Four Colour Crap

I really don't have much to talk about this week (or most weeks) but since I'm always singing the praises of sequential art, I thought I'd point out some of the most awful comics of all time. Now there are certainly a lot of crappy comics, but I want to go beyond your Spawns and your Youngbloods to show you something that goes beyond regular bad. These books are like the "Plan 9 from Outer Space" of comics.

Dracula: Drawn by talented artist Tony Tallarico when he was in a serious slump, Dracula is about the adventures of a guy who looks like a cross between the Phantom and Batman but with a much more hideous costume than either of them. Dracula's real name is Al U. Card (*groan*) and has radar powers derived from a bat-serum that was supposed to cure his brain damage. It apparently didn't work, because then he dressed up in purple and red and called himself Dracula despite not being a vampire, or Dracula or even sucking blood. Come to think of it, Dracula did not have radar. I'm really confused by this guy's code name. Also unlike Batman's intimidating sharp pointy ears, Dracula's ears look soft, round, fuzzy and kinda cute. Seriously, I'm not an expert in fashion but not only is this one of the worst super-hero outfits I've ever seen (and that's saying a lot), it has possibly the worst use of colour I've ever seen. Uninteresting fact: Tony Tallarico later created a much uglier looking super-hero named Frankenstein.


NFL SuperPro: For some reason Marvel and the NFL decided to team up to create a comic book. It was terrible. It focuses on a football player who receives a career-ending injury while saving a little girl. He later gets dosed in chemicals which, thanks to a combination of fire and "ultra-rare NFL Souvenirs", give him superpowers. He then proceeds to fight football themed villains, including Instant Replay and Quick Kick (a football player turned ninja). Suddenly, everything that occurs in Eyeshield 21 seems plausible and sobering. Superpro's secret identity is that of a football journalist, which, much like Superman, allows him to hear about football disasters before anyone else so that he can avert them. Finally a football reporter who isn't afraid to do something to fight football corruption, unlike those yellow football journalists.

It seems odd that there are so many football obsessed villains out there. Do baseball players and curlers have to deal with this kind of shit? Frankly, if I was about to sack a quarterback and then a guy in a blimp shot laser rays at a guy whose team colours don't match any player on the field, I might take a month off. Heck, I might take the season off. But if I became aware that this sort of thing was happening every week, I would not hesitate to quit the game and look for another non-laser ray sport to play professionally. Assuming there is such a sport.

Skrull Kill Krew: This is probably the only super-group to have a neo-Nazi on the team. The series' origins go way back to Fantastic Four #2 where Mr. Fantastic hypnotizes invading skrulls into thinking they're cows. Well, Mr. F might be a genius, but he wasn't smart enough to prevent the cows from getting milked and slaughtered into skrull burgers. The milk issue was dealt with in a rather dark and clever before this, but the skrull burgers were eaten by some random people, who now have super powers and can see Skrull posing as humans. Not only that, but these people now have an intense and irrational hatred of Skrulls and travel around the country murdering Skrulls.

This series was actually created by visionary Grant Morrison and the popular Mark Millar. Though they are currently some of comics' most beloved writers, they created this dog right before Morrison hit it big and a five years before Millar did. Millar admits that they did most of the plotting while drinking heavily and is pretty embarrassed by it. In fact, the writers did a lot of things just to see what Marvel comics would let them get away with (which was a surprising amount). Still, the series was originally going to be called the Skrull Kill Kult (in reference to the popular and controversial Thrill Kill Kult), but the all ages Marvel didn't like the idea about a series that revolved around a Kult. Oddly, they took no issue with Skrull Killing.

Bad as it is, I do like the first issue cover, pictured above.

Brother Power, The Geek: The next two series I have a soft spot for, despite having never read them. Part of it is that the series premise is so quirky, that it would be possible to make them into really fun series with a good creative team and a good mind set. The other thing is that I think that the creator of both series wanted to say something about the hippie/youth culture of the time. The problem was the writer (Captain America creator Joe Simon) and editors were way to out of touch.

This two-issue series focused on a human-sized rag doll brought to life in a freak occurrence and who is trying to understand humanity in a Stranger in a Strange Land sort of way. He gets involved with Hippie Land and there's all sorts of attempts at social commentary, but it's really apparent that the creators don't know what a hippy is or where they come from. According to artist Carmine Infantino, Superman editor Mort Weisinger really hated the hippy subculture and didn't like how sympathetically the hippies were portrayed. He petitioned to have the series cancelled, but it's hard to tell if that was what ended the series. It was probably just the piss poor sales. The series ended with Brother Power being launched into space as order by governor Ronald Reagan!

Prez: The other series by Joe Simon that tried to connect with the current youth culture and completely misses the mark. This one focuses on Prez Rickards: the first teen president! Seems that he fixes all the clocks in his hometown, which somehow gets him on the fast track to the presidency after the age of eligibility is lowered for whatever reason. After that he fights vampires, undead generals and "Boss Smiley", an evil political boss with a smiley face for a head. A lot of this book was expanding on ideas that were hinted at in Brother Power and was also apparently inspired by the hippy flick Wild in the Streets, which I haven't seen. Ask Darcy about it.

It also did poorly but had two more issues than Brother Power and... well, that's really all it had going for it.

I still think that the previously mentioned series have more potential to be a good comic than the others, as long as an appropriate can be found. Critically acclaimed writer Neil Gaiman actually did stories for both characters: he turned Brother Power into a doll elemental in a Swamp Thing annual and wrote a great Prez story in Sandman in which we get to see how America would have been different if there really was a noble, clever, incorruptible soul in the white House. Frankly, I have a soft spot for most bad comics because I always feel that any crappy premise has the potential to be a great story as long as it's given great creators and the right angle. Except Superpro. I mean, football ninja? Fuck!