top of page
Black_edited.jpg
Writer's pictureDerek Faraci

Five of the Weirdest Characters to Grace the Four Colored Page


This Article Originally Ran On Blumhouse.com


If you read comic books long enough, you’ll see some real weird characters. After all, we have nearly 100 years of comics, filled with millions of characters and most of those characters are really kooky. And I’m not talking Deadpool style kooky where they crack wise and break the fourth wall, I’m talking characters like Arm-Fall-Off-Boy, whose power is pretty clear from his name.


And even HE didn’t make my list of the five weirdest characters to show up in comics. Who did? Read on to find out!


Egg-Fu


Wonder Woman is one of the longest lasting superheroes in comics, which is impressive since for most of her career, her villains have been real crappy. Take Egg-Fu, a giant, racist egg. You may, for a moment think “Yeah, Egg-Fu is racist, but he created during World War II, when we were fighting the Japanese. You can kind of forgive it”. You’d be wrong to think that for many reasons, but the one I’ll focus on is when Egg-Fu was first introduced to reader - 1965


Egg-Fu, the communist egg the size of a house, who used his mustache as a weapon and spoke in an extremely offensive Charlie Chan style, still pops up in the comics from time to time, though these days he’s used mostly as a joke.


Snowflame


Everyone knows that cocaine tends to make people think they are better than they really are. Stronger, smarter, funnier. It multiplies your confidence. Then there’s Snowflame, a guy who literally got superpowers by doing coke. Aside from superhuman strength and superspeed, after a quick bump, Snowflame also gained the ability to make others high by touching them.


Not shockingly, Snowflame ran a coke cartel in Columbia right up until the New Guardians came to take him down. He ended up being killed in an explosion.


Armless Tiger Man


After losing his arms in an industrial accident when he was a child, Gustav Hertz trained to learn how to use his feet and teeth as his hands. Once fully trained, Gustav took on the moniker of Armless Tiger Man and set off on his quest to destroy every machine he could as revenge for his loss.


After being caught by the Gestapo, Armless Tiger Man was sent to the US to take out his machine hate on American made machines. Armless Tiger Man was finally stopped by the Golden Age hero Angel, who traced Armless Tiger Man to a hotel when Armless Tiger Man ordered his favorite wine, Chateau Quim.


Black Condor


When his family was killed during by the bandit Gali Kan during an expedition through outer Mongolia, the baby Richard Grey, Jr. was rescued and raised by a condor. The condor taught the baby how to fly by, as his origin comic explains "studying the movement of wings, the body motions, air currents, balance and levitation". Later found by a hermit, the feral flying child was taught manners and English. Now civilized, Grey went out and killed Gali Kan, then moved to the United States.


Shortly after arriving in the US, Grey learned of a plot to kill United States Senator Thomas Wright. Grey tried to stop the assassination, but failed. Figuring no one would mind, Grey took over the life of the now assassinated Thomas Wright, which seems really messed up to me. When not pretending to be Senator Wright, Richard Grey Jr. put on as few clothes as he could and fought crime as Black Condor.


Rex the Wonder Dog


Imagine, for a moment, that it is 1952 and you work at DC comics. Imagine that, for some reason, you want to do a new version of Captain America, but not just another human guy. Also, you don’t have the rights to Captain America because he’s Marvel, not DC. So you figure, to hell with it, and you make Captain America a dog. That is Rex the Wonder Dog’s origin.


Rex, a German Shepard in the US Army’s K-9 Corps, had all the qualities that Dr. Anabolus was looking for, so Dr. Anabolus turned Rex into a super soldier with his secret serum. The serum gave Rex super strength, superspeed, and super intelligence. Then, still following the Captain America format, Dr. Anabolus was killed by a Nazi spy and left no records on how to create the serum.


Rex fought in Korea, then retired and lived with the family of his best pal, Major Dennis. When Dennis’ son was accused of murder, Rex found the real killer by doing something the police never bothered to try - following the clues left at the scene of the crime. After that, Rex became a private detective, then he became a Forest Ranger, and when he got bored with that, a stunt dog for Hollywood. Rex could ride horses and was an expert bull fighter and on at least one occasion, he fought some dinosaurs. Sometimes, Rex would team up with the Justice League to fight aliens or whatever was going on that week.


Meanwhile, your dog is eating it’s own poop.


7 views0 comments

Comments


bottom of page