To answer his question:

I will now count the ways I like — no, make that love — his new body:

1. Mange-ridden dreadlock ponytail flying the opposite way from his leap;
2. Off-center tattoo (?) “X” on his face;
3. Bizarre xylophone/washboard rock vest;
4. Veins on the outside of his arms, which frankly doesn’t quite seem medically wise;
5. Two words: Zeppelin cape;
6. Vampire goth chick arms pasted into his armpits;
7. Gigantic, rubber-band-bound thighs atop dainty ballerina feet;
8. Ability to speak without opening lipless mouth;
9. Three-lobed right kneecap;
10. Black fishnet for one set of arms — apparently it wasn’t stretchy enough for the massive upper man-arms.

Yeah, I think that about covers it. I think I’ll use that line the next time I haul my disgusting body out to the local public pool and when the woman I’m speaking to recoils in horror, I’ll whip out this image and say, “Hey, it could be worse!”

(Image and characters ©1993, Marvel Comics, UK, Ltd., from “Battletide II”, No. 3.)

As a special bonus OnomontoPOWia, I bring you the greatest sound effect panel of all time:

You may now stop reading super-hero comic books for all time, because no panel could ever be more awesome than this one. You have won the comics industry.

ETA: I didn’t post this on a Friday because it’s not one I discovered myself; it’s been highlighted on a number of sites for a long time. But as the commenter pointed out, “Captain America, I command you to WANK!” is in fact why I brought it here. It may be the greatest command ever given by a super-villain.

As I’ve browsed through the archives looking for bad super-hero costumes, I’ve come across a number of characters previously unknown to me whom I had accidentally duplicated in my role-playing past. It’s a bit jarring when it happens — you’re flipping through a comic and all of a sudden someone appears who you thought you’d invented ten years back. Only instead of a man it’s a woman, and instead of being a villain it’s a criminal, and their costume is just all wrong.

I thought I’d share a few of those, and going forward I might take a crack at re-imagining other established characters, sort of a HeroMachine “OtherWorlds” experiment. Here’s the first accidental homage.

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OK, I know, he’s supposed to be a Batman rip-off, but seriously:

Cat-Man? Were Flat-Man, Fat-Man, Gnat-Man, Spat-Man, Hat-Man, and Rat-Man all taken by some other comics company and thus unavailable? I suspect this guy stole a Golden Age Batman mask and dyed it orange, because those ears look awfully similar, but the logo — well now, the logo must be 100% his own creation. The big ol’ C with the smaller M in the middle (his initials, get it? get it?) are the real stroke of genius that make it clear that this guy is no ordinary knockoff! I can’t wait till the issue where we go to his secret lair, “The Litterbox”. Or would that be the “Cat House”? I guess not, since he’s based in New York and we all know how the government there frowns on that sort of thing.

(Image and character ©1985, DC Comics, Inc., “Who’s Who” volume 4.)

I’m not the first person to notice that most African-American super-powered individuals have “Black” in their name somewhere (you never see “White Superman” or “White Flash” or “Pink Green Lantern”; for some reason it’s only dark-skinned people that need to have their melanin level slapped onto their super identity). But I do think I’ve found what is either the a) lamest b) most egregiously offensive or c) funniest example to date:

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