Last year, I had the pleasure of having my first book, The League of Regrettable Superheroes, published by the fine folks over at Quirk Books in Philadelphia, PA. Although the cat has been out of the bag for a little while, I'm nonetheless proud to announce that the logical sequel -- The Legion of Regrettable Super-Villains -- is slated to debut on March 28th! You can now pre-order the book over on Amazon, Barnes&Noble, and probably on the weird superhero book black market. It does thriving business!
To whet your appetite for the new book, every Friday leading up to the release date, I'll be providing brief snapshots of just some of the 108 (!) historically effed-up bad guys covered in the book (and that's not even counting the sidebars).
America doesn't really need a bunch of foreign finks effing up its natural beauty and mighty cities -- we have a bunch of homegrown nuisances more than capable of doing that on their own, thank you very much. Hell, we vote them in, for the most part. Still, this is the land of opportunity, and here are some of the pernicious expatriates who are taking advantage of the great melting pot ...
Created by: Gabriel Levy and Jim Craig
Debuted in: The Scorpion #3 (Atlas Comics, July 1975)
If America could stand to have fewer of anything, is these Ratzi assholes. Yet they keep coming back -- they're like roaches. In fact, the Golden Fuhrer in particular has a lot in common with roaches, inasmuch as he makes his hidden headquarters in the sub-basement of the World Trade Center, right next to an atomic sewer system.
I can't make this up. I mean, I could make this up, but I have no idea how it would benefit me. Anyway, second-gen superhero The Scorpion manages to flush the Fuhrer along with a few thousand tons of radioactive sewage, which is what I might call "a good start."
Created by: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Debuted in: Tales of Suspense #75 (Marvel Comics, March 1966)
ONH ONH ONH. I can't think of a super-villain more beloved that Georges Batroc, the French savate expert who's been the occasional thorn in the side of Captain America. Likewise, like hell I have to describe him to you. If you don't know who Batroc is, you haven't lived. You may as well have me describe MODOK.
The one thing I can tell you about Batroc is that I just figured out, only last year, that his name is an abbreviation of "Batrachian," which is a word related to frog-type stuff, so he's a French guy who jumps and his name is Frog. That's some superb cultural insult there, Stan Lee, take a day off.
Debuted in: Blue Ribbon Comics #13 (MLJ Publications, June
1941)
I fully support Nazi punching in all of its varieties, but I have to give superheroic crimefighter Mr.Justice some real props for taking it to the most extreme possible conclusion. In Justice's reality, evidently, Adolf Hitler isn't just Fuehrer of Deustchland and leader of the Nazi movement and all that, he's also the living embodiment of the Devil on Earth! I'm still okay with this.
Justice ends up battling the Dictator through a number of disguises and factotums, creating a consistent career of Nazi-punching which is going to make him a real popular figure with the kids these days.
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1 comment:
Your mention of MODOK reminded that one of my favorite recurring themes from Leonard Pierce's old recaps of the Marvel Universe handbooks was his unabashed love for the big-faced Mental Organism. I was going to make a comment to that effect but Googled his name first so I didn't misspell it (I couldn't remember if "Pierce" started with a P or a W). First result was his current website which I hadn't seen before, which has a cubic buttload of content which I also hadn't seen before. So hooray for a new bookmark!
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