LET THE ENVY COMMENCE!

MY NEW CUSTOM HEROCLIX FIGURE OF...

THE OCTOPUS!

Octopus Week #7: Arms and the Man

Green Arrow and Shaft Lad have the Octopus cornered in his hideout, where nothing can possibly go wrong.

Ollie, next time, follow Batman's example: always led the kid go in first.

Okay, almost nothing.  Even I can't blame Ollie for walking into this one.  Who expects an octopus in the living room?

 

You know, if I'd lost my virginity to an octopus while my not-dad was watching, 

I might have turned to drugs, too.

Green Arrow, using the power of comic book irony, saves himself (and Arrow Boy) with his tentacular suction-cup arrow.

Bet Michaels is feeling foolish about not having a weapon on him now. 

"Eight hells!  If only I had a sock with an eight-ball in it!!!"

Octavus gives up when he recognizes that it's Green Arrow. Because Green Arrow knows Aquaman.  And Topo.  Octopuses don't have a lot of heroes to look up to, you know.

The Octopus tries to make a getaway.

The "gang boss"? 

Even the kid who works with Green Arrow is embarrassed to call him "the Octopus".

But Ollie stops him with comic book irony.

Dude; the tentacle hat isn't even shielded?!  You suck, Michaels.

 I'm not even going to pretend to understand that.

The lesson of this story?

Don't put your faith in a disturbed man with a weird hat who attempts elaborate thematic jobs, sometimes on television, armed with nothing more than delusions of grandeur and a gang of eight guys in suits.

 Trust me, I know what I'm talking about here.

Octopus Week #6: Ollie, Ollie, Octo's Free

When we last left Al "Slippery" Michaels, now known as The Octopus, his entire gang had just been captured by Green Arrow while trying to rob a game show.

See, Al?  Shoulda listened to Octavus; shoulda stuck with the Octo-Alphabet Board method.  This is what comes of thinking for yourself.  This, and the costume.

"hey michaels me and the Arkham crew saw your boys on channel 8 last night; thanks for the great show, LMFAO; love, Dent #theoctopussucks"

Imagine for a minute that you're trying to make a name for yourself as a criminal, in fact, you're trying to jump the 'big divide" between be-suited gangster and costumed villain.  Now imagine how embarrassing it would be to have your entire gang caught in one fell swoop.

By Green Arrow.

ON A TELEVISION GAME SHOW.

Of course, when one habitually wears a tentacle hat one tends to become endured to embarrassment.

So, what's the next logical step for Michaels, then?   Is it....?

(A) Return to regular gangster hood, his pretensions toward villainy broken

(B) Eschew crime entirely and apply for work at DARPA

(C) Give in to his smoldering sexual attraction to Octavus that he's been sublimating into his criminal cos-play as "the Octopus" and move in together somewhere in New Venice;

(D) SWEAR TO DESTROY GREEN ARROW AND THAT KID WHO HANGS AROUND HIM SINGLE-TENTACLED IF I HAVE TO!

But they did get a new apartment together, I note. Now they can do whatever they want, without worrying that one of the boys is going to walk in on them.

I began this series with so little respect for Michaels.  But at this point he shows himself a true VILLAIN by not even considering the first three, comparatively sane choices, and embracing the fourth, villainous one with every ounce of strength in his tentacles.  

Clearly, the television gameshow debacle has only pushed him to up his game and he not only swears vengeance, he PUBLISHES it in the newspapers.  Because that shit's on-line; it's searchable.  Now, that's commitment.

Well, jacta alea octonaria est; even layabout Ollie can't help but see the Octopus's threat in the Star City papers. 

Newpapers? Who knew that many people in Star City could actually read?

Ollie and the little red-headed boy spend the next couple day obsessing about their favorite subjects -- themselves -- instead of trying to find the guy with the tentacle hat who lives with an octopus in his living room.  Finally their ruminations are interrupted by the flaming shaft of the jism-signal.

I'm guess the commissioner's GA fleshlight was broken.

One of Green Arrow's best qualities is his willingness to rush headlong toward self-destruction. Go get 'em, Ollie.

 So, I can't decide: which is weirder, wearing the Octopus outfit in front of other people or wearing it when you are all alone, in the dark, by the side of a rural route?

So, Green Arrow is dead. So is that brat.  The Octopus wins after all.

 I wept when I realized how much pain would have been spared the world had this panel been true.

Actually, Green Arrow uses a smoke bomb to trick the Octopus into thinking he blew up the Arrowcar.  Because, well, because heroes are real jackasses who love to deceive and humiliate you before they capture you.  And it takes substantial planning and effort to humiliate someone who runs around in a tentacle hat.

I don't have the heart to comment on the whole "Arrowcar has eight letters" thing; you'll have to snark that one yourself.

Wait, not 'the Octogyro'?  Sorry, Michaels; you just failed Supervillainy 201. 

"Thank the octo-gods I spent all that gold bullion from the salvage ship on this Octocopter!  Otherwise, I would have had to have pulled out an automatic and shot Green Arrow and Little Boy Red!"

No, really; it's totally possible to hang on to the wheels of helicopter in full flight for a couple of miles like that.  In short sleeves.  Right, Josh?

I'm sure Ollie will make short work of the Octopus when they arrive at his hideout.  After all, he's got no gang to back him up any more, and no one back at the hideout to help him, right?

Octopus Week #5: The Octopus goes for some booty

Poor Ollie! It appears he's going to have to drag his butt off the sofa and go hunt for these eight-themed losers, the Octopus Gang.  Really, he's thinking, I've done the brainwork of deducing their crime pattern? MUST I go hunt them down, TOO?  Prowling; how tedious.

Sorry, Ollie; that's the way crimefighting works.  You can't find the crooks by just sitting your ass on the divan watching the television.

Unless, of course, you live in Star City.

Yes, the Octopus Gang, so careful to wear their Beagle Boys masks at their first, ill-fated ice show caper, have been emboldened by their recent wave of successful crimes (i.e., two of them) to such a degree that they decide to put a job in their street clothes on live television.

"Oh boy-- I'm on TV! I'll be able to watch this on DCUTube everyday for the rest of life in prison!"

Even Ollie can't pretend he doesn't know the Octopus is robbing the gameshow; I mean, the Kid in the Red Pajamas was standing right there when they came on the TV. Sigh!  Better get to the Arrowcar and down to the studio.

"H-how'd he know we'd be here?"  He didn't. He saw you on television.  Dumb-ass.  

You were born in Star City, weren't you?

FINALLY! We get to the EPIC battle between Ollie and the Octopus Gang!

Oh.  Or just that.  More like the Octopussy Gang, if you ask me.  The rest of the gang is captured between panels, I guess, since this is the next scene:

OMG STOP LYING OLLIE YOU FILTHY DECEIVER AND RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF THE KID WITH THE HAT, YOU SAW THEM ON THE DAMNED TELEVISION!!!

Octopus Week #4: "R" is for... Regatta!

So, under the nearly mindless direction of the octopus....

Oops; I meant this one:

... the Octopus Gang plots to rob a bullion-laden salvage ship.

Hey, when you're wearing a tentacle hat, you have to hire whatever help you can.

How the heck do villains find stuff like this out?!  Must subscribe to the Twitter feed of every two-bit treasure hunter in America.  "Boss!  Old Man Simons just found a fifty-cent piece with a metal detector down at Starfish Beach!" "Forget it, boys; we're after bigger game: SILVER DOLLARS."

So, the plot is to get on board by disguising themselves as a college crew team participating in a regatta, and fake an emergency so the salvagers can "rescue" them.

Hey, wait a minute... .  A crew team manned by guys who are clearly beyond college years gets picked up by a boatful of rope-wielding sailors who've been out at sea for weeks on end and... OMG I TOTALLY RENTED THIS MOVIE!

It was called "STROKE!", I think.

"Those were guns in your shorts?! DAMN!  That's disappointing on several levels."

Unfortunately for the Octopus Gang, the salvage ship happens to have the only telegraph operator who doesn't know the phrase "SOS".

Pictured: Twitter 1.0

Fortunately for the Octopus Gang, the "help" he manages to summon is...

...Green Arrow and that Kid in the Yellow Hat.

Continuing their tradition of fantastic getaways (An eight ball!  A Studebaker!), the Octopus Gang skin-dives their way to safety.

"omg even got the loot this time screw you dent #2facesucks"

By the way, add that to the 1001 Ways to Defeat Green Arrow: skindiving. 

 I find his logic unfathomable.

See, now this is where Green Arrow, even I must confess, shows that he is a true superhero.  Even though he's a loser, with an unworkable schtick in a ridiculous outfit in the city with the lowest IQ in the DCU, Green Arrow has the one power that distinguishes real superheroes from run-of-the-mill crimefighters and police:

he thinks like a supervillain. Because no one is his right mind would be able to discern this imbecilic pattern from among the myriad details in any series of robberies.  In this way, I am forced to concede, Green Arrow is in Batman's league.

In fact, Green Arrow's so good at it, once he's figured out the pattern, all the fun is gone out of the chase, and he longer even feels the need to pry his butt off the sofa.

Um... Ollie?  Take a hint: Batman and Robin do not wander around the living rooms of Wayne Manor in costume, with the curtains open.

"Oh, yes, Henry VIII; it's also so... so obvious now.  Yawn."  Yeah, at this point, if the Octopus Gang wants to grab Ollie's attention with their tentacles of crime, they are pretty much going to have to reach right into his living room... .

Octopus Week #3: What's the Difference?

When we last left Al Michaels, now known (at least to himself) as The Octopus, leader of the not-particularly-dreaded Octopus Gang, he had let his pet Octavus choose their next crime by means of the famous Octo-Alphabet Board.

"What's the difference?" is pretty much the motto of the Green Arrow Creative Team.

An eight-themed crime?  At an ice rink?  

Why, I can't figure that at all!  I simply can't see any possible connection that would link ice skating with eights.  Can you, kids at home?

In case you didn't know it, ice shows are just oozing with Fabulous Gems (tm).

The list of Star City celebrities includes: 

that Couple Batman Rescued from a Mugger When They Visited Gotham City, 

the Sailor Who Saw Aquaman Once from a Distance, 

Kay Daye's second cousin, and 

that trampy gal who once slept with Basil Karlo.

A figure... EIGHT?! Oh my god, everyone, look out...!

 

Okay, now I've seen everything.  Apparently, the Octopus's "preparations" involved inventing, in one afternoon, remote-controlled micro-heat coils, complete with power source, strong enough to melt ice that's thick enough to have an ice show on, and then somehow building them into the skates of the one skater you have somehow identified as the one who's going to skate a figure eight that night.  

Michaels! Ditch the half-assed thematic criminal career and send an application in to DARPA.  Do you have any idea how much damage we could do with that kind of techno-tactical talent during our next war with Norway?  I bet they'd even let you wear your costume; that's what warrant commissions  are for.

Not pictured below: hilarious falling through the floor by the skater.  "I thought you said you were going to scare the Ice Princess?" "She looked pretty scared to me!"

"Abruptly"?  How 'abruptly' can eight guys in suits and hats craw out of a hole in the ice?

Did you know that the ice at an ice show isn't on a floor?  It's a big sheet of ice hanging over, say, a tunnel or crawlspace or something?  You learn something new every day in Star City, folks.

Another thing I learned: the Celebrities of Star City are total morons who think armed men with hats are part of the show.  What do you think this is, "The Untouchables On Ice"?

"These Halloween costume Bizarro-hands will hide our fingerprints!"

"Haw! Yer a genius, boss!'

Unfortunately for the Octopus Gang, among the moronic Star City celebrities in attendance is Oliver Queen and His Pet Kid from the Reservation... AND their boomerang arrow.

I can just picture the GA Creative Team breakfast meeting in 1953 where they came up with this, all wearing their Mad Men outfits, holding cigarettes and martinis.

• "So then GA shows up, but the gang has a head start and gets away."
• "But then GA will look ineffectual!"
• "Can't have a guy who fights crime with a bow and arrow look ineffectual."
• "Amen."
• "Alright, alright, but he can't capture them or the story's over six pages two soon."
• "Not if you ask me." 
• "We'd didn't, Murray, so shut up."
• "Well, they get away but GA gets the loot."
• "Yeah? How?"
• " .... .... ...."
• "*snap* Got it! Boomerang arrow! I'm a genius!"
• "Dumbest damned--"
• "Jesus Chri--"
• "I can't draw that!'
• "No, it's okay, we'll cover it with a word balloon."
• "Look, boys, I got a hot number waiting for a nooner at the Hilton..."
• "Boomerang arrow it is.  Breaktime!"

I'm just being silly, of course.  We all know that, even if "GA Creative Team" weren't an oxymoron, they certainly never had meetings.

"Damn! Can't stop to shoot Green Arrow and get the jewels back; 

gotta have these masks back to the Beagle Boys by ten o'clock!"

What's this, you ask, my criminal friend?  It's a total defiance of physics, let alone the very concept of "arrow", as in "straight as an arrow",  "the arrow of time", "I shot an arrow into the air", etc.  No wonder the crooks are surprised.

 

"I SAID I CAN'T DRAW THAT!"

"They''ll never catch us in this 30-year-old Studebaker!  They're on foot!"

"Haw! Yer a genius, boss!"

"Gosh, GA! If only we had some way of piercing their tires from a distance!"

"Yes, Roy, it's a pity.  We'll work on coming up with something back at the Arrowcave, right after we're done perfecting the hoola-hoop arrow."

Well, they flopped in this round's robbery, but at least they put on a good show.  Hey, audience,  should the gang give up this no-profit life of crime and become improvisational comedians or performance artists? Or should they ...

RETURN TO THE OCTO-ALPHABET BOARD!