Stupid Comics

The Flame was one of Fox Feature Syndicate's most popular superheroes, so much that he was one of their Big 3, as well as in his own title. This pyrokinetic protector fought very colorful characters, the most tragic as well as strangest was known as The Octopus. Aside from being a name incorporated by at least a dozen other comic book villains, The Octopus was not someone with a Cthulhu fetish or robotic tentacles. but a chartreuse-skinned freak with three arms. This meant he wore a top with a trio of sleeves which apparently made him sore enough that he decided to become a crime lord after terminating all the city's racketeers. His latest target is the uncle of The Flame's current girlfriend Linda Dale, a former gangster who after first escaping Octopus years ago ends up getting killed by him. The Flame goes after Octopus, but manages to capture the hero, despite being conveniently freed by Linda now using Flame's powers as his new partner Flame Girl. Despite having a ...

Where Robin or Kid Flash were junior partners to their headliner heroes, they at least had their own uniform and codename. In 1941, Holyoke Publishing started their own title for Batman ripoff Cat-Man featuring the non-masked hero known as The Deacon, a former burglar that disguised himself as a preacher to fight crime from an abandoned church. Dean Denton manages to hide out in the open, as does his sidekick Mickey Mathews who gets taken in by the Deacon after being chased by some gangsters. Mickey has no secret identity even though there weren't too many other bright-eyed blonde boys that were as chipper as him running around pre-WWII America, but he was fortunate enough to actually grow from a boy to a teenager during his 5-year run. When he wasn't being the Deacon's boy wonder, he meets up with Katie Conn at a summer camp run by Nazis, and his new girlfriend only happens to be Cat-Man's sidekick Kitten with her own superhero garb. The sidekicks form a pre-Teen Titan...

There must have been a shortage of umbrellas in the late 1940s as the All-Weather, All-Purpose Cover-All was promoted in several comic books. Surplus Sales tried to appeal to couples not smart enough to get out of the rain by pushing this transparent miniature tent top meant to be used by two people simultaneously. A huge variety of uses await you while taking it to ball games, picnics, fishing, and various other outdoor events that you think would be cancelled on account of the rain. Illustrations tried to show how appealing it would be to go for a canoe ride of taking the baby out for a walk during monsoon season, least of all not for a romantic night on the town while the weather is pitchforking you. As part of the U.S. Government surplus price is concerned, you would think that they could just hand out garbage bags with eyeholes instead of this raw deal. Quoting that it can easily be folded up to fit in your pocket makes you wonder how huge a bulge in your pants it would leave if i...

You would think that any character by Jack Dole who also created Plastic Man would be somewhat lighthearted. MLJ's tragic superhero The Comet was instead someone endowed with great powers that doesn't really instill with him great responsibility. John Dickerson is a scientist working a new kind of gas when he inhales it gives him ability to fly, as well as laser vision. This made him one of the first comics characters to actually have that power with only a glass plate over his eyes to stop him from disintegrating everything in sight. He slaps together an outfit made of lucky charms and starts calling himself The Comet who had no problem offing bad guys by either blasting them to death or dropping them from the sky. Through his entire 17-issue run, Comet caused mass property damage, resentment from the police, and is even temporarily brainwashed into killing innocents as he racked up a ton of misdemeanors. In his last case, Comet tries to save his brother Bob from a mob hit, bu...

Another member of Great Comics' ridiculous roster of rescuers was Madame Strange. The caped bikini-clad crusader is a total mystery when it comes to her real name and origin, although she makes up for it with her bombastic adventures. Blessed with super-strength, Strange is an agent for the Allies in WWII who frequently distracted enemies with her beguiling looks by disguising herself as a stripper despite the fact that her identity as a spy was occasionally common knowledge. Her opening adventure is taking out the Japanese spymaster Bonza and his crew who plan to take over Hawaii after making a deal with a local crooked crime lord. She gets clobbered after confronting the deadly duo but uses her strength to escape captivity and foil a prison break. Still in a swimsuit for her second mission in Singapore where she's seen as a stripper whose knife-throwing skills help her take down more of the Japanese spy ring after her double agent named Sharkskin is assassinated, and she toss...

"Dope!" That's your response to figuring out you could gain social acceptance by getting a cheap flute. Lonesome Joe is the star of this half-page comic strip/ad from the late 1940s who felt left out from not being invited to the locals' bike ride, when it probably might have to do with him not having his own wheels. When a girl tells him they would've had a better time if they had some music, L.J. gets it into his head to read the very comic ad he is in to send away for Casper Garber's offer for a hot-lick slide flute and a clari-flute. Yes, you too can get lucky with the ladies if you learn how to master a pair of tone-deaf instruments! All you need is an estimated 15 minutes of training to become the Elvis of noisemakers. If the kids in your town are so cut off from the rest of the civilized world that your only chance at popularity is a cheap horn from a local party store, then maybe being popular among these brain-dead peons isn't worth the $1.98 you ...

I.W. Publishing was one of several small-time publishers trying to cash in on the Silver Age of Comics boom by reprinting several Golden Age characters like Phantom Lady. Before they folded in 1964, the company also known as Super Comics added an original character to last issue of their anthology title of Daring Adventures. Atlas was supposedly inspired by the old Charles Atlas comic book ads for how to be a he-man, but I.W. got a hold of the original artwork and reformatted it into their own creation. Instead of a skinny guy getting sand kicked in his face at the beach, the origin story for this supernatural strong man was meek glasses-wearing office employee Jim Randall who strikes out with asking out his hot co-worker after her brother is beat up by thugs. Jim is visited in his dreams by the actual Greek god Atlas who inspires him to spend the next few weeks doing Rocky training montages at his uncle's ranch, which not only molds him into a buff bodybuilder but for some reason ...