Godawful Comics (NWS)

Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose.

A titilating title written by Jim Balent and his wife. Their two self-inserts have pagany sexcapades and generally muck about in the nude. I think the panels speak for themselves.

Exhibit A: Raven Hex.

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Exhibit B: Star Crossed Lovers

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Exhibit C: Cookie Monster

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Exhibit D: Squidgina :paranoid:

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Ihasacookie wrote:

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Her breasts are unruly!

I seriously do not know what's going on with octopussy's torso. It looks painful.

O_O The squidgina is a thing of nightmares (And so is the use of "their").


Boooo how boring all their oodles of lives have been. They've only been with each other and they've stayed the same gender and sexual orientation and blah.

lolunicorns.

I could handle the badly-drawn porn and constant fetishing here, but the worst part of Tarot (in my opinion at least) is how horribly preachy it is. I'll admit that I haven't read all the issues, but in every single one there I did read there was always some place where the much-too-perfect main lady character was preaching, usually about Wicca and the ways of Wicca.

There's always this slightly (probably unintended, but still noticable) patrionising attitude in the script, and... well, frankly a porn comic has no right to patrionise anyone. It's a friggin' porn comic.

Why does the guy seem to have a skull-face in most or all of his reincarnations?

And don't get me started on that page with the artificial woman being covered in icing...bleh.

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lolunicorns.

You beat me to it!

The other colorful past lives look like Sims 2 rejects at MTS.

Oh look, a poor little abandoned thread. I think I shall adopt it.

Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane is simultaneously the greatest and most terrible comic ever printed. Like the Matrix, nobody can be told what SGFLL is. You have to see it for yourself.

In the Silver Age, Superman never really had a serious romantic relationship. He devoted himself full-time to the defense of Earth/cruelly dicking around his friends. SGFLL was basically Lois' long (yet rapid) decent into madness over this fact. It's quite possibly the most depraved thing I've ever read.

For example, let's look at a story from issue 55, one of my personal favorites.

Spoiler:

Lois is awakened in the middle of the night by a mysterious voice, which beacons her to drive to a cave. The voice identifies itself as the sorceress Circe, who you'd think would be bothering Wonder Woman, but no.

Circe apparently also tried to rope Superman down the isle at some point, in what I can probably assume was a very odd story. Circe promises to get revenge by showing Lois Superman's greatest secret . . . his wife and children! However, the wife's face is concealed in shadows. Circe refuses to cough up her name, because "that would change your fate", which is probably magical-prophet speak for "I don't know." Circe disappears, and Lois is trapped by a convenient cave-in that's apparently unrelated to anything else that's happening, which pretty much sums up Lois' luck.

Fortunately, she's saved by Superman's cute-as-a-button cousin, Supergirl, who just happened to be in the neighborhood I guess.

Spoiler:

Lois tells the story to Supergirl, while Supergirl carries the completely uninjured Lois out of the out of the cave. Girls, this sort of thing is why slash fic came to be. Supergirl says that the story's fake - surely, she of all people would know if Superman had married - and Lois dismisses the warnings of a time-traveling witch from the pages of Homer's Odyssey as "silly gossip."

The following day, while stalking Superman, she spies him carving a giant Valentine out of the side of a mountain . . . which is addressed to his "Dearest Wife." Oh, snap! Superman's happy with somebody, and it's not Lois! THIS SHALL NOT STAND!

Lois immediately goes into "crazy bitch" mode, and begins stalking Superman's ex-girlfriend, "that hussy" (her words) Lana Lang. Literally stalking. I mean, she climbs the fire escape at her building and stares into her bedroom window all night. This turns up nothing, but Lois is not satisfied.

Paranoia creeps in while having breakfast with her (underage) sister, Lucy. Lois believes that Lucy sounds "too innocent," and therefore must be GUILTY! GUILTY AS SIN! YOU STOLE SUPERMAN FROM ME, NOW DIEEEEEE!

Then, she spots the diamond ring, and the much younger ass that Superman is apparently tapping. Both of which fill her with rage.

Spoiler:

However, it turns out that it's not a wedding ring, and Lucy has simply gotten a day job modeling jewelry. Anyone could have made that mistake, right?

So now, she really begins to hit the bottom of the Superman love interest barrel.

Christ, there's no way to say this without sounding stupid, is there? Might as well just say it.

In collage, Superman dated a telepathic mermaid that took classes with him. Yuh-huh.

"If her husband, Ronal, died . . . well, who knows?"

We've progressed into full-on schizophrenia at this point, haven't we?

Thus, Lois' obsession drives her into the depths of the sea, to spy on Lori the mermaid. It turns out that her husband is quite alive, and Superman is the godfather of their children. He even shows up at their place with presents.

While sheepishly making her way back to the surface, Lois picks up the gift tag. She reads it, and it causes her to choke in a thought bubble, and fall of the pier. She's scooped up by Supergirl again, who reads the tag. The gifts are from Superman . . .and his wife.

Supergirl is plenty surprised by this, and tells Lois that there is a forbidden room inside the Fortress of Solitude, presumably filled with forbidden things like secret wives. They resolve to go and dig their noses further into Superman's business.

They arrive, and Supergirl batters down the door. At last, the identity of Superman's secret wife is revealed! It's . . . it's . . . .

Spoiler:

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Spoiler:

Turns out that the whole thing is an elaborate hoax/mistake/conspiracy involving red kryptonite, disguises, ventriloquism, 3-D film, "super-hypnosis", altered photographs, and child robots, and now it's all okay because they've run out of pages the red kryptonite radiation has worn off just in time and now they can all go home and never speak of this again.

No word on rather or not they sinned against the laws of man and God while under the influence of the red-k radiation.

By the way, this story? Only one third of one issue. This doesn't even scratch the surface on the vortex of crazy that is Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane.[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Lysander wrote:

Batshit crazy Superman comic

I laughed so hard at this (even if I did have to stop in the middle to write spontaneous Lois/Supergirl fanfiction).

Delcat wrote:

Period.

You know, as much as I would totally read Dorothy/Alice/Wendy crossover femslash, that looks like a sucky book. Although it's probably bad that the thing that really bothered me was how the hell Dorothy of all people could afford to stay at "an expensive mountain resort."

And Japan agrees that Alice has repressed lesbian issues.

Miss Prince wrote:

And Japan agrees that Alice has repressed lesbian issues.

I thought you were refering to the hentai doujin 'Alice in Sexland'. Umm, yea, I totally read it.

Miss Prince wrote:

Lysander wrote:

Batshit crazy Superman comic

I laughed so hard at this (even if I did have to stop in the middle to write spontaneous Lois/Supergirl fanfiction).

Oh, you.

Supergirl's love life was far more horrifying than that.

I wonder if the insane Silver Age plotlines were the result of censorship? As in, the writers couldn't put in real villainy and genuine drama, so they (in desperation, or for the lulz) created complete insanity that probably managed to be *more* disturbing than Metallo breaking someone's neck or whatever.

Actually, let's look at another (in)famous Supergirl story. This is Superman's Super-Courtship, part of 1962's Action Comics 289.

The story begins with Supergirl at her adopted parent's house, watching a chick flick on the 'tube.

Spoiler:

She isn't just crying because it's a sad movie, oh no. She's crying because it reminds her of her cousin.

That image haunts her for the rest of the night. What if Superman never gets married? He'll be all alone without a wife! Well okay, he'll still be the most universally beloved person on the entire planet, but still. Who'll iron his socks? Besides the socks-ironing robot he built last week in his amazing crystal fortress filled with the trophies of a long and happy life, I mean.

Well, that's not on. Kara announces to her parents that tomorrow, she's going to find Superman a wife (even over their objections thzt this is a stupid idea). She goes to sleep and has vivid, color dreams of Superman's wedded bliss while loudly thanking her for introducing them, proving that she's off her meds or seriously PMSing or something.

She wakes up, and starts planning. She rejects Lois as a wife for Superman immediately, because . . . well, it should be obvious.

Supergirl puts her plan into motion, as she takes a quick stroll back in time to fetch Helen of Troy in the hopes that she will become the bride of Superman and oh holy crap I just realized what a silly sentence this is and I can't stop laughing.

Superman shows up in pursuit of Supergirl, who introduces the two. This doesn't go over well with Helen's court advisers, who sic some hoplites on the pair. Their bronze weapons are, of course, no match for the Man and Maid of Steel, so he orders them to unleash"the beasts of DOOM!"

And when I think of doom, I think of unicorns.

Spoiler:

Supergirl unleashes some weapons-grade puns and defeats the unicorn and his fat minotaur friend easily.

However, it turns out that flying around in a shot skirt and accomplishing feats of superhuman courage are a good way to get attention from boys. Supergirl has offically usurped Helen's place in history as the most beautiful woman of the ancient world. Now, I guess the Trojan War won't happen, preventing Homer's Illiad from being written. Whoops. WAY TO ROB MANKIND OF IT'S MOST PRICELESS LITERARY TREASURES, SUPERGIRL.

Thus, Helen of Troy kicks Superman and Supergirl out of the past. The Super-duo rather sheepishly returns to the future. Supergirl continues to drop hints, while they are cleaning the Fortress together.

Spoiler:

Kara decides on her Plan B. As a teenager, Superman often hung out with the Legion of Superheroes, a group of teen heroes from the distant future. She decides that one of them, Saturn Girl, must have grown up into a real blond bombshell. Thus, she invites Clark to the Legion's Christmas bash on December 24, 2962.

The Legion is very kind to them (for a change) and have used time travel to gift Superman and Supergirl with photographs of their dead parents. Aw. It makes him cry a little. The Legion has been making Superman cry since their first appearance, and has repeatedly done so since then.

Supergirl shows off a pair of plaques dedicated to Saturn Girl's accomplishments as a member of a superhero team; in the future, they apparently give out civic honors for "exceptional intelligence and loveliness." Speak of the devil; she walks in, and even Superman's gotta admit that he finds her compelling. Kara manages to get them under the mistletoe, and Superman realizes that she also sucks face like a champ! This could be it!

Her husband, however, isn't amused. Superman comes crashing down as he realizes that he just crashed someone's Christmas party and started making out with their wife. Yikes.

Spoiler:

When they arrive back home, Supergirl spills the beans about her plan, which leads to this infamous panel . . . .

Spoiler:

. . . in which the disturbing spectre of Super-Incest rears it's ugly head once more. I'll admit that I bought this purely because I saw this panel. Wow. It doesn't come across very will in this copy, but Kara's got kind of a subdued deer-in-the-headlights look of petrified terror, there. I think even the penciller was creeped the fuck out by the vibes this panel gives off.

Which makes Supergirl's response all the more baffling. She gets on the "Super-Computer Machine," and . . . .

I can't even begin to explain the logic here. I'll just let her do it.

Spoiler:

In order to avoid being molested, she found a body double to throw in front of his dick?

I am at a loss here.

Superman flies to the idyllic planet of Staryl ("Can I find a girl there as wonderful as Supergirl? I'll soon know!") and meets Luma Lynai, the planet's superwoman, who looks like an older Kara.

And it's "love at first sight."

With a girl who looks exactly like his cousin.

"Hmm . . . due to their super-scientific devices, Starylians probably know Earth languages!", Supergirl explains, filling plot holes that absolutely nobody is interested in but her.

However, it turns out that her biology is incomparable with the Earth's environment, and since Superman can't quit his job as defender of the Earth, the two separate. Superman returns, more lonely and miserable than ever, which causes Supergirl to cry and swear never to interfere like that again.

. . . which doesn't stop her from spending history class fantasizing about getting him together with Cleopatra.


Yes, I'd take wanton neck-breaking over this, anytime. I'm done and am going to go drink heavily, now.

EDIT: MAYBE THIS IS JUST THE LIQUOR TALKING, BUT I JUST REALIZED THAT SUPERGIRL IS INDEED A CRAZY SHIPPER BITCH.

The used crap store by where I live set-up shop in an old K-Mart. The whole front part of the store look just like the K-Mart except for the merchandise. This gives you the eerie feeling of walking into a regular store, looking over to the magazine racks, and seeing "Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane" comics for sale. Unsettled the crap out of me every time. Especially since they had the issue with 'Superman's wives' on the cover, little shrines to Lios, Lana, and Lori. It is, like, mermaidwat?
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Also, as long as we are discussing Supergirl/Superman:

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Reepicheep-chan wrote:

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That one just makes me laugh it's so stupid. They have all three statues with "Superman" as their last name, which is utter nonsense: assuming they don't keep their maiden names (Which Lois basically does once she married him for real in 1996) their last name should either be "Kent", or if they use the Krypton style, "Kal-El". I guess they figured if they'd done that, though, the kids would be too stupid to figure out who they married, right?

Reepicheep-chan wrote:

LOIS LANE'S SUPER DAUGHTER!

I just went and found this. There aren't many unfortunate implications for Clark and Linda, but JEEZ this story is douchey.

So, Lois and Clark are married, and he springs this one her clear out of the blue one day:

Spoiler:

At least she put a lot of thought into it, am I right?

So, he takes Lois to the orphanage, and they meet Linda, and Lois falls in love with her and wants to adopt her.

Unfortunately, there is a foe that apparently even Superman cannot defeat:

Spoiler:

VALUES DISSIDENCE! Feminism hasn't happened yet; get back in the kitchen, Lois!

Anyway, Clark tells her that she "sure was swell of you to give up your career so that Linda could have a home!" Christ. Couldn't she just take a hiatus? Linda's a teen, and just a few years away from living in a dorm. And she's a writer, couldn't she do something from home?

Anyway, after a while, it's Lois' birthday. Linda gives her a box of chocolates, and tells her to bum it on the couch, while she handles all the chores. In order to hurry up the dishes, she runs scalding water all over her bare hands.

That doesn't amuse the woman peeking into their windows, who is an agent for the adoption agency (and not the Penguin in drag, as you might otherwise suspect).

Spoiler:

The misunderstanding is smoothed over, but only barely.

From that point on, they begin doing all the housework at super-speed, while bragging about how awesome they are for making it so that Lois doesn't have to do anything. Lois . . . feels differently.

Spoiler:

You know, Lois, you could try sleeping IN THE SAME FUCKING BED. But no: sex and human emotion apparently hadn't been invented yet. Thus, this story undermines the whole fucking premise of the series: Superman doesn't need a wife, and Lois would be miserable if she ever achieved her goal of marrying him.

Eventually, Lois is left alone with one of Linda's decoy robots. It's broken, so she starts hammering a bolt back into place with a hairbrush. The agent breaks into their home (that'll teach you to lock up), and catches Lois apparently beating the everlovin' Jesus out of her kid. She drags the robot back to the orphanage, declaring Lois unfit for motherhood.

That's how the story ends: Lois fucked everything up, Linda is sent crying back to the orphanage to take her decoy's place, and Clark is angry that his last living blood relative has been sent back to the ratty orphanage that he sent her to in the first fucking place, and Lois is ruminating on what an awful mother and human being she is for failing the two most wonderful beings on the planet. Also, the book reminds us that the story is not canon, and continuity nerds can suck it.
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Good grief, those were some stupid comics.

Trioculus wrote:

That one just makes me laugh it's so stupid. They have all three statues with "Superman" as their last name, which is utter nonsense: assuming they don't keep their maiden names (Which Lois basically does once she married him for real in 1996) their last name should either be "Kent", or if they use the Krypton style, "Kal-El". I guess they figured if they'd done that, though, the kids would be too stupid to figure out who they married, right?

This and also I cannot figure out how Lori is standing up. I suppose it is a statue, but still.

Lysander wrote:

LOIS LANE'S SUPER DAUGHTER SUMMARY!

Haha, really? That is so awful. I need to get a hold of some of these terrible things, they are hysterical.

You keep on keepin' on, Ly.

Trioculus wrote:

They have all three statues with "Superman" as their last name, which is utter nonsense: assuming they don't keep their maiden names (Which Lois basically does once she married him for real in 1996) their last name should either be "Kent"

There are actually stories where she marries "Clark Kent" and takes his name, as opposed to stories where she marries "Superman." It's very confusing.

However, we're supposed to assume that his "real" name is Superman in most of these Silver Age books. He's not wearing the costume; he is the costume. When his children are depicted, they are wearing the costumes (as in the example above).

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I guess they figured if they'd done that, though, the kids would be too stupid to figure out who they married, right?

Actually, they don't even assume that you'll be able to keep track of his Earth name. The narration usually introduces him as "Clark (Superman) Kent."

They say that modern comics are too hard to get into, but maybe there's also such a thing as being too newbie friendly.

Reepicheep-chan wrote:

Haha, really? That is so awful.

I didn't even scan the panel where Lois "fixes" the Linda-bot by ordering it to bend over, and hammering it's ass with a hairbrush. Mostly because that's so common in Silver Age books, that I didn't even think twice about it.

God, the stuff on superdickery.com is only the tip of the iceberg!

I can only assume that these spinoff titles like the Lois Lane one mentioned here and Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen (as seen at Superdickery) were farmed out to fifth-rate writers and are basically early badfic. They certainly read like it: the exciting/interesting side of Superman (battling supervillains, the responsibility that comes with superpowers, etc.) is tossed aside for idiotic sitcom/romantic soap opera hijinx where the characters all act like overemotional teenagers or worse. I wonder if they were supposed to be funny/zany and OOC, or if the writers actually thought Superman and co. were like this? Does anyone know if the main Superman titles were this nutty during the same time period, or just the spinoffs?

Cyberwulf wrote:

God, the stuff on superdickery.com is only the tip of the iceberg!

The funny thing is, superdickery presents them without context in order to make them funnier. In truth, the context is generally pretty fucking insane all on it's own. I've got a pretty good source for info on these old comics, so if anyone's really are dying to know the context of some of those covers, I might be able to help.

Keith Fraser wrote:

Does anyone know if the main Superman titles were
this nutty during the same time period, or just the spinoffs?

The second story with the little fatty minotaur and the incest-by-proxy was, in fact, published in Action Comics. The same Action Comics where Superman first appeared. The same Action Comics that's still running to this very day.

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the characters all act like overemotional teenagers or worse

Adventure Comics, which is a whole different series from Action, actually was about Superman as an overemotional teenager. He does teenager-type stuff, and then the Legion shows up from the future to make him cry (for the lulz.)

Kinda like Smallville, except that Lana willingly transforms into a horrific insect creature and fights crime.

Lysander wrote:

Adventure Comics, which is a whole different series from Action, actually was about Superman as an overemotional teenager. He does teenager-type stuff, and then the Legion shows up from the future to make him cry (for the lulz.)

Kinda like Smallville, except that Lana willingly transforms into a horrific insect creature and fights crime.

Kinky. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Actually, let's look at the first Legion story. That's a good one. First, let me get you all caught up on exactly who the fuck I'm talking about, lest you be forced to go digging around on Wikipedia at some point. If you don't care, just skip the next spoiler.

Spoiler:

tl:dr version: they are teenage superheroes from the Superman-influenced future who like to use time travel to bother him when he was a kid.

Let's begin with the cover. This thing is classic. It shows you just what kind of people we're dealing with.

Spoiler:

Yes, they're telling Superboy that he's not cool enough or powerful enough to hang out with them at their "Super-Hero Club."

So, our story begins with Clark Kent on his way home from school, when suddenly . . . .

Spoiler:

However, they inform him that his identity is safe; they are from the future, and learned his identity from historical records, which seems to imply that someone does eventually figure it out.

Now, you could say that dressing in period clothes and trying to give Superboy a heart attack by loudly announcing his secret identity is a bit rude, but who are we to question these mighty futuremen and their ineffable future-logic?

Also, I dig these hideous clothes. I gotta hand it to Cos; rocking the yellow jacket and green slacks takes balls, man.

Anyway, they invite him to the wonderful world of TEH FUTAH! Since these are the first super-heroes that he's ever met, he's excited to meet them, and eager to be their friend and win their admiration. So the climb into the time-machine, and off they go!

Spoiler:

Let me confess something; I freakin' LOVE the retro-futurist art in these early LoSH stories. It's the sole reason why I get these trades and reprints. Check out the classic Spaceman Spiff flying car, there. That's only a small taste of the PURE INSANITY that is to come in this remarkably goofy looking vision of tomorrow.

They show off the wonders of Future Smallville, including tours of the globe from outer space. They stop by his favorite ice cream shop, which now sells "nine different flavors from nine planets" (Plutonians won World War 6, so they count as a planet again).

They also visit a school, where the class is learning about Superboy via a robot that looks like him, with simulated super-strength and heat vision. Now, you might be thinking, "that is a dangerous thing to keep around school children," but as you will soon learn, safety means nothing to these people.

Finally, it's time to get down to brass tacks. They head to their headquarters, which, well . . . .

Spoiler:

Yeah. This place doesn't last very long. Longer than those costumes, though.

Clark is taken to a meeting room, where they explain that you have to compete for the privilege of hanging out with the Legion. It's an exclusive club. It's not like they just let anyone in who happens to be the greatest superhero of all time.

First up: he has to compete against the telepathic Saturn Girl. The statue of The Unknown Spaceman has sunk beneath the sea, and the first one to recover it wins. Superboy believes that this will be easy; after all, how can you raise a statue with mind-reading?

Superboy races off at super-speed, only to hear a call for help. That horrible Superboy robot is running amok! And it's worth "a million dollars!" So, he flies down and tries to stop it. However, it's got a powerful atomic motor (!), so he leads it into a science class, where the professor can stop it with the nuclear ray that he keeps under his desk (!!!). SWEET CHOCOLATY FUDGE-DIPPED CHRIST, in the future, even Smallville High School is a nuclear world power! What happened to non-proliferation? I mean, I'm all for stopping school violence, but I don't think handing out atomic weapons to science teachers is gonna prevent that.

In the meantime, Saturn Girl has summoned the Loch Ness monster, and telepathically commanded it to to raise the statue for her. Superboy arrives in time to be greeted with by her mocking laughter.

Spoiler:

They return back to HQ, where Superboy gets a taste of some misogyny IN OUTER SPAAAAAAAAACE!

Next up, he has to compete against Cosmic Boy, and his MAGNETIC EYES. Jesus, they were hard-up for ideas. They're competing to see who can put out a forest fire the fastest.

Superboy races to the rescue, but is distracted by a falling satellite, which he has to catch and throw into a volcano.

Meanwhile, Cos does something . . . interesting.

Spoiler:

So, Cos saves the day by dousing the fire in a manner that will destroy the forest far more thoroughly than the fire ever would have. Wow. This leave Superboy at zero for two, at least in theory.

The final round is really simple and heavily in favor of Clark: Superboy verses Lightning Lad in a race to see who can deliver a warning to a damaged rocket ship the fastest. With super-speed, this should be a piece of cake. However, he gets destracted again, when THE INVISIBLE EAGLE OF NEPTUNE breaks out of the zoo.

. . . .

Okay, I could handle the high school's nuclear pile, and I could handle the meteors, but asking me to believe that people pay real money to look at an animal that's invisible is just asking too much from me.

This forces Clark to pull off a complex maneuver involving dangling a giant iceberg over the city, which is just silly, because there won't be any icebergs in the future. In any case, he's destracted once again. L-Lad flashes up a warning in giant lightning-letters, saving the ship.

Superboy is forced to limp back to the clubhouse, smelling of failure, to the derisive laughter of the only peers he's ever known at this point in his life. And again, he doesn't explain, for fear of sounding like a bitch, making them laugh at him even more, and call him a fraud.

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Spoiler:

Although he hides it well, upon turning, he reveals to the reader that even a Boy of Steel . . . can have a soft heart. DAWWWWW!

Dry up your emo-tears, Superboy. The Legion calls him back, and tells him that they deliberately set him up to fail with rigged tasks.

Y'know, for the lulz. He didn't actually fail horribly, lie about being sad to a mind-reader, and get invited out of pity, or anything. Really!

Anyway, since he was so willing to accept their emotional abuse, they tell him that he can stay and be abused further. He happily accepts this invitation, inviting them in return to be the bane of his existence for years to come.

A final emergency occurs, which Superboy handles on his own, allowing him to walk away with his head held reasonably level, and his balls at least partially intact.

And that is the first appearance of the Legion of Super-Assholes.

Anyway, I'm obviously exaggerating. Nobody can be that assholish, right?

Spoiler:

Oh, you guys can just eat ALL THE DICKS.