# Things you wish they dared show in comics **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 22, 2003, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wish-they-dared-show-in-comics/214619 "2003-11-22T03:16:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Innanna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ecd19e/32.png) [@Innanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Innanna)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2003, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wish-they-dared-show-in-comics/214619/21 "2003-11-24T09:11:19Z")
Could get, not could got. I swear, I AM fluent in this bloody language. Sheesh ---
**Author:** ![torie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/77aa72/32.png) [@torie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/torie)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2003, 9:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wish-they-dared-show-in-comics/214619/22 "2003-11-24T09:34:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lumpy \* > \*\*Sure! Betty is a “good girl”, and Veronica is a cocktease. So Arch has never gotten laid. Reggie on the other hand… \*\* A dichotomy of Female Sexuality.😛 ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2003, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wish-they-dared-show-in-comics/214619/23 "2003-11-24T09:48:14Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by GuanoLad \* > \*\*What I’d like to see is the consequences of the wholesale destruction the superheroes wreak on their city. The people who live in that apartment Superman gets slammed into; the lady who is married to the Joker’s henchman who gets it; the owner of the car that the Hulk throws off the bridge. > > It’d be a good little sidestory, anyway. \*\* Marvel did [“Damage Control”](http://homepage.mac.com/dmcduffie/site/DamageControl.html) a few years back. It was kind of a comedy, but they could probably pull it off even if they played it “straight.” ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2003, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wish-they-dared-show-in-comics/214619/24 "2003-11-24T14:47:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Innanna \* > \*\*I’ve often wondered if the folks who live in Gotham (and why would you, anyway) could get insurance. Insurance companies don’t like to insure against things that are probably going to happen, and if you have a bunch of wackos regularly destroying bits of the city, who the heck could got/afford in the insurance. Is that guy whose car the Hulk just sent to the bottom of the river just out of luck? Could anyone afford to run their own small buisness with people being knocked into the walls all the time? Even health/life insurance must be a pain in the butt to deal with. “Non smoker, average weight, no illnesses, 21, male? Here’s your rate. Lives in Gotham? Ha. Triple the number I just gave you.” \*\* This is dealt with in Kingdom Come, especially the novelization. ---
**Author:** ![FlyingDragonFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c89c15/32.png) [@FlyingDragonFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlyingDragonFan)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2003, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wish-they-dared-show-in-comics/214619/25 "2003-11-24T15:01:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by GuanoLad \* > What I’d like to see is the consequences of the wholesale destruction the superheroes wreak on their city. The people who live in that apartment Superman gets slammed into; the lady who is married to the Joker’s henchman who gets it; the owner of the car that the Hulk throws off the bridge. _SpiderMan - Tangled Web_ often has stories of this type. One in particular I remember is about an employee of the Kingpin whose operation gets thwarted by SpiderMan, and his punishment by the Kingpin. SpiderMan doesn’t even appear in the issue. ---
**Author:** ![Hey\_It\_s\_That\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Hey\_It\_s\_That\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hey_It_s_That_Guy)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2003, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wish-they-dared-show-in-comics/214619/26 "2003-11-24T16:04:16Z")
Ah yes, Tangled Web #4, “Severance Package,” by Greg Rucka and Eduardo Risso. That issue won all kinds of industry awards, and Spider-Man was nowhere to be seen in it. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2003, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wish-they-dared-show-in-comics/214619/27 "2003-11-24T20:40:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by GuanoLad \* > \*\*That sounds like a good idea for a TV series. “Law and Order: Gotham City”. > > What I’d like to see is the consequences of the wholesale destruction the superheroes wreak on their city. The people who live in that apartment Superman gets slammed into; the lady who is married to the Joker’s henchman who gets it; the owner of the car that the Hulk throws off the bridge. > > It’d be a good little sidestory, anyway. \*\* Marvel had a series called Tangle Web not to long ago. It was all about the normal people or super villians that Spider-Man affected through is actions. My favorite was the issue that showed what happens to one of Kingpin’s underlings when Spider-Man screws up their operation. Marc ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2003, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wish-they-dared-show-in-comics/214619/28 "2003-11-24T22:57:32Z")
I wish _Little Orphan Annie_ would show her frickin’ pupils. She looks like a goddam meth freak. ---
**Author:** ![ResIpsaLoquitor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b3f665/32.png) [@ResIpsaLoquitor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ResIpsaLoquitor)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2003, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wish-they-dared-show-in-comics/214619/29 "2003-11-25T02:32:46Z")
I wanna see what’s under Dr. Doom’s mask. The debate is endless: does his face look like Freddy Kruger’s, or is it just a little scar? Who knows? We’ve always been shown Doom from behind, or in shadow, with somebody commenting “Oh, how horrid!” Gah. We’ve seen uglier by now. We’ve seen Elektra gutted through the chest. C’mon, Marvel: show the good Doctor’s face. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2003, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wish-they-dared-show-in-comics/214619/30 "2003-11-25T02:50:36Z")
Doom’s face was marred in an attempt to enter Mephisto’s realm was he not? So I think something along the lines of a supernatural curse is in order. Something like, his face is crawling with maggots that he can’t get rid of because they spawn out of his flesh. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2003, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wish-they-dared-show-in-comics/214619/31 "2003-11-25T03:45:25Z")
That’d be cool, Lumpy. But, in a way, we _have_ seen Doom’s face…on page 25 of the “Doctor DOOM (The Chaos Engine: Book 1)” novel, we see a portrait of the good doctor, sans mask, hanging on a wall. It’s a little shadowy, but he basically looks like a young Eric Braeden. With some lines drawn on his face. Not NEARLY as bad as Cobra Commander looked, under the hood. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2003, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wish-they-dared-show-in-comics/214619/32 "2003-11-25T03:53:12Z")
Unless they’ve retconned it, Victor von Doom’s mask is permanently burned onto his face because of his own impatience when the armor was created. Rather than letting it cool down, he insisted on putting the mask on immediately (some genius, huh?) and it basically melted his flesh into the mask. But with comic book continuity (or lack thereof) this may have been changed since I stopped reading them. ---
**Author:** ![Hey\_It\_s\_That\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Hey\_It\_s\_That\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hey_It_s_That_Guy)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2003, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wish-they-dared-show-in-comics/214619/33 "2003-11-25T04:49:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ranchoth \* > \*\*Not NEARLY as bad as Cobra Commander looked, under the hood. \*\* Are you sure you’re not thinking of Snake Eyes, who had several huge scars disfiguring his face and had to wear a lifelike rubber mask in public? Cobra Commander was shown unmasked more than once in the comic, and he was never depicted as disfigured. He did have a weird handlebar mustache for a while, though (as in G.I. Joe #55). Unless you are referring G.I. Joe: The Movie (different continuity than the comics), where CC was depicted as a grotesque snake-man under his mirrored faceplate. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2003, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wish-they-dared-show-in-comics/214619/34 "2003-11-25T05:26:40Z")
That would be the animation-version Cobra Commander. The one who made Destro _nauseous_ when he saw CC eating soup. He had more than three eyes, as I recall. And I don’t think that the current Doctor Doom’s mask is permenantly melted on…I saw a Marvel paperback collection the other day, in which Doom was left naked—and maskless—on some hellish alien world. We didn’t see his face, but he saw fit to fashion himself a _new_ mask out of a lion pelt. ---
**Author:** ![Master\_Wang-Ka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/master_wang-ka/32/3325_2.png) [@Master\_Wang-Ka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Master_Wang-Ka)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2003, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wish-they-dared-show-in-comics/214619/35 "2003-11-25T13:52:31Z")
NOT permanently melted on; Dr. Doom has been seen to remove his mask on many occasions. Admittedly, the camera is almost always behind him on these occasions. The retconned John Byrne version of the story has it that Doom was lightly scarred across one cheek in college, when a machine he built exploded while he was trying to use it. (This also led to his hatred for Reed Richards, who noticed that Doom’s calculations were off while Doom was building the thing, and tried to warn him; Doom concluded that Richards sabotaged the machine out of jealousy.) Doom’s vanity led him to believe that he was hideous, despite the fact that the scar was no more than a thin line across one cheek. He ran off to Tibet, where he bullied a buncha monks into forging his armor… and they warned him the mask had not quite cooled yet… and he stuck it on, anyway, searing his face into a mass of scar tissue. (The original Kirby version of this scene has Doom simply ignoring the pain, as if the mask wasn’t that hot; the Byrne retcon version has him screaming in agony, steam boiling out his eyeholes, and such). Byrne reinforced this by always showing scar tissue around Doom’s eyes when we saw his masked face in closeups. Haven’t read FF in years, though, so I have no idea what Mephisto might have done to him. ---
**Author:** ![Master\_Wang-Ka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/master_wang-ka/32/3325_2.png) [@Master\_Wang-Ka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Master_Wang-Ka)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2003, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wish-they-dared-show-in-comics/214619/36 "2003-11-25T13:54:58Z")
…and yes, in both the Kirby and Byrne versions, the young Doom looks a bit like a young Eric Braeden, with a hint of Fritz Weaver thrown in. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wish-they-dared-show-in-comics/214619.md?page=1)