Finishing up Crash Comics #5, I found this little tidbit in the Blue Streak story:
Except.... say it with me, kids!
That Doesn't Work That Way! (tm!)
Carbon monoxide, according to the Center for Disease Control (the place you run to when the zombie apocalypse hits), carbon monoxide is an odorless, colorless gas. Sooooo....
That Doesn't Work That Way! (tm!)
It's also dangerously misleading, because someone who gets most of their information from comics (like me, although I also like to get my news from E's The Soup), will think that a carbon monoxide detector isn't necessary because... well, if you don't smell it, you're fine. Right? Wrong!
Seriously... if you don't have a carbon monoxide detector, go get one. They're very cheap and people die from that sort of thing.
Meanwhile, on to Target Comics volume 4 number 6, which tells me modern comics didn't actually invent the confusing method of numbering issues... they just do it a lot. I completely gave up trying to complete past collections simply because I didn't know which issue went with which version of a given title.
Anyhoo, this issue has a couple of characters I'd never heard of before, like Air Force Cadet whose name was...
... oh, eesh. Really?
Al T. Tude.
Names that are puns cost us all our dignity. Although I will say that I had incorrectly thought "Tude" wasn't a true last name. Well, sure enough, there it is. There are people out there with the last name of "Tude," so maybe some sadistic parent actually gave their kid that name. And if your name is Al T. Tude, I guess you are either going to be in the Air Force or you're going to be washing window on high-rise buildings.
Did I just talk myself into thinking that this character's name is okay? I think I did. I just may be the biggest nerd ever.
You see, he would baffle the Nazis by...
well, by changing his clothes:
Hmmmmm... I had thought you might be the Chameleon, but when I saw him earlier, he was wearing a hat and no coat. So there's no way you could be him. Move along.
As the story progressed, he would rely on being very loud and over-the-top as a way of making people uncomfortable enough to humor him. So, he was the WWII version of Robin Williams, and every bit as entertaining. Which is to say, not at all.
See you tomorrow!
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1 comment:
I could go with one of the Blue Streak's powers being able to see and smell what would, to a normal person would be something that is unseeable and unsmellable thing. I know that Sue Storm can make invisible things visible, so it wouldn't be that unusual. If this is the case though, they should have made it plain in the comic that this was the case. It would have been a good opportunity for a sort of PSA on the subject. I don't know if it was general knowledge in 1940 when this comic came out though.
Also a good resource for the whole title and numbering thing is The Official Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide. The pricing for old comics is much more in line with what you can expect to get if you want to sell also than other sources such as Wizard.
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