Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Star-Spangled Boogers Tuesday!

Wow, you people hate Facebook. There are over a thousand hits a week on this site, and surprisingly few of you want to publicly own up to being a reader. Oh, I hear the rooster crow! My legions, is your hatred of Facebook more powerful than your love for bad comics????

In the mid-1980's, comics started hitting a low point again. They were printed on cheap paper, the artwork was crude, and the stories were every bit as bad as non-comic readers assume they always have been and always will be. But that's no reason we can't celebrate that trademark Marvel Comics Awkward Perspective! (tm!):


Is there a reason I'm looking right up Captain America's nose here? Is he asking me to do a booger check? You know you're really tight with someone when you know you can ask them to do a booger check.

The term of the day is apparently, "booger check." Booger check!

More of why the Avengers in the '80s really started to go downhill:


Now don't try to tell me I'm a snob. I'm the one who liked it when the Falcon and the Beast were on the team, and they aren't exactly going to be made into major motion pictures any time soon, but Starfox? Oh, disembodied floating heads, I share your disgust! It's like when you're choosing teams for kickball and you get stuck with the kid who has serious asthma but never has his inhaler handy.

And oh, yay. More Scarlet Witch. I presume this was designed to lose the few readers left after they put Starfox on the team:


It's been what, 20 years since her intro by the time this came out, and I still couldn't have told you how her power works. It's been another 20 years since this issue, and I still don't get it. I don't think you do, either. You can try and explain it to me all you want, but I don't think anyone understands how magic can be a mutant power you're born with.

Ugh. Starfox and the Scarlet Witch in the same post. It's turning into the U.S.1 retrospective all over again. Let's watch Charlie Brown lose his sh!t, circa 1954:


Ah, Charlie Brown. You've saved us yet again. Charlie Brown didn't lose it so much after those early days, and I really think that's a shame. Some people are just fun to watch freak out (see: Friend Kyle).

I'll booger check you tomorrow!

12 comments:

Elie said...

I don't share your dislike for the Scarlet Witch, but Starfox and the female Captain Marvel were definitely lame, boring characters. Avengers took a big turn for the worse when they became regulars.

Interesting to note that on that cover, all the male Avengers are scowling and the females smirking - except for Captain M! Starfox/Eros was supposed to have some magnetism that turned on the ladies, so why was CM the exception? (I think this was before the days of openly gay characters, so it couldn't be that.)

Finally, someone should tell Charlie Brown that chocolate is poisonous for dogs!

D.B. Echo said...

But, Charlie Brown, look on the bright side: you've possibly killed Snoopy with theobromine. You blockhead!

Shelley said...

The Scarlet Witch could affect probability fields causing an occurrence of various unlikely phenomena, including spontaneous combustion of inflammable objects, rapid rust or decay of organic or inorganic materials, deflection of objects and powers in flight, and disruption of energy transmissions or fields. BUT mostly she could turn someones mutant power against them.

Writer Kurt Busiek was the one who changed her powers and made her able to tap into chaos magic. Then she was revamped AGAIN by Brian Michael Bendis who said that there way no such thing as chaos magic. Phew! I can see how one could get confused. If your really curious about her powers check out X-Men Evolution cartoons. I can't say how accurate it all is but I think they captured her original power the best.

By the way, did anyone catch the ox/man hybrid holding two babies? I never read the Avengers much so Im out of the loop. Could someone please tell me what the heck is going on in that issue?

Elie said...

That's the "evolved cow" Bova who midwifed the birth of twins Wanda and Pietro, aka The Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. Here's more detail than you probably want:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarlet_Witch#Fictional_character_biography

Anonymous said...

Scarlet Witch's powers were whatever the plot needed them to do. She is a McGuffin.

Anonymous said...

Oh, and Starfox is really Seymore Butts.

SallyP said...

I can only assume that the picture of poor Captain America was an attempt to mimic Jack Kirby...which they did rather poorly.

I'll pass on the booger check, thank you.

ShadowWIng Tronix said...

I barely log into my MySpace account. I'm not sure what I need Facebook for at this time. Anybody looking for me can just use my blog.

As for Scarlet Witch, I think it's been demonstrated by the other posters that the writers don't know what her power is any more than you do.

Joe S. Walker said...

Is the Scarlet Witch supposed to be drunk on that cover?

googum said...

Facebook? That's a thing? Apparently, I'm my grandpa now, with no tweets or Facebook friends or phone...

Chocolate's supposed to be bad for dogs, but I had a cocker spaniel as a kid that ate an easter basket full of Cadbury eggs and whatnot. "Whatnot" being foil and fake grass in this case. She was fine, and I hadda share my candy with my sister; which admittedly was worth it for the look on her face...

Erich said...

Shane: And I believe Dan Slott revamped her once again by saying, "Wait a minute, of COURSE there's such a thing as chaos magic!"

The Fastest Centaur Alive said...

I've read the early Avengers stuff, and the Scarlet Witch's powers are quite straightforward. Its effects, however, are erratic.