• At UGO.com, Vito Delsante counts down the “Top 50 WTF Moments in Comics,” from the story of Bill Finger to the marriage of Aunt May and Dr. Octopus to the Batman back-breaking stunt. Don’t worry, there are some good WTF moments, too.
• The recently launched all-ages blog Good Comics for Kids has found a new home on the School Library Journal’s website. I’ll miss Dan Hess’ banner, but I love his chibi renditions of the blog’s contributors.
• Cartoonist Sergio Aragones talks about becoming one of Mad‘s legendary Usual Gang of Idiots: “I had just arrived [in New York] from Mexico in 1962. And every magazine I went to, everybody rejected me because I had been doing pantomime cartoons. Everybody said, “These things are crazy, you should go to Mad.” So I went to Mad. And they were right.”
• Examiner.com spotlights the best comic shops in Los Angeles, but somehow overlooks Secret Headquarters.
• Hellboy creator Mike Mignola explains to Williamette Week why he left Portland, Ore., for New York City: “My wife hated it! She hated almost every second of living there. I loved it. It is a little rainy and dreary.”
October 1st, 2008 at 10:25 pm
So I’m going through the list of 50 “WTF?” moments and thinking “They really oughta put Superman Vs. Muhammed Ali on the list.” Well it made the list, but I didn’t think it would be so close to the top. I remember seeing the oversized book on the newsstand at the grocery store as a kid though and flipping through it thinking it would be one of the coolest things ever. It wasn’t. Even now, I’m not sure why so many people, including the guy who made the list, thinks that book was so great.
For me, at the age of maybe eight or nine, it was downright shocking to see my (de-powered) hero get the sh*t beaten out of him so severely… Honestly, I always felt like they went way over the top in that book, having Supes beaten to a pulp, hauled out on a stretcher and hooked up to an oxygen tank… What was the point of all that? I don’t even remember anything else about the story because I was so upset about that.
I think I became a lot less enamored with Superman comics after that, because I began to realize that DC seemed to go out their way to de-power Supes and/or have him get his ass kicked far more often than their flagship character should. Luthor beats him up every few years, Captain Marvel always gets the better of him when they square off, etc., etc. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like Superman is “wussed out” a lot more than he should be. Otherwise, what’s the point of having him?
Just my $.02. YMMV