He-Mannequin

Y'know, it's nice having this resort nearby. For instance, when I get tired of eating 100% organic food -- by which I mean, "anything that can't outrun me" -- I can always wait until everybody is asleep; scale the outside of the building like it's a big, craggy rock; smash my way through the plasti-glass windows; and raid their honor bars. And then I might follow that up with some skinnydippin' in the resort pool. And sure, the next morning everybody's all pissed-off about how their food is missing, and all the rich people's bodyguards are fighting with the hotel manager's bodyguards, and there's an unaccountable mass of honey-brown "back hair" keeping all the swimmers at bay, but I just peer at their dumb clothes-wearing bodies through the foliage and I laugh my fucking head off!

Well, I'd better search through my pre-loaded comics panels on my hand-held interbloggamunicator, to find something suitable for blogging... hmm... nope. Nope. Maybe. Nope. Oh, that's filthy! I'll look at that one again, later. Nope. Ah! Here we go!

Please, don't touch the lesbians without permission, darling. Or else they'll cut you.

Or maybe I'm mistaken, and it's actually that one kid from "Million Dollar Listing." (Or as I like to call it, "Million Dollar Bowlcut.")

In Which All Is Explained, Stupidly

Right, because who even uses guns? Aside from everybody who isn't a super-hero or a super-villain? Er, except for the Punisher. Okay, so General Angst must be planning to use Ultra-Tub as a super-henchman. I guess. Still, he could've just bought a kevlar vest for about 1/bajillionth of what this surgery must've cost.

Meanwhile, in the offices of Roger Clemens' personal trainer...

Y'know, I went to a posh English boarding school with a Sever Nerve-Trunks. Rummy chap.

Except that armies use guns! And these guns occasionally fire "high-caliber bullets"! Gah! This whole operation is actually a tax shelter, isn't it? (And I wish I could have heard the conversation between General Angst and his loan officer. "You want to invest the money in WHAT?!")

Helpfully, letterer "Karisha" (no last name, because they're a Bowie-esque androgyne with a big, tousled hair-do; intense, kohl-smeared eyes; and a puffy-sleeved, silk blouse open down to here) provided a word balloon in the lower right-hand corner to indicate the reader groaning at Denny O'Neil's inane storyline. "UNNN--" Thank you, Karisha! I'm sending you a gift basket with a selection of bronzers and scented oils and hypo-allergenic lubricants.

It's the least you deserve.

Gender Reassignment Challenge: Enchantress to Enchanter, Part Two

Today I'm revamping the Enchantress' best-known costume. And boy, is it a tough one! Why? Because I say so, that's why! Never question me! Sheesh!

Fine, I'll explain. The Enchantress' 1980's outfit is a weird androgynous affair* that would have looked perfectly at home in a mondern dance company's interpretive ballet about Shang-Chi, Master of Kung-Fu. Plus? It had a kooky hat! But mostly the look screams "1980's!!!" The top is all loose and flowy, and the bottom is... stirrup pants. A girl could have worn this ensemble to the mall in 1986 Minneapolis and been the toast of Teentown! So my challenge was to somehow make it even more butch without going too far afield from the original design.

What I came up with is very "John Byrne." Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, as long as it doesn't involve those weird chunky metal boots he likes to draw... y'know, the ones that look like upended spittoons. Or Donna Troy's "business casual prom" costume from near the end of his Wonder Woman run. (Remember? The spiky off-the-shoulder number? Yikes!) Anyway, goes:

Or maybe it's more like the costumes John Romita, Jr. designed for the X-Men comics in the 80's. Can't you just see Rogue in this? Minus the hat, I mean? Okay, enough nostalgia. Let's break this thing down:

Long hair on a sorceror in the 1980's? Sure, I'll allow it! It's very "David Copperfield meets Aerosmith" so why the hell not? I opened up the front of the blouse/robe thingie and lengthened it on the bottom for more of a loincloth effect. Then I paired the black tights with a black top, so the Enchanter wouldn't show as much skin as the Enchantress. The boots are in a manly, swashbuckling mode, with the "V" shaped flap mirroring the shapes of the hat and the top. I finished it off with a stylized, Kirby-esque Fourth World-type goatee.

*Y'know, I once had a weird androgynous affair. I thought I'd finally gotten Lightning Lad to "switch teams" and then it turned out I'd actually gotten it on with his twin sister, Lightning Lass! Or so they claimed...!

Tomorrow: The Enchanter's final costume! How will I reinterpret yet another bustier? Yeah, I'm not sure either. Let's find out together!

From the Cutting Room Floor

In "Jimmy Olsen" #105 (September 1967) Jimmy winds up on the World of 1,000 Olsens, where everybody looks just like him. And I mean everybody. For reals! Even the women look like him! (Admittedly, it's not much of a stretch.) There are also transformed versions of himself from past Jimmy Olsen stories, like Wolfman Olsen and Elastic Lad Olsen and Human Porcupine Olsen. And everybody on the entire planet hates Jimmy's guts, which is somehow a mystery to the insufferable teen. (Jimmy's ego is on par with Jade's from "America's Next Top Model.") So the Olsenoids throw his ass in jail. And there Jimmy might have stayed, if not for a visit from Bearded Olsen.

OH MY GOD THIS IS KIND OF LIKE THE PLOT FROM "ANYTHING GOES!" *hands flutter delightedly* Er. *ahem* Give me a sec to drop my voice back down a couple octaves and we'll resume. Mi mi mi mi... MI. There, better. Sorry, Broadway always does that to me.

What kills me about this whole sequence is the phrase "when a chemical once made me grow a beard." Yeah, it's called testosterone, Jimmy. Thank God Superman put you on that hormone therapy to reverse it, huh? Now your cheeks stay as smooth as Dan Didio's head, twenty-four hours a day! Of course, your nut sack has retreated inside your stomach cavity and you've begun lactating! But it's a small price to pay to retain Superman's friendship, right?

Now let's see how this whole mess began.

Right, Jimmy. They're stoning you to death because they don't fancy your bow tie. Dumbass. Wanna know the real reason?

They've mistaken you for Tucker Carlson.

Stoning seems like a sensible response to me.

Nice Day For A White (Supremacist) Wedding

In "The Invaders" #20 (September 1977) we get to see the attempted wedding of Master Man and Warrior Woman.

The groom is in his Captain Nazi rip-off costume, while the bride is wearing... GA-GA-GOING!!! Check out the shoulders on that lady! You know, if it wasn't for the breasts and the general hairlessness and the lack of a penis and the whole Nazi thing, I'd be all over that. (Admittedly, my standards aren't that high.)

This may seem strange to the young'uns in the audience, but a superpowered woman in a straight-up dominatrix costume was actually quite startling in 1977. No, for reals. Of course she's a baddie so she can't be too sexy. She's saddled by that Mrs. Olsen hair and those non-feminine shoulders. But still. The costume itself? Titilating, I suppose. I don't like the random belt on the thigh, although I respect the fact that she didn't dick around with some narrow strappy thing. Naw, that's regulation redneck-width! All it needs is a belt buckle shaped like a cow skull. On the plus side is her fortified bustier. The single shoulder strap may not be aesthetically pleasing but at least it's more practical than that goofy boobs-a-poppin' number Wonder Woman likes to wear. (It also wouldn't surprise me to learn that Warrior Woman wears a cup.)

Oh, and Master Man can't figure out that the lady with the severe hairstyle and the linebacker shoulders isn't into him? Nazis: not the sharpest knives in the drawer.

Well, let's see how things are going at the reception.

Yikes. Er, let's skip ahead to the next issue and see what's happening with Dyna-Mite (you heard me).

Yeah, Dyna-Mite never takes care of what's going on "down below." Don't get me wrong; he's eager enough, he's just not terribly thorough. Although I appreciate that he's wearing one of my designs. The l'il cutie.

Losers of Mass Destruction

Yesterday, we looked in on a meeting of the Zodiac, undoubtedly one of the worst-dressed groups in supervillain history. Cancer, a.k.a. Baron Crabclaw Von Shortshorts, was doing a piss-poor job of chairing, and most of the other members were either anxious or about to nod off. Fortunately, Scorpio made an announcement that really livened up the proceedings:




Yes, as that famed 22nd century cyber-clone Hank Williams 8.5 once sang, "All my android friends are coming over tonight." If you're wondering what the holy bejeebus an "LMD" is, it stands for "Life Model Decoy." If I recall correctly, SHIELD would use them to throw would-be spies and assassins off the trails of their secret agents. So that's where the "decoy" part comes in. It's still a stupid name, though.

It turns out Jake Fury (Nick's brother!) was resurrected by the magical talking Zodiac Key as a BLT -- er, I mean, "LMD." I'm sorry, but does that make the least bit of sense to anyone? Highly classified government technology being used by talking magic keys? That's a hell of a security leak. Next thing you know, the Wand of Watoom will have its own Helicarrier.

And now Android Jake has made eleven other androids to replace his criminal teammates. And all because they laughed at Jake's idea to raise money with a bake sale. (An evil bake sale!) You could have just resigned, Jake, but no! Seriously, dude, sometimes you just have to let that kind of shit go.

One thing in Jake's favor is that the all-new, all-robot Zodiac has better costumes (mostly) than their fleshy predecessors. Not all of them, mind you. The very idea of a female Taurus "the bull" is kind of alarming to me, but on the other hand she'd make a good girlfriend for the Serpent Society's equally chunky and mannish Anaconda. The new Capricorn is a furry, goat-like female, so again, big aesthetic turn-off for yours truly. Talk to me after you've had a thorough waxing, dear. The new Virgo bores me to sobs with her plain pink jumpsuit, and the new Aquarius looks just like this one guy who tried to sell me a hand-knitted poncho in the parking lot outside a Phish concert. He even had a gun! (He really wanted me to buy that poncho.) I like the new Aries, though, with his sleek, red-and-silver Kirbyish armor. Nicely done, Aries! The new Leo is only middling for me, but I do appreciate how all his teeth had been filed down to razor-sharp points. Not that we ever saw him bite anybody. It wasn't the 90's yet!



Hey, it's Taylor Hicks as Wolverine as the Phantom of the Opera! As an android! Soulless Patrol! You all know how much I dig prematurely silver hair, but not when it's styled to resemble a hang-glider. Fun fact: after he died, Sagittarius willed his gold-plated shoulder pad to Aquaman, his mini-crossbow to the Huntress, and his hair to the Fadeaway Man.

The next panel describes one of the weirder and least necessary features of Jake's STD's. I mean LMD's! LMD's! What is wrong with me today? Where was I? Oh, yeah. To quote:

"They know it's a Life Model Decoy, but it moves like a man-- moans like a man-- dies like a man!"

Whoa, back up there. It... moans... like a man? Huh. So, just hypothetically, if a fella wanted to buy one of these android guys, would he have to pay up front, or is there some kind of installment plan? And does it arrive fully-assembled, or is it like a kit or something? I'm not asking for myself; there's this friend of mine, see...! *sweats profusely*



One annoying habit of the Zodiac androids was their incessant chatter about their individual star-signs. Even in the middle of a battle, they just babble on and on about why they're performing a particular move and how it relates to the symbolism of the Zodiac, and blah, blah, blah. (Special dialogue by Chris Claremont!) Imagine spotting some sexy guy or gal in a bar, and you say "Hey, beautiful, what's your sign?" and suddenly their reply ends up being a five-day filibuster and the doors are all locked from the outside and the restrooms are closed and there's no AC and the juke box is stuck on "A Moment Like This" and after the first day all the beer is gone and the only thing left to drink is creme de menthe. That's what it's like fighting the Zodiac. And Libra? I know it's the 80's, honey, but not everything needs flared shoulders. Especially not a robe. Unless you're on Orando, and then it's required under penalty of death. I really dig Gemini's outfit, though. Too cute! It's the pointy skirt that really sells it for me. Very Ditko-esque. Thumbs up, Gemini! Thumbs up.



The other problem with the Zodiac MMORPG's -- sorry, LMD's -- is that their personalities were designed to match the supposedly standard personalities of everyone born under their particular sign. And not all of those personalities were predisposed to fighting. Like with ol' Pisces here. (Looks like somebody exposed Pamela Anderson to the Terrigen mists, huh?) And seriously, hon, you need to tone down all the dorsal finnery a tad. One strong gust of wind and you'll wind up on a rooftop next to some kid's frisbee. New Improved Cancer gets my vote of approval by evoking a crab with -- gasp! -- armor, and purple-and-orange armor at that. (Bonus points!) He looks a little clunky, though. His boots could be beer kegs. And if they were, that would be just awesomely cool but somehow I doubt it. Also? I'd love to see how he runs in that get-up. I'm guessing it would be like when I was Blockade Tot, playing with my action figures, and I'd make the stiff plastic bodies "run" by rocking them back and forth while sliding them forward.

As for Scorpio, I appreciate that he's trying to improve the overall look of the Zodiac cartel, but "Physician, heal thyself." You've got a cowl over a red facemask, plus the most convoluted underpants I've seen since Lightning Lad. Not to mention the bug on your head. Not even Zatanna could pull that look off.

Okay, I'm done with you. Everybody dance now!

The Notorious Ilda Robot

A biopic about 50's pin-up Bettie Page is about to be released nationwide (I predict it will rake in millions at the box office and win eight Academy awards! All for sound design, strangely enough! I am from the future! Heed my words!) and it got me to thinking about Ilda, the robot secretary of DC's detective-of-the-future, Star Hawkins. (Example panels from "Strange Adventures #125, February 1961, reprinted in the softcover book "Mysteries In Space: The Best Of DC Science Fiction Comics" published by Simon & Schuster in 1980.) Ilda, though a wonderful secretary, isn't exactly easy on the eyes. Clearly inspired by the children in "The Family Circus," Ilda's distinguishing feature is a football-shaped head with a prominent widow's peak and no nose. And her fussy, eye-searing mini-dress puts me in mind of barber poles, sailors, and hookers. Not necessarily in that order, and sometimes in upsetting combinations.

(Side note: WHAT IS THE DEAL with that lady in the foreground? She's got one of those hats with the attached scarf so it can be tied around her neck, and yet she's still trying to clamp it down on her head. My diagnosis: OCD. She probably also used Krazy Glue and a nail gun to permanently adhere it to her skull. Check out the squat, orange Neptunian tourist taking a picture of her as part of his misleading anti-Earth propaganda campaign. My alternate theory? She's one hell of a magician, and in a surreal bit of prestidigitation she's going to smoothly press the hat all the way down to her neck, causing her head to disappear. Let's see you explain that away, Penn and Teller!)

Alrighty, I can sense you're growing restless. "Why the hell would that goof-ass robot remind you of Bettie Page?" you might ask me. And I would reply, "Enough swearing! Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?" Maybe I'd slap you, lightly, on the cheek. Once. Just once. And then I'd say, "It's because of 'Twilight,' a three-issue DC miniseries from 1991, written by Howard Chaykin and drawn by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez."

"Twilight" was a "mature readers" take on the DC sci-fi heroes of the 50's and 60's. To quote the back cover blurb of issue #3, "Immortality made Theater of History -- or was it History of Theater? After hundreds of years of the Forever Plague, Mankind lost most of its humanity. We replaced those innate sensibilities with rituals and role playing, emotional shadowboxing that deluded the Children of Twilight into thinking the Long Night would never come." Huh. Did the Pretentious Captials key on your typewriter get jammed, fella? Should I be listening to Tangerine Dream while I read this? Anyway, to bottom-line it, living forever turned people into assholes. The canyon-sized hole is this plot is that it's written by Howard Chaykin, so most of the characters were assholes to start out with.

There was one bright spot in this series for me, and that was the character designs -- or at least, some of them. I didn't need to see Tommy Tomorrow as a taller, skinnier, mustache-free Hitler, thank you very much, but I did applaud what they did with Ilda. Which was to make her look like a robot version of Bettie Page. Sadly, she's stuck in the middle of a Howard Chaykin comic, so this kind of crap happens to her.



And then she gets turned into a half-human, male-shaped hermaphrodite-thing with Moe Howard hair and really pretty eyes. Aw, well. You were cute while it lasted, Ilda.