What happens when an unlikely group of humans gets their hands on five super-powered cosmic
stones? To put it short, “Kid Cosmic” is what happens! Released on Netflix earlier this year,
“Kid Cosmic” tells the story of these characters, who work together to protect Earth from all kinds
of evildoers. It is the fourth cartoon from Craig Mccracken, who created the classics
like “The Powerpuff Girls” and “Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends.” This show is distinct from his
past work. It is the first series that follows a story arc, with characters evolving and new
storylines emerging as the show progresses. The characters in this series might grow and change,
but one central question remains: which ones are heroes, and which are anything but?
I’m Anthony with WickedBinge, and this is Kid Cosmic: Good to Evil
Like always, we’ll be starting off with the most heroic characters,
and then plunge into the bad. These characters are on the good side.
In the “most good” spot is Kid’s Grandpa, Papa G! Papa G earns this title because he has the
biggest heart out of anyone in the whole cast. He’s even considered the heart of the team by the
townspeople. After Kid's parents die in a tragic car accident, he becomes his official guardian.
He cares deeply for Kid and wants nothing more than to see him happy. His caring demeanor
extends to the rest of the cast. When the team has the evil Stuck Chuck trapped, Papa G argues
that they should give one of the cosmic stones to Stuck Chuck. He thinks he is capable of redemption
and can atone for all the pain he has caused. Papa G doesn’t believe anyone is truly evil
and sees the good in everyone. He often acts as the team's voice of reason and will counsel Kid
when he’s in a rough patch. Despite being part of a superhero team, he is also quite the pacifist.
He’ll still fight when the need arises, but it is never his first instinct. He possesses the
yellow stone, which allows him to create clones of himself. He cares a lot for these duplicates
and gets shaken when harm befalls them. Any other character would’ve written them off as expendable.
Quite the opposite, he sees them as being just as human as any other person. While we’ve talked
up his good qualities, being a pacifist and caring can be seen as an occasional weakness.
When Kid was in desperate need of a “win,” Papa G convinced the others to dress up as robots,
who were then defeated by Kid. When the truth was eventually revealed, Kid was deeply hurt by it,
and it even led to the team losing the rings for a time. Despite his flaws,
we still feel there is enough to Papa G to get him the first spot in the “good” category.
He always looks on the bright side and forever stands by his wisdom that “heroes help, not hurt.”
In the second place, we have the leader of the team, Jo! A teenager who works at her mom's cafe,
Jo is gifted the purple cosmic stone, giving her the ability to create portals. Jo,
occasionally known by her alter ego “Portal Girl,” can be considered the “straight man” of the team.
She’s a lot more level-headed than characters like Papa G and Kid. That’s not to say Jo is perfect,
but she’s definitely got more of a head on her shoulders than her team members.
It’s no wonder that she ends up as the leader! She also gets along well with the other members
of the show’s cast. She babysits Rosa and is good friends with Kid. She’ll help him out of a jam,
and she’s the first person Kid introduces the stones to, showing that he trusts her greatly with
them. However, Jo isn’t the greatest hero there is. Remember when we said she isn’t perfect? Yeah,
it’s time to get into that. Jo can be pretty cowardly at times. She panics the most out of
anyone in the team, which isn’t exactly a quality you want in a leader. When Jo first gains the
powers of the cosmic stone, she’s also not really interested in the superhero lifestyle. Instead,
she is interested in a far more selfish pursuit. She wants to use its powers to travel the world
and get away from her mundane life. Fighting off intergalactic villains isn’t her career choice,
but it ultimately fits her like a glove. That’s the main reason we rank her so high on this list.
She never wanted to become a hero, nor did she desire to become the leader of a superhero team.
Still, she becomes both of those things and excels at them. She is exceptionally humble as a hero.
That, coupled with her leadership abilities, makes her a prime candidate for second place!
The third place sees the titular character, Kid Cosmic! At first, Kid seems to be your average
boy who dreams of becoming a superhero. His story takes a twist when he finds five cosmic stones,
each capable of great power. He eventually puts together a superhero team that fights
off all kinds of evil alien invaders. Kid has many heroic qualities to him,
but he also has a few not so heroic attributes. Jo summed him up best as “a good guy who's really bad
at it.” He aspires to be just like the superheroes he reads about in comic books. However, he has a
somewhat limited view of being a hero. He tends to think it's only about fighting and catchphrases,
which often leads to Papa G having to send some wisdom his way. He can get pretty nasty as well.
When Rosa terrorized the town as a giant, he angrily said Rosa was not his friend,
which sent her crying. He also has a lot of self-doubt within him and often feels he is
not the hero as others see him. With that all out of the way, let’s get into his good qualities!
Kid is the “spirit” of the team, something that is even said of him within the show. Without him,
there would simply be no team. He also goes through the most development of any character
in the first season. He learns there really is more to being a hero than throwing fists.
Kid becomes more mature as the series progresses and always tries to correct his wrongs.
His character progression is best shown when he calls Jo the leader of the team. He clearly feels
she is the best fit for the position, something he wasn’t capable of doing at the beginning of
the series. When a group of five aliens battles the Earth Force Enforcement Force, Kid is the
one who ends the conflict, and he doesn’t even have to raise a fist to do so. He sees the aliens
aren’t actually evil and ends up befriending both them and the Enforcement Force. Kid
Cosmic isn’t a perfect superhero. He can be very egotistical and immature at times. Nevertheless,
he possesses many of the qualities a hero needs, and it is for that reason he gets third place!
Next up, we have Tuna Sandwich! On the surface, Tuna is nothing more than an everyday cat. He
spends his time hanging out at Mo’s Oasis, where Kid feeds him tuna sandwiches. That all changes
after Kid gives him the red stone, which grants him the ability to see into the future. After
that, he becomes one of the most invaluable assets to the team. With the ability to see the future,
Tuna Sandwich might just be the smartest member of the group. He can get the group out of problems
they won’t even see coming. He’s friends with the entire team, but he is close mainly with Kid. He’s
very loyal to him, primarily because Kid fed him when he was a stray. He’ll do whatever needs to
be done to keep him safe. For example, after the Biker in Black took over the town and the stones,
Tuna went out of his way to get the team back together. With a bit of help from Stuck Chuck,
that is. In addition to his intelligence and loyalty to the team, he’s also a formidable
fighter. We’re sure you didn’t see that one coming! While he has many qualities you’d
want in a team member, he also lacks some other important ones. For one, he doesn’t really talk.
While he does get control of a voice modulator, that only happens near the end of the season.
It kind of makes you wonder how differently things would’ve gone if he had it the entire time.
He’s also somewhat limited by his cat body. There’s only so much he can do as a cat,
but he certainly makes the most of it! With a great mind and a strong sense of loyalty,
we just had to put Tuna on the “good” list!
Our next entry rounds out the Kid Cosmic team with Rosa! Rosa is a four-year-old
girl who is given the blue stone by Kid. Or, to be more exact, takes the stone from him.
The stone gives her the power to turn into the giant “La Niña Gigantica,” and she soon becomes
another member of Kid’s team. Rosa is easily the strongest member of the entire team, thanks mainly
to her abilities. Rosa is virtually unstoppable when she turns into a giant, and she makes short
work of any villains she fights. When the team starts out defending Earth against alien invaders,
Rosa is basically the team's MVP. She saves them on several of these adventures. Many times she is
the main reason they are able to win. This leads her to have more medals than any other member of
the team. There is more to being in the “good” category than accomplishments, however. We must
also look at her personality and, luckily for her, Rosa is a pretty upbeat character! After all,
she is only four. She’s almost always in a good mood, even when the team is in the most
dangerous of predicaments. Despite having a good personality and some outstanding accomplishments
tied to her name, she does have one glaring flaw that holds her back from a higher position.
She is very destructive, especially when she was first given the blue stone. She wreaked havoc on
the entire town and even nearly squashed Papa G at one point! Of course, she is merely a child,
but we still think it is worth bringing up. While she’s a bit more dangerous than other
team members, Rosa makes up for that in sheer strength, and that gets her this spot on the list!
In the next slot, we have Jo’s mom, Flo! The owner of Mo’s Oasis, Flo is your typical strict
parent you’ve seen in countless cartoons. She always makes sure Jo gets work done at the Oasis
and will chastise Jo when she is browsing her phone. She is pretty easy to anger as well. Kid
and his adventures are a typical source for Flo’s frustration, making no attempt to hide it. When
Jo becomes a member of Kid’s team, her biggest fear is that Flo will discover her secret, as she
knows she will not be happy to see her daughter fighting off aliens. When Flo finally learns what
Jo has been doing, her reaction is about what you would expect. Flo tells Jo and the rest of
the team to give up their superhero activities. There certainly are many aspects to Flo that
could easily put her in the grey area, but we feel there is enough to her character to keep her in
the good. For starters, she is easy to get along with. She loves getting new patrons to the Oasis,
and gets along with each of them. Flo even welcomes aliens to the cafe with open arms! While
she isn’t happy at first to see Jo as a superhero, she ends up warming up to the idea after seeing
her in action. By the time the government tries to take the rings away from the gang,
she is absolutely against the idea, believing Kid and the team are perfectly fit to use the
stones. How’s that for character development? In conclusion, while Flo might be a bit too uptight
of a parent, she is always willing to grow and evolve, earning her this spot on the list!
Finishing up the “good” category, we have Queen Xhan!
This super-powered alien comes to Earth alongside four other aliens.
Each one is after a specific stone. They are the last survivors of their respective home planets,
which were destroyed by the evil Erodius. Xhan may seem like a villain at first,
as she tries to fight the Earth Force to get the stone, but after Kid figures out what is going on,
it becomes clear that she’s just as good as any of the other heroes in the main cast.
She merely wants the last remnant of her lost planet, and she’s willing to do anything to get
it. Once her intentions become clear, she is friendly with the rest of the cast and is even
willing to visit Mo’s Oasis. Even the Earth Force, who tried to destroy her shortly before this,
ended up becoming friends with her. After a six-month leave, she comes back to the cafe,
proclaiming that she is the only one of the aliens who survived a battle with Erodius. She asks for
the help of Kid Cosmic and his team, which they oblige to. While she doesn’t have a huge role in
the series so far, she is the only one of these survivors to have a distinct character. With her
role in the final episodes of the first season, as well as the likelihood we’ll see her return,
we felt she was the perfect fit for this last spot on the “good” list!
That wraps things up for the good guys! Now we move onto those who are not quite good,
but they aren’t quite evil, either. This is the Grey Area!
First up, we have the Earth Force Enforcement Force! What a name! These five super soldiers
are given each of the stones after the government takes them from Kid. They each have their own
colored suit, which coordinates with the stone they possess. The members of Earth
Force are definitely not evil, but we wouldn’t call them good, either. They do the bidding of
the Biker in Black, a character who has his own evil motives for fighting alien threats.
They are largely clueless about this, just like they are clueless to the true intentions of the
aliens they battle in the season's final episodes. They also ridicule footage of the local heroes
trying to fight off aliens, seeing them as little more than “guinea pigs” for testing the stones.
Though they are clueless about their leaders' actual plans, they still possess a great deal
of humanity. When Kid and the gang try to interfere in their battle against the aliens,
they never attack them. Instead, they try to get them out of the battlefield as peacefully
as possible. When they learn that the aliens are the sole survivors of their homeworlds,
they make no effort to try and defeat the aliens. They actually befriend the aliens, as well as Kid
and the team! As we said, they have many good qualities, but there are a few things that hold
them back from being in that category, which makes them perfect for the first spot in the grey area!
If the Enforcement Force is here, then their leader must not be far behind!
That leads us to none other than the Biker in Black! When the show begins,
this biker seems to be an average patron of Mo’s Oasis. However, after people learn of the stones,
he reveals that he is actually an undercover government agent. He takes the stones for his
own purposes and becomes the main antagonist of the season from that point onwards. The Biker in
Black is in the grey because he does do some noble things, but his reasons for doing so are anything
but that. Much like Kid, he wants to be a hero who saves the Earth from intergalactic threats.
However, he wants to be a hero for nothing more than fame and glory. He’s almost like a foil to
Kid, as if this is the character he could turn into if he doesn’t evolve and mature as a hero.
His desire to keep Earth safe is also rooted in a feeling of xenophobia. He hates all kinds of
aliens and sees the stones as the perfect way to prove the Earth is a superior planet. When his
plan is foiled at the end of the season, he even tries to manipulate Kid into joining him! We could
easily put the Biker in the “evil” tier, but he is very inactive in the story. He’s an antagonist
who sits back and lets his lackeys take care of problems rather than doing them on his own. Also,
as we said earlier, he does do some heroic acts. It is just his motives that are evil. Overall,
this biker is one big mixed bag of good and evil, getting him an easy spot in the grey area!
We’re finished with the grey area! Now,
we move towards the baddest of the bad! These characters are evil.
Earning the Bronze Medal of Evil is none other than the team’s first villain, Stuck Chuck!
Chuck is an alien invader who goes after Kid to get the stones, which he hopes will please
his leader. Things go wrong when a portal from Jo separates his legs from his upper body. He spends
most of the season in Kid’s trailer, earning him the name “Stuck Chuck.” Chuck is far from
the baddest villain in the series, but he can still be pretty nasty. When he first appears,
he has no problem killing Kid, Jo, or any other major characters. As far as he is concerned, they
are little more than roadblocks in his mission to satisfy his leader. Later, he tricks Kid and
the team into taking him to his ship to find the “instruction manual” for the stones. Of course,
there is no manual for the stones in the end. He merely wanted to contact his leader to inform him
of the location of the stones. His meanest moment is undoubtedly the time when he tells Kid that his
“victory” against the robot army was simply Papa G and the others dressing up as robots.
He ridicules everything about him, from his failure to be a hero all the way to the death
of his parents in a car accident. He utterly rips Kid apart, hoping it will force him to
contact his leader. After his leader discards him in a quick battle, however, Chuck has a change of
heart. Chuck starts to take a more heroic role in the series as he helps Tuna Sandwich get the team
back together. He also begins to see that Kid is a hero and even proclaims him as his new leader.
Though he does see the error of his ways and turn a new leaf, we feel it comes a bit late in the
season, as we never get to really see Chuck as a hero. His redemption keeps him on the lower side
of the “evil” list, but it’s not enough to get him to the “good” list. Maybe next season, Chuck!
Getting the Silver Medal of Evil is Stuck Chuck’s leader, appropriately named the Great Leader! This
villain is the ruler of the Klaxian Empire and is obsessed with trying to obtain the stones.
After he learns of the stones' whereabouts, he leaves for Earth to try and take them. The Great
Leader is certainly an evil character. Unlike Stuck Chuck, he makes no attempt to mend his ways.
He’s an incredibly intimidating character whose armor is covered in the skulls of aliens, and
he controls a mighty army of soldiers. However, there is just one problem, and it’s what costs
him a higher spot on the list. He is a gigantic coward! As soon as he ends up in trouble on Earth,
he freaks out and leaves the planet, entirely ditching his plans of obtaining the stones.
When this happens, it leaves you wondering how this guy could ever even be the leader of an
empire! His utter cowardice would be enough for some to put him lower on this list, but we must
still remember that he is the leader of an evil empire. He wields a dangerous army, and he is
entirely focused on gaining power and destroying those who stand in his way. He’s just not the
greatest at doing things on his own! Besides, we could very well see him come back to the
series at some point, where he’ll hopefully be a greater threat to the heroes. Hopefully, that is!
Capping things off, the Gold Medal of Evil belongs to Erodius! Erodius is an interesting character
in that we never actually see him on-screen during the first season. We don’t even hear of his name
until the season is almost over! Still, just going off of what we are told about this character,
he is easily the most evil character in the “Kid Cosmic” universe. Erodius is an alien who destroys
planets. All of the stones featured in the show are the remains of planets that he destroyed.
Right from the get-go, we see that this character is far more evil than any of the other antagonists
in the series thus far. He doesn’t hide behind lackeys, he’s far from a coward, and it seems
unlikely that he will go through any sort of redemption. When the final episode of the season
jumps six months into the future, it is revealed that he killed all of the aliens whose planets he
had destroyed, except for Queen Xhan. This makes him the only character in the series so far to
have killed any named characters. He might not have actually shown up in the show at this point,
but it is clear from the few mentions of his name that he is the most dangerous foe in the entire
series. He’s a character who has wiped out entire planets and alien species, making him the perfect
candidate for the golden medal. Not so bad for a character who doesn’t even show up, right?
Before we wrap things up, let’s hand out some medals to the characters who fit them best!
Earning the Darwin Medal is none other than the Great Leader! Let’s not forget that he gave up his
chance to seize the stones at the first sign of danger! If that’s not dumb, we don’t know what is!
We’re giving the Pride Medal to Kid Cosmic,
as he definitely has issues with seeing anyone but himself as the team leader.
The Wrath Medal goes to Erodius! Come on,
how could we not give him this award after destroying entire planets and species?
We definitely have to give the Envy Medal to the Biker in Black,
who is fueled by jealousy over how much more advanced other planets appear to be.
But let us know in the comment section if you agree with our ranking. And tell us what we should
cover next. Remember to hit that notification bell and binge our Good to Evil playlist,
where we break down the morality of the characters in your favorite cartoons,
shows, and movies. But most importantly, stay wicked.