Superheroes and Villains

One of the advantages of a multi-author site is in the variety of posts. While we may not like all the flavourings, there’s still much to savour. We all have our areas of expertise and they should be respected as such. We have specialists on a wide range of topics. Some of them maybe not as important as others. This doesn’t matter, you never know when a useless piece of information can come in handy.

One of my strong points is my wealth of knowledge about the graphic comics world, specifically Marvel Comics, particularly the 70’s and 80’s; referred to in the industry as the Bronze Age of Comic Books. I may have lost the frisson on the reading of a Marvel nowadays but I still possess Galactusian information about the brand. You know how it is. Sometimes you can process certain data and recall it with astonishing ease depending on whether a subject interests you or not. The exciting escapades of the costumed characters captivated me through childhood. N.B. Stan Lee loved his alliteration.

Some time ago I got involved in an imbroglio with one of our lapsed Charioteers, Ana the Imp. Anastasia is one of the most erudite and prolifically versatile bloggers around. The staff at My Telegraph fawned over Ana, making her the featured blogger for a year much to the chagrin of another prolific writer, Kevin Straw. You may wonder, what’s a humble and nondescript hack like me doing, going head to head with a Giantess? It could only end in humiliation for yours truly, added to the fact that Ana has been known to veto those of a different opinion so there was a chance of me being sent to The Negative Zone after our tussle. But I was confident. Now if it were the Corn Laws or Metternich’s diplomatic achievements we were debating I’d be on the losing side but it wasn’t… it was super villains. And even though we were discussing DC comics and not Marvel I was on stable ground. Yet, she still had the temerity to take me on!

Flame on!

Ana had got into the habit of calling the then Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, The Joker. Her reasoning was on his fake, sly smile. I put it to her that his predecessor, Tony Blair, more closely resembled The Joker and suggested that Brown was a dead ringer for Solomon Grundy. She disagreed. I had to find more evidence to win this trial with the succubus. I detailed the characteristics of the two fictional characters in the DC world and paired them up with the two real life figures. The Joker is a psychopathic master criminal with a madcap smile and arched eyebrows. Solomon Grundy is a huge, shambling, mindless zombie super villain. The former is pure Blair and the latter could only be Brown.

Pow!
Sock!
Thwack!
Whap!
Crunch!
Ouch!
Bam!
Kapow!

Howzat?

It must be a technical knock out. For me.

Nope, the lady was not for turning and we were left with an impasse.

On the heroes front we’ve got Spider-Man, Iron Man, Batman, Superman. The list is huge and continues to grow. Some of you may have noticed I have added a Man suffix after the initial of two of our Charioteers when addressing them. These two superheroes have been stalwarts in our universe, continuing to post, through thick and thin, rough and smooth, back and front, up and under. Elite Members of the 400 club: Janus and Soutie.
Well played, men.