Greetings from the other new Curmudgeon.
This being my first topic, I thought it might be interesting to tie into something I touched on in the MODOK thread -- first comic book memories, or more specifically, the goofy characters we remember from our first comic books. I'm talking about the guys who, if you encountered them as a thinking, reasoning adult, you would say "Man, that is a lame character." Yet because you encountered them during your magical youth, somehow, they become special.
After all, you always remember your first.
I came late to the comic collecting game. I had read them for years, and had a few comics of my own (I remember a coverless copy of Weird War Tales #100). I also had a cousin who collected comics, and I'd love to pore through his collection when we visited. But when I was about 11, I discovered a comic shop and started buying my own comics, and that's where it all changed for me.
One of the first comics I bought was Captain America #313. The cover features Death Adder executing MODOK. You won't find a mor egeneric supervillain than Death Adder, yet I fell in love with the guy. I thought he was the coolest character you could possibly come up with. And MODOK? Don't get me started on him! I love MODOK!
I also picked up an issue of Marvel Tales, which was reprinting the early Stan Lee/John Romita Spidey stories. This particular issue had Spider-Man taking on the Shocker. Now, ask 1,000 Spider-Man fans to name a classic Spider-Man villain, and 999 of them will give you the Green Goblin, Doc Octopus, the Vulture -- anybody but the Shocker. Meet Mr. 1,000. For me, the Shocker is Silver Age Spider-Man.
Not long after that, I bought an issue of Iron Man featuring the meance of the Ghost. "Who," you say? It's close to 20 years later, but I can still tell you that the Ghost was an anti-capitalist industrial saboteur who built himself a device that gave him the ability to walk through walls. And he killed the Spymaster. The rest of the world may have forgotten the Ghost, but I haven't!
So there you have it. Death Adder. MODOK. The Shocker. The Ghost. The dregs of the Marvel Universe, but they rank among some of my favorite characters of all time.
One more comic book memory before I throw the floor open for everyone else to talk about the lame characters they love from their own youths. At the same time I was discovering Captain America and Iron Man, I also gave Thor a try. I thought that title was pretty lame. The issue I bought? The one where Skurge the Executioner makes his last stand on the Bridge of Gjallerbru. I didn't buy another issue of Thor for a long time. Which just goes to show that youth is wasted on the young. Or kids are stupid. Or something.
Posted by Jason Fliegel at September 23, 2004 1:06 AM
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Man, I'm in a commenting frenzy this week.
Anyway, yes, Shocker rules. I always thought the padded costume was cool. And being a long time Iron Man fanatic, I too remember the Ghost.
For me, it's the Galactic Golem. Apparently I'm not alone in that.
Make that three-for-three on Iron Man fanatics: I, too, fondly recall the Ghost. Wasn't that during the stretch where Tony combined the magic of jeri curl with the majesty of the mullet? *shudder*
I'm drawing a blank on dorky villains though. Part of it is that I have a mental block that prevents me from acknowledging that anything I liked as a child was, in fact, stupid.
I thought the Resource Raiders in Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes were a credible threat, whereas now even I have to admit they're kind of goofy.
Um...I thought Mordru's winged fez with the eyeball glued to the front was cool. Does that count?
The Ghost, as draw by M.D. Bright, IIRC. And Jason? If you'd started Cap one issue earlier, you could have seen my get a No-Prize. :)
My only memory of the Galactic Golem was actually a fake. Superman had been tasked with raising an alien baby to adulthood in a day, and along the way he faked his own death so that the kid would be exposed to Kara's rage and sorrow as part of his development. (He hid a Parasite costume inside the fake Galactic Golem, and when the Golem punched him he zoomed inside it at super-speed, put on the costume and emerged as the Parasite, 'absorbing' the Golem as dessert.)
Finally, I can just see Death Adder thinking, "How in the seven hells am I going to get my teeth around THAT neck? Even MY jaw doesn't open that far!"
I'm right with ya on all three of these Jason:
1. I love the whole Serpent Society--I think Gruenwald did an amazing job putting scales on some pretty skeletal/formulaic characters...
2. the Shocker--he got up to some crazy antics in the Silver Age, and he's the only villain whose costume looks cozier than pyjamas-with-feet, but I'll always remember him as the first guy Spidey had to fight after he dropped his "dead" clone in that smokestack! Forget about "writing your name in lights"-- Shockie wrote his name in blackout (palying havoc with the Con Ed grid and ruining a fun party at JJJ's!)... The aerial panel in which this is revealed (by the incomparable Ross Andru) is burned on my brain for all time!
3. The Ghost! Another classic! I really like that whole Michelinie/Guice/Layton era of Iron Man (interesting, 'cause I hate Micheline's Amazing Spider-Man run...) It takes a very special writer to do justice to Peter Parker's life, I think... Anyway, as I recall, the Ghost teamed up with the Blizzard and the Eel at one point, which brings me to:
These badass motherfuckers (that's the cover of X-Men #22, for those of you who aren't inclined to click on links!) Gangway indeed! Plantman, the Eel, the Porcupine, the Unicorn, the Scarecrow... None of these guys even measure up to the Home Alone doofuses in terms of sheer villainy. And how 'bout Count Nefaria, who sounds like he's a vampire, but is really just an old-time melodrama villain... I love every last one of these guys!
Dave
Well this would seem a lot more novel if Matt hadn't dutched it in his ESU thread. _Stegron_ always epitomized the loopy Spidey Rogue's Gallery to me, especially when they paired him with the Lizard just to prove that, y'know, they HAD been observed at the same place at the same time.
Deeper into my subconscious lie the _Wraith_ who provided a pretty creepy exploration of mind control, plus model planes. Also _Gargoyle_ who if I'm not misremembering turned gobs of SHIELD agents and Falcon TO STONE. Granetized 'em, with Kirby texture and everything, which seemed pretty drastic to a pre-teen!
On the other side of the house, it never occured to me that _Sports Master_ was anything but credible as a Green Lantern villain. Wrightson's one-off alien in the original Swamp Thing was my first comic book ET that seemed more than human with different color/digit count. (Sure, we've all seen Totlbein now, but back then...) Behind them all Solomon Grundy continues to move chunks of my psyche like pieces on a chessboard.
And perhaps most credit-beyond-merit was a Wonder Woman villain called Armageddon, because he wore a swaztika and HE WANTED TO DESTROY THE WORLD! Not run it, you understand, DESTROY IT while smirking behind his swaztika-hood. Woah, dude, that is taking villainry to a whole new level! To this day, I have no idea why this made such an impression, and neither does my therapist.
I thought of another early comic book love of mine -- and I make this admission knowing full well that you will all scorn me and my status as a Curmudgeon may well be revoked.
I really liked the New Universe.
There. I said it. I admit that I bought all the New Universe books (even Kickers, Inc.) and really enjoyed them (even Kickers, Inc.). And while I sold those books long ago, to this day, every time I come across a New Universe back issue in a quarter bin, I have to buy it, read it, and relive those halcyon days of the mid-90s when we thrilled to the adventures of Starbrand and Nightmask.
Make of me what you will.
Finally, I can just see Death Adder thinking, "How in the seven hells am I going to get my teeth around THAT neck? Even MY jaw doesn't open that far!"
I think you're thinking of Cottonmouth, whose power was that he could open his jaw really far and bite big things real hard. Death Adder was mute and had a tail and a green full-face mask with no mouth showing. I forget what he could do.
Re: New Universe.
Half good. Half bad. Exactly 50/50.
DP7, Justice, Starbrand, PsiForce being the former.
Kickers, Nightmask, Spitfire, Merc being the latter.
I would actually consider DP7 to be Mark Gruenwald's best work.
Hate to disagree with "the other newest Curmudgeon," but Death Adder, the Ghost, MODOK, and the Shocker are nowhere near being "the dregs of the Marvel Universe."
Dregs, you want? Dregs, you shall get.
Howzabout the first Dr. Strange, from Tales of Suspense #41 -- Iron Man's third appearance, and only his second appearance as "The Golden Avenger"?
Or the possibly related Mutt 'n' Jeff duo the Red Barbarian (ToS #42) and the original "Marvel Age" Executioner (Journey Into Mystery #84; he apparently gets kacked by his own men at the end of this issue)?
When you come right down to it, the Chameleon -- Spider-Man's first "super-foe" -- has always been pretty lame-o, apparently able to come up with a moderately interesting scheme only every 20 years or so (when he served the Leader in the Hulk series in Tales to Astonish #62-3, and when he impersonated J. Jonah Jameson for several issues of Spidey's three concurrent series, mostly in Web of Spider-Man); praise all the comic gods there be, then, that his even lamer wannabe cousin, the Actor, got liquidated by orders of the Red Barbarian, in Tales of Suspense #42, before he could tell the Red Barbarian Iron Man's true identity. (Yes, True Believers! The Actor was the very first person in original continuity to learn that Tony Stark was also ol' Shellhead. He set a rather unhappy precedent for people -- particularly villains -- learning this little secret; anyone remember what happened to Midas [arguably the lamest Iron Man villain to appear in more than one issue since the Tales of Suspense days...] shortly after Tony whipped off his helmet and vowed that he would kill him for all he'd done to him, in Iron Man Vol. 1, #107? Incidentally, check out the Actor's impersonation of Khrushchev on p. 6; he looks a heck of lot more like the Yellow Kid than La Homme Nikita....)
I think it's safe to say that the original Ant-Man/Giant-Man (Henry Pym) was cursed with a singularly inept rogue's gallery, some of which Steve Englehart revived for his "Tales to Astonish" story arc in West Coast Avengers (Comrade X, El Toro, the Voice of Doom [who proved surprisingly ept, in the final analysis; so much so that the Red Skull recruited him for his Skeleton Crew in the last half of Mark Greunwald's run on Captain America], the Scarlet Beetle, the Beasts of Berlin). Even setting aside such marginal menaces as Egghead, Porcupine, the Black Knight (Marvel's second Black Knight; uncle to the third, a superhero, Avenger, and sometimes buddy of the more familiar, Sorcerer Supreme Doctor Strange), and the Human Top (who later renamed himself the Whirlwind), either due to their participation in important events or for purely sentimental reasons, ol' Hank's opponents in his Tales to Astonish series (Vol. 1) seemed to mostly inspire either chuckles or yawns: the Protector; the Hijacker (revived in Marvel Two-In-One #24, where he took on the Thing and Black Goliath, believe it or nuts); Kulla, one of Marvel's many other-dimensional tyrants (at least Xemnu, the Tyrant of the Fifth Dimension from Strange Tales Vol. 1, #103, was revived by Roy Thomas in Fantastic Four Vol. 1, #158-59, wherein he actually defeated, for a time, both the Inhumans and the FF); Professor Elias Weems, The Mad Master of Time; a giant alien robot Cyclops; Trago, the Man With the Magic Trumpet; the Living Eraser (revived in Marvel Two-In-One #15, where he fought the Thing and Morbius, the Living Vampire); the Magician (believe it or not, Tom DeFalco's Baron Brimstone, who started life as a Machine Man villain, was an improvement on this Mandrake look-alike; fittingly, just as the Wasp polished off the Magician all by her lonesome in Tales to Astonish #58, she and the Paladin whomped Baron Brimstone in an issue of the Avengers some 20 years later); the alien Colossus; Second-Story Sammy, the cat burglar who stole one of Hank's costumes that allows him to change sizes by cybernetic command; the Wrecker, no relation to the magic crowbar-wielding Thor villain or Karl Kort from FF Vol. 1, #12, who precipitated the Fantastic Four's first clash with the Incredible Hulk; and failed Mandarin protégée Madam Macabre, no relation to the Machine Man villainess Madame Menace. Oh yeah, but Hammerin' Hank did get to fight Attuma in TtA #64, before Attuma tackled Hank, Jan and "Cap's Kooky Quartet" in Avengers Vol. 1, #27-7; I suspect that this does more to make the case for Attuma's second-stringer status than it argues Hank's "A" league status. Poor Hank! No wonder he had a nervous breakdown or three....
Incidentally, anyone remember that Marvel's villainous Scarecrow (as opposed to its nominally heroic Scarecrow from Dead of Night #11, Marvel Spotlight #26, and Marvel Two-In-One #18; hey! why the Sam Hill did Bashful Benjy get stuck with all the bush-leaguers??) made his bow as an Iron Man villain, in Tales of Suspense #51? ("Man of Straw versus Man of Iron! WHO shall WIN??")
That said, I have to admit that I actually like an amazing number of Marvel's grade "Z" characters. If I had to pick just one nominally powerful but undeniably goofy villain as my all-time fave, though, it would have to be -- Xemu, the Living Titan. I think I have all of his appearances (including a reprint of his first, horror comic appearance); and I have to say that I got a chuckle out the dénouement of Byrne's first Xemu arc in Sensational She-Hulk #7 -- kind of an homage to the Bugs Bunny & Daffy Duck cartoon where they bump into an even goofier-looking Abominable Snowman.
Oops, my bad. Been a decade or so. Death Adder had those funky wrist-fangs IIRC. But I'm pretty sure Cottonmouth came the closest in the comic itself to doing in MODOK. ISTR several panels of Cottonmouth sloooooowly unhinging his jaw to the point where he could, um, lacerate MODOK's cheek or something.
Pretty good research. Except for two things: 1) XEMNU was the Living Titan who looked like the Warner Brothers Yeti with a fondness for pets named George. 2) XEMU was the blue-skinned tyrant from the Fifth Dimension, who nearly defeated both the FF and the Inhumans.