It may be apocryphal, but I read somewhere that one of the editors would occasionally meet with kids and ask them what sort of stories they’d like to see, leading to such stories as Jimmy Olsen becoming a robot, or Lois Lane getting superpowers. It would explain some of the more outlandish tales.
And then there’s the case of Jim Shooter, where DC just up and hired a fourteen year old to write comics for them.
I remember Spider-Man knocking around the entire X-Men roster in the first Secret Wars. (Written by a grown-up Jim Shooter).
Superheroes of old liked to narrate their actions out loud to themselves when nobody else was around to hear it.
He’s talking to himself in the cold hard vacuum of space. The story would be almost plausible if they had just changed those word balloons into thought balloons.
As far as I can recall, Kirby only matched the two up twice – in FF #12 (where I think they interact for one panel) and FF 25-26, which features LONG fight scenes between the two, complete with priceless dialog (“Hey! Leggo! That’s the hand I eat pizza with!”) FF #25 also has the best cover, illustrating the pronounced size difference between the two.
Other artists depicted the two squaring off (I think John Buscema did so, more than once), but Kirby really was the King.
Who drew the one where Leader and Kurgo set up a fight between the two? The outrageous part was Kurgo believing his robot could take on both Hulk and Thing after Thing caught on to what was happening. That fight lasted about a second.
puny robot.
I missed this when it was first started. Glad this thread was resurrected !
What immediately comes to mind is this one “King Size Master of Kung Fu”. Shang-chi was supposed to be the greatest martial artist, but was still “human” - no super powers (this was back with “original” Shang-chi). In this one King Size (I don’t even recall the plot as the issue seemed to be one big fight scene), he is attacked by a bunch of “bad guys”. And then more, and more, and more. Until it seems he is taking on the entire male population of Hong Kong ! There are scenes of huge ComicCon-like lines of bad guys filling the streets in the queue to take on this lone fighter. Many with weapons, even.
And, of course, Shang-chi defeats them ALL. Barely panting, maybe some torn uniform, but standing and walking away triumphantly.
Superman vs. Doomsday from 1993. Doomsday had already defeated most of the Justice League when Superman caught up with him 60 miles from Metropolis. From there the two battled so hard they caused earthquakes, punches so strong that the shockwaves shattered windows, There was fighting in mid-air, fighting underground. Superman flew into Doomsday’s midsection at full speed, Doomsday piledrived Superman right through a paved street. Superman finally killed Doomsday, but he died, bloodied and broken (and with an incredibly torn costume that Captain Kirk would envy) in Lois Lane’s arms.
In Secret Wars #4, Molecule Man drops an entire mountain on the heroes, but the Hulk saves them. As depicted on the cover…
When I was a little comic book nerd, I got hooked on old radio detective shows, and realized "Hey, this is where the comic book writers get their “Narrate your every move” needless explanations. But it only made sense on the radio to say things you’re doing out loud, like:
“I’ll just [nnghh] boost myself through this open window… annnd, I’m inside the judge’s study. And there it is, the safe with the the counterfeit contract…”
I’m usually bored by fight scenes, but not if they’re clever, with some creativity to them.
My favorite is the time John Constantine tricked the devil.
Constantine had coughed up some blood in a previous episode, and had figured out he was dying of cancer. So he was visiting old friends to say goodbye…
You can read the whole storyline, or just Issue #42, starting with page 10 (where he’s introduced to a pool of holy water that’s been changed into Guiness)… but the clever part is page 20-22, where the devil shows up and John convinces him to tip a pint of the “Magic Stout”.
The devil asks why it’s so good, and Constantine explains that the candles in the pentagram keep the spell going, and stop it from turning back into holy water.
Old Scratch realizes what he’s drinking as Constantine kicks out, knocking over the candles. And the devil proceeds to be ripped apart from within, getting dropkicked into the pool for added badassery.
One of my pet peeves is when a character says a paragraph of exposition during an action that takes about a half second. Like a long quip delivered during a jump or punch.
It’s magically delicious!
[Irish golf clap] Maybe that’s why I bought a box of Lucky Charms as part of stocking up for Thanksgiving guests…
By the way, the Devil was well-portrayed:
Science educator/YouTuber Kyle Hill recently did a video of One-Punch Man bench pressing two black holes and note the many ways it is ridiculous.
