THE ELEMENTALS SEX SPECIALS

This is the only cover I could guarantee was safe for work.

It’ll be Valentine’s Day later this week, so what better opportunity will there be to examine the most romantic comic book known to the medium – The Elementals Sex Special, one of the few places you’ll ever see a were-dolphin fuck a green version of Sigourney Weaver’s character from Working Girl.

This is the best panel
in the whole shmear.

The Elementals is already an unusual artifact of the comics scene. A product of the mid-Eighties post-black-and-white boom and helmed by the highly opinionated Bill Willingham, the book bridged that gap between genuine independent comics and traditional superhero work. The method to this madness was the usual stuff – gore, sex, “realistic” powers, sex, real-world consequences, a rape storyline or two, sex, government bad guys, scripture-quoting bad guys, and in lieu of overdoing the sex, tits.

The eventually sprawling superhero saga apparently got tired of all the teasing, which is why there was ultimately released a four issue all sex series of specials featuring the book’s four core characters and a couple tagalongs in assorted clinches. “Haven’t you ever wondered about the sex life of your local superhero?” asked the introductory text piece inside the front cover. “How long might a love session last? A week, a month, perhaps even a millennium? Wouldn’t you like to know what sexually motivates a man (or woman) of steel? How does a caped crusader satiate an uncaped sexual appetite?”

Those aren’t real questions, here’s some real questions: The fuck is an “uncaped sexual appetite”? And what kind of weirdo calls it a ”love session?”

The sex in the Elementals sex specials failed to sizzle, being as it was definitely of the softcore variety and densely written – and also possibly because some of the relationship stuff was pretty weird? I write those words acknowledging that one of the two core threads which ran through the books was the team’s water-based hero Fathom fucking a dolphin.

Finally, a shirt nice enough to wear
when you marry your pillow wife!

It wasn’t the dolphin-fucking that was so strange, though, it was the endless emotional jockeying and constant conversation about feelings and boundaries. This is stuff you might welcome in an erotic work, but it was endless, and it also seemed to follow a pretty consistent theme – women were methodically patient and satisfied themselves sexually by providing emotional succor to screwed-up men.

Almost every story featured pretty much the same variation on this theme – the man makes some sort of gross, inappropriate physical gesture. The woman rebukes him but – rather than reacting to what was plainly some form of sexual assault - then informs him that she’ll now be educating him in the proper way to make love to a woman. Then she services him knowingly and all his problems are solved. It’s “mom as fuck fantasy,” and it’s messed up.

Never moreso, one supposes, than with the team’s “Monolith,” a character eternally trapped in the body of a teenager who’s seduced by a double agent. But don’t worry, she falls in love with him halfway through the seduction, which marks the exact moment he stops being a fumbling virgin and becomes an expert lothario. In a later story arc, he loses his human emotion but she’s nonetheless personally fulfilled because he still needs her around to rub his dick now and again. I dunno man, it didn’t make me feel good for anyone involved.

Anyway, here’s a complete rundown of the actual fucking in the book: Fathom fucks a dolphin, Vortex fucks a sexy septuagenarian, Monolith fucks his mom’s hot friend, Morningstar fucks an inflatable wizard, Vortex fucks a mindless sex slave, Ratman fucks a zipatone sheet, and a walrus in a yarmulke fucks a porcupine. I think that about covers it.

They'll get their heimlich maneuver perfected one of these days!

The editor of the book also included a questionnaire for the readers and a plea for letterhacks to send in their sexual fantasies involving the Elementals (Also you could order a t-shirt depicting Fathom fucking a dolphin. Get in, kids, we’re going to the Class Store!). A few responses came in, but none came so close to showing a touch of dignity as did this one, before it veered into a cliff at the last second.

Oh, so close Scott, so close...