LUDIC LOG

It's time for Volume XXIII of our tour through Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe, and unlike last week's snoozer, this issue is almost wall-to-wall freaks! I'll spare you any details of the Joe Staton/Mike DeCarlo cover art (terrible), the lengthy letters column (geeky) and the changes to the masthead (infiltrated by the likes of Barbara Randall and E. Nelson Bridwell) and jump right in. This could be a long one, depending on how much my head hurts trying to think of something to say about this aggregation of nitwit characters.

Without further ado, here's Who's Who issue #23, the issue I like to call 'Misc. T'.

SYRENE. Whenever a Who's Who entry starts out with "More than a million years in the future", I fall into a coma so fast I bash my head open on the keyboard. Which is far less damaging than actually trying to make sense out of this Superman villainess' ridiculously complicated origin. Basically, it's your typical 'born in the future, daughter of a powerful sorcerer with a magic rock, other sorcerer tries to steal the magic rock, dad throws magic rock backwards in time, daughter marries other sorcerer, they go back in time to get the magic rock, they discover magic rock in 20th century, fight Superman for some reason, other sorcerer goes to Hell, daughter goes back in time to 14th century with magic rock, other sorcerer makes deal with Satan to get out of hell, fights wife for magic rock, brings Superman back in time, splits him in two, daughter kidnaps half of Superman, other sorcerer follows her, sends Superman even further back in time, daighter uses magic rock to kill Superman, other sorcerer brings Superman back to life, Superman follows other Superman back in time and becomes one Superman again, then sends both sorcerer and wife back in time to fight each other' story.

TALIA. The daughter of R'as al-Ghul (for some reason, her name is listed as "unrevealed" rather than "Talia al-Ghul" or even "Talia bint-Ghul"), Talia was one of the many marginally psychotic bad girls that Batman fell in love with. Bats seemed to have a thing for women who wanted to kill him. Around the time this story was written, DC was trying their damnedest to steal Daredevil's thunder by turning Talia into an Elektra clone, as evidenced by the incidental art here, where she looks just like, and I mean just like Elektra -- same outfit, same haircut, even the same weaponry. Eventually, the Batman editors got of DD's dick and Talia turned into a fascinating character on her own, but this entry is a bit of a sore-thumb time capsule of Talia: The Ripoff Years.

THE TATTOOED MAN. This dim-bulb Silver Age baddie discovered a chemical compound which could be used to draw pictures that would come to life. He decided to tattoo images on his body that could easily be used in battle and started picking on Green Lantern (the reasoning behind this is that the ink contained a "yellow chemical in the compound", even though all his tattoos are clearly light blue). The only thing is, he picked the most worthless things imaginable to tattoo on himself. Sure, there's a dragon, which could be pretty tough, and a jet fighter, which could be distracting, but what about lame stuff like a snake or a chain or a butterfly? What about an anchor? What the fuck is he going to do with an anchor, get GL to trip over it? And what about the sword, the axe, the mace? Not only would it be easier to just carry these things around, how are they going to help you against heavy hitters like the Flash? Explain the American flag. Is Elongated Man going to be defeated by his own patriotism? Why didn't this genius draw a tank on himself, or a starship, or Superman? You suck, Tattooed Man. I'm glad the Goldface Mob killed you.

THE TEEN TITANS. One of the better series of its day, drawn by the stellar George Perez and written with X-Men-into-Beverly Hills 90210 flair by Marv Wolfman. The Titans tended to break up for odd reasons; the first time, they killed a speaker at an anti-war rally (!), and the second time, they just fell apart because every teenager in America was joining up, just like the Blink 182 fan club. Another odd detail: the second incarnation of the Titans had their headquarters in the basement of a Long Island disco.

TELLUS. Part of the new wave of Legion of Superheroes members introduced by Paul Levitz, whose only criterion for introducing new Legionnaires was that they suck. Tellus was no exception: he was a huge, gross, yellow, slimy underwater blob thing with disgusting little chicken-stumps for legs, and he had telekinetic powers. He also could not survive outside of water unless he wore a special environmental suit. Well, that's really worthwhile, right? A Legionnaire who can be killed by an eight-year-old with a pocketknife or a slingshot? Another triumph from the man who brought you Quislet.

TEMPEST I. Just one quick note about this snoreworthy member of the new Doom Patrol: after retiring from the superhero game, he became a medical doctor and started a swank Park Avenue practice "with loans secured from a friendly loanshark". Whaaaaa? Okay, first of all, I don't think they would have pulled that shit if Tempest was white. Second, is that how a lot of Park Avenue medical practices get bankrolled, through loansharking? And third, "friendly" loanshark? Did he also go to a happy-go-lucky drug dealer, retain the services of a jolly pimp, and make payments to an extortionist with a song in his heart?

THE TEN-EYED MAN. Despite not having any purple in his costume, the Ten-Eyed Man could very well be the lamest supervillain of all time. He was a Vietnam vet who had a grenade blow up in his face, thus blurring his vision permanently. Returning to America, he got a job as a security guard with a company that apparently had very lax hiring standards. The warehouse he was working at got bombed, blinding him completely, but he ran into some completely fucked doctor who grafted his optic nerves to nerves in his hands, allowing him to see through his fingers. That's his superpower, folks: he can see through his fingers. He fought Batman and Man-Bat, and proved once in for all that you haven't reached the bottom of the barrel until you can say you've been Man-Bat's arch-enemy. Curiously, the incidental art to his entry shows him punching Batman with his fists, which would, of course, render him blind.

TERRA. Whoo, boy. What Kitty Pryde was to Marvel fans, Terra was to DC fans. And what was that? A tiny-breasted adolescent girl who became the unfortunate receptacle of hundreds of gallons of, er, hope from horny teenaged geeks in the 1980s. Terra was even more lusted after than Kitty, in fact, because she was a bad girl: while posing as an upstanding member of the Teen Titans, she was actually a demented loon with a bad attitude and a shitty childhood who wanted revenge on the whole fucking world, and almost got it. The story of Terra -- the "Judas Contract" story arc of Teen Titans -- was actually one of the better reads of its time, but it's really fun to look at the entry and remember the grip she had over legions of fanboys back in the day. She was pure Eurotrash; she wore cheap furs, had little-girl buck teeth and bad '80s hair, lied like a senator and swore like a sailor, and best of all, as the George Perez art proves, you could tell she was evil, because she smoked. If there's ever a Titans movie, Terra must be played by Mila Kunis, the spoiled Russian immigrant brat-teen from That '70s Show.

TERRA-MAN. The inexplicably durable Terra-Man was proof that no concept for a character was so stupid that it wouldn't eventually show up in a comic book somewhere. Terra-Man was the son of an Old West outlaw who was, by one of those coincidences that aren't all that coincidental in funnybooks, taken away by a visiting space alien. He grew up to be a bandit himself, only this time equipped with his adopted alien guardian's hi-tech gizmos, and fought Superman, because why not? Everyone else does. Terra-Man looks exactly like a movie cowboy, but he's from outer space! Sort of! And he rides a winged horse! And his six-shooters shoot energy bolts! And he uses tumbleweeds that are actually deadly alien spores (no, really!)! And he eats a special magical chewing tobacco that lets him create illusions! I swear I am not making this up! For some reason, the writers used this asinine character again and again.

THAROK. Okay, I can accept that a criminal from the future would get shot by the police during a robbery and have the whole left half of his body replaced by robotic parts. But why in the name of God would you only wear clothes on your human half? Where would you even get shorts that cover half your crotch? How would a shirt that stopped halfway across your torso, vertically, stay on? Tharok, you moron, you can wear a shirt that covers your whole chest and we'll still know you're a robot, okay?

THE THINKER. Snazzy Gil Kane art, again illustrating a profoundly ill-concieved villain. This guy was a foe of both the Golden and Silver Age Atom, and his gimmick was a "thinking cap", a mechanical doohickey that gave him all kinds of psionic powers. Unfortunately, it was completely idiotic-looking. It appeared to be a plastic colander turned upside down and attached to a Japanese kabuki mask. He wore it, naturally, with a purple costume.

THRILLER. Even Thriller and her Seven Seconds, an intriguing if very short-lived series by Ambush Bug genius Robert Loren Fleming, succumbed to the ironclad rule of adventure groups. Lantern-jawed tough guy hero: Tony "Salvo" Salvotini. Big muscular bruiser: Beaker Parish. Hot blonde with porn star name: Janet "White Satin" Valentine. Wisecracking goof-off: Robert "Proxy" Furillo. Black guy: Fred "Data" Martin. Foreigner: "Crackerjack". Emergency backup lantern-jawed tough guy hero: Dan Grove. Yes, by following these simple rules, you too can create an action-adventure series that will be cancelled and forgotten after a dozen issues!

THUNDER AND LIGHTNING. There's nothing much to tell about these generic Asian super-villains, other than that their dad was an alien whose ship crashed in Cambodia and who disguised himself has a soldier in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War, figuring this would be the easiest way to get it back. That makes Thunder and Lighting the very first superhumans who owe their existence to Henry Kissinger.

THUNDERBOLT. I know nothing about "Peter Cannon...Thunderbolt!" He apparently had his own title for a while, and judging from the style of the art, it was done during the Golden Age or the very early days of the Silver Age, and I must have missed it, because I have never seen this character before. And believe me, I'd have remembered, because of his extraordinarily gay costume. Topped off with blond curls, we head down to a cutesy domino mask, a gold belt, white wrestling boots, and, best of all, a long-sleeved tunic with shorts! Best of all, the costume alternates red and blue quarter-sections, which makes Thunderbolt look like a pair of 3D glasses that has come to life and rented an apartment in the Tenderloin. Whoever came up with the idea to give a character long sleeves and short pants should get some kind of medal.

TIGER. Tiger was an Asian kid who became Judomaster's boy sidekick. He has no name. They just call him Tiger. Because, you know, if you're going to take some kid and make him fight his own people with hand-to-hand combat in the middle of the deadliest war in human history, why should you bother to find out what his real name is? I mean, he's just a Jap. Probably you couldn't pronounce it anyway.

TIMBERWOLF. This was the Levitz-era Legion's ripoff of Wolverine. Timberwolf looked like he smelled bad, and he was a big drug addict and had a violent temper. Eventually even the pushover Light Lass got tired of his trifling ass and kicked him to the curb, thus establishing him as the David Silver of the LSH continuity. Strangely, though this issue of Who's Who features both a Kitty Pryde ripoff and a Wolverine ripoff, we never got to see a Terra-Timberwolf miniseries badly drawn by Al Milgrom. Wouldn't that have been somethin'!

THE TIME COMMANDER. "The Modern Monte Cristo". What does that even mean, DC Comics?

THE TIME TRAPPER. Despite the ridiculous name, the Time Trapper was one of the better DC villains, and definitely the best Legion of Super-heroes villain. A completely mysterious being from the far future, he ruled over the Earth just prior to its final destruction. He attacked the LSH repeatedly, apparently out of sheer bloody-mindedness, and made a lot of other DC superheroes' lives miserable as well, for no discernable reason. He looked great, a faceless ghoul in a huge scarlet cloak, ably illustrated here by the underrated Keith Giffen. And best of all, he put up a huge, impentrable energy barrier around his native time period, preventing any and all time travelers from moving past that point. This was both a good gimmick and an inordinately useful tool for continuity enforcement. Plus, it was called "The Iron Curtain of Time"! Now I ask you. How can you not like that?