World's Lamest: Tales from the Quarter Box #2

World's Lamest: Tales from the Quarter Box #2
#2 "What if... The Punisher became Captain America?" (What if... Vol. 2, # 51)

What if the Punisher became Captain America? What if this wasn't a big, donkey-smelling story done in the worst early 90s Punisher-style? What if I had picked up the "What if Daredevil forgot to buy renter's insurance" issue instead? What if?

Marvel's answer to Baby Huey, the Watcher, tells us that on an alternate earth, Captain America (Steve Rogers) is critically injured by the Red Skull in their battle in issue # 212. The Government, a gimped-up Steve Rogers, and Nick Fury all need that symbol to live on. You see, Captain America is the ultimate deterrant on crime in the U.S. (I'd like the see a New York Time's bar chart on that one). Plus, I think they were in the middle of a "Win a Date with Cap!" contest and didn't want to dissapoint excited-winner Elizabeth Shultz of Fargo, N.D.

Enter crazy-ass 'Nam vet, Frank Castle, Marine drill sargent with a pechant for wearing goofy-looking knit caps. 'Ole Frankie wants no part of the superhero biz, so a gaggle of Marvel's lower-rung characters (Doc Savage, John "Man-Wolf" Jameson, and possibly even NFL SuperPro) take a crack at the Red, White and Blue. All fail horribly; killing people, getting themselves killed and one's even turned into a zombie-vampire (ok, that's kinda cool and funny).

Meanwhile, Frank's family make the biggest mistake of their lives by entering the "Wife and Children Shooting Contest" at the 52nd Annual Mafia Father-Son Picnic. Now, the only thing that'll ease Frank's mind is the gentle "Kerrang!" of throwing Captain America's mighty shield.
As the "Sentinel of Liberty", Frank is super-violent and nearly kills Hammerhead. Plus, he doesn't show up to the Avengers Sunday softball practices, which miffs everyone off after they loose to TGI Fridays. In short. everyone dislikes him. But Frank doesn't care and decides to take it up a notch and roam the streets at night as the Punisher.

Frank runs around and poses a lot; there's lots of teeth-gritting and off panel killings. Finally Punisher comes face to face with the mobster who made him the world's angriest widower. But, who should show up at the last moment to talk him out of it? CAPTAIN AMERICA!

Wait-wha? Yes, a robot-cyborg Steve Rogers shows up and teaches Punisher that he had the magic in him all along. Only a man can be Captain America; robots are only good for turning into cars or mintsing around on a spice freighters. So Frank tears up, makes the mobster a friendship bracelet and re-dons the Cap outfit. Oh and Steve Rogers becomes the lame-ass "The Captain", who's rum I enjoy very much.

As far as "What if?" stories go, this was the lamest I've read, which is a shame since it's written by Transformers scribe extraordinare, Simon Furman. A good "What if?" will at least weave in some preposterous shit through a milestone event. This one references nothing other than Cap #212, which is only mentioned in passing. We piss on you "What if" #51!

Cap unleashes his unholy army of attack doves on the criminals of New York

World's Lamest: Tales from the Quarter Box #3

SuperPro terrorizes the Snake Eyes family reunion

World's Lamest: Tales from the Quarter Box #3
NFL SuperPro #1 (Marvel, 1991) *not to be confused with "KFC SuperCook"

I've gotta say, out of all the donkey-twilt I've read for the "World's Lamest" reviews, the "COLLECTOR'S ITEM!" "1ST ISSUE!" of SuperPro is fairly tolerable. It's played straight and I guess I supposed to fit into the day-to-day Marvel Universe. Spidey even makes a guest appearance and one of the villian's gimicks is to drop F-Bombs (#$@%)

So, SuperPro is in reality Phil Greyfield, gimped up NFL pro, turned sports news journalist. In a random flashback, we're told of SuperPro's bizzare origin. During an interview with an eccentric sports memorbila collector (who for shits & giggles desinged a football supersuit), thieves break in to steal some diamond encrusted jockstraps. Phil is tied up and left to roast in the burning building when "a once-in-a lifetime chemical combination" gave him "enhanced athletic abilities, strength and endurance". I'm not sure what chemicals are stored with sports memoribilia but the only thing I see in the panel is Phil tied up, sitting in a puddle of NFL SuperPee.

We also, see SuperPro first enemy, a player that used experimental steroids and turned into a horrible create with scarring acne and shrivled testies.

And there in lies the patented SuperPro formula. All the plots look to revolve around sports related crimes. Issue one, SuperPro is trying to clear a player involved in a gambling scandel. I'm betting the following issues touched on ticket scalping, excessive celebration and a very special issue dealing with STDs in locker room therapy hot tubs.

All in all, it's pretty much vanilla. Spidey's pointless and just pops up every few pages to give a "the kids doing all right!" cheer. Spider-man likes SuperPro, I guess we're supposed to also. The best thing is the F-Bomb villian. It's foul language the way a 10 year old would write it. Sadly, he falls to his death and oddly enough does not scream an obscenity before going splat.

Check out that haircut. Or the world's most half-assed scalp transplant.

SuperPro, not the worst thing ever created. Plus, it spawned the popular early 90s catch phrase "Fuck, I just bought a SuperPro comic!"

---END TRANSMISSION---
DR.G

Drinky McDrink-Drink, Christmas-style

The holidays go hand and hand with limited, overpriced novelty beverages. Coke has put out a retro-style holiday 6-pack in the style of the 1899 Coke bottles. The old botles make you feel like you're having a cold one in the old west after a long trip on the iron-horse. Coke and Christmas go hand and hand. Santa drinks it for goodness sake.

Our other christmassy beverage is Jones' Candy Cane. It's actually pretty darn good. It's tasty and mild with no wacky aftertaste. It's like an open mouthed kiss with Cand-Lor, the monster made of candy. And if you want to spicy up the night, you can try the offical Geektarded Christmas Drink...

"The Ralphie"
"THE RALPHIE"

1 bottle of Jones Cola "CANDY CANE"

1 1/2 - 2 shots of Rum

1 glass with cartoon or comic character

Add Some crushed ice and drink libberally.

After a few, you'll look like this:

---END TRANSMISSION---DR.G

I wanna hold your handheld

Handheld video games. Time was, you had to drop big bucks on a game system like the Game Boy, PSP or Atari Lynx or you were stuck with a cheaper Tiger LCD handhled, which have been around since the late 70s. But, with the mass marketing of color LCD screens, a cheap mid-80s and 90s the home gaming experience has come to the handheld.

Target is selling a Sega handheld loaded with 20 old Sega Master System and Game Gear games for a steal at around $15. It runs on 3 AAA and sports a nice 2.5" color screen.

The games include:
Sonic Drift 2
Sonic Triple Trouble
Alex Kidd in High Tech World
Alex Kidd in Miracle World
Altered Beast
Assault City
Astro Warrior
Aztec Adventure
Bomber Raid
Columns
Ecco II: The Tides of Time
Fantasy Zone
Fantasy Zone: The Maze
Global Defense
Kung Fu Kid
The Ninja
Penguin Land
Quartet
Snail Maze
Super Columns

My obsession is the "Super Columns" game (a Tetris clone), but the Sonic Triple Trouble, Altered Beast and Astro Warriors are also favorites. All the games are pretty much the Sega answer to the NES or arcade games from that time period. Tetris, Mario, Zelda, 1942 and many others get a cloned game. They're all lots of fun, especially for $15.

The system also, comes with A/V hook-ups, so you can turn it into a plug and play for you tv set. And it sports a headphone jack, a port for a 5V AC adapter (not included), volume controls and a long battery life (and I was using the cheap AAA's from the dollar bin at Target). I've been playing it a lot and have only changed batteries once in the last 3 weeks.

After playing this and having the option of playing the games on the big screen, I'm convinced Nintendo needs to do something similar. Maybe designed to look like a compact version of the original Game Boy, loaded with some classic NES/SNES home games. And they could follow with a NES plug n play shaped like the original NES, with 2 controllers and games built in (like the Atari Flashback). Price them right and you'd have game heaven.

Even more vintag ads. Believe it!

Service Merchandise

Bygone Omaha retailer Richman Gordman hosted He-Man and Skeletor

Bygone Omaha video store Applause Video brought the Ecto-1 to town. I remember going to this one. Very cool car; ranks up there with the Batmobile and the Mach 5 for bad-ass rides.

Bygone "mom & pop" Omaha toy store, Yountown.

Toys Plus. My first toy retail love. This was a medium sized regional chain based out of St. Charles, MO. They had 2 locations in Omaha before going under. As far as I can tell, they tried to expand into Texas, went head-to-head with Toys R Us and got clobbered. Fantastic stores with tons of toys. If anyone ha anything related to Toys Plus, drop me a line at geektarded@cox.net


This is the ad for the live Masters of the Universe store apearance at Toys Plus (see the photo from the actual appearance down below a few enteries)

"Vintage Newspaper Ads-O-Rama!"

From the darkest depths of the Geektarded Periodicals Department and right in time for Christmas comes:

"Vintage Newspaper Ads-O-Rama!"

FEATURING:
Children's Palace

The first CP ad for Omaha, NE




A trio of ad pages from the last day the Omaha CP store was opened. This was Easter Sunday. On Monday, the store never reopened, the staff was informed that morning they were out of work and the store stock was packed up and shipped to other locations. The end of a legend (at least in my mind)

Geese Louise! It's mid- December!

Great Ceaser's Twilt! I was eating turkey and devil eggs yesterday and now it's 2 weeks to Christmas. Sorry for the lack of updates. In my defense, I've been writing a bunch in my spare time, but hadn't had time to gather art (i.e. poorly Photoshopped pics). So, here comes some bulk uploads.