So … many … juvenile jokes … from this panel:

I’m all froze up — do I go for the (doubtlessly rocky and gritty) oral pleasure innuendo of the first thought balloon? The implicit fart joke of the second? The look of shock and horror on Ben Grimm’s face at his apparently complete lack of control over his own bodily functions? Or the fact that when you’ve been turned into an ambulatory pile of orange rocks by cosmic rays, your gaseous emissions go “Rrrrooosh!”, which frankly I did not know, despite a college-level geology course?

The mind boggles.

But in honor of OnomontoPOWia Friday, I will go with the last joke. Plus, it’s educational. I just wish we had a complete compilation of all the sounds your various heroes make when passing gas, each with its own evocative name like Ben’s given us here with his “Screamin’ Wind”. I bet Superman’s could blow down a building if he’s not careful (”Smellier than a foetid swamp! More noxious than a landfill!” “Look, up in the sky! It’s a cloud! It’s nuclear fallout! No, it’s … OH MY GOD!!!). Iron Man doubtlessly has some sort of self-contained air filtration unit; if not, talk about repulsor beams! I bet the Scarlet Witch’s arrive with a bewildering array of hex-powered unfortunate consequences (”Wanda, my Perrier seems to have transmogrified into biodiesel again, could you please lay off the garlic?”). And they don’t call Thor “The God of Thunder” for nothing, I’m telling you.

And yes, I just spent a whole paragraph speculating on the flatulence of super-powered individuals, marking an all-new nadir for this blog. Wahoo!

Whittier and I have finally finished his prize for winning Caption Contest 31, and I thank him very much for his patience while I worked on it through the Warrior Mini onslaught. But here at last is his character, “Steam”:

(Click to embiggen.)

You can win your very own custom black and white illustration of whatever you like (within reason) in Caption Contest 35, going on right now!

While reading through one of the execrable “Millennium” issues the other day, I came across this character:

I drew up short for two reasons. One, I dare you to encounter a green and purple color scheme on a super-powered individual whose name is NOT “Kang” and take it in stride. And two, who the hell is Overthrow?

Look, I get it, these huge multi-book mult-issue mass crossover titles revel in throwing out completely obscure characters to titillate the hard-core fanboys, but Overthrow? Honestly? Even Blue Beetle, who’s issuing the dialog from off-panel, seems stunned that such a random person is making an appearance, and the two of them go way back.

But I bet the reason you never really heard from Overthrow before or after this issue is his costume. In a word, it blows. Or in the words of Bart Simpson, it’s achieved the seeming impossibility of both sucking and blowing at the same time. Besides the color scheme (which frankly is hard to get past, but I’ll soldier on), I find it hard to take a guy seriously who got his hairpiece by mugging and subsequently scalping Carrot Top. Granted, that was a profound act of goodness for all humankind, but slapping that mop on top of a purple Round Table Helmet is just weird. I keep looking for the big red clown nose that surely just fell off that ensemble.

Due to the perspective of the figure (and the rubber-penciled efforts of Joe Staton) it’s hard to tell what’s going on with his crotch. (And by the way, if I had a dollar for every time a teenaged Jeff got the “What’s going on with his crotch?” question I’d be a wealthy man right now.) Either that’s a knee pad on top of a padded boot front, or this guy has serious ego problems.

I sure hope it’s the latter, because a purple and green Carrot Top wannabe with a raging boner is just scary enough to get me reading further. Otherwise, it’s just another sad, sad costume.

(OK, it’s not actually a comic book panel, but come on it’s awesome! Hat tip to college friend Heather Wood and one of her Facebook commenters, but I can’t find the link.)

I’m not sure how this one will turn out, but here goes your caption contest challenge for this week:

Come up with the best dialog to fill the blank balloon and you’ll win your very own custom black and white illustration of whatever you like (within reason), like these! The rules are simple: No more than three entries per person; leave yours in the comments to this post; and keep it clean (appropriate for broadcast prime time TV). That’s it!

So get your thinking caps on and win, baby win!

I am happy to announce that the winner of Caption Contest 34 is … Runt82!

This is Runt’s second win, so big congratulations for him. I had immediate flashbacks of doing the hokey-pokey at the skating rink when I was growing up, and this guy would have fit right in there. Good job! Other honorable mentions included:

• marx: That’s right! My henchmen and I shook up every can of soda in the fridge! We’re hard-core evil like that, baby.
• HalLoweEn JacK: Fear me! All will trmble before ‘The Tugger’.
• Rick: I shall have my Yahtzee. You will see!
• Fishpants: Prepare yourself for…let’s see…3d6 damage plus two! Bwa ha ha ha!
• Fishpants: You FOOLS! For the last time it’s LEFTY-LOOSEY, RIGHTY-TIGHTY!

Thanks to everyone for the great entries! Not all of them were necessarily age-appropriate or censor-ready, but they were certainly entertaining.

I am running a couple of weeks behind on my prizes, but rest assured Runt82 will win his very own custom black and white illustration of whatever he likes. Last time he chose Draco, so I’m curious to see what we come up with this time around. Stay tuned for your chance to win your own drawing from yours truly, coming up later today!

The question of the week (a day late) is:

Discussion after the jump.

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