Hey, remember when comics were great? When they were all graveyards and death and wide open grimacing mouths and holographic foil stamped covers? Well, if you don't remember that glorious time, you have two options; you can spend some time in the fifty cent bin at your local comic shop, or you can enjoy this week's Stupid Comics!
It's all there - the frozen, rictus grimace, the weirdly missing parts of women's clothes, the sharp objects, the nonsensical zero numbering that tells us all this is an important collectors item, the word "torture" giving us fair warning what reading this comic is going to be like.
I will say that it's nice of this comic book to be simulcast in stereo from WPEG FM 98, your home of the hits! Now look, WPEG FM 98, either hell is erupting, or the city is dead calm. It can't be both. Anyway, let's all stay calm, police are TRYING to approach the assailant, the odd emphasis on the word "try" really giving our narration a perhaps unintended sarcastic tone.
And inside we find the store manager exercising his Second Amendment rights along with a generous interpretation of "open carry" along with "stand your ground" mixed with a little "being homicidal and insane," while the sound effects remind us that what we're reading is pap.
Well OBVIOUSLY you should have read "Morbid Angel #1" and you would have KNOWN that demons from Hell have risen up out of perdition, have taken over the bodies of stressed-out retail managers, have armed them with rapid firing approximations of Uzis, and have sent them on rampages in shopping centers! This is actually a lot of work for Satan and his minions. Maybe they should just read a newspaper sometime, they'll see that mortals, apart from facing eternal damnation on a daily basis due to the temptations of sin, are perfectly capable of causing this much trouble all by themselves.
With a delightful pitter patter of PAP PAP PAP PAP our poor stressed out retail drone is put out of our misery, but not before he reminds us all that we're going to die. Again, news flash to the devil world, yeah, we know already. That's why we quit smoking.
Okay, so is this narration still WPEG FM 98? Because if it is, why aren't they playing my request? I called in Night Ranger's "Sister Christian" three hours ago!
Man, I hate it when I've been brought back from the dead in a comic book that doesn't even bother to tell the reader who I am and then Glenn Danzig shows up with an umbrella and offers to guide me through the paths of hell. Sorry Glenn, already spent my time at the mall on (KRA-BOOM!) Black Friday.
It's a simple choice, either go with Danzig here and take a guided tour of Hell, or he'll kill you after you've already died once. You're probably still kind of sore from the first time!
and NOW the COMIC decides to start throwing in FULL PAGE SPREADS so as to PAD OUT the THIN storyline and TO emphasize RANDOM words in THE dialogue and SOMEBODY needs a MANICURE because it's the 1990s
GODDAMMIT COMIC BOOK, I don't know what "Morbid Angel" is and I'm never going to find out and it's irritating for you to keep shoving it in my face. Also, the whole suspenders and bare chest thing? Not working either.
This guy needs a manicurist AND some instruction in proper grammar. Also a shirt
Hey, we're into two page spreads now! Because what this story of a resurrected spandex woman and Glenn Danzig's Magical Palms really needed some slowing down to let the reader really absorb the details of its complex storyline, which I will recap for you now: a resurrected spandex woman fights Glenn Danzig's Magical Palms. Now do try to keep up.
This comic book can't decide if it wants to be a "stranger danger" PSA ("I don't know you! You aren't my mommy!") and an old ad for Gillette Blue Blades - you know, the one with the cartoon parrot? You don't? He sang "how are you fixed for blades?" because you always needed to keep some fresh razor blades on hand, you never know when you need that close shave only Gillette Blue Blades gives you. And remember how you'd just drop your used razor blades into the slot under the bathroom mirror? Think about all the millions of dull, rusty razor blades dumped in the crawlspaces behind 1950s bathrooms all over America, waiting for that inevitable day of renovation or demolition when they'll be freed to catch the fingers of the unwary laborer. That's why construction workers wear gloves. Anyway, back to our comic book. Think about your blades, won't you?
Our unnamed heroine is sure thinking about HER blades because here they are, erupting from her arms! It's almost like that other edgy, violent comic book character with blades erupting from his arms... the one with the big sideburns like Glenn Danzig here... what's his name again? Wolf-er-ay? Wolf-oh? Wolfisterine? I forget.
also I do want to call attention to panels two and three here, a master class in how to confuse the reader by making the foreground character smaller while making the background character larger, and placing the background character in the same place in both panels so that it looks like his head comes right out of his belt buckle. Which admittedly would make Glenn Danzig much more interesting.
hey another two page spread! Another use of the plural pronoun! The panel borders are now BONES! Show THAT to your MOM and ask HER if COMICS are STILL JUST FOR KIDS! BECAUSE THEY'RE NOT, MOM! And a completely missed opportunity to have our lady friend say something like "let me give you A HAND!" or, um, "how do you feel about the right to BEAR ARMS?" Something like that.
"Wench." Really, hell-demon? That's how Satan teaches you to insult women?
Look out, whoever you are, the glowing palm of Danzig still can rummble and krasshh!
It's a rule of comic books that the use of the word "Satan" in dialogue must be expressed in firey letters. I think Satan made that rule.
Hey is this still WPEG FM 98? Can I ask something? Is her name actually Razor? I guess if you have a name like Razor then at some point some supernatural being is going to implant razor sharp knives in your forearms, huh? Maybe she should have changed her name to "Perfectly Normal Forearms" or something, huh, WPEG FM 98? Also am I the 98th caller? Do I win the Bob Seger tickets?
Another two page spread, another missed opportunity. "I always enjoy helping people to GET A HEAD!" she could be saying.
Meanwhile we cut to a scene across the city where a kneeling woman has one chance to save the future from the past by preventing the present! "It Has Begun!" she intones, in a panel that might have been better served by being at the beginning of this comic book. But that would make sense.
LOOK just TRUST US and read MORBID ANGEL and EVERYTHING WILL MAKE SENSE. We would have made everything in THIS comic make sense, but we aren't going to miss a chance to squeeze an extra $3.95 out of you dopes.
Turns out when you release a demon as a teenager you become an angel and then get crucified in Hell, and then you get a mullet. And do you get a full page spread leading right into a "to be continued?"
Yes you do! You get TIME to prepare for BATTLE and BLOOD seeping down the EDGE of your BLADE and you HAD better WIPE that OFF before it STAINS the METAL.
And hey! If you thought THIS comic was bad, the next one is torture! Get it?
For those confused about what we were looking at, the name of the comic was "Razor: Torture #0" and it was published smack dab in the middle of the 1990s and created by a team of people who only have one name each. Well, "Jackhammer" might be two names shoved together.
If you're ready to join the DARKSIDE of comics, they're looking for writers, pencillers, inkers, letters, and colorist. Just one colorist. Also they might need a proofreader maybe
And now let's get to what this comic book is really about, the real driving creative force behind this entire endeavour!
Yes, it's trading cards. Chromium trading cards featuring sexy ladies in revealing outfits pouting at YOU the consumer as they brandish their knives and pose with dead flowers to show that while they may be sexy and dangerous they're also sad and beautiful! These cutting edge trading cards will look great in their unopened boxes as they lie under your bed for three or four years, forgotten. The last week before you start college you'll be cleaning up and you'll find them and take them to the comic shop - not the comic shop you bought them from, they went out of business, but that other comic shop that opened on the other side of town - and you'll see if they're worth anything, and the proprietor won't say anything, he'll look down at the dusty, unopened box of cutting edge trading cards, and then he'll look back at you with a sad expression, and he'll say "these aren't worth anything, sorry" and then you have to take the box back, and you'll leave the comic book shop and you'll pass a garbage can and your anger and frustration at wasting money on these stupid cards will boil over and you'll almost hurl the box into the trash, but you'll stop yourself at the last minute and say to yourself there MUST be something I can do with these cards, some purpose beyond just the landfill, what can I do with these stupid cards? And that's why Everette Hartsoe's Razor Chromium Trading Cards were found on the windshields of dozens of cars in the parking deck downtown, confusing drivers and passengers alike.
And now the Hot 100, here on WPEG FM 98!
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