Saturday, February 25, 2006

Groin Injury Saturday: A Breeze Caresses Not Unlike A Probe

In New Thunderbolts #16 (2005 Series) the Radioactive Man squares off against Hyperion with horrifying results. This dust-em-up fight scene is a fun couple of panels that evoked in me warm Silver Age-y feelings of DC and fond memories of reading old comics that featured the Kryptonite Man/Kid fighting Superman/Boy.

Ummm..what? That's very Haiku-ish.
The similarity, at least in spirit, of this fight scene to DC's Silver Age tales could be intentional on the part of the creative team. The Squadron Supreme/Sinister is an homage to all the classic DC characters of the JLA, created in Marvel titles back when cross-overs and cooperation between Marvel and DC were unthinkable (Much like the business environment of today. Thanks, Joe!).

The old Avengers vs. Squadron stories were good nudge-nudge-wink-winks for the fans (like me) who desperately wanted to see a story that featured the Avengers and the JLA but would have had to wait a few decades for it to actually happen in reality.

This attack on the reproductive organs made me wince a bit to read it. The Radioactive Man determines what frequency of radiation would render Hyperion powerless and gives him a good zap, removing the Squadron's strongest member from the field. One might think that Bats-homage character the Nighthawk is the member to be feared above the magicians and muscle-heads, the one to watch. Like his counterpart the Batman, the Nighthawk should be a force to be reckoned with in a fight due to his brilliant pre-planning. One couldn't be more wrong. In this story Nighthawk is a dead-on copy of the Darknight Detective, as he is taking a page from the Batman Crime Stoppers' Textbook by just hanging back and observing from a safe distance, waiting for the danger to pass.

What caused a cringe from me was that the Radioactive Man didn't just zap Hyperion. No, that was not good enough. Instead of just pointing and shooting the RM grabs a big handful of Hyper-Package and gives Skippy the whipping to end all whippings. This date did not have a happy ending.

Hyperion is all but invulnerable but I understand the soul-rending GYYYAAAAGH! He got lit up from inside out via a billion rads surging through his Hyper-Testes. He got hurt so bad even his word balloon is radioactive! In that one inarticulate word Hyperion screamed as he watched all his futures end. No more wild get-away weekends with Power Princess in the Doctor Prism Inn, no Hyper-Children flying around being zany and giving away secret identities to the townies and worst of all...definitely no more urinating from a standing position.

2 comments:

  1. For some reason this made me giggle hysterically for several minutes.

    Or maybe it was the tequila.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That's just... horrible! He screamed so loud he broke his word baloon!

    ReplyDelete

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