Odds and Sods 1#: Racism And Other Strange And Fruity Adventures

I'm so late with this, my apologies, so we don't miss out on the usual stupid comic experience this week I thought we'd do something different. Odds and sods is for things that can't support entire posts on their own, or stuff from issues of anthology books I've already covered but didn't have the time or energy to do in full. Or anything  else I feel like. Movie Night is still coming by the way. 

The Planet That Advanced Backwards!

The tale we are about to enjoy (or "enjoy") comes to us from a DC anthology book called Strange Adventures. Strange Adventures was a science fiction anthology that ran for two hundred and forty issues and introduced some fairly important characters. One such figure was  Captain Comet, a man who's a million years more evolved than present day humans and so adapted to hotter, wetter environs with many more thumbs for smart phone operation. Kidding, he was your standard Superman rip off. Another was the pre-Grant Morrison version of Animal Man, who used his animal mimicry to be a Superman rip off  and a foot note in articles about Grant Morrison's version.  

We'll be covering neither character today, instead:

"Now at one sixth light-speed it'll take us a couple of decades subjective time to get literally anywhere so I hope we all went to the bathroom." 

Yeah what possible reason could a society have to not last forever and ever? Bronze Age Collapse, fall of the Roman Empire, never heard of them!

Also that is one cramped interstellar space vessel. Barely enough room for a box of corn-beef sandwiches and a family sized bottle of lemonade. And so cramped, don't think you'll be able to crack open a window to air out a fart. Well maybe if it's a really, really, really bad one. 

Something I've noticed is oddly consistent in Silver Age depictions of the future, one that kind of disturbs me. Namely that little boys won't be allowed to wear pants, why? Are we trying to toughen them up for their inevitable drafting into the Sky Marines?  And don't tell me those are shorts, they're freaking undies. Perhaps we were trying to make sure kids were glad they wouldn't survive into this era. Wait the co-creator of Robin wrote this, all makes sense. 

What If The Fantastic Four Had Different Super-Powers? Part One

Well for once I didn't have to put an exclamation mark in the title, that's refreshing. Sadly I suspect every time I won't it'll be a question mark. That's how it rolls in comics. Any way today we're doing What If #6. 


What If is (or was) a Marvel series that existed to ask that question again and again. Basically every issue was a story set in outside the usual Marvel universe, where some decision or event went differently. Like say "What if Spider-Man saved Gwen Stacy and didn't marry Mary Jane?" or "What if Joe Quesada didn't take that last thing as a suggestion?".  It would then explore the ramifications of the difference. Usually this would serve as an attempt to make us think there was only one way things could turn out that wasn't death or despair, but not always. 

Some of the stories were interesting and well thought out, like What If Captain America Were Revived Today? (in the mid 80's), which explored patriotism being perverted to serve fascism.  Some  seemed like bad fanfiction premises, like half the ones where Susan marries Namor The Submariner.  And others just asked weird, convoluted questions, like Arachnamorphosis (your spell-check just exploded). That one asked what if Peter Parker occasionally turned into a ever hungering spider monster, had a son with Gwen Stacy who then died,  but also the kid has Peter's issue as well?


An almost disproportionate number of  What If stories involved the Fantastic Four, so our question now is What If The Fantastic Four Had Different Super-Powers. 


We begin with a naked lie. 

"We will not split the royalty checks!"

  This? This doesn't happen at any point in the story. The alternate Fantastic Four don't cross into the main universe, nor do the "real" FF enter their world. No, neither team becomes aware of each other's existence. I know I said in this blog's very first post that comic covers like to lie (even today) but usually they lie like a genie. They don't say anything that contradicts the facts, but they always leave out something, or frame it differently then you'd expect. This just fuck it and invents a fight. Is this where the idea of putting Wolverine on the covers of comics he isn't even in came from? And on that note alternate Johnny does not actually look like that in the story. 


So multiple people in the letters were demanding a team composed of Mandroid, Big Brain, Ultra-Women, and Dragonfly, specifically? Rather specific vision, are we sure they didn't impersonate the writers so they could unleash this upon us?