Hoo boy.
All right, look – I want to start out by saying that Knodar has a cool concept. “Man from a utopian future who wants to reinvent crime” is pretty neat on all sorts of levels, and could really work itself into an awesome story very easily. The base idea behind Knodar can be used in all sorts of ways; he can be a demented genius coming back to the time he should have been born in, or a naive jackass who is to real criminals as cosplayers are to anime characters. Hell, he can be both at once. That’s pretty wild.
But… jeez, just look at him, will you?
I get that it’s not his fault, per se, that he wears a skintight leotard with the letter “P” all over it. After all, in the future they don’t make prison clothes any more because they don’t have prisons. (Of course, it looks like in the future they haven’t forgotten to make people look really goddamned stupid, though.) But why does he keep wearing it when he comes back to our time? Get a nice suit or something, Knodar. Or bring along a robotic mecha exoskeleton. (I refuse to believe that in a utopian future there are no robotic mecha exoskeletons you couldn’t borrow.)
And then there’s his weapon. Yes, it can manipulate metal. That’s great, Knodar. That’s just great. It’s Magneto-on-a-stick. That’s a pretty decent weapon. Except it looks like a space-spatula. Or the spatula the Silver Surfer might use. (“To me, my fried eggs!”) Come on, it doesn’t matter what it actually does, when Knodar points it at you you’re going to laugh.
There’s such a good storytelling device here. It just needs refinement. Like, really badly does it need refinement.
But put him in a nice suit and give him a better sort of weapon (hint: it should not look like a spatula), and that rating will jump up right quick, I tell you what.
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32 users responded in this post
Fate unknown? Oh, I think I can guess what his fate is. It’s called Rick Hunter and a Louisville slugger.
This guy is like the movie Demolition Man in reverse.
His costume is like adult footie pajamas with P stenciled everywhere. If he was inspired by gangster movies, you’d think he’d just copy their outfits. Even an orange convict’s costume is better. Even a horizontal-striped cartoon prisoner uniform is better.
The metal-manipulator doesn’t look like a spatula to me. It looks like one of the little plastic shovels toddlers use in the sandbox. It’s even the right color!
HIM they they put in WHo’s Who, but not Prez. UNbelieveable.
I’m so glad I’m not the only person who thought it was a spatula. And “To me, my fried eggs!” made me chuckle; I’d pay to read that in a Surfer comic.
Bad joke of the day: Somebody P’ed all over him!
See, I hear the concept, and I think “The Stainless Steel Rat Takes A Temporal Holiday.”
So he’s Abra Kadabra with worse fashion sense and a lust for Edward G. Robinson instead of Houdini?
I think it’s mainly the fact that what he has to go on about criminals from our time… It’s mostly hearsay and comic books.
It’s like when in Back to the Future Part 3, Doc Brown sends Marty into the past with that really bad Cowboy costume.
It’s like that. He thinks this the most normal thing in the world for us.
He should rock the white double-breasted blazer, Doc Ock style.
I took one look at him and realized he was obviously a man of Ps.
Sorry. Had no choice.
See, I hear the concept, and I think “The Stainless Steel Rat Takes A Temporal Holiday.”
You see, that would make an awesome comic. Jim decides he’s getting rusty, so goes off to play with Batman.
Just don’t make me read the sequel, The Stainless Steel Rat vs Judge Dredd.
This guy? Sorry, but I really think that outfit is what a 0% rating should have been held in reserve for. It doesn’t matter if his description said: “He is a master of martial arts who repeatedly made Batman and Bronze Tiger his bitches, simultaneously, and plays chess with Lex Luthor in his spare time.” With that outfit, he’s lost any hope he might have had. Ever.
The sad thing is if it were green with question-marks or some such it’d be pretty swank, but grey with the letter P? dude should be on Sesame Street or somewhere.
And now for my own bad “P” joke:
When I first saw him, my first thought was “Why is he covered in P?”
Do NOT mock the spatula. The spatula is the PERFECT WEAPON. And all who stand before it shall be wrapped up in soba noodles and baked into okonomiyaki!
Joysweeper, Lunchebox-He didn’t design the costume, that was the prison uniform the authorities designed for him. Maybe it doesn’t come off or something.
His story sounds like it inspired Tempus in Lois&Clark:The New Adventures of Superman.
I still want to see the guy that MGK would rate at below 10%. He’s had some of the biggest losers in the universe here, and they still rank like a 17%. I want to see what a 3% looks like.
I’m thinking a 3% might be that Chinese woman whose superpower is overpopulation.
I don’t
I don’t care if he can control metal…
Valda the Iron Maiden would still whoop his ass. Smiling as she does it.
Sorry for the double post there. Hit the wrong key when I was composing it the first time.
“I’m thinking a 3% might be that Chinese woman whose superpower is overpopulation.”
It’s a hard call. Mother of Champions does associate with Egg Fu, which might bump her rating up.
Leave it to Grant Morrison to take a character like old school Egg Fu, a twenty percenter at best, and invert his place on the scale.
Y’know, maybe instead of mocking poor Knodar, we should apply some ISWTL thinking to him, and make him, if not cool, at least quirky enough to be interesting.
His weapon looks like a spatula because it is an auto-spatula, except it’s power source is a fragment of the Philosopher’s Stone, which drove him insane, like it has all it’s possessors.
Second-rate Magneto? He controls all metals. Calcium’s a metal. Imagine the Keystone police coming across a sack of flesh next to a pile of gray powder — and it’s still alive! (The flesh, that is.)
I got nothing for the costume.
But until MGK starts running DC, this’ll have to do.
I doubt he’d pull that one off. He’s a rookie criminal really, and his gangster movie heroes seldom left still moving piles of flesh.
Darker and edgier isn’t always the key to fixing a bad villain.
I was thinking that if you give him the right personality quirk he’d be interesting. For example: The bio says that when he was in prison people would come and laugh at him. There’s your hook. He hates being laughed at, but for whatever reason can’t get rid of the stupid costume and doesn’t have the intellect to change the way his weapon looks without damaging it. So you’ve got a guy running around, covered in Ps waving a spatula around who doesn’t like to be laughed at. Have him beat some character down (for whatever reason I’m thinking Beast Boy) with his spatula and suddenly his threat level is on the rise.
Awww, poor Beast Boy. He gets no love unless he visits the zoo.
@Evil Midnight Lurker
Akane rules. It’s a fact.
And I like the idea of Knodar. Unfortunately, Milestone re-did the idea of a metal-controlling supervillain. Iron Butterfly, people, Look her up.
“Akane rules. It’s a fact.”
Wasn’t that Ukyo?
@Jason
Really? I can see why he wore it then, even if it does look too silly to be taken care of.
He’s the only one in the future who NEEDS to be imprisoned, and that sounds pretty badass.
Until you kind of realize he crimes were most like… Mediocre at best, compared to today’s standard.
He could really give detective Batman a run for his money. He starts copying crimes from history and Batman has to figure out what’s going on. Might be cool.
Even better.
Crimes from FUTURE history.
And “They had to reinvent the concept of laws, jail, and punishment, just for me.” does sound kinda tough.
Hey, MGK, you seen this yet? Given the nature of this post, I assume it is relevant to your interests.