When were kids, we lived in fortunate times, the early days of comic books and incredible characters with remarkable abilities which staggered the imagination. Even before the comic books, however, there were exceptional radio heroes, few of them blessed with abnormal powers, who lived by their wits and finely-honed mortal talents, intent only on the pursuit of “Truth, Justice and the American Way.” Jack Armstrong, All-American Boy showed up in 1933, about the same time as the mysterious Lone Ranger. The latter show turned out to be such a success that its creators, Fran Striker and George Trendle, brought forth The Green Hornet four years later. If mother was concerned that her boys were being seduced by preposterous tales of derring-do, she could at least take satisfaction in the fact of their introduction to classical music. The Lone Ranger famously incorporated Rossini’s William Tell Overture into its programs while The Green Hornet used Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee.
The first radio hero with extraordinary abilities was The Shadow, in 1937, who had “the power to cloud men’s minds,” making himself invisible. The Shadow also had a diabolical laugh which, combined with his invisibility, froze evildoers in their tracks in mortal terror. At the end of each program, The Shadow would inevitably pose and answer his own question: “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!” He was also fond of telling bad guys “The weed of crime bears bitter fruit.” The Shadow was also the first radio hero with a secret identity. In reality, he was Lamont Cranston who in years previous had learned many strange secrets from a yogi priest who was keeper of the Temple of the Cobras at Delhi. That Lamont Cranston….he got around!
In May, 1939, Batman made his first appearance in Detective Comics #27. While Batman was not possessed of unusual powers, he was extremely athletic and endowed with an amazing “utility belt,” which contained all manner and make of crimefighting equipment. A year prior, Action Comics had unveiled the ultimate character with enhanced powers, an immigrant from another planet called Superman, who could fly, was impervious to bullets and possessed X-Ray Vision, which, to us boys, meant he could see through girls’ clothes. You go, Superman! Some people thought Superman’s greatest power was his ability to remain unrecognized by his close co-workers at The Daily Planet newspaper despite the lack of any sort of disguise short of a hat, glasses and a meek demeanor as alter-ego Clark Kent. Batman, harking back to The Lone Ranger’s Tonto, decided it might be a good idea to bring back the sidekick, adding Robin, The Boy Wonder. From that point on, comic books proliferated, new characters appeared almost monthly.
In 1941, just in time for World War II, Blackhawk appeared, first in Military Comics and eventually in DC. Blackhawk headed up a squadron of seven ace fighters of various nationalities with single names as they battled the Axis powers for the duration of the war and other miscreants afterwards. Blackhawk was the ultimate in non-politically correct comics, among other things featuring a Chinese cook with buck teeth named Chop-Chop, who always carried a meat cleaver and didn’t get to wear a Blackhawks uniform. Needless to say, Chop-Chop did not get his own plane. The war brought forth G.I. Joe and a plethora of Nazi-fighters of all descriptions. Despite our mothers’ predilections, comic books became a monster industry, read and traded by almost every kid in the neighborhood. The ultimate treat on Saturday was to take your dime down to Phil’s Drug Store on South Union Street and ruminate over the billion shelves of comics at your disposal before adopting one for the weekend. I probably held them too close—I can still smell the pages.
The Renaissance
If we all stopped reading comics for awhile, many of us came back to them in 1961 when Marvel Comics launched The Fantastic Four, closely followed by Spiderman, The Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America and The X-Men. The man who steered the Marvel ship, one Stan Lee, was an excellent navigator, leading the company into the film industry with enormous success. In 2009, The Walt Disney Company acquired Marvel Entertainment for more than four BILLION dollars and continues to turn out blockbusters with the original Marvel characters. The three Iron Man films, themselves, have grossed over one billion dollars, while the five Spiderman efforts have generated almost $1.6 billion. The value of old comic books from the forties and fifties is through the roof, with many selling for $200,000 or more. A pair of old Superman comics have gone for over $2.5 million, causing many of us to remember that one time in life when our mothers were so very, very wrong.
Superheroes get old, too.
Know Thine Enemy
As time has passed, we Earthlings have become all too comfortable with having our battles fought for us, our problems dispatched by one or another of these valiant superheroes. Errant asteroid on its way? Just call Superman. Too much crime on the streets of Gotham? Time for Commissioner Gordon to turn on the Batsignal. Green Goblins accosting people on the street? Spiderman is on his way. We take the assistance for granted. But what happens when the day comes that help is no longer available? Batman, after all, is 76 years old now and The Lone Ranger a halting 82 and on the 15th incarnation of that great horse, Silver. And Tonto has been consigned to the Roulette department at the newest Potawatomi casino. Things are changing and future threats to mankind loom on the horizon. The greatest of all may be The Trumpster, Doctor DeMento and The Legion of Doom.
This insidious nonet, which indiscriminately adds and subtracts members according to their abilities to dupe an unsuspecting public, may be the greatest danger humanity has yet faced. Installed by their billionaire masters in posts of influence, they are now in a position to capture the presidency of the most important nation on the planet, having already seized the country’s airwaves and pounded their grim doctrine into the consciousness of feeble-minded listeners: “All is hopeless without us to lead. The country’s days are numbered. There is menace all around us. We are doomed….DOOMED….DOOMED!”
We here at The Flying Pie are onto them and we don’t take our responsibilities lightly. We have dispatched investigators to the four corners of the Earth to learn the secret propensities of these master manipulators in that our audience will be more prepared to deal with their crafty shenanigans. Forewarned is forearmed. Let’s take a look at the Secret Lives of Pie Targets.
1. The Trumpster. The sly, egomaniacal leader of the group, confident and abrasive, a race-baiter. Like all who obsess over a subject—think Evangelist Ministers who rail about homosexuals and are later discovered in little Jimmy’s trundle bed—The Trumpster’s single-minded preoccupation with immigrants is a smoke screen. Trumpster was born in Ciudad Acuna, Mexico of poor but humble parents, his father a lowly goatherd. The family was mired in such severe poverty they could not even afford to buy little Donaldo hair, having to purloin same from farm animals and attach it in the best manner possible. Spiteful and Dangerous.
El Donaldo (left), down on the farm.
2. Doctor DeMento. Supposedly a quiet, good-natured Afro-American brain surgeon driven to politics by a desire to serve his fellow man. Hah! A scurrilous sham. DeMento is a white, Jewish man born in Cleveland who has taken advantage of the latest techniques in contemporary plastic surgery to gain support from minority constituencies. After all, it worked for Barack Obama.
3. The Governor. Has created a false image as a bruising, brawling misanthrope to cover up his previous life as a cigarette girl in Manhattan. Chris Christie is an unattractive transsexual with self-confidence issues. Not unlike Hitler.
4. The Token Woman. Give it up Carly Fiorina, nobody really believes you’re a female. That pinched face, that bossy attitude, it’s a dead giveaway. Born Carl Finnegan in the Bronx, N.Y. but moving at an early age to La Jolla, “Carly” grew up in a hippie compound, converting from pot to methamphetamine as a teenager and running off with an offshoot of the Hell’s Angels. Mean as a caged raccoon and twice as untrustworthy.
5. The Phony Cuban. Born in a seedy brothel in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Tarik “Ted” Ferhatovic emigrated to Jamaica in his twenties, taking the name “Cruz.” Ferhatovic endeared himself to the local Rastafarians with his expertise at Gypsy magic tricks taught to him by his childhood governess, earning their trust and rising in the ranks of the marijuana culture on the island to the position of “bundler.” Despite his modest success, was always the object of ridicule by local Cubans, leading to his total antipathy to all Hispanic people. Unsteady.
6. Jeb! A strange visitor from another planet, but without Kryptonian powers. Jeb!, instead, suffers from separation anxiety from his old world, which causes almost constant nervousness, urinary incontinence and excessive farting in public. Relegated to mascot status by the group and not accepted as a guest by the better hotels.
7. The Weasel. Face like a choir boy, heart like a pirate, as Jeb! discovered when Marco Rubio cut him off at the knees earlier in the nominating process. While publicly disdaining Mexican immigrants, Rubio is surreptitiously building a vast tunnel from Juarez to rural El Paso, the better to import tens of thousands of (forged) card-carrying voters before the election. If elected, promises Cubans a Desi Arnaz National Monument. Schizophrenic.
8. Dennis Kucinich. Oh, who cares?
9. Rand Paul. Rand is coming around. During the recent Republican debate at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, Chris Christie vowed he would shoot down all Russian planes entering our notion of a “no fly” zone in Syria. Paul, standing next to him, looked at Christie and then at the audience. “Well, there you have it,” he said. “Everyone out there looking to start world War III—you have your candidate!”
That’s all, folks….
