Stupid Comics

Prior to Ronco's Mr. Microphone, the Seyco Mik Co. had the Super Home Radio Mike. The unofficially named mike had ads running in several comics in the late 1940s for a mere $1.98 which back then was a steep amount. With this super mike, you could "fool your friends" by making your own radio shows. This kind of thing might have gotten creative types like Orson Welles into hot water for doing a pretend Martian invasion, but with post-war tensions running high at the time, the last thing your friends and family need is you doing your fake Russian a-bomb attacks through the living room radio as a legit news flash. Aside from the money back guarantee, it's unlikely that apartment tenants appreciated their noisy neighbors doing Golden Age karaoke of Perry Como at 2:30 AM.

More than a decade before DC Comics decided to come up with canine counterparts to the World's Finest, Fawcett Publications premiered the first ever superhero hound. Bulletman started off in a feature in Nickel Comics until getting his own title where police scientist Jim Barr created a formula that increased his strength and smarts. He used this new intelligence to invent a bullet-shaped helmet that gave him the ability of flight, and became the flying detective, Bulletman, along with his girlfriend Susan who got her own helmet as Bulletgirl. The gravity-defying duo fought a bizarre rogues gallery, including the anti-Joker known as The Weeper who once kicked Susan's dog Slug. Bulletman evened the playing field by making Slug his own special collar that allowed him to fly too as the newly dubbed Bulletdog. He whips Weeper back, as well as eventually helps save Christmas, duels with an evil robot dog, and saves rich dogs from jewel thieves. Fawcett really tried to pimp Bulletdog...

Another star from the aptly titled Choice Comics is featured in all three of the short-lived publication's run, Kangaroo Man! Officially, there is no character in it named Kangaroo Man as it is more title-bait, but instead it is Jack Brian, a standard explorer who returns to the States after a stay in Australia. While he was down under, Jack went through some unknown origin story involving him forming a bond with a highly intelligent kangaroo called Bingo. Jack can understand everything Bingo says, and the two coordinate with Professor Stanford to stop enemy agents from sabotaging an army train. They both parachute out of a crashing plane and begin smashing spies in a way that Adam West and Burt Ward never had the guts to try. Jack flies after the remaining agents with Bingo hanging on the wing and swats the bad guys out of the sky. They then travel to Canada to help round up some escaped Nazis in a chase where Bingo actually rides a motorcycle to catch them while getting his tail ...

Want real battle authenticity? Then you'll want to get an exact grenade replica, especially for the youngins! Described as being menacing, this grenade toy genuinely blows up with a heavy gauge firing mechanism that is supposed to be completely harmless as it blows up into pieces, despite the fact that your supposed to be able to hear the explosion from across the block. So, not only is at a cruel novelty item for which a whoopee cushion should suffice, but it might give someone with a weak heart condition having a cardiac arrest because they have really insensitive children. The idea that someone thought would appeal to mentally handicapped pranksters, and that it the ad was used in a kid's comic is living proof some people just want to see the world burn.

When you need help defeating the Axis powers, you cut to the chase by building the Chronopticon to travel to the year 2350 and get a mutant super soldier. Lasting for only four issues of Fight Comics in 1941, Super-American was a fusion of Superman and Captain America. Allan Bruce is the world's first timelord and uses his new time machine to get help from Americans in the future where everyone has superpowers. They send back one of their unnamed citizens to assume the role of a stars and stripes sporting superhero. This reverse-Buck Rogers uses his powers of strength, speed, flight, and invulnerability to first take on some pesky fifth columnists assaulting Washington lead by the Nazi stooge Tyrannus. Their initial mission fails, so Tyrannus gets help from his commanding officer, the sneakily named Vultro, while Super-American flies all the way over to Europe to stop their plan to use brand new "air torpedoes" on the Allied Forces. Further installments show the original ...