oHOTmu or NOT Ep.32: Eel to Electro

A slippery villain. Bigger-than-life Kurt Russell. A bunch of old dudes. A real shocker, but not THE Shocker. The Girls know what's up and will decide which are Hot, and which are Not. You've been warned!

Featuring permanent panelists Elyse, Isabel, Nathalie, Josée, and Amélie.

Listen to Episode 32 below (the usual mature language warnings apply), or subscribe to oHOTmu OR NOT? on iTunes!

Relevant images and further credits at: oHOTmu or NOT ep.32 Supplemental

This podcast is a proud member of the FIRE AND WATER PODCAST NETWORK!

Subscribe via iTunes as part of the FIRE AND WATER PODCAST NETWORK.

And thanks for leaving a comment.

21 responses to “oHOTmu or NOT Ep.32: Eel to Electro

  1. Next time I go to a family reunion, or a church potluck, I’m going to admonish someone with “BRING A $#%*ING PROTEIN, ASS!!!”

    Amelie’s description of “The Morning After with the Elders of the Universe” should be one of those Marvel Studio One-Shot shorts, or maybe a mid-credit sequence cut scene? Serpent Solutions office shorts would also fit the bill. You folks should work for Kevin Fiege.

    Electro is another one of those characters that I think most comic fans just accept as-is. We don’t stop and think how freaking goofy he looks, or why green isn’t really a color anyone associates with electricity. Leave it to the crew here to deconstruct our hard-wired nerd notions.

    And bonus points to Siskoid for using audio clips from the 60s Spider-Man cartoon! I love that show unabashedly.

    Chris

  2. It’s gotten to the point with this show that I have to take notes to remember all the things I want to touch on when I do my comments, and that’s no bad thing.

    Not too much to say for the Eel. I have to agree that he has a pretty slick look (see what I did there?) The gimmick and the name are kind of lamely connected but visually alone, yeah this is pretty hot from where I sit. Side note, there is no such thing as a garden snake. Normally I try really hard to not be the “um, actually” person, but I like to think that what it’s really called might make the ladies think better of it. It is in fact a garter snake. The strips down its length are like garters (or suspenders if you’re British,) so they’re effectively snakes in lingerie. Have fun with that thought.

    I’ve always found Ego intriguing, but when you boil it down to a simple “hot or not” this is a tsunami of not. This discussion brought up some odd thoughts in me. Firstly I love how it always comes back to spooning. When the topic of what his telepathic voice sounds like (before we got to the part where Elyse had her world shattered) my first thought was that he sounds like Gilbert Gottfried. I don’t know why, but I made myself laugh with that one. It got worse when Siskoid brought up that he had an engine installed to move around. I couldn’t find an image that depicts the thing so I imagine they just say “he has an engine now” and don’t really show it. But in my mind it has to have exhaust, or at least propulsion… and that would be at the opposite side of the planet (i.e. his back.) And now I can only picture him farting across the universe.

    The Elders of the Universe. Nots across the board. Left to right, top to bottom we have malevolent, boring, boring, boring, creepy, tool, and galactic level douche. That “the next day” scene though? Gold! SOMEBODY DRAW THAT!

    Electro. I was genuinely worried about Amélie for a minute there. And I’ve been looking forward to this one. I’ve been listening for decades from Spider-Man fans older than myself about how iconic this costume is. I think we even heard a tiny taste of that with Siskoid weakly offering up “doesn’t it look better from the side?” Such glorious vindication. I’d never seen him out of the costume before… he’s got an aloof 1960s French filmmaker kind of thing going on. Pass even on that.

    P.S. The day I realized I ‘d gotten older than all the kids they have on Sesame Street, so I was never going to get to share the screen with Grover. #mylifewasalie

    1. I definitely call them garter snakes, and thought that’s what I heard, give or take a French accent. But this is TOTALLY normal for French Canadians – mishearing words and altering them forever in common language. Some of the most famous are the bécosse, a Francization of “backhouse”, and the Bonhomme Sept-Heure (means Boogeyman, literally The Seven O’Clock Man who comes after children who don’t want to go to bed) which comes from the term “bone setter”, essentially a country doctor.

      A corruption like garden snake is small potatoes, comparatively. Most of us would use the French word day to day anyway – “couleuvre”.

      This has been LEARNING FRENCH WITH SISKOID, on the FW Podcast Network.

      1. When I was a kid I thought it was “garden” snake as well, back when my friends and I used to catch them and throw them at each other. Not a proud moment.

        I know folks here who still say “garden” snake, and English is their 1st (and only) language, so they have no excuse, unlike the Girls.

    2. You’re so right about Ego’s propulsion being like … cosmic flatulence, shall we say. Two comics which dealt with the engine’s a bit were Fantastic Four and Silver Surfer, both times it was used against Ego.

  3. Eels aren’t serpents, dangit. At that point they might as well rebrand as the Phallic-Symbol Phoundation and invite Stilt-man

  4. Another hysterical episode, always appreciated.

    Perhaps the most interesting thing was the absolute laughter Electro’s outfit elicited. Like Vera says, it is so burned into my memory as ‘cool’ that I just accept it. I probably first saw Electro when I was in the first grade, so his nonsensical ‘electric star’ mask is just part of my consciousness. It is what it is. So to hear the girls point how dumb it is was fascinating in an ‘Emperor’s new clothes’ sort of way. Seeing it again, it *IS* idiotic.

    I can never read another story with the elders without thinking of the Collector rummaging through an underwear drawer the morning after. I can imagine him giving a tour through his collection. “In that room are ancient religious artifacts from countless galaxies. Over there are landscapes painted by the finest artists from the last millenia. And, here is my most precious collection … the panties I have acquired through personal conquest.” Brrrr …..

    When did I know my life was a lie? Well, in college, I was huge into Morrissey and The Smiths. I used to listen to the lyrics of being unloved and would think ‘it’s like my life in a way.’ One day, my friends said that I could no longer say that The Smiths ‘spoke to me’ because I had a loving family, a big group of friends, a girlfriend, and was coasting through college with a spot in medical school secured. It was then that I realized that this life I had concocted in my head of ‘for once in my life let me get what i want, god knows it would be the first time’ was, indeed, a lie.

  5. I need to be getting some work done, but I just listened to this episode and have to post right now since SISKOID CAN’T FIND MY COMMENT TO EPISODE 31 EVEN THOUGH IT’S RIGHT THERE AT February 19, 2018 at 10:10 pm AND THE LADIES THINK I DIDN’T WRITE TO THEM AND NOOOOOOOOO!!!!

    Ok. Ok. I’m fine. Really. It’s ok. Breathe. Breathe.

    Anyway. Oh, so much laughter this episode. The puns. The morning after. Delightful.

    Poor ol’ Electro. The one thing you don’t want to hear from a group of young ladies at first sight: laughter. Yes, I like his look in a retro sense and from my memory as a kid. But yes, it is ridiculous. It’s also interesting how electricity is equated with the color yellow, which was noted for that the Eel wasn’t yellow. But electricity is usually white. Lightning is hot-as-the-sun color temperature, and without the earth’s atmosphere to filter it like sunlight, it appears white. Or is that just me?

    The discussion on telepathy and hearing was really interesting. Part philosophy, part neuroscience, and lighthearted to be fun, but cool to see that even a surface exploration can get pretty deep. Wait, does that sound weird? It sounds weird. Never mind.

    I know I shouldn’t get hung up on it, but eels are not reptiles, they’re fish that just look like snakes, so Eel shouldn’t be in the Serpent Squad/Society/Solutions. I can’t help thinking that. But if Serpent Solutions needs a computer programmer, I’d send my resume just because it wouldn’t be boring.

    Good job getting through the names, Nathalie! You’re all doing better than I would do with your names.

    And man! Y’all are too sweet! I love you too, ladies.

    I didn’t think my life was a lie until Siskoid couldn’t FIND MY COMMENTS FOR LAST MONTH’S OHOTMU OR NOT AND NOW #MYLIFEISALIE AND AAAAAAAUUUUUGH!

    I’m fine. it’s fine. everything is fine.

  6. Loved the “Morning After with the Elders” discussion! I don’t want to give anything away for when you actually get to his entry, but I’m looking forward to hearing whether the ladies’ opinion of the Possessor will change at all when they learn what his driving obsession actually is, and how little it actually relates to the name “Possessor.” (I imagine they’ll come up with some more appropriate names for him when the time comes…)

  7. Another fun filled episode, though I do feel the need to come to the defense of the eel (the aquatic animal, not the villain). While eels do have a slime layer, they aren’t any more slimy than your typical fish. In fact most fish have a slime layer which helps with 1) osmoregulation, 2) physical protection, and 3) hydrodynamics. If you want truly disgusting levels of slime, then look no further than the hagfish. When a hagfish feels threatened, it can produce gallons (or liters, depending upon your preferred unit of measurement) of slime in a matter of minutes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmaal7Hf0WA). I’d take a jolt from an electric eel over a bucket full of hagfish slime any day of the week.

    Given the actual topic of this podcast, I guess I should also say something about at least one of the characters in this episode. Though you didn’t talk about him much this time around, I do like the fact that the original Eel was a marine biologist. I think that marine biologists are terribly under represented in the world of superhero comics. It’s a shame that the Eel turned to a life of crime, but research grants are hard to come by these days, and high tech scientific equipment doesn’t grow on trees. Well, what do you know, it looks like I ended up coming to the defense of the Eel as well as the eel.

      1. Curses! My secret identity has been revealed by my love for aquatic-themed comic book characters. Now that the truth is out, I will say that I’m eagerly counting down the years until you reach Stingray’s entry.

    1. Thanks, Brian, you said it better than I would have. You should have mentioned the awesome dorsal/anal/caudal fin of the eel, though!

      1. Thank you. I’ll no-prize my oversight of the eel’s cool fin structure by saying that I wanted to leave something for other eel fans to comment on.

  8. Another fun episode as always.

    Some of the girls are upset that Ego has versions that may be having conversations with other girls while having simultaneous conversation elsewhere? If you’re the jealous type, don’t be concerned with conversations. Just how many spoons (or worse) are going on at the same time. At least Sunboy limited himself to one at a time (that we know of anyway. There was that scene after his jaw was broken by Emerald Empress …).

    Now you ladies have me wanting electric suspenders, just for the corniness factor 🙂

Leave a Reply to Siskoid Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *