Last month, I got my hands on the first two graphic novels
of Ms. Marvel, incorporating issues 1 through 11 of the new series. The main
character is Kamala Khan, a 16-year-old Muslim Pakistani-American girl who
likes writing Avengers fanfic. She’s struggling to find some kind of balance
between the conflicting demands of the traditional culture and values of her
parents and those of her Jersey City high school peers when she’s exposed to a
mysterious cloud that gives her shape-and-size-changing powers. (Point of
nerdery: the cloud is Terrigen mist, which means that she’s an Inhuman.)
Anyway, she uses her powers to help people—no shock there—and it’s great. I
highly recommend the series.
The main bad guy for this story arc was a fairly flawed
clone of Thomas Edison called “The Inventor.” The specific flaws have to do
with the fact that some cockatiel DNA got into the mix while he was being
created and his conviction that all teenagers should be put in vats
Matrix-style to generate power.
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| “You kids with your intertwitters and hippity hop music! Get off my lawn!” |
While certainly an appropriate nemesis for a new generation
of hero, I was struck by the feeling that he’d stolen his shtick from a 1980
Spider-Woman villain called “Turner D. Century,” a name that I would gladly
steal for my own uses if I thought for a second I could get away with it.
Turner D. Century was all about restoring the country to its idealized and
uncorrupted state of around the year 1900. So, he dressed in period costume,
rode around on a flying bicycle built for two and wielded an umbrella that shot
fire. His villainy included the use of a bicycle horn that would have killed
everyone under the age of 65; a scheme that, if successful would have brought
about the extinction of the human race. No deep thinker, that one.
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| He needed to put a mannequin on the second seat of his bicycle built for two. It was kind of sad. |
Turner D. Century was eventually killed in a Captain America
storyline by an assassin known only as “The Scourge of the Underworld,” or
“Scourge” to his friends of which he presumably had none. The Scourge storyline
was a crossover event before crossover events were the big, overwrought,
drawn-out cash grabs where everything is going to change forever this time we
mean it for real that they are today. Basically what happened in the few months
before the story reached its conclusion in the pages of Captain America, some C-list villain would show up for a few panels
in some other book, cackle a bit about his nefarious scheme and then
unexpectedly take an explosive round to the chest. Scourge would then pull off
his rubber mask or whatever disguise he was using, shout “Justice is served!”
and disappear, all without drawing any attention from the book’s title
character.
(What’s more, Steve Gerber had done this bit some years
earlier in the pages of The Defenders
with the “Elf with a Gun.” Basically, there would be a “meanwhile” and a cut to
random people we’d never seen before who’d have whatever they were doing
interrupted by “An elf! … An elf with a gun!” Blam! And then we’d cut back to
the main story. It was just a weird random thing that happened that Steve
Gerber had no intention of explaining or resolving. He was kind of brilliant
that way.)
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| It's a terrifying and ridiculous way to go. It's terdiculous. |
Anyway, Scourge did in old Turner D. Century along with
nearly 20 other supervillains of varying degrees of actual threat and/or
silliness. It turned out to be a pretty good story even if Captain America
wasn’t able to win the day without using the phrase “Judge, jury and
executioner.”
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| Spoiler: They're all doomed. |
I actually had a point. All of the above characters were
considered disposable by reason of being played out (at best) or just stupid
and ill-conceived (at worst). Looking at some of the names given, it’s easy to
see how one could have come to that conclusion. For example, “The Hijacker,”
who apparently hijacks things.
On the other hand, if they hadn’t killed of old Turner D.
Century, they could have used him in Ms.
Marvel and wouldn’t have needed to invent the Inventor. (Though a
cockatiel-headed megalomaniac was definitely the way to go when the need
arose.)
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| Where we're going, we don't need pants! |
As I’ve always maintained, there are no bad characters, only
badly written characters. For instance, take Kraven the Hunter, a classic
villain from Spider-Man’s rogue’s gallery. His shtick was basically that he was
an evil big game hunter who wanted to hunt Spider-Man. By 1987, he’d been
pretty played out and hadn’t appeared much. Then came the six-part “Kraven’s
Last Hunt,” which, among other things presented a look into the C-list villain’s
tortured psyche. Today, “Kraven’s Last Hunt” is remembered as one of the best
Spider-Man stories ever.
So I can’t help but wonder how many of Scourge’s victims
might have had a “Kraven’s Last Hunt” in him or her, given the right time and
storyteller. For instance, where would the turn of another century have found
Turner D. Century? What if he patented his flying bicycle and it became the hot
new thing among the generation he loathes? What if the Hijacker set out to pull
off a really big heist? What if the Ringer (his thing was he threw different
trick rings and hoops and such at people) or Bird-Man (he could fly!) set out
to prove once and for all that he’s not ridiculous?
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| The story was actually called "Spider-Man Night Fever." I feel somehow cheated. |
Someone should do a Hypno Hustler story. “Hypno’s Last
Boogie,” perhaps?
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| Or maybe "Kangaroo's Last Hop?" |
