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mygif

Well, look at that, MGK just won the internet. Again.

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mygif

while I was not a fan of the eighties Blue Beetle series, I give them credit for blindsiding me about Overthrow’s identity (a rival of Ted’s who kept ducking out of appointments for vague excuses was so Obviously Overthrow I was pleasantly surprised to be wrong).

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mygif

Man, this REALLY makes me want to tell people that my profession is “crime tailor” the next time I have to make small talk at a party.

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El Acordeonachi said on November 4th, 2010 at 2:48 pm

Time for a new regular segment!

Reason #x Why MGK Should Write “The Crime Tailor”

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mygif

I have to admit, I do totally love The Crime Tailor; I think just about all Thursday Who’s Who segments should involve him.

(for that matter, kudos for bringing it back…Thursday Who’s Who is my favorite weekly feature on your site, although Al-Rashad is quite good).

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Cookie McCool said on November 4th, 2010 at 4:14 pm

Green and *magenta*, actually, which means you’d have to eat babies just to be taken half-seriously as a villain. Why not just throw some glitter on there too?

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mygif

Characters like this who specialize in throwing specific items (boomerang, oddball, javelin, etc) really need a secondary power that overshadows the long distance weapon thing.

Take the Goddamn Batman, for example. He’s a thrower of batarangs, pellets and other things. However that ability is overshadowed by his deductive abilities, stealth skills, and of course a psychological background that chronically perpetuates itself. These are the kind of things that allowed Batman to be elevated from a mere hurler of bat-shaped objects and beyond characters of more limited means like Green Arrow.

However, Overthrow is an awesome name. One can never have too many villains with awesome names. If you’re a hero and you beat a crappy villain with an awesome name, it will always look better in the press than beating an awesome villain with a terrible name.

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Cookie McCool said on November 4th, 2010 at 4:38 pm

Also, “Overthrow”? Sure, in a villainy context, it might indicate toughness, but I would think in a sporting context, it means you… missed. Imaginary gold medals in jai alai, my Aunt Fanny!

Also also, if you’re still questing for Trouble For Trumpets, I totally win. The price tag on the (unfortunately paperback)cover says a whopping $1.98.

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mygif

And the Rex The Wonder Dog score is….?

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Candlejack said on November 4th, 2010 at 4:54 pm

I like that he decided not to go with a helmet. That’s confidence.

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Pennyforth said on November 4th, 2010 at 5:07 pm

Huzzah, a new Thursday Who’s Who! Brings back memories of my youth, reading the original Who’s Who, and every so often coming across a niche or “theme” character and thinking, “Really? Someone created this character, someone else (or possibly the same someone) designed this outfit, and some editor let the character reach publication instead of laughing the creator(s) out of their office? REALLY?”

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mygif

Yay! Thursday Who’s Who!

@Zenrage: Sure if you’re a superhero you need more than the “I can throw stuff good” schtick, but if you’re a super-villain, one good schtick is enough. I mean, not everyone is going to be “Dr. Doom” or “Lex Luthor” or “Gorilla Grodd”. Some guys are just there to have their one schtick that works for a while, take a beating and get thrown in jail. The superhero world needs its Overthrows and Captain Boomerangs and Javelins as much as it needs its Riddlers or Clayfaces or Parasites. And hey, the “I can throw stuff good” guys can aspire to someday be like Bullseye or Deadshot and graduate up to the A-list of super-villainy.

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mygif

The Riddler’s got that same basic color scheme about half the time (mostly green with purple highlights), and the Joker mostly leaves him alone. And the Riddler even rocks the suit and hat combo that’s much closer to Joker’s signature look.

Course, that might just be professional courtsey on Joker’s part. Overthrow might not get the benefit of the doubt.

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Matthew Johnson said on November 4th, 2010 at 7:22 pm

My theory is that Overthrow was actually the jai alai guy from _Mad Men_, still trying desperately to get people interested in jai alai.

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mygif

“do you know the number one cause of supervillain fatalities? It’s not the Suicide Squad. It’s rocket boots running out of fuel when you’re three stories up because you decided that having rocket boots meant you could fight Hawkman on his own turf.”

Ha!

Glad to see this feature back

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mygif

It is a crying shame that there was no post-crisis version of the Purple Pile-Driver in time to get a who’s who entry.

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mygif

First reaction: “Jai Alai? That’s a pretty goofy shtick for a supervillain. Thumbs down.”

Second reaction: “He fights Blue Beetle? I approve.”

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mygif

I miss these, would like to see them more. Never heard of this guy, but I wouldn’t mind seeing him, might be a good fight for a lower powered guy or even hang with Flash’s rogues.

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mygif

See, this is the kind of guy I can see getting used once or twice and then cropping up as a cameo or side-villain in perpetuity. I can see Overthrow as muscle for a guy like the Penguin or as an assassin or saboteur at some international sports or business event.

I’m just imagining a crazy mask wearing ja lai player popping out behind a bush while flinging piping hot plasma balls. That’s the kind of thing that can mess you up.

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mygif

when you overthrow in a sporting context – for example, overthrowing a ball – doesn’t that mean you miss?

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mygif

What folks hopefully realize is that Overthrow fought the Blue Beetle BEFORE the “BWA-HA-HA” days of Giffen’s League. This was one of the Charlton revival series that emulated Ditko in pacing and layout, but not in depth of story or philosophical self-confidence.

The series that was doing THAT with a Steve Ditko character was “The Question” by Denny O’Neil and Denys Cowan. Len Wein’s “Blue Beetle” was trying to revive the colorful, super-science edge of Silver Age comics — similar in tone to Ditko’s Spider-Man (right down to some of Ted’s pangs of drama).

Overthrow may seem lame, but Wein also created the Muse, a mob son who was trying to ignite a gang war so he could leave the life and pursue his dream of acting. The idea of a flamboyant supervillain being an aspiring actor makes sense if you have a single friend with a drama degree currently waiting tables and trying out for YouTube superhero films. The series was too choppy to really have poignancy, but the ultimate fate of the Muse and the reaction of Blue Beetle (and guest star The Question) seems exactly like Steve Ditko would have written in the Sixties, had he been able to sympathize for one second with a criminal from a tormented background (hint: he would not have).

Batman and Spider-Man both have some very goofy rogues that have become unquestioned by comic fans (I hesitate to name them, for fear of being told I am totally off base) because they worked their way into superhero pop culture while the average reader was a young child, and then gradually hardened in step with the pace of the general readership. We accept them because we’re used to them in myriad forms, and can accept the goofy roots because they’re cherished and because we have seen an organic growth over the years toward mature, well-rounded characters. So the Mad Hatter became a dark pedophile to whom mind control is as thrilling as rape, the Riddler became a master logician who uses his costumed past as a kitschy ironic selling point in Gotham — heck, even nostalgia allows writers to use Killer Mother as the face of an ineffectual Joe trying to make it big, or a half-wit given the gift of power we all crave.

If Overthrow had come out in 1966, he would have ended up with a steroid-pumping, whore-banging analogue in “Watchmen” who would be a failed revolutionary and full-time hedonist eventually killed by Rorschach. And Geoff Johns would want to revive Overthrow in the pages of JSA to work alongside Kanjar Ro to challenge the two Wildcats to an intergalactic sports contest with like, the moon, or Liberty Belle’s secret government files, or something along those lines, at stake.

All I’m saying: Overthrow as good as KGBeast as a concept and costume, or at least could be “modernized” (jai alai is popular in certain regions where revolutionaries have had sway).

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Dave Ziegler said on November 5th, 2010 at 5:00 am

@ C. Carter said: “heck, even nostalgia allows writers to use Killer Mother as the face of an ineffectual Joe trying to make it big, or a half-wit given the gift of power we all crave.”

Boy, not for nothing, but I’d TOTALLY read about a villain called Killer Mother…

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Heksefatter said on November 5th, 2010 at 5:59 am

Oh good…I’ve been missing Thursday’s Who’s Who badly.

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mygif

Nice to see it back. This installment was great.

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mygif

…the only thing good about Overthrow was that his mask reveal gave us… some total nobody who was after Ted Kord for some half-crazed anarchist/luddite reason. At least, that was the 80s/Manhunter crossover reason. Did they retcon his origin again…?

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mygif

Worse then Overthrow… one of the laterday GI Joe figures was a grenade thrower who used a jai lai scoop thing.

Poor Larry Hama had to actually do a write up on why that’s a valid military plan.

Larry Hama is a saint.

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mygif

@ Dave Zeigler

I’m just guessing, but I’m pretty sure he meant Killer Moth (who, despite how it sounds, was a tolerable Batman villain…I enjoyed him, anyway).

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mygif

Haha, yeah, whoops — I meant “Killer Moth.”

“Killer Mother” sounds like something that hit the cutting room floor in Grant Morrison’s “Invisibles” era.

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mygif

That dude reminds me of that cosmic goalie character Roy Thomas created during his Fantastic Four run (I can’t remember his name but I’m sure it was just as silly as Overthrow). Except, as Mad Men proved, there’s more innate comedy in Jai Alai.

And does DC really have a Crime Tailor? Because that’s just so many levels of awesome.

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mygif

The fact that Overthrow refers to his scoop as a xistera and not a cesta suggests he’s Basque. If the ’80s series had taken off I’d be reading all about this in Blue Beetle Secret Files.
(Okay, there’s no way I’d be reading it, but someone would have actually been paid to write it.)

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mygif

I like how the Who’s Who implies that Overthrow coined the term ‘military-industrial complex’ and is evil for wanting it overthrown… that’s a bit creepy

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mygif

Wasn’t poor Overthrow killed in one of those terrible lead-ups to Infinite Crisis? OMAC Project, maybe?

Those OMACs, they certainly went after the heavy hitters.

Also, didn’t the Flash Rogues have a tailor in Rogues’ Revenge that got kidnapped? It suggested his expertise was in making costumes that could survive in the conditions their powers could create. I want to read about that dude.

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Diego Ibarra said on November 10th, 2010 at 11:29 pm

The killer goalie’s name was Gaard.

I did not have to look that up.

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mygif

Do not forget that Gaard came back as VANGAARD… *sigh* And he was Johnny Storm, Vietnam vet

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NewComplex said on July 31st, 2016 at 8:09 am

My man, I want you to write a comic book.

Any comic book. I don’t care. But you need to be in writing.

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