Podcast - Episode 13: Villains

This week we are talking about villains! All kinds of villains!

Dave and I are drinking beer out of bottles during this podcast, and you can REALLY hear it every time we set them down on the desk. I apologize for that. We will go back to drinking beer out of cans next time. But we WILL NOT stop drinking beer during the recording of these podcasts.

There is actually a ton of background noise on this episode, but that's the only one that's our fault.

Here's the episode!

You get the origin story of Dave and my friendship this week and it makes me look super lame (hint: it involves me buying Jeph Loeb comics from Dave). That story Dave tells is probably set twelve or thirteen years ago, when I was 100% cool and not at all awkward. I will say that Dave did not let on at the time that he thought my taste in comics was terrible, and was nothing but helpful and welcoming. And that's why I still read (better) comics today!

I checked, by the way, and I couldn't find my old university cartoon strip anywhere. I even searched my old Livejournal! My LIVEJOURNAL, guys! It was so embarrassing! Maybe next time I'm in Sackville, New Brunswick I'll see if they have old copies of the school paper in the archive or something. Unless one of our listeners has a bunch of copies of the Mount Allison University newspaper from 2001-2002? It's the world's loss, I guess, if it's gone forever.

Dave and I talk a lot about Captain America: White this week. We probably could have talked a lot more about it. Fortunately there will be more issues! Oh man.

So here are those panels we were talking about. First the Nick Fury one that made me almost actually die laughing:

And the the super awkward Bucky-and-Cap on a motorcycle panel:

Weird, Tim Sale. Very weird.

As we mention, Jeph Loeb has kind of a long history of unintentional homoeroticism. It's what keeps me reading!

Dave mentioned that I post kind of a lot of images of Sebastian Stan on these podcast blog posts. Noted!

Here's that rad Sebastian Stan Collider interview where he gives Zack Snyder the business:

And here is a pic of him at NASA being cute:

And here is a video of him at NASA being cute:

Oh, and here is the cute sketch of him that J.Bone did:

A wee Sebastian Stan face. I stink at likenesses but I think this is close. #sebastianstan #drawing #jbone

A photo posted by J.Bone (@originaljbone) on Sep 18, 2015 at 5:40pm PDT

Aw, look at him. You are great at likenesses, J! Shush.

When we talk about villains, we divide them into categories. There are two categories I didn't get to: Petulant Brats (Loki, for example) and Machines/Monsters Running Amuk (Ultron, Amazo, Fin Fang Foom, etc).

And here's the other thing: I had a whole bunch of awesome information to share about the creation of Red Skull and I forgot to talk about it, so I am going to make sure we talk about it next episode. I don't care what next week's topic is. I'll work it in!

The ridiculous Batman (You're the Sex) song that my legendary band, The Stolen Minks, used to play can be found on YouTube here. No video or anything. You know what, though? I was wrong about Bruce leaving the mask on in the sex scene in Son of the Demon. He leaves the mask on when he fights shirtless, but strips from the waist up (and presumably removes the rest at some point) in the sex scene:

Wowzers!

BUT...when Grant Morrison and Andy Kubert brought this story back into canon they left the mask on in the sex scene! It's like they read my fantasy diary!

Thanks, guys!

Why am I posting all of this? Because I can! I would honestly like that tableau from Son of the Demon painted as a mural on my bedroom wall.

Dave and I also mention our past villain-inspired Halloween costumes. Here is Dave as J. Jonah Jameson in 2010 maybe?

And here's me as Captain Cold in 2008:

Man I was sweaty that night.

I just remembered that I dressed as another villain in 2009: Bizarro! Here I am with the rest of the Living Between Wednesdays team: Tiina as Elasti-Girl (not a villain), Johnathan as MODOK (villain), me as Bizarro (villain) and Dave as Hawkeye (former villain):

As you can tell, sex appeal is a huge factor when I am selecting my Halloween costume. My husband was dressed as Jimmy Olsen that night. Things got weird.

Thank you for listening! We're gonna set up a Facebook group maybe? Is that a good idea? Like a clubhouse where we can all complain about bad art and crush on Winter Soldier?

If you feel like clicking on some stars for us on iTunes we would appreciate it. Especially if you click on all five of them!

Rating the Super Hunks #24: Catman

In honour of Cat Week, I am going to examine a guy who has been around the DCU for a long time, but has only recently converted to hunkdom. Not unlike Kiefer Sutherland, Catman only became sexy when he was given a starring role in a series. For this we can thank Gail Simone, who saw the potential for hunkiness where no one else did. So let's all take a good, long, dreamy look at

Thomas Blake, aka Catman

HE WISHES SHE WAS DEADSHOT.

Costume/Appearance:

Well, y'know. His costume is basically Batman's. And it doesn't help that he broke onto the scene back in the sixties as a villain who was ripping off both Catwoman and Batman.

I WONDER IF THOMAS EVER LOOKS BACK ON THIS AND IS DEEPLY ASHAMED.

But the claw marks on the front, matching the real scar underneath, add a bold, seductive touch. And the brown and gold colour palate he has gone with as of late is working for him. And he fills the suit out nicely.

"I DON'T KNOW WHAT EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT. MY COSTUME IS NOTHING LIKE THIS ONE."

Sans costume, Thomas Blake is a blonde (or possibly red-headed depending on the artist), ripped, square-jawed and frequently shirtless dreamboat. He has a macho permanent stubble and loose locks thing going on, not unlike Sawyer from Lost but possibly with more shampoo.

MAN. CATMAN.

I am going to give Catman full marks for looks, but he will lose points on the unoriginal costume choice.

7/10

Personality:

Who doesn't love a sexy anti-hero? We all love Superman and everything, but there's something extra delicious about a villain with morals. He's the unofficial leader of the Secret Six, commanding respect with his relative sanity, his awesome fighting skills, and his perfectly sculpted chest.

"DON'T MAKE ME REMOVE MORE OF MY COSTUME! BECAUSE I WILL!"

DEADSHOT WILL PROBABLY SHOW HER HIS IF SHE ASKED.

Let's not forget that this guy hit rock bottom not long before joining up with the Six. He was fat, disgraced, and suicidal when he decided that, rather than offing himself, he would move to Africa, get ripped and come back with a vengeance. And you have to respect that.

MACHO!

Not as terrifying as his sexy pal Deadshot, but by no means a sappy good guy, Catman has a perfect balance of good and...well, I don't want to say 'evil', but certainly 'self-interest.'

She smells like catnip.

9/10

Sexiness of Super Powers:

According to Wikipedia, Catman is "an Olympic-level athlete and skilled hand-to-hand combatant. He is also one of the world's finest hunters and trackers." So basically, if you are choosing a partner for The Amazing Race, this is your guy.

"LET HER GO OR I SWEAR I WILL TAKE MY SHIRT OFF AND MAKE OUT WITH YOU SO HARD."

10/10

Day Job:

The only job Catman has is working with the Secret Six to kill people who are even worse than they are for large amounts of money. Since I didn't fault Jonah Hex for being a bounty hunter, I can't really take points away from Catman on this one. Or can I? Hex is an entrepreneur, and he works alone. That makes his work slightly sexier.

But I do love the "will-they-or-won't-they" romance he shares with Deadshot.

"I SEE YOU ARE WEARING YOUR TIGHTEST SWEAT PANTS. AS AM I."

9/10

Cons:

You could argue that Catman is a much lesser Batman, and why eat hamburger when you can eat Bruce Wayne? He's a B-lister for sure, but he clawed his way up (pun!) from D-list, so that's something. We can't really ignore the fact that, for many decades, this guy was a total joke. And, y'know, he kills a lot of people.

COOKING WITH CATMAN!

HE HAS REALLY NICE EYES, TOO.

He's the first villain, if we can consider him that, to be rated among the Super Hunks, so I'll go easy on him. For a villain, he has surprisingly few flaws.

- 2

FINAL SCORE: 33/40

THIS WOULD ALSO MAKE A GOOD COSTUME.

I'm afraid so, Catman. But that is a perfectly respectable score! In fact, that ties you with Iron Fist, so not bad at all! Especially considering the dramatic and sexy comeback from being a fat loser.

Shadow Thief shows that hard work and complete lunacy pay off.

We all know and love Shadow Thief, the shadow-based DC villain who used to annoy Hawkman and Hawkgirl on a regular basis.

But did you know that Shadow Thief's origin is completely stupid and hilarious?

Grab some popcorn and take a seat.

Shadow Thief, or Carl Sands, first appeared in The Brave and the Bold #36, which was among the many awesome comics collected in Showcase Presents Hawkman vol.1. Like all good villains, Shadow Thief likes to pass the time by remembering his own origin story.

"If only I were a shadow..." For most people this would be a fleeting, whimsical thought that one would be sort of embarassed about. But not this guy. He turns it into a mission.

He read up on shadow facts and legends. And then built something that he could have seen at (or, hell, stolen from) any children's science museum. But wait for this:

"I've got to do more research!" That is so crazy. That's like "Dammit! This quarter didn't really materialize in my ear! I must work harder! I must find a way!"

His relentless practice of children's science experiments and magic tricks is interrupted by one of the countless aliens who visited America during the 1960s.

My favourite thing about those panels is that somewhere in the short time that Carl met and rescued the alien, he managed to talk about how much he loves shadows.

Dude, you can have, presumably, any wish granted by this alien, and you still are sticking with the shadow thing? Aren't there better abilities than being able to control shadows?

Alright, actually, that is pretty cool.

You know who were probably really surprised are all the sensible people who were like "Seriously, Carl, enough with the shadows! It's never going to happen! Get a job!" Or his mom. "What would you like for your birthday this year, Carl? And DON'T say another flashlight!"

Once again a human triumphs over science and possibility and uses it to rob museums and banks. I salute you, Shadow Thief.

Loki is cool with me.

Now that the role has been cast in the upcoming movie, I would like to put forward an argument that Thor's villainous brother Loki, the God of Mischief, isn't all that bad.

Take this early apperance in Journey Into Mystery #88, for example. Loki comes down to Earth and starts "terrorizing" humanity by...

...turning everything into candy and ice cream.

And...

...diffusing Soviet nuclear bombs.

In fact, the only remotely frightening thing that he does is turn a bunch of people into blank white versions of themselves:

But even that isn't so bad because he has no intention of leaving them that way:

I ask you, wouldn't you rather have this guy around than the one who hurls a giant hammer around and makes lightning strike everything?

"Now Doom will totally rule the school!"

You can say a lot of things about Doctor Doom, but you cannot say that he doesn't know how to rock a crew-neck sweatshirt:

Oh, Doom. You so badly want that sweatshirt to be the key to social acceptance, but believe me, it isn't.

Also, that sweatshirt is not being truthful.

Justify Your Existence: Batman Villain Edition

Hello and welcome to Saturday here at Living Between Wednesdays! Today we'll be playing a game of "Justify Your Existence", the game in which super-folk of yesteryear tell us, in their own words, exactly why they did what they did. This week we're going to be talking to some Batman villains of yore, and in return we'll be telling them exactly how likely it is that they might make their way back into the comic books of today to bedevil whoever wins that pesky battle for the cowl.

First up, Doctor No-Face, from Detective Comics No. 319.

And who is Dr No-Face? Why, he's Dr Paul Dent, medical researcher and erstwhile chimp-smoother!

Dent's facial features are obliterated by overexposure to his ray! He rushes out into the night, shrieking!

Dr Paul Dent becomes Dr No-Face! He goes on a rampage! His petty, ascotted vandalism has Gotham in the grip of fear! But why, Doc? Tell us your motivation:

Ah, the classic plot: taking revenge on society for the horrible disfigurement that... you caused yourself to have. Well, I guess that it's not like you can erase your own face, right?

What are his chances? Pretty good, if it were up to me. I'm sure that if he were around today he'd be disfiguring beautiful people or holding famous faces for ransom whilst wielding a vial of acid or something but I suppose that that's the style of the time. Check this though: Dr Paul Dent is Dr No-Face while Harvey Dent is Two-Face! They could be cousins and have a familial rivalry and terrorize the Gotham citizenry with their feud! Or Dr No-Face could fight the Question for thematic fun and maybe try to woo her, leading to big laffs! And Cousin Harvey is creepily into Renee Montoya! The plots write themselves, folks!

What does the Internet say? Because I haven't read every comic ever I feel the need to check for repeat appearances. Turns out that Doc N-F was mentioned in 52 as having developed some of the technology that led to the Question's mask, but his name is also listed as Bart Margan, which detracts from some of my fun. Still, the stage is set!

Our next contestant is The Dummy!

As far as I can tell, The Dummy is some guy named Danny, a very short performer who poses as a ventriloquist's dummy while working tthe controls of a larger figure named Matt:

But Danny has a problem: when he walks down the street dressed as a ventriloquist's dummy after a long day of pretending to be a ventriloquist's dummy in a fairly popular show (well, popular enough that that one guy's evidently seen it twice), sometimes people talk like he's a ventriloquist's dummy.

This is not a good reason for crime, Danny the Dummy. This is a good reason to retool your act so that it involves you explicitly puppeteering Matt or maybe so that it's you operating a very small dummy while Matt's dismembered body lies on the stage behind you. Continuing to dress as a dummy and calling yourself The Dummy will still result in people referring to you in a manner that might lead you to believe that they think that you are a dummy, Danny.

What are his chances? Poor. In addition to the fact that he became a criminal for a very stupid reason and that he looks unnervingly creepy, the Dummy doesn't even fill a unique niche. Batman already has a much better ventriloquism-based villain and there's already a more notorious DCU villain named The Dummy who fought the Vigilante and killed his sidekick and stuff.

What does the Internet say? Squat. Danny is not a player.

The Hangman:

The Hangman made an appearance in Detective Comics No 355 as a wrestler who was undefeated and whose identity was unknown and had promised to reveal his identity if he was ever beaten in a fight.

And then, the Hangman starts showing up all aroung Gotham - every time that Batman investigates a crime scene, the Hangman is nearby, running away or loitering suspiciously, and of course they fight and Hangman keeps beating Batman with his awesome wrestling moves and then keeps trying to take unconcious Batman's mask off. Why all the strange behavior, Hangman? (below)

Augh! That's a terrible reason to roam the city staging crimes (it turns out that he was staging the crimes, by the way) and picking fights with a super-hero!

The Hangman turns out to be Telman Davies, a TV newsman who has a secret life as a masked wrestler, just as they often do in real life. Remember the wrestling subplots on Murphy Brown? Classic.

What are his chances? On the theme that he showcased in this story? Bleh. However, Davies was disgraced at the end of the story and had to leave Gotham. He'd have made a great recurring antagonist, trying and failing to wreak his revenge on Batman for ruining his scheme. At the very least he's visually interesting enough to make good crowd scene filler - he could pop up in villain bars and prison escapes and such.

What does the Internet say? Things aren't looking good. A Hangman has made an appearance in Batman comics in recent years, in the series Dark Victory, but it wasn't Davies. He could still get that job as an extra, I suppose, but this makes it far less likely.

It's Signalman!

Signalman is Phil Cobb, an itinerant gangster who wants to hit the big time in Gotham but just can't seem to get ahead. Being new in town, he has a really hard time making friends and inciting them to shake down local shopkeeps.

Phil is a thinking man, a cleft-chinned, green-suited pool hall-frequenting thinking man. He puts his mental muscle to work and comes up with a plan re: how to get a gang going in Gotham. What was that plan again, Phil?

He decides to gin up a reputation by emulating the  crime-style of the Joker and the Penguin! Granted, those two never seem to have any problem drumming up a gang of gangsters in Gotham, but then again they always seem to get caught or seemingly killed as a  result of their convoluted scheming and the Batman's straightforward punching. Maybe it would be a better idea to relocate to a town without a masked champion of justice, or at least with one who has never beaten Superman in a fight?

Or going completely, insanely all-out with a theme and attacking Batman head-on is another option. Signalman is of course defeated (despite his awesome cape) but I'm sure that he makes lots of friends in prison with his effective communication skills.

What are his chances? Well, this one's a little easier, since I know that Signalman made a few more appearances in the Silver Age and showed up in the Secret Society of Super-Villains and so forth. He's been treated as something of a joke for a while now but maybe his time has come. Maybe Mr Cobb has been biding his time and is about to unveil a super-cool new device that disrupts the electrical signals of the brain or takes over the Internet or something. Will 2009 be the year that Signalman comes into his own?

What does the Internet say? Man, Signalman is still around, more than I realized. He's like the new Dr Light, the joke villain that everyone makes fun of. Let's hope that he can make a better, non-rapey comeback.

Okay, one more: The Wheel.

Come on, you know The Wheel, don't you? Frank "Wheels" Foster? Gotham restauranteur? Ran a clandestine gambling den? Captured by Batman? Sent to a prison full of yokels with simple senses of humour?

The Wheel! Remember how he serendipitously escaped from prison when a truck blew a tire and came up with the best plan ever?

That's right, Frank, it's an omen! Wheel crimes, yeah! Though why gate-, truck- or laundry-based crimes were less fateful I'm not sure. I guess that the whole nickname thing meant that he already had some sort of wheel connection going on in his mind but I'd think that the merciless prison-taunting would have seen to that pretty damn quick.

I want you to note two things here, folks: this is The Wheel's first caper, the one where traditionally the villain thwarts Batman and gets away. The second time out is the one where Batman almost catches the villain but ends up with the loot. The Wheel is not fated to be doing this. Also, Batman clearly knows who he is so the mask is kind of stupid.

What are his chances? I see two chances for The Wheel. One, he can show up in an Arkham Asylum scene in a room full of wheels and clockwork and stuff as a background madman. Two, if my plans for Signalman come to fruition and he becomes cool again the Wheel can step in as the low villain on the totem pole. Heck, theyy even have basically the same costume.

What does the Internet say? Sorry, Frank. You're off the radar.

Okay folks, that's it for today. I'd like to thank all of our guests and remind them never to give up hope. You never know when you'll get the chance to shine in a prison riot or Suicide Squad mission or parody comic.

See you next time, existence-justifiers!