Plankton Invasion

It’s the annual sandcastle competition on the beach, and our planktonic heroes are convinced that the infamous Mister Kyoto has erected these fortifications in order to prevent the Plankton Invasion. Our hit squad trio therefore launches an assault on the castles, facing the elite troops of their number one enemy... who are in fact nothing more than plastic soldiers! /Offshore wind turbines have been erected near the trio's beach. Commander Medusa orders the squad to thwart this new Mister Kyoto plot. Convinced that he has understood the mission, Captain C. Star attacks the many windmills on the beach, which are in fact, colourful toy windmills that the children play with on the beach. Like a planktonic Don Quixote, the Captain tries to bring down these “weapons of mass carbon destruction”. / Anna discovers that certain creatures called “cows” emit a polluting gas called methane. A new mission takes shape for our planktonic trio: to make everything (that in any way resembles a cow) fart! But Mister Kyoto puts up a cunning distraction using other creatures called “kangaroos”, which rather puts a spanner in the plankton invasion’s works.

The flag on the beach is red, and the humans have deserted it. No humans means no pollution. No pollution means no global warming. No global warming means no Plankton Invasion! The trio's mission: get rid of that red flag to bring the humans and their pollution back on the beach, by any means... / Thanks to a TV programme, Pulpo has discovered that deforestation is one of the main causes of global warming. The trio decide to take part in this lovely human endeavour and decide to go and cut down some trees… the beach bar’s pot of bamboos! But the mission turns out to be more difficult than planned: a turtle is living within and bamboo is very hard to cut down with a tiny shell blade! / Commander Medusa is losing patience; he wants global warming to go faster! Captain C. Star has twenty-four hours to get the temperature of the planet to increase by at least one degree! If he fails, the Captain will be transferred to the North Pole and replaced by his arch nemesis Krill Bill.

Our heroes have worked out that the “Big-Yellow-Ball-That-Heats” in the sky, the sun, is the main cause of global warming. If they could “take it down” and bring it closer to the ground, that would be very efficient but it is of course impossible. Our heroes do not let themselves be defeated and decide to attack a “Yellow-Ball-That-Heats” that is much more within their range: a lit bulb in a beach cabin. / The hit squad finds on the beach what could be Mister Kyoto’s ultimate weapon: the icebox! More and more humans are arriving on the beach with iceboxes. The research is easy: it is inevitably for cooling the beach! While Star won’t close an eyelid until he has wrecked all these aberrations, Anna wants to study this Kyotonic technology. They’re in for a refreshing adventure! / The hit squad finds on the beach what could be the ultimate weapon against Mister Kyoto: a piece of polished glass! Indeed, Anna discovers that the shape of glass enables her to “focus” the sun’s rays on a precise point, which produces great heat! Star tests his death ray: no ice cube or “Mister Freeze” is any longer safe on the beach. Drunk with power, Star decides to attack the ice-cream shop especially this enormous ice-cream cornet that’s mocking him (in reality: the ice-cream shop’s wooden sign)

Anna is trying a new plan: growing batteries. She and Pulpo, to the great displeasure of Star who is a warrior not a farmer, plant batteries in order to grow ‘battery trees’, which will give nice ripe batteries whose extremely toxic fluid will accelerate global warming. To avoid playing Mister Kyoto’s game, Star agrees to play the farmer. But, our heroes quickly discover that human bipeds have uprooted their batteries thanks to a “battery beeper” contraption. The batteries are stored in a high-security warehouse (a recycling dustbin). Star decides to crack the battery safe in order to release all the batteries. / The trio are taking a nap. It’s Barbecue Day, so no need to do any work: the humans have taken it upon themselves to warm the climate for them. Except that the Commander is still not happy: the warming is still too slow! Our trio gets the idea of setting fire to a bag of charcoal that’s lying beside the barbecue. Easy enough – except that achieving this objective while the humans are busy picnicking is a perilous assault course! / Anna has discovered a new process from the infamous Mister Kyoto for reducing greenhouse gas production: a “Canadian Well”. Using geothermics (“using what?!” cry Star and Pulpo in unison), this “hole” bored near a house enables its temperature to be controlled with neither electricity nor oil! So when Star discovers a young human digging a hole in the sand beside the toilets on the beach, his heart skips a beat: he’s digging a “Canadian Well”! The hit squad will do everything it can to fill the cursed hole… Endangering both their life and dignity.

After watching an old science-fiction film in which extraterrestrials destroy everything on Earth, Star’s team mistake a frisbee for a flying saucer. Could extraterrestrials be coming to lend the trio a hand and help accelerate global warming? Discovering an old rubber surgical glove on the sand, our trio thinks that it’s the saucer’s pilot. By the space pilot with the “five tentacular arms” is not as co-operative as they would have hoped… / Commander Medusa is giving the planktonic trio a new mission: “to eliminate the spies in Mister Kyoto’s pay!”. Under suspicion are the Mytilidae (mussels), which are used as biological indicators by humans in order to assess the quality of the seawater. Star and Pulpo go off in search of the mussels’ HQ in order to dismantle their organisation; Anna chooses the diplomatic channel and decides to befriend them in order to infiltrate their group. / Mister Kyoto has struck very hard this morning: he has deployed an anti-solar shield (a parasol, in fact) on the Oostduinkerke beach. Our hit squad must do everything in their power to destroy this infernal shade-making machine! Unfortunately, it’s too tough for them break down… so they have no other choice but to set off on the “cliff-hanger” ascent of the parasol’s shaft, in order to reach the closing system, and to neutralise this new weapon of “mass cooling”!

An ecological exhibition is taking place in the beach club reserved for children. The commander sees in this an unhoped-for opportunity to learn of Mister Kyoto’s plans of attack. Star and his hit squad must find a way into this club, a veritable Kyoto training camp, in order to steal Mister Kyoto’ plans. But if gaining entry into this impregnable fortress is already hard enough, to emerge from it with the precious information is certain to be “Mission Impossible”. / Our heroes’ new target is a SUPER TANKER, a monster of the seas, a “Kraken”, as our Plankton friends call it. But, it’s a “Mission Impossible” because not a single mollusc is capable of confronting a Kraken. Not a single one? But there is one of them who has already conquered a Kraken: Star. The warrior Captain must become a legendary hero once again or he’ll be off to count penguins with Krill Bill. But, it would seem that Star has never actually beaten a Kraken and now he’s trapped by his lie… / Anna has discovered the Albedo Effect. By and large, white surfaces become an obstacle to global warming. So everything white has to be painted black. But only armed with a pen our trio quickly runs short of ink… This is when Star notices Pulpo. When nervous, he squirts out black ink. Could he be their secret weapon? But Pulpo doesn’t have unlimited resources… Anna is certain that, with a little psychology, she and Star can get Kalamarez to surpass himself…

Mister Kyoto’s agents (some Green militants) have blocked the evacuation of the Oostduinkerke hospital’s wastewater. This water is polluted … and is contaminated by patients’ sedatives, which are poisoning the marine animal-life. But the Commander has a remedy: the blocking of the pipe is nothing but Mister Kyoto’s new trick to prevent the water from rising and the ice from melting. He sends the hit squad to settle the problem… but when Star thoughtlessly drinks a mouthful of the contaminated water, the sedatives that it contains transform him into a militant pacifist. Will Pulpo and Anna manage to carry out the mission without him… and get him to become himself once again? / Anna, escorted by Pulpo, is taking litter samples in order to satisfy her scientific curiosity. As Star finds out the two of them are alone on the beach, Pulpo is picked up by a giant pincer and mercilessly thrown into a bin liner. Pulpo is lost! Star will do everything he can to rescue his friend before the infamous Mister Kyoto “recycles” Pulpo! / Contaminated by nuclear waste, Pulpo is transformed into an uncontrollable giant squid. He kidnaps Anna. Star then decides to throw himself into the radioactive liquid so that he too can become a fearsome warrior. A terrible confrontation between Hulkalamarez and Abominastar ensues… will the team survive this plankton-on-plankton fight?

Pulpo and Anna discover an old aerosol bomb under the HQ. On Star’s orders, Pulpo is detailed to defuse it and move it to a place where its explosion would destroy the ozone layer rather than the HQ. Will the easily scared Pulpo manage to control his emotions and successfully accomplish this dangerous mission? / Our hit squad trio mistake plastic bags ballooned by the wind for high polluting wild animals. Anna suggests capturing them and taming them, and, at the head of a herd of “Plastic Mustangs”, they will be able to launch the first wave of the “Plankton Invasion”. Simple to say, less simple to actually do. / Anna has made a great discovery: an old toy plane has been abandoned on the beach. Thinking it a genuine plane, our three heroes must absolutely make it take off again so that it can pollute the skies again. In the cockpit of the toy, they discover an articulated figurine dressed as a pilot. For Anna, it’s love at first sight; for Star just an incapable pilot on whom he won’t be able to count for to launch the plane in the air again.

While tracking one of Mister Kyoto’s agents, the three stooges are captured and thrown into a basket. Consequently, they have but one aim: to escape. But the methods differ. Star is in favour of the strong-arm method, of smashing this basket to smithereens! For Anna, the problem is outside, because all around the basket, in the area of the beach where the rubbish washes up (“debris line”), Mister Kyoto’s men are on patrol. She develops a plan: to dig a long tunnel to the deserted beach, the free zone… / Panic stations! The plankton HQ is attacked by a ROBOT, which staggers, and finally collapses in the sand, while continuing to make repetitive movements. Anna and Pulpo discover that it’s a toy robot that works on solar energy, one of Mister Kyoto’s ecological weapons. The machine emits a few sentences, one of which - “It’s getting hotter” - gives Anna the idea of reprogramming it to their benefit. Thus, the Ko-Toy robot becomes the darling of Pulpo and Anna, to the great displeasure of Star, who is convinced that this contraption is a Kyotonic spy intending to infiltrate them like a pearl in an oyster. / The planktonic trio is observing the humans install a big black panel that is absorbing the sun’s heat on the roof of the refreshment bar. Anna discovers a strange wire coming off from this panel… it is in fact a solar panel, which uses the sun’s energy to produce electricity without releasing even the slightest trace of carbon! The hit squad sets off immediately to destroy this abomination.

The Supreme Commander is angry: our heroes’ mission is getting bogged down, and the morale of his troops is low. He demands that Star remotivates the Planktonic Legion. Anna has a brilliant idea: they will make a propaganda film to show how the brave men of the Planktonic Army thwart the infamous Mister Kyoto’s plans. / General alert! A horde of phytoplankton are moving towards the beach of Oostduinkerke: these “filthy creatures” are completely hooked on CO²; they ingest it, then regurgitate it completely purified of its carbon, thus hindering global warming and delaying the Plankton Invasion. Star quickly loses his rag: he never could stand those “traitors”. He’s going to pulverise them! But the Commander interrupts him: Star and his hit squad will have to be satisfied with assisting the Commander’s best “anti-phytoplankton” agent. To the team’s surprise it’s Lieutenant Krill Bill. If there’s one thing that Star hates even more than the Phytoplankton, it’s Krill Bill! / Our trio discovers a cell phone buried in the sand. It rings and vibrates, making Pulpo faint. Anna tries to extinguish this “Kyotonic explosive device”, and then discovers the “standby mode”, an improbable state that is neither “on” nor “off”. In fact, she realises that the standby state is highly polluting. Star has a brilliant idea: they will go on standby mode themselves in order to accelerate global warming. It is Operation “No-Sleep”. It’s not long before our heroes are so tired they start hallucinating.

When Anna is using the hit squad as guinea pigs for studying the benefits of seaweed for the skin, Krill Bill denounces their idleness… and their use of a product misappropriated by Mister Kyoto in order to make bio fuel! Fuel without pollution, with a limited production of carbon gas! Medusa orders them to resume the combat at once: a human seems to be storing fabulous quantities of that seaweed! Star tries to act in his usual pyrotechnical fashion. But he fails. Only Anna’s brain can eliminate this Kyotonic plague… but does she really want to? / The hit squad discovers that jogging not only provokes an increase of the humans’ body heat and makes them sweat, but especially accelerates their breathing and therefore the production of C0²! It’s time to put those beached holiday whales to / The hit squad goes off to sabotage a concert given in the glory of the ecologist cause but Pulpo’s surprising vocal talents put the mission in jeopardy…

Pulpo’s passion for pop makes him take some amazing risks in order to recover a can of the precious sweet fizzy liquid. But Star and Anna unintentionally blow up his little can before Pulpo could slake his thirst. Anna then discovers that “heated” pop discharges all its carbon into the atmosphere. Anna and Star will do their utmost to bring all fizzy drinks of the refreshment bar to boiling point… while Pulpo will try at all cost to save his precious pop from disaster. / Excessive consumption of paper is detrimental to forests. The hit squad is locating everything on the beach that’s made of paper: There are magazines everywhere: let’s burn them and the beachgoers will be obliged to buy some more, thereby harming the world’s forests. But it’s no doubt even smarter to exploit paper consumption that’s essential for the humans: toilet paper! / The hit squad remembers the origin of its creation, a bitter competition between Krill Bill and Star, while Anna and Pulpo were just rookies at the “Planktop Gun” academy. It wouldn’t have taken much for Krill to become chief of the Plankton Invasion mission and Star an observer on the ice-barrier. There is only a fine line between success and failure. What would the planktonic hit squad have been like if things had turned out differently for Star?

The team discovers that an unfortunate fish is being kept prisoner by some of Mister Kyoto’s human henchmen. Fish are the hit squad’s allies because they eat the perfidious phytoplankton that slow down the melting of the ice-barrier. So our heroes decide to rescue the captive fish – which is really a toy, a fake fish that starts to sing when people clap their hands. But, for Star and his acolytes, this fish could simply be in a straitjacket and needs the open sea as fast as possible to regain its spirits… Operation “Saving the Allied Fish” is put into action… / Danger! Danger! The sun is little by little getting itself nibbled by another huge, mysterious ball! No doubt that it is yet another plan by the vile Mister Kyoto for delaying global warming! Without knowing it, our heroes witness a solar eclipse. When the night and the cold arrive during what is meant to be daytime, Commander Medusa thinks that the end of the world is inescapable and decides to flee. For his part, Star decides to fight: he’s going to get rid of that large white ball that’s hiding their dear ball of fire. After some pitiful failures, Anna develops a space operation worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster… / Anna discovers the combustion engine, a major source of carbon pollution. She at once proposes to manufacture racing cars on the basis of Dinky Toy bodies. Duly decided to exploit the idea until the end, the Commander decides to organise a race between the members of the hit squad and Bill Krill: what would be more polluting than a hard-fought car race…?