Friday Night Fights--The Medium IS The Message Style!!

OK, this may be the oddest Friday Night Fight I've ever presented.

The New Mutants have been sucked into a dimension where media run amok controls everything.

No, not the Mojoverse. Apparently there's another craptastic dimension that exists to serve as a  "satire" of contemporary media culture. Who woulda thought?

The whole story reads like a didactic term paper from a freshman class on media theory. Indeed, the last page thanks "Ben Bagdikian, Noam Chomsky, Marshall McLuhan, Mark Hertsgaard, Walter Lippman and all the other media theorists out there!!"

The result is well-nigh the most unreadable comic book ever. But in between pounding subtle points into our head with a sledge hammer, we do get this:

Double K.O.!!

Spacebooger wishes Woody Allen would pull McLuhan onto the page to tell the creators they have no idea what they're talking about.

After their Media In The 20th Century lecture, Ann Nocenti and Bret Blevins skipped the rest of their classes to smoke cloves and pontificate loudly in the Rathskellar while creating New Mutants Summer Special #1 (1990)

Now is the time for you to go and vote for my fight! Why?? There's a lot more media theory from the issue I could use for future fights...so if you don't want that--go vote!!

Tales From The Quarter Bin--Finally, A Team Lamer Than Deep Six!

Maybe it's something about being underwater.

I've spent the better part of a year searching for a team lamer than the short-lived and lamentable Deep Six.

Ask, and the Quarter Bin giveth, as the cover of New Mutants Annual #5 (1989) promises us:

S.U.R.F.??? Who dat??

Gaze upon them in full Liefeldian pin-up glory:

Yes, I know the cover had periods in the S.U.R.F., whereas the pin-up is just plain SURF. They're never referred to by either name in the story, so, I guess you get to chose for yourself. Hurray!

And yes, the costume Liefeld drew for Namorita is amazingly bad.

Anyway, this is during Atlantis Attacks, and it turns out that SURF is  group of Atlantean mutants...

Sharkskin has--wait for it--really tough skin, Eel can become flat and stretch, and Undertow can control water.

These guys made one more appearance--the Avengers West Coast Annual #5 the following year--and then they vanished into the murky depths of forgotitude.

So--they made one more appearance than Deep Six...but most of the Deep Sixers have at least appeared again, individually. So I have to declare that SURF (or S.U.R.F.) is indeed lamer than Deep Six.

So maybe it is something about being an underwater team.

Then again, it could be worse--they could have had a really stupid name like The Others...

Manic Monday--Meet The New New Mutants!! Or, Days Of Past Future

Because the Quarter Bin compels us to remember the past, here are some pin-ups from the back of New Mutants Annual #6 (1990):

AAAIIIEEEEEEE!!!!

And...

Double AAAIIIIEEEEEEEE!!!!

It's like watching the 1990s being born right before your eyes...

Friday Night Fights--Color-Change Style!!

You know that you've always wanted to see a melee that featured the Thing vs. the Hulk vs. Captain America vs. Captain Britain vs. Rambo vs. Rocky vs. Mr T vs. Baron Strucker vs. Nick Fury vs. the Watcher vs. Galactus vs. Godzilla vs. Red Ronin. Admit it.

Well, then you've come to the right Friday Night Fights, friends.

Let's start with a surprise visitor dropping in on the X-Men:

Unfortunately, the X-Men are away, and the New Mutants don't want to play:

But fortunately for our fight, Warlock has the same problem as Marty McFly circa Back To The Future III:

And it's on, in a battle all over the globe:

Which leads to England, and...

And as the New Mutants hustle around trying to contain the damage...well, some things there's just no containing:

But surprisingly, the battle ends more quickly than you might think:

Game, set and match.

Spacebooger appreciates a battle that ends in tears, not punches.

The colorful battle of the century is brought to you by Chris Claremont, Alan Davis and Paul Neary in New Mutants Annual #3 (1987). Please note that I left out a few transformations for space reasons, such as Spider-Woman, Viper, Spider-Man, Green Goblin, Thanos, Captain Marvel, and a very special tennis match at Wimbledon. An editor's job is tough!!

Now is the time for you to go and vote for my fight. Why?? Because I did all the hard work to edit down an essentially 40-page fight scene into just a few panels, for you viewing pleasure. So go and vote!!