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Largely speaking, comics as a mainstream medium are over 100 years old. Some characters in comics have existed for decades, and while we're familiar with their broad strokes, we might have a hard time believing some of the weird stories they've been a part of. And other comics were just incredibly weird from the start. This thread is for posting about those weird comics that were either aberrations in a long running series or mind-blowingly odd from the start. The kind of comics that you wouldn't believe existed if a friend had told you about it on the playground. Let's start with a subject we're all somewhat familiar with: Marvel's Venom. Now, right away it's complicated because there's been a bunch of Venoms, but we know the basics. Black space goo becomes Spider-man's suit, Spider-man rejects it, other people wear it and do evil/heroic things and have teeth. BUT! Do you remember the time Venom...  Fought Carnage inside the internet?  Became a secret agent for the US government and foiled a terrorist plane hijacking by bursting through the roof and violently decapitating everyone?  Grew a bunch of extra heads and arms and tried to rape his girlfriend?  Passed himself off as a radical skateboarding teen?  Teamed up with Hulk to reference an old SNL skit? And that doesn't even begin to cover the weird poo poo this one character's been involved in. For a more complete account, our very own Gavok has you covered. But sadly, not every comic book character has their insane journeys documented so diligently. That's where posters like you come in! So whether it's to post about Electric Blue Superman, Speedy's drug addiction, that time Superboy Prime posted about himself on the internet, or Fletcher Hanks comics, let's all share the weirdest poo poo that the medium has to offer!
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Nov 3, 2015 04:56
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Well there's always Marville
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Nov 3, 2015 05:33
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I hate to be the guy who says this here, but that one can't possibly be real, right?
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Nov 3, 2015 11:23
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Tony those guys are dead. Bits of their skulls flew off when you bonked their heads together.
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Nov 3, 2015 12:08
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chaos rhames posted:I hate to be the guy who says this here, but that one can't possibly be real, right? Marville could fill the entire thread by itself.
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Nov 3, 2015 12:52
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chaos rhames posted:I hate to be the guy who says this here, but that one can't possibly be real, right? Bill Jemas still gets work and that is a sin.
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Nov 3, 2015 12:53
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Even I forgot about those Evony style misleading covers.
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Nov 3, 2015 12:58
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I don't read comics, but I think my favorite turn of events in terms of sheer surface level what-the-fuckery is "Changes", a four-part Spider-Man story from 2004. I've never actually read the thing, so I can't speak to the actual quality of the story, but I know the short synopsis is that a villain named The Queen, with power over insects, turns Peter Parker into a giant spider. I'll grant, first off, that it looks like they actually did fairly well at conveying the body horror of the transformation itself. The weird part comes when they need to resolve all this. Which they do by having Peter Parker burst out of his own spider-corpse.  The best part is that, apparently, this is what they came up with to give Peter Parker organic web-shooters instead of artificial ones, to bring him in line with the then-recent Raimi Spider-Man movies. I feel like someone took this as an opportunity to write a story they really wanted to do but never got a chance to try, but still, 'Peter Parker turned into a giant spider and then maybe gave birth to himself' is now a published thing that happened. I'm looking forward to this thread showing me that these sorts of things I vaguely know of are just the tip of the iceberg.
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Nov 3, 2015 16:06
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How about the time Image comics turned all their Liefeld 90's-as-gently caress heroes into hot babes?  The event was called "Babewatch" because of course it loving was. I don't even remember what the point of it was apart from giving Image an excuse to draw more cheesecake.
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Nov 3, 2015 16:16
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I unironically love how stupid Liefeld is. I've never read comics like his since. The guy just doesn't understand how THINGS work. Sometime I'm going to have to make a big effort post about it. Today is not that day.
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Nov 3, 2015 16:22
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Evil Mastermind posted:How about the time Image comics turned all their Liefeld 90's-as-gently caress heroes into hot babes?
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Nov 3, 2015 16:25
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Spiderman gave Mary Jane Spider Cancer by pozzing her neg vag
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Nov 3, 2015 17:57
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Cleretic posted:I don't read comics, but I think my favorite turn of events in terms of sheer surface level what-the-fuckery is "Changes", a four-part Spider-Man story from 2004. I've never actually read the thing, so I can't speak to the actual quality of the story, but I know the short synopsis is that a villain named The Queen, with power over insects, turns Peter Parker into a giant spider. I'll grant, first off, that it looks like they actually did fairly well at conveying the body horror of the transformation itself. The amazing thing about this is that the recent Scarlet Spider series reused it but made it work a lot better.
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Nov 3, 2015 18:22
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Evil Mastermind posted:How about the time Image comics turned all their Liefeld 90's-as-gently caress heroes into hot babes? Cant decide if this is better or worse than JLApe...
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Nov 3, 2015 18:28
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Ultimate Wolverine statutory raped Mary Jane Watson.
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Nov 3, 2015 18:32
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Lurdiak posted:Fletcher Hanks comics Any excuse to post this weirdness, ... 
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Nov 3, 2015 18:45
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What was the crime?
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Nov 3, 2015 18:55
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Aphrodite posted:What was the crime?  Honestly, the whole thing is worth reading and it only gets more hosed up as it goes.
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Nov 3, 2015 18:57
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Aphrodite posted:What was the crime?  Fletcher Hanks comics are the best nightmare I've ever read.
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Nov 3, 2015 19:00
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If you want weird comics Alejandro Jodorowsky is your safest bet: Context, this woman's father has lost his memory and has fallen in love with her:   http://i.imgur.com/haKvW2w.jpg
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Nov 3, 2015 19:58
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What's the policy on Elseworlds/What If stuff?
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Nov 3, 2015 20:21
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Aphrodite posted:Ultimate Wolverine statutory raped Mary Jane Watson. He tried at least, and that comic was supposed to be a lighthearted affair!
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Nov 3, 2015 21:30
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I don't have scans on hand, but if I did, I'd post a retrospective of that subplot in Steve Gerber's Defenders where every so often, there'd be a short alternate scene where an elf showed up and shot a seemingly random bystander to death with a revolver. IIRC, it never went anywhere and Gerber's rationale for it sounded like the kind of thing that made more sense if you were immensely baked. That's not what I expected from the label. Seems like he generation-flipped "Oedipus Rex."
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Nov 3, 2015 22:09
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 Marvel needs to relaunch this with Garth Ennis Punisher and Waid/Staples Archieverse
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Nov 3, 2015 22:19
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Wanderer posted:I don't have scans on hand, but if I did, I'd post a retrospective of that subplot in Steve Gerber's Defenders where every so often, there'd be a short alternate scene where an elf showed up and shot a seemingly random bystander to death with a revolver. IIRC, it never went anywhere and Gerber's rationale for it sounded like the kind of thing that made more sense if you were immensely baked. I dunno, given the kinds of batshit insane things that happen in your average superhero universe on a daily basis, a random elf with a gun shooting people for no reason makes perfect sense.
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Nov 3, 2015 22:20
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Knives Amilli posted:
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Nov 3, 2015 22:23
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Darthemed posted:What's the policy on Elseworlds/What If stuff? Elseworlds stuff is awesome and should be included imo.
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Nov 3, 2015 22:23
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Wanderer posted:I don't have scans on hand, but if I did, I'd post a retrospective of that subplot in Steve Gerber's Defenders where every so often, there'd be a short alternate scene where an elf showed up and shot a seemingly random bystander to death with a revolver. IIRC, it never went anywhere and Gerber's rationale for it sounded like the kind of thing that made more sense if you were immensely baked. It's my twitter background. 
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Nov 3, 2015 22:48
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John Ostrander's Suicide Squad run is excellent. It is also somewhat depressing, with very few light hearted moments. People do bad things to bad people and there is a whole lot of intrigue and power plays going on. There is also this.  It became a running gag in the comic that people would be randomly pelted with pies. Why? Just because.
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Nov 3, 2015 23:19
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CharlestheHammer posted:He tried at least, and that comic was supposed to be a lighthearted affair! Yeah, it ends with a caricature of Bendis joking about what a dumb, silly story it was.
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Nov 3, 2015 23:46
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Aphrodite posted:Yeah, it ends with a caricature of Bendis joking about what a dumb, silly story it was. In fact it was the story he and Bagley wanted to swap jobs on, right? (Bendis used to pencil his own indie stuff. His art's not GREAT, but for a one-off it would've been neat.)
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Nov 3, 2015 23:49
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I don't care if you've heard about this, it's my favourite moment in comics history and I will never stop posting about it. If I ever get on Drunk History, this is what I'll talk about. It's an issue of the original Transformers comic. This issue: But first, a little backstory. See, the thing about the Transformers comic and the GI Joe comics from the same time is that nobody wanted them to be successful. There was a law at the time that toy commercials couldn't be more than 50% animation, they had to actually show the toy being played with by kids. That law was interpreted as applying to saturday morning cartoons as well, arguing that they were commercials more than they were entertainment, which was almost certainly true. The law didn't apply to print works so Hasbro approached Marvel to produce comic books. Then they could say the cartoons were adaptations of the comics, and everything was hunky dory. Hasbro paid Marvel up front to produce the comics because they needed them to run for as long as the show was on the air, so it didn't matter how well they sold. This lead to some interesting things happening. Marvel gave the editors on these books free reign to come up with their own stories, and they would often act as a springboard for promising writers and artists who didn't have the experience to land big titles. Larry Hama ended up taking GI Joe and using it to write personal stories about his own experiences as a Japanese immigrant in the US, and Simon Furman wrote page after page of dense mythology and backstory for Transformers, basically turning it into his own version of New Gods. Eventually the UK and US versions of the comics even started developing their own separate continuities and nobody really cared. At least not until Transformers: The Movie. Not the Michael Bay one, the one before that. Yes, there was one before that. This one:  Now, you might look at that poster and think it looks rad as hell, or at least better than the Micheal Bay one. You're right about the last part, but only just. If you look closer, you might also notice that you don't recognise any of the characters in the poster. Hasbro had a bunch of new toys they had to sell, and this movie was how they were planning to do it. That part is okay. The problem is that the new toys looked like poo poo and played worse. Toy regulations had gotten stricter, so nobody had guns that shot missiles anymore, and they had decided to stop turning into recognizable things like trucks and jets and started looking like this:  That's some garbage right there, and Hasbro knew it. The original Transformers line was entirely based on imported Japanese toys, and the American designers were trying to make their own for the first time and had apparently gone to the garbage bin behind the GoBots design offices for ideas. So what do you do when you know your new toys are crap and that kids won't want to play with them? If you can't work the logistics out for going to every home and breaking all their favourite toys so that they have to buy new ones, you do the next best thing. You kill off their favourite characters. More characters die onscreen in the first act of Transformers: The Movie than in the entirety of Friday the 13th. And that includes this guy:  Having achieved the kind of cartoon villainy that they couldn't even air in their own cartoons, Hasbro still wasn't satisfied. If they wanted to sell their new toys like Campervan with Flames On It That Makes It Cool Right or What Is This You Just Painted The Old One White And Put It in a New Box, they had to keep kids from seeing Optimus Prime anywhere, including the comics. They sent a new editorial mandate to Marvel. Optimus Prime must die. I don't know if this issue was written in protest, or if they just gave up and let the intern handle it, but it is the worst comic book ever written. It takes place at a high-tech whatever plant. The Decepticons show up to steal the whatever, the Autobots show up to stop them, you know the drill. The Decepticons decide to take a hostage, and it turns out to be a computer nerd who just so happens to have been using the plant's state-of-the-art supercomputer to play video games. He suggests that instead of having a shootout in real life, they could hook their advanced alien consciousnesses into the game and have their big fight there. It's an idiotic idea, but everybody agrees to it for some reason.  Megatron decided to up the stakes by proposing that he and Optimus Prime right themselves with explosives beforehand so that whoever loses gets killed. Luckily, this computer nerd just so happens to have some on hand powerful enough to kill a superpowered battle robot, wired up to a couple of atari joysticks. It's an idiotic idea, but everybody agrees to it for some reason. The Decepticons and Autobots fight and die and blah blah blah until it's down to Optimus Prime and Megatron. They fight, Megatron loses but in a shocking twist he cheats! He got his hands on a cheat code that gives him a single extra life, so he respawns and shoots Optimus Prime in the back. With his last sliver of health bar, Optimus Prime pulls down the bridge they were both standing on, sending Megatron to his death and winning the game. None of that was the stupid part.  As soon as the game ends, Optimus Prime starts making the argument that the Autobots lost. Turns out there were NPCs on that bridge, and if they were sentient or in fact existed at all, then that means they would have gotten hurt and that goes against everything the Autobots stand for, therefore they lost the game and he should die. The is the stupidest thought anybody has ever expressed or had, but everyone agrees to it for some reason.  And that's how the Marvel comics killed off Optimus Prime. Thankfully, they included a way to bring him back that is so much stupider than any of what I just said. It is revealed that while they were plugged into the game, the nerd copied Optimus Prime's mind. Not onto the helium-cooled supercomputer that might theoretically be capable of housing an alien consciousness, onto a 360 kilobyte floppy disk.  Now he has the inexplicably easily-compressed mind of an alien robot with millions of years of memories and experience at his disposal, and he uses it to his own selfish ends. Does he sell it to the military for use in combat drones? Does he 'invent' a new AI and become a silicon valley billionaire? No, of course not.  He uses it to play two-player PC games. flavor.flv fucked around with this message at 00:18 on Nov 4, 2015 |
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Nov 3, 2015 23:55
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Aphrodite posted:Ultimate Wolverine statutory raped Mary Jane Watson. 
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Nov 3, 2015 23:55
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While we are on stupid poo poo that actually happened, there was that time Batman's close ally killed/let a Robin die to teach Batman a lesson. I guess that is a spoiler alert or some such bullshit. Also, spoiler alert for War Games/Crimes, but consider that if you haven't read those stories yet you are better off not reading them at all.  The woman in that panel is Leslie Thompkins, a close friend of Bruce who was there for him after his parents died, and was always shown to be kind and caring to those in need, unless those in need happened to be a a teenage blond girl in a Robin costume. As the story goes, she finds Stephanie Brown badly beaten and dying. Leslie has a choice to save the girl's life or say gently caress it, this will teach Bruce a lesson. Guess which she chooses. Bruce finds out about this and confronts her and...tells her never to come to Gotham again (perhaps fearing that she would try to top Joker on the Robin death counts). This story was so bad that a few years later DC had to pull a "we were just joking guys. She faked Stephanie Brown's death to teach Batman a lesson even though that doesn't make any sense because Bruce will always think of her as a murderer but whatever lolz".
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Nov 4, 2015 00:28
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Aphrodite posted:Ultimate Wolverine statutory raped Mary Jane Watson. Was that guest-written by Byrne? (I was going to make a post about Byrne's recurring thing with teenage girls/older men, but then I just felt incredibly dirty and it's already bad enough I posted the Babewatch stuff.)
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Nov 4, 2015 00:39
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Evil Mastermind posted:Was that guest-written by Byrne? That's slightly outside the scope of this thread. This is about weird poo poo, not necessarily bad poo poo.
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Nov 4, 2015 00:46
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Though the attempted rape thing fits both category.
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Nov 4, 2015 00:51
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I'm fine with people posting weird poo poo that actually happened in comics that were bad or nasty, but chronicling a creator's creepy history is a step further.
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Nov 4, 2015 00:53
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Basically Carol Danvers entire publication history, but especially the time she spent as part of the Starjammers as another character entirely, or the time she was mind controlled into giving birth to a time traveller who fell in love with her and wanted to move to a demon dimension with her, and the rest of the Avengers were all "Cool! Have fun with your creepy incest baby boyfriend" and wished her luck probably belongs in this thread.
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Nov 4, 2015 01:26
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Lurdiak posted:I'm fine with people posting weird poo poo that actually happened in comics that were bad or nasty, but chronicling a creator's creepy history is a step further. Yeah I'm not really into reading about rape when it comes up in every pannels thread.
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Nov 4, 2015 01:39
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