Scott Elizabeth Baird
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Thanks to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (and despite the DC Extended Universe), superheroes have become so mainstream that there are those who consider themselves comic fans who've never so much as cracked the pages of the source material. Considering that fact, we thought it might be fun to take some of the most inexplicably shithouse crazy panels from comic book history and try to make sense of them through the eyes of someone who's completely unfamiliar with the context.
It turns out, you can't. You can't do it. Want proof?
Marvel Comics
"... I really should have taken that shit first."
To say that Master Pandemonium is sort of a weird supervillain is like saying a live hedgehog is sort of a bad form of birth control. How does having baby arms -- not baby arms as in Deadpool growing back his missing hand, mind you, but baby arms as in actual babies for arms -- make him "unbeatable" as he claims above? What's his signature move, smacking you with a red-headed stepchild? Can he even feed himself, or does every hot dog he picks up from a street vendor hilariously disappear a la Bugs Bunny's carrot before it reaches his lips?
Of course, it's possible that Monsieur Pandemonium was referring to an altogether different connotation of "unbeatable." After all, the man can't even soap up his taint in the shower without facing 25-to-life and a yearly check-in with the sex offender registry.
Sure, we could explain in depth the backstory there, try to put it into some sort of context. We just choose not to. That would ruin it.
DC Comics
"CALL ME, MARTHA!"
This one doesn't strike us as all that odd, to be honest. Because who hasn't had that recurring nightmare in which their father grows to gargantuan size and deals them a swift, hurts-so-good kind of spanking?
What? No? It's only us?
Anyway, moving right along: This Superman panel is completely fucked up and not at all like anything we've ever experienced. But despite what it may look like -- namely, that Jor-El has scarfed Alice's "EAT ME" cake and is spanking Supes with a hand bigger than he is -- this is not a nightmare. Nope, Superman is absolutely enjoying the hell out of that shit. Just look at his word bubble: "Punish me, Daddy! I deserve it." It would appear Big Blue has needs that Lois Lane ain't quite fulfilling, if you catch our drift.
Little did he know there was someone conveniently close by who could've enthusiastically helped him out with that ...
DC Comics
"AND THE MEMORY OF THIS IS QUICKLY RUBBED OFF TO LATER IN THE BATCAVE."
Batman seemingly prefers his women quiet, au naturale, and ... um, resistant. "Quiet or Papa spank!" Quiet. Or Papa spank. If there were such a thing as a loving God, this phrase would have found its way verbatim (and often) into the Nolan trilogy.
And just in case you're not yet convinced that Batman has a "thing" for corporal punishment:
DC Comics
Yes, that appears to be Robin aka Dick Grayson he's giving a playful spanking to. But, hey, that was the 1940s and back then men probably gave their young crime-fighting assistants birthday spankings all the time, even when it wasn't their birthday. We certainly shouldn't assume anything weird about their relationship from that. Or, this ...
DC Comics
Taking those cold showers earlier would have prevented this panel from happening in the first place.
Here we see the multi-millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne, better known to those of us peeking into his universe through the window of omniscience as Batman, awaking from a restful slumber alongside Dick Grayson, his young ward who apparently also sleeps in his bed. The narration makes it clear that this is not the errant aftermath of a Friday-night Netflix binge, but rather how every single morning at Wayne Manor -- a sprawling estate with a number of bedrooms capable of singularly solving Gotham City's homeless problem -- begins.
But we're probably reading too much into it. When Bruce spends his days putting the Boy Wonder (emphasis on the "boy") in mortal danger, the least he can do is protect him from the boogeyman at night. He cares about him! He-
DC Comics
All right, we could probably do this all day.
Marvel Comics
Big Marvel's House
Here we join Spider-Man and Daredevil amid a pitched battle over who has the raddest new costume: Spidey's sweet-ass black-and-white ensemble, or Red's painstaking Kingpin cosplay. At least we hope it's a costume, because otherwise Matt Murdock has gone full-on Buffalo Bill and sewn his mortal enemy into a skinsuit.
While Spidey really should have been tipped off by the ridiculously over-the-top Scottish accent, his double-exclamation of "DAREDEVIL!!" would seem to indicate that he hadn't the slightest idea there was a Daredevil hiding under there. Which makes the whole scene that much more disconcerting, because it means he had every intention of ripping a dude's face clean off just now.
Dark Horse Comics
He took that one coast to coast. Literally.
At the time of this writing, a pair of Nikes named after a popular NBA star will easily set one back a crisp pair of Benjamins (don't even bother with those wrinkly sons of bitches). So who in the ever-loving hell funded a pair of size 2600 LeBrons in width "goddamned nuclear T-Rex" to support Godzilla's new hobby of posting his sick handles on YouTube?
Still cheaper than periodically rebuilding New York and/or Tokyo, we suppose.
DC Comics
Remember how, during that one childhood summer road trip, your parents told your little brother he could pick out whichever one thing he wanted from the Hard Rock Cafe gift shop, and he chose a harmonica? Remember that infernal sound it made? How it resonated with your molars, traveled clear down your spine, then bounced right back up and kicked you straight in your ohfuckthis gland?
Namor the Sub-Mariner remembers that sound. Dear God in heaven, Namor the Sub-Mariner remembers that sound.
DC Comics
TOOT!
DC Comics
Still more logical than their Batman v Superman fight.
At first glance, it appears that Robin may have taken Batman's order to construct a Bat Magnet way too literally. However, seeing as how Superman is cheering Robin on, it seems this modified magnetic crane is having precisely the desired effect. That seems like a lot of wasted effort; if Superman had wanted to make a spreadable jam out of everything below Batman's nipples, he could've just used his super-strength for that. Maybe a touch of heat vision.
Judging by Batman's face, he seems to be a bit of a sour apple about the fact that Robin has condensed him into a Bat-Pog. Perhaps Robin stole the covers one too many times last night.
Archie Comics
"And for making me feel guilty about my red arm bands!"
Captain America's origin being firmly rooted in World War II, it makes perfect sense when he's depicted punching the fascist shit out of Hitler. There is, however, no universe -- comic or otherwise -- in which it makes the least bit of sense for a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle to do so.
Wait, on closer inspection, we see that Raphael's baseball cap is embroidered "TURTLE LAND." Maybe, in the Turtleverse, that's a tiny nation that borders smack up against Germany and Poland, whose citizens were far too green (and scaly, and shelled) to meet the Aryan ideal, and thus endured countless atrocities at the hands of the Nazis. Of course, we're probably just overanalyzing this. On second thought, everyone -- fictional or non, human or reptilian, ninja or not-ninja -- should get a turn to CHOK the fascist shit out of Hitler.
DC Comics
Never hire a mohel from Craigslist.
It seems Batman ain't got time for kids who aren't old enough to share his bed without shitting themselves at 2 p.m., so it's knife time for little Timmy. Also, Batman has apparently never seen a butcher knife -- that's obviously a paring knife, more suited to transforming a radish into a delicate flower than committing infanticide. On the other hand, the knife does appear to have been imbued with the Power Cosmic, as it's gleaming like a goddamned lighthouse beacon. That's sure to help Batman see what he's doing as he, to use the words of the last panel, "slits the little cherub's throat."
Scott Elizabeth Baird can be found on Twitter @ScottEBaird.
For more insane moments from comic books, check out 6 Psychotic Punishments Doled Out By Famous Superheroes and The 6 Most Sadistic Superhero Revenge Schemes Of All Time.
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