THE FLIGHT OF THE BOUNCY, BOUNCY PHOENIX

Oooooooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhh yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah y'all. Guess what, sports fans?
SPEEDBALL'S BACK

If this is possible, then, pray, what other wonders might find their way back into my life?

Believe it.

A Tale of Two Invasions (An INFINITY WAR Crossover!)

With all the recent hubbub (bub) over Marvel's Secret Invasion crossover event this spring/summer, wherein the characters (as it's hard to call them all heroes in this age of cynicism, isn't it?) of the Marvel Universe may or may not have been replaced by shape-shifting Skrulls, you might remember the last time something secret-y and invasion-y happened in a Marvel crossover: 1992's Infinity War event.

Infinity War concerned a villain named Magus and his machinations involving exact duplicates of some of Marvel's greatest heroes, including, oddly enough, Tony Stark and Reed Richards. The story wasn't anything remarkable, certainly nothing on the level of Secret Invasion - although, I was only 4 years old at the time of Infinity War, so fuck if I know if there was much hype on USENET or whatever.

I haven't actually read Infinity War, but I certainly have the gall to call it one of the greatest pieces of sequential art in the history of mankind, even ahead of those cave paintings in France. Why? Because it gave us this:


Evil Speedball.

EVIL SPEEDBALL.



EVIL SPEEDBALL!

Yeesh. he's a real looker, ain't he? And dig that caption on the cover: You didn't demand it, but you got it anyway--. Considering how some people feel about ol' Robbie Baldwin around here, that's a line I may just make my official blog motto.

New Warriors #27 is one of the essential stories in the Speedball canon. While the B-plot involves Speedy's buddy, Rage, having a crisis of conscience after slamming some punk's head through a windshield, the Speedball-centric issue sees the Masked Marvel return home to Springdale, Connecticut, only to find his old stomping grounds devastated, and the police finger him as the culprit! And, since it was the early nineties, we get this sight-gag courtesy of the sophisticated humor of penciller Darick Robertson.

I'll let you figure that one out.

The police are led by Robbie Baldwin's father, a notorious anti-super-hero crusader who's just been looking for an excuse to pump some lead into the bouncing hero - thus logically explaining why the police would subscribe to the "shoot first, ask questions never" philosophy, and why Speedball can't just surrender himself to them. Although how the police can mistake the two, given their very different appearances, must be entirely an effect of comic book logic.

Speedball escapes the sights of the police by using his kinetic field ("Speedball Effect") to sap all of the momentum out of their bullets, and heads over to the family home, fearing that his "evil twin" might be longing for some homecooking. Evil Speedball's already there and accosting his mother, looking to replace Robbie because - well, he feels like it, I guess. That's all the reason he needs, apparently.



Scattered amongst the fight is some faux-losophizing about having to become like your evil twin in order to defeat him, as well as the usual "I'm everything you don't like about yourself" bullshit, which doesn't make sense (unless this means that Evil Speeds is the living embodiment of Robbie Baldwin's malice towards woodland creatures) because Speedball certainly hasn't shown the urge to destroy things simply for the sake of destruction. Also, I really don't see how you could fight evil like crooks, gangsters, and super-villains (and, uh, giant birds) unless you had a hatred of evil. It's like that Star Wars bullshit about fear and anger and hate being the source of all evil in the universe - never made any fucking sense to me. It's a ham-fisted effort to make New Warriors "deep" through force, instead of natural flow.



So anyway, Speedball kicks the crap out of "Blackball" (the impromptu nickname he gives Evil Speedball, which is sorely deficient in my opinion because it totally omits the word "evil"), and the double dissolves into a pile of dust. By sheer contrivance, this drains all of the strength from Speedy, forcing him to de-power into Robbie Baldwin so that his father can discover his secret identity.



See? I told you this was an essential Speedball story. His mother had known for months that he was a superhero, but his father's attitude toward "vigilantes" forced Robbie to hide it from him. This development would have Robbie moving to New York to stay with the New Warriors permanently, which would, in turn, lead to the origin of "Hindsight Lad," which then led to much of the hatred against the New Warriors during and after Civil War when Hindsight set up DestroyAllWarriors.com, which exposed the heroes' true identities.

So, way to go, Evil Speedball. You helped to totally screw over one of my favorite characters. I hope you're happy.

Friday Night Fights: Slapstick Week

One thing you might be surprised to learn about Bahlactus (other than his ability to connect with the youth of today) is that the man makes a damn fine cup of coffee:


Fine enough to kill for.

SPECIAL BONUS BOUT!

You didn't think I'd forget, did you?

It just wouldn't be the Fights at BMP without Speedball, The Masked Marvel!

Friday Night Fights: Business as Usual

There is only one thing that can put the fear of god into the dreaded Doctor Doom (and simultaneously turn on the ladies)...

The might of Speedball, of course. What were you expecting?

Bahlactus, of course, fears neither god nor man.

Friday Night Fights: Speedball vs. The Future

Dear great and erudite sage Bahlactus,

Will kicking ass in the future be filled with as much Speedball as it was in the past?

Thanks, buddy. That's a load off my mind.

(Bahlactus the Great gets all of his predictions straight from the future via Spider-girl #15)

Friday Night Fights: Plain, Simple Foom

Tonight on Friday Night Fights:


Just a nice, simple, Speedball-delivered FOOM. (from Speedball: The Masked Marvel #7)

More fooms, fangs, and even fings are delivered to you hot and fresh every Friday night, care of Bahlactus.

Friday Night Fights: Speedball vs. A Beloved Children's Television Character

And now, Speedball, the Masked Marvel, will have his face kicked in by Big Bird


...or a reasonable facsimile thereof.

Your Friday Night Fight is brought to you by the letter BAHLACTUS.

Friday Night Fights: Speedball vs. The Malaprop

It may not be Speedball Week any longer, but I still have those copies of Speedball: The Masked Marvel, and I still have a stake in Bahalctus's mighty test of skill and wit, Friday Night Fights. Thus, the only logical course of action is to keep documenting the all-out hoo-hah action that only Steve Ditko can provide:

Unfortunately, Steve's hoo-hah is completed negated by Roger Stern's jarring script error (or Jack Morelli's lettering goof):

Yar! Cap'n, thar be whales here!

Hey, hey - I know it sounds silly, but hey, everyone makes a mistake every once in a while. You don't have to be so harsh about it.

Especially when you're such a bonehead.

(Speedball faces his grammar demons in Speedball: The Masked Marvel #8)

Friday Night Fights: Speedball vs. A God Among Men

No, not Bahlactus, but the man whose very tears bring hope to the enfeebled: the one, the only, Chick Harris - in All-Out Hoo-Hah Action!

Hey, Chick Harris!

What time is it?

Wait. Two seconds 'til what?


(Chick Harris can outlast the expiry date of every meme on the internet, as proven in Speedball: The Masked Marvel #3)

Speedball vs. The Comics Code

Please don't finish that sentence.


The alliterative and - erm, other - talents of Leaper Logan are to be found in Speedball: The Masked Marvel #3, pencils and plot by Steve Ditko, script by Roger Stern, Leaper Logan's outfit by Mel Brooks, apparently.

EDIT: Neilalien.com was kind enough to alert people to my earlier post, sending a ton of readers my way. Why don't you return the favor?

Speedball vs. The War on Crime, Part 2

In my last post, I looked at the disproportionate number of villains that Speedball had allowed to succumb to their ultimate fate. Well, one reader might get the feeling that the editors at Marvel way back in 1989 noticed this, too, because it wouldn't be until Speedball: The Masked Marvel #10 that Robbie Baldwin would kill again.

Perhaps sensing that the death of the Speedball solo series was near, Steve Ditko let it all hang out with Robbie's Baldwin's murder spree in the final issue of Speedball's solo series.

By #10, the "Alex Bow murder" arc was tied up with the arrest of Dorian and his boss, Nathan Boder, but there was still the earlier problem of Robbie Baldwin's effort to catch Niels, the bouncing cat who could hold the key to ridding himself of the Speedball powers. Although that problem occupies a good portion of #10, the animal theme is exploited more prominently in the "A-plot" story of Clyde and the giant pig.

Clyde has helped to create a formula that will increase an animal's size to epic proportions, although we're given the impression that it was actually his partner, Dr. Rarque, who had done most of the work. Clyde is a man who only cares about becoming famous for the discovery, while Rarque is more concerned with the momentousness of his achievement, even musing that it may be the key to ending world hunger!

When the funding for the project is pulled after the pig is barbecued while trashing the lab, Clyde decides to take over for the mentally reduced Dr. Rarque and strike out on his own - illegally and in secret. He works out of an old barn, and dumps his failures in a swamp on the property. he runs into trouble when the local media begins sniffing around when his dumping spawns a giant chicken, leading to a typically-Ditko portrayal of the news media:

But you didn't come here to read my essays on Ditko-tropes, now did you? No, you came here to see hardcore violence against all of mother Earth's creatures, and Speedball likes to oblige.

The experiments lead Robbie to fear that the increased scrutiny of scientists that has resulted from the Franken-chicken incident will lead to the discovery of Niels, and more importantly, of his own abilities. He decides to get to the bottom of things so that the media will have a specific target, rather than blaming all scientists of misconduct.

His first victims are the giant ants that appear on Clyde's "farm."

I'm really surprised there aren't more of them. I mean, ants usually live in greater numbers than a couple, right? Anyway, Robbie Baldwin uses one ant to beat the other to death, and then moves on up the food chain:


To tell you the truth, I don't really care that Robbie's out there killing giant animals. They did, after all, try to kill him first. I just thought that it was a little inappropriate for the writer - in this case it was probably more Jo Duffy's fault, who 's credited with the "script" - to portray Speedball as thinking "I hope he dies!" I mean, they are more subtle ways to get that across, Jo.

Although, I can't really blame him, either. It is a giant, motherfuckin' snake.

When Robbie finally confronts Clyde, the two are interrupted by...

A BIG, FAT RAT!

Let's have a big round of applause for the immortal dialog of Jo Duffy, folks. She's earned it.

As I've drawn attention to previously, Speedball does not like rats. Hates them, in fact. Hates them enough to spew faux-tough-guy dialog like "Eat hot lead, rat!"

With two exclamation marks, no less. Yes, Speedball, the Masked Marvel, superhero, goes Punisher all over that rat's ass by shooting it in the mouth. No clever escape? No use of Robbie's kinetic powers to beat him to death with himself? A gun is your answer? Anyone can use a gun, Steve! Guns aren't exciting - unless they're, I don't know, rail guns or mini-guns or something.

And, look:
Clyde's dead, too. Of course, he was actually killed by his own abomination, so I guess we shouldn't feel too sorry for him. But, man - how many people do you have to see die before your reaction is "Gosh, that guy is dead?" He's not even shaken up over it. He doesn't even rationalize it with, "Well, that's what you get for being irresponsible." It's just, "Meh. Death. B.F.D."

Like I said, I don't have a problem with Robbie Baldwin fighting, or even killing, animals - I just think it could be a little less explicit. Maybe the ants lie there motionless, Robbie gives off a few good "wa-hoos," and we're lead to believe they're dead without anyone having to actually say it. I'm just a bit squeamish about my superheroes intentionally killing something, you know? Their first duty should be to justice - they don't have to save them, I just don't see the value in killing them.

Speedball vs. The War on Crime

Speedball didn't exactly have the most impressive Rogues' Gallery. He fought a man in a rat mask who was trying to shoot cats, once. His main antagonist was actually Niels, a cat who was caught in the same "experiment gone awry" that turned Robbie Baldwin into Speedball. Speedball hoped to catch Niels and then - I don't know, use his mastery of science to figure out how to get rid of his kinetic powers.

None of his enemies really posed a believable threat to Robbie Baldwin, but for a kid who's only ability is bouncing off the walls whenever somebody hits him real hard, he racked up quite the impressive kill-count. Only Golden Age Batman could match the rate at which Robbie Baldwin was knockin' off scum-bags.

Speedball: The Masked Marvel only ran for 10 issues, but that was enough for Baldwin, a man who would soon lose his shit over indirectly causing the death of 600 civilians when a bad-guy went nuclear, to put a disproportionate number of evil men in their graves.

Speedball doesn't wait, either: he gets started right off the bat, in Speedball: The Masked Marvel #1. In Speedball's origin story, a group of masked crooks set out to rob the Hammond Research Lab of Springdale, Connecticut, where young Robbie Baldwin has been employed as the weekend (and, evidently, night) office bitch. After the accident that turns him into Speedball, Baldwin heads to the roof of the lab to hide his condition, and encounters the thieves trying to enter from the top. After a short fight which serves as a showcase for Baldwin's new-found kinetic powers, the thieves are pursued in their getaway van by the police, who waste no time in delivering justice:


Springdale justice.

Sure, that one was the fault of the police more than it was Speedball's, but if Speedball hadn't been there, they probably would have gotten away scot-free - and alive. Now, don't get me wrong - I hardly sympathize with the crooks, here. I'm just saying that there's very little difference between criminals crashing their van in an effort to get away, and Nitro blowing up a couple city blocks in an effort to kill the New Warriors during Civil War. The criminals are responsible for the deaths, Robbie, not Speedball. They became guilty when they chose a life of crime.

But let's move on, shall we?

Remorseless Kill Number 2:

In Speedball: The Masked Marvel #2, a man called Foxworth has stolen the "magnetic glue" formula from Dr. Sol Haven (which just screams "Steve Ditko named me"), and murdered him in an attempt to steal the files necessary to gain legal ownership of the discovery. If you've read Ditko's "Question" stories for Charlton, or his independent "Static" series, then this villain will sound familiar to you - he's the parasite who couldn't come up with an idea on his own, so he steals one to acquire fame and fortune. Too bad these types of villains are typically nothing without their stolen technology.

Dr. Benson, Robbie's boss at the Hammond Lab, just happens to be sending the very files that Foxworth is looking for back to Haven, so he sends Robbie to deliver them. When Foxworth has his lackey take the files and push Baldwin down the stairs in an attempt to kill him, his kinetic powers kick in and he sets out to kick Foxworth's mooching ass. Tracking him to an old button factory (Springdale used to be the button-making capital of the world until China liberalized it's economy - true fact), Foxworth gets the upper-hand by using his goo-suit to stick to anything Robbie throws at him - including Robbie himself!

Alas, Robbie is smarter than he looks - and realizes that without the suit, Foxworth is nothing. So he takes his helmet off.


And with that, Robbie Baldwin has now achieved the prerequisite number of kills to become a double-o agent.

As an aside, I want to mention that this would have been a great recurring villain for Robbie - Speedball is essentially rubber, and Foxworth has a suit that's essentially glue. The concept is little too limited to provide for any real variety in their encounters, but Foxworth is the only villain in the short-lived series to ever really give Robbie any trouble at all.

To recap: we've now seen two issues of Speedball, and it's 2 for 2 when it comes to featuring stories where the criminals pay the ultimate price. How many more filthy criminals will bite the dust in the next 8 issues of Speedball: The Masked Marvel? Tune in tomorrow for Part 2!

Speedball vs. Committment

You know what? Let's make next week Speedball week. I've been sitting on these issues of Speedball: The Masked Marvel, and the plan was to take all of my Friday Night Fights entries from the scant material available in the 10 issues of that series. But I think Robbie Baldwin deserves a look back at what he was before hurricane Quesada swept through and turned him into this:

But you shouldn't worry about Penance sticking around for too much longer, Speedball fans. After all, Robbie Baldwin had already tried something similar to this way back in Speedball: The Masked Marvel #9, and it was met with - well, limited success:


"...and maybe I'll get some piercings! Yeah! And a tattoo! That'll show 'em! Oh man, they are gonna totally wish they never blamed me for Stamford!"

Friday Night Fights: Speedball vs. Dorian

Friday Night Fights - Knockout!!! forges on despite my absence from last week's bout, and Blackmarket Pies continues the effort to rename it Friday Night Fights - All Speedball Rumble by bringing you the type of kinetic smack down that only Robbie Baldwin and Steve Ditko can provide. From Speedball: The Masked Marvel #9, Speedball tussles with Dorian, seen here taking out his anger on the funny pages:


My momma always told me to stay away from boys like that. With their big guns and fast cars, you're only going to get hurt.


Unless, of course, you hurt them first.

Why don't you go out with a nice boy, like Bahlactus? Now there's a gentleman you can take home to momma.