The "Guardian Project" was comprised of many superheroes who were, for legal reasons, definitely not related to any existing Marvel products. Like the Panther, who is definitely not Black Panther:

NHLAh yes, the famous Florida/Wakanda student exchange program.

Or the Maple Leaf, who's definitely not a roided-up Guardian of the Galaxy in bike shorts ...

NHL"I am Groot, eh?"

Or how about the Penguin, who's definitely not an icy Cyclops:

NHLThe massive hernia is a new touch.

And speaking of totally not the X-Men, the Coyote definitely isn't Wolverine in a jacket:

NHLWas Wolverine completely shaven? Didn't think so.

But Lee didn't only borrow from his own comic book empire; he also took a few trips down DC Lane. Like with this unholy combination of Magneto and Mr. Freeze:

NHLLoves: hockey, going insane because of his dead wife.

The marketing stunt was a disaster, with fan backlash so severe that the NHL quietly pulled the superhero roster and scrubbed their website clean of any reference. Yet despite suffering a disaster of Infinity War proportions, the company continued milking investors for money, promising that this league of extraordinary copyright violations would get their own superhero movie -- a super-lie that got them super-sued to the super-tune of half a million normal-dollars. (There's no such thing as a super-dollar. Don't be ridiculous.)

After causing way too many awkward conversations between parents and young soccer fans, UEFA admitted their mistake and reaffirmed that "the sex aids are not produced by UEFA." European soccer would never associate with something that doesn't immediately go limp and start flopping around after the slightest touch.

But what makes Freeburg High special is that it didn't learn its lesson. In 2015, a major backlash hit the school when the Little People of America presented them with a petition to change the mascot. Amazingly, the town stuck to the many guns we assume they have stockpiled in their trailers. The school rejected the heartfelt petition to cheers from the sweaty Freeburg crowd claiming that "when someone messes with something like tradition, you decide something's worth fighting for instead of letting it go." And there's no greater American tradition than small-town folks being close-minded embarrassments to the rest of the country.

Related: 7 Famous Mascots (Who Once Looked Scary As Hell)

Buddie was introduced in 2015 to help raise awareness in Ohio right before an important legalization vote. And at no point did the folks in charge consider that maybe a campaign for a drug shouldn't have a kid-friendly cartoon mascot that makes it look like smoking weed turns you into a superhero.

ResponsibleOhioOf all the mascots' vans you shouldn't get into, this one ranks pretty highly

Many people, including children's advocates and other marijuana activists, attacked Buddie. Some even compared him to Joe Camel, the onetime cartoon mascot for tobacco. But the creators refused to back down, claiming he was a great contribution to weed activism. Sadly, that pep and cheer was for naught, as Ohio failed to legalize marijuana in 2015. And if you're looking for anyone to blame, there's a six-foot Brussels sprout in a Superman costume that you could probably point a finger at.

When the new Texas Amarillo Sox mascot was unveiled in 2011, fans were mighty shocked when they saw his big stiff ... stocking. Yes, the designers had given it a huge bulge at a 90-degree angle, right at crotch level. And if you think that makes him look like he's in an all-bee production of Boogie Nights, that's just your own dirty mind.

Even the team itself admitted that it looks like a banana with a massive boner. General manager Mark Lee quickly nixed it, saying, "I'm watching 25 to 30 little kids having a ball with him, and their parents sitting there thinking something else." The team quickly auctioned off the costume on eBay to one lucky fetishist, and have since moved on to become the Texas Airhogs. We're honestly too afraid to look up what that mascot looks like.

He got real mad when the concession stands stopped selling meth.

In 2016, Japan's rugby team the Sunwolves chose a wolf as their mascot -- one whose costume looks less like something worn by Michael J. Fox and more like something worn by a deranged serial killer. The mascot was so terrifying that fans avoided the supposed ambassador of cheer, and children were too scared to even take pictures with him.

Fortunately, this nightmare spirit from a Norse folktale only lasted for one season, when the fans' unanimous hatred of it convinced the team to give the wolf a makeover, resulting in the more chibi-looking cartoon pal Wolvy.

Sunwolves/JSRANeutered in every sense of the word.

In 2014, the Raiders introduced Riley, a cartoonish-looking, headscarf-wearing Middle Eastern guy. Why would an all-white Canadian hockey team called "The Raiders" have this as their mascot? According to them, it wasn't meant to be offensive, but to pay homage to their original mascot, an even more blatant Arab stereotype.

Prince Albert Raiders"Homage" is Arabic for "racist white person."

Unsurprisingly, this was met with a huge backlash from just about everyone. The team quickly pulled the mascot and reintroduced Riley the Raider as more of a cartoon dude who's "friendly and silly," and whose favorite hobbies include "dog-walking at the SPCA" and "hugs."

Prince Albert Raiders He's so happy not to get any more letters from the ACLU.

Some alumni have even tattooed the mushroom cloud on their arms, which must lead to many proud conversations at bars convincing women that no, they don't have a tattoo of a fart, it's actually a celebration of mass murder and the looming threat of WWIII.

Meet Gabibbo, the mascot for one of Italy's biggest media companies. In a lot of ways, it nails that perfect mix of being utterly nondescript yet unsettling at the same time, like something a dermatologist surgically removed from Barney the Dinosaur's back. And this abomination wasn't even an original idea. The company stole the look from another bug-eyed blood clot from across the world: Western Kentucky University's Big Red.

Western Kentuky University Behold the masterpiece worthy of plagiarism

When WKU found out the Italian media stallion had stolen their idea (the creators outright admitted this was the case), a 15-year court battle ensued. That almost went sideways in 2018, when the courts decided that a dumb red blob is too generic to copyright. But then an Italian court rebooted the lawsuit, meaning WKU still has a chance to collect a whopping $250 million in damages, which is about $250 million more than that doofy tomato of a mascot would've ever earned them.

Related: The 6 Most Clearly Disturbing Mascots In Marketing History

It was all so cute. Meyer even wrote the province's executive council an email as Gerome, which opened with a line that reads like a variant of the Nigerian prince scam aimed at Hobbits: "I come from a long line of gnomes who have been featured in European myths and legends." The government immediately fell in love. They made Gerome the elderly imp their unofficial mascot. Right in time to cheer up all those workers whose jobs they were threatening.

Government of Manitoba"Hey, I can see the house you can no longer afford from here!"

That's right, Gerome G. Gnome didn't bring people cobbled shoes or neat gardens, but mass firings. Right after the gnome campaign, Manitoba left its government employees in the cold by letting a vital no-layoffs clause lapse. So while Gerome was seeing the sights on the taxpayer's dime, the government pledged to cut 1,200 jobs, leaving those hard-working employees with a lot more free time to spend at gnome. Ha! Classic. Really did ruin lives, though.

Amherst, Massachusetts shares its name with Lord Jeffery Amherst, a colonial military commander who conquered the land that would become New France and helped shape early North America. But scroll half an inch down his Wikipedia page, and you'll see that Lord Jeff is better-known for being a white supremacist who hatched plans on how best to wipe Native Americans off the face of the country he helped steal from them. In a 1763 letter, he wrote: "You will do well to try to inoculate the Indians by means of blankets, as well as to try every other method that can serve to extirpate this execrable race." Which is a tricky catchphrase to put into a pep rally chant.

So sometime in the '60s, Amherst College figured they should get in on his creepy Unabomber fame. They made "Lord Jeff" their mascot, and even named their college hotel the Lord Jeffrey Inn. It has to be the only hotel in the world where no guest has ever had the courage to ask for an extra blanket.

"Please please please don't litter this. We're already in enough trouble."

Finally, in 2016, Amherst students spoke out, and the college agreed to remove all association with the genocidal colonizer, instead choosing a woolly mammoth as their new mascot. Hopefully somebody vetted his Facebook page first to make sure the mammoth is not also a murderous racist. These are tricky times.

Christian Markle is a cool dude. Hit him up on Facebook.

For more, check out How Breakfast Cereal Mascots Brainwashed You:

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