Lame-ass villain #7 - Slipknot

Slipknot - what a tool.

Slipknot is a guy who ties people up and chokes them. With a rope. Shit, I can do that. I can go down to Home Depot right now and buy 20 feet of rope, put on a ski mask and boom! I'm Sheep-Shank, the knot tying villain!

Behold lameness, mortal:



Slipknot first appeared in The Fury of Firestorm #28. That's right, Rope Guy vs The Nuclear Man. Slipknot must have gone through a super-villain Tony Robbins program or something, because that is setting your sights really high. Firestorm would mop the floor with him! Maybe he should have started as a Booster Gold villain, see how it goes, and then moved up to Firestorm. I'm just saying - you have to have attainable goals.

Really, Slipknot should have called himself Kick-The-Shit-Out-Of-Me Man. To be fair, his ropes are extra adhesive and unbreakable, but still. They're ropes, dude! I mean, call Slipknot if you need help moving on Saturday, but otherwise you wouldn't want him on your supervillain team. A guy with a gun is more of a threat than Slipknot. As a villain, his survival against any superhero that happens to be awake can only be chalked up to The Riddler Factor. His utter lameness is tempered only by the fact that Marvel has a guy just like him: The Hangman, a Spider-Woman villain.

To illustrate my point, which is that Slipknot is lame, I present Suicide Squad #9, part of the gripping Millennium crossover. In this issue, the usual team of super-convicts is assembled for a suicide mission - this time they have to drive a bomb into the swamp temple of a bunch of Manhunter robots. The villains on the team include Deadshot, Captain Boomerang, and, yes, Slipknot. I guess the folks who planned the mission had a sick sense of humor: "Robots, huh? Let's send Rope Guy! Ha ha ha ha!"

You can just imagine how that goes. Wait, you don't have to. Here it is:



"Fall down and die, damn you!" Slipknot. Bro. They're androids.

And look, Slipknot even gets dissed by one of the Manhunters, who rightfully calls him a fool. Hey, Manhunters call 'em like they see 'em. He's in the Manhunter No-Spin Zone.

Which begs the question: are they so mean on the Suicide Squad that they didn't even give him a heads-up that he was going to be strangling robots? "Hey, Slipknot. Just an FYI. We'll be fighting robots today. You're fucked." Or did they string him along, so to speak? "The best way to strangle a robot is by choking it here and cutting off its air supply..."

Even Slipknot can read the writing on the wall, however. He plans on deserting if his robot-strangling doesn't go as planned. But the Squad keep their super-villains in line with explosive bracelets, right? Or so they say, right Slipknot? I bet they're not real explosive bracelets... He checks with the always trustworthy Captain Boomerang:



What a tool.

Slipknot fails to cut-off the air supply of any of the Manhunter androids he fights, so he bugs out. Sloshing through the swamp, he notices his explosive bracelet flashing. "Gotta be a bluff!" he thinks, and keeps going.

Bad call.



That is some Garth Ennis-style comedy right there, courtesy of writer John Ostrander. Up until now, the reader hadn't seen one of the explosive bracelets go off, and I remember laughing really hard when I first read that, partly because it reminded me of my cousin's fireworks accident in 1982, and partly because it's just funny. Captain Boomerang's reaction is great:



That's cold, but what do you expect if you're in a group that calls itself the Suicide Squad? It's not Hug Battalion, although I would read something called that. Anyway, the Slipknot scene is actually the highlight of an otherwise awkward and forced Millennium crossover chapter, but I'll take bad Suicide Squad over, um, bad Alpha Flight any day of the week.

Here's the dope cover to Suicide Squad #9. I see Bronze Tiger, I see Rick Flag in his "stealth yellow" shirt, I see Deadshot and Boomerang... Hey, where's Slipknot? Why isn't he up there?



He didn't even make the cover.

I think I've proved my point about Slipknot being lame and all. The Who's Who entry for Slipknot (at the top of the post) is only half a page. And frickin' Space Cabbie gets a whole page in the same issue! Snapper Carr gets an entire page, too. That's gotta hurt the pride a little, huh Slipknot?

THE NEW TEEN TITANS #29, DC Comics, 1983

I always dug The New Teen Titans when I was a kid. Much like the X-Men, they have since squandered and defecated on a lot of that childhood goodwill by too many trips to the well – I really didn’t need to see New Titans or Team Titans at all, thank you very much. Although the new Titans series is okay, I still prefer the old school Titans of the Wolman/Perez era. That’s because I’m an old man in his thirties who thinks that Everything Was Better When I Was A Kid. I’ll cling to my narrow-minded nostalgia all the way to my grave! And when I’m done writing this, I’m going to go play Battlezone on my Atari 5600. None of those new-fangled graphics for me!

I had a point… Oh, right. I loved The New Teen Titans even more than The X-Men when I was a certain age. They were just so colorful and fun, and their villains were equally exotic. It was like a big superhero Mardi Gras.

The Brotherhood of Evil were among my favorite Titans villains. How could you not like a supervillain group led by an evil disembodied brain and his gun-toting ape bodyguard? If you were a communist maybe you wouldn’t like that, but Dave Campbell is no communist my friends! I guess the Brotherhood technically were Doom Patrol villains at first, but they really came to life under the guidance of writer Marv Wolfman and artist George Perez.

Not to be confused with Marvel’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, the Brotherhood of Evil were a team of superhumans whose powers pretty much dictated that they had to be evil. I mean come on, if you’re a walking pile of corrosive goo that melts people’s flesh like Plasmus – sorry, you’re a bad guy. No hero is going to have powers like that. Plus, he’s got a German accent: bad guy.

I particularly liked this issue when I was a kid because the Brotherhood of Evil are practically the protagonists. I just thought it was so cool that a comic would spend time chronicling the adventures of the bad guys. In New Teen Titans #29, The Brotherhood of Evil is locked in a super-gang war with Brother Blood’s cult. Under the instructions of The Brain, a strike team consisting of Plasmus, Warp, Houngan, and Phobia have been destroying Blood’s temples and slaughtering his cultists. This pisses Brother Blood off, because “none shall ever punish my believers, save Brother Blood himself.”

After trashing one of Brother Blood’s churches in his native Zandia, the Brotherhood takes off in a jet piloted by a robot who tries to crash the damn thing. We know this because Plasmus melts the robot’s face. How can you not like Plasmus? Here is our favorite motley crew of villains in jeopardy:



“I vant him – more dan ever!”

The Brotherhood do not die, because Warp um, warps them to a tropical island before the plane blows up. Phew.

We get a little back story about the Titans and who loves who, and then we switch back to the good stuff. The Brotherhood get ambushed by a bunch of Brother Blood’s goons. The villains massacre the cultists and jack their rides, heading off to Titans Tower on a mission to kidnap the “goth” heroine Raven.

Here’s the villain Plasmus in action against Speedy and Kid Flash:



And here is Houngan, a techno-voodoo villain who creates electro-voodoo dolls. By my way of thinking, that power is so specific that it almost makes you useless. I mean, sure, if you know you’re going to fight Kid Flash on Tuesday, you’re in business. But what if you have to fight Doug the Redneck? Don’t got a doll for that, do ya Houngan? You gotta wonder how much good Houngan was in the fights against Brother Blood’s cultists earlier this issue. Does he have like, a generic “laser carrying thug” voodoo doll that he uses? Or does he just hit people with his dolls?



Here we have Phobia, who can summon your deepest fears and just generally freak your shit out. Plus, she has these insane Julie Newmar eyebrows. I imagine Phobia has a Transylvanian accent, like General Kala, the evil chick in Flash Gordon that says, “Dispatch War Rocket Ajax to bring back his body!” Anyway, Phobia hits Speedy with his worst nightmare – being a junkie again! That’s right, she’s making Green Arrow’s sidekick Speedy relive his darkest hours of heroin hell!



Ride the snaaake, Speedy!

If only this issue had featured more of The Brain and his henchman Monsieur Mallah, the ape with the assault rifle, bandolier and beret. Mallah had a whole French Resistance motif going on, didn’t he? Kind of unusual for an ape. Didn’t he wear a beret, or am I wrong? Anyway, if this issue had that, it would be perfect. The Brotherhood of Evil rules!

Thus Endeth No Profanity Week

"WOOO!!!"

I want to thank everybody who made No Profanity Week such a great success. Thank you India. Thank you terror. Thank you disillusionment. But most of all, thanks to wrestling superstar Ric Flair, The Nature Boy, who was the Apollo Creed to my Rocky Balboa, circa Rocky III. Yes, you, Nature Boy, gave me The Eye of the Tiger. God bless, my friend.

And as a special treat, I thought I'd give you all another glimpse at Batman's Dance Party, coming soon to a batmitzvah near you. Heh.

THE AVENGERS vol 3 #56 Marvel Comics, 2002

The Avengers vol 3 #56 was the end of writer Kurt Busiek's epic 56 issue run (give or take an issue) on the book. Busiek and Perez relaunched and revitalized Earth's Mightiest Heroes back in 1997 and created some of the best damn Avengers comics ever during their time on the book. In my mind, the true climax of Busiek and Perez's run came with their JLA/Avengers mini-series, aka Fanboy Nirvana, but this is the true chronological end of the era. After that it was Geoff Johns turn on the book, and we got Hank Pym doing some flesh spelunking and ultimately, Avengers Disassembled.

This issue is sort of a low-key coda to the Busiek/Perez era, because instead of going out with a big epic battle against impossible odds, instead of ending on a high note, we get... sniff sniff... what's that smell? I smell an inventory issue! Unless I'm totally high, this is one of those one-shot issues that editors keep on tap that they can just drop into their publishing schedule as need be. In this case I'm guessing that Geoff Johns and Kieron Dwyer, the next creative team, needed some breathing room so editor Tom Brevoort just plopped this story into the mix. Don't get me wrong, I actually dig this comic, but it's just sort of an anti-climactic end to such a great run of comics.

In Avengers #56, a team of ad hoc Avengers must meet with accountants from the Maria Stark Foundation, the organization that bankrolls them, to justify their expenses on a recent mission. Here, the accountant will explain everything:



The accountant thing is a neat idea and serves as a narrative device that allows each Avenger present to tell the story of a battle against The Elements of Doom in a series of interviews. Each character narrates a little bit of the battle and interacts with the suits. And yes, hilarity ensues as the white-collar world of the accountants meets the fantastic world of our heroes.



Being an inventory issue, Busiek is careful not to screw with continuity and tells a one-issue story about a mission featuring an ad hoc team of active and inactive Avengers - She-Hulk, USAgent (ugh), Thor, Iron Man, Jack of Hearts, Cap, Wonder Man, Silver Claw, and the plush doll version of The Beast from The X-Men. It's a perfect fill-in story because it doesn't screw with the status quo or mess up anything that the next creative team is going to do, but you can kind of tell that it's designed to be non-intrusive, continuity wise. Look, even the cover is generic and sort of timeless, aside from Thor's costume, which is easy enough to change.

I hope I don't sound like I'm complaining, because I do like this issue. Penciller Yanick Paquette, whose Wonder Woman work I really dug, does a great job with inker Ray Snyder on this issue. Some of Snyder's inks have a sure-handed Kevin Nowlan vibe to them, and Paquette goes out of his way to draw She Hulk's butt in this issue, so he gets extra points there.

Plus - the Avengers fight the Elements of Doom in this issue, and that's never a bad thing.

I may be the world's #1 Elements of Doom fan. First appearing in The Avengers #188, the Elements were a bunch of monsters made out of different elements (duh) that were created by a Russian mad scientist type. They later reappeared in Busiek's Thunderbolts and here again in The Avengers #56. They're pretty much just what you would imagine: Chlorine is a gas monster, Plutonium is a radioactive monster, etc.

The Elements of Doom are one of those inevitable comic book ideas that had to happen somewhere - it's one of the things I liked about them so much. Seriously, if they hadn't appeared in a Marvel comic first, Superman would have fought them. Some concepts just have to be turned into super-villain groups, and if you don't do it, darn it, somebody else is just going to beat you to the punch. (See? No Profanity Week is still in effect) They're like DC's Royal Flush Gang. Somebody had to base a bunch of villains on a deck of cards - DC just got there first. Same with The Zodiac. Or The Chessmen from Iron Man. Or the Ani-Men. Or Captain Carrot and his Zoo Crew. Okay, I've gone too far now.

Anyway, here's a shot of The Avengers in battle with the Elements of Doom. I know what you're thinking - nice booty on Silverclaw. But isn't she, like, sixteen? I don't know if I'd let her out of the Mansion wearing that if I were Captain America. I mean, I know she's from South America, but still...



As you might imagine, things work out for our heroes. They defeat the Elements of Doom and the accountants. Thor gives them a bag of Asgardian gold to cover any damages. She-Hulk gets all lawyerly on them. Captain America has all the correct forms filled out. And Iron Man owns the darn Maria Stark Foundation, so he can do whatever the heck he wants.

It's a clever issue, and I have to give Busiek props for not making it too cute. Plus, and I never say this, but great lettering by Richard Starkings' crew - it's a pity Marvel doesn't use them anymore. (Do they?) Like I said, I kind of wanted the Busiek era to end with Something Huge, but I'll take what I can get. A Busiek inventory issue is still way better than the stuff that was to follow in the pages of The Avengers. Busiek wins.

Hey, Ric Flair and special guest Vince McMahon - can I get a "wooo" for not using profanity?

Thank you, Mr. Flair. I truly do understand now: "To be The Man you gotta beat The Man."

ALIEN LEGION #15 Epic Comics, 1990

Alien Legion was a sci-fi military series from the 80’s published by Epic, a marvel imprint. Created by writer/editor Carl Potts, Alien Legion was basically the French Foreign Legion in space, featuring a cast of hardened alien scum who embark on Dirty Dozen type missions. If I’m correct, there were two regular Alien Legion series as well as several mini-series. Alien Legion was drawn by artist Larry Stroman who visually created the look of the Legion universe, and was often written by Chuck Dixon, the Alistair MacLean of comics! I don’t know if that’s accurate; it just sounds right. Anyway, this is issue #15 of the second series, by Dixon and Stroman.

This is part one of a two-part story when the bad mofos of Force Nomad mop up after a civil war between the sexes on the planet Mmrosdia. The soldiers are tasked with removing a group of mercenaries from the losing side from a huge mass driver industrial complex. The Legionnaires infiltrate the complex via the waste discharge tunnels, where they find nothing but trouble. The featured characters in this issue are Gronk, a big alien who talbs like dis all de tibe, the hard-ass human Captain Montroc, a trio of armored raccoon aliens, and Jugger frickin’ Grimrod.

Man, I thought Jugger Grimrod was the coolest. Grimrod was the Wolverine of the team, a superbad, supercynical soldier with a scouser accent and a bad attitude. My favorite Alien Legion comic was issue #5 from the first series, which was an all-Grimrod issue. He gets stranded on an enemy planet and basically just goes into full-on Rambo kill mode, blowing up stuff and strangling people with his molecule-thin “molywire” garrote. I’m distraught because I can’t find that issue anywhere in my boxes. I really need to get this stuff organized…

Anywhere, here’s Jugger griping about something as per usual:



He’s so frickin’ cool. See? I’m not swearing. It’s all part of No Profanity Week here at Dave’s Long Box, where the kids come first!

I do have one pretty big complaint about this issue, which I like otherwise. Normally I really dig Larry Stroman’s stylized art, which is perfectly suited to science fiction. But check out this last page, where Jugger learns that the mercenaries they’re fighting are led by… his father!



That’s a pretty cool picture.

But wait a second...

As a child of the 80’s, that particular image looks awfully familiar…



What the hell? Certainly Stroman is capable of drawing Jugger Grimrod without cribbing the image directly from the fucking movie poster from fucking Commando! I call bullshit on that!

I hate to be the guy to bring this up, but that’s kind of weak. Otherwise, good issue.

Ric Flair, can I get a “wooo?”

"NOOO!!! YOU SWORE!!! NO WOOO FOR YOU!!!"

Shit! I let The Nature Boy down! Please forgive me Ric Flair!

UPDATE: Dave's Long Box reader Zack has helpfully pointed out that it was not Larry Stroman but rather artist Frank Cirocco who actually designed the look of Alien Legion, and did the art on the first few issues. Thank you, good sir.

My short review of Batman Begins

It so totally did not suck.

You know what it was really missing, though? A dance scene like THIS:

DETECTIVE COMICS #617 DC Comics, 1990

Okay, since I’m going to go check out Batman Begins tomorrow I thought I’d check out an old Batman comic. You know, I still can’t get past the name "Batman Begins," but I guess it’s better than Batman Forever or Batman’s Dance Party or whatever that last one was called. Anyway, let’s take a look at Detective Comics #617, and most importantly, let’s do it without any profanity because it is No Profanity Week here at the Long Box.

Of all the regular monthly Batman creative teams, my favorite is the double-threat of writer Alan Grant and artist Norm Breyfogle. Those cork-sucking bastitches made some darn good comic books! They worked together on both Batman and Detective Comics, and I defy anyone to show me a creative team who delivered better work on a monthly basis than those two cats.

Alan Grant’s scripts were street-level sagas of sin and suffering. He never forgot that Batman fights crime. In almost every issue he beats up some muggers, usually while he’s en route to some other more pressing engagement, like a rampaging Hindu demon. In addition to back-alley brawling, Grant’s stories featured a hefty dose of the supernatural and a nice balance between classic Batman villains like The Penguin and The Joker and new adversaries like Scarface and The Ventriloquist, Anarky, and The Corrosive Man. One thing I particularly liked about Grant’s version of Batman was that he was human – he made mistakes, he got captured, and he got beat up a lot. Batman’s a versatile enough character to fit into different storylines and genres, but I like the urban avenger model of Batman the best, as opposed to the hyper-competent JLA version of Batman with the sci-fi closet who takes on aliens and stuff. I understand that he needs to be that way in some comics in order to keep up with the titans of the Justice League, but I can’t reconcile that version of Batman – the one that beats the um, poo out of Martians – with the Batman who works up a sweat taking out a gang of bikers. I think Batman should be the toughest mamajama in Gotham, not the “deadliest man alive.” That’s why I dig Alan Grant’s take on the character. You actually wondered, “Man, how is Batman possibly going to defeat this rampaging Hindu demon?” instead of “Why doesn’t he just bust out his Anti-Demon Mace?”

Norm Breyfogle’s art frickin’ rules! It rules, I say! Sometimes I think the way Breyfogle draws regular characters is a little too stylized and verges on caricature, but when it comes to Batman and the freaks and creeps he fights, he’s solid gold, baby.

Breyfogle’s Batman is lean, powerful, and athletic. You really believe this guy could jump around on batlines and flip around like a freakin’ monkey. Plus, Breyfogle draws a great cape. Based on the dramatic needs of the story, Batman’s cape varies in length from six feet to a full-on Spawn-size thirty foot black shroud. It looks great. Plus, his action scenes are so full of motion and energy. Don’t take my word for it – check it out, here’s Batman cutting across some rooftops trying to catch a fleeing Joker in a car:



See? I’ll take stylized speed lines like that over stiff photo-realism any day of the week.

Detective Comics #617 is a flashback issue to a previous fight between Batman and The Joker that took place three years ago. I figure that’s in comic book time, which is like dog years in reverse, which would place the story in, oh, 1973 or so. Anyway, the framing device for the flashback is a visit Batman makes to a Gotham fortune teller. I know that sounds corny, but bear with me.

In the previous issue Batman learns that The Joker is alive and back in Gotham. I’m not a continuity geek, but I believe that Batman believed Joker died at the end of the Death of Robin storyline and this is the first time he and the readers have seen the Clown Prince of Crime since then. Correct me if I’m wrong (Dan Coyle). Anyway, Batman learns The Joker is back and goes hunting for him. He stops a creep – Alan Grant’s Batman refers to all criminals as “creeps” – from robbing the aforementioned fortune teller, and on a whim, decides to see if she can help him locate The Joker.

This leads into a flashback mini-story and sets up the theme of the comic, which is all about symbolism and how both Batman and The Joker embody certain universal archetypes and symbols that appear in different cultures. That’s right, Alan Grant gets all deep and Jungian on our, um, butts. In the flashback, The Joker and his goons crash a charity exhibition called “Symbols Through the Ages” at a museum that Bruce Wayne is attending and starts phugging stuff up.

Here’s The Joker in action:



As always, Bruce manages to slip into his Batman costume and kick some butt. The Joker traps Batman under a totem pole and lights the museum on fire, making good his escape. Is this the end of Batman? Umm, no. He gets all pumped up in his internal monologue – “I – am – the BAT!!!” and with a feat of almost superhuman strength lifts the totem pole and saves the museum patrons. Then he sets off over the rooftops of Gotham after The Joker, who is fleeing in a car. Batman keeps up his internal monologue about bat symbolism as he pursues his quarry. I guess he has a copy of Hero with a Thousand Faces in the Batmobile’s glove box or something. He does a Chuck Norris move and kicks The Joker in the head through the windshield – end of flashback. (What they don’t show is The Joker going through the turnstile of the justice system, getting committed to Arkham for the 500th time, and escaping for the 501st time, killing several guards in the process, only to be stopped by Batman again, et cetera…)

Although Grant does pound the reader over the head with the symbolism thing, I still like this issue because at least it’s got something subtextual going on besides the usual fisticuffs. And hey, a well-drawn Batman jumping around and beating the snot out of people? That’s never a bad thing.

Now let’s hope the movie is as good as they say it is. If I see any Bat-Ice Skates, I’m asking for my money back.

Hey! I made it through another post with No Profanity! Ric Flair, can I get a “wooo?”

"No profanity! Wooo!!!"

Best. Cover. Ever.

My thanks and praise to reader Dave Carter of Yet Another Comics Blog for pointing out Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #141, which has the best "non-monkey comic book cover ever."

I don't think this needs any further explanation. I mean, it's frickin' Don Rickles! Plus the greatest climax ever seen in comics! Say no more!

Hey, I said "frickin'" instead of using the F-bomb! Ric Flair, can I get a "wooo?"

I frickin' rule!!! No swearing for me! No Profanity Week is off to a great start!

Welcome to No Profanity Week!

I'm excited to announce that this week is No Profanity Week at Dave's Long Box.

That's right, this entire week my posts will be completely devoid of any swearing.

I've come to realize that I have a mouth like a longshoreman and that darn it, I want the kids to be able to read and enjoy Dave's Long Box without any foul language. Plus, a lot of folks read this at work, and although I don't, you know, put swear words in bold type or anything, I want people to feel comfortable reading this at work. For a whole week - seven full days - there will be no cussin'. Who knows, if it goes well, I may even have No Gratuitous Use Of Italics Week.

The unofficial sponsor of No Profanity Week is none other than Nature Boy Ric Flair, the best darn wrestler ever! Every time I make it through a post without any dirty words, Ric Flair will congratulate me as only he can.

Wish me luck everybody!

"No profanity! WOOOO!!!!!"

My portrait!

All right, I finally figured out how to do the damn portrait thing in my Blogger profile! I picked the goofiest picture of myself I could possibly find, because I have no shame.

You probably don't want to know this, but it's a photo I snapped of myself on the toilet. I cropped it so it's just my face. You see? I am a merciful Dave.

MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE Marvel Comics, 1979

If you don’t like The Thing, you are a frickin’ communist, end of story.*

For my money, Marvel Two-In-One is the ultimate Thing series. Sure, he was in Fantastic Four and had his own book, The Thing, but I thought Marvel Two-In-One was the most fun. Each issue featured The Thing and a co-star (hence the Two-In-One title), but really, it was just a Thing solo book. Half the time The Thing would team up with regular heroes like Dr. Strange and Black Panther, and the other half he would “team up” with lame second-stringers like Triton, The Aquarian, and Quasar. That’s right, I just took a shot at Quasar. Regardless of who the co-star was, Marvel Two-In-One always had a lot of clobberin’, and that’s never a bad Thing. Heh-heh.

This particular issue is part of the ongoing “Project Pegasus” saga, in which The Thing defends the top-secret Project Pegasus from attack and skullduggery with the help of Wundarr, Quasar, and the black Giant-Man, who I love. I just think he’s a cool looking character and wish he had stuck around. Anyway, in this issue Thundra, the warrior woman from Femazonia, leads a commando team of super-powered female wrestlers called The Grapplers on a secret mission into Project Pegasus. Seriously, I can’t make shit like that up.

Let’s take a look at The Grapplers:



Yes, that’s the Screaming Mimi, who would go on to become “Songbird” in Kurt Busiek’s awesome Thunderbolts series. And there’s Poundcakes, who would go on to become your junior high gym teacher. I know it’s a comic book, but who would let herself be called “Poundcakes?”

Thundra does battle with The Thing while the rest of the super-powered female wrestlers fight Quasar and Giant-Man. The Thing, who has a hurt arm, gets knocked around by the Femazonian she-wrestler, who has a thing for The Thing. Heh. Man, I am on fire today!

That’s right, Thundra – who, let’s face it, is kind of sexy in a Chyna kind of way – has the hots for The Thing. They are fated to be mates because he’s powerful and he’s good in a fight – traits that Femazonians admire.

I don’t want to get into a discussion about Ben Grimm’s rocky anatomy here, because there’s probably plenty of bad fan-fiction that covers that ground. But surely it must have crossed Thundra’s mind that The Thing might be, you know, rocky all over. I mean, how would that work? There isn’t enough KY jelly in the world to make that an enjoyable experience. So I don’t know where she’s coming from with this “fated to be mates” crap.

Although maybe Femazonians get their kicks in different ways:



Wow, Thundra. Was that good for you?

I should quit while I’m ahead.

This is just a great, goofy old-fashioned comic book slug-fest, written by Mark Gruenwald (that explains Quasar’s presence) and Ralph Macchio with art by Perez and Day. The cover is by John Byrne, who did a lot of work on Marvel Two-In-One back in the day. I think the whole thing is keen.

To me, this issue represents a sense of fun that I think a lot of Marvel books lack these days. Times change, I guess, but sometimes I wish superhero comics had that old four-color whiz-bang quality to them and were actually written for kids instead of thirty-something geeks like me. Don’t get me wrong, I think superheroes can encompass a variety of different genres and themes, but I don’t think they all have to be fucking Greek tragedies. That’s just me, though.

Bonus! This issue has a letter from Young Kurt Busiek, who would go on to write some of my favorite modern comics, like Thunderbolts and the now legendary Busiek/Perez run on The Avengers. Kurt’s one of those guys that remembers why we all liked comics in the first place, and it shows in his work. Young Kurt Busiek (now a mini-series event from NBC!) was a regular letter writer to Marvel Two-In-One. Here’s an excerpt:

“Here’s a suggestion: The time has come for Colonel Nicholas Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. to return to his own book. You’ve finally got the artist for it in Frank Miller. […] Frank Miller would do an excellent Nick Fury. C’mon, you’re gonna be doing a spy book with the Black Widow. If she can swing it, why not Fury?”

As they say on Fanboy Rampage: Busiek wins. Too bad Marvel didn’t heed Young Kurt Busiek’s wise words. If only I could step in my Wayback Machine and make Frank Miller work on a Nick Fury book after he finished Daredevil. Sigh…

UPDATE: Thanks and mad props to reader Jason "Thrillcox" Wilcox for pointing out this dope page re: the Project Pegasus storyline in Marvel Two-In-One. It's a great overview... if you speak French, that is. Fortunately I do, as well as Pushtu and Tagalog.

*This applies to both the comic book character and the John Carpenter movie.

The Birds

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ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #458 DC Comics, 1989

Oh, man. Just looking at the cover - stretchy Jimmy Olsen -- you know this is going to suck. Which begs the question: why did you buy this, Dave? Even back in 1989, surely you knew this wasn't going to be a good comic. I honestly don't know what I was thinking.

I really am just reviewing this so I can make fun of Jimmy Olsen. Is he anybody's favorite character? I'm sure he's somebody's favorite - even the lamest character has a #1 Fan. I call this "The Night Ranger Factor." To this day, there are people out there in the world who, defying all reason, are HUGE fans of the band Night Ranger. Judging by the results of a quick Google search, there are quite a few people who can claim to be Night Ranger's #1 Fan. My point is, no matter how ridiculous or suck-ass a character, movie, book, or band is, there's always somebody out there who totally digs it. I believe this is a universal truth. Somewhere in our great nation there lurks a guy (come on, you know it's a guy) who can accurately call himself Jimmy Olsen's #1 Fan.

I am not that person.

Jimmy Olsen is the Jar Jar Binks of the comic book world - looking at him just makes me angry. Jimmy Olsen is the Avatar of Uncool. He's just -- just-- GOD, HE IS SUCH A TOOL!!!

Case in point: Adventures of Superman #458, wherein Jimmy Olsen suddenly develops uncontrollable stretching powers similar to the Elongated Man. You see, there's this virus... ah, screw it. I'm not here to explain the plot, I'm just here to mock Jimmy Olsen.

Jimmy is sprung on Daily Planet reporter Cat Grant, and in an effort to convince her he's cool, he joins her aerobics class. Clark Kent, Lois Lane, and half the staff of the Daily Planet also attend this class because... well, because the plot demands that they be there. Jimmy has no hope in hell of ever getting anywhere with Cat, but his complete lack of self-awareness shields him from this brutal truth. It's almost as if Jimmy comes from the alien world, not Clark -- an alien world where the concept of "cool" doesn't exist.

So anyway, Jimmy shows up at this aerobics class to impress Cat, and things go horribly wrong. Check it out (click to enlarge):



Sweet Moses, what is he wearing?! Borrowing the Hulk's color scheme, Jimmy wears a purple leotard with green briefs. That'll get the chicks, Jimmy. Tool. I like the little inset panels of Jimmy's face on this page - it looks like he's trying to pass a kidney stone or something.

Jimmy's weird stretching powers manifest themselves suddenly and painfully in the aerobics class. Some well intentioned gym-goers try to help him while Clark dashes out and changes into Superman. Observe:



Cat Grant's kid sees the elastic chaos and says: "What's all the noise about -- Wow. For cool!" Yeah, I don't know what that means, either. Maybe the kid is an adopted Russian orphan who is charmingly mangling American slang or something.

All right, that's it. The comic goes on, but really, who cares? Jimmy lives to annoy another day and stalk more Daily Planet staff in the future. I just wanted to show everybody Jimmy's neat leotards, which are truly "for cool."

BILL & TED'S EXCELLENT COMIC BOOK Marvel Comics, 1992

This comic book is both totally excellent and utterly non-heinous.

Really.

The penultimate issue in the series, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Comic Book #11 is actually better than the movies that spawned it. I know, we’re talking apples and oranges – film is a different medium, etc. But still – the Bill & Ted comics were better than the movies. I don’t think that’s saying much.

I found the Bill & Ted movies both amusing and stupid at the same time – sort of like Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. You know the scene that really bugged me the most in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure? When Bill & Ted take all of the historical figures to the mall. Sure, Napoleon pigging out in the ice cream parlor was funny, but the Joan of Arc thing – kill me, please. In the movie, Joan of Arc sees an aerobics class and is so overcome with excitement that she shoves the instructor aside and takes over the class, aerobicising with a zealot’s fury. I hated that. That was all they could think to do with her? Just thinking about it makes me want to punch somebody. Wait a second…

…okay, done. I just totally uppercut some guy so hard his dog screamed. I feel better.

You can imagine based on my feelings about the films that I would not enthusiastically purchase a Bill & Ted comic book. But wait! What about a Bill & Ted comic book written and drawn by Evan Dorkin?

Excellent!

Evan Dorkin is one of my favorite cartoonists ever. Ever! If you haven’t been exposed to the raw beauty that is Milk and Cheese or the sinister humor of Dork!, both published by Slave Labor Graphics, then you, my friend, are missing out. Evan Dorkin is one of the most original voices in funny books today, with a track record of solid work that a creator twice his age would be proud of. I am totally “on his dick,” and I mean that in a non-pornographic way.

The Bill & Ted books really are brilliant. I understand they’re being collected…? Yes? I think? If so, check them out. Dorkin was the perfect guy for the project, and Marvel just kind of let him go nuts and do his thing. The result are comics that are unmistakably Dorkin’s work – dense, packed with laffs, slightly subversive - but are faithful to the original material. I loves it.

“Dave, you are high,” you might say. “There is no way anything to do with Bill & Ted is cool.”

“You want some of this?” I might say, cocking my fist threateningly. “You want The Hammer?”

“Okay, take it easy…” you might say, flinching.

That’s right. Nobody wants The Hammer.*

The story is simple enough, but it’s all in the execution. Everyone’s favorite time-traveling stoners visit a Planet of The Apes marathon at their local theater, accompanied by their skeletal buddy Death, who gorges himself on junk food and throws up – or dry heaves anyway. Shortly thereafter Bill & Ted are shocked to find out that their buddy Abe Lincoln gets assassinated! Most heinous!



Naturally, the boys try to come up with a plan, so they lock themselves in a room for a week and brainstorm a solution. After studying the problem by “examining five dollar bills, pennies, watching Lincoln movies, every Twilight Zone treatment of the Lincoln question… everything short of reading about it” they are stumped. Their totally bogus plans include calling out the Army, fully panicking, bombing Washington D.C. to dust, and asking Spider-Man to help. Most lame.

Then they get an idea: go back in time and save Lincoln!



“Let’s do this thing!”

Bill & Ted & Death travel back in time and save Lincoln by kidnapping him in their time machine, but their history meddling plunges the world into a horrific nightmare fascist timeline. They have to take Lincoln back. The bummer thing is, along the way they happen to mention to Lincoln that he gets shot – he freaks out and doesn’t want to go back. Who can blame him?

How totally un-excellent! What will Bill & Ted do?

This book is just packed with funny. Dorkin has got Bill & Ted’s dialogue down cold – he actually makes them cooler than they were in the movies. And like most of Dorkin’s work, the art is packed with tiny little gags and details that make it a pleasure to read. You can really tell the guy was putting a lot into each page, not phoning it in. He’s almost too good for the material – almost.

To all those doubters out there, I say to thee: don’t hate! Bill & Ted’s Excellent Comic totally rules.



Big way.

*Insert MC Hammer joke here.

ADVENTURE COMICS #452 DC Comics, 1977

Remember back in the day when comic book covers regularly depicted scenes which did not happen in the comic itself? Covers were often symbolic or even allegorical. You’d buy an issue of Detective Comics with Batman on the cover getting knocked into a vat of acid by the Grim Reaper – yes, Death himself – but when you got home and read the damn thing, the scene’s not in the comic at all. The closest it gets to the cover scene is a brief fight in a paint factory with some burglars. What a rip-off!

The cover to this issue of Adventure Comics (starring Aquaman) is not that bad; while the exact circumstances depicted on the cover do not transpire in the course of the book, Aquaman and Aqualad are forced to fight in a gladiator pit by Black Manta and there is a trident involved. However, at no point in the book does Aquaman put on a dog leash, at no point does Black Manta give a big thumbs-down, and at no point are Aquaman’s calf muscles drawn larger than his head. By Neptune, look at the size of his legs! No wonder Aquaman’s such a good swimmer – his calves are freakishly huge!

The only other thing I want to say about the cover is that the Aquaman logo is fucking rad.

Man, I sure use italics a lot… I’d better take it easy with that shit.

This comic actually chronicles a big event in the life of Aquaman. Lots of important stuff happens that will have an effect on Aquaman comics for literally decades to come: Black Manta’s identity is revealed, Aquaman’s toddler son gets killed by Black Manta, and Aquaman and Aqualad break up. If this comic were published today the story would be “decompressed” and spread out over six issues but back in 1977 you got it in one issue, baby! For thirty-five cents!

The problem I have with Adventure Comics #452 is that it’s not a very good comic. You’d think that for such a momentous issue – the cover calls it "a novel-length sea-spectacular" -- they’d raise the bar in terms of quality. You’d think that, and you’d be wrong.

I’m going to dispense with the standard catty comments about Aquaman and what a lame superhero he is. It’s too easy, and frankly, I dig Aquaman. He never gets the props he deserves, so no snark for Aquaman. The comic book he’s in, however? That’s fair game.

This comic was written by David Micheline (of Iron Man fame) and penciled by Jim Aparo, workhorse artist of the 70’s-80’s. The basic story is that Aquaman is looking for Aquababy, who has been kidnapped. His search leads him to an undersea community of pacifists who have been taken over by mysterious purple SCUBA thugs. Here, at the beginning of our story we find Aquaman locked in combat with the purple SCUBA thugs (below). Help me out here; what is that one thug doing? I don’t know if you can technically dry-hump somebody underwater, but it looks like he’s giving it a shot:



Aquaman gets captured and the architect of this whole evil plot is revealed: why, it’s his old foe Black Manta! I always loved Black Manta, ever since the Challenge of the Super Friends cartoon. He was like an underwater Darth Vader. I believe – and correct me if I’m wrong – that he was originally just called “Manta.” Frankly, Black Manta looks a lot cooler than he really is.

Case in point:



“You were expecting, perhaps, Peter Benchley?” Forgive me if you know this, but Peter Benchley is the guy who wrote Jaws. That is just lame 70’s aquatic humor. Black Manta loses two Cool Points for that.

But we’re not done yet. While he holds Aquaman prisoner – remember they’re underwater here - Black Manta holds forth about his grand scheme – he’s going to create his own undersea community for his people? His people? What’s he talking about? Manta pulls off his helmet and:



That’s right, he’s not called Black Manta for nothing! In one fell swoop writer David Micheline permanently fucks up Black Manta for all time. Instead of a power-mad undersea criminal, he’s now a hypocritical black militant who wants to enslave an entire community of undersea pacifists to serve their surface-dwelling masters. I don’t know, I always thought that was stupid.

Plus, he takes off his helmet for the big reveal and keeps talking to Aquaman – even though he’s underwater! His purple SCUBA thugs take off their helmets in the next panels, too. What the fuck? Black Manta, do you see the green bubbles floating around your head? That means YOU’RE UNDERWATER!!!!

It doesn’t stop there. Black Manta puts Aquababy in what must be a custom-designed Aquababy Killing Machine and forces Aquaman and Aqualad to fight, gladiator-style, in an arena surrounded by a force field. The Aquababy Killing Machine is a glass bubble filled with water that slowly starts to fill with air – if Aquaman doesn’t kill Aqualad, his baby is done for!

So, after a cursory apology to Aqualad (who he always calls “Minnow”), our hero proceeds to beat the crap out of him. Aquaman catches a lucky break – the force field goes down, allowing him to throw his trident (or “tri-pronged javelin” as Micheline calls it) at the Aquababy Killing Machine, destroying it. Here’s the dramatic panel:



I hate to nit-pick, but this climactic panel is sabotaged by a simple printing error; it's missing a few key words. Check out the red arrow. I think the caption is supposed to read: "With a feeble sputter of homeless energy the force field dies—" Maybe I’m being a dick about this, but damn it, the kids who shelled out thirty-five cents for this deserve excellence. Where was the editor? Where is the justice!?

Despite Aquaman’s best efforts, he’s too late. Aquababy dies. This is a BIG DEAL, an event that is frequently referenced in later issues of Aquaman and is the basis for Aquaman’s personal grudge against Black Manta – but it’s kind of glossed over in two short panels. They’re nicely drawn panels, but man, couldn’t they have slowed down and given Aquaman a whole page to be bummed out? That’s the two-edged sword of “compressed storytelling” right there. You get lots of plot for your money, but page space is so short that they can’t spare the panels to slow the story down for dramatic effect. Again, if this storyline were published today, we’d have an entire issue of Aquaman freaking out. I can’t decide which is worse. Isn’t there a nice middle ground?

Black Manta makes his escape, and as you might imagine, Aquaman is pissed. He gives his son’s body to a friendly octopus (?) and asks Aqualad to come with him and help track Manta down. Aqualad is feeling a little sore that Aquaman tried to kill him, so he petulantly refuses – he doesn’t even say he’s sorry about Aquababy’s death. What a dick. I think he’s just pissed that Aquaman’s been calling him “Minnow” all these years…

So there you have it – “Aquaman Disassembled” all crammed into one novel-length sea spectacular!

Man, I’m thirsty all of a sudden.

THE PUNISHER vol 3 # 4 Marvel Comics, 2000

In a show of restraint, Marvel decided NOT to graphically depict a man getting his head swatted off by a polar bear in the pages of The Punisher (third series) #4.

Instead, the head swatting is done in a tasteful silhouette, with a WHAMFF sound effect. If it were me, I would have gone with a wet SHWOKK sound effect, but that's just my layman's opinion. For those of you who have not had the pleasure or reading The Punisher #4 and have wondered how exactly a guy getting his head swatted off by a polar bear would actually play out in a non-Avatar Press comic book, here it is:



That is comedy. All that is missing is the bear yelling "boo-yah!" I think that would be even funnier. Or if it was a pirate bear.

The plot of The Punisher (third series) #4 is pretty simple: A squad of Mafia gunmen stalks a wounded and unarmed Punisher through a zoo. The Punisher turns the tables on the Mafia guys, killing them all with the help of his zoo animal friends. He dunks one of them head-first into a tank full of piranhas and they eat the guy's upper body down to the bone; he serves another guy to an inexplicably huge and aggressive anaconda or something; and he orchestrates the death-by-polar-bear of the remaining two. Throw in some subplot stuff and bam! You're done. The Punisher #4 has all the subtlety of a simultaneous crotch/throat grab:

This is not to say that I don't like this issue - I do, I think it's a hoot. Why? Because people getting eaten by animals is always funny.

Violent humor was the name of the game for the third Punisher series. The character's popularity had waned since the Dark Age of Comics we call the 1990's, when every single fucking Marvel comic had The Punisher in it (or Wolverine or Ghost Rider or that dick Cable). It was too much - the guy was supposed to be a one-man war against crime, but he was showing up in Quasar and shit. It was too much. The Punisher's career tanked harder than Joe Piscopo's. After the pop cultural radioactivity had faded a little, Marvel decided to publish yet another Punisher series. This third regular series was the twisted brainchild of Irish writer Garth Ennis and artist Steve Dillon and their take on the title character was somewhere between Jason Voorhees and Bugs Bunny. Played for grim laughs, it was all about The Punisher killing people in a variety of exotic ways, with some grotesque supporting characters thrown into the mix. Unlike previous incarnations of the character as an obsessed but professional vigilante, Ennis and Dillon's Punisher really enjoyed what he did for a living - and what he did wasn't very pretty. Basically, he's a psychopathic killer who only kills "bad guys."

But you know what? He's our psychopathic killer, and darn it, we're rooting for him. I mean, setting aside the ethics and larger morality implied but never examined in Ennis's Punisher, you kind of have to take the character for what he is. Nobody expects Conan the Barbarian to sit down with his adversaries and reach a peaceful resolution to a conflict through dialogue -- you shouldn't expect The Punisher not to stalk and kill gangsters. And if he's going to do that, it might as well be funny, I guess.

Here's a goon getting jumped by The Punisher:



The big punchline of the book is when The Punisher lures the last two incredibly stupid gangsters descend into a polar bear habitat in pursuit of our hero - I mean our protagonist. The bears are docile and sleeping, so The Punisher hauls off and punches one of them in the nose, riling them all up. He escapes, leaving the hapless gangsters to face White Death:



"It's bears." That's a great line.

This is one of those stories that requires certain improbable things to happen in order to keep it moving. The goons who chase the wounded and unarmed Punisher have to split up so he can pick them off one by one. The Punisher can't ever get a gun in this book - if he does there's no reason to have his zoo animal friends kill the bad guys. Consequently, the first guy he kills drops his weapon in the piranha tank, while the mutant anaconda inexplicably takes the weapon of the second goon he kills. Then, in order for the big final gag to work, the last two gangsters have to suspend all reason and sense of self-preservation and climb into a polar bear exhibit.

I'm not complaining, because I thought it was funny and all, but I think you can see why I compared this to Bugs Bunny: it's funny, violent, and doesn't necessarily make a lot of sense.

UPDATE: I shamefully forgot to mention that the trippy Punisher-in-repose/piranha/skulls cover to The Punisher #4 was done by artist Tim Bradstreet, who rules.

Lame-ass villain #6 - Vibro

Vibro first appeared in Iron Man #186, during writer Denny O'Neil's run on the book. That's right, Denny O'Neil - the guy who created Batman mega-villain Ra's al Ghul -- also invented Vibro, our sixth lame-ass villain. What can I say? Everybody has an off-day.

It strikes me that I haven't featured any lame-ass DC villains, of which there are many. Too many, really. The Fisherman? Deathwing? Calendar Man? It's like shooting kittens in a barrel. I mean fish. The thing about Marvel is that they always try so hard to be the cool comic book company - it just makes their lame villains so much lamer. Hence, my focus on Marvel goons.

Vibro was a guy named Professor Vibereaux (I shit you not) who invented an incredibly dangerous nuclear-powered vibrational-device. Vibereaux believed the device, which looked like a purple chair, would stop earthquakes if it was lowered into the San Andreas Fault with him in it - so he was clearly insane. Sure enough, Vibereaux gets winched down into some abysmal pit in his purple chair. Then - and I didn't see this coming - there's an earthquake. In the real world, Vibereaux would just be crushed to death and would make the Darwin Awards, but this is Iron Man; he gets turned into a monstrous, Toxic Avenger-looking supervillain named VIBRO! As you might imagine, Vibro can create powerful vibrations. If it was me, and I'm not trying to be crude here, I'd go gigolo with that shit.

Apparently the subtext of Vibro wasn't lost on artist Luke McDonnell, who drew the book and did the cover. I might be reading too much symbolism into the cover, but...



Vibro. I don't know, make up your own jokes.