As an Internet blowhard and historian of comics nonsense, I have opinions about the quality of discourse that surrounds our favorite fictional friends. Witness the endless series of listicles mocking Floyd Belkin, the wannabe Legionnaire dubbed Arm-Fall-Off Boy or, in the reboot continuity, Splitter. Designed to be a ridiculous Silver Age style one-shot joke, he has far outstripped his shelf-life and even made his way into a high-profile film outing, thanks to the power of mockery. As joke Legionnaires go, he’s better than The Mess, not as good as Eyeful Ethel and perfectly suited for his job, which is to remind us that superheroes are kinda silly at their core, leading to today’s laughable query…
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) once created a remarkably powerful goober called ‘Meteor-Attractor Boy’, who could call meteors down to hit him, but could immediately regenerate all meteor-derived damage, asking: Who is YOUR favorite silly joke character, a la Arm-Fall-Off Boy?
3 Comments
Golden Oldie. Aunt May, The Herald of Galactus. ‘Nuff said.
Groo the Wanderer, a send-up of Conan that now has as deep a history, lore, and tradition as its inspiration, all while never losing site of its satiric roots. Also, I’m pretty sure that Groo himself inspired the character “Groosalugg” on the TV show Angel, so when a parody joke character inspires its own knock-offs you know its got legs.
Groo is a good one!