Wednesday, June 26, 2013

No Comment, The Hulk

Are you tired of reading about me reading old comic books? Too bad. This is your life now. So I was reading this Metal Men comic book and it sure looks like that by 1968 DC's normally carefree and goofy Metal Men were trying to get all dark and broody and "relevant" like the X-Men and other Marvel characters. (Yesterday I read a 1970 Marvel comic in which the Hulk decides to battle some young protesters on a college campus. My favorite panel shows the Hulk smashing his way through a concrete wall as he shouts, "THE ONES CALLED -- STUDENTS! THEY ARE THE ENEMY THAT HULK WANTS TO CRUSH!" Ha ha! No comment, Hulk. When the leader of the student protesters hears that the Hulk is approaching, he says, "I'M TELLIN' YOU, PEOPLE -- IF THE HULK IS HEADED THIS WAY, IT'S GOTTA BE TO JOIN OUR PROTEST! THAT GREEN BROTHER'S AS MUCH ANTI-ESTABLISHMENT AS ANY OF US!" Then the Hulk lands and he quickly changes his mind. "THAT'S RIGHT -- RUN! RUN LIKE ANTS -- LIKE SCARED RABBITS!" suggests the Hulk.) Anyway, in a Marvel-like twist, the cops are after the Metal Men! Orders come over the police radio: "IF YOU FIND OUT HOW TO KILL A ROBOT -- SHOOT TO KILL!" And in the end, after the Metal Men save the city from a giant fly (!) whose weapon is flypaper (!!) - sort of a counterintuitive approach for a giant fly - everyone still hates them! The robot named Tin, who is made of Tin, says, "L-LOOK! EVEN THE CATS OF THE CITY H-H-HAVE TURNED AGAINST US!" Sure enough, a cat in an alleyway where the Metal Men are hiding hisses like so: "PHFSSSSTT" and the end of the story has our heroes backed up against a brick wall. "THE PEOPLE STILL DON'T TRUST US!" says Lead, who is made of lead. "THEIR SUSPICIOUS EYES HURT WORSE THAN BULLETS!" says Mercury, which seems out of character for him (he was always the grouchy one). By the way, look, I took this picture for you (above) - it's Lead saying, "STOP FIRIN', GUYS! I'M THE SAME LEAD YOU LET YOUR KIDS PLAY WITH --!" ha ha, is that funny? I don't know.