In the Marvel Universe, major companies sometimes contract with various super-powered individuals to represent them (i.e.Tony Stark and Iron Man). I think I found the guy on Hugh Heffner’s payroll:
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and bet that his name will eventually be revealed as “Richard Cranium”.
(Image and character ©1989, Marvel Comics, “The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, Update ‘89″.)
I hate feet. They’re ugly, they smell bad, and they’re poorly designed. The best you can say about feet is that at least they’re stuck way down at the end of our bodies so we don’t have to think about them very often. But even I don’t hate feet as much as Mister Sinister must, because he is wearing two sets of boots to cover them up:
I’m not a fan of flaring hip-boots on male characters in general, but maybe that’s just because I’m from Texas, where our boots end at mid-calf. But if you’re going to wear them, what in the name of all that’s good and right are you doing with yet another pair of flaring boots that end at your ankle? It’s just weird, and that’s saying something when you’re talking about a white-faced, lipstick-wearing, double-starred on head and chest guy with a cloak straight out of La Cage Aux Folles. Seriously, getting attacked by Mr. Sinister must feel like getting mugged by a half-exploded pinata. And that’s before he kicks your butt with all four boots.
(Image and character ©1989, Marvel Comics, “The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, Update ‘89″.)
I actually met X-Files replacement Annabeth Gish once when she was in Texas working on the TV movie “True Women”. She seemed like a very nice lady, and I suspect she would not be pleased to know that in comics, her name is the sound a cyborg’s head makes as it’s punched off its neck by Brad Pitt (if he were a giant other-worldly Hulk rip-off):
I wonder what other celebrity last names are matched with shocking and inappropriate sound effects? Perhaps one day we will see OnomontoPOWia references like “JOLIE!” as an ill-fated henchman gets impaled. “CLOONIE!” might be the sound of a gigantic Nazi-style zeppelin meets Captain Death’s grenade launcher. I’m sure there are others, but for now I feel like I’ve been Gished and can’t think of what they might be.
(Image and character © 1993, Dale Keown.)
I don’t have anything bad to say about this costume, but I would pay cash money for his catch phrase to be “Watch out, boys, Mento the Fresh Maker is here!”
I hope Mento soon joins up with his villainous partners “Snicker the Satisfier”, muscle-bound “Altoid the Curiously Strong”, and the crazy-making mentalist “Almond Joy” (because sometimes you feel like a nut … ) at their secret lair, “The Candy Rack”.
(Image and character ©1985, DC Comics, Inc., “Who’s Who” Volume XV.)
While looking over the always-exquisite George Perez-style cover of DC’s “Who’s Who” (volume VIII), I was brought up short by this gentleman lurking in the background:
Aghast, I opened the book to discover that he’s actually one of Aquaman’s foes called — I kid you not — “Fisherman”. With a name like that, you’d expect to find him asleep in a boat with a line in the water and a six pack in the cooler, but apparently he’s a little more motivated than your average angler. More the pity for me, the unsuspecting viewer stunned by the character concept while innocently perusing a comic book cover.
Here’s a quick note to all of you future super-hero designers out there: never, ever, ever have a character with large pole sticking out of his crotch. And if for some reason you find yourself doing exactly that, by all that’s holy do not force him to grab that pole and jerk it towards his enemy to unleash his powers!
I will leave the content of the dialog balloon (undoubtedly filled with cheap innuendos) for this particular image as an exercise for the reader. Some of you will probably think up unbearably clever and inappropriate things he might be saying, and will post them in comments, which will force me to pretend I am dismayed while in reality I cackle with glee.
(Image and character ©1985, DC Comics, Inc. “Who’s Who”, Volume VIII.)
