Tuesday, October 04, 2022

Out of control killer toys; that should narrow down the list of suspects, unless they're going Scooby-Doo here...

Also, Clark is disappointed a classic children's game is taking a modern, violent spin. Right, like there's never been any violence in Monopoly. From 1999, Superman #146, "Rough Day at the Office" Story and layouts by Dan Jurgens, finishes by Joe Rubinstein.
Superman returns home, after the aforementioned rough day, for a nice late dinner with Lois, and tells her about his day. After JLA meeting hijinks (Plastic Man turns into a whoopie cushion that Wonder Woman sits on, which seems borderline) he catches a public presentation from a toy manufacturer, who were updating their classic board game King's Feud. Both the cover and the interiors give it a very Monopoly-like design, but that wasn't cutting the mustard in the modern era; so the old game was being discontinued and the new 64-bit "King's Blood Feud of Death!" was going to hit the market. With new and improved violence and sexism, as "curvaceous Princess Gwyneth" was being upgraded (particularly in the chest region, no doubt...) to "Princess Gore, more lethal than any knight!" Supes is unimpressed, and notes that's hardly going to stand the test of time, when of course the robot display knights run amuck, the giant dice start shooting plasma, the usual.
The company owner doesn't know of anyone who would hold that kind of grudge against the company; but it's a grudge you have to respect, right? In this modern age of trolls and doxxing, no one takes the care for proper death traps, man. Toyman is the prime suspect, of course, so Superman visits him in jail, and has to x-ray him to make sure he wasn't a hologram, or a robot, and that his colon was holding up OK. (That just struck me as a really annoying thing that Superman probably has to do, all the goddamn time. Possibly every time he sees someone.) While Toyman has been hiding toys--that cad!--this one wasn't him; he recognizes components not from the company's toy division, but from novelties. Novelties?
Three or four deathtraps later, Superman brings in the next obvious suspect, the Prankster: he had worked for that company before, but had been fired for being "too violent," so he was kind of calling them out on their hypocrisy in their new corporate direction...yeah, Superman doesn't really get into that at all, Prankster is an afterthought here, dragged off to prison with three caption boxes over him! You could be brought to justice by Deadpool and not get played like that. Still, Supes is concerned over the turn in violent toys, as well as wishing he could do something more for the mentally unbalanced Toyman. Who killed a kid, at some point; but that might have been considered a mistake, maybe too far for the character. Superman arranges to get him making toys for an orphanage, using his skills for good. It's a very human, very Superman solution, which will of course only work until some writer needs to use Toyman as a villain again: I looked it up, and this would've been after the Batman/Toyman limited series. And then, there was the other Toyman, the younger one from Superman/Batman? Maybe this Toyman got to make toys for a while...

3 comments:

Mr. Morbid's House Of Fun said...

I wasn't really a big fan of the new Toyman from S/B, but at least he hadn't killed a kid, so he that going for him. I guess it made sense at the time that he'd be a stand in for the Japanese Toy culture of the 60's/70's/80's/etc, as that representing that aspect does seem long overdue in American comics.

Still, not really anything of significance was ever done with him right?

I still think an evil toyman gimmick could work, but modernized. Maybe he also makes gadgets for criminals with gimmicks on the side for extra money? A heroic inverse doing just that could work as well, explaining how so many seemingly dumb crooks are still somehow smart enough to build their gadgets.

I do remember that brief attempt at modernizing the Prankster back in the early 2000's. I imagine he'd 1000000% be an online troll with a trust fund so he could troll heroes & villains alike, yet frustratingly keep getting away with legally. There's definitely something there.

googum said...

Busiek did a very Astro City spin on Prankster, where he fills the same role Batroc does at Marvel: he's the guy you hire to run interference for your scheme. Which is neat, because then they aren't expected to 'win,' they just have to run out the clock.

Mr. Morbid's House Of Fun said...

That honestly sounds like the best use of him though.