Doctor, Doctor.

In the 1960s life was simple. There was only one doctor costume available, and if you didn't like it, you could go pound sand.

Here we have Superman sporting the doctor costume:

In another comic, Bruce Wayne:

In yet another comic, one of Luthor's men:

And, finally, some other criminal wears the same get-up in another comic:

Does this costume fool anyone? Everyone owns one. And can you blame them? That is an excellent beard and moustache combo. Bruce Wayne really made it his own by switching up the lab coat for medical scrubs (PS - the nurse is Supergirl, and I thought she was drinking a soda, but I guess that's a roll of gauze).

And since we are talking about that panel, it's also a great example of how Superman solves simple problems with needlessly complicated solutions. Did he really need to bother Batman for this? Even better is in the next panel when the "doctor" tells Clark in front of Lois that he needs to keep the bandages on for two weeks. I think that was Bruce's pay-back for being dragged out during daylight hours to be a part of this absurdity.
Also...if Superman is so worried about getting those bandages on in a hurry, why doesn't he do it himself in a split second before Lois arrives?

Eventually I'll stop talking about Showcase Presents Superman. But who can really resist this stuff?

...And I Feel Fine

This has to be the calmest, most matter-of-fact reaction to something absolutely horrifying that I have ever seen.
It's always all about you, isn't it Superman?

Review of Unusual Words That I Learned From My Father, Part One, by Johnathan

Today's word: Jillyprog.

Some history - This is a logging word, but I'm not too sure whether it's widely used, or confined to Nova Scotia, or peculiar to my family, though my Grandfather did work in a logging camp, so I suspect that someone, somewhere, at some point, has used it before.
In any case, my family burns wood, and all of that wood has to be cut, and so I spent many of my winter weekends throughout high school in the forest, lifting heavy things whilst my father wielded a chainsaw. Now, the normal means by which one cuts down a tree of any size is to cut a notch out of the trunk on the side of the tree that you want to hit the ground, then saw completely through and let gravity do the rest. Occasionally, though, this tried and true method fails, and one is left with a huge piece of wood balancing unsupported on a tree stump, which is not the most ideal situation. To solve this problem, my learned elders would cut a long stick and we would place one end high on the offending trunk, then push mightily on the other, thus bringing low another mighty forest giant. That stick, my friends, is known as a jillyprog.

JOHN APPROVED.

Review of Some Outsider Art, by Johnathan

So my job mostly involves talking on the phone to Southerners (subreview: people who say "Huh?" every time that they can't hear you on the phone and you have to be polite even though you want to hunt them with knives - NOT APPROVED) which leaves me somewhat parched, as you can no doubt imagine. So I drink a lot of water, and as a result go to the bathroom a lot. And in the bathroom that I go to, I've noticed a thing: someone has drawn a little face on the wall in greasy fingerprints. This is fine. However, this greasy little face has been drawn directly above the urinal, which forces me to conclude that it has been drawn using ball sweat.

-NOT APPROVED

Total Bullshit

Since Steph is never going to reveal her promised photoshop surprise, I may as well post.

The DC Superheroes Jumbo Color and Activity Book should be nothing but lazy, rainy day fun. Instead it belittles the adult puzzler with impossible challenges like this one:

You can't do it, can you? (The menacing imprint of Batman looming in the background doesn't help, but I couldn't scan this page without that. Sorry).

There were no less than five adults trying to solve this. Even when we surrendered and flipped to the back pages for the answer, we remained stumped. Here is the answer:

You still can't tell what's different about him, though, can you? You've checked the hair, the boots, the gloves, the stripes, the muscles. No dice.

I'll show you what the difference is:

On this one the bottom of the mask points upwards, instead of down.

Bullshit!

Thanks to Ben to figuring this one out so I could sleep again.

Review of What If? By Johnathan

What If?, for those of you who may not be giant nerds, is an on-again, off-again series from Marvel comics, filled with tales of alternate realities and hosted by the cosmic-powered, blue-toga'd Watcher. The Watcher's entire race are bald, emotionally detatched voyeurs in blue togas who observe other civilisations for no discernable reason* and are not adverse to telling easily-illustrated tales of the wonders of the cosmos.

The series filled two major needs: firstly, it had about a hojillion artists, and each of them got to draw the Watcher as he or she had always envisioned him, from concerned alien baby:
To grotesque, horrifying alien baby:
But more than merely a vehicle for the apparantly burning need of all comic book artists to draw their own radical new type of alien baby in a blue toga, What If? allowed comic book writers free reign: as all of the stories were set in alternate dimensions, all bets were off. Mostly, this involved taking some major or minor event in Marvel continuity, putting a new spin on it, and killing off as many characters as logically possible, from a dead Iron Man in a story about the Hulk going nuts, to a pretty cool little yarn where giant snake gods eat literally everyone on earth.
But as cool as it always was to see how Captain Britain was going to get killed off this issue, the really great thing about What If? was when it suddenly veered off at right angles and gave you something like this:
Ghost Rider getting ready to sacrifice Pope John Paul II. I don't even remember why anymore. I'm just glad I saved the picture.

JOHN APPROVED

*Note to any comic book nerds that may read this post: Earth X was a shitty reimagining of the Marvel cosmology, and I choose to ignore it, so there.