“Hey, what would the Justice League be like if they were Nazis?” This is a question that has been posed to the comics reader again and again and again. Frankly by this point it is kind of boring. But luckily, here is one of the earlier iterations of the answer!

If Superman was a Nazi his name would be “Ubermensch,” because Nazis have no imagination and just like to translate very literally and not even come up with a new name. Plus they would be all “we invented the term anyways so screw you.” (But that’s Nazis for you.) Also, he would be bald, because nothing says “master race” like “male pattern baldness” with a side order of “shaving your head so you can pretend you are not going bald and that it is instead a personal choice, much as Moby or Bruce Willis does.” Nazis understand that we subconsciously link Bruce Willis with Superman (and Moby). They are using Nazi psychology to fuck with your head.

If Batman were a Nazi he would be “the Horned Owl” and his sidekick (because every alternate Batman needs an alternate Robin, regardless of how forced and ridiculous the Robin idea is once you remove it from its original context) would be named “Fledermaus.” The Nazis cleverly take the Batman-and-Robin concept and invert the species of the costumed archetypes! And they need no superpowers! Despite the Nazis being perfectly willing to give the other heroes they created superpowers, which kind of makes you wonder if Horned Owl pissed people off at the secret Nazi mad-scientists-making-supersoldiers base. “Fuck, Hans, that asshole Horned Owl won’t shut the fuck up about how he got tap water instead of spring water at lunch yesterday.” “What were we going to give him? Super-speed?” “Ja.” “Fuck it, let’s give him the kid sidekick and no powers, see how he likes that.”

If Wonder Woman were a Nazi she would be Gudra the Valkyrie, every bit as impressive as the Marvel Comics Valkyrie. Which is to say, not really that impressive. Admittedly, she has a spear that can kill people with a single touch. This is not as impressive as it sounds, though, considering most spears can kill you with a single touch anyway. You just need, you know, a bit of a firmer touch. However, unlike most of Axis Amerika, she did manage to kill an American superhero. Sure, it was just T.N.T., which is kind of like being the New York Yankees (if they were Nazis) and killing, I dunno, a Toledo Mud Hen. But nonetheless…

If Aquaman were a Nazi he would be Sea Wolf, who is a werewolf, because nothing says “Nazi Aquaman” like “werewolf.” Really, it is a testament to the importance of Aquaman in the enduring Justice League canon that in this Nazi version, his Nazi equivalent appears to be the result of a game of Mad Libs as played by Chris Sims. “Nazi… undersea… werewolf. Right! To the drawing board!” (Chris Sims has a drawing board, but you don’t want to know what he uses it for.) However, in fairness, Sea Wolf looks pretty badass, because he is a wolf-man and wolf-men look inherently bad-ass. So good for you, Sea Wolf! No, who am I kidding. You suck, Sea Wolf. Dogs are not inherently aquatic animals, no matter how much they might enjoy splashing on the shore, and the alternative is that rather than be a werewolf, you are some sort of, I dunno, were-seal. And come on. Were-seal? Really now.

If Green Arrow were a Nazi he would be Usil, the Italian super-arch… wait, seriously? Italian? Man, Green Arrow is even less important than Aquaman on the Nazi scale of importance. He was deemed so important that they felt willing to outsource his development to Italy, a nation with the following prominent superbeings: none of them. Even all the good Italian supervillains are from America, because all evil Italians in comics are Italian-American mobsters. Except Usil. Italy was probably so proud, with crusty old Italians in the streets and cafes saying things like “well, say what you will about Mussolini, but democracy never got us anybody wearing tights and fighting other people in tights!”

But let’s be honest: Usil will never be any good, because people’s tolerance for a concept as flagrantly silly as “superhero still stupid enough to use a bow in the modern era” extends to Green Arrow and Hawkeye and nobody else. (Yes, “nobody else” includes Roy Harper, who earns double scorn points for being briefly intelligent enough to pick up a goddamned gun and then put it down again so he could get into the Justice League and be violently outclassed by everybody. And have sex with Hawkgirl, which I suppose is actually a good enough reason to do it, although then again Roy Harper has never had any trouble getting laid with the women of the DC Universe.).)

Because even by the depreciated standards of World War II heroes and villains (where Mr. America was actually taken seriously as a going concept), these guys are pretty lame. I mean, come on. Sea Wolf.

We think that spinoff characters started in the 90s when they created Venom and then had Carnage and then Venom 2 and Carnage 3 and Venom: The Venoming and now there’s Anti-Venom. Also there was Vengeance, who was like Ghost Rider, but spikier and with a fiery horse skull (or something) rather than a fiery human skull. I think there was also a Morbius spinoff who was even more vampirey.

But no – even in the good old days, there were spin-off characters. Take Hawk, who is the son of Tomahawk. Tomahawk was DC’s Revolutionary War comic character. He fought the British – including the notoriously awesome Lord Shilling (fun fact: this site is now the #1 search result for “Lord Shilling”) – and, uh, other Britishers and Britishese. Maybe some Hessians too, I dunno. Possibly a Welshman somewhere.

However, Tomahawk, educational as he might have been, was not “down” with the kids of the 50s. Enter Hawk, Tomahawk’s rather unimaginatively named son. Now, maybe you are looking at Hawk and thinking “why does he look like Elvis?” But this is merely a coincidence. Hawk is the result of painstaking historical research, which conclusively demonstrated that in the late 18th and early 19th century, men wore ducktail haircuts, slit-navel jumpsuits and neckerchiefs.

Hawk was excellent at all things. He was friend to white man and Indian alike! (Black men, not so much. He was in 1950s comics, after all.) He could shoot the wings off a fly, track just about anybody, see further than a hawk, hear better than a wolf, outwrestle a bear, outrun a puma… no, wait, sorry, those last four were Bravestarr. Actually, that reminds me. Why the hell did Thirty-Thirty let Bravestarr ride him around? I mean, Thirty-Thirty must’ve thought, at one point, “why can’t we just get damn hoverbikes like everybody else?” And what was up with all the natives of the planet being hobbits? (Yeah, yeah, “Prairie People.” We all know they were hobbits.)

…ahem.

Because, silly as it might be to have Elvis be pre-incarnated as a wilderness scout, it’s actually kind of ludicrously awesome at the same time, you have to admit.

I’m kind of busy this week, so rather than go into Star Hawkins’ career or talk about his disturbing lady-robot-butler, I’m going to keep it real simple.

Two words: pixie boots.

SIMPLE GUIDE TO SEE IF YOU CAN PULL OFF PIXIE BOOTS:

1.) Are you a ten-year-old boy?
2.) Is your name Robin?

If you answered “no” to either question, you should not wear pixie boots.

Also: tights and pixie boots.

Why doesn’t Hazard see more use?

I mean, she’s a legacy villain, for starters. The granddaughter of the Gambler. Why hasn’t Geoff Johns put her in a comic yet? (People may read these bits I do each week and think that I have some mad hatred for Geoff Johns, but come on – it’s Who’s Who, the old-school encyclopedia of DC Comics. The Geoff Johns references are natural. Like, for example, if I was doing Thursday Anatomical Mishaps instead, I would make Rob Liefeld jokes.) DC Comics is so about “legacy” these days that you’d expect Hazard to show up all over the place. Or get killed, possibly. DC is somewhat all over the place at times when it comes to legacy-ness.

But on top of that she’s a good legacy villain. The powers and concept (the granddaughter of the Gambler having probability manipulation powers) work. The character notes (she dislikes violence and really only became a supervillain to avenge her grandfather – plus, the only people she really knew in the powers club were all villains) are interesting. The costume is cool. She wears a visor! She has poofy blouse sleeves on her costume and it works!

I mean, come on! She throws dice and alters luck! That is goddamned cool. There is a reason people like Gambit – it is because he throws playing cards and a gambling motif is a good thing for a superhero (or villain), particularly when said character tends to walk the middle ground of super-morality more often than not.

So obviously this is why Hazard has shown up precisely once since her debut in Infinity Inc. (where she was drawn by Todd McFarlane before he became a big-shot comics dude and eventual luxury baseball collector). In that one issue of Wonder Woman where all the female superheroes and supervillains fought each other. She got a panel.

There ain’t no justice, folks!

Also, the Injustice Society in general is cool. Icicle II: cool. The Wizard: cool. Artemis: cool (although her first costume was terrible). The Shade: so cool it is off the charts, even if he would not be particularly inclined to join Injustice-themed leagues, societies, clubs, or social teas. The Fiddler: cool in his way and it’s a shame Gail Simone offed him, but there’s no reason Deadshot couldn’t have felt generous that day and simply shot him in such a way to knock him out and not kill him. (All right, so it’s not likely Deadshot would feel generous. Maybe the Fiddler paid him up front.) That whole Injustice Society story in JSA Unlimited right before Infinite Crisis: way cool. And so forth.

Hoo boy.

See, nowadays the kids, they make fun of Penance or Red Hulk when they want to make fun of stupid superhero character concepts. But back in the day? We had the Red Bee.

The Red Bee, a superhero whose power was that he had trained bees. Really. That was it. I know, I know, it sounds awfully dismissive to mock this guy with his bees; after all, the idea of training bees is by itself rather impressive, when you think about it. Somehow, the Red Bee can control whole swarms of bees! That is, in a low-key way, really rather impressive. I mean, Granny Weatherwax had to work her way up to doing that.

(Well, presumably he could control whole swarms of bees. The question of how he controlled the bees is as yet unresolved. Even Who’s Who seems willing to concede that it is possible and even likely that the Red Bee did not in fact have any bee-control powers per se, but instead was just a guy running around with a lot of bees.)

However, the problem is that while controlling swarms of bees might make you a great behavioral scientist or perhaps an up-and-coming honey magnate, as superhero powers go it is not the most impressive trick one can get, is it? If you are the Red Bee, twenty feet away from some gangster when he pulls out a gun, and you pull out your swarm of bees, the gangster can just shoot you and then the bees will presumably go find something more interesting to do with their time than sting the gangster to death. Because they are bees. They will establish a hive somewhere and then begin pollinating flowers. Because that is what bees do.

(And again, we do not know that he controlled the bees as such. But come to think, even if he controls the bees, where does he keep the bees? A swarm of bees is not exactly compact unless you cram them all into a little box and crush/smother them to death. And in the few Red Bee appearances I have read, he kept multiple swarms of bees on his person. Then again, maybe he just throws clumps of dead bees at people and hopes that they panic and scream “OH MY GOD BEES” and don’t notice that the bees are dead.)

Now, in fairness, the Red Bee always gave a good accounting of himself, right up until he got killed. Like, in All-Star Squadron, he joined Uncle Sam’s reformed Freedom Fighters and journeyed to Earth-X (the fabled Alternate Earth Full Of Nazis), where he fought Nazis with bees! Until some Nazis shot him. Of course, that was pre-Crisis. Post-Crisis, we don’t know what happened to the Red Bee, although in a James Robinson Starman story the ghost of the Red Bee revealed that he got his ass kicked and presumably killed by gangsters, possibly after he fought them with bees. James Robinson also wrote The Golden Age, wherein the Red Bee gets killed in one panel by the bad guy. (No idea if he fought that bad guy with bees.) This makes James Robinson notable for managing to kill the Red Bee twice. Even Roy Thomas never did that, and Roy Thomas was Geoff Johns before Geoff Johns was Geoff Johns.

(Hey, I just noticed that the Red Bee is a district attorney in “Superior City.” Man, in the DC Universe, what the hell kind of city calls itself “Superior City?” You’ve just got to believe that it’s, like, the DCU equivalent of Newark or Toledo or something, a smallish-to-middle city with Big Hopes And Big Plans For The Future. You want to go to the home of the state’s second-largest bottling plant? Superior City! Where do you think half the nation gets their shoelaces from? Superior City! It’s a good place for families and for people on the go! Superior City: Better Than Ever, Every Single Day!)

I dunno. On the one hand, the Red Bee definitely deserves a low rating; I mean, the costume alone (horizontally-striped tights? Pirate-shirt sleeves? Pink and black and red?) should merit close to a zero. And then there’s the whole “bee” thing. But on the other hand, he’s just so completely and utterly insane that it’s almost admirable. This is a guy who decided to fight crime with bees. The “new” Red Bee that they introduced last year is just your typical mutated insect/human crossbreed, boring as sin. That’s not a Red Bee anybody wants to read about; people want to read about the classic Red Bee, just because – fuck, if a writer can come up with a reason that makes sense for the Red Bee’s existence, that would be like pulling Excalibur from the stone, you know?

Grant Morrison can revamp Batman all he likes, but he’s not going anywhere near the Red Bee. And that deserves a little something extra.

Incidentally, in that James Robinson story, the ghost of the Red Bee was all depressed because he was a loser and a lousy superhero, so the other dead ghost heroes all said “no, you tried your best and we think you’re great for that.” You just know they were snickering into their gloves when they said that.

All I do when I look at these guys is think of the Smurfs. Except, you know, in space. It’s mostly the “there’s only one girl, and with the exception of the leader they all look the same” thing, you know? Instead of wearing red trunks rather than white, the leader (who is named Lyle) has blonde hair rather than brown.

Maybe there’s one that wears glasses and constantly tells everybody “Lyle says that when we fight the Space Trolls of Planet Blorkon, we should fly in zeta formation.” “Lyle says that if you keep your laser in good shape, it’ll keep you in good shape.” And then the other Knights of the Galaxy get pissed off and kick him out an airlock, and he says something hilariously self-pitying.

I am willing to lay odds that at some point in their comics run, they fought an evil space wizard who had an evil space cat. I am not kidding in the slightest about this.

Of course, the Knights of the Galaxy are not three apples tall and do not sing as they travel from place to place. (Well, actually, who knows, maybe they did sing. It was the Silver Age.) They do not each have their own etoseric specialty. There is no Knight of the Galaxy who is particularly good with tools, nor any Knight of the Galaxy who is unceasingly vain (and probably gay), nor any Knight of the Galaxy who is a psychotic mad bomber type. So they are obviously not Smurfs.

Obviously.

I mean it.

Also, man, are they incredibly Aryans of the Future or what?

Really, making fun of Legion supporting characters is like shooting fish in a barrel slender tube specially-constructed fish-constraining chamber attached directly to the barrel of the gun and removing the necessity to aim. There are plenty of goofy characters throughout Legion history, starting with Matter-Eater Lad and continuing on with classics like Tyr (possessor of the world’s stupidest-looking cyborg arm), Gas Girl (Hero of Lallor, with one of the worst superhero names ever), or of course any of the Wanderers.

But sometimes you just gotta.

SCIENTIST: So we have this new process for creating a superhuman we’d like you to try out.
ATMOS: Excellent! Let’s do it!
SCIENTIST: …don’t you want to know how it works?
ATMOS: Nope! Powers away!
SCIENTIST: Maybe you’d like to know what powers you’ll get?
ATMOS: I’m sure they’re good ones! But tell me anyways.
SCIENTIST: Well, you’ll be able to fly.
ATMOS: Flight! Always good! The standard for any superhero!
SCIENTIST: So you like that.
ATMOS: Why wouldn’t I? Admittedly, I could just get a rocket pack or something. I mean, this is the future.
SCIENTIST: True.
ATMOS: But flying solo has style. So I’m excited about flying. What else am I getting?
SCIENTIST: Well, you’ll get some super-strength.
ATMOS: Fantastic! Super-strength! Again, sort of a generic power, but this time not easily duplicable by science, and I can see where, as a superhero, I might need to punch things very, very strongly.
SCIENTIST: Or open a really tough jar.
ATMOS: It indeed amazes me that even in the 30th century we have not mastered the science of easily opening jars.
SCIENTIST: Your jar-opening skills will be improved approximately ten thousand percent by this process.
ATMOS: Good to know.
SCIENTIST: You’ll be tough, too. You won’t need to breathe in space.
ATMOS: That’s good, because what if I got tired while I was in space and needed to take a moment?
SCIENTIST: …yes. Oh, and you’ll get some nuclear bolts which you can fire from your hands. They’ll blow things up.
ATMOS: Excellent! This sounds like a decent little superhero package you’ve set up here, Doc. Hey, what’s that on that screen there?
SCIENTIST: What, that? …oh, nothing.
ATMOS: Looks like me!
SCIENTIST: Well, yes, it –
ATMOS: …where are my armpits?
SCIENTIST: You don’t really need to worry about –
ATMOS: Doc, come on, where are my armpits in that image of me? Why would you need an image of me minus armpits?
SCIENTIST: Well, if you must know, we think the superheroing process will vaporize them.
ATMOS: Vaporize them?
SCIENTIST: Yes.
ATMOS: That sounds like it’ll hurt.
SCIENTIST: Well, technically they’ll still be there, so it won’t be like you’ll feel them cut away or anything like that. They’ll just infinitely dissolve into seven-dimensional fractal space, and appear to be gone to normal three-dimensional sensory perception.
ATMOS: So it won’t hurt?
SCIENTIST: Define “hurt.”
ATMOS: And how will I put on deodorant now?
SCIENTIST: Well, that’s the clever part. See, the smell of your armpits won’t transfer through the dimensional bleed, so therefore –
ATMOS: Never mind that. That looks freakish, Doc!
SCIENTIST: So? You’ll have superpowers.
ATMOS: Yeah, I’m all for the having superpowers, but I’m going to look weird! How am I supposed to get chicks if I look like an action figure left on somebody’s plasma radiator?
SCIENTIST: Is that really important?
ATMOS: Hell yes it’s important.
SCIENTIST: …well, I’ve got this additional chemical process I could combine into the nutrient bath you take before we activate you in the comet trail. It would give you subliminal hypnotic powers.
ATMOS: Subwhattamal huh now?
SCIENTIST: You could make girls like you.
ATMOS: …isn’t that kind of like date rape?
SCIENTIST: Maybe a little.
(Pause.)
ATMOS: But only a little, right?
SCIENTIST: Definitely.
ATMOS: Okay! Let’s do this thing, Doc!

Tragically, Atmos was killed by B.I.O.N., a later-stage variant of C.O.M.P.U.T.O., in the “Five Years Later” Legion run. His armpits were never found.

Cannon and Saber (ironically named, because the assassin who uses guns is Saber and the assassin who uses blades is Cannon) struck an early blow for comics equality everywhere by being a gay couple who avoided traditional gay stereotypes to become a pair of deadly killers instead. Admittedly, noted family activist Donald Wildmon might say there is no difference and all gays are in their own way killers, but Donald Wildmon is whining about the erosion of the traditional family model and Cannon and Saber kill people with guns and knives, so I would suggest: different.

I am not being facetious or snarky, either. In the comics, Cannon and Saber were quite clearly a gay couple – the subtext was, as they say, text. And on top of that, years later some fans to whom this was important asked the writer who invented Cannon and Saber (I believe it was Doug Moench, but don’t hold me to that) if the pair were a gay couple. The writer’s response was essentially “well, duh.” Cannon and Saber are a gay couple. It is canon. (And saber.)

Cannon and Saber are further made good by appearing in the second Vigilante’s comic. The second Vigilante probably had the best run of comics, despite the fact that the first Vigilante (the cowboy with the motorcycle who showed up on Justice League Unlimited a few times) is probably the more iconic Vigilante. (As for the later Vigilantes, let’s just pretend they never happened. At some point you know Geoff Johns will make it so that this was the case anyway.) This means that there is an active lack of bad Cannon and Saber stories, which is always a nice thing.

Because they are skilled assassins who are nonetheless capable of making tolerant second-year university chicks go “awwwwww!”, and that is a skillset both rare and in demand in certain quarters.

Sometimes, you just need the sort of villain who can get beat up by El Diablo, the Olympian or a random member of the Blood Pack. This is fine and good; even D-listers need their little victories. And for those little victories, you know where to go.

The Cadre got their start fighting D-list superheroes by fighting the Justice League. “But wait,” you say, “the Justice League aren’t D-list!” Ah, but this was the Detroit Justice League, featuring Vibe, Gypsy, Vixen (long before Brad Meltzer decided she was very very important) and Steel (not the black guy with the hammer, but instead the cyborg who doesn’t look like a cyborg). Sure, they also had the Martian Manhunter and Zatanna around, but let’s be honest: loser is as loser does. This is the Justice League that Aquaman organized and then promptly quit. That should tell you something right there.

And who are the stalwarts of the Cadre? Well!

Overmaster. An immortal alien, and the leader of the Cadre, responsible for creating all the other members. He was eventually killed by the second Amazing Man. By accident. This should tell you something about the Cadre right off the bat. (Admittedly, Overmaster did manage to kill Ice, but it’s not like that took.)

Nightfall. A college student who, when asked by the Overmaster if she wanted to become a supervillain, basically said “what the hell.” (Maybe she had a really vicious sociology exam the next day, and she totally hadn’t studied for it, because she was playing beer pong all night with the Kappa Kappa boys.) Nightfall’s power is to create a field of pure darkness which extinguishes all light. This was cool when Phantom Lady and Dr. Mid-Nite and Shadow Lass all did it, except that all of those superheroes can, you know, fight in the dark. Nightfall can not quite do this so much. Also, for some reason, she can fly. Why she can fly and most of the rest of the Cadre cannot is something that has never really been explained too much. Maybe the rest of them never thought to ask, and after the fact were too embarrassed.

Black Mass. A big fat guy with gravity powers. Black Mass is most notable for being shot through the head in The Joker: Last Laugh, and then somehow surviving both that and the subsequent black hole he created by accident. Black Mass is actually kind of badass accidentally. I mean, he got shot in the head, was rendered brain-dead, and somehow got better. That’s goddamned freaky, people.

Shatterfist. His gimmick is that if you squint he looks kind of like an evil luchador. Also he has fists that can, well, shatter things. Shatterfist got killed by Ice when she was taken over by Overmaster and went all crazy. After this, somebody else decided to become Shatterfist, despite the fact that there was no Overmaster around to give him shattering-fist powers. Presumably, given the remarkably generic nature of Shatterfist’s powers and costume (why does he have horns? Was the mask on sale?), he ordered them over the phone. “Hi, I’m an expert-level martial artist but I just don’t feel that’s enough to compete in today’s market. What do you have in the way of powers that could augment my martial arts abilities?… no, I don’t want to turn into a bear, thank you… no, not an eagle either… no, not a panther – look, could we skip past the turning into things powers and get to the fighting powers, please? I get that they’re thematic, but this phone call is long distance.”

Fastball. A former baseball player (of course!) who was given a robotic exoskeleton with which he could throw exploding balls. No, seriously. This is what he does, people. Also, he chews tobaccy. No reason, he just likes it. I am desperately trying to come up with something to say about this guy and I’m failing, because he’s so boring. Maybe there are robotic pole-vaulter exoskeletons as well? Robotic decathlete exoskeletons? “Fear… the Hurdler!” No, never mind, that’s boring too.

Shrike. You know Swift from the Authority? Like that. Except less interesting. She died in an issue of Suicide Squad, which – well, come on, you had to expect that at least one of these guys would die in an issue of Suicide Squad. Really, the amazing thing is that so many of them have survived for so long in this day and age, when you think about it.

Crowbar. Crowbar and his sex-pervert costume are notable in many ways. First off, Crowbar is one of the few villains in comics history to lose their trademark villain weapon in a card game. (Yes, this really happened.) Captain Cold, for example, knows not to gamble with his cold-gun, because Captain Cold is not a goddamned idiot, but Crowbar – well, Crowbar is special. He made his costume himself, you know, and he thinks it’s the coolest thing ever, because he made it up to look like a bunch of crowbars wrapped around his private areas! It’s thematic, you see.

You know, lame as they might be, the remaining members of the Cadre serve a purpose. Some villains are good for being the focal point of a lengthy story – not these guys. Some villains are good for when you need to have a rookie hero prove themselves – that’s not the Cadre either. The Cadre are the villains you need when you need to have a scene where your hero meets up with the other hero you want to write a teamup story for, but that other hero needs to be busy fighting bad guys to show that he deserves to be in your hero’s comic book on equal ground. The Cadre are the guys that other hero beats up. It is their purpose. And they are very good at getting their asses kicked.

Sometimes you don’t hit that sweet spot right off the bat. Such is the case here with the Untouchables, who were originally known as the “Intangibles,” and who wore super-spacey-futurey outfits. This made them generic and boring, which is not where you want to go with a supervillainous team of Kitty Pryde wannabes.

And so the Intangibles went into DCU limbo for a long time, no doubt making snide fourth-wall-breaking references alongside Merryman, until some genius writer took a look at the concept and respun it. Hey, what’s another word for “intangible”? Well, “untouchable.” And waiiiiiit a minute…

And there you have it. Brilliant revision of a mediocre concept, done almost entirely out of a sense of style. Phasing gangsters with a dual-meaning name. It’s exactly what comics should be. Which is why I’m pretty sure we’ve never seen them since. (Heck, Karl Kesel reused the phasing villain concept when he created Loophole in Adventures of Superman. The Untouchables should sue! Or, since they are villains, shoot him. With phase-proof bullets.)

Sometimes you just have to stand back and admire simple creative elegance. This is one such time.

Ah, yes.

WAIT

WHAT

DC COMICS ARE YOU SERIOUS

YOU NAMED A NAZI SUPERVILLAIN AFTER A POISON GAS USED TO KILL JEWS IN THE HOLOCAUST

BOY I SURE CAN’T WAIT TO SEE HIM FIGHT JOHNNY QUICK

WHAAAAAAAAAAAT

because WHAT WHAT WHAT

(although, one must admit, still better than Superboy Prime.)

Once upon a time, there was Aquaman. And comics fans looked down upon Aquaman, and they saw that he was Good.

Well, not good exactly, but tolerable. In that way that, like, Poindexter from Revenge of the Nerds was tolerably entertaining. Sure, Poindexter wasn’t Lewis or Anthony Edwards or Booger or Takashi or the gay black guy, but when he was onscreen, you didn’t actively hate him. Like you hated Ogre. Oooooh, how we all hated Ogre! Until he became a good guy in the sequel. Or like how we hated Ted McGinley’s smug jock, until in the third movie (yes, there was a third movie, and a fourth! They even got James Cromwell to come back for the fourth movie? Why? Blackmail!) when we found out that secretly he liked using MS Office.

I am getting away from my point here, which is that although Poindexter was not particularly compelling or anything as characters go, it was funny when his crotch went up and down of its own accord. And then he played electric violin and that was pretty cool.

Anyhow, Aquaman is like the Poindexter of the DC universe. He is not a nerd or anything (he will kick your ass underwater and sometimes his hand is a hook, and do you want to gamble that you get him on a no-hook day? I thought not), but there is no large group of Aquafans desperately demanding the return of Topo as the aquatic equivalent of a furry or anything like that. (Although we did in fact get that.) People just say “huh, Aquaman, all right then.”

I am still getting away from my point here, which really has little to do with Aquaman per se because this is about the Marine Marauder. Who is kind of like Aquaman, but with breasts because she is a woman person. And, interestingly – according to her writeup, anyhow – a lazy one, too! Because it looks like she didn’t invent her powers (talking to fish – sorry, “commanding sealife”), but instead stole them from her brother, who was also the Marine Marauder, although presumably not one with breasts. (Unless he is out of shape.) You would think that a Who’s Who writeup would try to explain these things more definitively, wouldn’t you? I mean, I bet if you touched Roy Thomas with this issue, he would start to burn upon contact, just because it’s so vague.

(Geoff Johns, meanwhile, would become compelled to explain how the Marine Marauder fits into his 328957-part History Of Everything In The DC Universe Ever.)

But I like Marine Marauder. Because she is a girl who decided, from an early age, that she wanted to be rich without doing any work, and so chose the obvious path of becoming a marine biologist and then using fish to rob cruise ships. I’m sorry, but any girl who decides upon that on a life path has to be insane in bed, and as we all know, the only reasonable capacity for judging the value of a female fictional character is how good she would be in the sack. (Especially when her costume essentially consists of arrows pointing at her erogenous zones.) Hence:

Also she has a nice costume, and pretty hair. Why does her costume have a mohawk on it when she has nice hair? That doesn’t make sense. Someone get her a personal shopper.

Who can forget all those classic Tobias Whale stories?

Like the time he was challenged by a rival boss, and he and Black Lightning continued their feud, but it turned out that the rival boss, the Dolphin, was actually his son! Dramatic! Turns out his son only found out about his father being a crime boss relatively late and never got over it. Of course, years later this would lead to the Dolphin trying to kill Tobias Whale, and in turn being murdered by his mother, Whale’s wife Vanessa.

Or the time he sent the Terrible Trio to fight Nightwing for some reason.

Or like the time he sent Killer Frost after Black Lightning. Killer Frost and Black Lightning had a wicked awesome fight, but Killer Frost was all conflicted about fighting with her lover, so she refused to fight him. This pissed off Tobias Whale, so he sent Deathstroke to kill Killer Frost and she died in Black Lightning’s arms.

Or the time he traded the nonexistent “Black Lightning Papers” to federal agents in exchange for his freedom, but the Penguin, pissed that Whale was getting off, told the feds about another murder for which Whale was responsible. So Whale ended up in the same prison as Black Lightning in an ironic twist, and then the prison started advancing towards a riot as Whale and Black Lightning played their deadly game, then Deadshot got himself sent to prison so he could give Black Lightning a hand because he felt he owed Black Lightning a favour, and then Tobias Whale sent for Deathstroke, and then all hell broke loose.

Yes, Tobias Whale has been in so many great stories. But that’s what you expect from such an original character!

Kingpin would get around a 90, so that’s your explanation.

THE CRIME TAILOR: I think you better explain this to me again.
JAVELIN: Well, I have these collapsible javelins, see. So I’m thinking I’ll call myself “Javelin.”
TAILOR: Yes, I got that.
JAVELIN: I was trying to come up with a color that starts with “J” so I could have, like, a color scheme all picked out for you ahead of time, but I couldn’t come up with anything.
TAILOR: Well, there’s jade. Jade Javelin?
JAVELIN: Jade Javelin’s not gonna work.
TAILOR: Jet black? The Jet-Black Javelin?
JAVELIN: That sounds kind of awkward. Doesn’t really roll off the tongue.
TAILOR: …jasmine?
JAVELIN: I thought that was a perfume.
TAILOR: It’s a color, too. Kind of a light purple.
JAVELIN: So basically it’s lavender?
TAILOR: Yeah.
JAVELIN: Sounds kind of gay, doesn’t it?
TAILOR: Maybe, but I don’t judge.
JAVELIN: Look, we’ll come back to the color later. So I got these javelins, right?
TAILOR: Right. Because you competed as a javelin… guy… in the Olympics.
JAVELIN: The term is “javelineer.”
TAILOR: Right.
JAVELIN: Anyway, I got an exploding javelin, and a glue javelin, and an electrified javelin, and –
TAILOR: Sounds like Green Arrow.
JAVELIN: Huh?
TAILOR: Well, it sounds like Green Arrow. With all the trick arrows he’s got, you know?
JAVELIN: Yeah, but Green Arrow is a pussy. He uses a bow. I throw these javelins.
TAILOR: Do you throw ’em further than he can shoot an arrow with his bow?
JAVELIN: …I don’t think so, no.
TAILOR: Then don’t go calling him a pussy. Green Arrow will fuck you up if you go after him.
JAVELIN: I’m not going to Star City anyhow.
TAILOR: Fine. Okay, so I’m thinking something along the lines of this – bright color base with blue-black trim. We can pick the color when we settle on your final name.
JAVELIN: Hey, a couple guys said you were the one to talk to about rocket boots?
TAILOR: I’m not a fan of the rocket boots. Guys want to rely on them, you’re lucky to get maybe two minutes’ worth of flying out of them before you run out of fuel…
JAVELIN: I just want ’em for an extra edge, you know? A backup.
TAILOR: Look, everybody says that, but then I gotta deal with the complaints when they come back here wearing a backbrace and demanding a refund. By the way, I did mention my refund policy?
JAVELIN: If I ask for one, you shoot me?
TAILOR: Right you are.
JAVELIN: I get where you’re coming from, but I still want the rocket boots.
TAILOR: Okay. If you really want the rocket boots, I recommend the Highstepper XLEs. They accelerate real quick, so you get a bit more oomph for your dollar.
JAVELIN: If you say that’s the best, I’m sold. Oh, can I get, like, a hip pouch?
TAILOR: For the javelins, right?
JAVELIN: Right.
TAILOR: Sure you don’t want a back-mounted quiver? All the European supervillains these days are big on the quiver.
JAVELIN: Back quiver seems kind of like overkill, doesn’t it? I mean, look, here’s one of my javelins.
TAILOR: Wow, that is small.
JAVELIN: Now, if I activate it it’ll extend to six feet, of course, but while it’s stored in the pocket… I mean, the hip-mount, I figure it’ll work like an easy-access pocket, be more convenient to pull and throw instead of reaching backwards over my shoulder.
TAILOR: What happens if the javelins activate while they’re in your pouch?
JAVELIN: What?
TAILOR: If they extend while they’re stored, and they’re on your back – well, it might get awkward, but worst that happens is you’ve got a ruined pouch. If your leg is angled wrong, though, and they extend while they’re still in a hip-pouch? I can see them, you know. Stabbing you to death.
JAVELIN: Oh, there’s microcircuitry in the gloves that has to come in contact with the javelins in order to extend them. I brought the gloves along for your redesign…
TAILOR: I see. Well, that’s very well thought out. So, as to color schemes, I’m thinking a sharp forest green…
JAVELIN: No green.
TAILOR: What’s wrong with green?
JAVELIN: Green Lantern wears green.
TAILOR: So?
JAVELIN: So I’m gonna be fighting Green Lantern. We can’t both wear green.
A pause.
TAILOR: You’re gonna fight Green Lantern.
JAVELIN: Well, not on purpose, but I figure Coast City is a nice target. Practically no super-crooks there.
TAILOR: That’s because Green Lantern is there, kid. He’s got the most powerful weapon in the universe! On his finger! You’re gonna fight him with javelins?
JAVELIN: I’ve got a javelin that sprays yellow paint on things.
TAILOR: Tell you what. Let’s make the costume yellow. I think that might come in handy if you’re going to fight Green Lantern.
JAVELIN: Excellent. It’s all coming together!

Because he fights Green Lantern with javelins.

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.