Massacre At The Bar With No Name

[iamrman]

Captain America #319.

Comments

[beyondthefringe]

What a delightful bunch of C-listers. At the time this comic came out, I'd never even heard of most of them, except if they appeared in the Marvel Handbook. Certainly, most hadn't even appeared in any comics I'd read up to that point... just like with the batch in the previous post, where the first time I saw them was when they were killed off.

A shocking massacre, to be sure, and it's a shame that the mere existence of a serial killer/mass murderer preying on supervillains didn't have more lasting/deeper ramifications. Gruenwald's explanation about the origins and backing of the Scourge Project was... not bad, but not great. I think there was so much time between introduction and the USAgent mini that the story as a whole kind of fizzled out. And the side-explanation of the Red Skull coopting the Scourge Project for his own ends was okay but I disliked the idea of Skull masterminding EVERYTHING Cap (John Walker) faced for a while (i.e. Scourge, Resistants, Power Broker, Watchdog).

Also, I still think it's a shame how many of these victims were brought back by the Good to face Punisher. Just because most of those that survived that storyline promptly went back into the same kind of obscurity that made them cannon fodder in the first place. Only a few have been used with any sort of effectiveness.

(I mean look, I love obscure d-list characters, and I hate senseless character death, but I also dislike senseless resurrections, if that makes sense. )

[dan_ingram]

"(I mean look, I love obscure d-list characters, and I hate senseless character death, but I also dislike senseless resurrections, if that makes sense. )"

It does, IMO.

But I thought Flash's Venom series used a bunch of the resurrected villains pretty well.

Even though it did kill a few of them again...

[scorntx]

It makes sense. Like when a character's resurrected without any explanation just to stand around doing nothing, like Cutthroat, revived solely to be a part of the Hood's Big Villainous Blob (and Bendis kept writing him as being a hanger-on for the Hood, but for all he did with the character Cutthroat could've been replaced with a cardboard standee).
... just as a random example.


-I disliked the idea of Skull masterminding EVERYTHING-
That was a total "It was ME, Barry!" moment.
Especially given at least some of those events were pretty random, like John's parents getting killed. (Okay, maybe there was an end goal of the Walkers dying, but having it happening the way it did and that being All According to Plan? Nah.)
Easy to assume the Skull was lying about some of it just to be a dick because that's the kind of thing the Skull would do.

[beyondthefringe]

I hated that era of the Hood's mob o' villains because there were so many that just wound up as crowd-fillers and so many that aren't typically subservient to other villains. A guy like, say, the Corruptor or Doctor Octopus is a leader-type villain who runs crews, doesn't blindly serve someone else without good cause.

It's one thing for, say, the Wrecking Crew to hire out as a team to someone like Zemo or the Hood--they're built to be secondary mooks. Ditto the Enforcers, the Serpent Society, Death Throws, etc.

But looking at a list of the Hood's army, there were so many that just didn't belong in crowd scenes following orders, even if he was handing out cash. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hood#Members_of_The_Hood's_Crime_Syndicate) and

[super_fly]

I wasn't expecting so much PUM, put up a warning in the cut next time

No SPAK though, how can you have PUM but no SPAK?

[thanekos]

You can't say Mark Gruenwald couldn't plot a story, and you can't say that his accumulated knowledge of Marvel universe trivia made his stories hidebound in any way - but you can say that he couldn't write dialogue that did anything other than engage a certain receptive kind of reader.

Look at the average density of these word balloons, and look at their contents - dry statements of handbook factoids and mechanical plot details that the reader could at least work out an approximation of on their own. It's hard to imagine that dialogue appealing to anyone beyond the kind of reader who likes to store that information and regurgitate it in some other context later.

[blues32]

The "Scourge of the Underworld" sure set his sights low. Then again, I suppose beggars can't be choosers. These are who showed up, these are the ones who get shot. Still, is blowing a hole in Turner D. Century really "justice"?

[zylly]

I think the “biggest” villain the Scourge tried to kill (and failed to do so) was Kraven.

Was he planning to work his way up to the likes of Doctor Octopus or the Wingless Wizard? Did he have a plan for the Rhino or the Abomination?

[scorntx]

I know about the Ringer (who is probably the biggest name there), Turner from the scans from here, Steeplejack from the Epic Collection for Ms. Marvel, Mirage from... err... somewhere?
But the rest? Not a clue.

... though in the case of The Cheetah I can guess why he's faded into obscurity.
(This was 1986, about a year off from Barbara Ann-Minerva making her debut as Cheetah over at DC.)

[iamrman]

Wasn't Steeplejack an old Luke Cage villain? Mirage is from one of the Spider titles, I forget which one.

Titania and Mirage were probably killed off because they had the same names as other characters (see Mary "Skeeter" MacPherran and Dani Moonstar).

[scorntx]

The first Steeplejack was a Luke Cage villain. Then he died, and a businessman swiped his gear with the intention of monetizing it, before winding up fighting Ms. Marvel after trying to kill her dad.

[cainofdreaming]

The Bar With No Name must be a Cancerverse pocket, given that no one dying there stays dead.

[beyondthefringe]

The Bar With No Permanent Repercussions doesn't have the same ring though.

[bradygirl_12]

Knew it was the bartender! :)