The inaugural Comic by 9-Year-Olds, The Adventures of Robotron, could be called a work of a pure stage of childhood - untainted wonder, action, desperation, sci-fi grandeur, or at least the imitation of all that. Whereas The Amazing Adventure of Morph Man, which followed by perhaps only a year or two, seems to come from a wholly different place: the exceedingly awkward stage at which a child discovers humor, wields it clumsily, and thinks, almost exclusively mistakenly, that (s)he is hilarious. Cue mountains of poop jokes, fake burps, and armpit farts. In that spirit, I rather unproudly present:
Side note: I present this deservedly forgotten piece of juvenilia not as much for its own sake as to prepare you, dear reader, for comics to follow. After Morph Man II and Super Triple Special - which get better, I promise - comes a very timely Superman: A Doomsday, featuring Morph Man and all his friends/enemies, followed by the ultimate child creation, Doomsday: the Apocalypse, an incomplete but staggering comic epic that clocks in at 110 pages! Hopefully it will be worth the wait and getting to know our cast of characters.
Yes, that's right: Clark Super. Making Morph Man's alter ego be "mild-mannered Clark Morph" is as dumb as if Superman's alter ego were Clark Super. Well done, 9-year-old.
And is it just me, or does Clark Morph look a little like an Asian nerd? Like he should have a pocket protector with some chopsticks in it?
If you can't make it out, the woman's desk nameplace reads 'Louis' (oops...). The newspaper caption under the face says 'Mr. Meany.'
(Morph Man: I'm Morph Man! .... oops. There goes my clothes. Oh! I had my keys in my jeans, huh? Great. Hmmph.)
And this page introduces us to two of Morph Man's most notable characteristics: ONE - he kind of explodes when he transforms - er, morphs, and TWO - he farts.
...A LOT, as we'll see.
Why does Morph Man have slanty eyes? Is he still an Asian nerd?
Is all the green and/or maybe all the farting from wasabi?
FRANK: Hey Vinny, why you look so sad today? Whatsa matter?
VINNY: Ya know, it's stupid, but, ya know, I just really enjoy sittin' down with ya and playin cards once in a while, ya know? It's like, mosta da time it's just steal dis and steal dat and off dis guy and dat guy, and sometimes I feel like I'm just a blunt instrumenta killin, ya know?
FRANK: Like ya not a real person, eh?
VINNY: Yeah, exactly. And dat makes me sad.
FRANK: Well now ya makin me sad, Vin. I don wanna play cards no more.
VINNY: Hey, HEY! Whadda hell is that?? Is zatta CARD in ya back pocket, ya rotten sonuva -
Knock knock
FRANK: Hey, uh, we gotta see who it is.
Morph Man's other power: ripping holes in himself.
Imagine if that were someone's superpower - just that by itself. Not including the power to seal up holes. It might be a kind of 'deal with the devil' dilemma - does he tear another hole through himself to save the kitten in the tree? (Don't ask me about the mechanics of that.) What about the old lady about to get hit by a bus? And to defeat the supervillain? So he tears holes, and they begin to accumulate throughout his body, until he becomes a floppy, useless, swiss cheese of a man. But then he's still compelled to use his superpower; he can't stop. He tears more and more holes, spreads himself thinner and thinner, until he grows light as gossamer and floats up into the air, becoming a thin network of fleshy spiderweb tracing many square miles up in the heavens, looking down upon humanity and seeing all the ways in which he ought to save them but powerless to do anything but drift on the wind...
Yeah, sounds like a great comic.
This is why this comic is not suitable for kids.
(Weapon labels: snot gun, buttcrust gun, fart bomb)
Just when you thought it couldn't possibly get any more scatological.
23 years in the past...
SNOT MAN: Hahahaha, I am Snot Man!!
FART MAN: Heheh, I'm Fart Man! Well, friend, what do you do?
SNOT MAN: I, Snot Man, shoot the goody-two-shoes heroes with my snot gun, turning them into giant living pieces of snot! Haha!
FART MAN: I see. And you yourself... are you actually made of snot?
SNOT MAN: Of course I am - I'm Snot Man!!
FART MAN: So... you turn your enemies into other Snot Men?
SNOT MAN: No!! They're just... well... snot pieces that... Nevermind, you shut up! What do YOU do?
FART MAN: Well, I -
SNOT MAN: I suppose you fart on your enemies?
FART MAN: Well, not exactly, actually...
SNOT MAN: Or you release a poisonous gas that renders them unconscious?
FART MAN: No... actually, you see, I kind of... suck them up.
SNOT MAN: ...Suck them up? Like, you suck them into your kind of butt-face?
FART MAN: Yes.
SNOT MAN: Isn't that kind of the opposite of farting?
FART MAN: ...Don't make me suck you up.
You may recognize Mr. Snot Man from a previous starring role with the California Raisins.
And 'evil' - really? What were Snot Man and Buttcrust Man's crimes, aside from threatening to assault Morph Man? Were they waging some insidious reign of terror against tissue and toilet paper before they decided to take on Morph Man?
And, is Buttcrust Man the son of Fart Man? Is Snot Man's father a giant nose? Ah, the things we shall never know. Snot Man, Buttcrust Man, for how short a time we knew ye.
Always room for more potty humor.
KUTV: Mrs. Snot, how did you feel when you heard the news, that your husband was the Snot Man, member of the notorious criminal gang lead by the Boss?
MRS. SNOT: I... I... look, you must understand this... anything that Jeremy did, anything he ever did, he would have been doing it for me, for his family, for his children, his darling snotlings. He only thought of us. He was a good man. (Sobs)
KUTV: Mrs. Snot, have you heard the lengthy list of accusations leveled at your husband and his alleged over two decades of criminal activities?
MRS. SNOT: Please, call me Glenda.
KUTV: Of course, Glenda. Go on.
MRS. SNOT: Again, I have to say to you, I want you to understand... It was never easy for Jeremy, never. When he would lose a job, with his... appearance, he couldn't just get hired again elsewhere the next week, you understand? Do you know what horrible things people said about him - people who had NO IDEA, people who didn't even know him at all?? And him, trying to support his family, trying to keep food on our table.
KUTV: No, I didn't know people who -
MRS. SNOT: - ALL his life was a struggle. A struggle against people who judged him only on his appearance, people who assumed the worst. People who judged him before they judged themselves.
KUTV: Glenda... your husband led a life of crime.
MRS. SNOT: Do you KNOW? Do you KNOW what he did? WHO did he hurt? Have YOU seen the security footage of the night of the fight? Did you see that Jeremy had a gun, yes, but that he never once aimed it at anyone? That he never shot any person, not Morph Man, not anyone?
KUTV: Well, no, I admit I didn't have time to actually review the footage -
MRS. SNOT: - He never threatened anyone, and then Morph Man, that raving lunatic - Morph Mans shoots him, shoots my Jeremy. I... (sobs)
KUTV: I believe Morph Man morphed the weapon that Buttcrust Man was holding, turning it around to aim at -
MRS. SNOT: - You're irresponsible. So irresponsible. Everything he did, my husband did it all for us. His family. He didn't want riches. He didn't want fame. All he ever wanted was to see his little snotlings grow up proud. And here you come, just sullying the memory of a great man who gave us everything. And you have the, the nerve, to say on TV - the thugs all died. Morph Man a great HERO! A HERO?!?
KUTV: Mrs. Snot, I'm sorry, I think we're out of time -
MRS. SNOT: - You call that vigilante mass murderer a HERO?!? Well you mark my words - MARK them! We will have our revenge! The snotlings will have their day in the sun, and make you rue the day you tarnished the memory of their father!! We will make Morph Man PAY! We will make you ALL PAAAAY!!!
Next: Morph Man II: The Dawn of Omicron!
No comments:
Post a Comment