"Wow, Shock Absorbers!"

The next day at school, all three of these drama club nerds received the beatings of their young lives.

The icing on the cake for me is the top hats. I get the feeling the kids already owned the hats, which they probably purchased themselves, no doubt with money earned from working in a tea room. Why, they were just itching to wear these debonair chapeaus out in public! Before, they'd mainly used the hats for impromptu stagings of "A Chorus Line." Am I right, kid?

Well, okay then.

(Finally: Parade-Hater Horace and Jeremy Rizza: separated at birth? It's an uncanny resemblance, if you ask me. I never did see both of them at the same time.)

Night of the Quaffing Dead

"He'll be sorrowful looking enough in a moment -- after he realizes he's drinking a 'Natural Ice!'"

Confession time: I kind of covet those boots. The rest of the get-up? Not so much. And that facial hair is way too tentative and delicate for my tastes -- like he could sneeze and it would gently explode and then drift away on an air current. Like a dandelion! (See also: that blond douche from "The Hills.")

(This is from "Shadow Play" #1, from the reliably boring Whitman Comics in 1982. No month given, probably because it was destined to plague the gift shops of various Stuckey's and Nickerson Farms, accreting root beer spatter and chocolate thumb-prints until it became a sticky boulder that was used by a robber to bludgeon the night manager.)

Amp Collector

Here's the Indonesian super-hero, "Gundala", and as you can see, he's pretty goddamned kick-ass.

Sure, his origin is a bit goofy. But what super-hero's origin isn't, somehow? In brief, he was a scientist named "Sancaka", and he was working on an "anti-lightning strike serum." Whatever the hell that means. Did it heal folks who had been struck by lightning? Or did it make people immune to lightning strikes? And if that's the case, did it somehow neutralize electrical impulses within the body? 'Cause that would kill your brain! So probably not that. Anyway, he was in the lab when his girlfriend broke up with him. He lost his shit, and ran outside, smack into the middle of an electrical storm. (Ironic!) And then he was -- you guessed it -- struck by lightning. This had the surprising effect of transporting him to Lightning Land, which I'm pretty sure is a level in a Nintendo game. The king of Lightning Land, Kronz (or "the Kronz", as I like to call him) adopted Sancaka as his son and military commander, and renamed him "Gundala." Which seems awfully forward to me. Even I wouldn't do anything like that, and I'm so pushy, it borders on sociopathic! Admittedly, I've contemplated "adopting and renaming" Gadfly Lad. But his girlfriend probably wouldn't appreciate that.

"The Kronz" ordered Sancaka to attack "Cloud Land", a.k.a. Seattle, Washington. After that, Gundala had all kinds of adventures, both on an alien planet and back on Earth. Not a bad life, if you ask me.

The above image shows off Gundala to best effect, with some sweet giant wings on his cowl. He looked slightly less kick-ass in his own comic, circa 1969:

Dinky, timid wings. Is there anything more pathetic? Still, he's workin' the "bastard face", so that helps keep his kick-ass factor out of the toilet. And you know what? He was so popular, they made a movie about him! Let's take a look!

Ye gods. Kick-ass factor: negative 50 points! Remember those days, aging nerds? When you could get cast as a super-hero, even if you had the body shape of a super-hero fan? Those were dark times, my friends. Thank goodness for the advent of male body image disorders, huh?

Deliver Us From Evel

Forget ducking into a telephone booth, or sliding down a firepole behind a grandfather clock, or spinning around real fast to change into a super-costume. The Spider's method is so awesomely kick-ass and groovy and rad and crunk and the bee's knees and such, it ought to have its own category on ESPN's "X Games"! (Er, do you folks from 2007 still have those? You do?)

*exhales a mighty sigh which knocks over a passing gymnast and which smells pleasantly of steak, pipe tobacco, and rum*

How's about taserball? Or dino-hound racing? No? Well, those sports will be pretty great, too.

Aaaannnyway, let's go to the videotape panel-by-panel breakdown.

(One of about a gazillion flying crotch shots in this comic, by the way. Not that I'm complaining, mind you.) Here comes the Spider in the souped-up delivery truck he'd used to bust out of prison. I know, I know. It ought to have flames painted on the side, or sumpin'. Calm down. It gets better.

I think I saw this movie in driver's ed class. It was a cautionary tale about always wearing your seatbelt when you operate a hover-car. Except, the Spider didn't encounter any glass on the way out of his vehicle.

Also, that prison uniform could use a good pressing. And it should be taken out around the waist, because it's highlighting the Spider's expansive, pillowy ass to a frightening degree. What, is he wearing a bustle? Why does he have the same body shape as my aunt? (After her double mastectomy, natch.)

And Fly-Man (or "Fly Man" as his cover logo calls him) can barely be bothered to care about what he's witnessing. You're not in New York, Fly-Man, so cut the jaded "I've seen it all" act. You know in your heart this is awesome. Own it.

Dudes, he's zooming into Entrance "Y"! Now, that's an expression he must've picked up in jail! When you're as short and as dumpy as the Spider, the only way to survive prison is to showboat your out-sized caboose, and to allow your burly bunkmate free access to Entrance "Y".

But if I may get "real" here for a moment... may I? Thank you.

*takes Meerschaum pipe from mouth, leans forward in chair, puts a hairy hand on your knee, speaks in a hushed, intimate tone*

The Spider just shot himself out of a truck and into a hole in the side of a friggin' mountain. I think we both know that rawks.

The net doesn't look that great -- shouldn't it be more web-like? -- but I'll give the Spider a pass, because the rest of his routine was so hardcore.

(And if this was a horror film, the web would be composed of inexplicably sharp steel cables that can cut through bone, and he'd be diced into dozens of serving portions. I'll take the ass!)

Pasha Doble

You know why I never wear a cape? Because I wouldn't be able to stop myself from doing this with it, all day every day. For example, a typical conversation with a crew member would go something like...
Rainbow Girl: Captain, I need your approval on this revised duty roster.
Me: No problem! Just give me two minutes to knee-walk over there... *flap, flourish, twirl*

Boy Meets Boy, Boy Loses Interest In Boy

A funny thing happened to me on the way to ValXan's worldship. No... make that two funny things. The first thing is, the time bubble's robot navigation system suddenly piped up and droned, "HOMING FUNCTION IS ONCE AGAIN AVAILABLE." Which is great, but see, here's why it's funny: the first time I ever tried out the time bubble, the computer informed me I couldn't take it home (i.e. to my own timeline) because that specific era had been destroyed and replaced. And then that replacement timeline got destroyed and replaced, and so on, and so on. It was a real mess. So when I heard that message, my immediate thought was "Great, now the damn time bubble's going on the fritz."

The other funny thing is, while I was moving forward in time, I nearly got sideswiped by another time bubble moving backwards in time. They were going so fast I couldn't tell who was driving, except there were two of them and one had green hair. And I'm wondering who the hell in the Legion of Super-Heroes has green hair. That'd be nobody, right? Unless Princess Projectra's latest dye job went south on her. ...What, you thought that white-blonde stuff was her natural color? Bitch, puh-lease. The other possibility: Storm Boy has gone punk! (God save the queen!)

The whole ValXan deal was a bust, by the way. By the time I got there, he'd been married to that RatBat with the tattered Wonder Woman costume for like five or six years and they had a whole litter of human/RatBat hybrids scampering around, and I couldn't even interest him in a little hanky-panky on the down-low and to tell you the truth, he'd gotten kind of flabby so I wasn't even that into him anymore. So there. (I did get an offer from a male RatBat in a tattered Vibe costume and while it was tempting, at that point I was just feeling worn out. Time bubble lag, you know.)

When I climbed back into the bubble, the homing button was still lit up. So as a lark, I dialed up my own era on the tele-screen, y'know, just to take a gander at it. (That channel's been gray and murky for a couple years now.) And sure enough, there was an image of the Legion, getting their asses handed to them by a hypnotist. (Haw! Good thing he didn't have a mime and a juggler with him or else they'd be totally screwed.)

I was glad to be able to go home, finally. But at the same time, I felt like I'd been jerked around. Finding out my era was destroyed was pretty devastating. I was finally making peace with the idea. And now suddenly with no explanation my continuity is valid again? What's up with that shit?

And it turned out there were scads of Legion continuities I could choose from. There was a future one where Mon-El was called "Valor" for no good goddamn reason and everybody was dressed either like an 18th century fop or like a janitor. And there was one where all the people had these weird, taut, vaguely English faces with teensy-tiny eyes and noses and mouths, and the costumes and hair styles were atrocious. Remind me never to visit that one.

So in the end I just went home to my regular continuity in 2966, to my "swingin' bachelor pad"... which I used to share with Weight Wizard. *sigh* I've lost the will to screw! I'm just staying inside, puttering about in my crotch-hugging orange pajama bottoms and my (unbelted) purple silk robe, drinking too much space wine and growing my hair and my muttonchops back out and trying to decide what to do next.

At least I have Jeremy's copy of "Star Spangled Comics" #36 (September 1944). Maybe that will cheer me up.

Yes, there's nothing kids love more than a gun-toting Parkinson's victim. Bang! Step lively, boys! Bang! Now yer doin' a little step I likes ta call the Pecos Polka! Bang! Oops! Well, yer young. I'm sure yer "adult toe" will grow in soon enough.

Sheriff Hawkins looks kinda familiar, somehow. Where'd he say he was from?

Holy--! I know this guy! From when I was vacationing in the DC Universe's "Old West." He was the sheriff but I'm the one who "deputized" him, if you know what I mean and I think you do. Kee-rist. He used to be hot. A little on the small side, but he had a real "Gary Sinise" thing going on. Damn. Now I feel old. Maybe the "Robotman" feature will cheer me up.

*whistles* That is one of the most downright beautiful splash pages I have ever freaking seen. Not only does it make me want to read the story, it makes me want to strip naked and rub myself all over the story, and cook a seven-course gourmet dinner for the story, and maybe nominate the story for President. A cyborg, a herd of dinosaurs, and a giant disembodied green guy? How could it go wrong?

Um, villain guy? Nobody's there. Maybe you should write all this stuff down, and then you can tell your therapy group. Also, aren't you supposed to be green? I call "shenanigans."

Serendipitously, the animal trainer happens upon a freshly thawed herd of mammoths, mixed generously with other prehistoric mammals. Nobody communicated this to the artist, however, because he drew them as dinosaurs. So the human characters point at and gape over and flee from fancifully depicted T-Rexes and Tricerotops and such. Meanwhile, the captions and word balloons clearly refer to them as "mammoths" and "elephant ancestors" and -- my personal favorite -- "queer elephants" (a.k.a. "Log Cabin Republicans").

But it's hard to complain about a comic book story with panels like this:

That, my friend, is the dictionary definition of "panache": riding atop a yellow tyrannosaurus with a safe in its maw. Wish I'd thought of it. Actually, there's a lot of dino-riding going on in this story.

But that's a drawing of -- that's not a -- aw, I give up.

And finally, your obligatory out-of-context panel of gay subtext. (Because this is a blog, and that is what we do.)

Yes, Robotman. Let's test your hard body.

From behind.

Cat-Man Fancy!

I think I'm falling in love with Cat-Man. Not the modern version from "Villains United" and "Secret Six." Although he ain't too shabby, either. (Love the stubble, dude!) No, I'm talking about the Silver Age version, and it's all thanks to his appearance in "Detective Comics" #318 (August, 1963). Why do I find him so appealing? Well, there's the obvious, that he's a hunky guy in a classically handsome costume. I'll even forgive the underpants-over-tights thing -- but only for him! Also, he's a "bad boy," which has a certain appeal. But the main thing I love about Cat-Man is his sense of style. Sure, he drives a car with a freakin' tail on it, but that same car has spring-loaded "legs" that can pop out and allow the vehicle to leap over crevasses and ravines. What else? Well, here's how he'd kill you.



Death with a smile. Might I suggest this as a suitable punishment for the Mad Hatter if he gets out of line in the current "Secret Six" series? (You're welcome.)

And the topper? He's a costume designer! You know how I normally feel about rivals, but I just can't stay mad at Cat-Man! He sure as heck chose a good candidate for a costume redesign, too... but I'm getting ahead of myself. First some backstory: On page two of this comic, Bruce Wayne and Kathy Kane are going through the same old rountine in their grotesquely unbalanced relationship:



Criminy, Kathy! Bruce is a first-class creep. Him and his sycophantic l'il ward. Kathy should dump his sorry ass. And Cat-Man agrees with me, because he wants to give Batwoman a total lifestyle makeover!



A ginormous granite throne in an abandoned subway tunnel? Apparently Shazam is subletting his old crib. But check out the new costume! Quite the improvement over Batwoman's frumpy old togs. The cheesy bat-ear mask has been ditched in favor of a feline cowl, and the cutesy pixie gloves have been replaced with sultry opera gloves -- if opera gloves can be though of as "sultry" and I believe that these certainly can be. Like the old costume, this one has a purse. Cat-Man thought of everything! Even new earrings! And they're Cartier, no doubt. Really, the whole look is sleek and sexy. I'm just not sure how he got Batwoman's measurements. Perhaps he made one of his thinner, more slope-shouldered henchmen act as a model. ("Hold still, blast you, or I'll seal your sorry ass behind a brick wall! Like I did with Bernie!") At any rate, I heartily approve of this costume design! But what will Batwoman think?



Why, she seems perfectly delighted! She can't wait to undress that shapely female mannequin! Er... anyway. She pretty much immediately betrays Cat-Man to Batman and Robin. And then Cat-Man seemingly dies in a boat explosion, but... where's the body? (Cat-Man, you clever scamp! *sigh*) So I guess Kathy didn't really take to the costume redesign after all...



...or did she? "Trophy room" my ass! Some Saturday night, after Bruce Wayne has stood her up for the umpteenth time, Kathy's going to get drunk on box wine, eat about a gallon of butter brickle ice cream, slip on the Cat-Woman costume, grab some battery-powered accoutrements from a secret compartment in her armoire, and... uh, reminisce.

Mark my words.

The Wonderful Neapolitan Ice Cream Suit

You know you're grasping for straws when you have to reference a Ray Bradbury story in the title of your post, and you're not even sure you remembered it right. I dunno, it's just that some days... *weeps openly* Okay, Blockade Boy, shake it off, shake it off. Put yourself in the "zone." *exhales deeply* Let's go!

This is the costume Nightcrawler wishes he had worn! But it's too late for regrets, because the suit got snapped up by one of my favorite Flash villains, the Rainbow Raider. The Raider, a.k.a. Roy G. Bivolo -- ha ha ha! shut up! -- was color blind. Bivolo's pop tried to invent a device that could compensate for that, but the closest thing he created was a pair of goggles that gave the wearer the power to drain the color and vitality from people's bodies, create solid rainbow bridges and prisons, and alter the emotions of anyone he looked at. What a rip-off! This one time, Lenscrafters tinted my prescription sunglasses the wrong shade of smoky gray, so I think I can relate.

Our Mister Bivolo ended up another victim of the violent typing fingers of Geoff "I Need A Hug" Johns. In an act perfectly symbolic of Johns' tenure on the Flash title, he had the Rainbow Raider -- a blatantly goofy but also fun, clever, and well-designed villain -- get murdered by "Blacksmith," a serious, one-note hateful villain of Johns' own creation, who had an eyesocket-scoopingly ugly character design (by Scott Kolins. OF COURSE.) The irony being that Blacksmith herself was also goofy, albeit in a completely unintentional and unpleasant fashion. And then he introduced, years later and seemingly out of nowhere, a seven-person team of color-themed villains calling themselves "The Rainbow Raiders." And to this day, I have no idea if they've ever carried a story on their own. I think they mainly just show up at funerals. Like the Vice-President. What the fuck ever, Johns.

In theory, the Rainbow Raider's outfit shouldn't appeal to me at all. I mean, the man wore a freakin' rainbow. However, the Raider did several things to balance that out. He wore enough black to compensate for all the color. He also varied the width of the stripes, to keep it from becoming boring. And he flared the shoulders, which created an interesting silhouette. So I'd say, "Lookin' sharp, Rainbow Raider! Also? Sorry you're dead now." What do you say, Mister Bivolo?



Atta boy!

The One Accessory Every Man Should Own

No, I'm not talking about the purple cape with matching purple fur collar. Although that is pretty stylin'. Or the spurs. Or the guns or the big studded belt, or even that arm bracelet, which is apparently constructed of 'Nilla Wafers. And not even the busty lass draped around his left foot. (I'd be all like, "Whatever, honey. You got any brothers?") No, I'm talking about the big honkin' gold-plated android falcon. That thing can spruce up any wardrobe.

The squinty fellow is Monark Starstalker, seen here on the cover of "Marvel Premiere" #32, October 1976. Created by Howard Chaykin, Monark is a charming, square-jawed, two-fisted rogue with thick black hair and crinkly, smiley eyes. It's a shame Chaykin never revisted that type of character ever again, huh? Okay, you can't tell by reading, but my voice was simply dripping with sarcasm just then. His android falcon, besides just looking hella cool, also doubles as a telepathic replacement for his body's destroyed nervous system. So, the coolness is essentially doubled. It's so cool, in fact, that it even makes up for those dopey armored underpants he's wearing. Did somethin' else get destroyed, Monark? Ow! Hey, stop shooting me!

Clothes Make The Menace: The Best Costume Of All Time

This has been my number one favorite costume ever since I saw it back in the summer of 1980, in "Spider-Woman" #31. And as you can see, it's been a big influence on my work.


Why do I love the Hornet's costume?
1. The color scheme: purple and orange. Eye-catching and weird. But it works. I still don't see this combination used very often in super-costumes. Of course, I had to use it for one of my own costumes.
2. Depending on what the colorist felt like doing in a particular panel, it had an Aquaman neckline. Show off those hunky shoulders, Hornet!
3. None of that "underpants on top of spandex" business.
4. The arrow motif. Striking but not too busy. It also works as a subtle tie-in to the similarly winged Janet "The Wasp" Van Dyne. Janet loved using arrows on her own costumes back then. And just like the Hornet, she made sure that every single arrow on her costume pointed directly at her crotch! I believe that's called "playing to your strengths."

The Hornet was really Scotty McDowell, a criminologist who was temporarily mutated and hypnotized into becoming a bad guy by one of Spider-Woman's enemies. This was especially hard on Spider-Woman given that he was the only member of her supporting cast. He was back to normal by the end of issue #32 and disappeared completely from "Spider-Woman" (and from comics in general) not long after. It's a real shame, too, since he had one kick-ass costume.