Twenty five or Six Two Four. Or One. Five. Whatever.

The HeroMachine Justice Crusader and Teetotaler Society has chosen to forego the allure of the bottle and a hearty party with our slime-covered super buddy in favor of trying to actually fight crime. It's an outrage! Or entirely appropriate, I can't decide which.

Regardless, off we go into the wild blue yonder! If this was the mid-Eighties at Marvel we might be going into the wild Beyonder instead, which isn't nearly as much fun. Unless you're Spider-Man and come out of it with new duds.

Is it just me or am I particularly random today?

Ah yes, how well we all know the seductive allure of the temptation to fight evil. Can you blame us for giving in to that sweet, violence-filled calling? Sure you can! This is a blame-first society, get real, people.

Our choice is to take on a warehouse full of five foes or a just one. Now, profiling is wrong, but let's do it anyway, because who's going to stop us when we're carrying an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on our backs, and I don't mean Dale the Drunken Slime Reporter. You might be tempted to think "Let's start out slow and go for the singular guy". I know you might be tempted to think that because it's right there in the text of the poll. The only way you would NOT be tempted to think that is if you cannot read, in which case explain how you know what these words say! HA, busted, fake illiterate!

Where was I? Oh yes, the problem with thinking the singular target would be easier is that Godzilla also works alone. As does Galactus, Fin Fang Foom, Mr. Megapixel (the extra-dimensional Superman foe who magically causes chaos with his digital SLR camera), and a bevy of other high-powered, butt-kicking foes.

On the other hand, a group of bad guys in super hero comics are usually thugs. And since they're in a warehouse in New York, odds are good they're with the Mob, so they might actually offer better target practice. Nothing like beating up on henchmen to get the blood flowing.

Of course they could be Teamsters instead, in which case we'd be in for a whoopin', alien super suit or no.

So what'll it be, folks, safety (or death) in numbers, or a mano-a-mano ... well, technically a duo mano-a-singular-mono ... when did we start talking about mono? I didn't kiss anyone, did you?! Look, just make a choice already, and tell us why in the comments!

[polldaddy poll="6331981"]

(All text is ©2012 by Matt Youngmark and Chooseomatic Books from the excellent "Thrusts of Justice", which you should totally go buy your own copy of since we're only scratching the surface of the hilarity enshrined in these pages).

I think you have underestimated his snoopiness

(From "Target Comics" volume 2, number 3.)

Hulkenstein

Completing our review of the Worst Avenger Designs in honor of the film, we turn at last to the Hulk. Since his entire outfit consistes of miraculously non-bursting purple pants, doing a true fashion review presents a major challenge. So instead, I'm going to pick what I consider the worst overall character design in his history.

That turns out to be, surprisingly (for me, anyway), his very first incarnation as presented by Jack Kirby, the infamous Gray Hulk:

I'm not sure why both Iron Man and the Hulk were originally gray. Maybe Stan and Jack went through a color-blind phase there for a while? Regardless, besides the obvious non-green color scheme, the body design here is way on the Frankenstein side of the scale. Subtlety was never this creative team's strong suit, mind you, but I think this take goes way too far in beating the viewer over the head with the analogy.

This Hulk sports the body of a fairly typical person, albeit a somewhat muscular one. Not yet present is the gigantic scale, the massively broad chest, even the squared-off, ragged hair. This is just a beefy gray dude. Adding to the ordinariness is a decidedly Jekyll and Hyde aspect with the clear speech and the selfishness. This concept is not the unconstrained rage elemental the Hulk would very rapidly become.

I'm glad that transformation happened, as this is definitely one case where the original vision was inferior to what would follow. Thus, I'll take this as my example of the Worst Hulk Design.

Plus, Original Gray Hulk wasn't even as scary as this version of a more recent Hulk:

'Nuff said.

Out of Context Theater

(From "Target Comics" volume 2, number 3, 1941.)

Spider-Man vs. Nightwing

It's time for a good old-fashioned Marvel-vs-DC showdown, folks!

Both are bouncy, martial-artist types, more used to shadows and skullduggery than outright bad-assitude. Spider-Man would win in feats of strength, because come on, what's Dick Grayson got, the proportional strength of a robin? Please.

Nightwing has the edge in actual martial arts training, though. You don't study under the GD Batman for that many years without getting pretty darn good.

Both can invent clever gadgets to help in the fight, and both have plenty of real-world experience mixing it up hand-to-hand.

Spidey has the enormous advantage of his Spider-Sense, though if it happens in a karaoke bar, you'd have to think Nightwing's Robin's Song would come in handy. If only that existed, right?

At the end of the day, though, I have to go with costume design, and on that score, Nightwing wins. I always dug the cool black and dark blue motif. Had he kept the doofy ponytail, I'd dock points, but he seems to have come to his follicle senses in time and gone clean.

But that's just me, who would you choose?

[polldaddy poll="6326997"]

They don't write teasers like they used to any more

(From "Target Comics" volume 2, number 3, 1941.)

Character Contest 93 Results!

We had a huge response for Character Design Contest 93, which asked you to choose someone to redesign from the archive of Public Domain Comic Book Characters. Do yourself a favor and go through the whole set of entries in the comments to see some really great designs.

I've chosen the top 15% of all the submissions for you to enjoy that I thought had something extra special about them. So without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, I present your Finalists!

Continue reading

Caption Contest 124

Your challenge this week is to come up with the best replacement dialog for this comics panel (which comes to us courtesy of the always awesome Glenn3's "Say What?" PhotoBucket site):

The best entry (as judged by yours truly) wins the author's choice of either any item they like or any portrait to be included in HeroMachine 3′s final release, or a custom black and white “Sketch of the Day” style illustration (you pick the subject, I draw it however I like).

All entries must be left as a comment (or comments) to this post. Keep ‘em clean (appropriate for a late-night broadcast TV show), but most importantly, keep ‘em funny!

No limit to entries, but please, self-edit and only put up ones you genuinely think are good!

Never bring a grenade to a submarine fight

(From "Target Comics" volume 2, number 3, 1941.)

Pop Quiz 14 Winner

Thanks to all who entered our Jewelry Pop Quiz! Here they all are in one easy to browse place:

Obviously there are some great entries here, though some I don't really think of as "jewelry". Since I can pick only a single winner, however, I am going with one that I thought best combined creativity, beauty, and elegance. Namely, Vampyrist!

Well done! Thanks again to everyone who entered and congratulations to Vampyrist.