Bloodhawkin' Thursday!

I'm sure that writing for team books is a challenge. Coming up with an adversary capable of taking on the entire Justice League or Avengers every month can be a tall order. But sometimes, you have to wonder if they're really trying:


You have to be careful with the bird motif. It took Hawkman a good 50 years before he became badass, which tells you how much tweaking of the bird-themed character has to take place. Otherwise, you look.... well, like a big bird. With arms.

And, I have to point out, that if Thor connects with that hammer shot he's about to deliver, we'll be having roast Bloodhawk with Bloodhawk giblet gravy for dinner.

For no reason, let's have a Random Super-Villain Cackle!(tm!):



Now, getting back to Bloodhawk: He was apparently a reasonably strong guy, and he talked like a parrot:



I don't understand why the cop in the right-hand foreground drops his gun like that. I mean, Bloodhawk is nowhere near him. This is the kind of guy who shot himself in the foot over in 'Nam, I'll betcha!

But Bloodhawk, lame as he was, knew that he could at least defeat the Wasp:



If the Avengers were a video game, the Wasp would be "training mode."

Anyway, I'd send Bloodhawk to the Character Hall of Shame, but he's almost so terrible that he's awesome. We'll give him a pass.

See you tomorrow!

Wait 'til You Meet Perry the Drunk! And Herbie, too! Wednesday!

Man, this week is smacking me around! But that's okay, as long as we have Perry to get us through the day!


Perry knows when he's being shafted. So don't shaft him. Thanks, Avengers v1 #178!

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Hey, it's a house ad for the Fantastic Four cartoon! I was never a huge FF fan, but that didn't stop me from getting disappointed that the cartoon was so terrible. Taking my favorite character, the Torch, and replacing him with Herbie the Robot may have sounded like a sure-fire success, but it didn't work out that way.

And, before we have a big exchange in the comments, the Torch was not written out because the network was afraid kids would become little pyromaniacs. Actually, it was a licensing problem.

It was written out in the comics that the Torch was simply out of town when the contracts were signed. Which just proves that as bad as comics get sometimes, cartoons about comics were generally much worse until Batman: The Animated Series changed everything.

The real moral of this story is that whenever there is a really lame character, the marketing folks always tell us, "Just wait 'til you meet him/her!" That's right up there with "she has a great personality!" They probably would have had a better cartoon if they had replaced the Torch with Perry the Drunk. Because he won't put up with getting shafted, whereas I'm pretty sure Herbie would.

See you tomorrow!

I Get by With a Little Help from My Friends Tuesday!

This week was hammerin', to be sure, but our eagle-eyed CMNSians have come through!

First, from oft-contributor sPat!


As sPat pointed out, there's a Viagra joke hiding in there somewhere. The next time I'm feeling randy, I'm going to tell Beloved that I've become Giant-Man. Once she stops the hysterical laughter, it'll be the kind of night Barry White sings about. Yeah!
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And from longtime reader and first-time contributor Nick Danger:



Aquaman, King of the Seas and Human Netti Pot!

For those who don't get the joke, here's a little visual aid for ya!:



The scary thing is, Beloved has one of these things. I wish I were joking.

Thanks for the help, sPat and Nick Danger!

See you all tomorrow!

I Get by with a Little Help from My Friends Monday!

Some weeks, work and such are so overwhelming that I just know it's going to be tough to keep up with our little Comic Book Funhouse. But if I slacked off on my responsibilities to my loyal readership, what kind of desperate, sad, pitiful fanboy would I be?

But that doesn't mean I'm above a helping hand, now and again. For the next couple of days, we'll take a look at stuff our contributors sent in. Today, we look at a few that came in from contributor sPat!:


Well, she certain sounds thrilled, doesn't she? Not that I blame her for her sarcasm. I mean, it's a bunch of oversized, colored balls hitting the steps of Metropolis City Hall and creating a lot of mess in general. Considering Metropolis is used to giant robot alien dinosaurs knocking over skyscrapers every other week, this isn't exactly one they're going to be talking about for years to come.
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Jimmy learns the hard way that Superman isn't above slipping him a mickey. In 8 hours, he'll wake up covered in baby oil and feathers with a strange burning sensation every time he has to pee....
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So, there's time to say all that, but not time to step aside? Not exactly a "man of action" are we, Jimmy?

Once again, thanks to contributor sPat!

See you tomorrow!

Jokes I Should be Well Past Making Friday!

2 1/2 years and 1000+ posts later, I should be beyond making lame jokes. Should be.

But what can you do when you're reading Avengers v1 #169?


Okay, the guy's name is Beere and we're taking him to Flushing? No way was that an accident!
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But once I've checked out his story, he's free to croak all he wants!
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Goose chase? No, Cap... I think those are eagles!

Thank you! Thank you! The classics never die!
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And with my left leg, I set my Tivo, and with my right ear, I make my mortgage payments....
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And you'll note that Iron Man wore his "contemplative" face plate for just such an occasion. Always be prepared, kids!

See you Monday!

We're the Boys of the Chorus, We Hope You Like Our Show! We know you're rooting for us, but now we have to gooooooo Thursday!

I'm still in denial that Chuck Dixon no longer writes for DC. He ruled.

But you know what else rules? World's Finest v1 #42!


The sheer weirdness of these panels aside, I don't really get the joke.
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If Speedy hadn't grown up to be a heroin addict, this shot of "three missing days" wouldn't be nearly as funny as it is.
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Cue Green Arrow fighting a dinosaur!


Yeah! That's the stuff!
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And hey! It's time for Fun with Out of Context Dialogue!(tm!)




See you tomorrow!

A War Between Earth and Uranus Wednesday!

A little fun from the Superman story in World's Finest v1 #42!:


See? Sometimes it takes an alien to really define how male/female relationships work. Beloved is half my size, and the only thing that she ever worries about me doing is telling embarrassing things about her on this very blog.

Hey, that reminds me: The other day, she bought something called "lip stain" for the first time. Rather than wait until she got home to try it out, she gets into it while the car is moving. For the next six hours, I was married to the Joker.

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Some of the greatest uses of the word "Uranus" ever! Read those lines out loud for maximum enjoyment.
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So, Superman wants to put Lois in a cage and she's got a fetish for smelly plants? Now, that's entertainment! If they had explored these angles a bit more, Superman comics might actually be interesting every now and then.

See you tomorrow!

A Very Special CMNS Tuesday!

So I learned the answer to the mysterious lack of comments, and the main culprit appears to be the advent of RSS. It turns out that most of you read this site through RSS, so commenting isn't something comes naturally. Oh, technology! You have further alienated me from my loved ones! Actually, it's totally fine with me as long as folks continue to tune in, which like I said in yesterday's post, is more folks than ever. Glad to have you here, you Great Silent Majority!

And now, a Very Special (tm!) CMNS.

From Avengers v1 #165.

Fare the well, Terrible Costume of Wonder Man:



As we say in Oklahoma, "it needed killin'."

And is it just me, or is Jarvis always making with the tea? I think he's just farting around and carrying around empty tea cups to make himself look busy.

See you tomorrow!

Lifeskills from Days Gone By Monday!

And we're back, only with even more soluble fiber! I've noticed that while the number of hits the blog gets is higher than ever, comments have gone down to nothing overnight. Anyone know why? If the traffic was going down, I'd understand it, but my stat counter says more folks are stopping by than ever at our little Comic Book Funhouse!

Ah, well. Be that way, if you must. Meanwhile, let's take a look at what our Grandparents did for fun, courtesy of World's Finest #40!:


That, my friends, is sick. It's hard to believe that those well-scrubbed tykes you saw on The Little Rascals were capable of such terrible things, but there you go. This is the America the history books won't tell you about!
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A little lesson in phone etiquette from the 70's:

Remember, if you aren't available to take a call


the polite thing to do is to simply use a firearm to blow the phone to smithereens. This was from Avengers #162, and to be fair, I think answering machines were still pretty expensive.
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Yellowjacket! We're under attack! Use your super powers!


Well, that's all kinds of helpful. You know, insects would be our size if they could. I don't know why we've always thought it was such a neat idea to be that tiny.

See you tomorrow!

I'd Marry Him if It Weren't For those Awful Blackheads Friday!

Some Golden-Age weirdness from All-Select #4!:


Ja! Und perhaps mi disguisen vuld be more convincin if'n I vasn't vearin these big red gloves und vasn't showin you my masken vit this big lettur "A" on mit!

It took me a minute to write that so he would be saying it with a German accent. I always go that extra mile for you. Because I love.
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Hey! It's Golden-Age Fun with Out of Context Dialogue!(tm!):


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The Whizzer! Unfortunately named really fast running guy!


And as we all know, if you can run really fast, you're also super strong. Because. You know. You just are.
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It's always worth going that extra mile for a woman who makes major relationship decisions based on your skin condition at any given moment. No way she'll leave you when you get old and you need your wife to help you get off the toilet! She's a keeper, Joe! Don't let her go!
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I read this over and over and I still don't see how building fake wooden planes helps the nation. I'm sure it's a fine hobby and everything, but how did this tie into national security? Did we need a fleet of little wooden planes just in case we got invaded by little wooden tanks?

See you Monday!

Wait 'Til You Meet Knucklehead Thursday!

From World's Finest v1 #40:


Wait, what? Excuse me? What the heck kind of vault do they have in that bank? And even if opening up a vault made you subject to the bends, which I highly doubt, couldn't he just make a little hole in the door and let some air in? I mean, I'm not the one wearing the tights and the cape, but that seems like a much more attractive option than just letting her suffocate. Then again, it is Lois, so maybe this is a good chance to get her out of Supe's hair without anyone asking any questions....
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Or, some kid who plays Heroclix is careless with his toys. One of the two.
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Hey! It's free comic book day!


You know, I don't think at my most compulsive collecting days as a youngster would I have gone to any effort to get this comic, and I would take dang near anything.

Then again, these testimonials are hard to dispute:



I can't wait to meet Knucklehead! Because he never does anything right! I can only imagine the hijinks!

See you tomorrow!

Beastly Wednesday!

From Avengers v1 #160:


Despite being the most entertaining Avenger ever, the Beast's combat role in the team was apparently replacing Goliath as the first Avenger to get smeared in every battle. The Vision, not being anyone's fool, knew to go intangible whenever he saw the Beast flying his way.
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You knew it was coming. From Avengers v1 #161:


See? The Beast got the short end of everything, including the blame for Wonder Man's worst costume ever (and for Wonder Man, that's saying something). Off to the Costume Hall of Shame with this one!
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As we've seen before, Iron Man gets a little careless. I suppose when you're walking around in a suit of armor, it's easy to get a little overconfident.


Yup. The slits in the helmet. Again.
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Hey! It's time for some Fun with Out of Context Dialogue!(tm!):



See you tomorrow!

Intellectual Property Compromisin' Tuesday!

I saw Punisher: War Zone on DVD over the weekend. Wow, was that crap. And I've been pretty tolerant of Punisher movies over the years, although I've never been much of a fan. I mean, the guy shoots people. Not exactly page-turnin' material to me. But I liked the Thomas Jane/John Travolta Punisher movie from a few years back, and even liked the Dolph Lundgren movie from way back, but this was terrible. The acting was awful, the script was painfully bad, and the violence was unnecessarily excessive. Don't even bother on DVD.

Hey! Remember that Golden Age Green Arrow villain called Bull's-Eye we talked about a few weeks back? Remember how much like the Joker he was? Well, apparently the Joker is such an awesome character, the Green Arrow writers decided to steal from his character twice:


See? He was exposed to chemicals during a botched robbery that discolored his skin and.... I'm not even sure which character I'm talking about right now.
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Can you believe you missed this?


Alan Ladd looks about as excited to be involved in that project as I would be. I hope he got paid in advance!
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I had to give you the whole page so you could really take it all in:


Now, Batman has gone to some extremes to hide his secret identity, but this is the first time I've ever seen him exploit the severely handicapped. Where did Bruce even find this guy, much less communicate his plan to him? I'm sure there's an OSHA violation in this scenario, but I'm too appalled to research it.

See you tomorrow!

Our 1000 Post Monday!

And we're back after a holiday weekend! I hope everyone enjoyed! According to Blogger, this is my 1000 post! It's hard to accurately measure it, since I posted panels separately back in the early days, but that's still a lot of postin' no matter how you look at it!

Let's check out World's Finest!


Batman doesn't use guns.... unless they're really, really kickass guns.

And since Batman never fought overseas, who is he shooting at?
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You know what this panel needed? More sound effects. Bif! Bop! Bam! That's right - all three in one panel, because you got a lot for your dime back in the day!
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Hey, kids! It's time for Fun with Out of Context Dialogue!(tm!)



Oh, if I had a nickel for every time Beloved said that!

See you tomorrow as we begin our next 1000 posts!

Everyone Loves a Parade Thursday!

Dear Ones,

There's a long weekend coming up, so this will be the last post until Monday. But that's okay, because it's World's Finest v1 #39!:



Sure, Batman is tormented by the childhood memory of watching his parents violent murder, but that doesn't mean he can't enjoy a fine parade!

Check out that little boy in the bottom row. I don't know what he's looking at, but if it's more interesting than seeing Batman, Robin and Superman in person, I'm betting there's full frontal female nudity involved.
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Shutterbugs are the people you never really want to bring along, because they can't let you just enjoy the moment. Ha! That's a great spontaneous act of piling on each other in the snow! Now, let me get my camera out.... hold on, I've got to adjust the light... Billy, can you move your left arm.... that's good.... and Jane, if you can turn towards me.... no, not that far.... there you go.... no, too far... hey, where's everyone going? Why are you flipping me off?

Beloved is that way on vacations. I can never just enjoy the sunset. I have to try and take a photo of it. But, since I'm trying to take a picture of the sun, it never works. But I still have to try. Every freakin' time.
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It's time for a story with Superman in it! I predict Superman will suck!


You may be super, but you'll still suck.
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Best. Title. Ever.


Bazooka Boy would tell you the rest of the adventure, but he can't remember it, other than it was WICKED AWESOME, DUDES!

That's it for me! Happy Easter! I'll see you Monday!