Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Comics and Pro Sports, an on and off again relationship that does not work

 Reports are that we have Marvel teaming up with the Dallas Cowboys to do something.

We have Stan Lee's NHL superhero project.

Do they sound like really bad ideas? Have you heard of this before?

A team-up of Comics and the Sports World, well it has been done before all with the same results. Every time comic and the pro sports world joined forces it always becomes some epic corporate shill fiasco.

Lets all go back to the 1990's and revisit Marvel's last attempt at this called NFL SuperPro.



That picture says it all, With a costume like that crime would be defeated by laughing itself to death.

Truth is the writer Fabian Nicenza only worked on it to get free NFL tickets and it shows. The stories and characters were pretty much  BRAINCURDLING STUPID. Here's an example one issue had villains stealing some rare and valuable NFL merch and then burning it? Yeah. Burn some rare memorabilia and not sell it. Or they could have had a counterfeit sports card ring that SuperPro could smash....

Well here is SuperPro's team the Happy Helpers:
  • Almighty Dollar, aka Pennington Pennypacker, a CPA who could shoot pennies from his hands (Pennies, Really. When Quarters are worth more and can do damage)
  • Calculator, aka Kwong Dae, a Korean actuary and super-thinker with the power to immediately assess probabilities. (Not at all a racist stereotype not only that his assessing probabilities SuperPro seems to have joined forces with NFL SuperBookie.)
  • Girth, aka 'Tubby' Walsh, an obese African-American with a belly immune to physical punishment.
  • Streak, aka Frank Moody, a mortician, jogger and super-fast runner (With a name like Streak, We are just glad he shows up wearing clothes. Justice League feels the same way about The Flash.)
Not only were these guys super powered mutants, but if they went Professor X's school. They probably went to the section reserved for the "special" students. The School for mutants of the retarded kind.

These were the villains, these Heroes went up aganist. These guys were not any better.

  • Quick Kick, a football placekicker turned ninja. (That's an interesting career switch)
  • Bennings, a footballer turned into an insane giant by steroid abuse (A walking talking anti-rods PSA)
  • Instant Replay, the assassin who can slice through time.
  • Marco Sanzionare, a crime boss whose dealings are constantly thwarted by Superpro (Not a good one when your schemes are thwarted by SuperPro and his Helpers.)

Well the series was an EPIC FAIL, and is called one of the stupidest comics ever created. NFL SuperPro only lasted 12 issues.

There are reasons why these projects always fail.
  • 1. Stories are always nothing more than Corporate Shilling and a quick and desperate cash grab. These comics are created at a marketing meeting not the result of some real creative genus. The writing is weak just like its bastard cousin the Comic PSA. The ones where Spiderman fights illiteracy and Capt America tells some kid we was molested. At least those comics can use "for a good cause defense". Idea is about as stupid as Pepsi-Cola teaming up with DC and made characters based on their Soft-Drinks. The book would be one long Ad like The Radio Shack TRS-80 Whiz kids.
  • 2. Comic Readers on an average age are now 35. Here is one truth, COMIC Die-Hards do not give two craps about sports. Vice Versa Sports Fans usually do not care about comics. In the end you have a product that just does not sell to anyone. These plans are created by come marketing team that thinks "Comic Shops sell sports stuff too lets do a NFL comic!"
SO 12 issues that is the target for marvel's Dallas Cowboys scheme and Stan Lee's NHL brainfart. Let's see if they can break that record

Further Reading:

http://daveslongbox.blogspot.com/2005/10/nfl-superpro-marvel-comics-1991.html
http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=ap-marvel-cowboys
http://www.deadline.com/2011/06/nbcu-takes-stake-in-stan-lee-and-nhls-superhero-franchise/

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