I've visited Superman Is a Dick so many times I've more or less got it memorized, which is why I was delighted to open my email last night to find a missive from my pal/former Mercury music editor Adam Gnade, who simply said:
Holy fuck there are some good moments here://superheroesdoingweirdshit.tumblr.com/
Yes.
I have nothing to add to that other than I wish this tumblr never ended.
Erik Henriksen
With honor and distinction, Erik Henriksen served as the executive editor of the Portland Mercury from 2004 to 2020. He can now be found at henriksenactual.com.
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When I was 13, Marvel Comics came out with a new comics line titled “What If . . .?”
This guy called The Watcher would present alternative realities such as the one in issue number 1 — “What if Spider-Man joined the Fantastic Four?” The books were often fun looks at how a storyline may have turned out had it gone down a different rabbit hole.
One particular issue called “What if Rick Jones became the Hulk?” even inspired a parody by a website. According to the comic book origin of the Hulk, Rick Jones was the clueless teenager who was saved by Dr. Bruce Banner after Jones drove into a gamma bomb test area on a dare. Banner absorbed a massive amount of gamma rays that caused him to transform into the raging behemoth when perturbed.
On the cover, Bruce Banner watches Rick Jones becoming the Hulk and says, “Good Lord! That boy’s turning into some kind of huge, green-skinned monster – and it’s my fault!”
The parody is called “What if Rick James became the Hulk?” and on the cover, while the late punk-funk singer is becoming the Hulk, Banner says, “Good Lord! That brotha’s turning into some kind of huge, green-skinned monster – and it’s super freaky!”
Here is my list of “What If ?” ideas that just may prompt you to ask, “What if I had just skipped this column today?”
What if men were the ones who had babies and caused a population explosion because they made giving birth a competitive sport and bragged about doing it sans pain-killing meds?
What if KFC thought its recent commercial campaign featuring an actor playing deceased founder Colonel Harlan Sanders through and realized they basically have a corpse selling their finger lickin’ good product?
What if KFC did think through the idea of having a corpse selling its food and thought it was a great since “The Walking Dead” has made zombies trendy and cool?
What if there was a way to automatically block those gross-out smoking commercials if you can prove you are a nonsmoker or quit many years ago?
What if the world still made sense and the Los Angeles Lakers were the NBA Champions and the Golden State Warriors were basketball doormats?
What if Hollywood movie-makers learned that while recycling glass and plastic is wonderful, that recycling ideas (even when you call it remaking or rebooting) usually results in inferior versions of the originals?
What if instead of having to tackle the encyclopedic complete guide to understanding women that guys could just get a quick-start guide?
What if that quick-start guide didn’t out of necessity need to be 17,400 pages long itself?
What if the quick-start guide for understanding men didn’t have a name – “Eat, Sex, Sleep” – that ironically sounds like a chick flick – “Eat, Pray, Love?”
What if Gus Portokalos was right and every word you can think of can be traced back to its Greek root and Windex heals everything?
What if father and son Suisun Valley metal sculptors Phillip and Chad Glashoff had the metal-controlling abilities of X-Men arch-enemy Magneto?
What if you heard Morgan Freeman and Allison Janney’s voices narrating your life when you did something good and Gilbert Gottfried and Fran Drescher’s voices when you were naughty?
What if Tom Petty, Kool, Gladys Knight, Smokey Robinson and K.C. were ditched by their backup bands and put on a huge concert called “The And Festival” featuring And The Heartbreakers, And The Gang, And The Pips, And the Miracles, and And the Sunshine Band?
What if the button for crossing the street gave a mild – or medium – electrical shock to those who pressed it repeatedly thinking it will make the lights change faster?
What if a laser-activated system gave a mild – or medium – electrical shock to those who cross the street without bothering to press the button at all?
What if all the evil, misguided pitiable people in the world who put their toilet paper rolls on incorrectly (under) saw the error of their ways and the world could live as one, like John Lennon sang in “Imagine?”
Reach Fairfield writer Tony Wade at [email protected]
Fairfield freelance humor columnist and accidental local historian Tony Wade writes two weekly columns--"The Last Laugh" on Mondays and "Back in the Day" on Fridays. Wade is also the author of The History Press books “Growing Up In Fairfield, California" and "Lost Restaurants of Fairfield, California."