Tonight's contribution to Bahlactus's weekly free-for-all is dedicated to my little brother, Greg. He knows why (apart from it being his birthday, that is).
A lesson to aspiring drug dealers: You better watch where you push your shit, 'cuz the Protector is gonna push back -- right in your kisser.
Some are born mediocre, some achieve mediocrity, and some have mediocrity thrust upon them. The hapless Protector falls into all three categories, having been created as a stand-in for Robin, who was cashing rival cookie maker Nabisco's checks at the time. It was a lucky break for the Boy Wonder, as he was able to dodge this absurd bullet of licensed Drug War propaganda. Having completed his task of totally abolishing the scourge of drugs from this great nation of ours, Protector quietly bid his adieu to the world of superheroics (though you occasionally run into him on the lower-tier convention circuit selling autographed photos of himself in costume for $15 a pop).
I have to say that the hyperbolic sloganeering of the War on Drugs crowd dovetails nicely with the hyperbolic writing style of the superhero genre at the time: "Why aren't they the ones who suffer? Why do the children have to suffer?" "I'll never understand your planet -- Why do people make drugs which only hurt other people?"
Oh, baby, I love it when you speak talking points to me...
If a nonsensical plot involving eleven-year-old PCP addicts and international drug cartels deliberately killing their consumer base (quickly, that is) with product laced with poison isn't enough to make one walk the straight and narrow path, maybe a lecture from a beloved advertising mascot who lives in a magical aboreal baked goods factory will do the trick...
"...and so we dip the hard shortbread of partiotic platitudes into the waxy quasi-chocolate of shopworn self-help jargon. This is all tax-deductable, right? Because that's what the guys in accounting told me..."
David Bowie - Boys Keep Swinging (from Lodger, 1979) - The Thin White Duke dabbles in some gender-bending (the "swinging" isn't necessarily referring to punches) postpunkery with Brian Eno on piano and Adrian Belew on guitar. (My brother is a big fan of Bowie, so it ties back to the whole birthday thing as well.)
Meanwhile, back in the Golden Age of Comics:
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3 comments:
But Rex Tyler isn't going out to fight crime, he's just going out to the movies! Darn junkie.
Even better -- he's prepping to give his all-kid fan club a pep talk. Seriously.
Keebler elves giving anti-drug advice? That is super creepy. You just know he's on magic mushrooms as he gives his little speech.
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