Five Great Moments of Insane Comic Book Science

They’re called the Golden and Silver ages of comics but make no mistake about it, the Golden and Silver ages of comics were nutty as squirrel shit.

In an age where the comic book was king, writers and artists were desperate to create new story twists to keep readers excited to pick up a new issue. This, inevitably, escalated into some great insane stuff. So while we will always remember the great moments of Jack Kirby, Jim Starlin and other fine artists and writers, sometimes it’s fun to just remember all of the insanity left behind in that sweet period.

5. The Flash Gets Out of Date News IN THE FUTURE

I submit this mostly as a sign of things to come. Let the sheer ludicracy of this image prepare you for the following four images. What is the flash doing in 2971? Why is Lincoln being shot news? How does the giant unicycle robot stop? Or turn? Or do anything beyond delivering incredibly out-dated news in a straight line? Why does any of this matter?

I really want to say that this robot is just a future version of the History Channel that’s just had some coding issues but trust me, Golden Age comics rarely had that kind of sense. I assure you this tiny factual error will escalate into a massive world ending crisis.

4. This Robot is Trained to Smash Your Camera

There are literal drinking games for the shit they put Jimmy Olsen through. Every issue he was getting turned into something, beaten by something horrible or being given incredible power only to turn around and abuse it himself. I love this image in particular because the robot here wasn’t built to smash cameras, he was trained.

That means this robot could learn and think and his most notable feature is smashing cameras. He lives in some remote vista guarding something just waiting to smash a camera. Do you think he was happy when he found Jimmy? Like all of these years of training have finally paid off?

I hope he was. I hope he was the happiest robot in the whole world.

3. Batman and The Z-Ray

Why is Marvin the Martian’s horribly burned cousin using some kind of voodoo science death ray to kill Batman you ask? Why isn’t Batman using some sort of throwing implement to knock the strange ray out of the alien’s hands? Maybe one which is given a derivative bat moniker maybe?

Why is a detective and crime fighter even in such a situation at all?

You’ve got to admit though, with stuff like this we kind of see why the Adam West Batman happened. I’m seriously starting to believe the show was just a big parody of the comics at that point.

2. Lois Lane and Lana Lang Never Play Fair

There are entire volumes of comics chronicling the literal war between Lois and Lana. Entire annals of human history may be lost from the great fire of Alexandria but we still have every single issue of Lois Lane and Lana Lang trying to one up each other to have sole rights to being Mrs. Superman. Let that haunt you for a minute.

They’ve tried everything from time travel, truth and lie machines, and even outright open attempts at murdering each other in front of Superman. There could be an entire article on all of the insane ways they’ve tried to do each other in.

I included this one because it only just slightly beats out Lois traveling back in time to sabotage Superman’s relationship with Lana in levels of insane science. But only just slightly.

1. Blackhawk…. Just Blackhawk

Oh Blackhawk. There’s crazy science, there’s insane gadgets, and then there’s you.

I want every issue ever published under your title. I want it bound in leather back books and put on shelves of rich mahogany with gold plaques denoting your work as the greatest single contribution to comedy of all time given to man by god!

You have it all: flying tanks, flying submarines, insane giant wheel tanks and racism. Oh my god the racism! You are the truly forgotten work of our age, we’ve neglected and forsaken you Blackhawk, but know that your day will come.

Also, who the hell makes a gun to kill people based on the clothes they wear? Answer: A Blackhawk villain.

And that does it for now, but if you have any insane moments from comics you’d like us to recount let us know. We’ll happily make another list.