Public Enemies

What it's about: Notorious criminal John Dillinger (Johnny Depp) robs a whole bunch of banks while slipping through the fingers of an FBI agent (Christian Bale), all in an apparent attempt to impress a drunk-looking French chick (Marion Cotillard).

What to expect: I'm sure this movie's going to be great and all, but does it sound to anybody else like Depp's doing a Matthew McConaughey impression in his Dillinger performance? Play the trailer, close your eyes, and see if it doesn't sound like he's about to break out into some shirtless bongo playing.

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

What it's about: A collection of mugging b-listers (Ray Romano, Queen Latifah, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary) and Simon Pegg voice ice-age era mammals who go on anachrotastic adventures in...I guess the Mesozoic era? Whatever period it's supposed to be, it's about 80 million years before the last ice age, f.y.i. Really, between this movie and "Year One," this is just not the summer for historical accuracy.

What to expect: Mediocre slapstick comedy that will misinform the whole family!

The trouble with bowler hats is that they have this reputation. The reputation being, of course, that they are only worn by silent film comedians and comedy duos of the early talkie period. A fine group to say the least, but pretty limiting.

I know, I know, that's not the truth about bowlers, you're telling me. A versatile group of everyday gentlemen, just like you or I, wear bowler hats on a regular basis. Why, I'm wearing a bowler hat right now, you say. Well, I'm sorry, but I must assume you're Stan Laurel. I can't change that.

Minus 3 bullets.

Toupee/wig

Here's the good thing about toupees and wigs: They are hilarious. No matter what the context, a grown man in a pink wig is just damn funny. He could be telling you he just got diagnosed with Crohn's disease and it wouldn't matter, because he would be wearing a pink wig.

Toupees are funny on a slightly different level; you have to first notice that it's a toupee and then find all the obvious discrepancies between hair colors and snicker when it moves. Either way, both are hilarious, and I commend those brave souls who wear them.

Plus 4 bullets.

That is not how you spell pus.

We get a lot of mail here at the ISS. Some of them are from aspiring supervillains, hoping to learn some of the tricks of the trade. Others are from sadly misguided souls attempting to contact the International Space Station. And every now and again, one of them stems from the computer of one of the very simpletons who have incurred our wrath and lived to compose bitchy emails about it. Here, a nude revue's ringmaster/head pimp attempts to justify the frankly unjustifiable strip show Watchwomen. (We reviewed it here, in case you repressed the memory.)

"Mr. Scott Johnston" wrote

I think I missed the "humor" part. Unless there's another definition of humor that means "terror beyond the human mind's ability to withstand". That would explain the continued career of Carrot Top.

I like how you call into question the academic credentials of an online comedy supervillain there.

I've read this sentence five times and I still have no idea what he's trying to say. I like to think that it's something so beautiful it can't be expressed in words.

You thought you had it all worked out, didn't you? Ditch your security detail, jump on a plane, head to Argentina. Hang out for a few days, bone your mistress, and come back. No one's the wiser, right?

But you forgot one thing, governor: You are a governor. Of a state.

And even though it is South Carolina, somebody was bound to notice. You're a man of power! You can't just be going around willy-nilly having sex with exotic women and thinking everything will be copacetic. You have to plan this shit out. Use a little subterfuge. If you're going to do evil, you have to think evil.

Here's what you should have done:

• In your various speeches to lawmakers and the public, begin slipping in references to your long-lost twin brother, Sark Manford, who has a thing for flying to South American countries to bang Argentine women.
• Build a robotic version of yourself who walks back and forth down the Appalachian Trail, and who constantly repeats, "I love my wife!"
• Invest in a stylish fake mustache.
• Put on said mustache, and begin speaking in a hard-to-identify ethnic accent, claiming to be Sark Manford.
• In a speech, announce that you're off on a trip to South America to bang some super-hot South American lady.
• Go bang the South American lady.
• Return, endure the scandal of Sark Manford, recover the robot and remove the mustache.
• Return home as Mark Sanford, who strongly criticizes the actions of Sark Manford and sentences him to 1 billion years in affair prison.
• Have Sark Manford break out as needed.

That would have worked.

I've been going more insane than usual, because I've been in this particular safety bunker for a couple weeks, and my computer is messed up. The only website I can access aside from my e-mail for some reason is CNN.com. I've killed at least a dozen IT professionals already because their sage suggestion to reboot my machine did not work.

Now out of geeks, I've taken to reading the headlines on CNN.com and making the stories about me, or just not reading them and taking them horribly out of context for my own entertainment; not that they've been making that difficult. I'm starting to believe that many of these things actually happened the way I said. It might be because they did. Fuck, I don't know, I've been in a hole for two weeks.

How delicious! It was satisfying to find out that my powers of mind control extended into the afterlife! I'd convinced this man to run full tilt head first into a jet engine turbine; when this mystical medium who wrote this article contacted him, he was still under my influence! I'd told him it would be fun!

Bwahahahahahahaha! Good! She was really asking for it! Entertainment at its finest!

Click for bigness

(NOTE: May or may not actually be coming out as a comic.)

(Click for full size)

freakshowcomics.deviantart.com

Subject's name: Ero

Subject's powers: Can extend stingers from wrists; can also turn into sentient swarm of spiders

Why this power seems good: It would be pretty convenient to be able to turn into a big bunch of spiders and escape from your chatty aunt's house through the chimney, sure. And some big wrist-stingers would be great for dealing with middle management, panhandlers, solicitors, collection agencies, people who generally get in your way, and many others.

Why it might suck: Let's imagine you're playing a video game. As is often the case, you lose your temper. Pop! There go your stingers, all up in your Wiimote. Or, worse yet, say you decide to sleep one night as a swarm of spiders and your arachnophobic landlord has you exterminated. That wouldn't be cool at all.

T.,

Let's get one thing straight right off the bat. Race wars are not simple, and they are not fun. They require a lot of hard work and dedication. You can't just start up a race war and leave it in the closet like that guitar I bought you for your birthday last year. You've barely even picked that thing up. If you want to have a race war, you're going to have to prove to me that you're responsible enough to deserve it.

Anyway, I think we both know pretty well the best way to start a race war. It's the same way you go about starting up a religious war: with vaguely offensive cartoons. Just to get you started on your way, I've made up a few examples for you in the most offensive of all image creators, MS Paint. You can see them after the jump.