Sports Illustrated it ain’t …

With heartfelt thanks to Chris Sims for burning out my retinas with his retrospective of the Marvel Swimsuit Edition comics of the morally turgid Nineties, I present to you what is possibly the worst costume ever. Anywhere. In this, or any conceivable universe:

swimsuitnamor

Seashells on man-parts is wrong. Just wrong. Let's not even get into how staggeringly uncomfortable that thing must be to wear, with the ridges and the coral and the sharp bits ... man, talk about "shrinkage". ::shudder::

Here's how bad it is. It's so bad that just wearing it has turned Namor into a walking, noseless, undead mummy aqua-zombie. With incredibly viscous water oozing down his disturbingly ribbed musculature. It's either that, or the sight of his skimpy shell-Speedo got the local sperm whale a little too excited.

(Image and character ©1995, Marvel Comics, and the responsibility of Joe Quesada, who should be ashamed. Forever.)

Random Panel: In space, no one can hear you whine

mystery-men-3-decompression

(From "Mystery Men" number 3, no date given but it looks like 1940 or 1941.)

Character Contest 21: Randomawesity

Random is not just a by-word here at HeroMachine Global Headquarters, it's a way of life. To honor that commitment, your challenge this week is to design a character from the name given you by the "Ultimate Game Name Generator" . You can try multiple times for a good name, but you have to use one given by them.

I of course have no way to detect cheating so we will be operating under the confines of the Honor System. Cheaters will be beaten with a wet noodle til collapse. Of the cheater, not the noodle because come on, how long would that take?

So, on to our rules!

  • New characters only, not one you have laying around that you think will definitely win.
  • Character must be built to fit with the name generated by the "Ultimate Game Name Generator", and the name must be provided in the post.
  • All entries must be made as comments to this post, between now and next Tuesday, each comment containing a link to an image of the character (or multiple links to your multiple characters) hosted on a publicly accessible web site like ImageShack, the UGO Forums, PhotoBucket, or whatever.

That's it! No limit on the number of entries this week, so let 'em rip. It would also be fun to see in your post which settings were used to generate the name, although that's not a requirement.

Whoever has the best entry as judged by the capricious whim of Jeff Hebert will win either a portrait of their head or any item they choose, to be included in the final HeroMachine 3 program.

Good luck everyone!

Caption Contest 64 Winner

Thanks to everyone who entered "Caption" Contest 64. To review, this one was a bit different, you had to do what I do with the Daily Random Panels and come up with a funny headline for the panel in question:

greenmask-3-1940-getitup

The following Honorable Mentions did it particularly well:

  • Danny Beaty: How can I when you’re pointing a loaded gun at me!
  • Tim: Three little words to make a conversation awkward.
  • Hammerknight: You know the Economy is bad when heroes read for parts in porn movies.
  • the creator: why employers cancel casual fridays
  • Bael: I’ve heard of shotgun weddings, but this is getting ridiculous.
  • PhoenixTalion: Meanwhile, at the Corleone Sperm Bank…
  • Montana Player: Inner monolouges gone wrong.

Which leaves our winner, who I think not only nailed the entire concept of what the Headlines are supposed to be, and not only perfectly captured the essence of this incredibly random panel, but also made me laugh right out loud ...

TheNate: Study: 99 Percent of Superheroes Not Bullet-Proof

Well done, Nate and all the Honorable Mentions! He'll get to choose either a portrait of himself or any item he likes for inclusion in the final HeroMachine 3 program.

We'll have a normal Character Contest coming up in a bit. Thanks again to everyone who took the time to enter!

Random Panel: Great moments in bad prom dates

bulletman-10-1942-gas

(From "Bulletman" number 10, 1942.)

Poll Position: Taking a bullet for you

We all love Bulletman around here, so this week's poll position tackles the thorny issue of how best to expand the franchise head-on:

{democracy:108}

There's not a lot to discuss here, because Bullet-anything is made of pure awesome, so I'd be happy with any of them. But my favorite is still from the comments last week, with a Bulletgun shooting Bulletbullets. Perhaps he could load up the Bulletuncle and the various Bulletpets into the Bulletcar while doing a drive-by. Then I could die a happy man.

You can add your own Bulletrequests to the list, but please keep them clean.

Random Panel: Zoology fail

bulletman-10-1942-tigerdog

(From "Bulletman" number 10, 1942.)

Super pets

After the discovery of Bulletdog, aka Greatest Super Pet Ever, I started looking into what other super-hero comic book pets themed after their human companion have been handed down through the ages.

Continue reading

Random Panel: Why Princeton sucks

detective-482-1978

(From "Detective Comics" number 482, ©1978, DC Comics, Inc.)

Random Panel: All that wisdom and he still hasn’t figured out paper

marvelfamily-1-1945-stonewriting

(From "Marvel Family" number 1, 1945.)