This tournament is called “Bad Boys”, where the villains win the fights. Now, while I will always vote for the heroes to win (something that Marvel seems to be shying away from at the moment), I have to acknowledge that if the villain doesn’t win a few skirmishes before losing the final battle you really don’t get a sense that he or she is a major threat.
To open we go to one of my favorite comics, Comico’s version of Space Ghost. Artist Steve Rude went the extra mile to make the art look like it was taken from an actual episode and he and co-writer Mark Evanier brought us a story that would make a great Space Ghost movie. It’s certainly better than the “re-imagining” DC brought us a few years ago. Someday I’ll do a whole marathon of Space Ghost comic reviews, but for now, we have one fight where Zorak finally gets to win. Not against Space Ghost, of course.
A new year. A new tournament. A new logo. Same old Spacebooger.
Round 1 of 12
The Battlefield: Space Ghost (special), Comic the Comic Company (December 1987)
The Promoters: Mark Evanier & Steve Rude (writers, assisted by Barrell McNeil), Steve Rude (artist), Willie Blyberg (inker), and Ken Steacy (painter)
Rob-Corp (a one-shot villain group) decides to break bad guys Space Ghost’s defeated in the past out of Gaolworld prison as part of a plan against our hero. But first they need to get them out. So they contact Zorak mentally and gives him a replica of Space Ghost’s famous “power bands” so he can run a prison break.
So Rob-Corp makes cosplay gear?
(How he ends up with this physically back in the prison is because..um..shut up! It’s based on a 60’s kids cartoon)
And so Zorak has what every villain in that galaxy has been wanting: POWER BANDS! Come to think of it, most kids want one, too. I made some once out of construction paper. They didn’t fire energy blasts at robots, though.
Nobody puts Baby in a corner!
But Zorak isn’t planning to escape alone. After all, he was asked to round up a band of others who hate Space Ghost.
"Now we can start our OWN talk show!"
Yeah, I had to work at least one Space Ghost: Coast to Coast reference in here somewhere.
I could come up with a joke here, but if you've ever seen "Batman & Robin" with the future California govenor, you know why I won't.
At this point the villains are taken away in a Rob-Corp “saucer-crab” to challenge our heroes. Thankfully, they don’t win. But someone WILL win this tournament. And this time around, Spacebooger’s trying something new. Instead of adding your vote in the “comments” section (he now uses forums instead to frustrate the spammers), there will be a poll. Just click on “comments” to get to the poll page, click on the button for the BW Media Spotlight your favorite entry, and hit “vote”. You can stay anonymous and still hope your favorite fight gets the Grand Prize gift at the end of the tournament. So…
BW Media Spotlight 