Calamity Jon Morris

::accessing the only body of knowledge I've ever nurtured:: The Encyclopedia, villain, first appearance Detective Comics Vol 1 No.196, enemy of TV Detective Roy Raymond who uses exhaustive knowledge on wide variety of topics to commit "unsolvable" crimes.

It's like National Service.

What's the point of having an encyclopedaic knowledge of this stuff if you don't use it to come up with niche canon riffs? Wait, let's go one further -- what's the point of having encyclopedaic knowledge of this stuff at all?

Children of the Willennium.

Frankly, it's the least of our problems right now.

Lastly, on the "bums with the power of Doomsday" trip, I'm a big fan of Charley Seghall, aka "The Hobo," who popped up in a British reprint mag's text adventure in the mid-1960s. He and Superman have a waterfront battle that nearly sink nearby vessels...

Likewise, here's the original thread about it:

To some degree, I worry that they took me seriously. Time Trapper Doomsday sure acts like one of those tediously interminable Endless, and that's the very argument I put in place with this article:

Doomsday needs to shut up.

Anyway, the reason this came to mind was that I heard Doomsday was recently reinvented as Legion of Superheroes archfoe The Time Trapper, which sounded incredibly dull, so I read a couple issues and it is. Who invited Professor Pencilneck to the proceedings? Shove him in a locker and let's go home.

A Winsor McCay inspired origin of Doomsday, by Stuart Immonen

When they eventually did get around to Doosmday's origin -- and it seemed to me that they got around to it with ill-advised haste -- it was a pretty tedious affair involving a baby getting repeatedly murdered in the interests of science (but it did inspire this groovy McCay-influenced Immonen piece)

Doomsday as a male stripper.

...into an unkillable monster more than an equal for the Man of Steel! Smalley is Superman's first foe and Dunn his deadliest, a nice way to integrate the original Reign of the Super-Man into the larger continuity. Not that they did, of course, this is just me being brilliant and cool.

Superman chasing Ultra: This deviltry of yours is going to stop right now!" the Man of Steel declares. "Guess again!" replies the wily foe.

A lot of Superman diehards are fond of the idea that Ernest Smalley, crippled rather than dead, goes on to become Superman's first recurring foe, The Ultra-Humanite. That's a fun idea! I'm fond of it! So why not slot in Bill Dunn, too? Knocked out after the battle, buried in rubble, and evolving...

Jerry Siegel's Reign of the Super-Man, with art by Joe Shuster (January 1933)

In Jerry Siegel's 1933 story "Reign of the Super-Man," an evil scientist named Ernest Smalley experiments on a homeless man named Bill Dunn, giving him amazing mental abilities. The men turn on each other, fighting, resulting in Smalley's death and Dunn slowly losing his amazing powers...

DOOOOOMSDAY!

My curent headcanon regarding Superman's brutish foe Doomsday is that he's actually part of Neil Gaiman's Endless (see further down in thread) but, when Death of Superman first came out, even though I knew it wasn't even remotely likely, my general feeling was that Doomsday should be Bill Dunn...

Eventually I just ended up focusing on the guy's evolving wristwatch.

Fifty-ish from the git-go, persistent cough.

How about bald?

The Two Ronnies in the midst of the Four Candles/Forkhandles sketch

Here, I wrote it down, "fork handles." Do you have any?

I've never been happier than this moment.

Swear to god, my neighbor just swiped my garden gate. I was gonna give him a piece of my mind but my wife said "what if he takes a fence?"

¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

Fingers crossed that they've got US1 in this and his special attack is his opponent gets hit by a truck.

Ever since they put Rocket Raccoon in a movie, I made a promise to not be at all surprised at whatever rare and obscure characters they dig up to put in their media but, man, well done, Brute Force. Now do the Power Pachyderms you cowards.

BRUTE FORCE "...because we forced them to!" Bless the hearts of major corporate entities in their efforts to monetize the act of teaching children ...

Read all about 'em!

Wreckless, the bear from Brute Force, saying "We called Brute Force, not Sneaky Softpaws!"

They couldn't catch the bear.

Members of Brute Force stuffed in jars in the back of the new Marvel game.

Cover to Brute Force #1

Screenshot from the new Marvel Comics game, you gotta be kidding me.

BRUTE FORCE sitting in the stasis tubes in thr back of this game screen.

The cover to Brute Force by Marvel Comics.

Are you fucking kidding me.

From Andrew Cuomo's embarrasingly racist and alarmist anti-Mamdani AI-generated ad, specifically a couple of thugs in an alley shouting "The Democratic Socialists' ideas are common sense!"

From Andrew Cuomo's embarrasingly racist and alarmist anti-Mamdani AI-generated ad, specifically a couple of thugs in an alley shouting "The Democratic Socialists' ideas are common sense!"

I accept this endorsement.

A fake ad for "Vile" soap which guarantees to make monsters unappealing.

From Archie's Madhouse #24 (Joe Edwards, February 1963). "Monsters, are girls attracted to you? If so, then what the heck kind of monster are you?"

Ah, authoritative use of "hardly," primary sign of a blowhard.