Article #64!
August 12, 2013
Bombastic
Buzz Balmer!
OR…
With shrunken children like these…?
There’s something to be said about the unparalleled insanity of a typical Golden Age comic book. Hidden in some admittedly crude drawings (explainable by the sheer insane workload a typical artist was given during the comic book heydays of the 40s) are some of the most bizarre and mind-boggling stuff you could possibly imagine. Sure, imagery is one thing, but when you couple it with a story that makes about as much sense as a directionless art house movie and then market it to children, you have to wonder how anyone could come out of that era with their wits intact (then again, maybe they didn’t).
Take the following issue of Bang-Up Comics #1 from 1940 for example…
Sadly at no point in this issue does
Cosmo Mann fend off a Nazi troop advance with his Sun-Ray. Of course that could
be a good thing, just one shot to his very exposed head might’ve made for one
of the shortest superhero comic strips in history. Sort of like if the first
crook Superman saw in Action #1 whipped out some kryptonite and killed the Man
of Steel right off the bat. I’d demand my 10 cents back, I would.
In particular, let’s look at one story…
Okay, please remember times were different back then, so, you know, racism. Secondly, as is typical of most superhero origin stories of the day, this kid will gain some sort of power through not hard work, ingenuity and invention (that part of the equation usually belongs to someone else), but by sheer idiocy. Buzz’s father is clearly a smart man, he’s wearing a lab coat after all, and his son is clearly… not. Then again having the kid knock first and wait for his dad to open the door would’ve made for a short comic.
Now you know where the original idea for ‘Honey I Shrunk the Kids’ came from. Give yourself a pat on the back for gaining another bit of useless trivia.
Now, here’s a major bit of difference, in ‘Honey I Shrunk the Kids’ the shrunken kids were hell bent on getting de-shrunk – a rather rational thing to want. In this case, Buzz is hell bent on getting his airplane and flying. And his dad, his genius of a father, proceeds to ignore his shrunken son for a couple of weeks to make his ‘minus beam’ into a portable flashlight size. Rather than, you know, trying to reverse the beam effects.
What do you suppose the good professor is thinking? “Shrink ray? Sure, no problem! Enlarging ray? Well damn, that’s just impossible! What are you, a freaking moron? Besides, what man would want to buy an enlarging ray when he could have a shrink ray instead? That’s what men like right, shrinkage?”
So, Prof Balmer wanted a smaller ‘minus beam’ so he could
shrink down the plane his son won. Well, I guess that’s kind of sweet – until
you realize he just exposed his invention to the public. That is, his
unregistered and unpatented invention. Heck, he even gave a nice demonstration
of it’s military use right there – imagine shrinking down the enemy’s army as
they march at you – all you’d have to do is step on them afterwards. Imagine
the bullets you’d save!
Now think about it for a second. Buzz’s dad feels bad,
sure, so to appease his small son he’s going to give him a fully working
aircraft so that the kid, a novice pilot, can fly around the neighborhood. A
neighborhood full of flying birds, flying airplanes, high electrical poles,
clotheslines, trees and… well… you get the picture.
You know, the name Balmer seems remarkably apt for this
family, they really don’t seem to think things through.
Poor Tony, in all his lunatic
haste he wrecked his banana cart!
Here’s a question, how the hell are these people hearing
Buzz’s words? At his size even his loudest yell wouldn’t be louder than a dozen
insect farts. So, keeping that in mind, what’s actually happening in the panels
above is that Tony and his wife are being scared to death by… a toy airplane
that’s run amok?
Still, maybe they deserve it. Trying to live off of selling
bananas at 2 for a nickel seems idiotic in its own right. Tony would have to shill
4 bananas just to afford this comic book! How the heck is he even making his
rent payments??? However he’s doing it, it’s going to be a lot tougher now that
he’s wrecked his cart fleeing from a toy airplane.
You know, now that I think about it, Buzz’s dad really isn’t an idiot. I think he knew what was going to happen and just encouraged it anyway because, much like the farmer above, he’d be killing two birds with one… ahem… shot. Now he won’t have to worry about taking care of his mini-son, nor does he have to work on that ridiculous enlarging ray! Win-Win! And to seal the deal, I’m sure he didn’t even bother with any stupid safety precautions, like shrinking down a parachute for his son…
Jumpin’ cheese crackers, I hope this adventure doesn’t have a serious psychological effect on Buzz, particularly his attitude towards animals and birds in particular!
So,
after Buzz’s harrowing adventure, his dad (who apparently couldn’t be bothered
to go out looking for his son) decides his next course of action is to contact the
army. About time someone in the government was made aware of that dangerous
invention of his… I know I wouldn’t feel safe leaving such a device in this
psycho’s hands…
However,
notice he doesn’t say WHICH army…
Not
that it matters anyway. Imagine working for any military headquarters and
receiving a call late at night from some crackpot (yeah, I think that’s what he’s
smoking) claiming he shrank his son and if you’d be interested in buying his
shrink ray. You’d probably trace the call and have this dope’s house bombed for
wasting your time.
Rather prophetic, in the final panel Buzz predicts his possible demise but still thanks his dad for providing him the death machine he so craved. Seriously, Buzz’s dad really wants his son dead so badly, doesn’t he? I hope the military included a miniature parachute with this model.
Godspeed mother nature, Godspeed…
I’m pretty sure PETA would be pissed with the above panel of Buzz mowing down a group of crows like that. I guess his ordeal with the hawk and chicken did more psychological damage than I thought. It boggles the mind that the army would approve having a tiny military plane built with FULLY FUNCTIONING MACHINE GUNS CAPABLE OF KILLING ANIMALS and then GIVE IT TO A KID!!! Yes, yes, I know it’s the USA, but does any responsible parent actually let their kids play with assault weapons unsupervised – choosing instead to spend their valuable time sitting in the dark drunk dialing the army?
Okay, so the plane didn’t kill Buzz, again, so now his dad
has instead volunteered his son to go on “extremely dangerous mission”. Rather
than, say, using the ‘minus ray’ on a military volunteer with a wealth of
experience so that he could go on the dangerous mission, the army opts to send
the kid whose sole life experience so far involves barely his day to day existence.
That, my friends, is comic book logic…
For your amusement, here’s a little excerpt of a
conversation between Major Stanley and Prof Balmer before Buzz’s arrival:
Prof: So I suppose you will also want my notes and ‘minus
ray’ prototype?
Major: What’s a minus ray?
Prof: It’s the shrink ray I invented. It’s what made Buzz
so tiny. What did you think happened to Buzz?
Major: I just thought he was born that way. So wait, you
invented a shrink ray and tested it on your only son?
Prof: It was an accident.
Major: Riiiiggghhht… So what about reversing this ray’s
effect? Is that possible?
Prof: You mean like some kind of enlarging ray? Now that’s
just ridiculous!
Major: So a shrink ray is completely doable, but an
enlarging ray is just science fiction?
Prof: That is correct.
Major: Does anyone else know about the shrink ray?
Prof: Just some nice people at the airport, and probably
anyone who saw Buzz these past few weeks. I’ve set up an interview with the paper
for next week too. I really should patent it one day too…
Major: So you’ve invented a potentially world devastating
weapon and everybody knows about it?
Prof: I suppose so.
Major: You, sir, are an idiot.
So, Buzz is going to be whisked off on a secret mission
next issue. Why not? Of course I can’t reveal what actually happens next issue
as I do not have access to a copy of said issue, nor would I really want one. I
prefer to imagine that the birds exacted their revenge on Buzz the next time he
took to the skies by relentlessly attacking his plane, sort of like what
happened with the Hawk Men at the end of the Flash Gordon movie from the early
1980s. Sure, they’d lose a lot of members, but eventually they’d take that
little SOB down!
That or I like to think Buzz was crushed under the weight
of the gigantic blanket his father so carefully tucked him into… that Prof
Balmer is one cold bastard.
Well folks, that’s all for now, until next time…