Top 10 Worst Moments in Marvel Comics

Marvel Comics is responsible for a complete revitalization of the comic book industry in the 60s, some of the greatest and most beloved characters and superhero stories in history, and helping to convince the mainstream that comic books are a legitimate art form. Their power and greatness cannot be denied.

But, it also cannot be denied that every now and then Marvel has dropped the ball and released terrible comics. This is not a condemnation of Marvel comics or their characters. Instead, it is a condemnation of the bad storytellers, the bad artists, and the bad writers who betrayed the public’s trust by abusing the characters and creations that Marvel fans hold so dear.

In chronological order, here are ten of the all time worst moments in the history of Marvel Comics:

10. Rape of Ms. Marvel (October 1980)

Avengers Vol. 1 #200

By the end of the 70s, Carol Danvers, aka Ms. Marvel, had become one of Marvel’s flagship female characters. And all it took was one issue of The Avengers to ruin both her standing as a strong female character and her reputation. To make a long (and overly complicated) story short, Ms. Marvel became mysteriously pregnant and gave birth to a full term baby three days later. Then, the baby, named Marcus, mysteriously grew up almost instantly, and revealed that he had “seduced” his mother and impregnated her. And by “seduced” I mean “raped.” And what became of Ms. Marvels incestuous rape child? He grew up to be…Marcus! That’s right, he had gone back in time to impregnate his mother with himself. But the worst part of this travesty was that not only was Ms. Marvel, one of Marvel’s leading female characters, raped, she revealed that she enjoyed it and decided to stay with him afterwards. Hooray for feminism!

 9. Clone Saga (October 1994 – December 1996)

Web of Spider-Man #117–129, Sensational Spider-Man #0–11, Amazing Spider-Man #394–418, Spider-Man #51–75, Spectacular Spider-Man #217–240, Spider-Man Unlimited (Vol. 1) #7–14

If you peruse this list, you may be surprised to find that many of the entries are related to the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. The first one to make an appearance is the dreadfully convoluted and stupidly executed Clone Saga, a storyline that ran through all of the Spider-Man titles for two years. It all started with a storyline back in the 70s where the villain named the Jackal cloned Peter Parker and his deceased girlfriend Gwen Stacy. Spidey fought his clone, won, and went off none the wiser. Decades later, this storyline was brought back to life when it was revealed that not only had the clone survived his encounter with Spidey, but that the clone, now known as the Scarlet Spider, was the real Peter Parker and that the Peter Parker that the comics had followed for decades was the clone! Needless to say, this angered most, if not all, of Spider-Man’s fans.

So, what was supposed to be a short arc that only lasted a few issues ran for two long, painful years as Marvel tried to backtrack and restore the status quo. Along the way, it was revealed that, surprise-surprise, the Scarlet Spider WAS the clone and Peter Parker WAS the original. Throw in the clumsy resurrection of Aunt May after she had previously died (THAT Aunt May was ALSO another clone); a couple hundred more Spider-Man clones that Jackal just happened to have in his basement; and the revelation that the entire thing had been orchestrated by Norman Osborn, the Green Goblin, who was believed to have died decades ago- and you have one of the most infuriating stories ever told in the entire history of the comic book medium. And the kicker? Afterwards, everybody acted like nothing had happened and the plot line was never mentioned again. Marvel had literally wasted two years of their readers’ lives with nothing to show for it.

 8. Iron Man: The Crossing (September 1995 – February 1996)

Avengers #390-395; Avengers: The Crossing #1; Force Works #16-20; Iron Man #320-325; War Machine #20-23; Avengers: Timeslide #1; Age of Innocence: The Rebirth of Iron Man #1

Retcon (retroactive continuity) is a literary device used to change previously established facts in fiction and is commonly used in comic book series with long histories because “the plurality of writers who contribute stories can often create situations that demand clarification or revision” (wikipedia). As a general rule of thumb, whenever Marvel retcons bad things happen…as in bad comics are released upon unsuspecting fans. So, in the mid-90s when Marvel decided to reveal that Iron Man was a traitor who had worked as a sleeper agent for Kang The Conqueror for years, you can bet that there would be problems. First, he goes on a killing spree, killing the female Yellowjacket, Amanda Chaney, and Marilla, the nanny of Quicksilver’s daughter. The Avengers decide that the best thing to do is recruit a teen-age Tony Stark from another timeline, have him steal the Iron Man suit, and fight the now evil Tony Stark. In the ensuing fight, the real Tony Stark sacrifices himself to stop Kang. For a while, the teenage Tony Stark was the official Iron Man… and what a fiasco THAT was. The new Tony looked ridiculous with an atrocious new set of armor. But what really alienated fans was the idea that Tony Stark, a character that they had come to know and love for decades, was a traitor. In fact, this was a blatant slap in the face to his fans. Thankfully, the entire debacle was completely retconned, replacing Teen Tony with Good Tony. Unfortunately, in order to do so, they had to rely on the event that takes the next spot on this list.

7. Heroes Reborn (1996 – 1997)

Fantastic Four Vol. 2 #1-12, Avengers Vol. 2 #1-12, Captain America Vol. 2 #1-12, Iron Man Vol. 2 #1-12 

The 90s were a dark, dark time for comic books. Gone were the days of cheerful heroes helping innocent bystanders and fighting giant monsters. In the 90s, everybody was a dark, brooding anti-hero. Comics became grim, dark, and ultraviolent.

It was in the midst of this creative quagmire that Marvel, in the face of bankruptcy, decided to reboot their entire universe in the Heroes Reborn crossover series that ran from 1996 to 1997. Essentially, Marvel trapped four of their most famous properties, the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, Captain America, and Iron Man, in a pocket dimension after their apparent deaths at the hands of the psionic entity Onslaught. This allowed their writers to go back and tell brand new stories with these characters that they wouldn’t have been able to within mainstream Marvel continuity.

It was a decent idea. However, they decided to outsource these stories to former employees Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld who turned them into over-the-top, shameless parodies of themselves. The series were beset by bad stories and some of the worst art to ever disgrace the medium. It was so bad that Marvel essentially had to reboot their universe AGAIN just so they could restore everything to the status quo that was enjoyed before Heroes Reborn began. The silver lining to this abomination was that it succeeded in restoring Marvel’s sales and saved the company from a financial meltdown. All it took was a year of pure pain and agony on the part of the fans.

6. Chuck Austen’s X-Men (2002-2004)

Uncanny X-Men #410-441

Yes, ALL of Chuck Austen’s X-Men run. It is literally impossible to pick just one thing that was wrong with it. Where do we begin? How about the horrific characterizations? How about the blatant misogyny? How about the fact that it followed one of the greatest X-Men runs of all time (Grant Morrison) with stories that were designed to retcon it all? How about when Jubilee and a bunch of other X-Men were CRUCIFIED by a group of radicals who wanted to discredit the Catholic church by making Nightcrawler the Pope and killing people with disintegrating communion wafers? Or, sticking with Nightcrawler, how about the time when it was revealed that he was literally the son of a demon named Azazel who gave birth to him so he could teleport him to earth?

No, I’ve got it! It would have to be the revelation concerning Xorn, a supporting cast member from Morrison’s run who had healing powers fueled by literally having a star in his head. For those who haven’t read Morrison’s run (and you all should), it was revealed that Xorn was none other than Magneto who was trying to infiltrate the school! In the end, Magneto kills Phoenix (for the umpteenth time) and gets his head lopped off by Wolverine. Marvel, horrified at the idea of losing one of their central villains, retconned it all. How? They said that Xorn (who remember, wasn’t real but a disguise used by Magneto) had a twin brother who infiltrated the X-Men DISGUISED as Magneto. So, in summation, we have the twin of a person who never existed in the first place infiltrate the X-Men disguised as Magneto disguised as… his real identity… Make sense? No? Don’t worry. Nobody else can figure it out, either. At least Marvel got Magneto back for several more decades of milking.

5. Sins Past (August 2004 – January 2005)

The Amazing Spider-Man #509-514

Oh, Spider-Man fans… Why must Marvel continue to abuse you? Gwen Stacy, one of Spider-Man’s first girlfriends, was a fan favorite for decades. Her murder at the hands of the Green Goblin is said to have single-handedly ended the Silver Age of Comics. It was a tragic scene that helped define Spider-Man for a new generation. Even after Spidey hooked up with Mary Jane, there was still a massive amount of care and sympathy for Gwen, solidifying her status as one of the most-loved characters in the entire Marvel Universe. So, of course, Marvel decided that the best thing to do was to rewrite her past so that Norman Osborn, the Green Goblin, had slept with her. Oh, but he just didn’t sleep with her…he knocked her up with TWINS that she gave birth to in France. After deciding to come clean with Peter and raise the kids with him, Norman killed her. Why? So he could raise them himself! Because of Norman’s bizarre blood, the kids aged faster than normal so that they were full-grown adults before they reached 10 years old! What does Norman do with them? He makes them attack Spider-Man!

Sins Past single-handedly ruined the character of Gwen Stacy for untold numbers of fans. Her tragic and emotional death was cheapened for pure shock value. But this would not be the only time that Marvel would intentionally ruin or disgrace one of Spidey’s relationships with a loved one. We’ll get to THAT horrible story in a bit. Image from http://www.weeklycrisis.com/

 4. Civil War (June 2006 – January 2007)

Civil War #1-7

It started as a relatively good idea: a schism occurs in the superhero community when a group of heroes accidentally blow up a large part of Stamford, Connecticut during a fight, killing over 600 civilians, including 60 children. Heroes were faced with a daunting option: register their identities with the government and become federal employees in order to prevent such a calamity from happening again or face prosecution. Half of the community, led by Iron Man, advocated registration, believing it to be the moral and responsible solution. The other half, led by Captain America, believed that forced registration was a violation of their civil liberties and revealing their identities could put their friends and families at risk. It was a difficult and emotional issue for everybody involved.

There was no easy answer or solution to the problem… at least… there wasn’t until Iron Man and Mr. Fantastic created a robotic Thor clone which attacked the anti-registration camp, killing the superhero Goliath in the process. And then, instead of trying to persuade and convince the anti-registration people to register, Iron Man and his followers hunted them down like animals, arrested them, and threw them in an unbreakable prison in another dimension without a fair trial or due process. Not to mention that the pro-registration camp convinced Spider-Man to reveal his identity as Peter Parker publicly, leading to his Aunt May getting shot (which subsequently leads to the next entry on this list). As the icing on the cake, after Captain America heroically surrenders to prevent any more violence or bloodshed, he is shot and killed on the steps of a courthouse.

I can’t emphasize enough how badly Civil War was received and how it almost irrevocably damaged Marvel Comics. To this day, there are people who refuse to forgive Iron Man for his betrayal. What should have been an even-sided, philosophical, and heart-stirring storyline became mean-spirited, dark, and had characters that people had known and loved for decades turn on each other. The Marvel staff completely isolated their fans by taking Iron Man’s pro-registration side during the debate, alienating thousands of readers. For many, Civil War is also considered to be a turning point in Marvel’s history…and not a good one at that.

3. One More Day (November 2007 – January 2008)

The Amazing Spider-Man #544, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #24, The Sensational Spider-Man (vol. 2) #41, Amazing Spider- Man #545.

If I ranked this list in order of the most hated, most ill conceived, most badly written, and poorly received moment in Marvel history, One More Day would be on the top. There is NO competition. For those of you who don’t read comics, let me try and break this down for you. Anyone who has seen the Spider-Man movies knows that Spider-Man’s true love was Mary Jane Watson. It’s been that way for almost 4 decades. She was among the most beloved members of the Marvel universe for her personality, spunk, and everlasting devotion to her husband Peter Parker. The two had weathered countless storms together, yet had always come out stronger as a result. Their wedding was one of the biggest Marvel events in history. For years, Peter Parker and Mary Jane were THE comic book couple, probably only rivaled in popularity by Superman and Lois Lane in DC Comics.

One day, Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada decided that he didn’t like the idea of Spider-Man being married. He believed that being single was essential to Spider-Man’s character (never mind the fact that he had been married to Mary Jane for almost TWENTY YEARS). So what did he do? He made Spider-Man make a deal with the Devil to trade his marriage to save the life of Aunt May who had been shot in the aftermath of Civil War. Let me say that again in case you didn’t grasp the infuriating implications of that last sentence. Spider-Man, one of the ultimate paragons of personal responsibility and righteousness in ALL of comics, made a deal… with the DEVIL! The deal was to sacrifice his MARRIAGE all so that he could save the life of his ELDERLY Aunt May. (Side Note: He had previously contacted Aunt May in the spirit world who told him to let her go since she was old, had a good life, and wanted Peter to be happy.)

It was almost universally panned by critics. The fan backlash was the stuff of legends. Joe Quesada became one of the most hated people in the industry, even getting booed off the stage at conventions. But one of the worst things about One More Day was that it was a key example of a disturbing trend among comic book companies: editors using their positions to ghostwrite their favorite comics. In fact, many of the entries on this list were the result of editorial mandates. Among them, One More Day reigns supreme. No comic company is perfect. Even their rival company, DC Comics, has their fair share of terrible moments (but that’s a list for another day…). But no matter what they do, they can take comfort in the fact that they didn’t put out One More Day. One More Day is the ultimate bad comic book moment.

 2. Ultimates 3 (2008)

The Ultimates 3 #1-5

The Ultimate Marvel imprint, started in 2000, was intended to be a brand new Marvel Universe free from decades of comic continuity. It was designed as a starting point for new comic book readers who didn’t want to be bogged down or confused with story and character histories. Their main series included Ultimate versions of the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, and Spider-Man (easily the most popular and successful title from the Ultimate line). But the Ultimate Universe also had their own version of the Avengers known as the Ultimates. The Ultimates were the subjects of three short stand-alone series, creatively titled The Ultimates, The Ultimates 2, and The Ultimates 3. The first two were wild, run-away successes, reinventing their characters for a new generation and creating some of the most iconic moments of the new millennium (“Does this “A” look like it stands for France?). And then Ultimates 3 came along.

In an incredibly convoluted and confusing plot, the Scarlet Witch was assassinated, the Ultimates squared off with android duplicates of themselves, and Quicksilver was supposedly killed (more on that in the next entry). Oh… and somehow Doctor Doom was the genius behind it all. Sound cool? It isn’t. The entire series is plagued with horrible art, terrible writing, abysmal dialogue, and grotesque characterizations. Many people think of the Ultimates 3 as being the start of the downfall of the Ultimate Universe. But it would take our number one spot to finish the job.

1. Ultimatum (November 2008 – July 2009)

Ultimatum #1-5

This is it, folks. This is widely considered to be THE event that killed the Ultimate Universe line. Think about that for a second…these five comics ended a ten year long comic book line. How? Let’s break it down:

Many of the Ultimates most beloved characters are killed off panel.

• Half of the characters in the Ultimate Universe were killed, including, but not limited to: Daredevil, Cyclops, Doctor Doom, Doctor Strange, Emma Frost, Hank Pym, Juggernaut, Magneto, Professor X, Thor, Wasp, and Wolverine.
• Over-the-top and offensive violence: the Wasp was cannibalized by the Blob, Magneto snaps Professor X’s neck, Madrox creates clones which he turns into suicide bombers, Wolverine has the adamantium stripped from his bones.
• Scientific inaccuracies: Magneto reverses the Earth’s magnetic poles… no wait… the planet’s axis… no wait… the magnetic poles…. no wait… who cares? They’re the same thing, right?

The less you know about this insult of a comic, the better. The only thing you need to know is that Magneto tries to destroy the world in revenge for the deaths of his kids, the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. But wait! Quicksilver is revealed to be alive! But the real question is…who cares! Writer Jeph Loeb destroyed almost everything that people loved about the Ultimates Universe. The damage was so massive that they had to RE- LAUNCH the Ultimate Universe. This comic has left fans scratching and banging their heads against the wall, wondering why Marvel would ever print this abominable excuse for a story. Image: http://www.weeklycrisis.com/

Top 10 English Words With Shameful Pasts

Words. Some of us interact with them almost every day. They’re inexpensive, portable and let us communicate our feelings rather well (like, say, the feeling of wanting sex.) Sure, you could always come up to someone and repeatedly jam your finger through a circle made with your other hand (while furiously raising and lowering your eyebrows) but words are so much more efficient.  Unfortunately, it turns out that some of the words that we thought we could trust were lying to us about who they really are. Just like finding out that the lovable elderly man from down the street used to be a Nazi, so will the origins of these 10 English words surprise the pants off of you:

10. Wife

There is something inherently wholesome about the word “wife,” isn’t it? It makes you think of love, weddings, and picket fences or perhaps “wife-swapping,” depending on your preferred life style. (You know, the good things in life.) There’s definitely nothing shameful about being a wife. Or is it?

The precise origin of the word is uncertain, though some linguists have suggested that it might come from the root *ghwibh-, which means “shame,” as in “Dear God, look at yourself, woman. You married ME of all people? You should be ashamed of yourself.” Pretty sure that’s exactly how we got the word.

9.  Sidekick

From Batman’s Robin to George Washington’s knife-wielding pet chimpanzee, sidekicks have always held a special place in our culture, but where did the word itself come from? Is it because a sidekick is someone you gently kick to the side when the press arrives so you can hog all the glory?

Allegedly, the word goes back to pick-pockets, who used their own secret lingo to identify different types of pockets. The pocket on the side of your pants was called the “kick,” or “side kick,” and it was the most difficult place to steal from. So with time, a “sidekick” became someone or something trustworthy which is always by your side.

8. Gibberish

“Gibberish,” for the uninformed, is basically a strain of nonsensical, meaningless talk or writing. Sort of like your biology teacher telling you that unless you put a rubber sleeping bag over your junk you will catch some magical disease that causes you to die from the common cold or something.

What’s the origin of the word? Racism. “Gibberish” probably comes from “jabber” which early on became a word used to describe the language of Gypsies, who sounded totally ridiculous speaking a language other than English. Then one day “Gypsy” and “jabber” kinda got mashed up and got “gibberish” – the nonsensical ramblings of Gypsies. Classy.

7. Decimate

Unless you’re a WWI commander or the type of kid who got beat up in school A LOT, you probably don’t use the word “decimate” that much, but you probably know what it means (basically). It’s like “to kill” or “destroy,” right? Close. It’s more like “to reduce in great quantity,” as in “During my college days, I decimated my entire weed supply in just a week.”

Surprisingly, the original meaning of the word had nothing to do with large-scale destruction / reduction. Rather, the Ancient Roman “decimatio,” from which “decimate” comes from, meant “the removal of a tenth.” What were the Romans removing? People. Decimation used to be a punishment for cities or armies where one in ten people was picked out in a draw and had to be beaten to death by the remaining 9, aka their friends and family. Why?  Because that’s how the Ancient Romans rolled.

6. Cretin

Were you alive at any point in history past 1900? Chances are you were called a cretin at least once by the playground kids (alongside Fartface and Penisbutt… Kids can be really cruel and stupid at the same time). Today we’re of course aware that cretinism is a genuine medical condition but how did the word come about?  Christians might have the right answer.

One of the proposed origins for “cretin” is from “christianus” a Vulgar Latin term meaning… a Christian, but more in the sense of “unfortunate person.” You’re free to make any religion joke you want, but personally I am just impressed how apparently easy it is to speak in Latin. Seriously, Christian-christianus? Latin is pretty damn simpleus.

5. Punk

When you hear the word “punk” you almost certainly think of “punk rock” but before Sum 41 invented this genre of music, what did the word mean? What or who was a punk? The answer: whores.

That’s right. The original meaning of “punk,” first recorded in the 16^th goddamned century, was “harlot” or “prostitute.” Of course words tend to change, and so did “punk.” After a couple of years, it slowly changed its meaning from “hooker” to “homosexual.” In fact, the modern definition of “young criminal” did not surface until about a 100 years ago. This kinda puts the Sex Pistols’ name in perspective, doesn’t it?

4. Jukebox

The modern abandonment of the idea that you should pay money for music has forced the good old jukebox out of existence. For those of you too young to remember, a jukebox was something like a big, coin operated iPod. You could find them in bars and clubs all across the country, but if you go by the original meaning of the word, you would think to look for them in whorehouses.

There are a number of theories about the origin of the word “juke,” but the most interesting one traces the word to the West African Gullah language word “juk,” which meant, among other things, “a brothel” (if used in the word “jukehouse.”) And now, ladies and gentlemen, I give you a picture of a robot fornicating with a jukebox because for the first time it actually makes sense in context:

3. Vanilla

Vanilla is awesome, isn’t it? It smells nice, tastes nice, and it even looks nice. But despite all that I would sincerely hope that none of you ever felt the urge to… have sex with a vanilla plant. Even though its name does mean “vagina.”

Upon its discovery, vanilla was named “vainilla” which goes all the way back to the Latin “vagina” (and not vaginus as you would logically assume), which itself means “sheath.” Allegedly, the discovering party felt that the vanilla pods were sort of sheath shaped and, hey, they haven’t seen a woman for months and really… who would know, right?

2. Pencil

To any hack comedian, the word “pencil” is a genuine goldmine of funny because it shares three entire letters and the basic shape with “penis.” The jokes just write themselves. Therefore I am happy to ruin it all by saying that the observation is not clever in the least because “pencil” does basically mean “penis.”

There is a whole boring genealogy of the word to go through, but in the end it all comes down to the Latin word “penis” which meant “tail” cause that’s where the material for the pencil’s predecessor, the brush, came from. Combine that with the fact that pencils are made from wood and you should start panicking over your pencil biting habits in 3, 2, 1…

1. Hysteric

Let’s talk about hunting homeless people for sport. You know how you have that one friend, whom you take along on the hunt and who immediately starts panicking right after the deed like “Oh God, what have we done, we’re going to jail, and I won’t survive with this body!” etc.? That’s called being hysteric, or as the origin of the word might tell you, “acting like a woman.”

“Hysteric” comes from the Greek “hysterikos,” which means “belonging to the womb.” So when you’re acting hysterical, it means you’re acting as if you had a womb, or as a woman, with your uncontrolled emotions like women are prone to do, am I right guys? Oh, this black eye? I… walked into a door…

Top 10 Unsexy Sexy Songs

The pop music industry revolves around using sex appeal to sell songs, so you’d figure they’d be pretty good at it by now. Sure, not every song is going to be a hit, but they’re not going to release any tracks that completely miss the mark, right?

If you believe that you haven’t heard any of the following ten songs, which are so spectacularly unsexy they make us envy eunuchs.

10. Olivia Newton-John – Physical

The 80s’ idea of making something sexy was to coat it in purple spandex and play synthesizer music in the background, so maybe it’s unfair to judge “Physical” by modern standards. But in 2010 Billboard Magazine named it the sexiest song of all time, which proves two things: first, “Physical” is an ageless blight that must be destroyed, and second, nobody at Billboard knows what sex is.

The video is about Newton-John abusing fat people, and unless you suffer from a very particular fetish you’re not going to find that erotic in the slightest. The song itself doesn’t fare any better, as the innuendos are delivered with such ham-handedness that you almost feel like Newton-John didn’t realize she was supposed to sound seductive and actually thought this was a song about exercise. The video proves our suspicions—she looks so desexualised it constitutes lewd conduct to be aroused by her. Anyone who finds this song sexy would be brought to a state of constant orgasm by a Sears catalogue.

9. R. Kelly – Sex in the Kitchen

R. Kelly is the Salvador Dali of making love to women—he has to turn even the most mundane encounter into a surreal nightmare. No song demonstrates that better than “Sex in the Kitchen,” his passionate, heartfelt tribute to getting it on next to bakery products.

“Sex in the Kitchen” sounds like a cookbook written by a nymphomaniac—it’s mostly about sex, but there are just enough references to food that it remains a major theme. Maybe R. Kelly was hungry when he wrote the song. Or maybe he’s just insane. You can never be sure with him.

When R. Kelly sings about his girl cutting up “tomatoes, fruits and vegetables and potatoes,” he makes it sound like the most erotic thing in the world. Lyrical redundancy aside, if R. Kelly finds chopped tomatoes arousing he must impregnate every woman in a ten mile radius when he’s served steak. But at least he keeps the song somewhat classy, and doesn’t—oh wait, there’s a line about tossed salad near the end. Gross. If you’re ever offered food prepared in R. Kelly’s kitchen, don’t eat it.

8. Ne-Yo – Sexy Love

“Sexy Love” sounds like a title a 13 year old would come up with, and the rest of the song appears to have been penned by a teenager, too.

After a stunningly creative intro of, “My sexy love, so sexy,” Ne-Yo sings about a problem every teenage boy faced: “Just one touch and I erupt/Like a volcano and cover her with my love.” Dude, too much information.

After Ne-Yo gets his premature ejaculation problem off his chest, the song descends into a mess of romantic clichés. It’s like it was written with ad-libs, but the writer only knew four words to put in the blanks—“baby” and “babygirl” are used constantly, and lines like, “I love making love to you” represent the creative apex. At least he’s not letting his performance issues dampen his enthusiasm, but it’s hard to be aroused by a song about a guy who just realized sex is kind of neat.

7. Madonna – Hung Up

Yes, Madonna is still around, and yes, she still sucks. As a song, “Hung Up” isn’t that bad, but in 2009 the music video was voted the least sexy video of all time. If you disagree, you haven’t seen it.

In just five minutes you’ll see more of Madonna’s ass than it’s safe to be exposed to in a lifetime. She gyrates around in a pink leotard that leaves nothing to the imagination, which would be fine if she hadn’t been nearly 50 when this video was released. It’s like watching our mothers prance around with their buttocks hanging out—everything about it just feels… dirty. And not the good dirty, the “I’ve been in the shower for five hours and I still don’t feel clean” dirty. Three cameramen committed suicide during the recording of this video, and, if you listen closely whenever the camera zooms in on Madonna’s pelvis, you can hear their screams.

6. Dinah Washington – Long John Blues

As proof that unsexy songs aren’t a new phenomenon we’re going back to 1949, when the Queen of the Blues sang a smooth, jazzy ballad about getting railed by her dentist.

On the scale of erotic professions dentist ranks behind only coroner and concentration camp guard, so Washington had a tall mountain to climb—and a double entendre about cavities that needed filling was not the way to go about it. “He took out his trusted drill and told me to open wide” is possibly the most uncomfortable sexual analogy ever written, especially since it came right after we learned that “every woman just can’t stand the pain.” Good lord. If this song had been written thirty years later the lyrics would have just been Washington’s dentist yelling “Is it safe?” while he molested her.

5. Black Eyed Peas – My Humps

We apologize for reminding everyone of the existence of “My Humps,” a song so patently stupid that scientists have linked prolonged exposure to it with an increased risk for brain tumors, but it really does deserve a place on this list. Maybe it’s old hat to make fun of it, but the fact that the Black Eyed Peas still have a career is proof that they’ve yet to be mocked enough.

“Lady lumps” sounds like a term ultra-Orthodox Jews use when they give the sex talk. Fergie’s use of it suggests that she either has the maturity of an eight year old or she’s trying to tell us she has breast cancer. And the latter possibility is actually more arousing than anything else in this song.

When Fergie isn’t giving us an anatomy lesson she’s bragging about how she uses her body to make men spend all their money on her. Way to set feminism back a decade with your inane music, Black Eyed Peas. Is bragging about how your camel-esque behind makes men do your bidding supposed to be seductive? Maybe it’s our own fault for expecting better of a band that rhymed “sexy” with “sex me.”

4. Another Level – Freak Me

“Freak Me” was written by an R&B group called Silk, but it only became a musical contraceptive when it was covered by Another Level, a British boy band. Any song called “Freak Me” is obviously going to lack sophistication, but Another Level managed to turn it into something especially ridiculous.

Lines like, “Let me lick you up and down” and “I want to be your nasty man” are silly, but Silk could pull them off because they looked like they could actually follow up on those requests. The guys of Another Level are so wimpy that their idea of being a “nasty man” is reading their poetry to their girlfriends before they spend ten seconds thrusting and five minutes apologizing.

Their desire to “Let me freak you” doesn’t sound erotic, just desperate—these are lonely men, and there’s nothing sexy about that. Hell, the band’s token black member looks like he’s on the verge of tears throughout the entire video. Considering this was the peak of his career, we can’t really blame him.

3. R. Kelly – Pregnant

This is R. Kelly’s second entry on the list, and frankly, he could have occupied all ten spots. The man is to love songs what rape kits are to romantic evenings. Statistics show that for every R. Kelly song released the number of lesbians in the world skyrockets, and “Pregnant” was responsible for more vows of chastity than every religion in history.

“Pregnant” is about a girl with an “unbelievable booty” that R. Kelly met and became so enamoured with he immediately decided he wanted to “knock her up.” He then told her as much, making it both a terrible impulse decision and a terrible pickup line. No woman on Earth is going to respond to, “You make me want to get you pregnant” with anything except a rape whistle. It’s about as romantic as shouting, “You will be the one to bear my young!” then clubbing her and dragging her back to your cave.

And if you think that’s sexist, wait until you hear the line, “Now put that girl in my kitchen.” Wait, is this a prequel to “Sex in the Kitchen”? That song just got a whole lot darker.

2. Liz Phair – H.W.C. (NSFW)

There’s no way to be subtle here, so we’re just going to come out and say it: Liz Phair really, really likes semen. She likes it so much she wrote a ballad in its honour, and it’s even more embarrassing to listen to than you’d imagine.  Seriously, if you’re easily embarrassed, just don’t watch the video.  Take my word for it.

We don’t want to be prudes—male singers have written plenty of great songs about how much they love sex, so it would be hypocritical to criticize a woman for doing the same thing. But Phair’s song was so obviously written for its shock value that it’s not sexy, just insulting. We’re supposed to say, “A girl who sings about semen, and plays the harmonica? What a free spirit!” but our only reaction is, “Ew, gross.” We’re glad you like ejaculate so much Liz, but we really don’t need to hear about what it’s doing for your complexion. The only people who are going to be aroused by this song are future prostitutes and future serial killers.

1. Katy Perry – Milk Milk Lemonade

This song was cut from Perry’s Teenage Dream album, and considering Perry is most famous for a song about the complex and esoteric subject of making out with another girl it must have hit a whole new level of shallow to get the axe. It did—and then it kept digging.
The fact that the children’s rhyme about bodily fluids turned “sexy” hook is the least idiotic part of this song is a testament to what a concentrated dose of ear poison it is. Every line is a dreadful double entendre with all the subtly of a sledgehammer to the face. Lyrics like, “You say I got the ripest melons on the street/My honey dew and your banana make a treat,” will forever ruin both sex and fruit for anyone unfortunate enough to hear them. And it only gets worse from there, as Perry invites listeners to sample her sugar, because she’s a “tasty treat.” Well, at least she’s not asking us to try her chocolate, though it is mentioned in the hook.  Ew.

Top 10 Game Console Failures

Older and wiser, the games industry is still no stranger to failure. Thankfully, due to a wider market and a new found ability to learn from the mistakes of the past, disasters come and go without toppling the biggest names in the industry (well, we assume they do). For those nostalgic for a time when pieces of dark colored plastic came and went in the blink of an eye, here’s a top ten list of games console failures:

10. Neo Geo

The absolute hardcore of the hardcore are typically defensive of the Neo Geo’s inevitable inclusion in lists such as these, and not without reason. The fact of the matter is that the Neo Geo was about a generation ahead of the rest of the home console market and it offered some fantastic Arcade quality gaming in the home. It was basically an Arcade machine in a home console format, after all.

Collectors swear by it, but hindsight is 20/20 and eBay prices for Neo Geo cartridges are considerably less than the obscene $300 you once had to pay per game. The console itself was $650, and bares inclusion for that alone. However, it’s only a failure so far as mainstream success is a criteria for failure. The Neo Geo was clearly only ever intended for the enthusiasts and with new software titles being released as late as 2004, it actually stuck around a lot longer than consoles that sold millions more units.

9. SEGA Saturn

SEGA’s true 32-bit machine was scuppered in part by the 32X, a diabolical piece of hardware we get to later. The Saturn wasn’t a bad machine by any stretch of the imagination, it was merely priced to reflect the fact that it was slightly more high powered than the Playstation and therefore more expensive to manufacture. The hardware was sound, but software was a problem. Sega came out two years after release and admitted that the development tools hadn’t been great, and it wasn’t long before all confidence was lost in the machine and the people who made it. SEGA lost 30% of its employees and $260 million.

8. The Original Xbox Gamepad

 

This list continues with a smaller scale failure. Or rather a big failure, with a daftly over sized controller that (in retrospect) actually provides something of a mission statement for the Xbox brand. Though Kinect is trying to bring that coveted wider audience into the living room, it undeniably has a software library built around having massive man hands. Forget your pansy Playstation-sized gamepad for the average palm. These weathered, hard skinned hands are for strangling, not moisturizing.

Rather patronizingly, a ‘type-S’ revision was made for the Japanese market, only to be officially adopted in every region a year after the console’s release. But the stupidest thing about this mistake was that SEGA had already done exactly the same thing with the Saturn. Chunkier western model replaced by more sensibly sized Japanese version two years after release.

7. Nokia N-Gage

Now here’s a case of being too ahead of its time. Mobile gaming has really taken off since the N-Gage crashed and burnt, to the extent that I’m not entirely sure I won’t be putting today’s more traditional handhelds (3DS and Vita) on a list like this in five years time. We’ve even got devices like the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play doing the N-Gage thing (and not necessarily doing it better).

So why did N-Gage kick start mobile phone gaming? Well, it wasn’t a capacitive touch-screen phone for starters (that’s arguably the real revolution in handheld gaming). But it was also a classic case of a ‘jack of all trades’ device. The full phone keypad necessitated buttons too small for gaming, the screen was daftly in portrait (rather than landscape) and when you used it as a phone, it looked like you speaking into a Taco.

6. Apple Pippin

History may have been thoroughly rewritten on this one since the iMac onwards, but if you concentrate, you may be able to remember a time when Apple products were desperately uncool.  And thanks to the iPhone, the comic stylings of an Apple gaming console may also be lost on some of you.

The Pippin was very true to Apple’s form in the nineties. Firstly, it was grossly overpriced compared to competing devices with better features (Playstations were $300 at launch, the Pippin was double that). And secondly, only 18 games were ever made for it in North America. Manufacturing partner Bandai expanded the library to 80 titles in Japan, but it was doomed to obscurity.

5. Atari Jaguar

Lies, damned lies and statistics. Atari’s last stand was sold as the first ’64-bit gaming system’, but the claim was disputed considering that the fundamental components were using 32-bit instruction sets. Of course, this meant more to us back in the days when console power was still advertised in terms of ‘bits’. But it was clear that the Jaguar didn’t have either the power or the third party support to compete with the supposedly inferior consoles from Sony and SEGA.

The Jaguar killed an Atari brand that had already suffered major setbacks in the two preceding hardware generations. 125,000 consoles were sold two years after release, with nearly as many still in inventory. Some of these ended up in UK Game stores, sold as retro novelties in the early noughties.

4. Virtually Every CD-based Console

The optical media plague that spread across the industry in the early 90s seems very strange in retrospect. Not only did a whole host of new manufacturers try to crash the console market with consoles based around CD media (CD32, CD-i and the aforementioned Pippin), but CD add-ons started growing, abscess-like on already successful machines (Sega/Mega CD being the most obvious).

They were onto something of course. The Playstation proved that optical media was the way forward for consoles, and Nintendo lost significant market share when it stubbornly stuck to cartridges in the same era. Even they were tempted into the CD add-on game with the unfortunately named N64DD.

The problem was, the possibilities of games on compact disk inspired some very lazy thinking. CDs were used for music and movies, so CDs should be used for music and movie games! A high proportion of terrible FMV games (including Night Trap and Phantasmagoria) with minimal interactivity ensured that these platforms bombed, and bombed hard.

3. Current Generation Manufacturing and Design

The big players are making all the right decisions with their current designs. They’re in step with the march of technology, whilst offering technology that may or may not take. Aside from the Wii’s motion control gamble, they’ve been experimental without being too risky. The thing is, one major aspect of their internal design is fundamentally flawed (or it’s intelligently designed to fail, depending on your viewpoint).

The most famous flaw of this generation is the Xbox 360’s ‘Red Ring of Death’, but the ‘Yellow Light of Death’ in Playstation 3 models is equally baleful. The failure rate of 360 consoles was once said to be about one third of all units manufactured, and a lot of the problems its suffers are down to matters as simple as airflow, and the type of solder used in manufacture. Rather pathetically, it all seems to stem from the teasing that Microsoft received over the size of its original Xbox. The 360 had the liposuction treatment, and now sits there stuffing its face all the same, a ticking time bomb of heart-disease.

2. SEGA Mega Drive 32X

There’s something in the 32X philosophy that most consumers could surely get behind. Instead of buying an entirely new console every few years, simply plug something new into your old machine and enjoy several years of next generation gaming. In practice, you end up strapping 3/4s of a new console onto an old device that probably already has a pointless CD add-on, but it’s not an entirely unappealing idea.

SEGA themselves weren’t behind it anyway. Or perhaps it’s impossible to tell what exactly SEGA were behind, considering they were lining up the Neptune in addition to the Saturn. The 32X suffered the same curse of a limited games library that all the above consoles labored under and it was given the axe as soon as it became apparent that the Saturn was going to struggle against the competition.

1. Virtual Boy

The Goggles! They do nothing! Well actually, the goggles give you full parallax 3D game play and you can have it every colour of the rainbow. As long as it’s red. Oh, and they’re not even goggles, since the device rests on a stand and you peer into it, like a Mutoscope peep-show. With seventies visuals and a 19th Century  form factor, the three quarters of a year the Virtual Boy spent on the market in 1995-6 is actually something of an achievement. Nintendo have a pretty flawless record with their hardware releases, but when they mess up, they clearly have to mess up well.

Top 10 Captain America Comics

The alter ego of scrawny young man Steve Rogers, Captain America, was created when he was injected with an experimental serum designed to transform him into the world’s greatest super-soldier. Armed with his trusty, nearly indestructible shield, Captain America wages war against the forces of evil, injustice, and tyranny. Unlike other superheroes, Captain America doesn’t have any inherent superpowers. The serum only increased Captain America’s strength and physical attributes to the peak of their possible potential. Captain America can only maintain this power through a constant regime of self-improvement, exercise, and practice. The Captain America comic book is one of Marvel Comics’ flagship characters and comic books. However, because of the very nature of his character, he is one of the most polarizing figures in all of comics. Some see him as nothing but a by-product of rampant, uncontrolled American nationalism. But those who truly explore his exploits will be shocked to find one of the most complex and intricate characters ever committed to the page. I have arranged ten of the best Captain America comics here in chronological order. I have tried to choose moments that best exemplified what makes the character great. Some of the selections might seem surprising as they don’t have Captain America punching out Nazis or super-villains. There are few origin moments, like the first time he faced Red Skull or when he temporarily became Nomadin the 70s. Instead, these are the moments that I believe best capture the inherent spirit,attitude, and greatness of one of comic-doms greatest champions.

10. Captain America Punches Hitler (March, 1941)

Captain America Comics #1

This is the only origin moment on this entire list, but it was so monumental that I had to include it. Captain America Comics #1 was the very first appearance of Captain America…and what an appearance it was. Its cover, drawn by the legendary artist Jack Kirby, remains one of the most striking moments in early comic history: Captain America literally punching Hitler. Considering that this comic was released nine months before the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the official entry of America into World War Two, it was an incredible reflection of American sentiment. The cover establishes several things that would become iconic about Captain America: his bright, red, white, and blue costume, his shield (which he would later retire for a round shield), and his young partner Bucky (see the bondage side of Bucky). And, of course, it shows Captain America punching Hitler. It doesn’t get any better than that.

9. Cap Hurts Korvac (November, 1978)

Avengers Vol. 1, #177

Endowed with the Power Cosmic, Korvac, or as he is also known, Michael, is a being ofgod-like power and one of the mightiest foes that the Avengers ever faced. With the power to kill at will and bring people back to life, Korvac was so powerful that he evenfrightened Marvel’s cosmic entities, such as the Watcher, Eternity, and Mephisto. He is finally cornered by the Avengers in a suburban home in Forest Hills Gardens, Queens, New York. In the ensuing fight, Korvac casually kills many of his attackers, including Guardian of the Galaxy Vance Astro, Quicksilver, and Yellowjacket. In addition, nobody can hurt him. Even Thor’s Uru Hammer cannot damage him. But then Captain America challenges him one on one. Miraculously, armed with nothing but his shield, he manages to startle and hurt the invincible Korvac. Let me reiterate…not even the Avengers’ heaviest hitters (Thor, Iron Man, Vision) could scratch him. Captain America, a regular human being at the peak of his natural potential, manages to damage him. It’s a powerful, bombastic moment featuring one of Cap’s most under-appreciated lines:
“Hear that, Mike? This is no God hitting you – no Super-Man! Just a man!” However, it isn’t long before Korvac manages to throw him aside and defeat him. But it was because of Cap’s attack that the other Avengers manage to defeat him. Perhaps the true power of this scene is the idea that men, ordinary everyday men, can overcome any obstacle if they try hard enough.

8. Cap vs. Doctor Doom (April, 1985)

Secret Wars #12

Marvel Super Hereos Secret Wars was one of the very first comic book crossovers in history. It was a story that threw together all of the Marvel Universe’s most popular characters, both heroes and villains, against one giant foe: the omnipotent and all-powerful Beyonder. A classic comic book event, Secret Wars is one of the most beloved stories in the Marvel canon for its introduction of new characters and ideas. And of course, it contained some of the most dynamic scenes in comic history up to that point. One of the most famous is in the last issue where Captain America fights mano-a-mano with Doctor Doom. But at this point, Doctor Doom had stolen the Beyonder’s power, giving himself the abilities of a god. But impossible odds have never daunted Captain America. He charges the megalomaniacal demi-god, withstanding blast after blast of indescribable power. In the end, he manages to defeat Doctor Doom. However, due to his defeat, Doctor Doom loses control of his power and literally begins to fade out of existence. And what does Cap do when he sees one of his most hated villains suffering? He reaches out his hand and tries to help him. Few moments in comics have been able to match the tenacity, power, and selflessness that Cap displays in these pages.

7. “I’m loyal to nothing, General…except the Dream.” (October, 1985)

Daredevil #233

One of the biggest, and most unfortunate, misconceptions concerning Captain Americais that he is a mindless, robotic patriot at the beck and call of the United States government. True fans of Cap know that this isn’t true. Captain America may be loyal to his country, but his ultimate loyalty is held for its people and the high ideas that it was founded on. In fact, this dogged loyalty to the higher ideals of what America stands for has frequently put him at odds with the government that he was sworn to protect. Three of the entries on this list deal with Cap displaying civil disobedience. This first one is from the pages of the phenomenal Daredevil storyline “Born Again” by Frank Miller. In it, Daredevil and Captain America square off against Nuke, a mentally unstable reject from a program meant to replicate Cap’s super soldier serum. The government claims that he is a terrorist, but Cap discovers the truth about him. Appalled that the government would not only use, but employ, such an insane and violent psychopath, Cap confronts the general in charge of the program. The general has the gall to question Cap about his loyalty to the United States and the government. Cap’s answer is simple, “I’m loyal to nothing, general — except the dream.” The entire scene is quiet and subdued, but it is as powerful as comic books can get. It proves that Captain America is anything BUT a mindless pawn of the government. He hassworn to protect not the bureaucrats in office, but the liberties and freedoms that they are supposed to preserve. This phenomenal scene proves that you don’t need a fight, monologue, or splash page to capture the true spirit of a man…of a hero…of a patriot.

6. Cap Leaves (August, 1987)

Captain America Vol. 1 #332

As I previously stated, Cap’s dogged belief in doing what’s right has put him at odds with the American government several times. While the most famous instance was him going rogue during the superhero Civil War, there was another time when Cap literally cut ties with his government. In issue #332, Captain America is approached by the shadowy Commission, an organization within the US government. They want to make Cap an official part of the US government, effectively making him their puppet. This comes right after the discovery that one of the highest ranking members of the government was the leader of the terrorist organization known as the Secret Empire. Realizing that this violates everything that he stands for, Steve Rogers turns in his uniform and shield and retires as Captain America. He would go on to become the hero known as Nomad while other people would try to take his place as Captain America. Of course, Steve Rogers would later take the cowl back. But his point was heard: Captain America represents the American people and their freedoms, not the government. It was a moment that demonstrated the height of Cap’s integrity and proved that he was anything but a jingoistic puppet of the American government.

5. Captain America vs. Thanos (October, 1991)

The Infinity Gauntlet #4

When it comes to the sheer bravest, most crazy thing that Captain America has evendone, his one-on-one showdown with Thanos in The Infinity Gauntlet has to rank number one. But this moment requires a little background to fully appreciate. The Infinity Gauntlet is celebrated as one of the greatest stories to ever take place in the Marvel Universe. It centers on a mad Titan named Thanos’ attempts to woo the Marvel Universe’s female personification of Death. That’s right, he literally wants Death to love him. So he achieves this by gaining the Infinity Gauntlet and the six Infinity Gems which combined give him the powers of God. Not a god. THE God. He first tries to gain Death’s affection by literally killing half of all sentient life in the entire universe by snapping his fingers. Of course, the heroes of the Marvel Universe don’t take this standing down! They charge Thanos…and promptly get destroyed. Seriously, without even trying he subdues and kills off most of the big name heroes of the Marvel Universe. He even turns the thunder god Thor into glass and smashes him into pieces. When all hope seems lost, when all of the heroes seem defeated, Captain America is among the last standing and living. What does he do? He walks straight up to Thanos’ face and talks smack. He says that as long as there is one person alive who opposes him, then Thanos will never win. He then starts to fight him with nothing but his shield. THAT takes testicular fortitude. Of course, Thanos eventually defeats him. He even gets his trademark shield shattered in the progress But his one act of defiance in the face of certain death is one of the most inspiring and heroic things that Captain America has ever done.

4. “You’ll never take my strength!” (May, 1999)

Captain America Vol. 3, #17

After the sheer calamity that was Heroes Reborn, Marvel was desperate for a back-to-the-basics approach to one of their seminal heroes. The result was volume three of Captain America. One of the most consistently high quality and entertaining runs in comic history, volume three was jam-packed with fan favorite moments and thrilling scenes. But one of the ultimate moments took place in issue #17. Captain America’s arch-nemesis Red Skull had managed to capture a Cosmic Cube and used it to literally reshape the world to his image. Trapped in Red Skull’s hellish vision of America, Captain America fought back valiantly. But then, Red Skull pulled the ultimate move and literally drained Cap of his super-soldier serum, robbing him of his enhanced strength and abilities. Confident of his victory, Red Skull was shocked to find that Captain America still wasn’t going to go down without a fight. With his trademark costume sagging around him, he yelled out that he may not have his muscles, but he will never lose his strength. He then gives Red Skull the ass-kicking of his career. It’s one of the most triumphant Captain America comics of all time, proving that Cap is more than just the sum of his enhanced abilities…deep down, he is a man who refuses to give up, to surrender, to retreat in the face of evil. A powerful scene, it proves that you don’t need powers to be a true hero. It gives hope that deep down inside, we all have the ability and courage to become superheroes.

3. Captain America Directs the Attack (April, 2003)

Avengers/JLA #4

It was the crossover that was decades in the making: the biggest two teams from Marvel and DC comics. For the first time, the Avengers and the Justice League of America would join forces. Their foe: the near-immortal Krona, bent on discovering what forces control the creation of the universe. So devoted is he that he is willing to destroy all of existence just so he can watch it reform again. The crossover was filled with all of the banter and antics that fans of either team would expect. But it raised a serious question: who would lead the final attack. In one of the crossover’s best moments, Superman suggests that none other than Captain America should lead the attack, since he had more experience in the realm of tactics and modern warfare. Using the Martian Manhunter’s telekinetic powers, he was able to simultaneously lead and direct both teams to eventual victory over Krona. Of course, Superman’s great trust in Cap was reciprocated when Steve trusted his shield to him for the final conflict. It was the perfect solution. Fans could take pride in the knowledge that Superman did the heavy duty fighting, but it was Captain America who called the shots. Seeing Capbarking orders to the likes of Thor and Batman simultaneously was one of the most exciting, and rewarding experiences in recent comic book history.

2. “No, YOU Move” (January, 2007)

Amazing Spider-Man #537

It seems like Captain America is only at his best when he is giving long, patriotic speeches. While I hope that this list has been enough to prove this stereotype wrong, itis impossible to deny Cap’s ability to cause goosebumps in his readers by merely talking. There are many famous speeches in Cap’s history…many of which have even made it onto this list. But perhaps no single speech has so powerfully and chillingly captured the true spirit of Captain America as his speech in Amazing Spider-Man #537. It isn’t about governments. It isn’t about laws. It’s about what you believe is right.  Folks, this is the stuff of legends. He’s only in the book for a few panels, but Cap steals the entire show. There really isn’t even much more I can say about it. Just…read it and discover it yourself.

“Doesn’t matter what the press says.  Doesn’t matter what the politicians or the mobs say.  Doesn’t matter if the whole country decides that something is wrong is something right.  This nation was founded no one principle above all else:  the requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the odds or the consequences.  When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move.  Your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth and tell the whole world–’no, YOU move.’”

1. Cap’s Last Words (April 2007)

Captain America Vol. 5 #25

Captain America’s death in the wake of Marvel’s Civil War was one of the most controversial moments in recent comic book history. It divided readers down the center. Some saw it as a marketing ploy. Some saw it as a fitting end to Civil War. But nobody can deny the poetry of Cap’s death: dying not on a battlefield, but on the courthouse steps where he was doing his civic duty. But what really drove home the scene were some of Cap’s last words: “ Sharon…the crowd…get them to…safety…no more…innocents…hurt…” Cap wasn’t concerned with catching his killer…he wasn’t even concerned about his own welfare. He was concerned with the crowd…the crowd that was jeering and insulting him the entire time he was going up the courthouse steps. Hewas concerned about the people who had turned on him and demonized him. This, if anything, proves Cap’s true colors. He is a true hero. He is a defender of the weak and the downtrodden. He is…Captain America.

Top 10 Controversial Books

Before people were able to access information by way of the Internet, written text was the primary resource for knowledge.  The history of books has been linked to political and economical contingencies, as well as the history of ideas and religion.  In the ancient world, humans developed writings as a desire to create a lasting record.  In the 1450s, The Gutenberg Bible became the first major book printed with a movable type printing press, marking the start of the age of the printed book.  Since that time, a large collection of controversial books have been published.  Many of these texts are known to have been written for the strict purpose of propaganda.  Conspiracy theory researchers have also put together written collections that examine controversial subjects.  This article will examine 10 influential books that have been labeled controversial.

10. The Frost King

Helen Keller was an American author, political activist, and lecturer.  She was not born blind and deaf, but when Helen was 19 months old she contracted an illness described by doctors as “an acute congestion of the stomach and the brain”, which might have been scarlet fever or meningitis.  The illness left Helen Keller deaf and blind.  In 1887, when Helen was only seven years old, a young woman named Anne Sullivan became her instructor.  When Sullivan first arrived at Keller’s house, she began to teach Helen how to communicate by spelling words into her hand.  The story of how Anne Sullivan helped the isolation imposed by Keller’s near complete lack of language is widely known through the dramatic play The Miracle Worker.

The Controversy

In 1892, at the age of 11, Helen Keller published her first short story titled The Frost King.  The book tells the tale of King Jack Frost and a cask of jewels that are being transported by a collection of fairy servants.  At the time of the stories publication, Helen Keller largely communicated only with Anne Sullivan.  In fact, Sullivan dictated the entire Frost King story for Keller.  After the book gained popularity, it soon became evident that the Frost King was a direct reproduction of Frost Fairies by Margaret Canby.  The revelation was important, with many articles proclaiming that the story was a deliberate fraud by Keller’s handlers.

People all over the world were surprised that Helen Keller was able to produce The Frost King at such a young age.  Keller adamantly denied that she had heard Canby’s story before.  However, Sullivan claimed that Keller read the book through finger spelling with the help Sophia Hopkins.  An investigation into the matter concluded that Helen Keller may have experienced a case of cryptomnesia, in that she had read Canby’s story before, but forgot about it.  Joseph Lash’s book Helen and Teacher states that Anne Sullivan read Helen Keller Frost Fairies the previous fall and that she had adapted her own story out of the original.  Because of the accusations, an in-house trial ensued at the Perkins School to determine whether or not Sullivan had deliberately falsified Keller’s abilities.

At the time, eight separate teachers interrogated the twelve-year-old Helen Keller for two hours.  They returned a verdict of undecided, with some members calling foul play and others not.  Apparently, Keller had a visible nervous breakdown over the incident, and decided to never publish fiction again.  Michael Anagnos, head of the Perkins School for the Blind, never regained his faith in Sullivan or Keller and described them as “a living lie”.  Anagnos claimed to have found inconsistencies in Helen Keller’s letters and was fully suspicious that Anne Sullivan checked her writings before allowing them to be mailed.  In 1903, Mark Twain described the controversy as “owlishly idiotic and grotesque”.

9. Trail of the Octopus

On December 21, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was scheduled to travel from London to New York.  The plane was transporting 243 passengers and 16 crew members.  While flying over Lockerbie, in southern Scotland, the flight experienced a catastrophic explosion which punched a 20-inch (0.51 m)-wide hole on the left side of the fuselage.  The aircraft rapidly disintegrated and crashed into Lockerble killing all passengers onboard and eleven people on the ground.  The subsequent investigation determined that the flight was targeted by a terrorist group.  Certain events pertaining to the case have been riddled with controversy.  Published statements have accused the United States CIA in having foreknowledge of the attack.  On February 24, 2011, Libya’s former justice minister Mustafa Abdul Jalil claimed that Muammar Gaddafi had personally ordered the Lockerbie bombing.

The Controversy

Lester Coleman is a former U.S. DEA agent who co-author the 1993 book Trail of the Octopus, The Untold Story of Pan Am 103.  In the book, it is claimed that a secret drug operation enabled terrorists to evade airport security in the 1988 bombing of Pan American Flight 103.  It has been alleged that a compromised American covert drug smuggling organization allowed Iranian-backed terrorists, led by Ahmed Jibril, to slip a Semtex bomb aboard the plane.  In 1990, before the release of the book, Lester Coleman made national headlines when he exposed a CIA double agent to the press.  As a result of the published photograph, the U.S. government sued Time Magazine for $26 million.  In 1991, as part of a civil lawsuit between Pan American World Airways and the families of Flight 103, Lester Coleman made a sworn statement accusing the Drug Enforcement Administration of allowing PA103 to be bombed.  In response, the federal court imposed a gag order on the defendants and plaintiffs in the case.

In 1993, Trail of the Octopus was first published in the United Kingdom.  The book holds the famous quote, “No one knows what is really going on.  If they ever did, it would make Watergate look like Alice in Wonderland.”  Coleman claims that he sought and was granted political sanctuary in Sweden in order to complete the novel.   When he was under Swedish protection, he provided Pan American World Airways with a civil affidavit which cleared them of full responsibility in the Lockerbie bombing.  In response to the book, the DEA sued Bloomsbury publishing in a London court.  After a settlement, thousands of copies of the text were destroyed.  On September 11, 1997, Lester Coleman stated to a New York Federal court that “…he lied when he claimed that a secret drug sting enabled terrorists to evade airport security in the bombing…”  In a plea agreement, Coleman was sentenced to time served.

As of 2011, Kindle and Nook are the new publishers of Trail of the Octopus, which holds a 2009 United States release.  Over the years, conspiracy theorists have latched onto the fact that there were at least four U.S. intelligence officers on the passenger list, claiming they were targeted for assassination.  A number of security alerts were posted shortly before the bombing, with many people avoiding the deadly flight.  The South African foreign minister Pik Botha and a minor delegation of 22 was supposed to board Pan Am 103, but managed to take the earlier Pan Am 101 flight.  In 2003, Libya took responsibility for the bombing.  In a remarkable occurrence, the Libyan government compensated each family of the victims US$8 million.  As a result of this, the UN agreed to cancel sanctions that had been imposed four years earlier.  A collection of U.S. trade restrictions were also lifted due to the settlement.

8. English as She Is Spoke

When English as She Is Spoke was published in 1883 it raised controversy, but it was due to the funny content and didn’t involve serious issues.  In the middle of the 19thcentury, a Portuguese author named Jose da Fonseca became notable for writing phrase books that were used to help travelers and people interesting in learning multiple languages.  His most famous publication was a successful Portuguese-French phrase book, which was adapted by a man named Pedro Carolino.  After the popularity of the initial book, Carolino decided to write his own Portuguese to English conversational guide.  However, he placed the more popular Jose da Fonseca’s name as the author without his knowledge.  Problems began to arise when it was realized that Pedro Carolino didn’t speak English.

The Controversy

English as She Is Spoke is regarded as one of the funniest books written in the 19th century and a classic source of unintentional humor, due to the fact that the given English translations in the book are generally completely incoherent and wrong.  It is widely believed that Pedro Carolino used a French-English dictionary to translate the earlier Portuguese-French phrase book that was written by José da Fonseca.  The attempt failed to produce coherent English speech.  It seems that the dictionary-aided literal use of the words caused many expressions to be translated wildly inappropriately.  For example, the Portuguese phrase chover a cântaros is translated as raining in jars, when the English translation should be “raining buckets.”

Here are some more notable examples of phrases used in the book.  The walls have hearsay, should be “the walls have ears.”  He go to four feet, should be “he is crawling.”  Is sure the road, should be “is the road safe.”  That pond it seems me many multiplied of fishes.  Let us amuse rather to the fishing.  The English translation should have been, “This pond seems like it’s full of fish.  Let’s have some fun fishing.”  Mark Twain said of English as She Is Spoke, “Nobody can add to the absurdity of this book, nobody can imitate it successfully, and nobody can hope to produce its fellow.  It is perfect.”

7. Passport to Magonia: From Folklore to Flying Saucers

Jacques Vallée is a French-born venture capitalist, computer scientist, author, ufologist and former astronomer.  For over 50 years, he has been a predominant authority on extraterrestrial life.  In Steven Spielberg film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Vallée served as the model for the French character Lacombe.  He is a respected researcher that has made significant contributions to the field of scientific exploration.  Vallée is notable for co-developing the first computerized mapping of Mars and for his work as the principal investigator at SRI International in creating ARPANET, a precursor to the modern Internet.  He served on the National Advisory Committee at the University of Michigan, College of Engineering, and was involved in early work on artificial intelligence.  Vallée has authored four books on high technology and is a venture capitalist.  He has invested in over 60 start-up companies, 18 of which have become traded on public markets.

One of these companies is Accuray Systems (Nasdaq:ARAY), which is a medical device company developing surgical robots.  Along with his mentor, astronomer J. Allen Hynek, Vallée has carefully studied the phenomenon of UFOs for many years and his research has taken him to all areas of the world.  Initially, Jacques Vallée published works supporting the extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH).  ETH states that some unidentified flying objects (UFOs) are best explained as being extraterrestrial life or non-human aliens from other planets occupying physical spacecraft visiting Earth.  However, by 1969, Vallée’s conclusions had changed, and he publicly announced that the ETH was too narrow and ignored too much data.  In his next novel, Passport to Magonia: From Folklore to Flying Saucers, Vallée explored a different angle on UFO encounters.

The Controversy

In Passport to Magonia, Vallée examines the commonalities between UFOs, cults, religious movements, demons, angels, ghosts, cryptid sightings, and psychic phenomena.  In the text, he suggests the interdimensional visitation hypothesis.  The theory states that unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and related events involve visitations from other “realities” or “dimensions” that coexist separately alongside our own.  It holds that UFOs are a modern manifestation of a phenomenon that has occurred throughout recorded human history, which in prior ages was ascribed to mythological or supernatural creatures.  The interdimensional visitation hypothesis alleges that extraterrestrials could be living beyond space-time, and thus could coexist with humans, yet remain undetected.  Vallée’s opposition to the popular ETH hypothesis was not well received by prominent U.S. ufologists, hence he is viewed as something of an outcast.

Given Jacques Vallée’s scientific history and documented intellect, many have lent prominence to his theories.  Let’s examine his ideas.  Claims are made that the distance between stars makes interstellar travel impractical without an antigravity or faster-than-light travel hypothesis.  Vallée points out that unexplained close encounters are far more numerous than required for any physical survey of the earth.  The humanoid body structure of the alleged “aliens” is not likely to have originated on another planet and is not biologically adapted to space travel.  The apparent ability of UFOs to manipulate space and time suggests radically different and richer alternatives.  Vallée has contributed to the investigation of the Miracle at Fatima and Marian apparitions.  His work has been used to support the Fatima UFO Hypothesis.

One advantage of IDH proffered by Hilary Evans is its ability to explain the apparent ability of UFOs to appear and disappear from sight and radar, explained as the UFO enters and leaves our dimension.  Moreover, Evans argues that other dimensions might be slightly more advanced than ours, explaining the UFOs’ tendency to represent near future technologies.  In a conversation with Steven Spielberg, Vallée suggested that he make the phenomenon in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, real, physical, but not ET.  Vallée also proposes that a secondary aspect of the UFO phenomenon involves human manipulation by humans.  He advocates a stronger and more serious involvement of science in the UFO research and debate, in order to let people understand the real aspects of multidimensional travel.

6. Brahmastra

The ancient world has produced some of the most controversial books in existence, including religious text across multiple faiths.  This article will examine one aspect of Sanskrit literature.  Sanskrit is an Indo-Aryan dialect and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.  Sanskrit literature encompasses a rich tradition of poetry and drama as well as scientific, technical, philosophical and Hindu religious texts.  A large collection of researchers have devoted their lives to understanding ancient Sanskrit literature.  A great example of Sanskrit is The Puranas, which is a genre of important Hindu, Jain and Buddhist religious texts, consisting of narratives on the history of the universe from creation to destruction, genealogies of kings, heroes, sages, and demigods.  In some of these texts, a weapon is mentioned that has sparked interest and controversy.

The Controversy

In ancient Sanskrit writings, a Brahmastra is a weapon created by Brahma, who is the Hindu God of creation.  Brahmastra is considered the deadliest weapon of all and when it is discharged there is neither a counter attack nor a defense that may stop it.  The Brahmastra never misses and must be used with very specific intent, as the target will face complete annihilation.  According to Sanskrit writings, the Brahmastra is invoked by a key phrase that is bestowed upon the user when given the weapon.  It causes severe environmental damage.  The land where the Brahmastra is used becomes barren for eons and all life in and around that area ceases to exist.

Upon release of the weapon, women and men become infertile.  The area experiences a severe decrease in rainfall and the land develops cracks like in a drought.  The survivors lose their nails and hair, and their food becomes unfit for eating.  For several subsequent years, the Sun, the stars and the sky remain shrouded with clouds and produce bad weather.  It doesn’t take an expert to notice that the weapon holds similar characteristics to modern day nuclear weapons.  The Brahmastra is mentioned in multiple Sanskrit scriptures, often times acting as a deterrent simply with the threat of use.  In the Ramayana, a Brahmastra is used by Rama as the “final blow” against Rakshasa Ravana during their battle in Lanka.  It is said that the collision between two Brahmastras will destroy the universe.

5. The Report from Iron Mountain

In 1967, the war in Vietnam was escalating and a large amount of civil unrest was spreading in major U.S. cities.  On October 16, a bizarre book appeared titled The Report from Iron Mountain: On the Possibility and Desirability of Peace.  It was published by Dial Press, which is a division of Simon & Schuster.  The book claims to be an authentic U.S. government report compiled by secret officials.  The introduction to the book was written by a man named Leonard C. Lewin, who at the time was a New York freelance writer.  In the opening of the book, Lewin explains that the report was compiled by 15 experts known as the Special Study Group (SSG).

According to the text, the SSG was a collection of men put together by the U.S. government.  The group first met in 1963 at a secret underground nuclear hideout called Iron Mountain.  The book claims that the Special Study Group held periodic meetings during the middle of the 1960s to discuss the problems that would confront the United States if it entered into an era of permanent peace.  The mystery of who wrote the report was revealed in 1972, when the Harvard educated Leonard C. Lewin declared in a New York Times article that he had invented it as a hoax.

The Controversy

The Report from Iron Mountain is put together to look like an actual top secret document.  It includes language that is full of think-tank jargon.  In the text the SSG comes to the conclusion that peace “would almost certainly not be in the best interest of a stable society.”  War, they argued, was simply too important to the world’s economy, and therefore necessary for the United States to continue in a state of war indefinitely.  The report claims that a member of the panel, John Doe, who is a professor from a college in the Midwest, decided to release the report to the public.  In the book, the group theorized that world governments would not exist without war and that conflict serves as a vital function to divert collective aggression.  The SSG also recommend blood games and suggest that the government should create alternative foes that would scare the public, such as reports of aliens and out-of-control pollution.

Another proposal by the SSG is the reinstitution of slavery.  In detail, the report identifies reasons why war is necessary.  Far from being used to only settle disputes between nation-states, the book claims that war is used to control unemployment, reduce the population, drive scientific and artistic development, provide legitimacy and growth to the government, and to control crime, gangs, and vagrancy by providing a publicly acceptable outlet for society’s undesirables.  The book suggests that we must find substitutes for all of war’s functions in order to transition into an era of peace and prevent society’s collapse.  It specifically mentions pumping pollution into the environment to create a disaster society that we can all unite over.  The report proposes that the government create fake UFO incidents.

Report from Iron Mountain contains a seemingly serious discussion on the necessity of a eugenics program.  The book suggests that without war, human reproduction would have to be strictly controlled, perhaps through artificial insemination administered by the government.  Upon release of the document, it caused panic among many government officials.  President Lyndon B. Johnson supposedly “hit the roof” when he learned of it.  Cables were sent to U.S. embassies throughout the world instructing them to play down public discussion and to emphasize that it had nothing at all to do with official U.S. policy.  Today, the book is believed to be a hoax authored by one man, Leonard Lewin.  In 1996, the novel was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the Most Successful Literary Hoax.  Upon its release, the book was a New York Times bestseller and it has been translated into fifteen languages.  Some people continue to believe that the report is a leaked U.S. document.

4. Germany Must Perish!

During World War II, many pieces of political propaganda were released to the general public.  As Hitler took control of Germany, Nazi propaganda was heavily used in schools and businesses.  In Russia, England, America, and many other world locations, anti-German text was widely distributed.  During the war, an American Jewish businessman named Theodore Kaufman began to publish pamphlets under the auspices of the American Federation of Peace.  In 1939, Kaufman was determined to prevent American involvement in the war.

One pamphlet, titled Passive Purchase, advocated for the establishment of a two-week period during which Americans would curtail their spending in order to demonstrate public opposition to American intervention in the war.  Another of Kaufman’s pamphlets stated, “A possible plea to Congress. … Have Us All Sterilized! … If You Plan On Sending Us to A Foreign War … Spare Us Any Possibility Of Ever Bringing Children Into This World.”  However, as World War II intensified, Theodore Kaufman turned his attention to the destruction of the German people, publishing one of the most well known books of the war era, Germany Must Perish!

The Controversy

Germany Must Perish is a 104-page book written and self-published by Theodore Kaufman in 1941.  The text advocates for the genocide of the German population and the territorial dismemberment of the country.  Specifically, it mentions the forced mass-sterilization of all men under 65 and women under 45. In the text, Kaufman promotes the distribution of German lands, which he claims would solve a great deal of humanity’s problems.  During the war, the book had a minimal impact in the United States, but it achieved notoriety in Nazi Germany, where it was widely used as evidence of an international Jewish plan to destroy the German people.  On July 24, 1941, the Nazi Party’s newspaper, Volkischer Beobachter, published a front-page article on the book titled, The Product of Criminal Jewish Sadism: Roosevelt Demands the Sterilization of the German People.

The article claimed that Theodore Kaufman had a direct connection with President Roosevelt and U.S. policy, which was a gross fabrication.  At the time, the German leadership was engaged in a campaign to rally popular support for the invasion of the Soviet Union.  Kaufman’s ideas became a large focus of the campaign.  For this reason, many Germans, even today, know who Theodore Kaufman is, while the majority of people are being introduced to him for the first time.  Germany Must Perish was specifically cited as an excuse to round up the Jews of Hanover.  On September 1, 1941, the Nazis required German Jews to wear a yellow badge on their clothing, they published a flyer explaining to the German people that those individuals wearing the star were conspiring to implement Kaufman’s plan for the destruction of Germany.

3. Poem of the Man God

In 1897, Maria Valtorta was born in Caserta, in the Campania region of Italy.  On March 17, 1920, at the age of 23, Maria was attacked by a delinquent youth while on the street with her family.  She was hit with an iron bar for no apparent reason and was confined to a bed for three months.  At the age of 27, Maria’s family settled in the town of Viareggio, on the coast of Tuscany.  She was able to move around for over a decade after being assaulted, but complications from the injury eventually confined Valtorta to a bed for the last 28 years of her life.  During the height of World War II, on the morning of Good Friday April 23, 1943, Maria Valtorta reported a sudden voice speaking to her and asking her to write.

Thereafter, Maria Valtorta wrote almost every day until 1947 and intermittently in the following years until 1951. She would use a fountain pen and write in multiple notebooks.  It has been reported that Maria did not prepare outlines.  She did not know what she would write from one day to another and did not reread to correct.  One of her declarations is stated, “I can affirm that I have had no human source to be able to know what I write, and what, even while writing, I often do not understand.”  From 1943 to 1951, Valtorta produced over 15,000 handwritten pages in 122 notebooks.  These pages became the basis of her major work, the Poem of the Man God, and constitute about two thirds of her literary publications.

The Controversy

The Poem of the Man God gives a detailed account of the life of Jesus from his birth to crucifixion.  In many instances, the text is more elaborate than the Holy Gospels.  The book describes the many journeys of Jesus and his conversations with people such as the apostles.  Valtorta’s handwritten pages had no overwrites, corrections or revisions of any kind.  Her writings were not in sequence, some of the last chapters of the Poem of the Man God were written before the early chapters, yet the text flows smoothly between them.  Most of the episodes she wrote about have a uniform format and structure.  Maria first describes a scene, often with picturesque details of the background, the trees, the mountains and the weather conditions on that day.  Her writings display a surprising knowledge of the Holy Land.

A geologist, Vittorio Tredici, stated that Valtorta’s detailed account of the topographic, geological and mineralogical aspects of Palestine seems unexplainable.  The book names 255 specific locations in Palestine, but 52 have no biblical reference at all.  Since publication, the existence of some of these places has been confirmed using ancient documents.  In some cases, such as the Passion, Maria’s descriptions are very detailed and graphic.  Dr. Nicholas Pende expressed his surprise at the level of detail in which Valtorta depicted Christ’s spasms in Crucifixion, saying that she described “a phenomenon which only a few informed physicians would know how to explain, and she does it in an authentic medical style.”  The Poem of the Man God clears up some biblical mysteries.  The Trial of Jesus by Caiphas is discussed in all Gospels.  However, the fact that some put the event at night, while others refer to it as happening in the day has at times been viewed as a problem.

In Valtorta’s version, there are two trials, one at night and the other after daybreak.  The narrative of the Poem of the Man God includes a number of specific observations on the positions of stars and the moon.  In 1992, Purdue University physicist Lonnie VanZandt analyzed the text to estimate a date for the astronomical event described and came to the startling conclusion that it could have only occurred in AD33, which supports the book’s timeline.  In 1959, the text was placed on the Index of Forbidden Books by the Holy Office.  However, since that time the Catholic Church has been neutral on the subject.  They do not endorse the Poem of the Man God or ban it.  The six children who have reported visions of the Virgin Mary in Medjugorje have strongly supported the authenticity of the book.  It remains a mysterious achievement, as Maria Valtorta was able to produce a text similar to the Holy Bible. Chiseled on Maria’s tombstone are the words: “DIVINARUM RERUM SCRIPTRIX” (Writer of Divine Things).

2. Malleus Maleficarum

In the 12th century, the Inquisition was started by the Roman Catholic Church.  During this time, several sectors within the justice system of the Catholic Church enforced a strict set of laws.  The Inquisition was characterized by the use of torture and executions to prevent religious heresy.  By the start of the 16th century, the Catholic Church had reached a dominant position as religious authority in western and central Europe.  Many policies were adopted during this time in history, but one of the most controversial is a set of laws regarding witches.

Between the 15th and 18th centuries, a series of witch hunts were carried out across Early Modern Europe, and to some extent in the European colonies of North America.  People believed that malevolent satanic witches were operating as an organized threat to the Catholic Church.  As one would expect, the idea that witches were a harmful and dangerous aspect to society was published in multiple novels and pamphlets.  The most notorious being the 1487 book Malleus Maleficarum.

The Controversy

People accused of witchcraft were portrayed as being worshippers of the Devil, who engaged in such acts as malevolent sorcery, and orgies at meetings known as Witches’ Sabbaths.  Many people were subsequently accused of being witches, and put on trial for their crime.  Over the entire duration of the phenomenon, an estimated total of 40,000 to 60,000 people were executed.  The psychological impact was enormous, with women having to act appropriately or fear accusations of witchcraft.  In 1487, an Inquisitor of the Catholic Church named Heinrich Kramer wrote Malleus Maleficarum.  The purpose of the text was to systematically refute arguments claiming that witchcraft does not exist, discredit those who expressed skepticism about its reality, to claim that witches were more often women than men, and to educate magistrates on the procedures to find and convict witches.

A connection between this book and the Catholic Church has raised controversy.  Kramer claimed to gain endorsement from the top theologians of the Inquision, but later the group condemned the book as unethical.  A German priest named Jacob Sprenger is attributed as an author of Malleus Maleficarum.  Historians have suggested that Kramer used Sprenger’s name without his consent to gain prominence for the work.  The preface of the book also includes endorsements from the University of Cologne’s Faculty of Theology.  Like everything else surrounding this text, claims have been made that the Catholic endorsements were a forgery by Heinrich Kramer.  The book became the law abiding handbook for secular courts throughout Renaissance Europe.  Section three describes how to prosecute a witch.

Between the years 1487 and 1520, the text was published thirteen times.  It was again published between the years of 1574 to 1669 a total of sixteen times.  Regardless of the authenticity and controversy surrounding the book’s Catholic endorsements, which appear at the beginning of the novel, their presence was never removed and strongly contributed to the popularity of the text.  Persecution of witches became more constant and brutal following the publication of the Malleus, with witchcraft being accepted as a real and dangerous phenomenon.  The text asserts that three elements are necessary for witchcraft, the evil-intentioned witch, the help of the Devil, and the Permission of God.

The book is full of erroneous statements, including the implication that all women who don’t cry during their trial were witches.  In modern times the book has been condemned as a work of hatred towards women, as it specifically mentions individual characteristics of female witches, including all ladies with a strong personality.  The very title of the Malleus Maleficarum is feminine, alluding to the idea that it was women who were the villains.  Otherwise, it would be the Malleus Maleficorum, which is the masculine form of the Latin noun for witch.  The book accuses witches of infanticide, cannibalism, casting evil spells to harm their enemies, and having the power to steal men’s penises.  It gives detailed accounts of witches committing these crimes.  How the text became so popular and accepted as fact remains a bit of a mystery.

1. Sexual Behavior in the Human Male

Alfred Kinsey was an American biologist who in 1947 founded the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction.  Before launching one of the largest studies on sexual reproduction in United States history, Kinsey was a professor of entomology and zoology.  He wrote two of the most controversial books of the 20th century, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953).  In the publications, Kinsey analyzes data on the frequency with which people participate in various types of sexual activity and looks at how factors such as age, social-economic status and religious adherence influence sexual behavior.  Kinsey makes many comparisons between female and male sexual activities.

In the 1940s, the book astounded the general public and was immediately controversial.  It caused shock and outrage, both because it challenged the conventional belief about sexuality and because the book discussed subjects that had previously been taboo.  Alfred Kinsey is generally regarded as the father of sexology, which is the systematic, scientific study of human sexuality.  His work has profoundly influenced social and cultural values in the United States and many other countries.  However, after examining his subject data, people have began to wonder how Alfred Kinsey was able to obtain the information.

The Controversy

Alfred Kinsey’s sex research went far beyond interviews with participants.  It included direct observation and sexual activity.  He engaged in a large amount of direct homosexual behavior in his research.  Kinsey justified this as being necessary to gain the confidence of his subjects.  He encouraged his staff to do likewise, and to experiment with a wide range of sexual acts.  Kinsey argued that the experience would help his staff understand the participant responses.  As part of his research, Alfred Kinsey set up an area in his attic to privately film sexual acts.  In response to this, author James H. Jones and British psychiatrist Theodore Dalrymple, amongst others, have speculated that Kinsey was driven by his own sexual needs.

After Alfred Kinsey’s untimely death in 1956, the real controversy started to emerge regarding data in tables 30 to 34 of the male volume.  In the text, Kinsey calculated numbers surrounding pre-adolescent orgasms.  He reported observations of orgasms in over three-hundred children between the ages of five months and fourteen years.  The information was said to have come from childhood memories or from parent and teacher observations.  Kinsey also said that he interviewed nine men who had previous sexual experiences with kids.  These men described the children’s responses and reactions to Kinsey.  These facts have raised immediate concerns regarding Alfred Kinsey’s overall approach to research.

The information included in the male volume could not have been obtained without collaboration from a child molester.  The Kinsey Institute denies the charge, claiming that Alfred used information from one participant and presented it as being from various individuals.  Additionally, people have concerns over the sample population that was selected by Alfred Kinsey.  In experimentation, the collection of a sample is a simple statistical procedure.  However, it seems that Kinsey used a disproportionate number of prisoners, prostitutes, and especially gay men.  He didn’t use any black people in the work.  All of this evidence has given rise to an anti-Kinsey movement around the world, which was started in 1981 by Judith Reisman.

Top 10 Musicians Who Make Their Living Ripping Off Other Musicians

It’s tough to be completely original in music; we get that.  There are so many bands and so many styles that virtually everybody is going to end up sounding like somebody else at one point or another.

Some people though, take that excuse to the extreme, and basically make their fortune off other people’s sounds.  The “best” of the bunch rip off several bands in the span of one damn album, and sometimes within the same song.

10. Skillet

A fairly new band to the mainstream crowd, these guys come roaring out of the gate quickly with two singles that are basically somebody else’s.  It probably took the average radio fan several listens before realizing Monster wasn’t just Three Days Grace writing a sequel to Animal I Have Become.  But since they’re almost exactly the same song, from the beat to the heavy sound to the theme to the way the guy sings, then the listener can be forgiven.

Things got even more confusing when they released their next single, Awake And Alive, featuring synths, violins, and pretty female vocals designed to make us forget about the ugly male vocals immediately preceding them.  And yet we were supposed to be shocked when we found out it wasn’t Evanescence.

We were shocked however, to find out they are a Christian band.  Pretty sure shamelessly aping several bands in one shot falls under the “thou shalt not covet” thing that God was so against.

9. Union Underground

This early 2000’s metal band had a couple radio singles get frequent play, though you’d swear it was two other, better, bands if you didn’t catch the DJ beforehand.  Their first single, Turn Me On Mr. Deadman, was little more than a Powerman 5000 outtake, right down to the creepy spoken-word verses and screaming choruses.  Their next single, Killing The Fly, slowed things down and added oddly-familiar harmonic vocals.  Coincidentally, it couldn’t have been more Alice In Chains if Layne Staley himself had written the damn thing.

In addition, they loved The Beatles and wanted to let you know it.  “Mr. Deadman” was supposedly a saying that was revealed by playing the Beatles song Revolution 9 backwards, and another song of theirs, Revolution Man, was about Lennon himself.  The only thing they didn’t do in tribute to Lennon was create original and interesting songs.

8. Natalie Imbruglia

You hate to bag on someone as adorable as Natalie, but she sadly doesn’t have an original musical bone in her body.  Her biggest hit, Torn, was a watered-down cover of an Ednaswap song, and the rest of her debut album alternated between being an Alanis Morrisette tribute and a beginners guide to Portishead-style trip-hop.

Her Alanis phase was never more prevalent than in the song Intuition, which features a chorus that sounds EXACTLY like the chorus to Alanis’s Hand In My Pocket. Though she came close to topping that with another song, Big Mistake, which combined slow trip-hop verses with an angsty-rock-chick chorus, complete with Alanis-style yelps to end each line.  Natalie had a few more hits, but never came close her initial success ever again; perhaps her approach was a Big Mistake after all.

7. Jet

Approximately 25,381,726,349,738,482,374 bands rip off AC/DC; few get a multi-record deal and make millions while doing it.  Jet is one of those bands, shamelessly aping AC/DC’s guitar sound, riffs, even their knack for NOT playing their instruments for several bars, just to make us wet in anticipation for the next riff.  We’re looking at YOU, Cold Hard Bitch.

Adding to their Angus Young fetish is their love for the White Stripes or, more accurately, how Jack White sings the typical White Stripes song.  Listen to Are You Gonna Be My Girl and try to tell yourself that isn’t exactly how Jack sings 95% of his songs.  You can’t.

6. Puddle Of Mudd

Bands like this could easily be re-named “Intro To Grunge 101,” as they basically ape anything that made the genre great, only they do it less great.

From Alice In Chains’ slow grind, to Pearls Jam’s vocal growl, to Creed’s far-inferior version of Pearl Jam’s vocal growl, Puddle Of Mudd specializes in taking the best of grunge angst and summarizing it all up as “Ah love the way you smack my aaaaaaaaasssssssssssss”.

But lest you think all they do is rip off the grunge they so love, fear not: they also love to rip off the musicals they so love!  The verse in their hit single She Hates Me features a bouncy guitar and lyrics sung in almost the exact same way as Grease’s Summer Lovin’. Unlike the original, however, he doesn’t have to tell us more, tell us more: since the girl in Mudd’s song f’ing hates him after only a week of dating, we can only assume he didn’t “get very far”.

5. Godsmack

Lead vocalist Sully has one Hell of a Boston accent, but he sadly has not put it to use during his songs, preferring instead to take the path traveled by every band he liked growing up.  For the most part, Godsmack sounds like Alice In Chains, complete with the occasional dual vocal harmony, mixed with Metallica’s power and overall guitar sound.  Hell, even their name is a rip-off, as God Smack is an obscure AiC tune from 1992.

But wait, there’s more!  Sully is a Wiccan who’s very much into spiritual spookiness, so the band occasionally channels Tool and other mystical rock bands, with tunes like Voodoo, Spiral, and Sully’s entire solo album. But the Voodoo video did have a naked tribal woman in it, so they have that much going for them at least.

4. Wolfmother

Tons of garage bands out there take the sounds of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, among others, and make them their own.  Luckily, nobody hears them unless they literally walk past the garage at the wrong time.  Not so with Wolfmother, who have taken their fascination with the heavier side of classic rock to the umpteenth degree.

Literally every note out of their repertoire is lifted from a classic 70’s band, whether it be Led Zeppelin’s wailing vocals, Black Sabbath’s fascination with fantasy and the occult, or Deep Purple’s simple, yet irresistibly catchy lyrics.  Even their look (gigantic afros, psychedelic videos, trippy concert posters), is copied straight from bands that did it better thirty years ago.

Listening to Wolfmother’s Woman or New Moon Rising is only useful if you want to immerse yourself in the greatest bands of the ‘70s, but just don’t have the time to listen to them all.

3. Sum 41

Sum 41 is just amazing.  In just a few short years, they have managed to rip off not one, not two, but THREE completely different genres of music.  If that weren’t pathetic, they’d probably deserve some kind of medal.

When they first appeared, they gave us songs like Fat Lip and In Too Deep.  Here, they either copied the frat boy hip-hop of early Beastie Boys, or somehow managed to water down Blink 182’s pop-punk even more so than it already was.  Later on, they took a line from Fat Lip that mentioned how much they love bands like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, and decided to rip off 80’s metal as well.  Each successive album got slightly more metal, and when the band tours, they are known to open up for themselves as an 80’s metal band called “Pain For Pleasure.”  They even “let” PFP record songs on Sum 41 records, which just goes to prove a point: if you’re going to rip off multiple bands over multiple genres, you might as well be clever and meta about the whole thing.

2. Lenny Kravitz

When you think “shameless rip-off artist,” one of the first names that come to mind is Lenny Kravitz.  From his debut in the late 80’s to, well, today, Kravitz has made a name for himself by doing basically what Jimi Hendrix did, only on a much, much smaller and far less interesting scale.  So naturally, Jimi checked out after four years, and Lenny has hung around for over twenty.

When he’s not creating entire songs like Are You Gonna Go My Way or Fly Away, which are entirely based on one slightly Hendrix-y riff that Hendrix would have almost certainly tossed out for being too boring, Lenny is also ripping off the very essence of Prince.  But no matter how many instruments Lenny plays by himself, or how often he attempts to create Prince-style sexy slow jams like You Belong To Me, and no matter how many girly shirts he wears even though they’re two sizes too tight, Lenny Kravitz is very not Prince.  Now, if he starts using more U’s, UR’s, and 2’s in his song titles, then he might have an argument.

1. Kid Rock

The ultimate rip-off artist, Kid Rock has been pretending to be every genre ever heard of since the late-90’s.  He alternates between being a poor man’s Bob Seger, a poor man’s Lynyrd Skynyrd, a poor man’s Johnny Cash, a poor man’s Metallica, and a poor man’s Grandmaster Flash, among countless others.  Bottom line, if you are a classic rock, southern rock, hard rock, or old-school hip-hop artist, Kid Rock probably sounded like you at one point or another.

Kid Rock’s magnum opus when it comes to ripping off artists more original than he would have to be 2008’s All Summer Long, where he sings about listening to Sweet Home Alabama, just in case we’ve forgotten what a good song sounds like.  He does this by ripping off that EXACT song in the chorus, while producing a completely Xeroxed copy of Warren Zevon’s Werewolves Of London and passing that off as his own.

For his crimes and outright plagiarism, Kid Rock received the ultimate punishment: one of the biggest hits of the year and millions of dollars in his bank account.  Life isn’t fair at all.

Top 10 Baffling Video Game Accessories

The video game industry has pumped out countless accessories over the years. Most are functional but forgettable, the Ray Romanos of the video game world. Some, like the NES Zapper, are iconic. And then there are these ten, which make absolutely no sense. Maybe they were good ideas that went awry, or maybe they’re shameless attempts to cash in on fads. Or maybe they were designed by a team of drunken monkeys. We’ll never know.

10. Kinect Game Boat

The Game Boat adds a whole new level of realism to all one fifth of the Kinect’s boat themed games. Who would buy an accessory that’s only intended for one portion of one game? Especially if all it does is make the game more awkward to play? The Amazon listing even says it’s “the first accessory for the peripheral which doesn’t need any.” It’s an impediment to fun. Asking a clerk for a Game Boat is like asking a pharmacist to poke holes in your condoms.

The boat looks so poorly designed it would have been rejected by Titanic evacuees. And the box’s crudely translated slogan of, “Enjoy the emotions of the best games in the reality of your home” suggests that the Game Boat was made in a country where video games rank behind trying not to starve to death as the number one pastime. So not only will purchasing the Game Boat announce to the world, “I have no concept of fiscal responsibility,” it will probably support slave labour, too.

9. Wii Baby and Me

Baby and Me is the perfect game for parents who don’t want to waste any time ruining both video games and the idea of reproducing for their children. By adding a Wii Remote to the doll the baby itself becomes a controller, because nothing says “realistic childrearing simulation” like splitting open a baby’s back and jamming a hunk of plastic inside.

Cries, giggles, gurgles and more emerge from the remote, thereby “bringing the baby to life.” Although we’re not sure how having tinny sounds pulsate from an infant’s chest while its cold, dead eyes stare unblinkingly at you could be considered lifelike. Maybe they meant “unlife.”

Once you’ve turned your doll into a cyborg you can play all sorts of exciting minigames with it—everything from rocking the baby to sleep to clapping is included! And several of the minigames are even compatible with the Wii Balance Board, because that’s a wonderful lesson to teach future mothers—the best time to test your balance is when you’re clinging to your newborn child.

8. Wii Cooking Kit

 

The Wii has more food preparation games than scientists say can theoretically exist, so it makes sense that somebody would try to cash in on this baffling, nature defying market. The only problem is that exactly zero of those games are played with motions that even vaguely resemble cooking. Trying to make pan fried lobster in Cooking Mama is like trying to mime a howler monkey assassinating the pope. Attaching a plastic frying pan won’t make it any more realistic, it will just look like the monkey stopped off at a Home Outfitters.

The demographic of “people who like cooking enough to buy accessories for cooking video games, but not enough to cook actual food” is limited to nerdy anorexics and anyone who’s so fat they can no longer wedge themselves through their kitchen doorway. And the latter works up a sweat just turning on their television—asking them to flip a plastic frying pan would be like asking them to have a heart attack, assuming they didn’t get desperate for a snack and eat it first.

7. Wii Slip Proof Gloves

Are your Wii sessions so intense that you constantly find the controller flying out of your hands? Are you still having difficulty getting the hang of using your thumbs? Or do you just sweat more than Lil Wayne at a paternity test? Whichever it is, the Wii Slip Proof Gloves are the product for you, you disgusting, uncoordinated nerd!

For a mere $12.99, you can purchase the video game equivalent of a special kid helmet. Look, if you need gloves to play video games, you’ve suffered too many concussions to know what video games are. Anyone who thinks it’s a good idea to wear these would choke to death on them when they tried to put them on. Buying these for your children is like admitting that their mother chain smoked during pregnancy. If you need gloves to help you hold a piece of plastic you either lost your fingers in a chainsaw slapping competition or you produce so much perspiration that your pets drown every time you forget to put on deodorant. You’d have to be pretty dumb to buy these, is what we’re trying to say here.

6. Wii Bowling Ball

The Wii Bowling Ball is meant for people who want to spice up the thrills of virtual bowling by making every frame a chance to put a hunk of plastic through their television. It comes with a safety strap, but anyone who thinks it’s a good idea to buy the ball will mistake it for a tail.

The ball is advertised as having, “additional silicone finger slots to accommodate smaller fingers.” That sounds like a feature a sex toy would have, and using this as a sex toy might actually be a safer idea. The quote, “perfect for the gamer looking for something new to conquer” only reinforces that notion, because the only time we’ve heard “conquer” used to describe plastic balls is when they’re intended to enter orifices. And that would probably look less ridiculous than using this to pretend bowl—the image of the Bowling Ball in action looks like it was taken by someone who mistook bowling for rhythmic gymnastics.

Add “crude Photoshop work” for “realism.”

5. Wii Inflatable Racing Cart

This inflatable cart features a steering wheel with a slot for a Wii remote, giving players the ability to embarrass themselves in a wide variety of racing games. It looks like a cute idea for kids until you realise it’s impossible to control any game from that position, unless your goal is to crash into walls repeatedly and lose. But don’t take our word for it—check out this hilariously bad promo video, where the picture in picture gameplay clearly doesn’t sync up with what the actors are doing.

That’s a pretty serious design flaw, although if you expected any better from a company that thought it was a masterstroke of artistic design to put “racing” on their racing cart you have nobody to blame but yourself. The cart’s website notes that it was “designed in the style of the sports car,” which only raises further questions. Either this is the most poorly designed sports car in history, or they don’t even know what product they’re selling. And if those are the only two conclusions you can reach about an accessory, you shouldn’t pay money for it.

4. Sega Action Chair

The Sega Action Chair comes from an era where every accessory, no matter how mundane, needed a rad adjective in front of it, like the Nintendo Power Glove, or the Siemens Xtreme Speculum. It also comes from an era where every accessory was an overpriced piece of crap that didn’t work.

In theory, players would sit in the chair, grab the handles and pull themselves around, and the game would react to their movement. But you needed Herculean strength to move the chair just a single inch, and by that point your virtual character had long since died. Trying to play a game with the Action Chair was like trying to make your car turn by leaning over; and the inevitable four car pileup would still be more comfortable than sitting in this monstrosity. Add in the hundred dollar price tag, and the only people who owned an Action Chair were rich kids whose parents passive-aggressively hated them.

3. Sega Activator

The Activator was Sega’s attempt to introduce motion control to the world of video games, but it was about as successful as an attempt to introduce sanitation to New Jersey.

Players used the Activator by standing inside the octagon and having a seizure. Each of the eight panels represented a button, and to “press” that button you waved your hand or foot over it. If it worked, and it often didn’t, you soon discovered the Activator’s biggest flaw—even the simplest combination of moves required an insane motion. Want to perform a special attack in Street Fighter? Punch to the left and right simultaneously while kicking straight back. Trying to rip out some dude’s spine in Mortal Kombat? Kick both legs back at once, and punch backwards and forwards at the same time. Just want to pause the damn game? Do a spinning jump kick while head-butting sideways.

Playing a game against someone with a real controller was like a paraplegic fist fighting a gorilla. By the time you remembered what three directions you needed to punch to shuffle forward they’d already finished kicking your ass. An Activator player’s only hope was to flail at random, and that was only effective if they “accidentally” hit their opponent in the face. After five minutes with the Activator, they’d be angry enough to do it.

2. Wii Car Adaptor

Buying a Wii Car Adaptor is like buying a traffic accident. No matter how safe and responsible your passengers are, sooner or later one of them is going to stick a Wii Remote in your eye and you’ll be running down pedestrians while Mario music plays. And since the sort of person who would buy this would also buy the Wii Bowling Ball, you’ll probably be unconscious while it happens.

The only people who think it’s safe to use this don’t know what cars are. It would be less irresponsible to install a minibar in your vehicle than it would be to let people play Wii Sports while you drive. If you were pulled over by the police and they saw you had a Wii Car Adaptor installed, they’d legally be allowed to beat you. It probably comes with a disclaimer stating that the manufacturer can’t be held responsible for your vehicular manslaughter. The only upside to the Wii Car Adaptor is that anyone who uses it shouldn’t be contributing to the gene pool anyway.

1. Rez Trance Vibrator

 

 

Rez is a rail shooter set to electronic music. Vibrators are sex toys set to vaginas. Combining them was so obvious.

Produced only in Japan (of course), the Trance Vibrator pulsed in time to the game’s soundtrack. The official story was that you were supposed to hold, pocket or sit on the vibrator while you played, and the sensation would “extend the game’s synaesthesia.” The idea behind Rez was that everything, from the graphics to the gameplay, synced up with the music, and the vibrator would bring that synchronisation to a player’s sense of touch. There was just one tiny flaw—everyone used it to masturbate.

And we’re not just jumping to perverted conclusions—for one thing, the use of the word “synaesthesia” makes it sound like they would have packaged a hit of acid with the game had it been legal, so it’s hard to believe their intentions were pure. As further evidence, check out this quote from the game’s creator: “You can put it anywhere—your foot, your back, your waist. It’s up to our customers’ imagination.” He didn’t explicitly add “Jam it up your butt if it makes you happy,” but the implication is there. Did we mention the vibrator was designed to be washable?

Top 10 Patriotic Movies

Looking for some movies to watch this Independence Day that will make you fiercely proud to be an American? Well look no further, because these films will have you bursting with so much patriotism that you’ll barely have room for any of that all-American barbequed meat.

10. The Patriot

This one could have clawed its way onto this list based on its name alone. But The Patriot’s patriotic merit goes a lot deeper than the title: Mel Gibson plays his usual character, the Formerly Peace-loving Family Man Driven to Revenge by Murder of Family Members, but in this case, the family-member murder occurs during the American Revolution. Of course, Mel is inspired to take up arms against his oppressors. Australian actors and historical inaccuracy aside, this movie will have you seized with old-fashioned patriotic fervor. Remember to calm yourself down before you talk to any British friends afterward.

9. Top Gun

There category of ‘patriotic military movies’ obviously contains a lot of completion: pretty much any movie involving both Americans and Nazis is a surefire bet for a pro-USA spin. But if you’re looking for something a bit more cheery than Saving Private Ryan for your Fourth of July celebration, you can’t go past Top Gun. While it has its downer moments, this military-themed movie is less about the horrors of war and more about lots of really awesome planes flying around doing cool stuff. The flying scenes are so good, even the Chinese couldn’t help but steal a bit of footage for one of their Air Force-related news broadcasts earlier this year.

8. Iron Man

Unfortunately, Captain America doesn’t come out in time for Independence Day 2011, so you’ll have to look elsewhere for an uber-patriotic superhero movie. You could watch the old version of Captain America that came out in 1990, in which our hero must rescue the President before an Italian Nazi can implant a mind-control device in his brain and use him as a puppet. Unfortunately, that movie kind of sucks, so instead you might want to go for Iron Man, in which all-American Tony Stark flies around killing terrorists and bad guys all over the world. Surely Tony Stark is the epitome of the American Dream – whether that’s a good thing or not is up to you to decide.

7. Rambo III

The Rambo franchise might have started off as a statement about veterans traumatized by the Vietnam War, but by Rambo III, it’s about a world in which a single American can show up in Afghanistan and immediately have the locals fighting to the death by his side. Rambo is also gifted with America-based superpowers: he can bring down helicopters with a bow and arrow, and easily outruns large fiery explosions. Sure it’s not realistic, but it’s an escape. And if fantasy Afghanistan ain’t your thing, you can always go for Sylvester Stallone’s other ode to America, Rocky IV, in which Rocky beats up a Communist while dressed in stars-and-stripes-patterned shorts.

6. Team America: World Police

Team America, about an elite group of Americans that fights terrorism around the world, is definitely not for everyone: it features, among other things, a puppet love scene that has scarred many viewers for life. But fans of its brand of humor will enjoy a movie that spares no aspect of American society, and yet also manages to make you kind of fond of it all, too. Sure, it’s a spoof on America’s arrogance and dumb action movies, but it also managed to give modern American patriotism an entirely new official anthem and a catchy new slogan: ‘America, F**k Yeah!’

5. Red Dawn

A plucky team of small-town teenagers gang up to fight against an unlikely invasion of small-town America by the Soviet Union and its allies, using only their wits, bravery and outdoorsman skills. Sure, it’s easy to make fun of Red Dawn, especially the scene where Harry Dean Stanton starts shouting “Avenge me, son! Avenge me!” for no particular reason. But the movie’s also kind of touching, and its patriotic power is undeniable. Red Dawn is currently being remade for the modern era, with America’s new attackers consisting of… North Korea. How can a small country that barely manages to feed its own population get all the way to America and launch an invasion, you ask? Well, a better question is this: how many ticket sales will be lost if angry North Koreans refuse to see the film? Exactly.

4. 300

But this movie isn’t even set in America, you cry! Sure, but in this adaptation of Frank Miller’s comic, ancient Sparta is pretty much a thinly veiled US of A. Both the comic and the film use the fight of the 300 Spartans against the forces of the Persian Empire to showcase modern America values like bravery, liberty, friendship, equality, and impressively sculpted abs. Sure, the real Spartans might have had some beliefs and practices that we Americans really wouldn’t have liked, but it’s better if you forget all that and just sit back and enjoy the fancy fighting.

3. Air Force One

How could we leave out a movie that features a tough-talking, gun-toting president taking down a bunch of terrorists? Harrison Ford plays an American president whose plane is hijacked by evil Soviets. Being both the president and Harrison Ford, he knows that he has no choice but to hunt them all down himself. For reality to live up to this, President Obama would have had to fly into Pakistan himself and personally punch Osama bin Laden to death, perhaps while uttering some sort of badass line like “Jihad this.”

2. Letters from Iwo Jima

At first, this might seem like an odd movie to include: the Clint Eastwood-directed film about Japanese troops in World War II isn’t just in another language; it’s from the viewpoint of a country that was at war with America. Probably only Clint Eastwood, who had built up his patriotic credit over a lifetime of appearing in movies like Heartbreak Ridge, could have got away with making this one. And that’s the funny part, because if you watch the movie carefully, you’ll see that in many ways it’s really about America. The main characters are all exposed to American values, and by the end of the movie they’ve come to realize that these values are in fact superior to those of warlike Imperial Japan. And Mr. Eastwood manages to do all this without getting insulting or preachy.  Team it up with its companion film, Flags of Our Fathers, for a double dose of nostalgic patriotism.

1. Independence Day

It’s highly unlikely that any movie will ever be able to beat the scene in which a Marine played by Will Smith punches out an invading alien life form with the words “Welcome to EARTH.” Sure, Independence Day is incredibly silly and full of plot holes, from Mac-compatible alien computer viruses to Jeff Goldblum driving from New York to Washington DC in under six hours during a full-scale traffic apocalypse. But look past all that, and you’ll find a story of Americans putting aside their differences in order to unite and lead the world in defeating a great evil. And this is something that almost every American still wants to believe that we can do.

Top 10 Best Picture Winners Weren’t That Great

Only 83 films have won Best Picture to date and the general sentiment is that winning the big prize ensures that your film will have a place among the classics. Here are 10 films that won the grand prize that are not considered classics today:

10. The Broadway Melody, 1929

Since sound was introduced into the movies in 1927, film studios realized the potential almost immediately of combining films with musical numbers. Released two years after the first talkie, The Broadway Melody was MGM’s first big-scale musical number. Heavily promoted by studio head Louis B. Mayer, the cliché-ridden film would win the 2nd best picture Oscar in history among what film historian Tim Dirks notes as, “some of the weakest films in the history of American cinema, reflecting the chaos of the transition from silents to sound films.” Although MGM would be synonymous with the best of the musical genre some fifteen years down the road, the early years of MGM’s musical branch were films so formulaic that they didn’t even bother changing the name for subsequent installments. They were simply known as The Broadway Melody of ____ with the year of release in the blank.

9. Cimarron, 1931

Cimarron is one of just three Westerns to win an Oscar. The film centers around a restless newspaper editor seeking to start a new life with his family in the newly opened territory of Oklahoma and covers a 40-year span in which he deserts his family but eventually comes back to fight for Indians’ rights. Despite its eventual pro-Indian stance, the film squanders its good will to modern viewers through its highly stereotypical representation of the Jewish tailor and the African American servant characters. The film has eight out of fourteen good reviews on rottentomatoes.com which clears it from being the worst-reviewed best picture winner (The Broadway Melody has 38%) but even the good reviews aren’t particularly enthusiastic about the film. One of the positive reviews, by Dennis Schwartz, says the film is “badly outdated, overly sentimental, the performance by Richard Dix that was well-received back then now seems overblown,” but he inexplicably gives the film a B-. If there’s a bright spot to the film, it’s the performance of Irene Dunne who was able to survive the transition to talkies through what most critics agree was a great performance.

8. Cavalcade, 1933

Cavalcade chronicles the story of a British family over two generations as they cope with war, societal change, and the sinking of the Titanic (one of the family members was on board). This film won in a year when Hollywood started to get comfortable enough with sound that many films broke out of the mold and revolutionized their genres, whether it was the message picture (I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang), the musical (42^nd Street), the big budget action film (King Kong) or the risqué comedy (She Done Him Wrong). Ironically, it was also the first year in which the overproduced British period piece won the top prize. There’s no doubt that Hollywood owes a great debt to England’s grand theatrical tradition and its immensely talented pool of classically trained actors but the Academy’s being blind-sided by anything and everything British has led to most every baffling decision the Academy has made for best picture, which will be a recurring theme here.

7. You Can’t Take it With You, 1938

Frank Capra was the 1930′s version of Spielberg and Scorsese rolled into one. He was the most respected, revered and commercially successful director of his time. His visions of homespun Americana gave hope to millions during the Great Depression. You Can’t Take it With You was Capra’s third Oscar-winning film in the course of 6 years, and it was no doubt a popular film. The film, however, is something like Capra’s 7th or 8th best film today behind such classics that came nowhere close to winning an Oscar as It’s a Wonderful Life, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington or Arsenic and Old Lace. The film centers on the zany antics when the granddaughter of an eccentric free-spirited professor invites her straight-laced in-laws for dinner. Aside from being overshadowed by so many other Frank Capra films, the film is also  unremarkable because it’s not very much of a departure from the Pulitzer-prize winning stage play by George Kaufman and Moss Hart.

6. Mrs. Miniver, 1942

During World War II, Hollywood sought to assist with the war effort however it could. Top directors such as John Ford, John Huston and more made propaganda pictures and Hollywood produced wholesome images of homespun Americana and family life (Meet me in Saint Louis is a prime example) so that moviegoers could be reminded at the movies exactly what they were fighting for. At the same time, this was the Golden Age of film in which American cinema was really advancing as an art form. The Oscars during these years pitted the wholesome yet unremarkable films against the edgier film noirs, screwball comedies, or melodramas.  Mrs. Miniver, although depicting the idyll and noble life of a British family on the advent of war, was one such unremarkable film. It did make for some good propoganda. Winston Churchill wrote a thank-you note to MGM head Louis B. Mayer saying that the film was “Propoganda worth a hundred battleships.”

5. Around the World in 80 Days, 1956

This film is a fun, scenic romp best known for its endless string of cameos by the likes of Frank Sinatra, Cesar Romero, Charles Coburn, Red Skelton, Marlene Dietrich, and many more. It’s speculated that the film won only because all the actors with cameos voted for their own film. Even if the film is more popcorn entertainment than a great film, credit still should be given to producer Mike Todd (one former husband of the late Elizabeth Taylor) for his sheer ambition. Employing a record 33 assistant directors, Todd personally jetted to Pakistan, India, China and Thailand to meet with Kings and princes to secure the most luxurious locations he could find. Getting half of Hollywood to appear in his film wasn’t easy either: Todd spent months asking any actor with even a mild curiosity about the film to appear in a small role. In fact, it can be said that this film originated the very concept of the cameo.

4. The Greatest Show on Earth, 1952

This is a film that centers around the trials and tribulations of a travelling circus (the title comes from the motto for Barnum and Bailey’s Circus). Audiences hear about the film and the storied career of its director, Cecille B. DeMille, every year because the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Golden Globes is named after him. Upon receiving the award, for example, Spielberg paid tribute to The Greatest Show on Earth by saying that he practically owes his career to this film having recreated the famous train crash scene in his living room over and over as a kid. Even if we take Spielberg at his word (he’s known to embellish his stories), he’s in the minority of people who took anything inspirational from the film. When I did an informal poll among other film buffs in preparation for this list, they all insisted that this was the most forgettable entry be included. Like Around the World in 80 Days, the film is more spectacle than it is timeless. Outside of that one train crash scene, the film doesn’t offer much of the grand sights of a film like Around the World in 80 Days. Unless you’re a humongous circus fan you should just catch them live when they’re in town.

3. Oliver!, 1968

To be fair, British Director Carol Reed did produce at least one classic in The Third Man almost 20 years before he was handed a make-up award for this film. The adaptation of the classic Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist had the necessary pedigree of Britishness (see the Mrs Miniver entry) and came during a decade in which musicals were in fashion with the Oscars (3 other films from the 1960′s also won Best Picture). Ironically, among the other two front-runners that year, The Lion in the Winter also had the British pedigree and Funny Girl was a musical.

2. Chariots of Fire, 1981

Today, the film is only remembered for its synthetic score that’s been reused for athletic montages in practically every movie since. The tale, examining the conflicting journeys to glory of two British gold medalist runners in the 1924 Olympics, isn’t so much a bad film as a massive surprise in a crowded field of great films that included Raiders of the Lost Ark, Reds, Atlantic City and On Golden Pond. Roger Ebert wrote that when he met the producers and the directors of the film at that year’s Cannes film festival before the film had found an American distributor, they told him that they didn’t think their film would even play in America, let alone win an Oscar. Ebert also speculated that in today’s movie market, it would likely have not survived more than one weekend in the theaters.

1. The English Patient, 1996

An epic love story set at the close of World War II centering on the search for the identity of a plane crash survivor, the film isn’t necessarily bad but it has been ignored by pretty much every list of great films (Empire Magazine, National Society of Film Critics, the AFI, Time Out, etc.) . The film is mostly remembered today for being the basis of a Seinfeld episode in which Elaine is driven insane in trying to avoid being ostracized for being the only one of her friends who doesn’t like the film. It’s worth noting that as Elaine’s friends in that Seinfeld episode love the film, it opened to some remarkably good reviews. Susan Stark of Detroit News famously called it the best film she’s seen in 16 years of reviewing cinema. While Best Picture winners of the 1990′s like Forrest Gump (which beat out Quiz Show, Pulp Fiction, and The Shawshank Redemption) and Dances with Wolves (which beat out Goodfellas) are now almost universally hated for taking the trophy away from those beloved films, The English Patient seems to have faded into oblivion.  Even though some might hate it for taking the honor away from Shine or Fargo, both nominated that year.