As soon as Kevin Feige said that She-Hulk would be the MCU’s first legal comedy, we knew to expect quirky, fun characters by the droves. The tongue-in-cheek, fourth-wall-breaking comics that inspired the show had plenty of oddballs of its own, and She-Hulk is following suit. The latest trailer proves just how far the showrunners are willing to dig to get their laughably bad villains.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Evn5tv3GTE
The footage depicts what looks like a group-therapy session for superhumans. Among the members are a man with bull horns and a tail, a mustached guy in a red and blue outfit with an eagle on the chest, and some dude in an extravagant gilly suit. While their names have not been revealed, it would seem they are Man-Bull, La Aguila, and The Porcupine come to life. The barrel doesn’t get much deeper than that.
MAN-BULL
First appearing in Daredevil #78, this is a character from the dark times before Frank Miller reinvented the Man Without Fear. Since the Silver Age, DD has had some of the campiest villains this side of Batman. There was Stilt-Man, Mister Fear, the Organizer, and Leap Frog to name a few. Then there’s the Man-Bull, a down-on-his-luck kidnapper forced into a mad scientist’s experiment to splice a man with a bull. When your name is William Taurens, aka Bull Taurus, it sounds like that’s just your destiny.
There hasn’t been a graded DD #78 sold online this year. For what it’s worth, the last 9.8 to trade hands was on April 14, 2021, for $751.
EL AGUILA
Possibly, this could be another Silver Age DD villain, the Matador, in the She-Hulk trailer, who has a similar design, but my money is on El Aguila. Maybe it’s just me, but I can’t read that name without hearing Antonio Banderas’ Puss in Boots voice.
The fencing antagonist debuted in Power Man and Iron Fist #58, and he had good intentions of using his powers to help the poor. This Robin Hood/Zorro mashup would fall short in all his endeavors, except of course being named an Oddball of the Week. That’s a feather in anyone’s cap.
Need a Power Man and Iron Fist #58 to fill that void in your life? For less than $100 on average, you can own a pristine 9.8.
THE PORCUPINE
There have been two characters to take up the Porcupine moniker, which is just sad, really. The original was Alexander Gentry, who first appeared in 1963’s Tales to Astonish #48. Before turning supervillain, Gentry was a weapons designer for the United States military. One of his projects was a self-defense suit covered in sharp projectiles, a la the porcupine. When the U.S. government didn’t give him his fair share, Gentry used the suit to go into business for himself as…The Porcupine. In 2006, the suit found a new owner in Roger Gocking, who debuted in Daughters of the Dragon #3.
If you’re in the market for a Tales to Astonish #48, you are in luck because anything up to a 7.5 has averaged under $350. For those wanting the Gocking variety of keys, Daughters of the Dragon #3 has never had a graded sale, so you should be able to find that in your local comic shop’s dollar bin.
THE WEIRD AND THE WONDERFUL
The more Marvel Studios leans into comedy, the more likely it is we’ll continue seeing comics’ oddballs. It is truly a Golden Age for the quirky losers of Marvel, and these three characters are proof positive that practically everyone will make it into a movie or show at this rate.
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