Dumb Comic Book Characters

Comic Books have given us some of the most iconic imagery of the last hundred years. Everyone knows who Superman is for example. The current trend of super hero based movies also means that the spandex clad are very much in vogue. Not to mention that some of the most talented writers and artists working today do so in the medium of comics.

However sometimes the world of comics falls a little bit short and produces things which are just a little bit, well, stupid. Geek I may well be but even I can admit that quality control seems to work on a very inconsistent basis. So lets take a look at some of the more regrettable characters that have appeared over the years.

The Red Bee
Rick Raleigh, The Red Bee made his first appearance in DC comics Hit Comics issue 1 in 1940. He spent his time fighting the Nazi's with the help of his trained bees. Yes, that's right, he had pet bees which he had trained to aid him. His favorite bee was named Micheal and lived in his belt buckle. Due to lack of interest by issue #24 the Red Bee was killed at the hands of Baron Blitzkrieg but he did die saving his comrades. It all sounds like something I made up while drunk.

Matter Eater Lad
As you can see from the picture Matter eater lad has the ability to eat anything. This unique skill first showed up in Adventure Comics #303, published by DC in 1962. Jerry Siegel helped create Superman and for some reason this guy as well. I mean its all well and good being able to eat your way out of a prison but how long will that take? just ask Andy Dufresne. He did once save the universe by eat a doomsday machine which promptly made him go insane. Clearly a character invented by stoned people with the munchies.

Infectious Lass

Infectious Lass and her people are hosts to microbes which give the power to inflict disease on people at will. Now this could actually be pretty useful, give the bad guy diarrhea and they won't do much crime. Alas she was unable to control her powers and infected anyone close by so wasn't much use to any one. Since her first appearance in Superboy #201 she has finally learned to control her powers but you have to think I dose of antibiotics wouldn't go amiss.

Arm Fall Off Boy

Yes that is his actual name and yes that is what he does. With the power to rip off his own arm and use it as a club Arm Fall Off Boy is one of the most bizarre creations you could come across. Why not just, I don't know, carry a club? That's easier than ripping your own arm off. First appeared in Secret Orgins Vol 2 #46 in Dec 1989.

The Tumbler

On the face of it perhaps it might not seem so bad to have a villain with great acrobatic skills and agility, I'm sure such things come in very handy. But you would have to be very dumb to take on Captain America if all you could do were some forward roles. Lets not forget that the Captain is an enhanced super soldier who is as perfect a physical specimen as can be. An expert in martial arts, a veteran of WW2, member of the Avengers and, oh yeah blessed with great agility. Its like having a hammer fight a grape. Tumbler made a handful of appearances and then was killed.

The Trickster
Even by comic book standards that's a stupid costume and for a guy who is supposed to be really smart why is he using a child's trike as a get away vehicle? Especially since he is trying to escape from The Flash, who by the way has clearly forgotten he is the fastest man on earth and could easily catch that loon. As implied by the name The Trickster is a con man and he first turned up in 1960 in Flash #113.

Asbestos Man
Professor Orson Kasloff was an enemy of The Human Torch and wore a suit and shield made from super asbestos. On the face of it he's the perfect villain for this comic, how can a hero with fire hurt a man covered in flame prof material? Well I guess he can just wait twenty years until Asbestos Man dies of a horrible cancer. First appearance was in Marvel Strange Tales #111 August 1963.

Paper Man
I know that Wonder Woman doesn't get the respect she deserves but this is just silly. Paper Man is actually a kind of weird stalker who steals gifts to give to Diana Prince. He was once a normal man but fell into a vat of magical military paper and then turned into whatever the hell he is now. Its sad that Wonder Woman is left dealing with a villain with the skill to turn into a paper airplane. Started his career in Wonder Woman #165 in October 1966

Squirrel Girl
I like squirrels and I think if I knew a girl who could control them I'd find that very cute and would try to date her. But I wouldn't expect her to use this power and her squirrel like abilities to fight super villains. So fair play to her for doing so and she has actually defeated Dr Doom when aged 14. She she can actually point out that she can handle herself and be useful. But she makes this list as the idea of a girl with a tail who can control squirrels is just plan dumb. I mean what next, a guy pretending to be a bat?

The Fiddler
So this is a comic full of teenagers and you have an old guy called The Fiddler making them do things they don't want to? I'll leave it at that I think.

Album of the Week - Kitchen Buffalo

Home on the Range

A collection of country and western songs brought together on one record to help promote the wholesale distribution of scouring pads.

That's what this record is all about. Kitchen Buffalo was a range of scouring pads, some heavy duty some filled with soap such is the exciting world of cleaning products. Wilkinson Sword were the manufactures but alas in the brief amount of time I was researching this I could find no information on the product or indeed the record. Like a broken pot from a lost tribe its secrets will forever remain hidden. We can only wonder why buffalo and cleaning pads are so entwined with each other.

Now the cover is not much to look at and not as interesting as former records of the week but its the wonders found on the inside of the gate fold cover that draws one in. We learn that the kitchen scourer market is worth $19m a year and that Wilkinson Sword has 10% share of this market. Surely you want in on some of that sweet action? come on buy some scouring pads to sell in your store.

All the music on here comes from well know country and western singers. Its mostly stuff like Conway Twitty, Pasty Cline and the Bellamy Brothers. The one real high point is Johnny Cash singing Ghost Riders in the Sky.

When I used to sell fencing I once had a a company send me a calender which featured naked ladies standing next to sheds. Corporate gifts can be odd.

News of the World

The News of the World is no more, founded in 1843 it has disappeared for ever amidst scandals and shocking revelations the like of which it would normally have been happy to make headline news.

168 years of journalistic excellence disappears and the grand traditons and values of a British institution vanish. OK, so perhaps most of the words in that last sentence have no place being part of piece about the NOTW. It used to be quite popular in my house when I was growing up. Even back then it was quite racy, full of topless women and tales of orgies and brothels. All great stuff for a teenage boy in the time before the Internet but not exactly Pulitzer standards. But it has always been one of the top selling newspapers and very popular, no doubt helped by the aforementioned scantily clad ladies. The football coverage was pretty good to be fair.

But all that was cruelly taken away from us thanks to the phone tapping scandal. Which has been well documented so I won't waste my time going into the the details here. Now of course tapping someones phone is illegal, immoral and, well, just plain bad journalism. If that's what the paper was doing then good riddance, there is no place for it. Although I would say that the people who read the paper also must take some of the blame.

It was actually 2006 when news first broke of phone tapping when members of the Royal household were victims. Someone went to prison over it and it looked like there might of been a great deal more people being tapped. But the police uncovered nothing else, then of course the guy in charge of the investigation got a job working for News International (owners of the NOTW).

The paper didn't shut down then, no one really cared and it was still being read. Why? because it was all jus celbraty gosip and that, it would seem is fair game. We all love a bit of gossip and are happy to here a juicy titbit. Even if you think you don't, well you do. I don't care about who famous people are sleeping with but I do want to know which players my football team are going to sign or what certain bands are up to. Its all gossip, we all love it.

Perhaps the public did not approve of the methods but the results were worth it and besides if peopel put themselves in the public eye thats their own fault, they are our property. Embolding by all this the NOTW ran with the conept and in doing so crossed over lines that very few people would tolerate. What did for them was hacking the phones of a murdered child and of dead soldiers. Now it appears that those killed in 9/11 can be added to the list.

Cleary that went to far but the warring signs had been there for at least five years. We all knew what they were doing yet peopel still bought the paper. If you read the NOTW then you are complicet in what happened, you wanted it to happen and you choose to ingnore it untill it got to bad.

What baffles me is why they bothered tapping the phones of those people who died? It doesn't seem to me to be much of a story to unearth or extra info to be glinned even if one could look past the lack of morals in doing so.

This incdence does also serve to highlight just how bad jorunalism has become. I mean, come on they hired a private detective, couldn't even do it all themselves. I do have a lot of sympathy for journo's working today, there is so much crap that goes with their job that it has lost any of the grandur it once had. There is far to much news need for the 24 hour non stop media monster and most articels these days are just press release's that handed to the paper from a PR company. Of course there are still good writers out there with intresting things to say but they tend to more columists than reporters. And these days it seems to many sources of news have an agenda.

Which is perhaps the most worry thing about about all this. You have a company controlled by Rupert Murdoch who are setting their own agenda and allowing a rich man to have a proaganda machine. In order to further his business and gain my control he fiances the Converseritve party and is a key factor in them getting into government. It wasn't just the money he gave them it was making the newspapers he controls support the Tories too. So now this rich man has the government in his pocket and has more scope to build his business empire and damage his rivals, such as the BBC. They can even go so far as to bribe the police.

It is, to be polite, fucked up. Hopefully lessons have been learned for all this and we can try to limit the control that a greedy, morally bankrupt prick like Rupert Murdoch can have. Ulitimatly we should not buy papers made by liars that are full of gossipy crap.

Tracey Emin - Love is What you Want

I've long been an admirer of Tracey Emin as a persona and an entity but have had little interaction with or understanding of her art. Certainly I'm not one of the types who dismiss it all out of hand as rubbish simply because its not a landscape painting. Such a method of thinking misses the point of modern art, which to my mind is much more about what you can't see rather than the mundane objects you can see. Art like this is a provocation of ideas rather than a mirrored depiction of the world. So I ventured into the Hayward Gallery to see if the art could match up to the artist.

Upon entering the exhibit you are struck in the face by the huge Knowing My Enemy, a rickety and dilapidated wooden pier with a shed on the end of it. If I recall correctly it was inspired by correspondence with her father with whom relations where difficult. I found that it spoke very strongly about the nature of our various types relationships, how they can go from strength to weakness. What where once solid and dependable become weak and broken as people come and go during our lifetime.

For me the shed at the end was showing us a warm cozy place were people can meet but with the pier leading to it in such a state of disrepair its imposable to get to. It will forever more remain inaccessible and to be viewed from a distance with regret and longing for what has passed. It also makes one think of how the pier might once of been, strong, standing proud against the world. But eventually over time its powers of resistance fade and it falls into disrepair a shattered remnant of what it once was.



As a single piece this was the only one to really stand out and have something to say. There were the quilts and some sketches that show despite what some might think she does have talent for making "proper" art. The neon signs were fun but the film with the dog asking her for sex seemed odd. There was another room with a pile of wood in the middle and a few other things that I walked around and didn't understand very much. The rest of the exhibit was full of personal objects, letters and photos and it was here that the over riding theme came back on track and took hold.

Various cases filled the last room and contained all kinds of items personal to Tracey Emin which acted as souvenirs from her life and of the people she had shared that life with. You become of aware of how we use objects to prove our relationships exist. We instill in the inanimate all our emotions and use them as a totem to show we exist in the world. Feelings are given form in the real world via a little trinket or photograph. And when the connections are served we are left with just plain old ordinary things. Although I did walk straight past the display of tampons but I loved the map of the world, I like maps.

It was a very interesting way of presenting the nature of relationships and it touches on all kinds of interesting subjects particularly that of loss and sadness. Perhaps it helped that I like Tracey Emin and through reading her book and interviews have a better understanding what she is about than I otherwise would. Certainly the show seemed to confuse a couple of people I was viewing with. And perhaps to truly understand it all you need the artist to explain it.

While its true that not all of the art grabs you own its own or has very much to say when you take it all as one whole piece and start to run with some of the ideas and themes then it goes beyond that. Modern art requires you to take leaps of faith and to think for yourself about whatever the concept might be Taken as more than the some of its parts this was a wonderful display and a thoroughly rewarding experience.