Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Casefile of the Clockwork Fuckup Part 2: More like Red Tor-NERD-O, am I right?

As part of the 30 Days project, I’ll be reviving Gone&Forgotten for a short article every day throughout the month. Part 1 of the Red Tornado article is here, and Part 2 begins ....NOW 


I bet half those letters were written in blood and other bodily fluids.

Red Tornado’s first appearance ended with an in-caption call for fans to write in if they wanted to see more. One has to assume that the easy availability of crayons and toilet paper in our nation’s many fine asylums accounts for the sufficient response, because here comes that ol’ fan favorite, back again for more!

He's gonna end up in one of those specialty videos.
Whatever the scenario that allowed for it, Red Tornado did indeed return to the pages of Justice League, for instance one time he showed up to alert them of terrible danger and they made him stand in a dark corner for two months until they were ready to deal with his bullshit. I kid you not, this is legitimately what happened.

It takes another couple of years and some more fumbling, pointless, plot-complicating appearances by Red Tornado as a team-member of/unreasonable burden upon the Justice Society – during one of which he gets the Spectre killed, which is amazing, he’s such a fuckup he can get a ghost snuffed!  - before they finally realize what he’s best for: Blowing up!  The heroes of two worlds “neglect to notice” Tornado stealing a giant bomb which he uses to blow up a cosmic maniac, destroying himself in the process. Hooray that bomb, our hero!


Still, Tornado comes back again and again, moping about the place. Eventually, like former Justice Society teammate Black Canary, he moves to Earth-1 permanently, which the JLA uses as an opportunity to make him stay on the satellite most of the time so he can’t fuck anything up too bad. Again, I'm not kidding about that, this is legit a thing that happened.

YAY!
Canary also stitches up a new costume for Red Tornado, replacing his “Swirling turgid member” get-up with one that looks like a bloodstain being attacked by road signs.  The whole thing is an eyesore, covered with crisscrossing lines and arrows as if recalling an “I’m With Stupid” t-shirt where the pointer is always indicating Red Tornado’s dumb face. Clothes make the man, you know?

In the midst of all of this, Red Tornado also cribs liberally from Marvel's The Vision's "Do Androids Cry Of Electronic Sheep" and manages to pick up for himself not only a passable human disguise - a hairless rubber mask, gloves and a trenchcoat, so he basically looked like Vin Diesel continually preparing to expose himself in public - but a girlfriend and an adopted daughter. Those poor girls, I bet they're complete emotional shambles at this point.

To be continued!

He's just now realizing what he looks like.

No comments:

Post a Comment