D-List Monsters of Super-Hero Land: The Mole, Part Three

At last, Maxwell House brings you a coffee so rich, so flavorful, that it's evolved into a sentient organism with the capacity for speech. Disclaimer: brace yourself for its shrill, screaming "WHYYYYYYYY?!!!" as you pee it back out. (It's a bit of a diva.)

So, who is this lovely woman, and why does the Mole have it in for her? Let's ask the Mole Man himself!

What th'--?! He's takin' a dump! Aw, HELL no. Damn it, Mole--! You can't just treat the sewer like your own personal... toilet... okay, I guess you can. But couldn't you rig up some kind of partition out of a cardboard box, or... hey! What about a nice Japanese screen? Certainly, somebody must have thrown an exquisitely-painted Japanese screen down there. Or maybe you could just cover yourself with a blanket.

Wait a minute...! Chemical plant in Gotham... grotesque villain... hackneyed writing...! I think I can see where this is headed. Although why Gene Colan decided to dedicate the foreground of that second panel to two rats about to "get it on" is still a mystery.

But yeah, the Mole started out as a guy who habitually tunneled into banks and out of jails, until he wound up in the wrong sewer pipe at the wrong time.

"Somehow" it changed him -- near-instantaneously, mind you -- into a monster that resembled the animal he was already nicknamed after. This is a convenience for the Mole's friends, who won't have to update their greeting card lists.

The Mole resolves to tunnel into Wayne Manor from below. But wait! That's where-- oh, I smell a wacky complication!

This is when Batman still had his headquarters under that skyscraper with the big tree inside, and hadn't moved all his tacky, Vegas-y crap back into the gaping hole beneath his mansion. But the Old School Batcave still had a smooth, level floor, and scads of pendant lights, and even some big, expensive looking (for 1981) computer equipment. And yet, the Mole seems terribly blasé about the whole thing. Y'see, he's been around. After a guy's tunneled into Hef's Grotto on Funnel Cake Night (don't ask) it takes more than a mysterious cavern to grab his attention.

That night, the Mole sneaks back in, and cuts the electricity.

Are you troubled by Restless Bosom Syndrome? Poor gal... her left breast is afraid of the dark, but she's the one who has to get out of bed and do something about it. Oh, and Sandra? Haley Mills called. She wants her hair back.

By the way, I sleep in a similar fashion (albeit on a huge slab of granite): nude, except for a lightning beast hide arranged over my lower body so that it almost completely conceals my junk, and moaning suggestively. I figure, if some loser (okay, Storm Boy) is peeping at me, I might as well give him a little thrill. Because I firmly believe that charity begins at my junk.

How does the Mole's scheme turn out? Not so great...

And then Batman floods the Batcave -- because he can do that, apparently -- and the Mole is literally flushed out of the story. Congratulations, Batman! You stopped the Mole after he only killed two people! That's actually a fantastic improvement over your dealings with the Joker! ...Except you never took the Mole into custody and you have no idea if he's still out there. Which doesn't stop you from kicking Sandra's ass out of your mansion. Huh. Never mind, then.

Still to come: a werewolf; a tree monster; a paper monster -- which, I'm sad to report, is not a processed version of the tree monster; and The Perfect Fighting Machine (in a pink muscle shirt, yet)!

D-List Monsters of Super-Hero Land: The Mole, Part Two

What I Hate About Roy Thomas' Writing, Exhibit A: a character saying out loud and to nobody at all, everything that is happening in a panel, including his own actions. Just think how much more suspenseful and interesting that first panel would be without any speech balloons. We can see a mound of earth following him from panel one to panel two, so there's no need for him to state that he's being followed by something underground. His clothing, location, and physical attitude indicate somebody who's running in a panic. All that wordiness contributes nothing to Gene Colan's fantastic artwork. Now, if this was drawn by somebody as incompetent as, say, Rob Liefeld, I could understand the need for descriptive speech -- and puh-lenty of it, given that Liefeld probably wouldn't even draw the guy's feet -- but with a master like Colan all those words just get in the way.

But enough of this. You all came to my cowtown sideshow to see the Mole, didn't you? Let's investigate, along with The Dad-Burned Batman!

Journey to the Center of Apache Chief's Sphincter!

Told ya so.

Careful, Bats -- he eats of lot of Moroccan food.

"Good God!"

Y'know what would have been better than Batman saying "Good God"? If he said "Eep!" or "Yowza!" or even "Oy gevalt!" I mean, why half-ass it?

But yeah, that's the Mole. Yes, I know. I'm just as disappointed as you are. From the boring, naked, Clayface-Lite body to the blandly unattractive face (practically swiped from a Sal Buscema human character) and the inexplicable slick-back hairdo (what is he, Alec Baldwin?), the Mole is one lame monster. Almost is bad is his habit of saying "Huh-huh" in every other panel. I can't read this comic nowadays without thinking he sounds like Butthead, of "Beavis and..." fame.

You might think the Mole was created especially for this issue, but you'd be wrong. Because this is a Roy Thomas story, and his hard-on for continuity is rivaled only by (the Marquis de) Geoff Johns.

Oh, its not good when you enter a jail cell and the other inmates are looking at you like that. (From what Storm Boy tells me, anyway.) Retreat, Mole! Retreat!

Next: More Mole! Including a panel where he terrifies a coffee cup.

You heard me.

D-List Monsters of Super-Hero Land: The Mole, Part One

I still have a lot to say about the Spook -- in fact, I just snagged a "Detective Comics" with one of his earlier appearances -- but I figure you all might be anxious to see some different D-List monsters. So I'll get back to the Spook (and his suction-cup shoes) another day. And now, let's all brace ourselves for the pants-wetting terror of... the Mole!

Oh, I can sympathize with Batman. Only last month, I had this Plantar's wart that just would not go away. I tried putting some dry ice on it, and I swear to the Luck Lords, not only did the damn thing actually get bigger, but a squeaky, scoffing voice issued from it, informing me that it "washes [its] balls in ice water," just like that Russian mob guy that Paulie and Christopher tried to kill in the snow, on "The Sopranos." One night, when when the wart was about the size of a bottle cap, it just opened up like a flower, and a handsome, well-hung (proportionately, anyway) little faerie-man (with hummingbird wings!) flitted out of it. He was beautiful. I was moved beyond words. I didn't cry, though. AND I'LL FIGHT ANY MAN WHO SAYS I DID! *looks around, menacingly* Anyway, the tiny fella pretty much immediately slammed into my patio door and knocked himself out.

And then Cootie ate him.

Where was I?

Oh, yeah. The Mole. I don't understand why the Batman's minor medical crisis warrants an entire cover, but...

Oh.

Yeah, that'll jack up your prize-winning rose bushes.

And yes, this is a Roy Thomas story. Which means it's chock-full of horribly, wonderfully bloviated caption boxes like these:

"Not quite the Witching Hour"? Then who gives a shit?

And if you ask me, this comic would have been a lot better if they would have added an accent mark to the "e" in "Mole". 'Cause then the story could have followed a mysterious figure, named after a type of delicious Mexican sauce. I'm picturing a cross between "El Mariachi" and "Iron Chef." ("Today's mystery ingredient is... a machine gun!" *cue kick-ass gun battle*)

But wait! What's that intriguing poster I spy on the left side of the frame? Computer, zoom out!

Why, it's an advertisement for Batman's lounge act, "Urban Terrorist", in town for one night only, at the Gotham Cabaret! Thrill as his rendition of "September Song" devolves into a prolonged rant about America's criminal justice system! Then retreat into the lobby and buy one of his cassette tapes from that creepy college kid in the scaly green shorts.

The Mole is so mind-bendingly goofy horrifying, I don't dare fully show him to you, just yet.

But as a consolation, please, enjoy this panel of Doctor Abraham Lincoln, Freudian analyst:

D-List Monsters of Super-Hero Land: The Spook, Part Three

Sure, anybody can pull off this trick with suction-cup shoes... plus hollow bones, steel rods running from their ankles up to their neck, and a total disregard for the law of gravity.

Or maybe the "startling discovery" is that the Spook forgot to close his robe! (Talk about scary--! I have it on good authority* that the Spook's junk resembles an unbaked brioche.)

The Spook loves to create spectacular illusions that depend on maneuvering Batman into just the right place at just the right time. Conceptually, this is already a bit goofy, but it just gets stupid when these illusions occur in public places. In this story, the Spook rigs a trap door in the middle of Gotham's version of the Triborough Bridge, and a spring-loaded platform in the floor of that museum he's robbing in the above panel -- plus he gimmicked the building's roof! Not to mention, he somehow manages to replace a section of wall in a private home's courtyard -- a wall that borders a street, no less -- with a large section of painted "self-sealing" rubber. ('Cause you can walk right through that shit. If this story is to be believed.)

So to sum up, the Spook breaks into a bunch of places to set up intricate magic tricks, and then he goes back later and robs the joints.

And they say the Riddler is messed-up.

But then, the Spook's ultimate scheme was to subliminally brainwash Batman into wanting to kill him! And then... well, it's complicated.

Yeah, I'd say the Spook is having an "unparalleled episode," alright. He's practically foaming at the mouth! Spook, you're dealing with The Gol-Danged Batman! Didn't it occur to you that he might have outsmarted you by pretending to die before you could? Why are you giving a full confession? Quick, feel up his "corpse" for recording devices! No, really. Give it a good, thorough grope.

*i.e. Storm Boy.

D-List Monsters of Super-Hero Land: The Spook, Part Two

What's that? You'd like to see some examples of unintended homosexual subtext in "Batman" #276 (June, 1976)?

Well, if you insist. (Tomorrow: The Spook, Part Three!)

D-List Monsters of Super-Hero Land: The Spook, Part One

Starting now and lasting until Halloween -- at least! -- I'm taking a jaundiced gander at some D-List Monsters of Super-Hero Land, and every post is going to feature the Gosh-Darned Batman! (Y'know, the pre-Crisis one.) First up, the Spook!

Let's all pitch in and buy the Spook an iron, shall we? 'Cause he's wrinklier than a mummy's balls. And he needs to go a size or two down with his gloves. (The Spook thinks droopy fingertips are positively spine-tingling.)

But I'm most concerned about Batman's fighting stance on this splash page. He's got the Spook by the throat, hoisting him up in the air --as is his wont -- but check out the Spook's feet!

See?

If Batman lets go, the Spook is going to fall a grand total of one inch. Maybe if Batman wasn't attempting to do the splits, or surreptitiously unstick his sweaty junk from his left thigh, or whatever, he could lift the Spook up a tad higher. Jeebus. I know that super-heroes think they look cool when their legs are spread wide open -- as do pole dancers -- but in this case it just seems counter-productive.

So, what's the Spook's deal? He's an illusionist!

*snaps fingers, signaling Tusker to play farty-sounding "stinger" on his ocarina*

Which means the Spook is damn lucky he lives in the DC Universe and not the Marvel one, 'cause over there he'd be pitted against Thor, or the Punisher, or some equally violent brute, and he'd be pounded into little bloody gobbets in his first appearance. And then Scourge would show up and finish him off. The Marvel folks, they don't stand for fakey magician-types. They hate 'em worse than mimes, actually. Just look what happened to the Miracle Man! Sure, Mysterio was a mainstay, but that's only because he wore that protective bubble helmet, and because he chose Marvel's gooiest, whiniest, puss-pants neurotic for his "arch-foe."

In the DCU of 1976, however, the Spook gets to match wits with a fallible Batman who can be induced to utter things like this:

"Boppo"?!

And I'm "Blocky, the Mentally Frazzled."

It turns out "Fly Man" #31 isn't the bottomless well of inspiration I'd taken it for. Oh, it has a "bottom", alright -- namely, the Spider's puffy, jelly-stained, be-pantalooned bottom. But I've been staring at pages and pages of crazy shit, like the Black Hood's dopey robot horse, and the Comet's rainbow-striped pith helmet, and a last panel where the Spider directly addresses the reader from inside a garbage can, and I can't think of a damn thing to say about it. Sure, Siegel wrote this stuff as a kind-of intentional parody, which makes it harder to mock, but I feel equally blocked when I look at an old Marv Wolfman "Spider-Man" comic.

Sorry, dudes.

Maybe I'll feel better on Monday.

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!)

A Time to Rub

And now, an excerpt from John Grisham's best-selling legal thriller, "A Time to Rub":

Attorney Thomas Troy's office was nothing more than a cramped, decrepid shotgun house, crouched on the shore of the biggest mudhole in Rickets County. Most of the windows had been busted out years ago. In the spring Troy's clients would wordlessly sidestep the thousands of tiny frogs that bustled over the rotting floorboards. But by late summer the Mississippi sun would boil all the water out of the air, and so Troy and his penniless -- yet saintly -- customers would conduct their business while covered in swarms of mosquitoes and fire ants.

On a Saturday afternoon in September, Troy sat alone in his office, resting his feet on the back of an alligator that had wandered in. The weatherbeaten old radio on his desk crackled intermittently. The announcer's sleepy drawl abruptly shifted from his reading of the latest on hog futures into an announcement of a jailbreak. Troy sensed something horrible. Huge gobs of sweat dripped from his forehead. The moisture sizzled into vapor when it plopped onto his desk. His eyes throbbed. "Am I gonna do it?" he asked himself. "Hell yeah," he answered. He remembered the old man who had given him the ring. "The Fly Man", the kids had called him. A dirty, bent vagrant who always appeared in town in time for the Sugar Beet Festival and who always disappeared again before the Halloween Parade. The other children stayed far away the Fly Man. Troy had always been more curious than most. One day he had followed the Fly Man for the better part of an afternoon, from the tire fire on the north edge of town, all the way down the railroad tracks to an abandoned piano crate in the middle of the woods. It was in the crate that the old man gave him the ring.

"Rub it," Troy said to nobody. "Rubbing it will make things better." After taking one last look through the window, Troy slumped down in his chair and thrust his hand down his pants...

The Beaten Generation

In this excerpt from "Fly Man" #31 (Archie Comics, May 1965) the wily Fly Man's plan to defeat the dastardly Spider somehow involves letting the villain knock the crap out of him for two whole pages.

The Clown That Walks Like a Man!

Uh-oh... it's never good when a clown reaches inside his costume for somethin'. (I learned that one the hard way!)

This golem-like resident of "Clown Town" (or as most people call it, "Los Angeles") is none other than...

Yeah.

That guy.

Bah! If you ask me, he looks more intimidating with the mask on. The beauty part? A couple of panels later, he says "Off with this clownish garb!" and peels off the rest of his pom-pommed ensemble, revealing the equally ludicrous "Spider" get-up he had on, underneath it. Reading this, I was half-hoping his puffy-assed supervillain costume was just a spare clown suit, and that he still had his menacing costume -- his real costume -- under that one. Actually, the story would have been way more interesting if the Spider had just kept peeling off layer after layer of costumes and rubber masks, until he revealed himself as a complete bad-ass. (I mean, that's what I would have done in his situation.) No such luck, though.

Ulp!

You may recall this fine bit of imitation Stan Lee dialog from my final "Invincible Iron Man #41" post.

I'd repurposed it as criticism for Young Gerry Conway, but who was Fly Man (formerly and later known as "the Fly") actually talking to?

Some portly old German gal with a lace doily on her head? For shame, Fly (Man)! You know how old folks like to ramble when they meet a younger person! The poor dear is probably stuck inside her dilapidated Victorian Gothic mansion most of the day, with no one but her twenty-seven cats to keep her company, and sure, sometimes the Senior Center Activity Bus will stop for her so she can visit the mall, and purchase more quilting supplies, and then she meets you, the famous Fly (Man), and you just look so much like her grandson, Mortimer, so would it kill you to just shut your yapper and humor her? I mean, for Pete's sake, Fly (Man), can't you let this sweet old lady have her say for a couple of minutes, and HOLY SHIT IT'S A DUDE.

Ladies and Gentlemen, meet "the Spider", from "Fly Man" #31 (Archie Comics, May, 1965). This story is written by Jerry "I'm Helping to Mess Up the WB's Legion of Super-Heroes Cartoon from Beyond the Grave" Siegel in his idea of the Marvel Method, which results in the characters blabbing on and on, for pages at a time, saying the same thing twice in a row, only phrased differently, with loads of bombast and fancy vocabulary words (like "bombast"). So, while Jerry Siegel tries for "Stan Lee", he winds up with something more along the lines of Chris Claremont, which is especially astounding considering that "Alien"-obsessed Limey masochist wouldn't get anything published for another ten years, at least. Which is my own blathering way of saying that yes, the Spider tends to run off at the mouth, but then, so does Fly Man, not to mention every single character in the gol-dang book.

But forget this imitation Mighty Marvel dialog for a minute. I'm marveling, mightily, at the Spider's costume. He's a "mastermind" type, with mirror-maze deathtraps, and jet-powered flying metal claw robots, and henchmen, and what's essentially a "dirty bomb" if you can believe it, so he really shouldn't have to even bother venturing out in public. Or if he does, he should consider wearing a well-tailored business suit, or at the very least, Shiwan Khan's windbreaker. Because he doesn't have the shape for a supervillain costume. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but there it is. I mean, as ass like that, and he's wearing pantaloons? It's madness! And that floppy, size XXL beanie hat has got to go. You know what might have worked for this guy? Exchanging the tights for a robe -- I know, he's still pudgy, and chubby guys in robes look godawful, but bear with me for a second -- and ditching the micro-snood doily hat for a hood, the kind that drapes completely over the head with just a couple of eye holes cut out. Just cover the bastard up from head-to-toe. That way, he can lounge all day long in a souped-up La-Z-Boy recliner (with metal spider legs or sumpin' sticking out of it) and issue his threats via television, in between scarfing down entire cans of Pringles.

There's a lot of fun to be mined from "Fly Man" #31, and while I won't be giving it the Gravity Girl Treatment, I will be delving more deeply into it for a couple of weeks. For instance, how would you like a dramatic reading of the Spider's unmuffled monologue, complete with fight scene sound effects?

Yup, I thought so!

He's Got a Juice Box, and He's Not Afraid to Use It

This is from "Green Lantern" #107 (August, 1978), back in the days when terrorists enjoyed dressing up in fun costumes. And the name of this buttery brute's gang? The Yellow Peril. That's just wrong on so many levels. The art's by the always-solid Alex Saviuk and John Celardo, but I have some problems with the Yellow Peril Liberation Army (or whatever) standard-issue costume. Mainly? It's slathered with ornamentation, and all of it's meaningless. They have the Atari logo on their face masks because... why? And then there's the cracked-out palm tree/moth thing on their shirts. Their undies look nicely reinforced, though. That's a good idea, if you're going to go around pissing off fishnet-stockinged judo experts.

My other problem is more about the gang's whole concept. They've taken over the airport in Coast City, wearing yellow bodysuits and wielding a yellow detonator, because "it's rumored [Green Lantern's] ring is powerless against anything yellow!" So, not only is their whole strategy related to one of those goofy arbitrary weaknesses so many superheroes are saddled with (don't get me started), but it's founded on scuttlebutt and hearsay. Naturally, Green Lantern responds to Osama Banana Laden's assertion by shoving his cousin, Air Wave, into a huge energy trampoline, and bouncing him into the terrorist's solar plexus, fists first. But still, it would have been even sweeter if Green Lantern could have just said, "Powerless against anything yellow?! What are ya, high?" And then he could have spent a good twenty seconds or so just pimp-slapping the jerk with a giant green energy hand.

The Shadow... Mighty Dorky Avenger!

Yeah, I'm familiar. Crazy gun-toting motherfucker in a trench coat and a pimp hat, has an Adrien Brody-sized schnoz poking out over a red scarf...?

...The hell--? Who's this loser? And why is he striking that pose Storm Boy took when he found out Gadfly Lad had used "his" hazelnut-flavored coffee creamer that he had paid for himself and that "nobody else is supposed to touch because [he] put [his] name on it and everything." And then Gadfly Lad demanded to see a receipt, and then things really turned ugly. There was a savage, unforgiving slap-fight, during which Storm Boy tried to yank the flying harness he'd designed off of Gadfly Lad's back. Gadfly Lad shrunk down and pelted Storm Boy with paperclips and push-pins, while Storm Boy took after him with a fly swatter. (No lightning allowed indoors... office policy.) Finally, Eyeful Ethel ventured out of her office (a rare favor) and made them break it up; the noise was interrupting her conference call with her press agent and a commemorative bobblehead manufacturer.

Well, you'll save them, anyway. Thirty years later, you'll find them in the attic of your stepfather's house after the old man finally kicks it, and you'll be filled with a peculiar sense of shame. And when your son asks you why you're crying, you won't be able to tell him why, and you will see his face go pale as the last remaining shreds of respect he had for you flicker out...

Ah, yes... Shiwan Khan, attired in his customary Dockers, windbreaker, and kicky little scarf. Is he plotting to rule the world or knock over a liquor store?

?--And why is the punctuation suddenly Spanish-flavored, kind-of??

Oh, c'mon! Just call it "the Danger Room" and get it over with. Still, they've managed to tackle one problem I had with the old version of the Shadow: he didn't say "razz-matazz" enough. (He's going to stop that lion with a Bob Fosse routine! Might I suggest "Steam Heat"?)

Thrill as the Shadow battles such fearsome adversaries as the Fetching Little Pillbox Hat Robot... the Viking Porn Star... and the Asymmetrically Booted Nazi!

Yeah, this comic ain't "selling out." Although the owners of the "Shadow" license sure as hell did.

("Whamo"? ...I gotta lie down now. I don't feel so good.)

If ABC Promises to Stop Airing "Cavemen", Will You Come Down?

...And to top it off, he really has to pee right now.

Damn. Even for an Italian dude in Bedford-Stuy, this'd be a lot of chains! Or maybe he's a rapper, and the giant clock fell off.

Kidding. This is the-not-at-all-clumsily-named Oswald Clum, the "celebrated drama critic." Of Mesmero's one-man spectacular, he wrote, "A disgrace that such garbage should appear in a Broadway theater--!" So, Mesmero put a little whammy on him, and Spider-Man got to have his 7,384th flashback to That Time He Didn't Save Gwen Stacy. He saves Clum, though, with Denny O'Neil crowing, "a perfect catch!" And so Mesmero was left stomping in a huff about his shitty little dressing room, plotting to hyp-mo-tize a whole bunch of critics this time. I imagine he spent the rest of the evening re-blocking his stupid baby bonnet, checking his purple diaper for signs of leakage, and tightening the pointless air hoses on his back, and then... what th'? Somebody's in my apartment! It's... aw, hells, naw!

Hey! Quit it! Gah! Stop! Dillweed! Call 'em off, Mesmero! Don't make me climb into that suit with you and clobber your ass--!

And where'd you get kryptonite, anyhow?

Triumph is a Dish Best Served Flame-Broiled

Mmm... triumph.

As you can see from this panel, the reviews for Mesmero's one-man show are in, and the critics have not been kind. (It's a good thing Farley Granger didn't pull this shit on the closing night of "First Impressions", huh?) The sad thing is, Mesmero looks ten times better in that fireproof gear than he does in his own costume!

I wonder if he's still wearing the bonnet.

The Tell-Tale Boutonniere

From "A Bouquet of Roses" in Charlton's "First Kiss" #20 (May, 1961): the delivery of an anonymous bouquet riles a woman's work-a-holic husband, so she decides she can best regain his attentions by secretly arranging for more "mysterious" bouquets to be sent to her house. When her scheme fails to pan out, she returns to the florist... and learns some surprising information. Prepare your heart strings for imminent plucking!

Legion of Substitute Costumes: Phantom Lad

I'm off of work now, sitting nudely in my condo, with Cootie curled up on my lap, and a two-liter bottle of Sun Beam whiskey in my paw, so I can finally write about what happened yesterday morning.

*drains bottle in one swig*

Okay. So it turns out Frigid Queen was working overtime because she was avoiding going home to Phantom Lad. So of course, Phantom Lad has started hanging out at our office, pretty much all day, every day. What the hell? I know he says he has a job, but... ugh. I'd better start at the beginning.

It's 8:28 AM. Frigid Queen is at her desk, making notes from a reverse visi-phone directory. Nightmare Boy is zonked out at reception, with his long, raven hair tumbling onto the desk in an attractive fan pattern. There's a smug smile on his pallid face. Meanwhile, the com system is buzzing like mad. Then, Phantom Lad breezes in, like he owns the goddamn building. And I swear to the Luck Lords, the fucker looks skinnier and dustier and more washed-out every time I see him. And he smells all tangy and shit, like a mix of cinnamon and body odor, but at the same time he has this attitude that just makes me want to... gah! I'm getting ahead of myself again. You'll see.

So Phantom Lad sweeps past me in that dumb, tattered glow-in-the-dark cape he always wears (with matching boots!) and even though it's never done me a damn bit of good all the other times I've tried, I say "good morning" to him, and he doesn't even look at me. He plops his bony ass down on Frigid Queen's desk with his back to me, and the two of them start arguing about something. The gist of their spat is: he'd said something just hideously insulting to her while they were having sex the previous night, she'd kicked him out of their apartment, and now he was back with some cheap-ass "make-up" gift. (Her first words to him were "What's this crap?" if that gives you any idea.) But I can tell by her tone that they're headed for a messy, desk-clearing makeout session (they've always stopped at "third base"... so far) and so I mosey on over to the only other person in the office just then: Nightmare Boy.

The lazy Lothario's nap has kicked into high gear, and he's smacking his lips and mumbling things like "Oh, yeah, baby... you like that, baby? I think you do...!" And then his body starts making these humping motions, so I slap him upside the head to snap him out of it. With a snort, he jerks awake, yelping an obligatory "TERRIFYING VISIONS OF THE FUTURE!" as he does so. He rubs his eyes. "Man, that one was a doozy," he confides, his crimson eyes huge with feigned innocence. "Bad... stuff, happening... soon. So, what can I do ya for?"

I ask him if he has any messages for me. He just shrugs, and says "How should I know?"

So naturally, Phantom Lad takes this opportunity to rattle his bony frame over to the reception desk as well, and he starts bullshitting with Nightmare Boy about some hot dame Nightmare Boy had picked up that weekend. And he's still ignoring me. But I can't stop looking at him, because he's wearing my clothes! By which, I mean he was wearing pants and a top from my old menswear line, back before it tanked and forced me into a life of space piracy. But of course, he'd somehow managed to screw it up. It's simultaneously bleached all to hell and grimy. I'm pissed. The funny thing is, he still looks better than how he used to dress. Here's a before, from his "Legion of Super Rejects" phase:

Also, and I can't find a picture to back this up, but trust me, I'm pretty sure he wore his hair in one of those high-up samurai ponytails. Heh. But yeah, Phantom Lad kind-of, sort-of tried to do the "Legion of Substitute Heroes" thing, only his group was solely focused on trying to convince the Legion of Super-Heroes to admit them. (Bank being robbed? House on fire? Old Durlan needing help oozing across the street? Well, tough shit, because the Legion of Super Rejects is too busy with their letter-writing campaign.) And the group disbanded after a month, and then I never heard anything else about Phantom Lad, until I met Frigid Queen.

And here he is, now:

Don't ask me what happened to his eyebrows. They probably dried up and blew away. And boy-howdy, is his complexion scary. He looks like he's made out of wax. Which would be cool if was from Plant Lad's planet and not from Bgztl, where they all look like Earthmen. Anyway, Nightmare Boy says something douche-y like "Diggin' the threads! Vintage, am I right?"

And while I'm reeling from the idea that something I designed two years ago could be vintage, Phantom Lad proudly informs Nightmare Boy, "It's an original Blockade Boy." He glances over at me for the first time ever and adds, "Y'know, the Blockade Boy. The cool one."

Meanwhile, I'm still so horrified by the idea of this tool wearing my clothes -- albeit badly -- that all I can say is, "You're not supposed to wear those pants with that top; they match too closely, and it makes the whole ensemble look--"

And he just makes this raspy scoffing noise, without even turning his head.

And I lose it.

I grab his shoulder with one of my furry mitts and I say, "Are you brain-dead, ya dumb bony bastard? I said, you're wearing my clothes wrong!"

He goes intangible and flounces out of my grasp. "I don't talk to rats," he sneers at me. "I step on 'em."

Okay. So now I have this mammoth urge to kick his ass, but at the same time my better nature is telling me:

1. He weighs about as much as two kindergarteners, so it's not a fair fight (even with his phasing ability).
2. He's the boyfriend of a coworker.
3. I really can't afford to lose this job. Yeah, yeah, so I have a big pile of space-cheddah salted away somewhere. It's all tied up right now. In real estate... I don't wanna talk about it.

Instead of whaling on him, I just grit my teeth and demand to know what his snide remark was supposed to mean.

He says, "Everybody knows the only way you even got this job is by squealing on your brother. And whaddaya mean, 'your clothes', anyway?"

Reminding myself I'm masquerading as a fictional twin brother nowadays, I hurriedly grunt, "Phyl stole a lot of my ideas."

Phantom Lad gives Nightmare Boy a look, like "Can you believe this asshole?" and then he says to me, "That's what makes him a legend! He sees something he wants? He takes it! Naturally, he was the best space pirate ever, and when the U.P. tried to reign him in, he told them where they could put it! And he's still out there, doin' his own thing. I heard he's got a raygun-running operation goin' on with the Braalian Underground, and a couple of robo-brothels out by Colu. He's a freakin' counter-culture role model, man! But you? I never even heard of you before! So, what was your biggest accomplishment up 'til now? Finishing space-trucking school on your third try?" (His skinny ghost-hand phases tauntingly through my bushy goatee.)

How I keep from knocking his stupid block off, I'll never know. Instead, I stick to verbal sparring. I give him the withering once-over and say, "And you do... what, exactly? Play in a pod bay band? In between sash-shopping and not exercising?"

For the first time, he acts all defensive. "No! I'm a journalist."

"For what?" I smirk. "The Xanthu Shopper?" (And now Nightmare Boy is watching the two of us with bemused wonderment.)

"Screw that noise! I'm a gonzo journalist, on the political beat! You've probably read my stuff in Mother J'onzz or Rolling Asteroid."

"Ah, so you're one of those dim-bulbs who couldn't make it as a fiction writer, so you spot Marte Allon on a space-platform from twenty meters away and turn it into an 'arty' six-page piece about her doing shrooms on Jupiter." (And yes, I did the air-quotes when I said "arty." I despise myself for it.)

Phantom Lad is sputtering now. His jaundiced cheeks are desperately trying to blush, but all it's doing is making his head look like a dried-up nectarine. And Frigid Queen throws her two credits in with this fascinating comment: "Oh, that's not all he writes about! Tell him, honey!"

And she's laughing, and Nightmare Boy's laughing (although I can tell he doesn't even know what he's laughing about), and Phantom Lad darkly mutters that he has to leave. Frigid Queen still won't tell me what she was alluding to. It's driving me nuts not knowing. Huh. Well, I'll pry it out of her. Eventually. I'm charming that way.

But at least I shouldn't see Phantom Lad around the office again, anytime soon.

Right?

But this whole "fake twin" nonsense... it's gonna drive me bonkers! Look at me! I've turned into Mike Murdock, for Pete's sake! After all these years of railing against the stupidities of "secret identity" plotlines, I've stumbled right into one. The talons of Karma have got me by the balls.

...No, wait. That's just Cootie. Skedaddle, girl!

Jilt-A-Whirl

Sorry the post is late, everybody. I'm on surveillance! But shh! Don't tell. Also, I had an uncomfortable run-in with Phantom Lad earlier today. I'll post about it tomorrow morning. Frigid Queen is in the alley right across from mine, so I have to wait until she turns her head before I can work on my drawing of her boyfriend. So it's taking a real long time. (Jon, you'll get that new picture of you tonight.)

Y'know what? It kind of sucks working for somebody else after being my own boss! But at least I'm not cooling my hairy heels in the space-pokey -- a.k.a. Takron-Galtos, not the other Space-Pokey, which is a bar in West Lallorwood.

Balls. Where was I? Oh yeah! "Amazing Spider-Man" #207. After ditching Deborah Whitman outside a run-down theater -- and thus cheating her out of the "dinner" part of "dinner and a show" -- Peter Parker maximizes his Jilting Potential by not even showing up for their second date!

Before Giuliani cleaned up NYC, there were Limburger vendors on every street corner! Or perhaps this is a young Thomas Kinkade.

In any case, jerkwad-on-the-go Peter missed a real opportunity that night. Because a chastened Deborah has dared to "tramp it up" and expose her calves! Granted, they're sticking out of a voluminous maternity raincoat, but they're still mighty tempting. Well, maybe that extra from a maritime tavern fight scene in a "Power Man and Iron Fist" comic in the first panel will give her a ride home. With a brief detour for... intrigue! (That'd be my first step in a company-wide crossover designed to promote a new comic called "Power Man and Iron Fist and Deborah Whitman.")