Stupormens

I started this blog nearly 2 weeks ago, but it kept spiraling. The more research I did the more Superhero characters I found to be butchered by one or more people. My list went from 5, to 7, to 15.. and now I'm going to do one at a time for as long as want. Because let's face it, there is always something really bad about our beloved Super heroes, be it Batman's endless supply of arse-backwards gadgets (shark repellent anyone?) or even Spiderman's "emo stage" in the latest movie.

This series of articles is not about Superheroes and Villains that suck, instead this focuses on the issues of perfectly good characters made shithouse through means not under their control, and who better to start with than the Man of Steel himself?

COMIC CHARACTERS WHO SUCK (for reasons out of their control)

#1 Superman


I'd be an ignorant tool to give you an introduction to Supes, as everyone in the world knows who he is, last son of Krypton, defender of blah blah blah

When you look at him from a casual standpoint, you know Superman is good, he's easily one of the most recognised characters in existence, he saves kittens from trees and puts bank robbers behind bars. Everyone loves him.

But when you get actually into the character, if you're like me in any way at all, you'll notice that Superman is as entertaining as watching grass grow.

Problem #1: Over Experienced

The main problem with Superman is that he is just TOO super. He can fly, he's super strong, he's nearly invincible, he has this array of gimmicky powers PLUS he can perv on women through walls. If he were invisible he'd have it all, and he wouldn't be Superman either, he'd be Rape Ghost.

Watching the old cartoon VHS tape I have of Supermans adventures, nearly every episode he's tackling bank robbers, train robbers, and store robbers. The guy can punch a persons face off and he's wasting his time rounding up bungling crooks with dollar sign bags. Does he have confidence issues? He could sell his services to the government to take out enemy regimes but he seems happy working a white collar job and stopping the odd bullet with his face.

The writers back in the day created the greatest and strongest superhero known to man, and gave him the personality of a kitten. Sure every now and then he'd lift a car or stop an escaped gorilla, but most of the time he'd just dick around and annoy his friends. Eventually the writers got out of their "1940's gaytime happy comix" stage and gave him some worthy foes. But another problem arose.

Problem #2: Generic Bad Guys

The only Superman bad guy in the entire universe I actually like is Lex Luthor, because he knows how Superman works, he's aware of his own limitations and uses his brains, instead of bulky muscle to tackle Supes, and his character in "Red Son" is just the fucking man, go out and read that book.

Every other villain can be grouped into Superman bad guy stereotypes, and you can even group how Superman defeats them too.

- Bulky Dumbarse: Superman outsmarts them
- Weak Smartarse: Superman outmuscles them
- Bulky Smartarse: Their plan backfires after they think they've defeated Superman
- Weak Dumbarse: Refer to my previous entry about bank robbers with dollar sign bags.

Sure a good writer comes along and throws a twist in, but those occurrences are few and far between, plus I haven't read every single Superman comic in existence, my knowledge of Superman isn't what I'd call "encyclopedic", so if I'm making gross assumptions by all means go shove it.

Problem #3: He was made in 1932

This isn't a problem in itself really, but because he was one of the first Superheroes made he's had to endure everything that went wrong in comics too. If there is one thing I'd applaud Superman for, it's the ability to live through the following:

Girlfriend doesn't want to marry you? Kill her. That bitch aint gonna embarrass you

Yeah, fuck you Tojo!

... auto-car....

Believe it or not, this is one of MANY gorilla/Jimmy olsen themed comics.

Nice hat, douche.

There have been periods of time in the history of comics where writers and artists were drunk at the helm. Superman had to put up a cast of no-name supporting characters, like those twins in the Super Friends, and there's even a Super Dog with a cape, who IS STILL AROUND.

He's had to team up with celebrities like Pat Boone, and tackle bad guys like Mussolini. Everything crappy that could happen to any character in the comic universe has happened to Superman.

Superman is the guinea pig for all shitty comic ideas.

Problem #4: Non Print Media

I'll give Supes this, Christopher Reeve was great on the big screen as the man of steel, and the first and second movies with him I really enjoyed. But Superman III? I don't even want to talk about it, just have a look at the poster, it pretty much sums up the movie..



Superman is a great character, there is no denying it, I love the guy I really do. And his failure rate in comics is acceptable, Batman has gone through the same shit. But when it comes to movie, TV and video game adaptations, Superman really has the balled dropped there.

Everyone loves the Batman series, it was kooky and silly but still great AND it fit in with the comic style of the time, it's a classic series of a "gayer" era. But Clark.. he hasn't had the same success.

I'm going to ignore the original TV show as I never saw it, instead I'm going to focus on the 2 pieces of trash that are...

Lois and Clark


Smallville
* I found this image when I searched for Smallville, so I'm using it


Just typing those words here makes me want to retch. Lois and Clark took the annoying as batshit girlfriend of Kent and made her a main character, it was a shitty romance themed series that I'd watch if threatened with a glass enema. As for smallville? Fuck smallville.

Superman is an American icon, he stands for all that is good and wholesome and he's really a cool guy, but his enemies are not Doomsday, or Brainiac, they are the moronic people in charge of his image, who let him get into some of the most vomit inducing capers around.

Still not convinced? Here's the Superman 64 nintendo game, regarded as the worst video game ever made. you spend most of the game flying through rings.

Rotten Graffitoes

I don't understand graffiti sometimes.

Sure I like the classy stuff, graffiti that sends a message or a mural of sorts done for the community, it's the tagging mostly I don't understand. Is it a form of bragging rights? If you tag a high building does that make you ..."cool"?

I really don't know, why waste your time scrawling big stupid letters all over a wall when no-one can understand what the hell it's trying to say?

On and around the train I come across some of the dumbest graffiti ever conceived, some guys name with the standard "was 'ere" can be found in most carriages, and in the bathrooms of the newer trains some git has written "SLAYER ROOLS" above the loo. Some of it pisses me off because it looks like shit, but other times I just have to laugh.

I think the graffiti world needs some critics, to keep the Uwe Boll's and Michael Bay's of tagging in line, whilst praising originality and creativity.

I've prepared some critiques for your enjoyment, I won't be praising anything today though, because that isn't as fun.

The Hit and Miss

The artist starts strong proclaiming their love for music, but hits an early bump when drawing comparisons to what they don't like. I feel a better message could have been brought to our attention if the artist chose to focus on a more specific hatred, and not generalised with "stupid shit".

I'm afraid that vague remark wasn't the only mistake the artist made, his message decimated further upon the reader finding out his music taste is cornered on the little known Hillbilly Revolution. The 80s' style pink and blue chalk "YOU" behind it is the final nail in the coffin. You tend to find this style in bathrooms where the artist has enough time to think their design over, and even more time to stuff it up.


The Self Fellate

Abdi is a G.

My understanding with graffiti is that people use painting and marking techniques to send a message to anyone who may read it. I'm afraid this artist completely missed the mark.

The Hillbilly Revolution, as hilariously bad as it was, still sent the message of what the artist believed in. This does not.

Abdi is a what sir? a Goat? a Grandfather? a Great Lay? a Georgian Male? I'm going to assume that G means "gangsta" using the common street spelling, and I'm also going to take a wild stab in the dark here and say the artist is none over than Abdi himself, trying to inflate his ego with bad handwriting.


The Inept Threat

Here is how one can improve their graffiti

1) invest in a dictionary
2) Be consistent with your upper and lower case lettering
3) Eliminate the unneeded "If read this", firstly you're missing a 'you're', secondly, let's just assume that people looking at this sentence are already reading it.
4) You should really have some backbone to your statement, if we are indeed not(h)ing, at least give reason
5) Try not to use those little circles above your letter i, it promotes a liking for Disney.

The Penrith Newsagent

I'm guessing the black says "Josh", and while I do like the dollar sign on the O, I don't like the inverted commas, it gives the appearance that Josh is crying.

And would it hurt Josh to mark his name on EMPTY brick? there is a gap above the pipe, hell you could use the pipe for an underline, making the crying josh more prominent.

This is the problem with most taggers, their heart is in it temporarily. Josh had a great idea for his name, although I have no idea why anyone would bother to pay attention given the number of Josh's in the city, but he didn't even bother to clean his workspace, nor fill in the gaps with a hint of colour.

This style I like to call the "Penrith Newsagent" as I saw this many times when growing up. The graffiti artist would get the idea for tagging at the spur of the moment and rushes to the local paper shop to buy the biggest black marker he could find for the amount of change he has in his sock. Then the artist quickly tags the building and leaves the area via Bus.
The Good Intention

You got to the very top of a building, found a prime spot for maximum exposure, and then what did you do? You tagged a PINK building RED you twat! And that umbrella character would suit the expression "HURRR DURRRR". Also note the wasted space at the top, that's prime real estate you missed out on there.

Miss Clarendon's 1st Grade Class

My eyes are ablaze with horrid colour! This looks more like a group piece than a solo effort. I especially enjoy the Green "VISI" with red colouring at the bottom. Surprisingly enough for a piece that uses so many letters of the English language, there appears to be only one complete word in the mix.


The City Planner

Perfect Real Estate, it's a street level building that backs right onto the sidewalk, and there is one bland colour, easy to cover with your art. But in a rush to claim the space, the artist failed at deciding what to write! The message is lost completely and the big crosses over the failed work really shows how much of an amateur the artist is. Hang your head in shame.

Here's hoping a more "switched on" graffitier comes along and takes advantage of the space to draw something with meaning, like a big penis that says "you r gay".


The Home Plate Stumble

The message is perfectly suited for this style of graffiti, a simple text message on a stark white wall, an artist shouting at big brother, fighting back against the oppressors. And they even went the extra mile to throw in a bit of parody, lampooning the old windows 95 shutdown screen. But the message is destroyed through a lack of proper spelling and an unwanted exclamation mark.




OFHLAH!!!!!

Words cannot express what I'm feeling.... was the person having sex and described their 2 second orgasm in words?

Perky Boobs and Arthritis

I've never been a fan of news that isn't news.

There are always little amusing stories in the papers, usually something about a dog saving a cat or an old person smokes a ciggerette for the first time in Nepal. But, especially online, there are news stories that shouldnt' qualify as news at all, and are merely shit filler material that no-one cares about.

I'm talking about the gossipy Brad and Angelina garbage.. the Amy Winehouse trash, stories about game addiction without proper research, and everything like it. I opened ninemsn.com this morning and the main news article was about Kendra Wilkinson and how she is begging Hugh Hefner for forgiveness after spilling her guts about their intimate moments.

For starters, the entire world does not want to fucking hear about 23yr old's having sex with an 82 yr old man. I don't care who he is, sure he's the playboy man, the original "playa" but for fucks sake. He's EIGHTY TWO. You can only imagine the type of sex tape that would produce.

- Hugh pops pill
- Hugh lies down
- Kendra staddles him "carefully" so as not to break a hip
- Kendra suffers lifelong shame

You know the only thing Kendra is having sex with is his money, that's her only thought in her head I'm sure of it. His entire lifestyle makes me want to punch children...

The news article under it was about a newsreader who failed to read the news... that's just too stupid to even go into detail.

"200 dead in earthquake!? fuck it, let's run the story about the old dude fucking the young chick"

This is why Anna Nicole never faded from obscurity, and look what happened to her....

Blizz Corn

Blizzard held their annual convention last week, conveniently named "Blizzcon" to avoid confusion as last years infamous "Toastboypants" event only managed to attract fat pedophiles. The event is swarmed with geeky lads and lasses the world around, all with the common ground of Blizzard game interest, the main one being the online heroin that is World of Warcraft.

The folks here at Five Thumbs Down managed to make it to the Anaheim Convention Center in California with a dodgy camera and a bad attitude. It was hard to blend in with the crowd due to my level 70 Blood Elf paladin only having 5 epics... I was an outsider from the beginning, but the expensive stripper I hired to walk around with me and flash some breast helped the FTD crew gain an all access pass.

Let's enjoy the photos now shall we?


Due to a scheduling error, the cleaning staff arrived 8 hours early to the function room. The new uniforms designed by clothing staple "Greg" caused some arousement in the more sweaty boys present. Note the red calves on the man in the background.


Here we have a Dranei Mage, a really good effort at cosplay if you don't mind me saying, the horns and overall attractiveness of the girl in costume helped win her some points. I managed to get a photo as she approached Amy Winehouse for an autograph.


I'd be lying if I told you I knew what was going on in this photo, it looks like a glam rock 80's muppet fending off some form of garbage monster.

These two happy girls managed to woo the boys in the centre with their "approachable" looks and cheerful demeanour. They even managed to score some coupons for 600 rape dollars..

.. from this guy..


Another decent Dranei costumer, unfortunate that one of the main speakers from Toastboypants 2007 managed to find his way here this year... Jeff appears to be doing some construction in his pantaloons...


This costume came in second place of the event. I think she did rather well.


Captain Bumbles reporting! Set sails for faggotry!



That's how we roll in Asia.


Yet another Dranei, only this time she's joined by a sexy pirate, and confused A-Team fan.


A glimpse into the classy life of a Blizzard employee.

Greg: "I say what what, let's release Starcraft II 5 months late!"

Pevil: "Indubious! I think you've earned another balloon in your hat!"

Greg: "My urine stings upon exit..."


Clearly these two were paid to attend....


Clearly she was paid to leave....

I managed to score this rare photograph of a WoW player exerting the most physical energy in a single day. plus he looks like a douche..
World of Warcraft's single Romanian player.


And finally, Blizzard announced the new class for the upcoming expansion. "Slutty Attention Whore" will be available to the Elf races, and will gain more bonuses with less armour worn.

5 stereotypes of gaming

As pretty much the entire world knows, World of Warcraft has been the frontrunner of the MMORPG genre. And those of you who don't know what MMORPG stands for I envy you, you clearly have more free time than me. But I've no problem there.

I find that the people who turn their noses up the most at WoW are ex-addicts and people who think they're suprerior and have never played it, the kind of people who say they're too busy all the time and when you ask them "what's new" they say "not much".

Everything is fun in moderation, WoW is the exact same, I play a fair amount of it because there is nothing on TV and I can chat to my friends over it whenever I want, but I don't go to bed at 4am, the house isn't a mess, and my writing doesn't get done. Yes I do sometimes sit at the PC from when I get home to when I get to bed, but those nights are rare and usually occur after a long day at work when I just don't want to do anything else but something I enjoy.

Plus at $20 a month it's probably the best vaule for money around, alot of people scoff at the concept of a paid subscription to a game and then spend 30 dollars at the movie for 2 hours worth of entertainment on a movie that will probably suck, not to mention the petrol it cost to get there.

I could rant and rave about it more but who cares, the people who like WoW will agree with me and the people who don't like it can shove it.

But enough ranting, here comes the funny!

5 stereotypes of online gamers.
This is taken from my experiences in all online games, not just Warcraft.

- The 12yr old
With the ever growing rate of neglectful parents and desensitisation to violence and sex, you're bound to find more and more 12yr olds playing Call of Duty 4 at 2am on a Tuesday morning than ever before, they're rude, they're horrible at the game they're playing, and they're prone to tantrums.

The 12yr old is typically male with a squeaky voice, more squeaky than your typical 12yr old, they always choose the most flashiest character and weapons, as they have no understanding of strategy and tactics. They will rush head first into danger and then abuse everyone when they die, and it will always be in a high pitched whiney voice.

This creature will ask questions about how to change hotkeys and graphics settings, will dissapear and reappear into the game constantly and sometimes just stand there doing nothing while they're getting yelled at by a parent, they will always ask for help with the most simple task, and then swear at you if you don't agree to assist.

They also like to have the worst names in existence, like xxKilermanxx


- The underranked dictator
This person is hard to pick out straight away, they look like every other player, they don't have anything better than you in terms of rank or gear, and you think they are just a regular player slogging it out just like you. But they're not.

As soon as you're losing a round in CoD, not healing fast enough in WoW or you just moved slightly to the left instead of the right, this person will explode.

The dictator will bark orders at everyone and then blame you all when something goes wrong, he is the perfect player and knows everything about the game, despite being a lower rank than you.


- The superior moron
The moron is the guy with the highest ranking achieveable, with the best gear around. He has the golden AK47, all the achievements in multiplayer, epic gear out the arse, and his mere presence intimidates you.

That is until he plays.

The superior moron will die constantly, forget to heal, teamkill... you name it. And it makes you wonder what kind of person can get all this great stuff whilst being a complete tool at the game.

The only answer is Wing Pu, the asian guy he hired to get all the best stuff.


- The girl

An uncommon sight in most games, the girl never travels in packs and likes to talk about normal things, like music and her interests.

Chat activity increases 400% when a guild or room realises one of the characters is indeed female.

- The Anti-Socialite
This guy should, by all counts, be a normal mature being, but they are racist, sexist, abusive, and unfunny.

usually an early 30's man who lives with his mum, this guy cracks "nigga" and "chink" jokes and likes to talk about disgusting sex acts in an abnormal way to get respect and friends, but he just turns out to be a loser in his 30's who lives with his mum...

This guy is the type of person who found out about September 11 on October 4th, stuck in his own little world masturbating furiously to cartoons of animal people.

Avoid this creature, he is the worst of them all.