Tuesday, December 18, 2007

HANCOCK & MAJOR BUMMER

Here's the trailer for Will Smith's upcoming HANCOCK where he plays a cynical, lazy, uncaring, reluctant super "hero". Looks fun, however I liked it much better when I first saw it a decade ago with the short-lived DC comic MAJOR BUMMER.

MAJOR BUMMER was fucking hilarious! Bascially too buffoon alien students (who are hilarious themselves) are doing their thesis on Earth Culture. Due to ineptitude on their part, their EEM (Extreme Enhancement Modules)is sent to the wrong person. Instead of the brilliant "Bruce Wayne" type recipient, its delivered to total slacker LOU MARTIN. Now Lou is beefed up like the Hulk with the strength to match. He has the powers but he's still the slacker and wants nothing more than to continue doing absolutely nothing and sit on his ass all day eating junk food and watching TV. Unfortunately for Lou, the EEM also gave him another odd power; he now ATTRACTS super-villains, aliens and any general villainess threat. So his life is now filled with "saving the day" so he can go back to his couch.

A neighborhood "League" of heroes is formed (think loser heroes from the world of The Tick) and they want to bring Lou into their fold. They are (taken from Wikipedia) "Val Andrist, the environmentalist daughter of an Ice Cream magnate who could fly, Francis Dutton, an aromatherapist hippie with a sonic scream, Lauren Isley, an elderly woman who could predict the future (but was so absent-minded she got confused with the past), a cat that became a giant when scared (it opened and ate her owner's EEM by mistake, later adopted by Lauren) and "Gecko", a nerdish man who could stick to walls and took the concept of being a superhero too seriously."

One of my favorite issues is #5 where a giant NAZI DINOSAUR from a parallel universe comes looking for mayhem. His name: "TYRANNOSAURUS REICH". Brilliant.

Unfortunately, the book was cancelled after only 15 issues due to low sales.... and a weak, unstable Comic Market at the time. With hilarious writing by JOHN ARCUDI and kickass art by DOUG MAHNKE, MAJOR BUMMER is one of my favorite comic books. Even T-Rex LOVES this book and will actually spread the word of Major Bummer to other non-comic folk like herself! So contact some comic stores and find those 15 issues! You'll love em!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

this is way cool but according to other sources this movie was based on a screen play from ten years ago called "Tonight he comes"

Anonymous said...

I had heard "Tonight He Comes" was taken from that Major Bummer comic, which was developed and put out in early '96. But that was from some guy in a comic store when I originally bought issue 1. So don't quote me.

Anonymous said...

or maybe it was early '97....