Don’t click on that link. You’ll know which one.
So I’m looking at this ad that ran on the back of Marvel Comics in 1987, which is designed to look like a letter the Thing wrote to Dr. Doom to tell him about the new Fantastic Four team. I thought it was pretty amusing…and perfectly in character for the Thing to type out (or, more likely, dictate to the FF’s robotic secretary) a missive to Doom just to razz him.
And that got me to thinking…what other superhero/villain relationships would work at this level? You wouldn’t see Batman mocking the Joker like this, nor would Superman do the same to Lex Luthor. Spider-Man? Maybe, but it seems to me Spidey would keep his mocking of the bad guys to just during the actual conflicts…he wouldn’t cruise by their homes and moon ’em, for example.
No, it sorta seems to me the Thing (and, perhaps, his occasional partner in crime, the Human Torch) would get a kick out of haranguing the bad guys even during their down time. I like to think that the Thing would send Doom harassing e-mails as well:
"From: thing@fantasticfour.mvl
To: iamdoom@latveriaonline.le
Subject: Interestin' website
Hey Vic, here's a site I thought you might like. Har har!
Love,
the ever-lovin' blue-eyed Thing"
Don’t click on that link, by the way.
Okay, maybe I’m reading a little too much into an ad, but for me, it just underlines what a unique creation Stan ‘n’ Jack had in the Thing…he could have been nothing more than a tragic character, but his sense of humor and irreverence keep us connected to him, even during the, shall we say, lower points of his history:
That’s the splash from Fantastic Four Unplugged #1 (1995)…here’s a better look at that word balloon:
Where were all you people complaining about “I’m the gosh-danged Batman” when this came out?
In other news:
Boom! Studios has a new zombie comic out today: Zombie Tales: Death Valley Book One, and it’s a fun comic about a bunch of high school students facing a world full of zombies. Yes, we’ve seen set-up before, with a last batch of remaining humans fighting against vast numbers of the undead, but the story by Andrew Crosby and Johanna Stokes is fast-paced and goes down easy. The students themselves are outta central casting, with the Jock, the Smart Kid, the Shallow Cute One, and so on. However, effort is made to make them individuals beyond the cliches, so that when the deaths begin to occur, you actually feel sorry to see those characters go. The artwork, by Rhoald Marcellus, is less to my taste, a sort of a manga-esque cartoony style that feels a little rough-hewn, but it grew on me as read the book. Overall…not groundbreaking, but if you love the zombie comics, as I know some of you do, it’s good entertainment.
