With Lame Powers Comes Little Plausability

Marvel Studios' Thor comes out Friday. He's the latest in a proud tradition of admirable superheroes to reach the mainstream. As an avid comic book reader in my youth, however, I was exposed to some of the very worst heroes and villains. Be they racist, misogynist(which heroines aren't?), or just plain stupid, some stick out as obvious phone ins from the Marvel staff of the 80's and 90's. Most have been covered at length in comic book blogs, so I'll just profile some oddballs that always stuck out to me.

First off is Foolkiller. He's actually quite compelling. A vigilante who judges people and exterminates them at his whim. Not really lame, somewhat gruesome(in his portrayal of actual human reasoning behind execution), I fell in love with the early 90's mini series reboot, not the original SpiderMan villain. He has a pretty dumb outfit though.

Along those lines is Terror Inc. He was a demon mercenary from hell with a sick sense of humor. Some of the darkest stuff I was exposed to as a young lad. I didn't start listening to Black Sabbath and actually conjuring Satan until I was 20. Pretty obscure.

The Dazzler was Marvel's disco themed sexbomb of the 70's. Her lame power converted sound or music into Village People death rays. She was pretty scantily clad for the time, and fought crime in roller skates.

How about villains? There's MODOK, the giant bobble head of scientific origin who never really seemed all that threatening, just humpty dumpty-ish. There was Spot, Spider Man's early 80's foe who could,um...do stuff with spots? I didn't get it. There was also the Blob. I believe he was an X-Men adversary. He was exceptionally obese before Rally's even existed in half of the country.

Want racism(or at least cliched stereotypes)? There was Brother Voodoo, the brother who practiced voodoo. Lastly, there was the Battling Bantam. He was of Hispanic descent, dressed like a rooster and boxed. Pretty much every nationality and race had their own lame representative in the Marvel universe. Far too many to get into.

 

My favorite asshole comic book(which I still read from time to time) is Fred Hembeck destroys the Marvel universe. In it, hapless artist Fred must figure out a way to kill off every major character in humorous ways. It really is pretty funny and mildly edgy.

 If you do go see Thor this summer, look for Stan Lee in the movie. This credit hogging huckster has to appear in every film no matter what. Sorry, I used to like the guy, but his Tweets are super lame and he's responsible for those three movie abominations we know as Daredevil, Hulk(one and two) and Spider man(one, two and three). Excelsior, true believers of crap!