oHOTmu or NOT Ep.59: Khoryphos to Kingpin

A lute player. A Roxxon bird. A vampire private eye. A legitimate businessman, we swear, yeah that's the ticket. Which are hot, which are not? The girls are on the case as we start digging into The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Deluxe Edition #7.

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

Listen to Episode 59 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.59 Supplemental

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34 responses to “oHOTmu or NOT Ep.59: Khoryphos to Kingpin

  1. Before anyone else comments, I looked it up: “luth” is French for “lute.” As I surmised, the odds that Siskoid would know something I didn’t we’re far greater than the odds I would catch him making a typo.

      1. Karma’s a bitch ain’t it?

        Crossing French/English wires is inevitable sometimes. One particular difficulty is with any word that is essentially the same in both languages, but that contain doubled letters. So I always write “embarassed” because the French word has only one “r”, then the spellcheck reminds me it’s “embarrassed”. (And it took me two goes to write it correctly that second time even if I knew what I was doing.) There are a lot of such examples, the burden of thinking and writing in two languages that share common roots.

        1. Yeah, I even run into trouble with American English spelling versus Commonwealth English Spelling, because in some cases, your spelling (e. g., cancelled and judgemental) looks more correct to me. So far, no one’s questioned my loyalty or called me a Tory.

  2. Great to hear the gang back together in one room!

    Khoryphos: When the ladies mentioned THAT guy at the party with the guitar, I immediately flashed to Animal House, and John Belushi’s solution to the problem. But I’m old, so that’s where my mind goes.

    Killer Shrike: Not only is this guy a rip-off of Batman, I bet Iron Man villain Whiplash/Blacklash would like to talk to him about his infringiness as well, with the cowl/ponytail/plume combo.

    Hannibal King: He’s already hot, but would the squad’s opinions be changed if they knew Ryan Reynolds played him in Blade: Trinity? Being married to a Twilight fan, I have watched the films. Not as horrible as advertised. I’ve seen far worse. The whole “werewolf adult imprinting on his friend/former love’s baby so he can mate with her later” thing is beyond gross and disturbing, though.

    Kingpin: When I was a kid, I didn’t GET the Kingpin. OHOTMU said he was “pure muscle” but I never bought that this big heavy guy with no super powers could take on the super-strong and agile Spider-Man in a physical battle. I still honestly don’t. Spider-Verse kind of just went with “yeah, he’s basically super strong” and I’d rather they just admit it. Denoffrio’s portrayal on Netflix’s Daredevil was fascinatingly brutal. YIKES!!!

    Chris

  3. Another fun episode!

    Khoryphos: In the Eternals mini-series that was running at this time, he met and fell in love with a Deviant artist named Yrdisis, the idea being that their creative spirits overcame the usual hostility between the Eternals and the Deviants. You might want to pull up the Deviants page (from way back in episode #28) to remind the ladies about Yrdisis. And where Khoryphos’ name is supposed to be roughly similar to “Orpheus,” Yrdisis corresponds to “Eurydice”…though the romance of Khoryphos and Yrdisis went happily, avoiding the tragic outcome of Orpheus and Eurydice.

    Killer Shrike: While I know that the names of the different artists generally won’t mean much to the panel, it’s interesting that this is one of the very few Marvel drawings by the legendary DC Comics artist Joe Kubert (this may be his very first Marvel work, though I can’t be sure of that), founder of the Joe Kubert School for comic artists (where a certain Fire & Water podcaster studied…). I have no idea why Kubert drew this particular character…later in the series, Kubert draws Shanna the She-Devil, which at least has a thematic similarity to Kubert’s other work (as Kubert had drawn several “jungle” comics including Tarzan and Rima the Jungle Girl), but I just don’t see any connection between Killer Shrike and Kubert.

    King comma Hannibal: Speaking of artists, I think Marvel missed an opportunity for some meta humor here…at the time this series was being published, there was an artist whose name really WAS Hannibal King, just starting out his comics career! He mostly worked in independent comics, but did do some work for Marvel and DC (though he’s best known for his artwork outside the comics field, doing paintings for Magic: The Gathering cards). Not to take anything away from Sandy Plunkett, who did a great job with this drawing, but I really think they should have gotten Hannibal King to draw Hannibal King.

  4. The show was probably Kindred:The Embraced, a one season show based on the the Vampire:the Masquerade role-playing game.

    1. I was wondering if it was Forever Knight, with a vampire cop, based on a pilot called Nick Knight, starring Rick Springfield…who we know from Fire and Water Records WAS in fact, a vampire.

      Chris

  5. Great to have everyone together for another fun session. I have some comments as usual!

    Khoryphos – I remember how Rick Jones got labeled ‘that guy that plays Wonderwall at parties’ so I was waiting for the same vitriol to come out for this guy. I wasn’t sure it would happen by we finally got there. I can only imagine how irritating this guy is at parties, the tortured musician type.

    Killer Shrike – I cant take this guy seriously because it looks like it would be way to easy for him to injure himself with those outward turning blades. How does he eat a sandwich? What if he really has to pee and needs to get it out quickly? I’m thinking really bad lacerations!

    King, Hannibal – now this guy dresses like me! Back in 2018 I succeeded in losing a lot of weight. Unsure if I would rebound, I continued to wear the clothes that didn’t fit, my belt pulled tight over what friends ultimately told me looked like ‘hobo pants’. (I subsequently have bought better fitting clothes.) And I do sport a trench coat now and then. So this guy in loose pants is about as close as you can get to me.

    Kingpin – he’ll always be a Spider-Man villain to me. And I think Vanessa was brought back to life years later in the Brubaker run. I think the Netflix show, especially season one, is well worth it. Kingpin is fascinating in that.

  6. Impressive podcast. Most impressive. Khoryphos… of. Not a bad costume. He likes orange doesn’t he? And blue. Wait is he a ECW Taz fan? Ya’ll are right he could use a hair brush. The upside down Olympus symbol is weird. And we now know what song he was making. And he gave it to the Shepherds. 😀

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCnxewCM_uQ

    And right after that He got a slight hair cut grew a Goatee and became the front man for Nickle Back.

    Strike. You didn’t read the comic ware Tarancila became a an Spider? Strife was Will “O the wasp in that. And had long blond hair in that. He was kind of cool in that. Granted that was a long time ago. Still. I Like Will O’ the wisp. As Strife he’s … fine. Sides their are tons of Bats rip offs. Sadly Nofrata. wasn’t in She Hulk yet. And she was literally a Bat Man clone, but a gal. And named after Nosferatu. And she was a John Lindley Byrne creation. Not as cool as Blonde Phantom joining up with her. Or Her daughter become the Phantom Blonde, but still. She had a moment. Also it’s a cool drawing. And he looks ok. Peregrine (Alain Racine) Is a worse Bat Man knock off. And Yep as ya’ll know the word doesn’t exist in French. Though the anti Grave thing wouldn’t help Strife much. It would just make him float. And easier to hit. Since he’d move slow like a balloon.

    King is cool. Hey he’s a detective. With the amount of money he spends on Booze he probly can’t afford new cloths. Or it’s like Indiana Jones and he wares old cloths in the field.

    King Pin…. yeah he’s a cool villain, but don’t think ya wanna wake up next to him. King Pin Satin Sheets playing Barry White. Then again… I’ve had worse dates.

    1. Yeah! Roxxon/Brand makes an anti-grav implant that inexplicably also propels you through the air at 80 mph? (‘Cause I mean, I have a comic with the dude in it. He doesn’t flap his arms to go forward or anything.) And they’re still trying to take over the world by selling petroleum products?

      I should stop thinking too hard about comics.

  7. Your record of consistently enjoyable episodes remains unbroken, Siskoid and Hot Squad. Congratulations on being back in one room!

    Killer Shrike: Your point about his blaming Spider-Man raises questions about all the villain grudges in comics. I mean, do that many of them really take it so personally when a superhero takes them down? I may have to ask someone in law enforcement as a point of comparison. I know; people who take responsibility for their actions and don’t feel entitled to whatever they want are probably less likely to lead a life of crime. So, maybe all the “reVENGE!!!” motives in comics really aren’t unrealistic. Still, you’d think more of them would be like, “He has a job to do, and I have a job to do. May the best man/woman/alien/sentient beast win.” I think the maturity would be refreshing.

    Kingpin: Like Chris and Anj, I enjoyed the Netflix Daredevil and especially the D’Onofrio’s portrayal of Kingpin. SPOILER ALERT: Fisk actually has a character arc, in that he starts off seeing all the evil he does as justified by his gentrification objectives. By the end of Season 1, he comes to accept that he’s just rationalizing his malevolence. That was also refreshing.

    In my opinion, the first and third seasons were the best, though the second is absolutely worth watching. One warning: The first few episodes of Season 1 are so poorly lit that one episode’s credits actually listed a dimming technician instead of a lighting guy. I mean, you can see what’s going on for most of those episodes, but they turn into radio dramas for a few scenes.

    1. Yes, the problem is the bandwidth Netflix uses to stream its programs. The signal loss translates as oversaturated blacks and thus, complete darkness on scenes. At a guess, a DVD version wouldn’t have this problem.

        1. It’s killed a number of horror movies for me as well. You’d think things SPECIFICALLY MADE for Netflix would be told to brighten things up to compensate…

  8. Well now we know that there’s no difference between “Morning Hot Squad” and “Hot Squad After Dark”. Not that I actually wondered that, but there it is!

    Khoryphos: As a computer programmer, when I look at code I wrote even a year ago, I always think “I could make this better.” As I understand, the same is true of musicians, writers, and artists. Now imagine having no deadline to put a stop to revising your art for Five. Thousand. Years. That’s sounds like hell on Earth! #IRememberTheToque

    Killer Shrike: Man pony tails should be depicted as a drawback more in comics. They’re such an obvious thing to grab in a fight to get the upper hand. #NoCapes #NoMannyTails

    King, Hannibal King: I knew him more from the 90s series Nightstalkers, where he teamed up with Blade and fancy-rich-guy-with-guns, and it was fneh. Hannibal himself would fit pretty well as a supernatural gumshoe, but maybe he resembles John Constantine too much, so they’d have to avoid making him a copycat.

    Kingpin: Always intimidated by this character, he’s just impressive looking. I had forgotten that he’s 6’7″ tall! Someone that big coming after you, yeah, just run. But also, the comment “it looks like his shirt is giving birth to his head.” Now I’d end up laughing if I saw him, so I’m double-dead.

    Thanks for the laughs, Hot Squad!

    1. Tim, your point on Khoryphos reminds me of the saying, “Art is never finished — only abandoned.”

      I don’t know who originally said it. I, of course, learned it from Tony Stark.

  9. Good to hear everyone’s back together! It’s sound like all of you had fun being in a room together and I enjoyed listening. The Hot Squad always makes the day more pleasing and, these days, that’s incredibly appreciated!

    Khoryphos – I really enjoyed the “Drummer face” comment. Having played in multiple bands in the past, I know exactly what drummer face looks like. It’s sad that the drummer always gets made fun of considering they are the backbeat (pun intended) of the band. For Khoryphos himself, I’m not sure he’s the “Wonderwall” guy at parties. I think he’s more like the beat poet in a coffee shop. He strums one or two chords and drones on how “April is the cruelest month.” He then tells me to, “Wake up, sheeple!” No thanks.

    Killer Shrike – He seemed more important than he is because of my memories of reading one Spider-Man comic. He definitely is a mort and a ripoff of Batman but maybe I was going through my Batman phase at the time.

    King, Hannibal – I like how Hannibal was immediately a “hot” then the rest of the conversation was about vampires. Maybe the heroes/villains don’t need to work so hard on their branding, to be considered hot. I’m looking at you, Killer Shrike!

    Kingpin – Like Anj, Kingpin is always a Spider-Man villain to me. But having said that, I always thought he was just a stronger, less successful Lex Luthor.

    Thanks again for getting together for us oHotCrew and bringing us joy in these crazy times! Keep up the great work!

  10. Thanks for another great episode. I’m glad to hear that you guys aren’t getting sick of each other… I mean getting each other sick.

    Khoryphos: I really hope we get to hear Khoryphos sing in the upcoming Eternals movie. Perhaps, he could even serve as a singing narrator, like in Disney’s animated Robin Hood.

    Killer Shrike: I’m reading “The Bird Way” by Jennifer Ackerman, which has some interesting information on shrikes. Let me tell you, those are some cute, but viscous little birds. For example, the loggerhead shrike is famous for impaling its prey (consisting of amphibians, insects, lizards, small mammals, and small birds) on thorns or barbwire to keep until it’s ready for a snack. I think Killer Shrike should have worked impalement into his shtick. Now, that would set him apart from Batman.

    King, Hannibal: She turned me into a vampire!… I got better.

    Kingpin: I wondered if Kingpin’s giant Teddy bear-like build would score him any points with the girls. I guess not.

  11. Fun show as ever.

    I’m amazed Khoryphos wasn’t immediately dismissed for the super-dork outfit, awful hair and ‘bad smell under the nose ‘ look. If I’m at a party and someone gets out a guitar, I leave, I can’t solo bear acoustic guitar, especially when the strings squeak.

    I don’t see the Killer Shrike/Batman thing beyond the mask. He is rubbish, though. I’ve seen him only in an issue of Marvel Team-Up, in which he teams up with a metal skeleton called Modular Man, to make him seem less silly. It doesn’t work, Spidey and Beast don’t even work up a sweat. There, though, the plume definitely reads as cloth.

    I don’t mind Hannibal King wearing baggy clothes, nothing wrong with a bit of mystery (and Dr Anj is waaaaay hotter than old Hannibal).

    I hadn’t heard about the Queen not liking garlic. That’s not surprising as Prince Charles is great-grandson 16 times removed of Vlad The Impaler – he actually owns a guest house in Romania and considers the place his second home. You can book it… shall we go?

    I laughed at the idea of Kingpin as a hand model. Have you seen the episode of Hot in Cleveland guest starring Sean Hayes as a hand model? It’s Season 3, episode 5 and is a hoot.

    Surely we fans are OHOTMUtants?

  12. I’ve mentioned an old supers RPG where my GM used traced figures from this series. We had a few “dark adventures” with pre-made characters My character was “Not Doctor Strange” , The Mage, taken from “lute boy”. One of the others was “Not Batman” (I don’t remember the exact name) taken from Killer S- third. The third player was “Not the Question”, The Vagabond based on King.
    The big bad for that session was a Kingpin knock off-
    I knew they all came from OHOTMU- I didn’t realize they were in a row in a single issue-

    1. I would totally be the type of person to have one-off adventures based on contiguous pages of OHOTMU or Who’s Who, without even filing the numbers off. Like, players visit Abel at the House of Secrets and fight the Demons Three, Abra Kadabra and Aegeus as Adam Strange, the two Air Waves and Alley-Kat-Abra. How? That’s the GM Challenge.

      The next session has the All-Star Squadron (and Amazing Man obligatorily) fighting Amazo. And so on.

      1. Aha! Is this the origin of Who’s Editing? Because I absolutely LOVE the creative challenge posed by that show! It’s the other show (besides oHOTmu or NOT) that I store on my compute to play multiple times!

  13. Dear Mike,

    Congrats on being able to record in the “Diva Station” once again! Not even a once-a-century pandemic can sink the mighty oHOTmu or NOT! Let”s roll out the commentary!

    Khoryphos: This is probably my favorite analysis of the four featured in the episode, which I would not have expected with a heavy (pun intended) like the Kingpin included in the mix!

    I love how the ladies nailed every cliche that exists about dating musicians! It only stands to reason — if Khoryphos is a master of all musical instruments, then OF COURSE he would also be the master of all musician cliches! I wonder if the fact that he’s been working on the same composition since the Roman Empire is the Marvel bullpen poking fun at the stereotype!

    As I understand it, the Eternals are often confused for the classic Greek mythological pantheon; why not take it further? What if Khoryphos once took off his boxing helmet in 1966 and was mistaken for Paul McCartney? Perhaps he spent time in Vienna tutoring a young Mozart? Oh God… what if Khoryphos WROTE Wonderwall?!

    Killer Shrike: When your costume is so obviously derivative of a much more popular character, you’re doomed to instantly forgettable status. The comments about Spider-Man and Cottonmouth were more interesting. Who were we talking about again?

    Hannibal King: Mr. King is definitely the hottest of this bunch. This character could so easily drop into the tortured vampire stereotype, yet his narrative is all about overcoming those expectations. He not only broods, he smoulders!

    Kingpin: Thank you to the ladies for pinpointing the “fridging” of Vanessa Fisk. There is so much wasted potential from not bothering to explore the facets of this relationship, and the few probing questions posed by the ladies in this episode prove it. I suddenly want to know more, and I know Marvel will never tell me.

    Summary: Thank you again for another fun show, although this episode has brought with it a sobering realization: a significant amount of Marvel trivia that I have stored in my brain doesn’t come from reading the comics, but from reading OHOTMU! I’m not a first-hand expert at Bronze-Age Marvel, but I read the synopsis!

  14. Even as I stoically bear up to all this musician-bashing, I will share a favorite joke. What is the definition of a gentleman? Someone who can play the accordion, but doesn’t.

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