When you go spelunking through as many old comic books as I do, you find some
weird heroes. I mean some really, really batshit crazy stuff.
But there's nothing as weird as
this guy:
Hmmm...OK. Aside from glorifying how many bones he breaks, this guy doesn't seem that weird.
Just wait.
Police detective
Nosey McGinness has a real problem:
Cigars are
too damn expensive!!
But he has a plan:
Uhhh...
McGinness, that sounds
highly poisonous (more so than the tobacco itself!)
Wait a minute...
WHAT THE HELL????!?
WHAAAAAAATTTTTT?!?!
Well, Nosey gets himself caught and beat-up by some crooks he put away once...but fortunately, he's able to trick them into smoking one of his special cigars!
However...
This is
sooooo strange...
What. The. Hell. Was. That?
A hero, who is apparently some kind of genie
(?), summoned when you smoke a ridiculous roll-your-own (
toxic) cigar recipe? Good gravy, try to make that happen in comics (or a movie) today, and you'll be tarred and feathered!!
But it's even weirder than that. Because
this is how Nightmare started out:
Back in
1943, pro wrestler
Bob White put on a glow-in-the-dark skeleton costume and teamed up with his "
kid manager" to fight crime as
Nightmare and Sleepy. Because
wrasslin'!!
Well, 6 issues later they decided to re-dress our duo in more standard super-hero togs:
Then, between issue
#12 &
13, something happened. With not even a hint of a scintilla of an explanation, Nightmare went from being a costumed wrestler crime-fighter to a cigar-summoned genie crime-fighter. It was the
same costume...was it the
same guy? How could that have happened? Was he somehow cursed to live in terrible cigars?!?!?
And the "genie" version of Nightmare only appeared in one more story, and then was never heard of again. What happened--were the cigars all used up?
And that's why we need to revive this character--so someone can write a story
explaining this to me!!
From Clue Comics #2 (1943), #11 (1946), #13 (1947)
That's impressively imaginative and outside the box, that's for sure. And am I the only one that can't help but snicker at the panel with the line "You just said it! I'm called Nightmare!"
ReplyDeleteHow this could possibly make sense:
ReplyDeleteThe original Nightmare and Sleepy either retired from crimefighting, or got riddled with bullets.
Nosey McGinness had at some time read an account of Nightmare but didn't pay much attention at the time.
Nightmare remained in Nosey's subconscious and appeared in a couple of hallucinations before Nosey's homemade (and toxic) cigars gave him fatal brain damage.
This is fantastic! Weird but creative.
ReplyDeleteAnnouncing yourself as Nightmare while cupping your genitals is also odd, albeit a potentially useful move to distract a villain's attention.
ReplyDelete