Stop Marc Velazquez!
Via James Lileks' Backfence, yet ANOTHER mention-by-name for Marc, and I am now officially both jealous and envious.

From Marc in North Carolina:

Is there some type of thermodynamics law that for every superhero you must have a villain of near-equal power? Or is it a yin-yang thing?

It makes things interesting, and keeps the series going. Issue One: Ant Man meets the BootHeel! Issue Two: Ant Man's Funeral!

I wonder how Thor could have been equally matched, though. Thor was a god. Literally. A Norse god who came from Norse heaven, answered to Odin, Norse Boss God Supreme. The theological implications of this would be staggering, really -- here's a living god from a pre-Christian era, flying around Manhattan. Many would convert. People would ask themselves: "What Would Thor Do?" (Throw a hammer would be the answer most of the time, which just shows the limitations of worshipping thunder gods with horned helmets.

My favorite superhero is Possum Man. Escaping near death after being hit by an out-of-control nuclear waste truck while crossing the road, Possum Man soon found he had developed extraordinary crime-fighting powers. With his brain now shrunken to the size of a walnut, he lost all fear (along with good sense) and could be found waddling stealthily into the secret lairs of evil-doers. Quietly using his opposable hind toes and his prehensile tail to defuse bombs (usually successfully) and dial the telephone to order pizza (never a misdial), Possum Man is feared by all of your better known nefarious, ne'er do-well types. Even when trapped in seemingly dire situations, he is able to confuse and nauseate his captors with his ability to feign death or expel horrid scent gland secretions, all while wearing a soft and stylish fur coat.

Forced by society (because he looks more or less like a giant rat, and he smells, and he hisses when angry) to live in his Secret Tree Nest of the Forest (which is actually just a mobile home up on 4 foot high pilings--he does have TiVo, though, and a really cool '87 Firebird), Possum Man nonetheless carries out his sworn duty to root out the grubs of evil across the land, especially his archnemesis, the Budweiser Ferret, who with his incessant "whi-ee, whi-ee, whi-ee" sound, managed to score with all the chicks and make it big on the TV.

He does have his weaknesses, of course, as do all superheroes--he is not bulletproof, the sight of an onrushing car makes him faint, and he is easily confused by...well, by basically anything.

[An Update--How in the world did I EVER miss this?]
posted by Terry at 11:26:00 AM