Opening a Can of Sardines

This about 10,000 time scarier than the Brainiac clix. Yes, I paid someone to make me a Human Flying Fish customized Heroclix figure. After all, Vic (as we, his friends, call him) is one of our guest columnists.

I remember the first time I saw the Human Flying Fish. I remember exactly which room I was in, which way I was facing, what the weather was like. It's like how civilians remember where they were when they heard Kennedy was shot, or the Challenger had blown up, or Saved By The Bell had been cancelled.

It was in Super Friends #1, November 1976, "The Fury of the SuperFoes". See, that's him, to the right of the perfidious Penguin. Before the Legion of Doom was a glint in Lex Luthor's beady eye, the Penguin gathered a team composed of enemies of the SuperFriends, one a piece. They specified that the Penguin was in charge but they needn't have, because, you know ... he's the Penguin. Of course he was in charge. You should have seen him whoop Superman's hiney with his super-robot in the next issue...but I digress.

Anyway, Superman's foe was the Toy Man (*snicker*), Batman & Robin's foes were Poison Ivy (tramp!) and the Penguin (waughk!), Wonder Woman's foe was the Cheetah (rrrowwwr!), and Aquaman's was THE AWESOME HUMAN FLYING FISH.

"How dorky," I thought, or whatever term we used in those days. "Only a comic based on that hokey show would make up someone as stupid as the Human Flying Fish." Oh, the callow shallowness of youth! Many times have I pondered that, with access to a Time Bubble, I would (forgoing travels to any world-altering Jonblar junctures in space-time) head right to the moment I said that, and, appearing in shimmering multi-colored lights characteristic of silver-age time travel, wallop my young self in the skull with the Aquaman Archive, which (as everyone now knows) contains the original Human Flying Fish story. "Ssssstupid child," I would hiss in my best Kobra-lissssp, anger squiggles radiating dramatically around my head, "now you die!" And then the Phantom Stranger would show up...but I digress.

Meanwhile, back at the Hall of Justice! The SuperFoes, inspired by the examples of Wendy and Marvin (!?!?!?!!), have taken on sidekicks of their own. Are you ready? Chick (*snicker*), Honeysuckle (*titter*), Kitten (*giggle*), Sardine (*snort*), and--

wait for it

--Toy Boy. BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!! Oh, Toy Man you were born before your time....!
Don't believe me? See for yourself...

"Kind of a box-in-a-box, eh, Toyman?"
"Good, Toyboy--nearly got me with your trick!"

Oh, I know what you're thinking: "Leave Toyboy and his trick-turning box alone! You're just a dirty old man reading sexual subtext into an innocent child criminal! It's not like they show him into leather boots or hooded bondage or grappling with older daddy-types for goodness sakes!"

To which I say:"Oh, you're right, I'm sorry. I apologize."

Anyway, Chick has a crisis of conscience after visiting the Hall of Justice (jeez, Pengers, can't you find a real delinquent?) and betrays the SuperFoes (Ssssstupid child!).

What's the point of this rant ... merely that the return of the Human Flying Fish is long overdue? His return is overdue, true, but my real point is... kid sidekicks for villains is an idea whose time has come.

If you do not agree, take it up with Deathstroke and Ravager.