Why Fembots Are A Bad Idea!

This may have been a 1950s comic, but it's a damned good metaphor for some people's abominable behavior today.

The aptly named Professor Casper Skeezer is hitting on a waitress at the local tavern, or so it seems:

But...but...but it was for science, you see!!

So, it's off to finish our fembot with properly attuning the "kissing muscles."

"Full strength in her oral muscles." Cough cough.

Soon--success!!

So, she's picks up a beefy beau at the bar...

Rule #1: NEVER. KISS. A. ROBOT.

Well, that was the best comic book "a kiss from a woman will kill you" until this:

Don't ask.

Anyway, Rita continues to prove that man-boys should be frightened of any physical contact with strong women:

Fair point.

Rita heads back home, ready to kiss Skeezer. But he knows better than that!

Harsh.

But Rita is made of sterner stuff:

But...

Well, that story certainly sums up how a certain species of fanboy regards women, doesn't it? Desirable, but to be feared if they show any strength or assertiveness. "Emotionally unstable" if they don't assent to your every wish. FEAR WOMEN!

I know some folks who could really use a visit from fembot Rita....

From Weird Terror #10 (1954). Yes, I know the last panel called him Skeeter instead of Skeezer. Give yourself a No-Prize.

This Is Your Brain On Death--Any Questions?!?

Hal Jordan is on Korugar, hunting down a misbehaving Sinestro. Katma Tui has a suggestion where he might be hiding...

Wait...Sinestro's father ran on opium den?!?!

Katma has actual work to do (preventing a planet from blowing up!), so she leaves Hal to his quest.

And Hal finds out that it's much more than an opium den...

OK, that's got to be way worse than our opioid epidemic.

But Sinestro's there, and he tricks Hal into getting caught by those (conveniently) yellow "null rays."

Well, I guess death really is pretty cool. Hey, has anybody told Thanos about this?!? It'd probably be easier to impress Death by opening a franchise of this "null chamber" on every planet!!

Oh, and Katma Tui showed up to save Hal, and Sinestro gets away, because Jordan basically sucks at everything.

From Green Lantern #124 (1980)

EXCLUSIVE--Rejected Script From DC's Doomsday Clock!!

As we all know, both the UN Security Council and the Illuminati have banned me from writing comic books.

Still, I feel compelled from time to time to try and sneak some things through the anti-snell firewall.

Case in point--DC's forthcoming Doomsday Clock, which will feature Geoff Johns giving every fan what they've always wanted: Alan's Moore's beloved Watchmen characters explaining why it's not Geoff John's fault that the nu52 sucked really hard.

On the sly, I submitted a script. Of course, despite a jaunty pseudonym, I couldn't disguise my writing style, and the script was swiftly rejected. And shredded. And burned.

Still, I had the foresight to save a copy. So here is a crucial scene from the 1st issue of my proposal for Doomsday Clock.

DOCTOR MANHATTAN: Behold, Kal-El, I have come to--

SUPERMAN: Hold on a second...you're just a Captain Atom knock-off!

RORSCHACH: Hrrrmmm.

BATMAN: And this guys just Travis Bickle meets The Question. Seriously, how can characters so derivative be a threat to our universe?

BOOSTER GOLD (whispers to SKEETS): Yeah, like those Metal "Dark Multiverse" Batmen weren't derivative...

OZYMANDIAS: I think you're underestimating the sheer genius I bring to the table!

BATMAN: Some genius. You kept your entire masterplan--unencrypted!!--on a computer with the password Ramses II. I mean, how stupid was that? Even the lame Nite Owl was able to crack that!

NITE OWL: Now wait just one--

FLASH: Who are you even supposed to be, anyway? Are you Batman, are you Blue Beetle...?

BOOSTER GOLD: I knew Ted Kord. I worked with Ted Kord. You, sir are no Ted Kord.

DOCTOR MANHATTAN: Listen, men of Earth-0. We successfully deconstructed the super-hero genre on our Earth, and now--

HAL JORDAN (Makes raspberry sound): Please. You had one person with super-powers in the entire universe. Even the earliest Golden Age publishers had more than that. All you "deconstructed" was the Charlton universe, and, well, there's a reason that failed multiple times!!

OZYMANDIAS: I think you're overlooking how brilliantly I manipulated the world into peace!!

SUPERMAN: Congratulations. You invented fake news. Well done. We already have enough of that here.

BATMAN: Don't forget the thousands and thousands of deaths he's responsible for. Which he conveniently didn't have to pay any price for.

RORSCHACH: Soon you will come to us for help. And we will look down and whisper--

FLASH: Don't you idiots realize that you're the villains? You're. The. Bad. Guys. You screwed up your tiny little universe with one planet and only one guy with powers. You couldn't handle even that much, so you took your world to the brink of annihilation, killing millions--and you want extra credit for that? Get bent.

DOCTOR MANHATTAN (clearing his throat loudly): A-HEM. As I was saying, we have come to... [drones on in background]

BATMAN (whispers to SUPERMAN): Keep him talking. My tachyon suit is almost ready. I'll take care of him.

BOOSTER GOLD: (whispering to SKEETS): Yeah, as long as Doc Manhattan doesn't have a mother named Martha...

Well, it just goes on like for 12 issues.

I wonder why they rejected it?

Golden Age Idol--The Vagabond!!

Followers of this blog are well aware of my deep and abiding love for hobos in comics.

So why not go full-on crazy and have a hobo hero?

No, it's not Namor (although we can always hope for a crossover).

No, this is the one, the only Chauncy Throttlebottom III!

But we'll just call him...The Vagabond!!

Oh, man, that hits the spot.

So, who is the Vagabond? That's a very good question, actually, because for reasons unbeknownst to modern readers, they played ridiculously coy with his secret identity.

We start in the well-known town of Middleton, where Pat Murphy, a police officer working for the District Attorney's office, is trying to find the lowdown on some gangs...

In the very next panel, we meet:

The curious thing is, in all his appearances in USA Comics, the costume change was always made off-screen, and without explicitly confirming that Murphy was the Vagabond.

And at the end of an adventure, it's another clandestine change, taking care not to reveal his identity!

Why? Did the creators want to sew confusion about his identity for some particular reason? This they have some big twist reveal that maybe the Vagabond was actually someone besides Murphy?

No one can say at this point. Many sources were confused by this approach, though, resulting in their suggesting that maybe the Vagabond was really FBI agent Walter Carstairs, even though he was killed prior to the start of the first story.

Stan Lee himself let the cat out of the bag in a text piece in USA Comics #2 (1941), where all of the heroes starring in that comic met up and swapped tales of their adventures:

Assuming that Stan knew, that's pretty definite.

Anyway, the Vagabond dressed like a clown tramp, but spoke extremely eruditely. He was the Sideshow Bob of his day!!

Well, he spoke like Sideshow Bob, but fought like Captain America!

He even explicitly hat-tips fellow Timely hero Captain America:

Early product placement!!

Any, that was the the Vagabond's entire shtick--talk fancy, beat up thugs.

Vagabond's run lasted a mere three issues in USA Comics. And in the very next issue, the Fighting Hobo (no relation) debuted, creating even more confusion!! Clearly, the early 1940s were the zenith of heroic hobos!!

A few months later, a Vagabond story turned up in Young Allies #4 (1942). They had pretty much abandoned Middleton and any pretense of a secret identity--he was now just a wandering tramp who stumbled into crime and beat up the criminals. He did fight a villain named Egg-Head, so excellent tie-in possibilities exist!

Next he showed up in Comedy Comics #11 (1942), and he was pretty much transformed into a humor character.

That was it for the Vagabond, until the 2008 Avengers/Invaders mini-series. With a number of other obscure Timely heroes, he was slaughtered by the Red Skull in 1943, only to be resurrected later, because Cosmic Cube. Then, again with a gaggle of Timely co-stars, he turned up in the never-finished All-Winners Squad: Band of Heroes (2011). Eisenhower put together a team of Timely men called the Crazy SUES, who fought in various WWII theaters. In this tale, the Vagabond was killed in an Axis ambush in 1944, because modern comic readers aren't allowed to have nice, fun characters.

Still, it shows that some folks at Marvel are aware of the character, and there's no reason he can't be revived. How about it, guys?

From USA Comics #2-4 (1941-1942)