The Most Awkward Moments In Comic History

When I was growing up you didn’t have too many words that meant something dirty along with the original meaning.  Sure we had the words we snickered at such as the name “Dick”, but it seems that today you can twist just about any term into a dirty word.  I’m not criticizing, I’m just observing.  That being said, comics that were written many moons ago used terms that, today, seem a little dirtier than they were meant.  In other words, serious comic strips back then may be termed as humorous now.

So, this is The Comic Whisperer’s list of some of The Most Awkward Moments in Comic History.   These are actual panels from actual comic strips, nothing is doctored or photoshopped.

1.)  Expose Myself  These were two words that, I think, always had that filthy twist to them.  I was just as likely to laugh at James Bond saying he didn’t want to “expose himself” to his enemies as I am to laugh at it today.  That being said, I am not sure of any day or age where Robin exposing himself wouldn’t be funny.

2.)  Vibrator  I’m not sure what the weapon was exactly in this comic but I know what I pictured in my head.  I don’t think I need to add anything to this comic other than asking if this weapon took batteries or if it plugged into the wall.

3.)  Making Love To a Goat  This one is purely visual and it’s implications are what make it funny. It clearly wasn’t meant to have any dirty second meaning, but it’s very easy to assign one.

4.)  Mounting The Ant  Jimmy Olsen is arguably the king of the characters when it comes to being  morphed into something else.  If you look back through comic history you will see the many forms that Jimmy has taken.  Some are quite funny.  In this particular case he has been made very tiny and is asked to do something that seems quite normal, but our own twisted thoughts assign other meanings.

5.)  Donald and Daisy Duck  It’s hard to surf the net without finding a site that talks about little dirty, if not subliminal, messages and pictures embedded in Disney’s films.  Whether it’s the word “Sex” spelled out in the leaves in The Lion King or the supposed erection sported by the priest in the Little Mermaid, Disney has come under fire.  Personally I’m not sure if it’s just us seeing something dirty where it’s actually innocent, or if it is done intentionally by artists hoping to add a “signature” to their films.  Either way this one is clear, even to Daisy, that there is more than one meaning to what Donald is saying.

6.)  Cable TV There are child and teen superheroes more so today than in the past.  There was also a time when Cable TV was the only place where you would see racy story lines.  The two facts collide here with one of the most time tested child/teen heroes of all time, Robin.  As in life these teens need to grow up and there is no better comic than Teen Titans to show the transition from teen to adulthood.  It can be an agonizing process...

7.)  Selling More Comics  They say in movies and books that the best way to sell more is to include nudity, sex, violence and adult language.  Movies and books adopted this philosophy very quickly and the theory was right.  The more sex, violence, nudity and adult language the better.  Stories that were once exclusive to cable tv, or stashed behind the counter in a book store, became mainstream.  In time comics took up the trend.  She-Hulk was drafted to take help sell more comics...

8.)  Then and Now  This is a clear case of what the term meant then versus what the term implies now.  I really can’t add anything else to this one, it speaks for itself.

9.)  Spankings As a kid spankings were no joke.  I know that today there is a great deal of controversy around whether spankings are an acceptable form of punishment.  I can tell you, though, that when I was a kid they were acceptable.  Today spankings aren’t just associated with punishment anymore.  They’ve taken on a double meaning which I don’t really need to explain.  Here the meaning is pretty straightforward....

10)  Undergarments  Most DC fans find Batman to be a dark, brooding, serious character that has few humerous idiosyncrasies.   If he did have them one would not predict undergarments to be one of them.  Robin, though, appears to have discovered something...

This list has been a chance to poke fun at an industry that has been around through many wars, trends, presidents, fads, etc.  One of the things that has changed most over the years is our language , and the meaning of words, making it impossible for us not to be able to look back and have a laugh.  The display of these panels was not meant to offend anyone and I apologize sincerely if it has.  As a human race we have changed dramatically over the years and change can be good.  I suspect in 20 years we’ll be able to look back at the captions of today and marvel at how much we have changed.

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The WORST Superpowers To Have

In my line of business I am often asked questions like what characters are my favorites or what superpower I would want if I could have one.  I like chatting with people about comic books and their preferences, you get some very interesting answers.

One question I never get is what superpowers I wouldn’t want.  It seems like a dumb question but I sat down and thought about it and came up with a list.

So, here is The Comic Whisperer’s List of the Worst Superpowers To Have

1.)  Able to turn into a vegetable of your choice  The way I look at it is you would use this superpower only once, so you might want to save it.  Once you turn into broccoli you would no longer be able to think or move so you would be finished.   Can’t you just picture it?  You’re at a party, perhaps a little tipsy from alcohol, and you yell out, “Watch what I can do!”.  You turn yourself into a piece of broccoli and drop to the floor.  No one knows how to react.  What kind of trick is that? While onlookers wonder what to do a person walks by, brushes the hair and rug fiber off of you, and places you onto the tray with the other vegetables and ranch dip.  You’re done.  No applause, no turning back to a human, and soon to be eaten.  Not a great superpower.

2.)  Able to absorb someone else’s weaknesses  This is like the Russian Roulette of superpowers.  You stand near someone who has the fear of spiders and “Poof!” you have the fear of spiders.  You walk by someone with a torn ligament in their knee and “Poof!” you have a torn ligament in your knee.  Wow, just walking into an old age home can bring you irritable bladder, arthritis, congestive heart failure, constipation, incontinence, and erectile dysfunction.  When you go to the hospital to get treated for all of your newfound illnesses you gain even more issues.  Ouch.

3.)   Ability to self-destruct  Those of you that remember the old Bugs Bunny cartoons may remember the one where he and Daffy Duck are trying to outdo one another at the circus.  One does one trick, the other does a better trick, etc. etc.  Finally Daffy blows himself up and wins the contest.  As Daffy’s angel rises higher and higher Bugs asked Daffy to do an encore and Daffy said, “I can only do this trick once.”  This would be much the same.  Pick your audience carefully and make sure you’re happy with what you’ve done in life then go for it.  I actually have known people that have self destructed, but they did it over a long period of time.  I don’t think that counts.

4.)  Born with the ability to never age  Hmmmm, immortality with a catch.  This would be a super problem not only for you but for your parents.  Perpetual infancy.  Your parents have you while they are in their 30’s and you are still a newborn when they are in their 70’s.  Imagine the diaper bill after 40 years of diapers!  Also the 40 years of not being able to sleep in.  

5.)  Involuntary X-Ray vision on anyone 80 years of age and older  I don’t think I have to spell this one out for you.  Each time you look at someone 80 years of age and older you see through their clothing?  I realize that I will be 80 years old one day and I truly hope that I will still look fit and young, but I won’t.  I feel safe in saying that people won’t want X-ray vision with me either.  This is just a lousy power to have.  Get used to walking with your eyes shut.

6.)  Complete control over snails  I guess this isn’t all bad.  True, nothing could be done very fast and you’d have to learn how to plan ahead, but it may have some uses.  You may want to create a slime trail somewhere or you may want to convince a colleague why salt is bad for your health or you may be hungry for escargot.  I don’t know.  Just be glad you have a superpower, there are plenty of kids who would be happy to have one.

7.)  The Ability to turn yourself inside-out  Outside of being invaluable to med school students or being able to check yourself for tumors without expensive medical testing, I’ve got nothing.  I think I’d choose control over snails instead of this one and that’s saying something.  Good luck with that.

8.)  Ability to grown an extra nose  Honestly, this could come in handy.  Just think about the times you’d want to....or how about the days you’d like to....oh never mind, this one wouldn’t be so hot either.  Unless I was trying to track down a sweaty shirt or check what my spouse had for lunch this wouldn’t be handy.  I can sure think of the times I would like to not smell.  Maybe I could trade this for a retractable nose.  No?  I’m stuck with this?  Crap.

9.)  Canis Lupus Euthanasia During Sternutation  Not a pretty superpower.  Every time you sneeze a puppy dies.  It does offer something of an answer to overpopulation but there are better options.  This superpower makes you immensely unpopular.  Especially to the neighbor’s 10 year old who just had a birthday.

10.)  The ability to control someone else’s urine stream  I could go either way on this one.  It’s not super useful, but it would make for some good fun.  You’re at a dressy affair and you make the person next to you at the urinals piss on his pants.  That would be funny.  It may even be useful if you see a very small fire that needs to be put out and you don’t have to pee but the person next to you does.  He would be the hero, but you would know who gets the real credit.

11.)  The ability to summon mayonnaise  If you were making a BLT or tuna salad this would be awesome, other than that this wouldn’t be a ton of help in your day-to-day routine.  I can’t help but ask where the mayonnaise would come from or if you could only summon it from a jar.  It would be extremely helpful with all those time you have a mayonnaise fight...never mind.  Like you never had one.

12.)  The ability to transfer your need to poop to someone else  I read this on another website asking what the worst superpowers would be.  I could see where it might come in handy in an emergency.  How would the President react if he had to crap himself during a State of the Union Address?  Can I have this one instead of the one where you grow another nose?  No?  Crap.

Well, there you have it.  A list of the worst superpowers to have.  This list is by no means all inclusive.  I am sure that there are dozens out there like the ability to produce pyrotechnics but only under water.  But I digress.  In the comments section please tell me your own worst superpower.  I’d be interested to see what you come up with.

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Comics Marvel Would LOVE To Forget (And If You Would Forget Them Too)

It has to be hard to pitch a comic idea.  You really put your neck on the line.  If it works out great you are the hero (pardon the wordplay) if it doesn’t work out your career may be on the line.  It’s a calculated risk, one which the following creators should not have taken.

Here is The Comic Whisperer’s list of comics that Marvel Would LOVE To Forget and, frankly, Would Love If You Would Forget Them Too.

These are in on particular order:

1.)  U.S. #1  I’m not embarrassed to say that I have this one and have read it.  It truly does deserve to be on this list.  I remember it vividly, this came out around the time of the smash hit movie Smokey and the Bandit.  If you haven’t seen it, rent it.  It’s funny, has car chases, car wrecks, cursing, women, the whole nine yards (my apologies to my female readers, to be fair it also has the very handsome Burt Reynolds in it).  The idea for the comic, however, was nothing like Smokey and the Bandit.  It involved a “super-powered” truck driver with a metal head who could pick up C.B. Radio waves (C.B. stands for Citizens Band for those who weren’t born then).  His brother was MUCH more realistic (insert dripping sarcasm here) as he was evil, called Highwayman, was given powers by aliens and crashed his truck into the moon.  All of these ideas should have spelled disaster, but no one hearing the pitch must have known how to spell.  I’ve looked at character bio pages that Marvel puts out and Highwayman doesn’t even rate a bio page.

2.)  Superpro Special Edition  Again, I admit, I have this one.  I did not, however, read it.  Even I couldn’t bring myself to do that.  Let’s just take one fact and I am sure it will convince you that this series was heading for disaster.  The writer, who for their sake I will not reveal, admitted that they only pushed the series to get free football tickets.  ‘Nuff Said?  Not quite.  Let’s look at the demographic for this comic...football fans.  Sure, scoring a partnership with the NFL looks good on paper, but football fans aren’t typically your comic book fans (myself excluded).  This one was a disaster before it even got out of the planning stages.  Now, ’Nuff Said.

3.)  Ultimate Adventures  I also have this one (do you see a recurring theme here?)  This is a clear cut case of overdoing a good thing.  It’s no secret that the “Ultimate” series did very well.  Ultimate Avengers, Ultimate Evil, etc, etc.  But, this fiasco, was taking it too far.  This comic was slated to be a combination of an even more brooding, psychotic Batman and a Robin (it was a parody) who you wanted nothing more than to have his mouth duct taped.  His dialogue was unbearable.  It took a year to release these six issues of misery.  In that year you would think that they would cook up some great comedy, but you would be wrong.  There were many reasons this failed other than the main idea behind it.  Those reasons are no more worth reading than the series itself.

4.)  Billy Ray Cyrus  With no apologies to the country music fans, Billy Ray Cyrus is known for two things; Achey Breaky Heart (or however you spell it) and Miley Cyrus.  Both turned out to be big hits and both turned out to be forgettable.  Anyway, this was part of Marvel’s big idea to put out a series of comics revolving around musicians.  The problem was it wasn’t about the musicians themselves.  It was about them in irrelevant adventures.  If you read this comic you see Billy Ray fighting dragons, ghosts and other evildoers while traveling through time.  48 pages of sheer trash.  The upside?  Mullet fans will be happy with the illustrations.

5.)  Marvel Swimsuit Issues  Oh, yes, you read it correctly.  I would have loved to been in on the pitch when this one was brought up.  “Yes, sir, the idea is to put all of the characters in swimsuits.  Yes, sir, the men and the women.  Yes, sir, even the non-human ones.  No, sir, it won’t be tastefully done.”  Interestingly enough, some of these are worth decent money if they are in good shape and, yes, I have a couple of these as well.  I imagine the thought behind this was a singular one, put all of the sexy characters in impossibly small swimsuits and watch the dough roll in.  It didn’t quite work that way.  This one picture may be a clue as to why.

6.)  Marville Originville  One would think with the hilarious play on words in the title that this would be an immediate success (insert your own sarcastic tones here).  Not knowing how to describe this comic I am going to quote io9.com’s description "it starred Kal-AOL Turner, son of media mogul Ted, Rush Limbaugh, some odd thoughts on religion, Greg Horn's preposterously terrible cheesecake covers...and, most inexplicably, the submissions guide to Marvel's former creator-owned label, Epic. It is also about 500% less interesting than I'm making it sound.  They said it far better than I could.  And, no, I don’t have this one, nor will I.

7.)  Daydreamers  First off the title markets this comic to the demographic that can’t afford comics, nor can they read them, and that is 3 - 4 year old girls.  No boy would be caught dead with this title.  This comic was a team-up of Franklin Richards, Howard the Duck, Artie the mutant, and Man-Thing.  Huh?  What drug trip made someone think of this team?  The time frame is sometime after Onslaught killed most of marvel’s heroes.  Franklin went to Xavier’s school for gifted children, met with this bunch of misfits, created his own universe with his mind, and brought everyone there.  Psychologists will tell you that this was Franklin’s way of dealing with the death of his parents.  I will tell you it was a way for Marvel to insert a crappy project in the middle of all of its successes to show the company is still human.  This title didn’t make it past #3.

8.)  Trouble  Coincidentally, the title of this comic is also what it wound up causing Marvel...Trouble.  This comic had two purposes; bring back Marvel’s romantic comics and to, for whatever reason, try to re-re-re-re-re-address Spiderman’s origins.  How many ways can you spin “bitten by a radioactive spider”?   Well, the way they did it was to dedicate this comic to the romance between Uncle Ben and Aunt May.  We have been speaking of demographics all throughout the reviews and one can only guess the demographic being addressed in this one.  My guess is the “people who like to watch two old bags having sex as teenagers” market.  I hear it’s pretty big.  That being said, they didn’t pick up on this comic and it was cancelled promptly.

9.)  Avataars:  Covenant of the Shield  First, this title is way too long.  Second, misspelling “Avatars” doesn’t make it look cool it makes it look misspelled.  Consider this the alternate universe that no one wanted to see.  It takes place on “Eurth” (something my spellcheck wouldn’t even allow me to type without considerable retypes) where Captain Avalon (a.k.a Captain America) and the Champions of the Realm (a.k.a. The Avengers) took on all of the Black Knights of the realm.  To tell you how popular it was, this was a 12 issue series but it was cancelled at 3.  The creators should get a good hearty slap in the mouth for this idea.  To top it all off, this was done in 2000 when Marvel didn’t have two nickels to rub together (now, though, they do have two nickels to rub together) and this didn’t put any more nickels in the bank.

10.)  Onyx: Fight  The first question you should be asking yourself is “who?”  Onyx of course!  You would know them as an extremely popular band in the 90’s who toured the planet to many sold out crowds.  If, of course, they were extremely popular and toured to sold out crowds.  I lived vicariously through the 90’s and couldn’t tell you a single song of theirs nor would I have even recognized the group name had you said it to me.  Yet, Marvel, in it’s infinite wisdom, chose to base a comic on them fighting the good fight.  To add salt to the wound let’s discuss the band member’s names; Sticky Fingaz, Fredro Star and Sonsee.  You might even be further drawn by the “Gurlz” they hang out with in New York City.  It’s all very exciting for the “I like people with nonsensical names that misspell everything in an attempt to sound cool” demographic.  My advice?  Don’t waste your time looking for the single issue that was put out.

Please understand, I am not criticizing Marvel for their mistakes.  I also made a mistake initially when I marketed myself as “Thu Komik Whizzpurrer” hoping to catch the “very quick cat” market.

As a collector, file these comics under Mistakes That Had Extremely Limited Distribution along with the DC Comics of the same genre.  I will be addressing those in another blog.

These get The Comic Whisperer’s rating of a “Slap in the Mouth” for the creative teams.

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The Most Expensive Superhero Movies Made To Date

In a recent blog I shared that I am on the clueless side when it comes to budgets for movies I see.  So, in the interest of readers of The Comic Whisperer’s Blog I looked up the most expensive superhero movies ever made.  Without a large preamble, let’s get to it:

17.)  Thor:  The Dark World (2013):  I am not a huge fan of the Thor movies but I will admit that the comic books have never disappointed.   This movie had an estimated budget of $170 million and wound up bringing in a smidgen over $206 million.  Yikes!  They just made their money back with a little profit for snacks at the cast party.

16.)  Captain America:  The Winter Soldier:  One of my personal favorites, this movie also had a budget of around $170 million but did much better in gross revenue at $259 million.  Their cast party had a petting zoo no doubt with this kind of profit.

15.)  Guardians of the Galaxy:  This one surprised me as it also had a budget around $170 million.  I would have guessed much higher.  The resulting gross sales did NOT disappoint coming in at a staggering $330 million.  When you can almost double your investment you’ve got to be happy.  I’ll bet they had Captain America AND Iron Man make guest appearances at their cast party.

14.)  The Dark Knight:  There is some controversy here about how much this movie made, but I’m going to stick with what I found on a reliable website.  The estimated budget for the film was $185 million with gross sales coming in at $530 million.  Wow!  That’s almost a 300% return on their money.  Now that’s good investing!

13/12.)  Iron Man 2 and 3:  The special effects in these movies were incredible.  It’s getting harder and harder to believe your eyes when you watch todays special effects.  It all looks amazingly real.  To make these movies look real took some big bucks.  Iron Man 2 had an estimated budget of $200 million and has gross receipts of  $310+ million.  Iron Man 3 had a similar budget of $200 million with gross sales of $408 million.  Although Robert Downey Jr. has said he is tired of playing Iron Man and is ready to call it quits, don’t think that the Iron Man cash machine is going to slow down.  Hopefully they won’t cast Ryan Reynolds as him as well as the other characters he’s mangled.

11.)  Spider-Man 2:  Sam Ramie’s combination of Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst didn’t disappoint in this movie that had a budget of $200 million.  Box office tickets sales loved them as they brought in an amazing $373 million.

10.)  The Amazing Spider-Man 2:  Marc Webb’s rendition didn’t fare too well.  What with a budget of $200 million no one was happy with receipts of $202 million.  No webbing can cover up that wound.

9.)  Green Lantern:  It’s no secret that I am not a fan of Ryan Reynolds the actor.  I’m sure as a person he’s an extremely nice guy.  It’s nothing personal.  This movie’s return on investment should be taken personally, though.   With an investment of around $200 million this bomb of a movie generated approximately $116 million.  In all fairness it wasn’t Ryan Reynolds who killed this movie.  Poor writing, lack of a real plot, no character development AND Ryan Reynolds were to blame for this box office disaster.

8.)  Superman Returns:  Despite being a HUGE Superman fan I did not see this movie.  Apparently I had good reason.  This film had a budget of $209 million and barely hit $200 million in total sales.  Maybe Superman should have stayed where he was and chosen not to return.

7.)  X-Men: Days of Future Past:  Enough cannot be said about the comic books surrounding Days of Future Past.  As an appraiser I can also tell you that these comics have increased in value.  The movie, however, was not so fortunate.  Having a budget of $200 million this comic book success turned box office meltdown struggled to hit $234 million.  A $34 million dollar return sounds great to me but, alas, in Hollywood they don’t see it the same way.

6.)  X-Men:  The Last Stand:   The X-Men hit the list again with X-Men:  The Last Stand.  I personally liked both this film and Days of Future Past but it appears that I was one of the few.    The initial investment here was around the $210 million mark and returned a measly $234 million.  It may have very well been one of their last stands.

5.)  The Avengers:  Loved this movie!!!  Again, I wasn’t the only one.  The Avengers had a budget of $220 million which seems low based on all of the special effects they had.  The return, however, was incredible, coming in at an earth conquering $623 million!  It’s no wonder why they are working around the clock to continue the development of these films.

4.)  Man of Steel:  Another Superman movie I haven’t seen, this film had a budget of $225 million with returns of $291 million.  Not a bad haul, but a disappointment for those who are comparing the Marvel and DC box office receipts.

3.)  The Amazing Spider-Man:  Is it me or are the Spider-Man movies getting harder to keep track of?  Different people playing Spider-Man, Spider-Man and Amazing Spider-Man movies, different Mary Jane’s, what’s a comic book fan to do?  It harkens me back to the football games my dad used to take me to.  Program vendors were yelling, “Get your program here!  You can’t follow the players unless you have a program!”.  I think I need a program.    This film had a budget of $230 million and had box office returns of $262+ million.  Not good, but not bad.  This franchise will continue to grow.

2.)  The Dark Knight Rises:  Yet another part of the Batman franchise makes it’s way onto this list.  With a budget of $250 million this outstanding film brought in $448 million.  If the Batman vs. Superman movie factored in box office take, it appears that Batman would be the clear winner!

1.)  Spider-Man 3:  The most expensive superhero movie ever made had a budget of $258 million and returned a smidgen over $335 million.  It is becoming abundantly clear that the amount of money you spend is not always translated into total revenue earned.  It’s a shame, really.  In Hollywood, it appears, that you don’t always get what you paid for.

All this being said we are still waiting on total receipts for Avengers:  Age of Ultron.  The budget for that film was an estimated $250 million.  Let’s see if that works out well in box office returns.

I think it’s safe to say that with the release schedule of Marvel and DC, among others, we will continue to see increases in budgets as production companies try to trump one another with rising returns.  As fans we can only benefit from this competition, so I plan to enjoy it.  Just remember to stay until the credits are over and the lights come up in the theaters or else you might miss the important stuff!!