May 30, 2010
They say that comics are for kids but I don’t know if that’s true. Comics today feature Grant Morrison’s musings on the structure of time, space, and the multiverse, Garth Ennis’ profanity-fueled dark and graphic violence, and Frank Miller’s total shit.
But there has always been at least one comic that for nearly 70 years could be depended on for good wholesome, family fun: Archie Andrews. Archie is a high school student who lives in Riverdale, a nice fictional community where Democrats don’t raise taxes and no major crime has been committed since Big Moose broke Reggie’s nose with a shovel for dissing his fugly girlfriend Ethel.
Archie is your typical teenage kid, i.e.: kind of dumb. He’s totally in love with two girls, Betty, your average pie-baking virgin, and Veronica, the Paris Hilton-like rich girl who’ll go all the way in the backseat with the quarterback in the most expensive car. Archie is so dumb that he has no idea that even Jughead has hit that.
Anyway, typical Archie Comics plots center around Archie borrowing five dollars from his father for a milkshake at the chocolate shop and Jughead eating a hamburger. Once there was a miniseries where Archie and Dilton fell asleep in class.
How, then, to explain the issue where Archie gave hand jobs to three guys in a swimming pool?
Dammit Betty, you're supposed to do that!
Well, if Archie can’t be counted on, we can at least count on 1950’s TV to provide wholesome fun, right? No, no we can’t.
Remember The Rifleman with Chuck Conners? Of course you don’t. No one does. This is the 21st Century and trust me, no one gives two craps about this black and white old televised turd. Chuck Conners was your usual TV western good guy- he carried a rifle (duh, like The Rifleman would carry a bow and arrow) , caught the bad guys, delivered homilies and family-friendly morals, and seemed to be deathly afraid of women. How else do you explain the fact that the Lone Ranger never got laid, the guy from Gunsmoke never schtupped Miss Kitty, and the only female in The Rifleman’s cast played someone named “Lou?”
I have an answer, an obvious one, as seen in this issue of The Rifleman comic:
Gee Mr. Rifleman, I dunno...
Mr. Tight Pants seems pretty proud of that “log,” doesn’t he? Almost as proud as the kid is afraid that The Rifleman is going to put that thing somewhere bad. Again.
And speaking of TV and comics, what do you think is happening to that guy in this scene from The Incredible Hulk?
"Hulk not power bottom! Hulk Top!"
Of course, Superman must be safe for kids. He represents Truth, Justice, and The American Way. No way would he be caught dropping his towel in a Russian steam room. Everyone knows that Superman is in love with Lois Lane, who on television has been played by the attractive Erica Durance but in the movies was played by Margot Kidder, a chain smoking scud whose very glance, like the mighty Medusa before her, could give men herpes. Medusa may have turned men hard as stone, but the only thing Margot Kidder hardened was men’s resolves not to touch her.
But back in the early days, things were a bit different for Clark Kent. He hadn’t yet married Lois, was still unsure of his place in the world, and his adventures were not yet overseen by the Comics code Authority, a group of people determined to take any hint of sex or violence out of comics. How else can you explain this sequence?
"Gay City Here I come!"
He sure is in a hurry to get to Gay City, isn’t he? Gay City is no place for a woman. What the Hell is going on here?
The man flits about in his underwear. You figure it out.
And lastly, even if Archie has disappointed you, the Hulk is buggering bald men, and Superman is off to the opera in Gay City, would Batman let you down?
Would Batman, in a story straight out of the Bible, let you down?
You decide.
I leave you with this:
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