Home

Fantastic Four

(1978/1967)

Why are comic books so fascinated with the Annoying Little Fuck Who Can Do Anything? The most famous ALFWCDA is Mister Mxyzptlk* from Superman, but there's a whole bunch of them running around and every single time one of them shows up in a story you know it's going to suck. "Wow, Bat-Mite made a cake appear out of nowhere and the cake fell on Batman and now Batman's covered in cake!" Kiss my fucking ass. The ALFWCDA in this cartoon is Mr. Impossible, an alien who gets tricked into helping these cats knock over banks. The cops call in the Fantastic Four because it's not their job to catch crooks, but the Fantastic Four can't stop Mr. Impossible and they can't bust the crooks because they aren't actually guilty of any crimes, except conspiracy and receiving stolen property but those don't count. In the end Mr. Impossible overhears the crooks talking smack about him though, so he turns into a fan and blows all their money out the window. The crooks run outside to get it and find the Fantastic Four waiting, so they attack them. That's exactly what Mr. Fantastic was waiting for: "I can add 'attack on the Fantastic Four' to the list of crimes against the three of you," he says. I see he's willing to enforce that law, obscure as it is. God, what a self-centered ass. Who put this prick in charge again?

A tape called Fantastic Four can't just be about the Fantastic Four. Apparently. The next two cartoons star Spider-Man. In the first one, he has to stop this scientist who's pissed off at J. Jonah Jameson for making fun of his "theory of invisibility". Since he really can turn invisible you'd think that would be revenge enough, but nope; instead, the scientist decides to frame him. First, he calls the police and tells them that this painting called Leaves of Glass is gonna get stolen,** then when they show up he turns invisible and sticks it under J. Jonah Jameson's arm. This guy can turn invisible and that's the best he can come up with? Jesus. In the last cartoon, Spider-Man fights a swami who wants to swipe a bunch of jewelry. In one part the swami's cronies tie him up, so he uses his web shooters to make a saw to cut the ropes. Okay, fuck off- Spider-Man can't do that. I did like it when he called this elephant jockey an "East Indian giver" though. Good one, Spidey.

*Pronounced "Who cares?"

**"Leaves of Glass? Why that's worth $100,000!" says the cop who answers the phone. They must've had a Fine Arts requirement where he went to cop school.