oHOTmu or NOT Ep.44: Grandmaster to Gremlin

A cosmic Dungeon Master. An all-female wrestling league. A west coast supervillain. A diminutive Soviet genius. Which are hot and which are not? The Girls will tell you, trust us.

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

Listen to Episode 44 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.44 Supplemental

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21 responses to “oHOTmu or NOT Ep.44: Grandmaster to Gremlin

  1. This was a much more sedate episode than the prior one! I guess a series of ‘mostly Nots’ is enough to suck the air out of the room.

    And let’s face it, Grandmaster, Graviton, and Gremlin aren’t exactly your classic leading men.

    Grandmaster has always looked like a surly Papa Smurf who went on an extreme diet and is angry at the world for his self-denial of all the smurfberry delights that Greedy makes. Dude! Lighten up! You play games all day!

    But let’s get to the real question on my mind! Who is the wrestling fan in the group? Someone was dropping some names! I must admit I follow wrestling myself. It ain’t easy being a fan of The Riott Squad!

        1. Tell Shotgun her stock was already ridiculously high in my books. And it has skyrocketed further.

          And yes, I wish I could explain my Riott Squad fidelity. But some things just happen.

  2. I have to like Grandmaster, He the Marvel villain in Avenger’s vs Justice Leauge – if he wasn’t in that I would have no use for non Goldblum versions.

    The Graplers commentary was deeper then I expected it too be- nice.

    Graviton – such a cool power set- but that costume- WHY? Both the comic West Coast Avengers AND the Cartoon Avenger’s Earth’s Mightyest Hero’s have moments where he is winning and I stoped to think “Clint Barton should not be taken down by a guy dressed like that.”-

    Gremlin -meh

  3. So, should this episode be renamed just “NOT”?

    I can’t blame the girls on this one. The characters and/or art were fairly uninspiring. There was this weird fascination with wrestling at Marvel in the 80s, especially in titles featuring The Thing. I guess with the rise of the WWF (yes kids, there was an “F” in there once), it was just another case of Marvel having their finger on the pulse of what kids were into back then, but it does seem a bit odd. At least we later get Sharon Ventura/Ms. Marvel II out of it…although that character was often portrayed poorly.

    Wait, did oHOTmu skip Devil Dinosaur? Did I miss that one? I can only imagine he’s thought of as mega-hot!

    Chris

    1. Devil Dinosaur, living as he did at the dawn of time, is dead. So he’s in the Book of the Dead. A major weakness with OHOTMU compared to Who’s Who: All its technically continuity stars (like the cowboys, for example) are relegated to those issues.

        1. Made me look! We actually had to wait for the ’89 update (issue 2) where he got in by virtue of his membership in the Fallen Angels, which is ridiculous.

      1. Wait. does that put the 30th century Guardians of the Galaxy in the “Not born yet” issues? I mean, all of the present-day characters would be dead by the time of GotG. So they can’t … but the … and … wait…

        Oh, this is an ugly ugly rabbit hole to go down. I’m stopping myself right now.

  4. Grandmaster: If ever there a character ahead of his time, this is it. All of a sudden, he personifies every entitled fanboy/gamer. “Phenomenal cosmic power!! Let’s play parcheesi.” I’ll stick with the Goldblum version.

    Grapplers: 1. I wonder how the Hot Squad would react to the DC equivalent, Jack Kirby’s Female Furies. 2. Now I want a team-up between Auntie Freeze and Time Priest. Just to hear the gang so those names.

    Graviton: What happens when a loser becomes ultra-powerful? This guy. How has Alpha Flight not had a chance to kick his keister? He’s practically begging for a Canadian beat down.

    Gremlin: Ooo, I really liked the comment that he’s a caricature of Russians. Nicely spotted.

    Droog and Dragon Man should go on puppy play dates. I think they’d be besties. Just bring some big plastic baggies along. (Insert Jurassic Park clip here. You know which one, right?)

    Sorry “Two for the Price of One” is falling behind. We moved recently and time just slips away from me. Even Time Priest has his limits.

    Fingers crossed for better entries next show!

      1. Visually, I see parallels with Lashina-Letha and Mad Harriet-Screaming Mimi. And they would definitely be mashed up in the Amalgam versions. 🙂

  5. You called it exactly right, whichever one it was, about the faces of the Grapplers. They all have exactly the same mouth, and mostly the same nose!
    You don’t like the full-seventies fashion of Graviton,eh? High collar, shiny stuff, white boots and gloves, and round thingies! Lots of round thingies in 70s design.

  6. Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh boy.

    Grandmaster – Ok let’s just get it out there up front: the Goldblum version gets a hot because Goldblum. This guy though, yeah he looks like the one person in your gaming group that makes it not fun. My own point of reference was the one guy in my D&D group who “played to win” so rather than a campaign of bonding and building a story together, he seemed to have a personal goal of dominating the world by the time we wrapped up. I don’t mean his character was like that (though he kind of was) I mean he the player was like that. And he was not fun to have in the group. Hard pass.

    Grapplers – Much like the Netflix show Glow, I find myself wanting to enjoy this and… I just can’t. I’m not going to hold the names against the characters as much as the ladies do, only because I know wrestling well enough to understand that these were the kinds of nonsense BS insensitive names that most of them had to use back in the 80s. Additionally, sadly for me, Auntie Freeze doesn’t work as a pun. You see I come from a WASPish New England family, so I both pronounce and hear it in my head as “aw-nt” rather than “ant”. I’ve run into a few of these characters in comics, I remember liking Poundcakes in an appearance in a recent Wasp comic. So they can probably be redeemed, but yeah I’m with the ladies. Collectively as a group, this just has too many problems. (Sushi… ugh… why?)

    Gravitron – Ok, as a villain concept I actually really love this guy. Because the world of superhero comics is rife with lame filler villains who are usually just there to be dealt with in one off issues between longer stories, or for new heroes to cut their teeth on. We’ve got the likes of Killer Moth, Stiltman, Crazy Quilt, etc. But the thing is, they all have lame powers so they were never going to be top tier villains. So I love the idea of a guy whose power set could totally make him a top level threat, but he’s just such an arrogant moron that he ends up as a D-lister anyways. So, love him for narrative possibilities and for that fun dissonance. Total not for dating though. Complete and utter douche. And I feel like he’s one rejection away from becoming one of those creepy self identified incels. (“Involuntary celibate” – it’s a really frightening internet subculture, I don’t advise looking too deeply into it.)

    Gremlin – Ok, I know we try to do the whole “personality counts for a lot” thing but… yeesh. No. I’ll take the “shallow” label, if it means I never have to sit across that face at a restaurant table. And let’s not even bother trying to parse how old this guy is. Interesting character, I’d love to read some stories he’s in, but just dear god no. I’d totally “droog-sit” for him though.

  7. Great episode, everyone! I always enjoy when this show pops up on my podcast feed. And I’m even more excited when I find out some of the ladies enjoy boardgames! I find they are always a great way to spend time with friends and family. Also It’s very apropos to find out with Grandmaster as one of the entries. Any personal boardgame favourites?
    This episode should have just been titled, “Pass” or “F’neh”. They all seem like a bunch of doofs. The only person I had any reaction to was…..

    Graviton – Okay, as a BC boy, I definitely have a stereotype of an Albertan. He isn’t quite what I thought of as an Albertan (specially with that attitude). But having learned he was born in Banff, makes it even weirder. For those not in the know, Banff is a small resort town in a large national park. Being a child of a resort town should make this guy a lot mellower than he is, doesn’t it? Like, surfer dude mellow? Why is he so outwardly angry? He’s Canadian, he should be more passive aggressive! I also 100% agree with Vera Wylde about this guy. Douche canoe.

    Keep up the great work!

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