“What could be the harm in burning the beard off of this really strong homeless guy?”
That’s what Johnny Storm thought, more or less, in the example of #badcomic bookchoices made between the tiers of panels reproduced below.
It’s one of several contributions that I offered up in a comment on Saturday’s post at Tony Isabella’s Bloggy Thing — just as it says, the “bloggy thing” of Tony Isabella, writer of and about comic books (mostly).
When last I mentioned Tony here — to plug his 1,000 Comic Books You Must Read,
still available and a great gift for the comic-book lover in your life — he was just over a year away from ending the long-running Tony’s Online Tips at his World Famous Comics forum, a spinoff of his even-longer-running Comics Buyer’s Guide column. He’s since relaunched his nigh-daily stream of views ’n’ reviews on Blogger, which, Godzilla help me, I (among others) recommended to him despite all the hassle it’s given me because it remains pretty easy to use for most folks who are less of a control freak and Murphy’s Law magnet than yours truly.
Anyway, Tony introduced the Twitter hashtag #badcomicbookchoices last Thursday, generating dozens of suggestions in reply from industry pros and fans that can be found (newest to oldest) at that link. Many were pretty danged funny. I am still not yet on Twitter, but like I said I replied to Tony’s Saturday post that included mention of the hashtag.
Sample entry of Tony’s: “Maybe cutting through this alley with my wife and kid wasn’t such a good idea.”
You get the picture, at least if you’re a longtime comic-book reader.
The rest of my contributions follow, with some obvious targets missing because others had already riffed on them.
“I’m sure Lex won’t mind if I blow out the fire in his lab.”
“Hey, Cap, I bet we can disarm this rocket in time...”
“If you’re going to be my partner in crimefighting, Roy, you have to adopt a double identity. How about we call you Speedy?”
“And over here is the penthouse’s complimentary wet bar, Mr. Stark.”
“Yes, Alana, I’m really The Plutonian.”
“But I need a stage name. I know — Deadman!”
“Of course I could look through the peephole first. But what are the chances that it’s The Joker in bermuda shorts with a gun?”
Panels from “The Coming of The Sub-Mariner!” in Fantastic Four #4 © 1962 Marvel. Script:
Stan Lee. Pencils: Jack Kirby. Inks: Sol Brodsky. Colors: Stan Goldberg. Letters: Artie Simek.
Related: Long Day’s Journey into Mystery
• Finding It • Huston, We Have Amalgam
"We should definitely set up our training grounds here at the cursed springs in Jusenkyo." #badmangachoices
ReplyDeleteToo much fun!
ReplyDelete"I could just destroy this uncontrollable flaming android, but instead I'll bury him in a hopefully airtight container in a populated area."
"When you speak my name again, this block of concrete suspended above my head by a thin strand will fall and crush me because... um... I don't recall exactly why it's necessary, but, whatever, ancient wizard here."
"Detroit's a great place to set up an underpowered Justice League led by Aquaman."
"You, Lois, and Superboy-Prime should totally come live in this pocket dimension with me, Kal-L. Happily ever after — I promise."
"I'll just have a cup of coffee with Deathstroke and reminisce about Tara."
"First I crank-call Jean, then I shrink to microscopic size and leap through the phone lines into her ear canal — but just to scare her."
"Of course I could look through the peephole first. But what are the chances that it's The Joker in bermuda shorts with a gun?"
ReplyDeleteThat's quite possibly my favorite, ever.
Off the top of my head...
"Man, what happened to Jor-El? He used to be so smart; now he just sounds crazy."
"Next time I'm just going to let my haughty, aristocratic roommate blow himself up..."
"I know! I'll build a spy satellite to keep tabs on the metahuman population, but only for the good of the world. What could possibly go wrong?"
"Let's give a Green Lantern ring to a guy named Sinestro. With a name like that, he can't possible turn evil on us!"
"I know it sounds cruel, but in the grand scheme of things, I probably should have just let that kid get obliterated by the gamma bomb test..."
ReplyDeleteEl Qué: "We should definitely set up our training grounds here at the cursed springs in Jusenkyo." #badmangachoices
Thanks! I tried to come up with some non-superhero lines but nothing really worked. Perhaps it's just inherent in superhero sagas that they are born of and/or perpetuated by some kind of preventable tragedy.
Ranma's not considered a superhero, is (s)he?
Arben: "You, Lois, and Superboy-Prime should totally come live in this pocket dimension with me, Kal-L. Happily ever after — I promise."
ReplyDeleteGrr... The problem with your last few contributions — and it's not a problem with you — is that they're just bad writing moves in terms of aftermath, retcon, backstory, what-have-you.
Crisis on Infinite Earths ended fine — well, yeah, it actually had major continuity problems, but I mean in terms of what you're referencing it was lovely; Infinite Crisis (and in brief sequences The Kingdom before it) just couldn't let that necessary scab heal over.
Identity Crisis was an intriguing idea for a Watchmen or Brat Pack style roman à clef sort of thing, and nice for how it surprisingly brought back rather pre-Crisis camaraderie amongst the Justice Leaguers, but mostly an abomination as DCU canon.
That issue with Slade and Gar just made me mad, because Deathstroke's "nobility" does not outweigh his criminality and dirty-old-man use/abuse of Tara.
ReplyDeleteMe: "Of course I could look through the peephole first. But what are the chances that it's The Joker in bermuda shorts with a gun?"
Teebore: That's quite possibly my favorite, ever.
Ha! I was rather proud of it. And I even forgot to add "... I mean, this is only the police commissioner's apartment."
You had some nice ones, too; I think most or all covered territory already mined on Twitter — I know that Sinestro popped up at least once and the Hulk's origin came up a few times.
For some reason the link that I used shows nothing now, but not knowing much about Twitter I'm not sure why. I'd have expected a search on a hashtag to turn up everything even if the activity was out of date, but perhaps it's only keyed to recent activity. Even going to one of Tony's twits and clicking on the hashtag yields no results.