While the animal kingdom contains many fearsome models upon which a super-powered individual can base their identity — the mighty lion, the speedy leopard, the swift-striking falcon — you have to be very careful which you actually choose. After all, who wants to go around known as The Slug or The Sloth or … um, the Porcupine?
Porcupines (motto, “Third largest rodent!”) are slow and completely non-aggressive, which isn’t ideal for a super villain. On the other hand, they do have sharp pointy bits, which puts them ahead of many other potential candidates. So I’ll give him a pass on the inspiration (barely). And they did give him the ability to fire his quills, along with a host of other powered-armor options. So he wasn’t a wuss or anything.
However.
If you’re going to base yourself on a barely-qualified animal, it’s imperative that you not walk around looking as if your outfit were woven from wicker.
I’ve owned wicker furniture. I have sat upon wicker furniture. And I have seen wicker furniture utterly destroyed at the paws of a ravenous puppy. Not a big puppy either, but a tiny little furball.
And if you do slip up and find yourself in a costume that resembles wicker, based on an animal that’s more or less a highly irritated ground sloth, by all that’s holy please do not — repeat, do NOT — also weave yourself a wicker hairpiece that looks like a refugee from a bad “Little Lord Fauntleroy” production.
On the other hand, from the page in question he appears to be a flatulent wicker-woven prickly ground sloth, which I admit is pretty intriguing.
(Image and character ©Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc.)
