Space King
Entry updated 24 November 2025. Tagged: TV.
US animated webseries (2024-current). Flashgitz. Created and written by Don Greger and Tom Hinchliffe. Voice cast includes Don Greger, Tom Hinchliffe and Christopher Tester. Three 17-29 minute episodes to date. Colour.
The opening shows children abducted by troops in Powered Armour: the girls are thrown into a fiery pit (see Women in SF) whilst the boys are injected with Holy Globules, turning them into musclebound giants; their minds (see Identity) are then overwritten or "sanctified", and bodies enclosed in the "psycho-armour" of their captors.
We then meet four Psycho Warriors: Captain (Greger), Hatemonger (Hinchliffe), Bryce (Hinchliffe) and Chesnut (Greger), members of the Star Defender Legion, who – like other legions – seek artefacts of the absent Space King (Tester). This often involves planetary Invasion, with genocide the default option. During one search our heroes land on the wrong planet; this gets them in trouble, but only for wasting a geno-bomb. Sent to the correct location, only "Medicae" Chestnut survives after facing a large breasted space alien – however he retrieves the others' Globules (sacs removed via the penis) which are Uploaded into children kept on hand for just such an occasion, who also undergo the previously mentioned physical transformation. In episode 2 the High Command sends them to rescue a Grim Lord's son, accidentally swept up in a recruitment drive by another legion, the blood-fixated Coagulators – who prove fond of blood puns and are relatively easy going. Chesnut – the butt of the others' jokes – decides to join them, until he learns he's required to "mind-meld with the brood-mother and join the hive" (see Hive Minds), the mother being a giant blood-sucking insect who once drank the blood of Space King, so is considered divine by the Coagulators.
Episode 3 has the team arriving at space structure holding crystals they hope can turn their lasers from pink to green. Chesnut and Hatemonger come across a human-made AI, the God Weapon, who wishes to feel: it currently has only one feeling – pain – but hopes to collect the others someday. Chesnut begins to teach it compassion, but Hatemonger interrupts with a lecture on why it should hate all aliens, echoing right-wing propagandists: "Did you know some aliens are single mothers on a genetic level. I wonder if it affects the behaviour of the children? Hmm, curious ..." (See Race in SF.) However, when Hatemonger boasts that humanity has "wiped out 100% of the alien species we've discovered" the God Weapon is shocked. Meanwhile, Captain and Bryce have learnt that the structure is a Prison holding the God Weapon, with the green crystals powering the Force Field that contains it: unfortunately by this point they have already removed said crystals, so the God Weapon departs to contemplate humanity's punishment.
In this affectionate Satire of the Warhammer 40,000 Wargame, the Psycho Warriors' behaviour and outlook reflect the small boys' minds they inhabit. When a Mad Scientist creates the first female Psycho Warrior, the Legions unite to destroy his planet – "No Girls Allowed!" (It might be argued that some attitudes seem a little old-fashioned now, but the game Parodied began in the late 1980s.) It is not known why Space King ("Praise be to Space King") left, but he is worshipped as a god (see Religion) by all Psycho Warriors, though each Legion does so differently; he still appears to speak to his followers individually, though as he tells them what they want to hear, this is likely self-deception on their part.
Though Chesnut sometimes displays a conscience, the Captain and Bryce (the former favouring the direct route, the latter an insecure Scientist or "Imaginator") unquestioningly accept the Psycho Warrior dogma, whilst Hatemonger is an anti-alien fanatic. The first episode is fairly good, but 2 and 3 are markedly stronger. Space King is a very funny sf Horror series, the Humour reminiscent of Rick & Morty, though broader; there is much bad taste; the animation is also good. Like many contemporary animated shows, it is independently made and broadcast on YouTube: episodes were released March 2024, December 2024 and September 2025, gaining 13.5m, 8.5m and 6.2m views respectively by mid-November 2025. Further episodes are expected. [SP]
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