6 Hilarious Attempts at Brainwashing Kids With Comic Books
As anyone who has read the Spider-Man pedophilia awareness comic knows, comics aren't always the most dignified and subtle medium for conveying a message.
That, however, has not stopped advertisers from trying to shoe-horn their message into the format of a hamfisted comic book. The results are even more asinine than you'd expect.
Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four and OfficeMax
The Comic's Intended Message:
Teachers are our nation's greatest resource! To the point that supervillains envy students' knowledge!
Its Accidental Message:
OfficeMax is our nation's greatest resource, as superheroes go positively apeshit over the store.
A 2006 promo comic released by Marvel and OfficeMax for Teacher Appreciation Week, Brain Drain! is probably the best-drawn entry in this list. It makes up for this by making absolutely no sense whatsoever.
The story opens with Dr. Doom draining the brains of all of America's brightest middle schoolers. Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four set out to stop Doom's nefarious plot but, before they can depart, the teachers of the "brain-drained" students show up for no adequately explored reason to help out. Their help mostly consists of barking non-sequiturs about OfficeMax.
Fuck your laptop, Superheroes are magic.
Instead of stifling a chortle at the dumbass citizens, the superheroes lose their minds over the whole idea. They hightail it to OfficeMax and grab pencils and rubber band balls and calculators and bring them back to the Baxter Building.
Mr. Fantastic then tosses all that shit in the corner and uses his supercomputer to locate Doom. Sadly, this marks the last appearance of logical thinking in the comic.
Spidey and the F.F. break into Dr. Doom's castle, where Doom womps them and reveals his villainous masterstroke: He will rob America's middle schoolers of their valuable knowledge!
That's right. Victor von Doom, Ph.D., invented an impossibly sophisticated machine in order to learn the secrets of basic algebra--the plot of R.L. Stine's Stay Out of the Basement--and that every boy his age is sprouting strange hair down there.
For brain-draining a bunch of kids whose collective fund of knowledge rivals his own cast-iron skidmarks, Dr. Doom deserves to have his plot foiled by an OfficeMax brand rubber band ball.
The comic ends on a bittersweet note; the children Doom kidnapped are permanently brain-drained. But the teachers are there, and they can re-teach their students!
Of course, they'll be teaching "How Not To Drool and Shit Your Pants 101" until the kids are 25, but that doesn't seem to faze the plucky educators.
Indeed, the saddest part of Brain Drain! is that the real students who entered an essay-writing contest to win a cameo in this comic book make a one-panel appearance as brain-drained imbeciles. Notice how Marvel was kind enough to label each child so bullies knew exactly whom to taunt into homeschooling.
Sorry for bringing this up again, Cody Rhoades.
The Adventures of Kool-Aid Man
The Comic's Intended Message:
Kool-Aid Man is a trustworthy authority figure. Drink Kool-Aid!
Its Accidental Message:
Kool-Aid Man is a walking, talking high fructose apocalypse and seducer of innocence. Drink fucking Kool-Aid!
As we all know, the Kool-Aid Man is a giant anthropomorphic pitcher of Kool-Aid. His interests include slaking thirst, casual property damage and pretending to have an orgasm wherever he goes.
A typical day in the life.
In the 1980s, Kool-Aid teamed up with Marvel Comics to produce a series of Kool-Aid Man comics. In order to justify the massive amount of collateral damage incurred by Kool-Aid Man's mere existence, the writers came up with a dehydration-themed foe, Scorch. His job was to sort of annoy the hero and leave clues bad enough to make The Riddler facepalm.
When Scorch's foolproof scheme of "telling Kool-Aid Man exactly where I am" invariably failed, he uttered his one and only catchphrase: "Roast My Toast!"
Note the requisite wall-bursting. Incidentally, this appears to be Kool-Aid Man's one and only way to enter an enclosed space. Scope out the scene below.
Look at that. Those kids are so fucking dead, but they're too excited by Kool-Aid Man's arrival to care. At least they'll fatally depressurize with smiles on their faces.
Speaking of which, Kool-Aid Man has a non-stop entourage of eager children. He hangs out with these kids totally unsupervised, makes them drink his own bodily fluids and often invites them to party at his pad.
Leading a bunch of lost, easily confused children through the forest on bikes is sort of weird, but at least he isn't touching the kids or-
Goddammit, Kool-Aid Man. You're lucky your comic ran for only six issues; any longer and you would've ended up on a registry somewhere.
The Comic's Intended Message:
If liberals ever get into power, they'll ruin America!
Its Accidental Message:
In an unthinkable dystopian future, a 90-year-old G. Gordon Liddy looks fiiine!
This 2005 comic posits two thought-provoking hypotheticals: "What if the Democrats had won the 2000 U.S. presidential election?" and "Would America still have the same problems that exist today?" Sadly, Liberality For All, a comic from conservative comic publisher ACC studios, answers these questions in the stupidest way possible.
The comic takes place in 2021. If you're wondering who the two people on the right are, that's President Hillary Clinton and Vice President Michael Moore. They are glad-handing with Ambassador Osama Bin Laden. If you think this is bad, check out what's happened to America's most venerable news network.
"Wait a second," you say. "This is all moronically over-the-top, but how is it different from any other ham-fisted political cartoon?" Well, hold onto your hats, this comic is about to get... extreme.
Did we mention he has a robotic arm?
He fights the forces of left-wing evil with this guy. Hint: he's not a Bizarro version of Gordon from Sesame Street.
That muscular gun-toting badass is actually G. Gordon Liddy, conservative talk show host and famed Watergate conspirator. He and Hannity run the underground Freedom Of Information League, or F.O.I.L. They spend their time killing cops.
Now, we understand that ideologies of all stripes use idiotic cartoons for propaganda purposes, but Liberality For All takes the dumbass cake by taking these two doughy talking heads...
... and turning them into goddamn Nick Fury and the Punisher... 11 years from now.
Johnny Turbo Brings You the TurboGrafx-16
The Comic's Intended Message:
Buy Turbo Duo, the first CD-game system ever!
Its Accidental Message:
If you don't acknowledge that the Turbo Duo is the first CD-game system ever, a fat man in galoshes will cripple you! Also, fuck Sega!
In 1992, Turbo Technologies, Incorporated released the Turbo Duo, which was the successor of the TurboGrafx-16. To promote the new system and compete with Sega CD, TTI invented corporate spokeshero Johnny Turbo and plugged his adventures in gaming magazines.
Meet Jonathan Brandstetter, real-life TTI programmer and Johnny Turbo's alter ego. His hobbies include looking like your uncle and constantly pointing out that SEGA- er, FEKA CD is grossly inferior to Turbo Duo. When Jonathan catches wind that FEKA salesmen are slandering Turbo Duo in front of impressionable consumers...
... he leaps into action as Johnny Turbo, who then assaults the FEKA agents unprovoked.
Imagine you're a bystander here. You're just trying to buy a SEGA CD, but suddenly a coked-up sanitation worker waving a gun starts screaming about Sherlock Holmes and pummeling the salesman. At this moment, are you thinking about A) the Turbo Duo; or B) the sudden warmth in your Hanes?
After defeating FEKA, Johnny Turbo invades his roommate's dreams to subliminally hawk the Turbo Duo game, Lords of Thunder. Unfortunately for his roomie, Johnny's sales pitch is akin to being double-teamed by the ghosts of Syd Barrett and Captain Lou Albano.
When Johnny tells his roomie about a secret code to access Bomberman, well, the reader has front row seats to the birth of a neutron star.
At the end of the day, Johnny Turbo failed to boost the Turbo Duo's sales, and the system went under in 1995. The moral of the story? Death threats and acid flashbacks are no way to sell kids video games.
Brent Rinehart's Political Comic
The Comic's Intended Message:
Reelect Brent Rinehart for Oklahoma County Commissioner!
Its Accidental Message:
Brett Rinehart is the victim of a massive homo-satanic conspiracy!
In 2008, Oklahoma County Commissioner Brett Rinehart mailed his constituents a curious piece of campaign literature, specifically a crudely drawn black-and-white comic book.
The comic opens with a brief overview of Rinehart's early life. As you can see, he was in the Air Force and--oh, who's that horned fellow at the bottom? Yup, that's Satan. You better get used to him, because he's got a severe revenge boner for Brett Rinehart.
The devil apparently takes umbrage with Rinehart's party plank of keeping Oklahoma totally not gay. We think this vendetta between Brett Rinehart and the Dark One is just a big silly misunderstanding. It's obvious that Rinehart mistakenly thinks "gay people" is a synonym for "ancient Romans."
After Rinehart affirms his commitment to keep the gays (re: gladiators) out the Sooner State, he takes some jabs at his political opponents. You can read the rest of the comic here, but we'll just tell you the high point of this ugly mess is a macrocephalic she-male screaming typos.
No, YOUR kidding.
In 1962, George C. Wallace used this comic book tactic when running for governor of Alabama, and he got the job. So things had to work out for Brent, right?
Jughead it ain't.
Well, no. Rinehart came dead last in the county commissioner primary elections. That's right, even his political base thought he was too crazy. To top things off, he was soon after prosecuted for fraud and money laundering. If he decided to act as his own attorney, we would pay good money to sit in on that trial.
The Comic's Intended Message:
Even the strongest of us can succumb to the alcohol addiction!
Its Accidental Message:
You must be legally intoxicated in order to understand what the hell is going on in Captain Al Cohol!
Throughout the 70s and 80s, the government of the Northwest Territories, Canada released a series of promotional comics starring dipsomaniac superhero Captain Al Cohol.
Ostensibly a well-meaning attempt to warn the children of Canada's northern climes about the dangers of alcoholism, Captain Al Cohol is instead a depressingly hilarious romp through a lost space alien's battle with the bottle.
Unlike other alcoholic superheroes (Iron Man, for example), Captain Al Cohol doesn't take many proactive steps towards combating his addiction. In fact, he doesn't even do much superheroing. He just wanders around Inuit country, getting shitfaced and allowing tragedies to befall him and his loved ones. Imagine if Lex Luthor could pick up Kryptonite at 7-Eleven and you'll understand why Captain Al Cohol has zero dramatic tension.
Fortunately, those tragedies are what keep Captain Al Cohol worth reading. Feast your eyes on Al's girlfriend getting run over by a spontaneous musk ox stampede...
... a flashback to when he accidentally incinerated his space family...
Aliens don't get drunk. They get swacked.
... or that one time hippies made fun of his outfit.
Naturally, Al's screw-ups induce further shame. So what does he decide to do?
Steal money and buy beer. Tony Stark, eat your heart out.
Do you have something funny to say about a random topic? You could be on the front page of Cracked.com tomorrow. Go here and find out how to create a Topic Page.
For more accidental comedy in comic books, check out The 6 Creepiest Comic Book Characters of All Time and The 5 Most Unintentionally Hilarious Comic Strips.
And stop by our Top Picks to see the Cracked comic book (it's just a spiral notebook full of dongs).
And don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter to get dick jokes sent straight to your news feed.
