Thor in "The Ding-A-Ling Family"

If you read comic books in the seventies or early eighties, you might remember the most vital weapon in most super-heroes' arsenals - Hostess snack products. These advertisements featured DC and Marvel super-heroes using Twinkies, Cupcakes and Fruit Pies to defeat their super-villains - sometimes a villain from the regular comics, and sometimes a new villain created, I suppose, by the Hostess marketing department.

Let's relive the glory days of comic/snack synergy with this treat, from the pages of The Invaders, issue number 25, cover dated February 1978 -

Thor in "The Ding-A-Ling Family"

You can click for a larger version if you like, but you don't have to - a panel-by-panel analysis follows...

Damn, those are some brave fucking hillbillies. They're not just taking on Thor, they're ready to take on all the gods of Asgard. They're pretty hard to faze, too - they've arrived there "by some mysterious quirk of space and time warp," so presumably they did not expect to suddenly find their trailer floating in a cosmic void next to a viking ship filled with gods. (I'm surprised it's spaceworthy, being made of plywood and tinker toys.) But rather than huddling in a corner, weeping and soiling themselves, they hurl themselves out into the vacuum of space, ready to take on all comers. (Or maybe they did soil themselves - I have no idea what that glowing brown blob floating between the ship and the trailer is. Did the Asgardians just empty their divine privy? Does god poop glow?)

In case you need a scorecard, the blond god is Thor, Marvel Comics sensation. The woman is Sif, his sometime girlfriend. The guy with the beard is Volstagg, who isn't a real Norse god.Well, he's less real than the others, in that Marvel Comics made him up. He's fat - that's pretty much his whole shtick - so it's appropriate that he appears in a Hostess ad. I'm not sure who the guy with the hat is - at first I thought it was Heimdall, but Heimdall's hat is pointier. So some generic Norse god. He was probably pretty excited to be given a line in this story, even if it lacks the dramatic oomph of the the other gods' dialogue. I guess it's slightly better than just saying, "Yeah!" or "Ditto!" or "You go, Volstagg!"

I'm not entirely sure what the Asgardians are doing flying a wooden viking ship in "Thor's Asgardian orbit." I'm not entirely sure what "Thor's Asgardian orbit" is, for that matter. I assume it's something pretty important, so they're probably fairly surprised to find themselves under attack from the cast of "Hee-Haw."

And the redneck stereotypes keep on coming, by cracky. The guy in the hat addresses Pa, Ma, Auntie, Sister, Brother, Cousins Bee and Bye, and Grandma - so who's he? Looks too young to be Grandpa - so Uncle, maybe? I guess when you've got an atomic shotgun, you can be whoever the hell you want. (Does Wal-Mart sell those?) And since we're indulging every cliche short of duelling banjos, I suppose he could be referring to the same person more than once...

You might want to get a better bead with that shotgun, though, because right now you're lining up Sister for a faceful of atomic buckshot.

Grandma Ding-A-Ling seems to be the brains of the outfit - presumably less inbreeding in the older generations. She also looks like a more ornery version of Spider-Man's Aunt May. In any event, if a family like that is holding you down and they plan to "hornswaggle" you, things are looking bad. Squeeeeeeeeeel like a pig, Thor!

You're right, Thor - just think of how much the Ding-A-Ling Family could accomplish if only they harnessed their awesome power for good.

It would appear that Thor has just smashed Sister Ding-A-Ling in the face with his hammer. Verily, Thor dost not fucketh around.

Bee and Bye Ding-A-Ling have a "cousin-power secret weapon," which I guess is the power to cling to muscular blonds with big hammers. I have that power too.

"Get it? Bee and Bye? Bye and Bye? Does thou see what I did there? Huh? Huh?"

Luckily Sif has a secret weapon too - her ears, and she heard Bee and Bye describe exactly how to beat them. So...the Norse gods keep Hostess Fruit Pies in stock? Ok, if I can buy the atomic shotgun, I guess I can buy that. But did Sif really take the time, while Thor was wrasslin' with the cousins, to unwrap all the Fruit Pies and arrange them neatly on a tray?

Bee and Bye refer to each other as "cousin" - except they seem to be identical twins. Ah, well - it's not like the gods can throw stones about the whole inbreeding thing.

Does Bye pronounce the little "restricted trademark" symbol?

Aunt May is PISSED! Volstagg and Sif are so excited, they speak in unison. And is it me, or are Bee and Bye kind of hot in this panel? (Oh...it's just me?)

So a happy ending for everybody. Except for all the Ding-A-Ling's Thor killed with his hammer two panels ago. And the generic god from the beginning, who seems to have been ding-a-linged off-panel.

Take us out, Odin.

Superdesecration

As a gay atheist, I often feel oppressed by fundamentalist Christianity. Will no one save me?

Thanks, Superman!

(From World's Finest Comics 286.)

Leave room for Krypto

Good call on not selling the house, Superman. "Three bedrooms, two baths, and my parents' corpses. Big yard, great for kids. Want a tour?"

(From The Amazing World of Superman, Metropolis Edition, 1973.)

And his favorite color is...the eagle!

You'd think someone with a gigantic "A" on his forehead would know what initials are.

(From The Avengers 78. Also from my old Livejournal blog, from which I'll be migrating the occasional old post.)

Companions: Susan Foreman

In honor of the 47th anniversary of the airing of the first ever episode of Doctor Who on November 23, 1963, I uploaded a series of photos to my Facebook account of all the characters who have served as companions to the Doctor on television (because I am a gigantic nerd). Since I need something to post about (and I'm procrastinating writing a paper), here's the first entry in a series on the Doctor's various friends, companions and assistants. Starting with:

Susan Foreman

(Carole Ann Ford)

Susan was the first companion for the First Doctor. She was the Doctor's granddaughter, and she started out all weird and interesting, but by her fourth or fifth story had become the first clichéd "Doctor Who girl", all screams and twisted ankles.

Here's Susan being all kick-ass and awesome holding a flaming skull to scare off some cavemen, in An Unearthly Child, the very first Doctor Who serial.

And here she is still awesome in the third serial, The Edge of Destruction, as she's driven insane by the TARDIS and tries to kill her science teacher with a pair of scissors.

And here she is in her final serial, The Dalek Invasion of Earth, with a twisted ankle. Not shown: endless screaming.

It was in this story that the Doctor left her behind, locking her out of the TARDIS on a war-ravaged future Earth to live out the rest of her life with a boy she just met. He promised to one day come back, and then never mentioned her again.

Susan was time-scooped home to Gallifrey in the 20th anniversary special The Five Doctors, where she met several future incarnations of her grandfather, none of whom seemed particularly excited to see her. She hasn't been mentioned specifically in the new series, but the implication is that, like the rest of the Doctor's family, she's dead. Presumably a twisted ankle was involved.

Firsties!

Encouraged by kind words from a few friends who probably did not understand what they were encouraging, I'm starting a blog about things I'm passionate about: mostly Doctor Who, some comics, and other crap. Maybe theater sometimes, since it's technically what I'm actually spending my life doing. Enjoy. Or not.