The Amazing Extraordinary Friends

The Amazing Extraordinary Friends is a New Zealand children's program featuring the adventures of a modern day superhero teenage boy and his friends. The protagonist is a teenage boy called Ben Wilson who finds out about a superhero insignia which gives him powers. He has difficulty with them, especially flight and using eye lasers at first, but soon learns to control them fairly well. His grandfather is also a superhero, and this is how he comes to acquire the insignia. His mother hates all the superhero business going on for the sake of safety, but his father and stepfather both encourage him, his father being the previous superhero in Ben's position, Captain Xtraordinary or simply Captain X, and his stepfather being the son of a supervillain, The Comedian. The position, it is found out in the show, has been held by many heroes in the past. The villains in the series are Nemesis, a group led by an old villain and a recently converted hero, Ice, who used to be Blaze in her former era working alongside the former Captain X. The Nemesis group operate in a skyscraper office block known as Nemesis Headquarters and use computers, suggesting they have updated since the old times. A loose idea of a "new age of superheroes" is suggested throughout the series. They use stormtroopers with skull like masks and breathing apparatus. The Nemesis group have many villains under their wing and it is run by Renfield, the main villain in the series who Ice assists in his constant plan to get the ensignia.