Capeworld Comics

The FORBIDDEN Prediction Blog Episode 15

 

Original Fight 9

 

The Ghastly Grinner (Are You Afraid of the Dark?) vs The Masked Mutant (Goosebumps) vs Mortus (Comix Zone)

 

“Man, you come straight out of a comic book.”

 

–Jim Kelly, before getting his ass beat by Han

 

“So Otto, what’s the theme here?”

 

If you remember Sega Genesis and Stick Stickly, you probably don’t need me to explain the theme. But for all you MILLENIAL UNTERMENSCHEN in the audience with your fancy phones and Chinese spy apps, the theme is metafictional comic book supervillains from the mid-90’s that came out of their comic books into the real world and had to be defeated by comic book fans.

 

The fight starts in the real world with all three escaping their comic books into a comic shop. From there, it’s up to their powers, skills, and abilities to decide who gets recycled.

 

There’s also a sub-theme here of competing horror anthology shows aimed at children. The Masked Mutant comes from Goosebumps and The Ghastly Grinner comes from Are You Afraid of the Dark? They were sort of like training wheels for Tales From the Crypt.

 

Mortus came from Sega Genesis, and while that’s not a horror show (though Nintendo certainly thought so), it certainly competed with cable for kids’ attention spans.

 

Reader beware, you’re in for a scare!

 

Submitted for the approval of the Capeworld society, I call this tale….

 

(throws non-dairy creamer on the campfire)

 

The Tale of Ink and Slaughter!

 

…And yeah, the cool powder stuff the Midnight Society threw on the campfire to make it go WOOSH? Non-dairy creamer. Seriously.

 

Otto Goes Into an Old Man Ramble About the Theme

 

Youngsters just won’t understand.

 

Before Harry Potter, before Yu-Gi-Oh, before Pokemon, there was terror–strictly G-rated terror, mind you, but terror nonetheless.

 

You little babies can take your death eaters and darkrais and shove it. My generation had monster blood. 

 

You know how scary monster blood is? You know what it does?

 

Anything the plot requires.

 

Yeah. It’s that scary.

 

Back in the day, there were two horror anthologies filmed in Canada that competed for the nightmares of children–Goosebumps and Are You Afraid of the Dark? Horror anthologies were going through a bit of a resurgence in the late eighties and early nineties with shows like Tales From the Crypt, Tales from the Darkside, The Outer Limits (1995), and Nightmare Cafe. 

 

None of you have seen Nightmare Cafe, but it was a real show. Sure, you can say in the comments that you saw all six episodes, but I won’t believe you.

 

With horror anthologies making it big, It made sense for producers to wonder if such a format could work if it had its content toned down a little, and in 1990 Are You Afraid of the Dark? began on a little television channel called Nickelodeon. It was an experimental series for an experimental network. No one tried a horror anthology for kids before and no one tried a television channel for kids before. They were the perfect match for each other, and Are You Afraid of the Dark? stood at the zenith of early Nick programming along with Adventures of Pete and Pete and The Adventures of Tintin.

 

Then in 1995, a writer from Ohio that worked on Eureka’s Castle with some moderate success from a horror book series called Fear Street took a gamble–he decided to take Fear Street and tweak it a little for kids. Horror for kids was a novel idea and it paid out hand over fist for R.L. Stine. Goosebumps was the kiddie lit leader before Harry Potter. Only Power Rangers was bigger in the pre-Pokemon world.

 

It didn’t take long for Goosebumps to be adapted into a horror anthology. Battle lines were drawn. Foxkids got Goosebumps, Nickelodeon got Are You Afraid of the Dark? It was the Power Rangers vs TMNT debate for weird kids.

 

Which side was I on?

 

I was an Are You Afraid of the Dark? kid.

 

I was Avengers over X-Men, Digimon over Pokemon, and Genesis over Nintendo. I was just a sucker for obscurity and lost causes.

 

Don’t get me wrong. Stay Out of the Basement and Haunted Mask were good, but they can’t beat The Tale of the Fire Ghost and The Tale of the Forever Game.

 

In November 1994, RL Stine wrote Attack of the Masked Mutant where a comic book supervillain escapes his comic book and terrorizes the real world. It was made into an episode in 1996.

 

In December 1994, Are You Afraid of the Dark? had an episode titled The Tale of the Ghastly Grinner where a comic book supervillain escapes his comic book and terrorizes the real world. 

 

In 1995, Comix Zone was released for the Sega Genesis where a comic book supervillain escapes his comic book and terrorizes the real world.

 

So who copied who?

 

Personally, I don’t think anyone copied anyone. The idea of supervillains coming out of comic books to terrorize the real world goes all the way back to pre-Crisis DC, which the writers were probably familiar with. The way the multiverse worked pre-Crisis (and the way it works currently when Grant Morrison is writing) was that comic books were the result of comic writers receiving flashes of information from other universes. Barry Allen, the Flash of Earth-1, knew Jay Garrick, the Flash of Earth-2, because he grew up reading about him in Flash Comics. The “real world” was represented by Earth Prime. We had all the comics but none of the real-life superheroes.

 

No, Phoenix Jones doesn’t count. Oh dear god, Phoenix Jones doesn’t count.

 

Eventually, the superscience weirdness of the multiverse started to affect Earth-Prime. In 1982, (both in real life and in the setting) The Crime Syndicate of Earth-3 was recruited by the the time-traveling supervillain Per Degaton of Earth-2 to destroy Earth-Prime by time travelling back to 1962 and disrupting the Cuban Missile crisis thereby causing a nuclear war to break out in 1982. 

 

This plot was the grandfather of these three “supervillains invade the real world” stories.

 

I miss when comics had fun plots like this.

 

I miss it so much.

 

…But anyway, if you want to argue who among our fighters did it first, Comix Zone actually wins. It had a prototype demo for the Commodore Amiga called Joe Pencil Trapped in the Comix Zone in 1992.

 

Here’s some footage:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llMt1LN-di8

 

But enough talk! Ghastly Grinner vs Masked Mutant vs Mortus! Let’s find out who gets recycled and who gets polybagged.

 

The Masked Mutant

 

“You’re not real anymore…”

 

The Masked Mutant’s Story

 

Skipper Matthews, /co/ incarnate, is a fat little nerd boy with a baseball cap who loves comic books. His favorite comic is Masked Mutant, a comic whose protagonist is a supervillain that battles against the League of Good Guys and their leader the Galloping Gazelle.

 

It’s probably an Image book.

 

Skipper is an edgy boy. He probably has every issue of Maximum Carnage polybagged.

 

 One day, he steps right into the Twilight Zone (well, the kiddie version of the Twilight Zone) when he gets off at a bus stop only to find that the headquarters of the Masked Mutant, which looks like Lex Luthor and the Joker teamed up to design it, is right there off the sidewalk.

 

But…the Masked Mutant isn’t real! 

 

How can this be!?

 

Skipper and his friend Libby investigate and conclude that though it sure looks like the Masked Mutant’s headquarters, it must be the place where they print the comic books. It must be.

 

But the next day, Skipper gets the latest issue of Masked Mutant in the mail…and finds that he’s in the comic!

 

How can this be?!

 

Skipper and Libby investigate again and find the Galloping Gazelle (played by Adam West!) tied up in the Masked Mutant’s basement. Skipper frees him and they go to beat up the Masked Mutant. But the Galloping Gazelle turns out to be a has-been loser and bails. 

 

Oh no!

 

But suddenly, Libby takes out a molecular disintegrator pistol and blows the Masked Mutant away!

 

Oh yeah!

 

But wait, that wasn’t the Masked Mutant at all! It was the Magnificent Molecule Man (Does Marvel Know?) disguised as the Masked Mutant!

 

Oh…what?

 

And Libby turned out to be the Masked Mutant the whole time!

 

Oh…kay?

 

And Skipper is a living comic character like the Masked Mutant and Galloping Gazelle because when he first entered the headquarters, he was scanned by a machine and converted into Benday dots!

 

Oh…really?

 

The Masked Mutant reveals that he turned Skipper into a comic book character so that he could have someone to fight that’s a real challenge for his powers. Since Skipper is such a nerd, the Masked Mutant figured he’d be a great opponent since he knows comic books almost as much as he does loneliness.

 

Thinking quickly, Spencer tells the Masked Mutant that he’s really the Colossal Elastic Boy (Does DC know?) and that his one weakness is sulfuric acid. The Masked Mutant then changes himself into sulfuric acid and dies because while the Masked Mutant can turn into anything solid, he can’t turn into a liquid.

 

Oh come on!

 

And then Skipper goes home feeling elated that he just kicked a supervillain’s ass, cuts himself in the kitchen, finds that he bleeds ink, and realizes that he really IS the Colossal Elastic Boy!

STRETCHIN!!!

 

Oh.

 

It’s a stupid story, but if you’re into comic culture I recommend it to you. You get to watch Adam West bully a fat kid and that alone is worth a watch. And there’s all the little comic culture references RL Stine puts in–Skipper thinking his comic collection is going to pay off one day spoofing the 90’s collector’s bubble, Skipper arguing with Libby over whether superheroes or Archie are cooler (Libby prefers Archie, which should have warned Skipper that she was up to no good), the insane anti-logic the Masked Mutant operates under (I didn’t die! That was just Molecule Man posing as me!), and X-Force even gets a reference in the book!

 

Radical!

 

Who do you think was Skipper’s favorite character? Feral? Probably Feral.

 

Skipper’s dad was also a huge nerd into comic books, and that reminded me of how I was introduced to comics through my cousin. I think most boys back in the day got into comics through an older male relative. The X-Men and Spider-Man cartoons on Fox introduced you to superheroes, but it was your family that helped you take the deep-dive into canon and continuity.

 

I feel like RL Stine drew on his own experiences writing Attack of the Masked Mutant. He was a little nerd boy growing up in Ohio. He probably had a Marvel subscription and plastered his room with comic posters. He did end up writing a Man-Thing miniseries–but the less said about that the better.

 

I liked Attack of the Masked Mutant. What can I say? It made me feel nostalgic.

 

The Masked Mutant’s Powers

 

–Can shapeshift by controlling his molecules. He can turn into anything solid, but dies if he ever turns into something liquid. He dies by willingly turning himself into acid because he’s really dumb.

 

In the show and book, he seemed to prefer organic forms. He turned into octopuses and lions and school girls. That being said, he can also turn into inorganic objects like a fancy chair.

 

–Has a molecular disintegrator pistol, though he prefers to use his shapeshifting powers over it.

 

–Can teleport.

 

–Has a good working knowledge of superscience which allowed him to create a device that turned comic book characters real and turned people into comic book characters.

 

However, when it comes to practical knowledge, the Masked Mutant is lacking. Turning into your weakness because your enemy told you would make even the campiest supervillain blush.

 

–Is a great interior decorator.

 

The Ghastly Grinner

 

“(High pitched laughter. Think the Joker on helium)”

 

The Ghastly Grinner’s Story

 

Ethan Wood is more than a comic fan. He’s a young comic artist. If Skipper is who /co/ is, Ethan is who /co/ wishes he could be. But though he puts his work out there, all he gets are rejection letters.

 

A kid thinking he can break into comics? Hey, Jim Shooter wrote for Legion of Superheroes and Superman when he was 13. It’s not impossible.

 

If this was set in modern times, Ethan would have it easy. All he’d have to do is post on twitter about how much he hates Donald Trump and how much he loves the CIA. It worked for Tom King!

 

Ethan heads to his local comic shop (which is called, get this, Comic Book Inc–is that the best name for a local comic shop or what?) to drown his sorrows in Namorita pinups and runs into Frankie, the owner. Frankie looks at Ethan’s portfolio and tells him that, though his work is rough around the edges, it reminds her of one of the great comic book artists.

 

Will Eisner? Jack Kirby? 

 

Nope.

 

Sylvester Uncas.

 

Ethan has no idea who Sylvester Uncas is, and Frankie explains that Sylvester Uncas was a great artist who stopped drawing while working on the first and only issue of The Ghastly Grinner.

 

Sylvester Uncaus did pencils, inks, and letters? I guess he really was skilled.

 

Frankie explains that The Ghastly Grinner was just too dark and too edgy for Uncas to finish. Come on now. This is the 90’s. You got Faust. The Ghastly Grinner is nothing.

 

Because Ethan reminds her of a little Uncas, she lets him have the only copy of The Ghastly Grinner. How awesome is that! I wish all lcs gave away free indy comics. 

 

Later, Ethan is caught reading the comic in class and his teacher sets himself up for a lawsuit and a half by taking his comic and dumping it in a fish tank.

“You can’t! It’s one of a kind!”

 

“Correction: It’s none of a kind!”

 

You got any idea how much trouble a teacher would be in if they did that in real life? And what about the poor fishes? All that demonic ink or whatever the comic is made of can’t be good for them. The class is going to come back from the weekend to find they’re all Joker fish.

 

Ethan takes his soaking comic home and tries to dry it out…with a microwave.

 

Well, it’s not the stupidest thing that’s been done with a microwave.

 

Instead of causing a small fire, an awful smell, and an embarrassment to last a lifetime, the microwave causes the Ghastly Grinner to escape the Ghastly Grinner!

 

Now a Joker knock-off is loose in the real world giving people rictus grins and forcing them to vomit blue goo. But don’t worry kids! The characters insist that everyone will go back to normal as soon as the Ghastly Grinner is defeated.

 

Evil incarnate is no match for standards and practices.

 

Ethan teams up with a stoic nerd girl named Hooper and Frankie who reveals that Sylvester Uncas was her father and that he was absorbed by the comic and trapped by the Grinner. She held onto the comic for years hoping that one day someone would come along with a style like his that could finish the comic and release him.

 

So draw the comic, save the old guy, get the happy ending?

 

Well, first team Ethan has to defeat the Ghastly Grinner.

 

In the comic, he has a weakness to microwaves, so they use a school science to rig up a big microwave projector. But it doesn’t work against the Grinner. Microwaves in real life simply don’t work like they do in the Grinner’s world.

 

Clever, clever!

 

Ethan then formulates plan B. If microwaves only work on the Grinner in his own world, then they’ll just have to take him to his own world. He uses his awesome indy comic skills to complete The Ghastly Grinner, then he runs at the Grinner and they along with Frankie end up inside the comic.

 

Hooper picks up the comic and starts reading it, which was a pretty awesome moment for the episode. Ethan, now a superhero, rescues Sylvester and uses microwaves to kick the Grinner’s ass. But wait! Something’s wrong! They don’t know how to get out of the comic and the Grinner’s regenerated!

 

Thinking quickly, Hooper takes out a big novelty eraser and erases the Grinner (I don’t think erasers work on ink, but eh, maybe evil ink is different). The Grinner explodes, our heroes are free, and Ethan goes on to be a successful comic book writer.

 

Hey, not all episodes of Are You Afraid of the Dark? end with a dark twist.

 

I got to say, this was a lot better of a watch than Attack of the Masked Mutant. It doesn’t have as many nods to comic culture as Attack of the Masked Mutant, but it aces Attack of the Masked Mutant on storytelling fundamentals. The Tale of the Ghastly Grinner has a comfy horror-comedy vibe. It’s sort of like a toned-down Army of Darkness. All the secondary characters are really entertaining. Hooper is an emotionless nerd girl that delivers all her lines totally deadpan even while a psycho-clown is trying to murder her. Frankie dresses like she came out of the biker gang from Streets of Fire and calls Ethan cakes like they’re in an old detective film. And the Grinner is a decent take on the Joker. I’d take him over Tom King’s take any day.

 

The episode’s just so damn fun!

 

I wouldn’t say it’s one of the scariest episodes of Are You Afraid of the Dark? but it’s certainly one of the funnest.

 

The Ghastly Grinner’s Powers

 

–Can teleport.

 

–Strong enough to lift a grown man up by the throat.

 

–Can bust through a wall and leave an outline like a looney toon.

 

–Has the ability to infect others with an emotion-eating virus by touch that eventually renders them nothing more than giggling idiots. It’s basically joker venom but in addition to the rictus grin and laughing fits you vomit up blue slime. How appropriate for Nickelodeon!

 

There’s a limitation on the emotion virus: it doesn’t work on people without a sense of humor like Ethan’s comically serious sidekick Hooper.

 

–Has a weakness to microwaves, but only in his own comic universe. That being said, even when they were used on him within his comic universe, he quickly recovered. To put him down for good, the Grinner had to be attacked by a nerd girl in the real world wielding a novelty-sized eraser (for big mistakes).

 

Mortus

 

“Gonna let her drown?”

 

“Look at me, Sketch! I’m just a drawing. But I’ll be free soon enough…”

 

Mortus’ Story

 

Sketch Turner, writer and artist of Comix Zone (How very 90’s Image! You don’t see a lot of writer-and-artist guys in comic books these days), is hanging out in his urban-gothic apartment which looks like it came out of Batman (1989) or The Crow (1994) with his pet rat Roadkill working on his comic during a dark and stormy night when suddenly–a hand reaches out from the page and grabs him!

 

It’s creepypasta paired with a can of Surge. Yummy!

 

Mortus, the supervillain mastermind of Sketch’s comic book Comix Zone (odd name for something that presumably isn’t an anthology book), tells Sketch that he’s incomplete. Though he can physically interact with Sketch in the real world, he’s still just a drawing without color or mutant superpowers. To be a real boy, he must kill his creator!

 

It’s Pinnochio meets Oedipus Rex drawn by Jim Lee!

 

Mortus tore open a portal in ink and flung Sketch Turner into Comix Zone where his evil is law. Now Sketch seeks to return to the real world and undo the authorship that is Mortus!

 

Fortunately, Sketch is more than just what Todd McFarlane wishes he looked like in the mirror. Though he’s trapped in a world he never…well okay, trapped in a world he DID make…Sketch can still exert influence over it as the writer.

 

You remember Tron? How Flynn was able to do magic stuff inside the computer because he was a programmer? It’s the same thing here. Sketch was able to karate kick mutant warriors to death, flip through panels, create killer paper airplanes by tearing up part of the comic (though let’s be honest, you did it once to look at it and then never again because it costs HP), and occasionally turn into a Superman version  (Though in truth more like a Rob Liefield Supreme or Prime version)  of himself and unleash a page-breaking POWER PUNCH!

 

Sketch needed these powers to survive Comix Zone. Mortus didn’t make it easy for him (Boy did he not make it easy! The game was short at only 4 levels so the devs cranked the difficulty WAY up to make sure kids didn’t clear it in one or two sittings). Mortus drew in enemies, traps, even extra barrels to block your progress–what a dick! He even set the comic page on fire.

 

If he didn’t screw around, he probably would have aced Sketch easily. I mean, he can set the pages on fire. But Mortus likes to play with his food. He even draws you back to life if you die too early saying that killing you was just too easy.

 

After fighting across the comic and foiling the plans of Mortus’ mutant and ninja army, Mortus himself gets pissed enough to go back into the comic and finish Sketch personally. 

 

Hey, he’s a comic book supervillain. He’s all about hubris.

 

Mortus grabs Comix Zone’s heroine (and Sketch’s waifu because of course she is) Alissa Cyan and sticks her in a rocket he intends to launch at the headquarters of Comix Zone’s good guys. In one of the best final fights in video games ever, Sketch fights Mortus around the rocket as it feels with rocket fuel. If it fills up all the way, Alissa dies, likely because a little rocket fuel getting in your mouth is all it would take. Even if you kill Mortus afterwards, Sketch is heartbroken after escaping the comic and vows to draw the comic all over again, Mortus and all, so he can rescue Cyan the second time.

 

Pretty good story for a video game from the mid-90’s, right?

 

But either by getting it right the first or second time, Sketch defeats Mortus and ensures that the strange cyborg mutant pirate cowboy becomes a one-shot villain.

 

Yeah, there was a “The End?” bit at the end, but we’re more likely to get a new Vectorman game than a new Comix Zone, so that was it for Mortus.

 

To end on a high note, I recommend playing Comix Zone. It’s style over substance with the gameplay being repetitive and frustrating (I hope you like losing health to break boxes. Pro tip–use the shoulder dash) but man, what a style it had! It’s almost more fun to watch someone play it than to actually play it yourself. It’s gimmick was so good that Sega actually took out a patent on the concept of a video game comic book.

 

Damn I wish they would bring it back–it along with Ristar. It’s such a sadness they can’t even get cameos in racing games.

 

Mortus’ Powers and Abilities.

 

–Can exit and re-enter his comic book at will. 

 

While outside of his comic book, he appears as a living sketch without color. In this form, he was able to physically overpower Sketch Turner and fling him into Comix Zone, but he remarked that he wasn’t able to kill him. He was seemingly unable to use his powers outside his comic. 

 

–Can trap people in comics and then torment them by drawing on the comic or setting it on fire.

 

That fire part was probably the coolest part of Comix Zone–at least to watch. It was a bitch and a half to play. Who here likes advancing walls of one-touch death?

 

–Is a mutant cowboy cyborg pirate. Sketch must have really been hurting for ideas. His interesting physiology gives Mortus some degree of superhuman strength and durability as he’s able to throw down with Sketch who can punch through metal walls (though hurting himself in the process).

 

–Can turn into ooze and teleport.

 

–Can summon kreeps (little winged mutant monsters with stinger tails that go “kreep”…and go creep).

 

–Fights with a giant, pointed pipe. So he’s a mutant cowboy cyborg pirate that fights with a pipe. Points for creativity if nothing else.

 

–Can breathe fire in the form of a jet of flames or fireballs that travel across the screen.

 

–Durable enough to survive 3 exhaust bursts from a nuke rocket, though a 4th destroys him (you did know you could do that to him during the fight…right? Right?).

 

–Leader of a tribe of mutants and kung-fu cultists, as befitting a supervillain created in the mid-90’s. He’s like Magneto crossed with Kingpin.

 

The Fight

 

I got to give it to Mortus for several reasons.

 

The first is that he’s the only one that can freely move in and out of comic books. The Masked Mutant needs a machine. The Grinner needs a microwave. Mortus doesn’t need anything. 

 

When combined with him being more lucid than his more cartoony opponents, he can outmaneuver them. 

 

The fight starts with them all in a comic shop in the real world. Mortus would be at a huge disadvantage and would realize it. He’d want to jump back into Comix Zone as soon as possible. 

 

If the Mutant and the Grinner teamed up, they could probably bum rush Mortus before he pops back into Comix Zone, but the Mutant is all about finding a worthy foe to fight. He’s going to go for the colorful laughing clown-man before the colorless faded sketch-man that smells like old tobacco.

 

So the fight becomes Masked Mutants vs Ghastly Grinner. Goosebumps vs Are You Afraid of The Dark?! I went back and forth on this one a lot. It all comes down to how the Ghastly Grinner’s emotion virus affects the Masked Mutant. Given how much the Mutant likes to laugh, I’d say he has a sense of humor albeit one of a surreal and morbid variety so he wouldn’t be immune to the virus. You could make the argument that because comic book people in Attack of the Masked Mutant have ink blood that they don’t have a biology to be affected by an emotion virus. But when the Ghastly Grinner is inside his comic, he’s ink and affects people made out of ink.

 

It’s one of those tricky “Is the magic of this universe interchangeable with the magic of another universe” questions.

 

Ultimately, I think the emotion virus would affect the Masked Mutant. But he should be able to turn into something solid without a biology. He turned into a chair. He would just need to turn himself into metal to stop the virus from taking him out. Turning into metal is a pretty basic trick for metamorphs in comic book universes. I got no doubt the Mutant could pull it off. 

 

The virus works quick, but the Mutant should have enough time to realize what’s happening to him and turn into metal. The Mutant doesn’t have much practical intelligence, but he seems pretty up on his gonzo superscience. Him going “Aha! This is an emotion virus! I can counter this by turning into metal!” wouldn’t be out of character.

 

After going Colossus mode, the Mutant would only have to turn his arms into giant hammers to smash the Grinner into a puddle of blue goo.

 

Radical!

 

That would leave the Masked Mutant facing a copy of Comix Zone with a hand reaching out of it beckoning him to come inside and play. Now if the Masked Mutant just trashed the comic, he would win, but we know he’s a sucker for fighting people and is easily manipulated (seriously, turning into your own personal weakness because your foe told you to?). He’d chase after Mortus just like Thanos chased after Darkseid.

 

Mortus would fight him in Comix Zone for a bit. He’s got the durability edge over the Masked Mutant and might be able to put him down by setting him on fire enough times, but the real clincher is going to be when Mortus pops out of Comix Zone back into the real world. Mutant is screwed at that point. He’d be winded by his fights and in no condition to deal with Mortus drawing in enemies and traps. Mortus might play with him for a while as he did with Sketch, but eventually he’s going to set the Mutant’s page on fire and finish him.

 

In a fight between comic book characters, who has the ultimate power?

 

The guy holding the pen.

 

And Mortus is that guy.