Ugh.
When you find doo-doo in your house (I live with dogs, ya see), you want to get it out immediately, but you don't want to have to touch it.
That's kind of how I feel about the Demolition Team.
Letters on their chests so they can remember who they are?
Unimaginative noun-names?
Unlikely powers and abilities keyed completely to their noms de guerre?
Dripping with hard-to-draw machinery and doodads?
Notice the matching YELLOW weaponry? Guess who they fought!
"Steamroller".
"Jackhammer."
"Scoopshovel."
"Hardhat."
"Rosie." (Okay, that one is marginally cleverer than the other names. It's a reference to Rosie the Riveter, icon of female empowerment in the worked-starved munitions industry of WWII. It won't save her, though. Besides, Stompa, whom we've already sent over to Marvel, needs a girlfriend.)
How cute. I'm not sure even Marvel could put these guys in a redeeming context (perhaps upgraded into foes of Iron Man?). Perhaps we should ship them directly to the G.I.Joe-iverse?
"Who did this?" as I so frequently shout at home. "Len Wein? Bad writer; bad!"
Excuse me; gotta go wash my hands now ....
I have to disagree with this trade as there has to be someone that builds all the fortresses, death traps and hidden lairs that abound in villiandom. A tweaked Demolition Team could be that group.
ReplyDeleteAll they need is a mastermind to direct them. DC already has a Crime Doctor, why not an Engineer of Evil?
Okay, "the Engineer of Evil" is funny. I would love to someone named the Engineer of Evil in the DCU.
ReplyDeleteBut a Engineer would need a CONSTRUCTION team not a demolition team!
My. I don't think that I've ever heard of a worse supervillian name than "Scoopshovel".
ReplyDeleteAnd you just know that the Purple Pile-Driver was originally affiliated with these guys, but left after a heated sartorial dispute...
PLEASE tell me there wasn't really a character named the Purple Pile-Driver?
ReplyDeleteBecause he would FABulous for the rogues gallery of the new Starman!
Can you point me to the Stompa article you mention? I'm curious to see what your issue is with the Female Furies.
ReplyDeleteOh, yes, there was a Purple Pile-Driver. He used to get regularly beaten up by (pre-crisis) Superman whenever the main story was some kind of introspective emotional thing but editorial mandated a specific number of pages of fight scenes.
ReplyDeleteI think this is his only cover appearence.
http://www.comics.org/graphics/covers/97/400/97_4_0000464.jpg
Cover calls him just 'The Pile-Driver', but I think he was using 'Purple' inside the body even then.
The main thing is that this was a guy with a sort-of reasonable gimmick; a guys who could have been a credible villian for Batman or Green Arrow or even Atom, Hawkman, or the Flash. So naturally he spends his time robbing banks in downtown Metropolis and getting into fights with the Man of Steel...
Marionette: it's the first Character Donation article. I donate, in a lump, the 37 Fourth World characters I could remember.
ReplyDeleteJeff: Purple Pile-Driver? The "Purple" redeems him. That makes him a fabulous and funny DC style villain. He stays as long as he doesn't lose the Purple.
Well, you would need a Demolition Team if you are doing rennovations or an addition, says the guy who's worked for an architecture firm for five years.
ReplyDeleteBut seeing as they already have some of the tools, just higher a few more people and change the name from Demolition Team to...
"The Engineer of Evil and his Construction Crew!"
Besides, who can pass up a team with a former Jai-Lai player on it?
Aaaargh.
ReplyDeleteScipio can you give me a specific date or link or something. Searching through old posts that predate my arrival here just make me want to discuss topics that nobody has looked at for 4 months.
July 19. Actually, the search bar at the top of blog lets you search for phrases withing the blog itself. Type in "Stompa" and it will appear.
ReplyDeleteAnd what topics from the past interested you? Perhaps we'll revisit them.
By the way--crackerjack blog you've got!
I'm not sure this is the best place to go through all the stuff that interested me, given that practically every other post prompts a comment. Maybe I should drop you an email?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the kind words on my blog. I thought you might enjoy it. :>
Ah, but part of the geist of characters like this is the "CompoundNoun!" name, like so many Marvel characters have.
ReplyDeleteJack+Hammer
Steam+roller
Hard+hat
therefore
Scoop+shovel.
Can't call him "Scoop"; can't call him "Shovel".
Oh, and, to complete the loop...
You know what the apparatus used to pick up dog poop is calle?
Yep. A scoopshovel.
Of course these guys have to go to Marvel... there's a Demolition Team vs Damage Control Limited Series just crying to be made.
ReplyDeleteActually, as I recall Marvel HAS a "Wrecking Crew" which is essentially the same.
ReplyDeleteEven has name overlap (Bulldozer, at least).
Well, they could do a West Coast Avengers sort of thing: The Wrecking Crew is the famous one, and the Demolition Team is the losers that don't live in Manhattan like 90% of the Marvel characters.
ReplyDelete