The Unusual Suspects: Beyond The Big Two!
By Ryan Stevens
Oh, comic books. You’re such a rich and engrossing medium, full of diverse and interesting characters, some much more interesting, and some much more diverse than others. Here in The Unusual Suspects, we’re going to discuss a few who primarily fall in the latter category. Today, we’ll be looking at three of the strangest characters that appear outside the realms of “The Big Two”. Image, Dark Horse, and even the ever-obscure New England Comics have their fair share of weirdness, and it’s time to give them their due.
Buzzard:
To begin our romp through the indy oddities, I’ve decided to examine a character from Eric Powell’s Dark Horse series, The Goon: Buzzard. Originally a sheriff in a western town, the man called Buzzard was the only citizen who had doubts when a “missionary” blew in to town. Shunned by the rest of his townsfolk, he was busy drinking himself silly while a plague claimed the lives of everyone else in town before reanimating them into zombies. When the sheriff confronted the “missionary” (who was actually a zombie priest) for his crimes, the priest tried to turn him into a zombie, but the spell actually had a reverse effect: The sheriff was a human, with an insatiable hunger for dead flesh. These eating habits earned hm the nickname “Buzzard”. Since then, Buzzard, has been a constant enemy of the zombie priest, assisting the priest’s other arch-foe, The Goon.
Although he seemed to be killed in a zombie onslaught, months later he was seen imprisoned in the Zombie Priest’s tower stronghold. Starved to a skeletal-state, Buzzard was able to contact The Goon with the help of a spirit he befriended while in captivity. He was rescued, but when the zombie priest reminded Buzzard of his failure, he shot himself in the head, only to find the Priest’s curse kept him from dying. After some soul-searching, the Buzzard, now guards the city’s graveyards to prevent the birth of any more zombies.
Obviously, Buzzard is a strange person. A unique flip on the concept of zombies, Buzzard is just par for the course in a book like The Goon, which features such other quirky characters as El Lagarto Hombre, a Spanish Godzilla-type, Merle the alcoholic werewolf, and The Psychic Seal, who tends to “ARF” out insults about your mother. In the future, I may have to devote an entire installment to the Gooniverse.
Tether Tyrant:
Tether Tyrant, a minor villain from Robert Kirkman’s Invincible series, has possibly the strangest power of all time: A sentient glob of pre-chewed bubblegum pouring out of his chest. Honestly, it’s not really bubblegum; it’s actually some sort of parasitic creature that the human half of Tether Tyrant has grown “attached” to. (*Ba Dum Tish*) I’m sorry, but I just had to do it.
But seriously, folks, the gooey life form is extremely sticky, so much so that the creature can latch onto someone and will not let go until its master says so. Tether Tyrant himself also has super-strength, as shown when he punched the nigh-invulnerable hero Invincible, causing him to admit the punch “actually hurt”. He and his “pet” seem to have a telepathic bond, as he was shown having a conversation with it (without the creature making any noise in response). It is not known if the creature eats sleeps or performs any other life functions.
Not much is known about Tether Tyrant, except he is mainly a thug-for-hire, albeit a very dangerous one. He was a member of the crime lord called Machine Head’s hand-picked personal guard, but the entire team was defeated by Invincible and his allies, and they were all presumably imprisoned. He somehow escaped, and was later seen teaming up with fellow super-villain Magmaniac and going on a crime spree, but they were defeated by Invincible and were most likely arrested again.
Chainsaw Vigilante:
Straight form the elusive New England Comics company, and created by Ben Edlund, the man who invented The Tick, The Chainsaw Vigilante is a (get this!) vigilante that wields a chainsaw to ward off any crime and/or superheroes who come to menace the greater Deertown-Hobleville area. He uses his chainsaw with extreme precision, using shallow cuts to get people to back off, and having never been seen to kill anyone with his weapon.
The Chainsaw Vigilante, aka Henry Hearst, is the son of Steven Hearst, the actor who played the TV character “The Hero With Seven Hearts”. Steven was actually a socialist, using his TV show as a means to brainwash the younguns with communist mumbo jumbo. Steven was foiled by The Sultan, the world’s greatest superhero. Steven fled the US, returning several times in the sixties, to conduct “The Seven Hearts Revolutions”, which were a series a riots perpetrated by his pinko followers. Henry’s hatred for super-heroes likely comes from how The Sultan ran his father out of the country.
Henry grew up to become the Chainsaw Vigilante, clad in a leather jacket (that reads “Kick Yourself” on the back ) , leather pants, biker boots, and a homemade smiley-face mask. He has no super powers, but seems to know martial arts, along with his amazing chainsaw skills. He defeated The Civic-Minded Five in issue 9 of The Tick, and tried to subdue the great blue sentinel of justice the following issue, but failed. Chainsaw Vigilante later starred in his own three-issue mini-series, both drawn and scripted by Zander Cannon.
I’m Ryan Stevens, and these……are The Unusual Suspects!
