The insult that made a man out of "Mac"

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

Oh dear Lord. This has got to be one of the longest-running ad campaigns since the first alphabet was devised. If you've read any old comics or magazines, odds are good you've seen it.



If girls hitting puberty worry about what kind of breasts they will grow, how their hair and skin will turn out, boys the same age are just as fretful over whether they will be tall and strong. For every girl trying tissue paper in the training bra, there's a boy anxiously pressing the top of his head against a pencil mark in a doorway. The stigma of being short and skinny still horrifies boys and men today, the casual insults remain as cutting as ever. (I personally was lucky in that I hit six feet just before high school, but I had friends back then who never got beyond five feet six inches and put up with a lot of mean remarks from girls as well as other guys.)

It's no surprise that two of Marvel's most successful characters play on this anxiety by offering vicarious compensation. Peter Parker and Bruce Banner both are referred to frequently as "puny." The early Ditko Parker, even as Spider-Man, remained thin and under average height, which made his beating up of beefy goons a real wish fulfilment for kids who looked more like Parker than Steve Rogers. And Bruce Banner offered even more extravagant compensation as he went from a frail-looking ineffectual bookworm to something which has become a synonym for brute strength. The whole gig of being abused and taunted until you abruptly freak out and beat the snot out of your tormentors is a big part of the Hulk's appeal.

Comments

[btravage.livejournal.com (from insanejournal.com)]

This post is incomplete without a mention of Flex Mentallo.

[mysteryfan.insanejournal.com]

Now you're making me think of the sand-kicking at 'Most Sensitive Man in the World' as played by Brendan Frasier in Bedazzled. And the Dolphin Song.

[caeliluminar.insanejournal.com]

Yet one more parody. (http://www.teamfortress.com/sniper_vs_spy/images/07_comic.jpg)

[nezchan.insanejournal.com]

Seriously, that ad was ubiquitous. Every silver age comic had them, hell I had a lot of books with them. Even into the 80's they were running the ads, if memory serves.

Made sense though, the teenage boys who the comics were aimed at were the same sort of kids the ads appealed to.

Puny Parkers

[(Anonymous)]

So it's kind of a pity that these days Spider-Man has the kind of body that most of his audience would kill to have.

[superfan1.insanejournal.com]

I love the archie parody of this story. Where the same thing happens to archie and betty beat the heck out of the guy.

[kenn_el.insanejournal.com]

You left out Scott "Slim" Summers, who was forced to wear glasses because without them, a devastating power would be unleashed, yet who 'won' the girl over the beautiful and wealthy Warren Worthington III! (The whole body-issues thing is sad, though, as, except for height, what guys obsess over can be worked on realistically, while what girls obsess on cannot, except for weight, which tends to be an overwhelming concern for some.)

[halloweenjack.insanejournal.com]

A weakling, weighing ninety-eight pounds,
Will get sand in his face, when kicked to the ground... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrwYJ1gx9WM)