LUDIC LOG

Holy hot bucket of crap! Do you realize it's already time for another installment of this as-yet-nameless (suggestions, anyone?) feature where I read old copies of DC Who's Who and make sort-of-funny comments about them? Okay, so they're not that funny, and often incomprehensible. Hey, screw you. It's my log and I can do whatever I want. Anyway, it's either this or another baffling, half-humorous story where Kafka meets Gilles Deleuze at a WWE Smackdown! taping or some fucking thing.

An apology: a lot of the jokes in this series are lost on you if you don't actually have a copy of DC Who's Who sitting in front of you as you read it. Unfortunately, I do not have a scanner or a digital camera, nor do I have any desire to pony up $200 just so that my six readers can gain more appreciation for a reference that isn't that funny to begin with. If someone has a scanner and a whole lot of time on their hands, they can go back and read all these entries, scan the appropriate stuff from their copies of Who's Who, and e-mail them to me, and I will (a) go back and pop in the graphics to fill out the entries, and (b) call them the biggest geek in all the world. Until then, you'll just have to take my word for it when I say, for example, that issue #7's Paris Cullens/Dick Giordano cover blows.

On with the show!

DOCTOR PSYCHO. The bad doctor was, according to his bio, "laughed at by his classmates because of his diminutive stature and unusually large head", and because of this, he became a hateful, embittered man with "a psychotic hatred of all women". He grew up to be a twisted, misogynist lunatic by the name of...Michael Fleischer. HA HA! No, no, I kid. Actually, Dr. Psycho's real identity is unknown, beyond the fact that the shrimpy, deformed woman-hater lives in Kitchener, Ontario and draws a comic book about an aardvark. HA HA! No, I kid again! I could keep this up all day. Anyway, here's another good line from his entry: "Doctor Psycho's only power is his psionic ability to shape ectoplasm according to his wishes." Christ! Is that all?

DOLL MAN. A completely uninteresting shrinking hero, Doll Man is noteworthy because he was a member of the Freedom Fighters. These were a gaggle of masochistic superheroes who discovered a dimensional vortex to Earth X, an alternate reality where the Axis won WWII, and decided to move there to help aid the resistance. Sure! Because, you know, when you find a world that's been conquered by the Nazis, the natural instinct is to move there! Right? The Second World War ended too soon, didn't it? Who wouldn't want to live in a place where it was still going on?

DOLPHIN. I never read DC Showcase, so I don't know anything about Dolphin other than what the art tells me. And the art tells me that she is a super-hot chick with an incredible ass who lives underwater and wears Daisy Dukes and a cut-off sleeveless top that was specifically designed by underwater gnomes to show off her gigantic erect nipples. The Dave Stevens art shows us a SCUBA diver whose facial expression is exactly the same one most men would wear if they found Christina Aguilera swimming around in the ruins of the Titanic.

DOOM PATROL. First Doom Patrol entry: snazzy John Byrne art. Second Doom Patrol entry: scuzzy Joe Staton art. First Doom Patrol entry: Beast Boy, Mento, Elasti-Girl. Second Doom Patrol entry: Negative Woman, Tempest, drawing of Robotman with crossed eyes. Sigh.

DREAM GIRL. The writers of Legion of Superheroes always wrote Nura Nal, despite her supposed scientific genius, as the group's resident dumb blonde, which would piss me off a little more if she wasn't such a boring and useless character to begin with. The art in this entry does little to dispel this weak stereotype, actually depicting her with an empty thought balloon over her head. The entry was drawn, of course, by Doctor Psycho.

DUKE OF DECEPTION/THE DUMMY. Sharing a single page in Volume VII are perhaps two of the lamest supervillains ever created: the Duke of Deception, who is "a minor god" who works alongside Mars to get all up in Wonder Woman's business, and the Dummy, a "criminal mastermind" who, being a totally freaky-looking midget, dresses up as a ventriloquist's dummy for some reason. I must have skipped the Duke of Deception's page in Edith Hamilton's Mythology, because I'm sure that I would remember his appearance, which is disturbingly similar to that of bitchy fashion queen Mr. Blackwell. As for the Dummy...well, look. Ask yourself this. If you were a safecracker, an extortionist or a hired killer, would you willingly work for a man who looked like Charlie McCarthy?

DUO DAMSEL. This Legionnaire used to be Triplicate Girl, but one of her bodies was killed. She ended up with less power (and gravely disappointed her husband), but she did rid herself of a name that suggested a rather unfortunate secretarial theme. And speaking of her husband, DD used to have a big thing for Superboy but ended up settling for Bouncing Boy, which is a bit like having a big thing for Brad Pitt and settling for John Popper.

EASY COMPANY. Considering the un-PC, vaguely insulting nicknames Sgt. Rock gave other guys under his command (the Indian guy was "Little Sure Shot"; the guy with glasses was "4-Eyes"; the hillbilly was "Farmer Boy", etc.), it's a wonder there weren't guys called "Faggot", "Greaser", and so on. I have it on good authority that the rest of the Combat-Happy Joes referred to their chief as "Sgt. Fuckface".

ELASTIC LAD. Yes, it's Superman's pal, and everyone's favorite dickwad, Jimmy Olsen! With superpowers! Totally stupid super-powers! And the dumbest costume in the world! I mean, come on, already. He's got "ELASTIC LAD" written on his shirt in 72-point Arial. What, did he just buy a purple sweater and a Sharpie and make his outfit on the bus ride home from work? You're a loser, Jimmy Olsen.

ELASTI-GIRL. If you were a famous, beautiful actress who had the power to grow to over 100 feet in height, would you wear a short skirt? "Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a fifteen-foot-wide vagina!"

ELONGATED MAN. Okay, forget for a moment the pornographic name. Forget the fact that all stretching characters pretty much suck. Forget that he got his powers the same way that Jimmy fucking Olsen did. Listen to this, from EM's origin: "When Ralph Dibny was nine years old, his parents took him to traveling sideshow where he met an Indian rubber man. Ralph's fascination with the ability of India rubber men to stretch lasted into his adulthood." CHRIST, RALPH, GET A GODDAMN TRAIN SET OR SOMETHING! "Dibny learned that each rubber man he had met liked a soft drink called gingold." Think about this, I beg you. Here's a kid who, when he is nine, goes to see an India rubber man, and he gets so obsessed with them that he spends the next 20 years hanging out with them and asking them what kind of soda they drink. What. The fuck.

ENCHANTRESS. Marvel's Enchantress was hot and sexy and manipulative, sort of a comic book Morgan Fairchild; DC's Enchantress is hot and sexy and bugfuck crazy, sort of a comic book Sean Young. Her real name was June Moone, which can't be good for anyone.

ENEMY ACE. Hans von Hammer was always one of my favorite war-comic villains, because he wasn't a total caricature of evil. Also, what did they call him in Germany? Probably not "Enemy Ace", right? They probably called Balloon Buster Enemy Ace. Or 'that American retard who calls himself Balloon Buster". At any rate, Hans believed "the sky is the killer of us all". Which makes a lot of sense, I guess, if everyone you know flies around in it in a rickety deathtrap shooting machineguns at each other, but sort of falls flat as a universally resonant aphorism.

ERADICATOR. This minor Flash villain was a crimefighting senator named Creed Phillips (who wouldn't vote for a guy named Creed Phillips? I ask you) with a mighty man-perm and, coincidentally, the ability to blow people's heads to smithereens by touching them. Carmine Infantino, in a desperate attempt to be taken seriously, provides readers of this entry with a rather horrific illustration of this power which, when you see its somewhat, er, dramatic rendition of a guy with brain and skull fragments are flying around every which-a-way, you are quite glad is not in full color. Way to earn that Code certification, DC!