The August Personage of Mr. Throckmorton Friday!

Although Johnny tried his best to impress Peter, their blind date did not go as well as he'd hoped.

Um.... Jan, you realize you aren't really a wasp and Pete isn't really a spider, don't you?  You can be a rhymes-with-witch all you like, I suppose, but there's really no zoological justification for it.  I mean, I don't think bats and robins are natural allies, either, but Bruce and Dick never started clawing at each other.

And now, from Detective Comics #341, a Moment in Comic Book Greatness! (tm!):

Sputter!  Haruuumph!

See you Monday!!

Fear My Tight Leopard-Skin Pants Thursday!

Even an amazing hero can have his low points.  Consider this scene from Amazing Spider-Man #15:

Spidey, if you'll just turn your head to the left a little, I think you'll notice a full-grown man jumping out the window three feet from you.  Just a little... tiny... too much trouble?  Never mind.

It really needs to be said:

Kraven may have been tough, but his costume was downright ridiculous.  Is it the hair cape that only the Creeper could pull off?  Is it the house slippers that only Iron Fist could pull off?  Is it the leopard-skin pants that... well, only a middle-aged woman with no fashion sense would dare to try to pull off?  Or is it just the unfortunate combination of everything?  Whatever the reason, welcome to the Costume Hall of Shame!

Spidey resolved to never again answer a personal ad on "Craigslist..."

Hey!  It's time for Fun with Out of Context Dialogue!(tm!)  Courtesy of Amazing Spider-Man #16:

Oh, Karen Page.  You did get around.

See you tomorrow!

Fear My Sparkly Fingers!

It's interesting to me how cheesed people get with me picking on the Lee/Ditko Amazing Spider-Man days.  I thought I had tipped over a few sacred cows already, but none so much as maligning the unfortunate Peter Parker.  You'd think I'd stop.  You'd think.

Which, of course, just leads me into Amazing Spider-Man #13, which had the first appearance of Mysterio.  The idea was an interesting one: To defeat him, one had to figure out how he accomplished mind-boggling illusions.  Well, in this case, not even he knows:

He would later admit that he had magnets in the soles of his shoes.  However, since magnets don't work on bricks, he himself had no idea how he managed to attach himself to the bridge like that.  It was probably a Wile E. Coyote "I don't know this is impossible so I'm doing it" moment.

On to issue #14, which brought about the first appearance of the Green Goblin and the return of the Enforcers:

It looks like tearing up phone books is how Ox is passing the time, but this strikes me as the sort of thing you could really only do once.  Did he have a pile of phone books there, or did he just glue it back together so he could rip it again?

Annnnnnnyway, the Green Goblin comes in and announces he's the new head cheese.  The Enforcers take issue with this, until the Goblin demonstrates his awesome power thusly:

Seriously?  A few sparks?  What are they, magpies?  It seems like Spidey could have saved himself quite a few lumps over the years if he saved some sparklers from the Fourth of July.

And, of course, it would have been hilarious had the sparks come out of the Goblin's middle finger, but you already know that.

Here's a power I didn't know Spidey had:

Chest expansion?  I'm not really sure what "(his) power of chest expansion" is.  Was he bitten by a radioactive pufferfish?

Alright, my grumblies!  Start yer gripin' in the comments, and I'll see you tomorrow!

A Gorilla Who Strapped a Bomb to His Chest That Would Go Off if He Touched the Ground for Some Reason I Forget Tuesday!

Ah, the Sixties.  How I love you so:

Not that the story itself was a classic, but you just had to love an era where the main plot device was Batman having to hoist a gorilla over his head lest the bomb that the gorilla strapped to himself would go off.

Of course, a gorilla weighs around 600 pounds, but he's the got-dang Batman!

Hey!  Here's Something Disturbing! (tm!)

Yes, unearthing the silver age Elongated Man stories has introduced not one, but two categories here at CMNS.  I appreciate the joke, and I actually think Ralph can do this, but that's totally gross.

However, here is yet another Thing I Don't Think the Elongated Man Can Do!(tm!):

I'm no physicist, but that just doesn't seem right.

See you tomorrow!

You Don't Believe What You See? That's What SHE Said! Monday!

    

Yeah, that's right.... I'm starting the week off with more Amazing Spider-Man, so buckle up!

Starting with some Fun with Out of Context Dialogue (tm!) from issue #3!

I run a clean blog here, but it's hilarious if you imagine Doc Ock wearing no pants behind that closed door.

Hey!  Another finger weapon from #5!:

I really think it would be hilarious to have the finger weapon be the middle finger, but only if they snuck it in there.  It's the kind of thing you have to do with a straight face in order for it to be funny.

I never realized how pretty Betty Brant is before.... but in my defense, check out her hair.

I can't let Aunt May worry!  Worry could kill her!  So, I'll just soothe her by unexpectedly plunging the house into total darkness.  What a wonderful nephew I am!  Thanks for raising me, Aunt May!

Aunt May?  Why are you laying on the kitchen table, clutching your chest like that?

And hey!  It's issue #6 with the Lizard!:

You know you're a badass when you have your own chorus of Disembodied Floating Heads!  I loves me some Disembodied Floating Heads!

More importantly, why did your own husband give you his autograph?

See you tomorrow!

Here's an Extra Pair of Pants for You Friday!

I'm feeling spry, so I'm making the commitment to start plowing through the oft-reprinted Amazing Spider-Man series. Let's start with something that is supposed to be sad, but struck me as hilarious - Peter envisions Aunt May as being out on the street selling shoelaces because he gets himself arrested and sends his aunt into financial ruin....

It's the selling shoelaces that got me.

And now, a Moment of Comic Book Greatness!  From Amazing Spider-Man #4:

Here's something I just don't think would have worked in a thousand years, as Peter encounters the Sandman for the second time, also in Amazing Spider-Man #4:

Okay, we all know the Sandman could rip right through that vacuum cleaner in two seconds.  Why he just sits  in there and waits for the police, I don't know.  Maybe he's like a parakeet, in that he gets all docile when he's encased in a dark environment.  If that's the case, anyone who encountered the Sandman in the future probably could have saved themselves a lot of trouble just by draping a sheet over his head.

From the very beginning, Peter had his moral stumbles. He supposedly learned about "great responsibility" after Uncle Ben was killed by the burglar Peter failed to stop earlier. But apparently, Peter still had his flaws:

Hmmmmmm.... no, I think staging a photo is pretty unethical, no matter how close in time and/or place you might have been to the event you are fraudulently passing off.

Elephants and Grasshoppers Thursday!

So we're a few issues into the "New Batman" Detective Comics era, and I've determined that by "more realistic," they simply mean "no aliens or space travel."  I'll concede that's an improvement, but we aren't quite at the gritty detective level I was used to when I started reading comics in the 1970's.  But I'll give them credit for this:

Elephants are awesome, second only to gorillas in comic book awesomeness.  To replace those goofy alien invaders with an elephant was some sound editorial judgment.  God bless you, Julie Schwartz!

Not that we didn't still have our moments:

I'll admit I'm not the most careful reader, but I can't recall any reason why the two Grasshoppers had these special abilities (they were brothers and they liked to pull the "They Don't Know I'm a Twin So it Seems Like I'm in Two Places at Once" gimmick).  I'm pretty sure we weren't given any.  We're still in the Silver Age, kids!  Comics still only cost 12 cents!

Here's a weird bit of trivia: This issue of Detective Comics (#334, because I'm sure you're going to be heading to your local comic shop in droves to buy it) is the only appearance of the character.  But, and I kid you not, there was a trading card series put out by Weetabix in 1979 that actually had this character in it.  Eighteen cards with one DC character each, and they devoted one to a one-shot Batman villain fifteen years after his one-and-only appearance.

Then again, other villains used included Kung, Pywal, Ocean Monster, Robot Behmoth and Trino, so it's not like every other card was a member of the varsity.

I'm going to add this to the list of things I don't think the Elongated Man can do:

In fact, I'm establishing a new category because I'm noticing it a lot: Things I Don't Think the Elongated Man Can Do! (tm!)  I'm sure there will be more.

Hey!  This was awesome!:

How cool is that?  

See you tomorrow!