Every week, I will spotlight strange but ultimately endearing comic stories (basically, we're talking lots and lots of Silver Age comic books). Here is the archive of all the installments of this feature. Feel free to e-mail me at bcronin@comicbookresources.com if you have a suggestion for a future installment!
This week, we spotlight the first story arc from Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonen's excellent Nextwave series.
The concept behind Nextwave is that five lesser-known superheroes (Monica Rambeau, Machine Man, Tabitha "Meltdown/Boom Boom/Boomer" Smith, Elsa Bloodstone and a new hero known as The Captain) joined up with a group that they thought was a SHIELD-esque outfit called HATE. They discovered, though, that HATE was funding terrorist groups and had hid "Unusual Weapons of Mass Destruction" around the United States. They then broke free from HATE and decided to thwart the plans of HATE (which is led by Dirk Anger)...
The very first of these "Unusual Weapons of Mass Destruction" is none other than Fin Fang Foom, one of the coolest monsters of the pre-superhero Marvel age of monster titles. So cool that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby made sure to bring him into the superhero age, as well.
Here is Fin Fang Foom as drawn by Jack Kirby...
As you might notice, for some reason, Fin Fang Foom is a giant dragon who wears purple underpants.
Ellis gets great mileage out of this bizarre little bit.
And in the second issue, we get perhaps the first truly classic Nextwave line, as Tabitha Smith attacks Fin Fang Foom only to be told...
"Fin Fang Foom put you in his pants" needs to be part of everyone's everyday vocabulary!
Luckily, the Captain saves Tabitha from being in Fin Fang Foom's pants...
Eventually, Monica Rambeau comes up with a plan (I love the Avengers teasing here, especially Machine Man's respons)...
It is put into action...
And we get our result...
Poor Fin Fang Foom...