dark Winged Vesper. The Judge reveals himself to be Gruberman's father AND, and that the stunt that killed his parents was orchestrated by him, (but not intended to be fatal). He attempts to lure Gruberman to the dark side (a'la Return of the Jedi). Gruberman manages to escape, and in an ensuing chase with Sludge, he drives the RV off the Mount Rushmore national monument, and when telling God that he will soon be with him, the vehicle reaches 88 miles per hour, sending him back to the date of his first mission 1 week prior (as Will Powers had put the date into the time circuits to mark the event). He travels to the bridge, and learns that should he encounter his past self (before that he saw the judge and imitates the voice of Vito Corleone and the catchphrase "it was not personal, it was only business"), one of them would spontaneously combust. He manages to meet the Super Capers, and in the process of revealing the Judge's plans encounters his younger self. After giving away the events to follow in the week ahead, the Judge is arrested and Sludge and his minotaur surrender while Red is defeated and Freeze admits her attraction to Gruberman. The confusion of two Grubermans is resolved, however when the past version combusts, leaving only the one from the future and the day appears to be saved. The Judge, however, escapes in a post-credits scene.

Cast