What the hell? You know? This makes having a shooting range in your house seem rather tame by comparison. There’s nothing quite as much fun as starting World War III with your private Polaris Nuclear Sub. Fallout — awesome!
I loathe Jerry Lewis, or as close to loathe as I can get with a person that I’ve never met. I don’t care how much money he’s raised for muscular dystrophy over the years. Okay, maybe I do care, but I still find him offensively stupid. His one-time appeal utterly escapes me, even his teaming with the vastly more talented Dean Martin. As Colin Quinn once so eloquently jabbed on Weekend Update, Lewis is a man who made his fortune largely on the back of “falling down and making fun of retarded people.” Yeah. Hang your hat on that.
It pains me that his antics have polluted my beloved comic book medium. And yes, his sequential storytelling adventures are just as dumb as the rest of his oeuvre. Not only that, in this issue he drags poor Wonder Woman into his vortex of inanity. Granted, it’s the non-star-spangled panties wearing version of the character, but this cross-over is still wretched. What did poor Diana ever do to deserve such a punishment?
It is with profound repulsion that I present you with “Jerry Meets the New Wonder Woman” (the creative team isn’t listed inside, and I’ve had difficulties locating info on that — see below — so anyone with knowledge, please chime in):
It’s quite sad when Amazonian royalty is doing appearances at seedy dollar theaters. Could she reach Fergie-esque depths?
Jerry (with his nephew, who functions as a modified, pint-sized, urchiny Greek chorus) stalks WW for her autograph as she exits the theater. Much stammering ensues:
Did Jerry just piss himself? Am I wrong for thinking that?
Whatever the case, when he drapes himself over the water Walter Raleigh-style to let her majesty walk over him, Diana slips and injures her knee. As I said, this was a low ebb for Diana. It’s off to Paradise Island (via a handy dimensional portal of sorts) to see a doctor, who looks to be a refugee from the Seven Dwarves:
While Diana’s getting treatment she’s informed that an evil king (Zodor) has invaded the island in search of some sacred pearl, and has kidnapped her mother to further his nefarious schemes. And Jerry? Oh, he flops around the laboratory until he accidentally swallows a potion that makes him impervious to pain. This qualifies him as an ideal (really?) candidate to defeat the evil king and his henchmen:
The opening battle, with Jerry dressed in the skin from the cover (it once belonged to Hercules) and fighting the dude with the HATE! button (Bulque), does NOT go well, and the potion quickly begins to wear off. Luckily, a big fat Amazon (there are such things?) has taken a liking to Jerry and steps in to finish off this brute in true hefty girl fashion:
The battle is won, but not the war. They still have to beat Zodor, and to do that Jerry’s going to have to lead Amazons into battle. Since he’s a man (we think), he’s going to need to climb into a dress and a wig. While he’s doing that, Diana recruits some vapid Themyscirian dames for his “army:”
It gets worse folks, because Jerry swallows a new potion, and this rush job doesn’t make him feel no pain. No, it makes him belch fire:
The battle is won, the dyspeptic Jerry can discard his Annette Funicello disguise, and he’s a hero of sorts:
Then Jerry and his nephew get beamed back to the U.S. Thanks, ladies. Aim for France next time.
The end.
This is what it is. The book is clearly intended for a younger audience, and it’s quite possible that the humor that so escapes me would roil others in peals of laughter. In that sense, this is a success. I guess. I still don’t like Jerry Lewis. Where’s my HATE! button?
On a completely unrelated note, Verizon has somehow managed to foul up my home internet service, making the maintenance of this blog quite difficult until it gets back up and running. They’re telling me I’ll have access to the interwebs again by Sunday. Color me skeptical. I hope to get some more posts done in the interim, but if I can’t, you now know the reason. I’ve already bombarded a call center in India with some choice salty language, and I fear there may be more of it in the near future, perhaps enough to sunder diplomatic relations between our two great peoples. Until next time…
Webs up the wazoo
It turns out DC isn’t the only publisher that can go (a little too?) hog-wild with a flagship character. The word “glut” is definitely one that’s cyclically forgotten by the comic book powers that be. Then again, if you can sell books, then sell books. More power to you.
Seeing the titles advertised, it occurs to me that Marvel Tales is the only series that hasn’t received the blogintomystery.com treatment — even the Easy Reader-approved Spidey Super Stories has had some love. Considering the debt of gratitude I owe MT for introducing me in the ’80s to the Ditko/Lee Spider-Man, that’s an omission I shall soon have to rectify. Excelsior!
My, what a tight ass you have… – Spider-Woman #12
Carmine Infantino’s Marvel tenure has had an ignominious past here. His work on Nova has been savaged, and a hastily written attempt on my part to be cute doomed a post on a Daredevil issue. Let’s start over, get rid of the Y chromosomes and try a female character. Maybe that’s what we need to shake things up. Shift our paradigms, you know? And this comic — as a bonus — has a nice stretch that throws the titular heroine into a Little Red Riding Hood dream sequence. In fact, why not skip the shocking, senses-shattering origin of the Brothers Grimm (since it’s a bit of a boondoggle), and focus on said dreamtime?
Before we get to that, though, it has to be said… Could the cover make Jessica Drew’s ass-cheeks any more prominent? Not since the Cat have a heroine’s buns of steel been displayed more lovingly. With the way everything is positioned, the only thing that’s lacking is a giant arrow pointing to them.
Anyway.
Infantino’s pencils here are guided by Mark Gruenwald’s script and amped by Al Gordon’s inks. The dream in question isn’t Spider-Woman’s, but is instead that of her man friend Jerry Hunt (they’re being held by the evil Brothers Grimm and their mother, Priscilla Dolly). Both are bound and put under, which is when Jerry’s neurons really start a firin’. This storyline detour had me, not at hello, but at the image of Spider-Woman skipping through the woods with what looks to be a genuine Yogi Bear pic-i-nic basket:
She makes the obligatory stop at grandmother’s house (where granny has been replaced by a wolfy representation of their aged captor):
This whole bit is Jerry’s subconscious struggling with his inadequacies in relation to his super-heroine gal. Freud would have a field day working with the boyfriends of superpowered chicks, don’t you think? He might even have to call in Jung for a consult, thus forming a World’s Finest psychiatry duo.
Whatever the name of Jerry’s complex might be, in his dream he gets to save the day:
There’s nothing like the swing of an axe to kill a foul beast and flush out some romantic angst:
So Jerry gets to be the champeen. At least in his dreams.
The comic that surrounds this sequence is a bit hard to decipher for one (like myself) not steeped in the Spider-Woman mythos. I’m tempted to label it a mess, but I have a too much respect for the late Gruenwald’s scripting talents to do so. The dream, though, is a delightful opportunity for Infantino’s unique abilities to shine. There’s something in his unconventional lines that’s suited to illustrating the product of a roaming sub-conscious. Not only that, the dream covers some interesting ground, with the internal turmoil of a macho man whose life is always saved by a woman and all the ego-related havoc that could wreak brought to the fore. It’s a topic that’s been mined other times with varying results, but weaving it in with the Big Bad Wolf makes this iteration a bit more memorable, at least to this reader. Plus Jerry dresses his axe-wielding dream-self like the Brawny paper towel man (or the 1970s Stan Lee, take your pick). It’s a veritable cornucopia of angles!
That’s all I’ve got. Sweet dreams, everybody.
Hot Wheels?
This is one of those Johnny Carson “I did not know that” moments of which the comic book world appears to have a never-ending supply. I had no clue there was such a beast as this until the above ad slapped me in the mug. Tiny metal toy cars seem like a rather thin broth to build a comic around, and sort of remind me of Pole Position, the most boring Atari 2600 game I ever owned and the basis for one of the more insipid cartoons of my youth. Actually, this comic was more of a tie-in to a late-1960s Hot Wheels cartoon, so that comparison is perhaps a bit more apt than at first blush.
As I stated, thin broth. Or broths.
Then again, (up-until-now-regarded-as) intelligent people are making a movie based on Battleship, so a Hot Wheels comic might simply have been ahead of its time.
“Hot Wheels! Hot Wheels!”
The power of Amanda Waller compels you! The power of Amanda Waller compels you! – Justice League America #27
That. Cover. Looks. Familiar. Hmmm.
Today we delve into the depths of the Justice League “BWAHAHAHA!” days, with an issue forged by Keith Giffen (Plot & Breakdowns), J.M. DeMatteis (Script), Ty Templeton (Pencils), Joe Rubinstein and Dick Giordano (Inks), with Kevin Maguire handling the tribute/swipe cover. The blocky, bitchy Amanda Waller steps into the Father Merrin role here, though she’s not out to exorcise any demons. She’s summoned to get to the bottom of whatever’s caused the Blue Beetle to lash out and injure his fellow Leaguers, as recounted here by Batman:
The “almost killed Max” part has taken on a bit of irony, no?
Waller gets called in by Oberon and Maxwell Lord for her expertise in de-programming brain-scrambled dudes, though her qualifications don’t cancel out others’ dislike(?) of her:
Batman is none too happy, either:
You have to admire a broad (an eminently appropriate term in this instance) that can laugh off a not-so-veiled threat from the cape and cowl.
Waller heads over to the room in the J.L.A. HQ where Ted Kord is being held. She goes in sans holy water, and Kord apparently has no pea soup in his innards. If you’re curious. The meeting with Beetle starts off slowly:
Things change fast when Waller utters the code word that sets him off (which was implanted by the Queen Bee):
It turns out that she’s Mike Singletary/George Foreman in pearls and a skirt:
Time for Plan B.
Hypnosis is the method of choice for this attempt, with Batman hovering nearby:
I’ll skip the uncovered memories for time’s sake — well, all but Ted and Booster Gold settling in to watch some dubbed Ralph Kramden/Honeymooners reruns:
Hey, when I was a kid I loved to watch a French version of The Incredible Hulk out of Canada, so I can relate.
Waller manages to foul the hypnosis up, too:
Batman has to step in to (maybe) save the day:
Diagnosis? Coma. Well done, Amanda.
Still, her efforts seem to gain the grudging respect of the Caped Crusader:
By the way, the “one man” is Doctor Fate. In case you care.
So what are we to make of this Waller-centric book? Broadly speaking (there I go again!), she’s an interesting character. She’s often a villain, an unavoidable circumstance considering her frequent positioning as a counterweight (no pun intended) to the DC Universe’s teeming horde of super-powered do-gooders. Still, I have a great deal of sympathy for her. If I lived in a world where there were unsanctioned gods flitting about the Earth I’d be more than a little bit worried about that, and I’d want a head-bitch in charge like Waller spearheading any secret human watchdog agency. Incidentally, I’m no great fan of cartoons, but it was an inspired bit of voice casting to have CCH Pounder fill the Waller role in much of DC’s animated work. Any woman that could stare down Vic Mackey and assorted lowlifes for seven seasons on The Shield can handle a bunch of goofs in tights. And no offense to the still gettin’ it done Angela Bassett, but I wish Pounder could have been in that Green Lantern movie (wait, maybe I don’t want that…).
I’m digressing. The bottom line is that there’s something very relatable about Waller. Even when we disagree with her default skepticism of and outright opposition to our cherished heroes, we can’t help but empathize with her task and point of view. She’s one of us. And right our wrong, she’s on our side.
Anyway. I like her. And I like what she is in this issue, a tough lady who doesn’t take any shit from anybody, even when she fails horribly at her assigned task. I’m fairly indifferent to this iteration of the Justice League, but Waller, combined with that cover (that house is a local D.C. landmark, after all) makes this worth thumbing through.
And no one’s head did a 360. Happy days.
Thrill as Chris Evans’ engorged chest battles freedom’s foes! – Captain America: The First Avenger
It’s been an interesting summer for comic book-related movies, one that’s offered a roster depth that we’ve never before witnessed. It’s also been a mixed bag. To sum up:
Thor — The first out of the gate and my favorite, it was a fun ride, and though I can understand the concerns of others (Earth story, pacing, et cetera), there were moments that made me very happy to be a comic book fan.
X-Men: First Class — Worth seeing simply for the Xavier/Magneto interaction, and a well-rounded film.
Green Lantern — A vapid, dull disappointment that may ice any potential Justice League movie for a very long time. Get your goddamn act together, Warner Bros.
Transformers: Dark of the Moon — Fucking awful.
In general terms, it’s two up and two down in terms of summer movie scorecards, and that makes Captain America the rubber match. Verdict?
It’s pretty great. I have a few quibbles that keep from gushing and slobbering all over it, but they’re minor. This is the nigh-perfect vehicle to launch us into next year’s Avengers.
Observations:
- It’s somewhat odd, but we had to go back in time to World War II for the Marvel film universe to really start to feel organic. The nods to Asgardian elements, the strong presence of Tony Stark’s papa, the same blue serum vials that we saw in The Incredible Hulk and countless other smaller bits all combine to bring out the coalescing energy that made the 1960s comics so much fun.
- Chris Evans is a great ass-kicking, shield-chucking Steve Rogers/Cap (mercifully scrubbing such abominations as the Reb Brown turn from our collective memory), though I wish they could have toned down his deep baritone when he was a 90-pound weakling (a condition that, having once been a skinny kid myself, I have great sympathy for). Stanley Tucci is so perfect as Professor Erskine I forgot that he was in this until his name showed up in the credits. That, kids, is acting. And going in I thought Tommy Lee Jones was going to give the typical “small cameo during the origin” treatment, collect his paycheck and exit the stage, but no… He has one of the larger roles in the film and his presence is most welcome. His Two-Face performance is now forgiven.
- Hugo Weaving is his usual menacing self, and I think it’s time we really began appreciating the presence that he brings to all of his roles. His voice and the way he carries himself go a long way in developing a vivid characterization of the Red Skull, so much so I was a little sad when he started displaying only his crimson visage. The buildup to that moment, however, is delectable. My biggest regret with him is that I wish he’d been more a Nazi and less the Hydra chief. A single swastika armband would have gone a loooong way.
- The competent directorial hands of Joe Johnston are all over this one. He’s a pro with a long, accomplished resume, and Marvel hasn’t had anyone of his calibre behind the camera before. He brings his best to the plate. Many thanks to him for that.
- There’s a delicious little reference to Raiders of the Lost Ark early on, as the Red Skull mocks Hitler for chasing “relics in the desert” or something like that. And later there’s a flying wing that looks like the Raiders version on a Barry Bonds steroid dosage. Come to think of it, this movie had a lot of the energy that the last Indy movie was sorely lacking. But this one needed more Nazis, like good pasta sauces sometimes need more salt.
- There can be a fine line between poofy pectorals and breasts. Evans tip-toes very close to that line.
- The various (Howling) Commandos get only brief moments of characterization, but they’re so cool you wind up hoping we get another flashback movie with them and Cap. Rest easy, for Dum Dum’s bowler is on the job. That’s all you need to know. Oh, and there’s a prison-break scene that I found wonderfully similar to this one.
- There’s one bit that’s lifted wholesale from a classic cover. Someone holds something in his hand. I shall say no more. You’ll know it when you see it.
- Alan Silvestri’s score reminded me of the great summer films of yesteryear. Yes, that’s a good thing. And there’s a very catchy U.S.O. song and dance number that’ll get in your head.
- My greatest quibble is that the need to get Captain America into the present day created an ending that felt more than a little forced. He makes a valiant sacrifice, but I’m not certain that it’s a necessary one. Other than to sate the need to put that sumbitch on ice.
This film is terrific fun, and ranks at the front of the Marvel efforts thus far. And do make sure to stay through the credits (they really need to stop making us wait all the way through — I don’t need to know everyone who gaffed and gripped on the second unit). I give Captain America: The First Avenger four out of five glistening Steve Rogers chestular areas:
It’s been a good summer for comics on film.
Not since Tastes Great/Less Filling has a debate so captured the hearts and minds of America and convulsed her populace in vigorous advocacy.
This old feature is really a no contest for me. Captain Marvel has his moments, mainly when he’s decking Hitler or teaching an elderly miser the true meaning of Christmas, but Superman is at the top of the mountain. Top of the world, Ma! I know Captain Marvel was a huge seller in his Golden Age day. I know every now and then DC tries to ram his acquired Fawcett mug down the throats of the comic world. I know Alex Ross gets a boner whenever he hears the word “Shazam.” And I know Superman has had his many low ebbs, like when he got beat up and stripped naked by a werewolf. But this isn’t a fair fight. It’s Superman. All the way, baby.
Despite its foregone conclusion, I’ll say this for the Superman/Captain Marvel debate: It’s a hell of a lot less irritating than the emo Twilight Team Edward/Team Jacob crap. Less open-mouthed brooding.
Let’s be frank. If any man uttered anything like the above title to their significant other, they’d get chased around the house with the nearest wieldable object. Maybe a rolling pin.
This issue is chock-full of reprint goodness in addition to the new tale advertised on the front featuring Terra-Man and some nifty Old West art from the great Curt Swan. I’m was sorely tempted to yack about that portion of the comic, but the one advertised by this little image proved too much to resist:
Must. Know. The Story. Behind it.
Originally published in Superman #138, this Jerry Siegel/Wayne Boring/Stan Kaye effort opens with a reprise of the cover blurb:
As we can see from the tease, it’s Lori Lemaris that’s behind this undersea chicanery. She’s decided that Clark Kent and Lois Lane need — NEED — to be together, and by gum she’s going to play surreptitious matchmaker using every scaly trick she knows.
Things are made easier for her when Clark and Lois are sent on assignment to the deep blue sea to photograph marine life (nothing sells papers like pictures of fish). Lori first tries a direct method, using telepathy to get Lois into a dangerous situation, having Superman rescue her and planting an idea in his Kryptonian head to lay a wet one right on her lips:
Nice aim, Supes.
Lori’s next gambit is nothing short of astonishing (in a bad way) and would indicate that she’s less mermaid than merbitch. She finds a dying man floating at sea and has the last reaction a warm-blooded creature would have:
Yeah. Don’t worry about getting him food or fresh water or shelter. Just make sure he lives long enough to figure into your romantic plots. Oh, and I’m quite sure the “may not have seen a woman in weeks” angle is the last thing on the mind of someone who’s begun drinking his own urine.
Lori tows the poor man to the ship and he’s rescued. I realize that in so doing she saved his life, but that seems to be a collateral benefit to his place in her scheme (I’m still angry at this). At any rate, he and Lois hit it off, but Clark is less jealous than concerned about the real identity of this lost amnesiac. He puts things right in short order:
Prince Whatever should be thankful that he didn’t get the Wonderman romantic rival treatment.
Next comes the fish/faces ploy, with Lori using a device to project Lois’ visage and make Superman think he’s so in love with her he can’t get her lovely face out of his mind:
This dumb idea works as well as you’d think, which is not at all. Then Lori goes to the most direct of direct approaches, i.e. exposing Clark’s identity and forcing the issue with Lois. She gets him swallowed Jonah-style by a whale, but a fishman ex machina arrives to apply the final monkeywrench to her meddling:
Superman is left wondering who’ll be next to try to set him up. He suggests Krypto. I’d bet one of his robot helpers in the Fortress of Solitude.
While this one didn’t really deliver much on the preposterous possibilities of the Lois-whale (the panel presented is one of two that dealt with that bit), the unthinkably callow attitude of Ms. Lemaris is a wowser and is definitely what I’ll take away from it. I used to have a somewhat positive view of her, or as positive a view as a man can have of a woman with fish nether regions. No longer. The word I’d apply to her is the one word that I’m hesitant to utter aloud or type. It rhymes with “runt.” When she was dragging that poor castaway prince along to be a pawn in her game of matchmaking chess, I wanted to stick her with a whaling harpoon. We’ll leave it at that.
A word about Wayne Boring’s art. It’s from another time and it has its charm — I like it, and he certainly deserves his place in the pantheon of great Superman artists — but my one complaint is that his Man of Steel’s expressions seem to always be the same. Maybe not always, but close enough. I’ll refrain from being the umpteenth person to make the obvious play on Boring’s last name, but the juxtaposition of his work against Swan’s under the single roof of this issue really highlights the evolution from one to the other. Once again, no offense to Boring and his classic barrel-chested Superman. It’s just that he makes me appreciate Swan all the more.
So, if we’re scoring this issue: Swan up, Boring level, and Lemaris down, down, down.
No sign of Lobo or many-sided dice
Pretend you’re walking down old-timey cobblestone streets with your friends! The Adventure Is Yours!
I meant to put this into my Lobo/Geek, Dweeb or Spazz post a few days ago, but it slipped through the net. For the sake of completeness, here it is. I thought there was some sort of blog kismet to the fact that this ad was in the very same issue that (for me) forever wedded the last Czarnian to Dungeons & Dragons clubs.
It crawled from the swamp – The Man-Thing #7
I’ve always operated under the assumption that the Man-Thing was a derivative rip-off of the much more famous Swamp Thing. I only recently discovered that the former preceded the latter. Kind of. And the second version of the latter was a rip-off of the former. Or something. I’m now wallowing in less ignorance than before. I think.
Despite that newfound semi-edification, I still don’t care too much about Man-Thing. He’s always looked a bit too smelly (seriously, the tubes on his outer surface always made me think of sewage, and that he might have had some floaters mixed into his composition) and the silent enviro-hero bit always wears thin very fast.
I understand that he has his fans, though, as evidenced by his lengthier-than-I-could-have-imagined Wikipedia entry, so I thought I’d plow through this chapter in his series. What could it hurt? Hopefully I won’t come out the other side with his stench all over me, and who knows, I might actually pick up on what others so dig.
“The Old Die Young!” (from Steve Gerber and the perhaps appropriately named Mike Ploog) begins as I would have imagined it would, with Man-Thing watching from a distance as a developer pulls up stakes and abandons his attempts to build a runway in the swamp. It seems that there’s always an element of the “crying Indian” in these. Then the story takes an odd turn when Man-Thing runs into, of all people, honest-to-God conquistadors:
Gotcha!
Man-Thing proves to be a bit harder to conquer than Montezuma and his Aztecs, who weren’t blessed/cursed with the ability to ooze through nets:
Freed, Man-Thing is able to prey on his erstwhile captors’ fear and unleash some righteous vengeance:
The conquistadors retreat to their “hacienda,” and Man-Thing follows hot on their heels. The hacienda winds up being a bayou Shangri-La, or at least a low-rent Lost Horizon set:
Leave it to a woman to rescue the men from this mucky beast. A random lady douses him with some of this place’s healing waters (it turns out that there really is a fountain of youth in the Americas), which have a Wicked Witch of the West effect on him:
Man-Thing retreats back to the swamp, where the effects of the water start to take hold on his hand:
Ah, “The Gift of Death!” What a cheery title for the next chapter. Something to look forward to.
I think my biggest issue with these old titles that center around “monsters” and “horror” is that they aren’t shocking or frightening in the least. Perhaps they would have been if I’d encountered them at a younger age and when they were still fresh. This might once again be more of a failing on my part than on the part of the creators. Yet the problem remains. Even with all that said, the presence of a Shangri-La and Spanish conquistadors in the 1970s Florida Everglades is nothing if not unique. I tip my cap to Gerber for that, at least.
And my clothes still smell okay after wading through Man-Thing’s muck. So that’s a plus. But he still looks like bipedal ordure.
I’m not disparaging the United States Postal Service, even if their delivery efforts gave the comic book hobby the baneful phrase “subscription fold.” It’s just that I’ve never seen such a warm embrace of a mailman by a superhero (Supes, no less) before. I’m sure Mr. McFeely, Cliff Clavin, Newman and David “Son of Sam” Berkowitz would all be proud.
This requires a moment’s explaining.
In the early 1990s, in what was for me the height of Saturday Night Live’s funniness, Emilio Estevez (yes, that Emilio Estevez, at his own summit of Young Guns/Mighty Ducks fame) hosted the show. There were several memorable sketches that night, including one featuring ‘roided up weightlifters with itty-bitty stick legs. The real standout, though, was a game show parody (think Password) entitled “Geek, Dweeb, or Spazz.” Various upper echelon high schoolers would compete with one another in guessing which of those categories their more lowly classmates fell into. David Spade was quite hilarious as a “Spazz” in a Ghostbusters t-shirt.
I’m getting close to the point, don’t worry.
Emilio was the fourth subject, but he didn’t fit the geek/dweeb/spazz mold. He wore a leather jacket. He talked the macho talk. He threatened the preppy contestants with physical violence and disdained their efforts to placate him. But then Mike Meyers, the host, whipped out a yearbook picture from Emilio’s previous high school, where he was a pocket-protectored treasurer of the Dungeons & Dragons Club. He ran off the stage sobbing, and the show moved on.
I think you may be seeing what I’m getting at (and now that I’ve done the worst thing in the world and explained a joke, you can watch the sketch at the bottom of the post).
Look back up at that cover. Whenever I see the later Lobo that we all know — the jacked up one in leather, the one with the “bastich” attitude, the tough guy — I harken back to that image. That hair. That costume. He may not have been a member of the Dungeons & Dragons Club, but a badass can’t at one point look like an in-drag Tim Curry could have played him in a movie. The Rocky Lobo Picture Show. His later accoutrements reek of overcompensation.
Here he is in his first full-body shot in comic book history (words: Roger Slifer, pictures: Keith Giffen, Mike DeCarlo):
Granted, he was a conscienceless killer even in those first moments, as evidenced by his flicking a guy’s brain through the back of his head a couple of panels later:
(By the bye, the “Humbek” character that gets offed is meant to be a spoof of Fred Hembeck. Impress your friends with some useless trivia!)
Lobo’s tough-guy persona was intended to be a send-up of the grizzled testosterone fiends that so riddled comics back in those days, but like many parodies he achieved a level of popularity that led him to slip his tether and become an embodiment of what he was originally meant to mock. If it’s any consolation to Giffen et al, he’s always been a joke to me, and will be one forever more. That first appearance yearbook photo is going to tail him around in my head for a very long time.
Of all the Feetal’s Gizz in the universe, he’s the Feetal’s Gizziest, and the geekiest of dweebs.
I think audiences of the late 1960s would be forgiven if they thought Steve Ditko was simply introducing Kraven the Hunter into a DC context. Similar silhouettes, right? Maybe if a few of the Creeper’s usual HAHAHAs had been sprinkled in, confusion would have been avoided. Kraven always was a rather mirthless sort of chap.
Is there a rule that every Vulture cover has to be a from-above shot of him grappling with the hero over the New York City-scape? I don’t think there is, but this John Byrne entry would argue otherwise.
I’m not the biggest Vulture fan. He’s okay, and he had a really fun level on the first GameCube Spider-Man game. That’s where my thoughts on him essentially end, though. He’s always looked a little too Mr. Magoo for me to take too seriously.
This issue (scripted by Louise Simonson, pencilled by Greg LaRocque, inked by Jim Mooney) opens with him locked up and enraged about the Vulturion gang and their stealing of his gimmick. He busts out with a new suit he constructed on the inside — I’m unsure if minions were bringing him parts baked into cakes or what:
I’m sorry, folks, but if that isn’t Mr. Magoo with feathers, then nothing is.
Spider-Man is out doing his usual thing, i.e. fighting crime and worrying about that wizened old boat anchor, Aunt May:
The Web-Slinger has to be the only hero to ever agonize about getting a hat to an old lady.
The Vulture wastes nary a second in tracking down and attacking his aerial rivals:
He looks especially toothless there, no? Ready to bellow, if not “GET OFF MY LAWN,” then “GET OFF MY PERCH!”
The fight spills out to the skies and is spotted by a lunching Peter and Mary Jane, who are having one of their interminable “it’s so hard being/dating Spider-Man” drone-fests:
There’s a brief interlude as we check in on bunned-hair Aunt May and her wheelchair-bound guy-pal Nathan Lubensky:
We mercifully cut away before we’re bombarded with some Ensure-fueled, Patrick Swayze/Demi Moore/”Unchained Melody”/Pottery/Ghost-style geriatric coitus. May has that look in her eyes.
Back to the action.
The Vulture dismantles his whippersnapper rivals in short order, but Spidey steps in before he kills them (after performing that classic hero “greater evil” calculus):
The two old foes have their typical battle, with Spidey landing some blows and getting dragged along by a flying Vulture whilst clinging to a web-fluid tether. Then the Vulturions prove that no good deed goes unpunished when they let their hatred for Spider-Man overwhelm their good sense and stick him with a poisoned dart:
Vulture gets away as Spidey passes out. Not only that, he FORGOT ABOUT AUNT MAY’S HAT! HORROR OF HORRORS!
Enter Mary Jane, with a nice dash of guilt:
You know, sometimes I wouldn’t blame Peter if he webbed himself up a nice noose.
Finally:
Thank. God. The hat. Got there.
The Sturm und Drang of Peter Parker’s social life is a core component of the character, but it nevertheless gets a bit tiring. This issue is a fine example of that saturation point. Aunt May’s hat? Really? I’m supposed to care about this? He can’t call her? That won’t do? “The Peril and the Present! Another Mighty Marvel Masterpiece!”
Anyway. I’ll leave you with this:
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the prosecution rests.
Jared
blog into mystery 