A failed artist. Monstrous soldiers. A laughing talk show host. Someone you sue for malpractice. The reverse Justice League. Which are hot, which are not? The Girls of the Hot Squad continue their evaluation of Who’s Who #5’s entries based on sheer datability.
Featuring permanent panelists Elyse, Josée, Nathalie, Shotgun, and Amelie.
Listen to Episode 29 below (the usual mature language warnings apply), or subscribe to the feed on Apple Podcasts or Spotify!
Relevant images and further credits at: Who’s Hot and Who’s Not ep.30 Supplemental
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In the year 2000 a Creature Commandos comic came out that updated some of their looks & added new members like a mummy medic to the team. I LOVED y’all’s reaction to the Creeper! It was awesome I replayed that part 5 times. I think that the Crime Syndicate should have had counterparts for Martian Manhunter & Aquaman for the 7 members of the J L A. I wonder what they would have come up with.
They DID, eventually. The Sea King is Aquaman’s counterpart, and there’s an evil Martian called J’edd J’arkus.
Crazy Quilt may be somewhat of a loser, but I always have a fond spot for him. He showed up on Jason Todd’s first day on the job as Robin and nearly beat him to death, trying to get revenge on Dick Grayson for blinding him. Plus he’s the villain in one of my favorite episodes of Batman: The Brave and the Bold!
I picked up the trade collecting the original Creature Commandos stories a few years back, and man, that was a fun read! Glad the girls though Lucky was hot, poor guy needs some love. But Velcro always was a weird name for a vampire (not a sponsor).
The Creeper concept falls apart when you say it out loud, hence the girls’ reaction.
I much prefer the BTAS version of the Crime Doctor. Very sympathetic, with his mobster brother dragging him into crime.
Wow, Ultraman really does look like Bruce Campbell in the Crime Syndicate entry! Interesting that the girls seem to have no love for the “Player on the Other Side” concept most of us fanboys eat up with a spoon, beginning here with the Crime Syndicate, and famously in Star Trek’s “Mirror, Mirror”.
Crazy Quilt
One of the true joys of the OHOTMU podcast is the girl’s freshest possible view on the most obscure characters: A Dr Frankenstein-esque take on Crazy Quilt, manically cobbling together abominations from the remains of his victims is – quite honestly – the greatest Crazy Quilt story concept ever proposed – it’s weird, compellingly psychotic and darker than dark. Get Joe Hill on writing chores and take my money already.
In a complete 180 degree turn, the attempts to rehabilitate the character into a sensitive, artistic man with a skull-mounted laser and a penchant for crafting and needlework is really very sweet.
Creature Commandos
One thing we Earth-Primers seem to have going for us is our relatively strong workplace safety laws, when compared to Earth-1, Earth-2… in fact almost all DC and Marvel comic books.
The lasting harms done to innocents from inadvertent radiation exposure or accidentally consuming some kind of weird chemical in a lab are unconscionably common.
Do Unions have no power in these Universes? Surely the compensation payments for the permanent harmful effects of these freak incidents would justify some sort of legislation.
Dr Myrra Rhodes had her hair turned into snakes? Meh… could’ve been worse!
Given the girl’s well documented appreciation for the male organ, if “Lucky” Taylor’s Frankenstein’s Monster doesn’t shape up to be much of a “date”, a new member could always be sewn in as a more… satisfactory substitute.
The Crime Syndicate
Another great concept from the girls: a Bizzaro / Ultraman team up in a Superman book? Me am definitely NOT intrigued to see how that one would play out!
On the other hand, calling writers creatively lazy for not coming up with their own supervillain teams is just not on. Ma’am… have you heard of The Masters of Disaster? Or The Demolition Team? Or The Aryan Brigade? Or The Terrible Trio? No… because they suuuck!
Please – spare us from more of these one-off groups of lame supervillains. Trust us on this one, ladies – evil versions of superheroes is usually about as good as it gets!
Creeper: I am a complete sucker for Ditko and especially his DC work. So I unabashedly love The Creeper. The whole thing makes little sense and so I love all the swings at the plate people take to try and have it make sense.
Giffen saying Ryder was pumped full of drugs when he was at the party so when he becomes the Creeper he is out of his mind of hallucinogens. Others saying it is a demon possessing him. Still others pointing out the insanity that a professor is both a quantum teleportation expert AND a biological serum expert. He isn’t Spider-Man but he is awesome. I was hoping for the hot!
Crime Syndicate: I also have to give it a hot because some of the inanity of Earth 3 – US discovering England, etc – is too much. Just make them evil heroes. Done. We don’t need the weirdness. Plus, Ultraman’s shoulders … brrrrrr ….
Always fun and glad the crew liked the OHOTMU page!
That’s by far the most interesting and fun conversation about Crazy Quilt there ever has been or ever will be. Great work.
Per Degaton did call the Crime Syndicate “An ersatz version of the Justice Society.” (That’s where I first heard of the word ersatz.)
Amelie’s “I hate that I f**king like him!” (for the Creeper) should definitely go on a shirt…
“Power Ring” is indeed a silly name for the Crime Syndicate’s Green Lantern counterpart, though some would argue that “Green Lantern” is a silly name as well. In the comic book lore at the time, Hal Jordan had come up with the “Green Lantern” superhero name himself, inspired by what his power battery looked like (in SHOWCASE #22*), so the logic is that his Earth 3 counterpart named himself after the ring instead…
*This was retconned in the retelling of Hal Jordan’s origin story in GREEN LANTERN #59, in which Abin Sur referred to those who possess the power batteries as Green Lanterns (to explain the concept of the Green Lantern Corps) while speaking to Hal Jordan telepathically. Hal even said on page 6 of that story, “At the time, I thought I had given myself that name — but actually it was planted in my mind by Abin Sur!”