MYTHCOMICS: "SNAKE BILE COGNAC" (THE BADGER #14, 1986)

Mike Baron's BADGER series has great mythic potential. The base concept ties into the national trauma of Vietnam, in that ex-soldier Norbert Sykes becomes a superhero after manifesting a multiple personality disorder. Though Norbert has three other personalities other than that of the costumed hero The Badger, none of them appear in "Snake Bile Cognac." The persona of the Badger-- who has an uncanny rapport with animals, and often claims to talk to them-- is not much more high-functioning than the others, however, as shown by this done-in-one story.

In his BADGER stories Baron tends to toss lots of pop-culture stuff into the mix, as I discussed here. However, "Cognac" confines itself to two main subjects: Badger's animal mystique and his mastery of martial arts, and Baron plays them off one another with great skill.

The adventure begins in typical wigged-out fashion. Norbert Sykes is at his home in Wisconsin, watching a television show about exotic cookery. Norbert's mild interest converts to horror when he witnesses chef Herbert Ng kill a snake on live-TV in order to extract its poisonous bile and use it in his recipe for "snake bile cognac." Infuriated, Norbert dons his Badger costume and journeys all the way from Barneveld to San Francisco to avenge the snake's murder.

After getting into a fight with a couple of Herbert's waiters, Badger challenges Herbert to a fight. Despite the fact that the Vietnamese chef is said to be a master of "phoenix eye fist," Herbert refuses to fight and gives Badger permission to hit him. Badger can't do it, so Herbert decides he wants to get to know this tortured avenger better. The two of them go on a hike in the country, with Norbert singing the theme song to "Rawhide." They meet a bear and Norbert shows off his animal-whispering skills.

Later, Herbert invites Norbert to go rock-climbing with him, and asks, while they're several miles up a mountain, if Norbert still holds rage against him. Norbert says yes, so Herbert says that they will return to the city and fight. If Badger wins, Herbert will cease making snake bile cognac; if he loses, he must have a meal including said cognac.  Norbert agrees, and moments later, saves Herbert from falling off the cliff.

The two of them return to the city and battle for four pages. Herbert wins, and Norbert/Badger imbibes the snake bile, presumably with its poisonous qualities nullified. However, the bile causes the crazy man to have visions of two of his childhood movie-idols, Warren Oates and John Wayne. Both of these perhaps-imaginary spirits tell Badger to stop obsessing about the snake. Badger gets testy and John Wayne punches Badger out amid various quotes from "McClintock."

When Norbert awakens, he's got over the snake obsession, and makes nice with Herbert before going back home. In a final coda, Herbert reveals to one of his nephew-waiters that he Herbert will no longer make the snake bile cognac. When the nephew protests that Herbert won the fight, the chef replies that Badger was the real winner for having used his "power of chi" to save Herbert's life on the cliff-- apparently without even being fully aware of using said chi.

Herbert Ng never appears again to my knowledge. But although his combination of kung fu and cookery probably would not appeal to ultraliberals, Baron gives the character a good deal more cultural gravitas than the author generally does to one-shot characters.

NEAR MYTHS: "SCISSORS, PAPER, STONE" (THE BADGER #60-61, 1990)

Mike Baron's long-running feature, THE BADGER, always showed a high level of inventiveness, for all that most critics of the 80s and 90s tended to ignore it. Possibly Baron's conservative politics played into that indifference, though it's more likely that most critics didn't like the author's unapologetic paeans to popular culture.

To be sure, BADGER's inventiveness is sometimes unfocused. For instance, the two-part adventure in BADGER #60-61 is a simultaneous salute to exotic kung-fu movies, the "car comics" of Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, and the Three Stooges. In fact, the Three Stooges are transformed into the Chisums, kung-fu masters in cowboy threads, who have martial arts specialties related to the venerable kid's game "scissors paper stone." The best line in the two-parter comes from "Curly," when he announced their common mission to purchase cattle sperm: "We're the Chisums; we're here to buy jism."

The Badger's battle with these malcontents leads him to a plot to sacrifice a great steer to a demon named Motorhead, patron of monster trucks. So the hero's wizard-buddy conjures up a rival demon, Ratfinque (that's the "Big Daddy" homage), who is the patron of hot cars. I can't say that Baron's admixtures of pop-culture icons works well enough to attain a high mythicity, but it's worth celebrating just for associating the comic violence of the Stooges with the extravagant mayhem of martial arts films.

I'll note in passing that although BADGER may've enjoyed its longevity thanks to its adventure-elements, but fundamentally, I think it's dominantly a comedy, not unlike Rumiko Takahashi's RANMA 1/2, whose combination of adventure and comedy elements I discussed here.