Friday, February 27, 2015

FORGOTTEN FOES : THE STICKER

Basically he's roughing it up with all kinds of weirdos.
Speedball already bears the ignominy of being the world's first superhero to be named after a toxic cocktail of powerful drugs (or, more likely, after the popular manufacturers of artists' ink and nibs, since I have a hard time picturing Steve Ditko partying with John Belushi), but one of his bizarre rogues gallery upped the ate by being named for the primary output of the Lisa Frank empire. No, not puffy glittered unicorns - that's next issue - but rather, THE STICKER!

For god's sake, man,
wash your hands.
Debuting in Speedball vol.1 No.2 (October 1988), the Sticker was a patent thief named Foxworth. Adding to his small, purloined arsenal of scientific goodies a concoction known as "magnetic glue mixture," Foxworth donned a suit of "Magno-Armor" which allowed him to both produce the sticky, viscous liquid in tremendous quantities and to pass for a giant-sized jizz-soaked oven mitt.

I'm sure Speedball wasn't the only teenager to ever struggle with a grotesque mass of sticky gunk stuck to his clothes, but at least none of our gym socks ever tried to murder us. Stumbling across the document-thieving murderer moments after he'd snuffed the super-stickum's legitimate inventor, Dr.Haven, Speedball becomes the gluey no-goodnik's intended second victim. This is also almost exactly what happened between Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray over the patent for the telephone.

During their battle, Speedball deftly twists the helmet in such a manner that the goopy substance begins to flow uncontrollably, which is exactly what they told us would happen in Health Class. With his helmet removed, Foxworth could no longer protect himself from the unrestrained flow of the magnetic glue mixture, and seemingly suffocated under its colloidal mass. Yup, fatally self-bukkaked (although he returns later as part of a Speedball Revenge Squad. I guess he just needed a few minutes to recover).

This is a lot of jizz jokes about on super-villain, but lest you think it's entirely arbitrary, I'll add that he was repeatedly drawn in such a way as to appear to have an enormous Play-Doh dick hanging off his crotch, so only so much of the blame can really rest with me.

And pants.



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