Manic Monday Bonus--Bendis Is Leaving!!

This quote from Bendis was floating around the Twitters last week:

A lot of people took exception to his apparent dissing of Superman's rogues gallery.

I'll let Superman fans handle that one.

But dissing Iron Man's rogues gallery? Are you nuts?

This from the man who thought bringing in The Hood (twice), with exactly the same scheme he used when Bendis brought him in as the Avengers big bad, was a good idea.

So let's just take a little survey from the late 70's & 80s. These guys were all available when Bendis "had issues" with finding good Iron Man villains.

Let's not even do the Mandarin, or Ultimo. Let's see what else was available. I'm sure he'd dismiss Mandarin as "done to death." So let's see who else there is.

The Guardsman (or Guardsmen)--Tony Stark designed armor that drove the user--your best friend--mad?! What's not to love? Yeah, nothing there to "dig deep into the wounds" of Tony Stark.

Look--a Maggia leader modeling himself after a Greek myth? And his daughter, herself a dangerous criminal with a tragically scarred face, is your girlfriend?!? Gee, sorry these weren't as good as you wanted. (In fairness, Bendis did use Madame Masque, but more a way to introduce the all-new, all-mystic Victor Von Doom into the supporting cast).

Unicorn--a criminal whose costume is both killing him and driving him insane, and used as a disposable pawn my every criminal mastermind in the book.

Spymaster. Come on, Bendis--SPYMASTER. A super-duper industrial espionage agent who has the coolest toys. You can't find a story for him?

Melter! Blizzard! Whiplash!! 

Sure, minor leaguers, maybe...but they always seem to find someone to pay to upgrade their powers enough to become a serious threat to Tony. Plus, Bendis is all about criminal mastermind uniting the underworld (see his many, many Hood stories). So these guys would fit right in!

Dreadnought!! Hydra-designed robots with seemingly infinite weapons systems that were later rented out to the Maggia and were later given Super-Adaptoid technology? No-brainer!!

Titanium Man!!! A bigger guy in bigger armor who represents the apotheosis of Iron Man's philosophy. You think Putin wouldn't still employ him?!?

Look, Bendis might have healed Doom's face, and had him reform, and dedicate himself to the mystic arts in one of Tony Stark's stolen armors (??) and impregnate Tony's girlfriend (no, I'm not making that up) and lose a fight with The Hood because sure, why not? But instead of all that, Doom should be a perfect villain for Tony Stark. Sigh...

Living Laser!! You can never go wrong with lasers!!

MODOK! If you can't find a use for MODOK, why are you writing comics?

The Ghost!! Industrial saboteur who can turn invisible and intangible? Good enough for the Ant-Man and The Wasp movie. Not good enough for Bendis.

MANDROIDS!! MANDROIDS!!

Crimson Dynamo. See Titanium Man. Except he's crimson!!

Grey Gargoyle!! A French scientist who can turn people an things into stone!! Sacre Bleu!!

And then there's this guy:

Seriously, though. If you can't find something worthwhile in Iron Man's rogues gallery, well, you're not really trying.

Maybe Bendis can take The Hood with him to DC...?

Manic Flash Day #1--When Do We Get The nu52 Version Of Mr. Originality?

You know what you need this Monday morning?

You need a chronological list of The Flash's most memorable menaces (through 1978).

And look, we just happen to have one!! How convenient!!

Enjoy!

From Flash Spectacular (a.k.a. DC Special Series #11) (1978)

Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting, LITERALLY

I'm as guilty of this as anybody else. But when we talk about who has the greatest Rogues Gallery, we always forget to mention Shang-Chi:

Click to embiggen to full glory. Do the same for the key below:

For what it's worth, that's not quite a complete listing. There's a number of henchmen (like Brynocki the cute killer robot), animals (like insane intelligent gorillas, giant killer turtles, sharks & leopards and crocodiles), and other deadly foes who have been left off.

But most importantly, they left off the most important villain of all:

Me!!!

Panorama of evil from Master Of Kung Fu #102 (1981)

Reminder: Awaiting The Mega-Rogue

"One thousand years in the future," while restoring the Flash Museum, they will uncover the evidence of Wally West's final fate:

By 2054, constant exposure to the Speed Force will have "evolved" Wally to look like this.

And he will meet his final fate at the hands of:

The Mega-Rogue!! Embittered scientist from Gorilla City who uses all the weapons of the long dead Rogues to hunt down and destroy The Flash! (Note, the story doesn't come out and say it's Grodd...but I'll wager it is...)

Two important lessons to be learned here. #1:

Thanks to those damn sliding time frames, a Wally West "in his seventies" by 2054 must have been born 1975-1984, give or take...which means that when he got his own title as Flash, in 1987, he was a kid, no more than 12 years old.

Which also means that, as groovy as the Bob Haney Teen Titans were, they never fought crime in the 60s or 70s.

I hate sliding time scales.

The second lesson?

Don't bury dead villains with their greatest weapons. Duh!!

(I will concede that Tom Peyer and Steve Lightle might have meant "looted the graves" metaphorically. In which case the lesson is "Don't keep dead villains' greatest weapons just laying around where a crazed super-gorilla can get his damn dirty ape paws on them.")

Anyway, Wally ends up "lashed to a boomerang of mirrors," and "launched to a place outside of time and space, never to return."

Hmm, maybe that would explain his complete absence from any DC comics the past couple of years...

From Flash 80-Page Giant #2 (1999).