Birdgirl: The Mostly Not Woke Definitive Review No One Will Read

 So they made a spinoff of Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law. And it's based on Birdgirl! On Sundays at 12am EST, it's a half hour format (as opposed to 11 minutes like Birdman). It follows Judy Ken Sebben as she takes over Sebben & Sebben on the death of Phil (Ha HA!). S&S has now turned completely into its conglomerate form only kind of touched on in Birdman, as opposed to the law firm.

So how is it? It's ok. It's not Birdman - not even close. But it's just ok. The biggest problem is the best part of the show is Judy and the ensemble they drummed up to go with her drown her out. That's not to say the cast isn't good - Meredith the Mindtaker is the best supporting character (even though she does the Bweoop wrong... how do you fuck that up?.. and the bra on the outside... is that a Instagram thing or something) and Dog with Bucket Hat (voiced by RAWLS from The Wire... amazing but also very underused) but the show is BIRDGIRL. Can I get mostly Birdgirl?

The other side characters are take it or (mostly) leave it. Gillian is basically Pam and Cheryl from Archer combined, but not as filthy. Charlie has potential and hopefully they build upon the dark comedy they've set up so far but she's otherwise been a waste of episode time. And then there's Tony Hale's Paul. At times I feel like shows add characters just to emasculate and Paul definitely "feels" that way. He's also painfully unfunny. Brian O'Brien doesn't even feel like a main cast member and he's usually just cannon fodder.

Six episodes have aired and the plots have at least been all over the place. I just hope they realize that the side characters they have aren't as compelling or as funny as the ones from Birdman and focus more on Judy. They can easily play off the absurdity of Sebben & Sebben (and they have) so hopefully they will keep doing that.

The Officially Official ATHF Rankings, Part I: The Bad

 Here we are, part 1 of what's probably going to be a 7 part series. EAT THAT, CLAW. We start from the worst to the best, so let's start off with the worst episode and go from there...

#140 - Ep. 60 Party All The Time

Monster of the Week: … Cancer.

Plot Insanity: 0/10. Frylock gets cancer. Yikes. That’s the whole episode.

Shakeisms: 0/10. Everything Shake does is overshadowed by Frylock’s cancer. And then Shake is NICE to Frylock. Wat.

Carl Factor: 0/10. See the Shakeism.

Meatwadded 0/10. Is Meatwad even in this episode?

Guest Stars & Cameos: 0/10. A guest spot by Andrew WK should have been incredible. It wasn’t.

Review: It’s at the bottom because it’s not just a waste of Andrew WK, not just because it’s not funny but it’s morose and somehow fails at anti-comedy.

#139 - Ep. 59 Hand Banana

Monster of the Week: Hand Banana

Plot Insanity: 2/10. A balloon comes to life and starts raping Carl. Yeah.

Shakeisms: 0/10. I don’t even know.

Carl Factor: 0/10. The wrong kind of Carl abuse.

Meatwadded 0/10. Nope.

Guest Stars & Cameos: 0/10. Handbanana sucks.

Review: It’s usually always funny when Carl is abused, killed, whatever… but somehow this is not funny at all. It goes on too long and buries what little joke was made.

#138 – Ep. 63 Grim Reaper Gutters

Monster of the Week: Greg from Grim Reaper Gutters.

Plot Insanity 1/10. Aside from Greg from Grim Reaper Gutters showing up, the episode is basically a Seinfeld episode in that it’s about nothing.

Shakeisms: 0/10. For what feels like the only time, Shake is lost in his own plot line. When Shake is going some place with his plot (like with the Drizzle), it has a clear focus. This episode, he does not.

Carl Factor: 3/10. Shows up and dies. Not the first or the last time.

Meatwadded 0/10. Gets sucked into the vortex with Shake. If you told me they ad libbed most of this episode, I would believe you.

Guest Stars & Cameos: 0/10. Tera Patrick, adult film star at the time, shows up here for no reason. My guess is she liked the show, wanted to be on it and they couldn’t do anything that would make use of her talents. So we get this heap.

Review: This episode goes nowhere and ends nowhere. Something was fundamentally wrong here. Either Greg got pushed out for Tera Patrick or they were way too high or something. Who knows.

#137 – Ep. 61 Bart Oates

Monster of the Week: …Bart Oates? Former NY GNATS football player.

Plot Insanity 4/10. The ghost of Bart Oates follows Carl around like a ghost of Xmas past. It’s weirder than usual.

Shakeisms: 0/10. It’s a Carl episode.

Carl Factor: 2/10. Entirely Carl focused episode don’t really work. They focus on Carl’s sad sack nature and it comes off flat.

Meatwadded 0/10. It’s a Carl episode.

Guest Stars & Cameos: Bart Oates, literally. Uh. Sure. I am assuming this is another cold call question for a guest spot?

Review: It’s just a really flat episode. It more or less works like The Dressing but the wacky character has been replaced by… Bart Oates. The Dressing is more exaggerated so it is a lot less depressing.

#136 – Ep. 65 Ezekiel

Monster of the Week: Ezekiel… Shake’s son? Or something.

Plot Insanity 0/10. It’s Shake’s son. Or clone. I can’t remember.

Shakeisms: 0/10. There is just no way this could have worked. Shake operates on being a total narcistic jerk.

Carl Factor: 0/10. Is he even in this episode?

Meatwadded 0/10. A non-factor.

Guest Stars & Cameos 0/10. Patton Oswalt is notable for having one amazing episode (Frat Aliens) and one horrible one (this episode). He uses his whiny kid voice and man, it is obnoxious.

Review: This is part of a small stretch of absolute garbage the ATHF team crapped out.

#135 – Ep. 58 Dickeisode

Monster of the Week: Dr Wongburger, an adversary of questionable usefulness.

Plot Insanity 1/10. I don’t know what is worse – that they came up with this plot at all or that they basically recycled it for Plaque Lagoon and Hands on a Hamburger.

Shakeisms: 0/10. Frylock is the only one who seems to care that Wongburger exists, mercifully.

Carl Factor: 2/10. This episode reeks of Hand Banana-ness but thankfully without the awkward silence that Hand Banana creates.

Meatwadded 0/10. A few one liners from Meatwad but otherwise a non-factor.

Guest Stars & Cameos 0/10. Tommy Blancha does the voice of Wongburger, but no one cares.

Review: In a show that most people would call stupid from the first episode to the last, they really sank to the bottom with Wongburger, a stupid show’s stupidest character. I’m glad he only got 3 episodes.

#134 – Ep. 88 The Last Episode Forever and Ever

Monster of the Week: H. Jon Benajmin.

Plot Insanity 1/10. It gets a lone point for the water catching on fire.

Shakeisms: -10/10. Sweet jesus, no. NO. What were they thinking?

Carl Factor: 2/10. The guy they got for Carl wasn’t terrible, but there is no human on Earth that IS Carl. However, real Carl gets the “they really were an Aqua Teen Hunger Force line” which at least segued into the much better Rabbot Redux.

Meatwadded 0/10. He was a damned yoga ball. Come on now.

Guest Stars & Cameos 0/10. I’m so glad this wasn’t the actual final episode. At least T-Pain was minorly enjoyable.

Review: A live action episode! And it’s miserable! HOW. WHY.

#133 – Ep. 139 Last One Forever And Ever (We Mean It This Time)

Monster of the Week: A giant clam?

Plot Insanity 1/10. Recharging Frylock’s back jewel. But this is an actual plot as opposed to what we normally get so it doesn’t work.

Shakeisms: 3/10. A pretty by the book Shake episode.

Carl Factor: 0/10. I have no memory of him in this episode.

Meatwadded 4/10. The ending was amusing at least.

Guest Stars & Cameos 0/10. None.

Review: So glad this wasn’t the final episode (it will be a while before you read about the real final episode). This one went on way too long and was way too plot heavy. If ATHF is written like a normal show, it falls apart and this is proof.

#132 – Ep. 110 Last Dance for Napkin Lad

Monster of the Week: Napkin Lad. At least he was in SGC2C.

Plot Insanity 0/10. There was a plot but it was NOT insane. It was bizarrely normal. No thanks.

Shakeisms: 0/10. No one really acted like themselves.

Carl Factor: 1/10. One point for the fake mustache.

Meatwadded 0/10. See the Shake writeup.

Guest Stars & Cameos 0/10. Just Napkin Lad, which goes over as well as Chicken Bittle did in the movie.

Review: This would be normal for any other TV series, but this episode was weird for ATHF. It’s like making a normal show out of a parody. More of a novelty than anything.

#131 – Ep. 130 Spacecadeuce

Monster of the Week: Ignigknot, Err, Emory and Oglethorpe.

Plot Insanity 7/10. Basically an Event Horizon parody. It flies off the rails fast.

Shakeisms: 0/10. No Shake.

Carl Factor: 0/10. No Carl.

Meatwadded 0/10. No Meatwad.

Guest Stars & Cameos 0/10. Nobody but the Spacecataz characters.

Review: They must have been running out of ideas because this almost certainly was a Spacecataz script that never got made when the pilot rightfully got passed on. The episode weirdly meanders and even though it invokes Season 1-2 ATHF vibes, it just doesn’t go anywhere and doesn’t deliver any laughs. Unfortunately the last appearance of both sets of characters.

#130 – Allen Part 1

Monster of the Week: Danny the Facehugger Thing.

Plot Insanity 0/10. Ran out of ideas much? There was basically no plot here, nor any jokes unless you think Steven Wright planting eggs in Shake and Shake not exploding is funny.

Shakeisms: 5/10. It’s basically a Shake episode but even then, he doesn’t really do much.

Carl Factor: 0/10. No Carl again.

Meatwadded 0/10. Meatwad is a cipher for the audience here. He does nothing and adds nothing.

Guest Stars & Cameos 0/10. What a waste of Steven Wright’s amazing deadpan delivery.

Review: The only thing not dragging this down into the bottom 10 is the Dr Weird intro and the first time the amazing Aqua Unit Patrol Squad 1 intro is used. Otherwise this episode is lazier than usual.

#129 – Allen Part 2

Monster of the Week: Allen… actually Alien.

Plot Insanity 2/10. The most insane thing about this episode is that’s a Part II that’s basically unrelated to Part I. Which really isn’t unusual considering ATHF.

Shakeisms: 2/10. Shake drives this episode again but is overshadowed by the Allen laser thing.

Carl Factor: 0/10. I honestly don’t remember Carl in this episode.

Meatwadded 0/10. A brief nothing that adds nothing.

Guest Stars & Cameos 0/10. Allen is the worst guest character since Dr. Wongburger.

Review: Probably would have worked better if the space ship was over the ATHF house, but then it’d basically be the far superior Antenna. It’s hard to like this episode especially once Shake meets Allen.

#128 – Ep. 83 The Creature from the Plague Lagoon

Monster of the Week: The Creature from the Plague Lagoon and Dr. Wongburger for the 2^nd time.

Plot Insanity 2/10. Instead of dicks, it’s teeth and it goes from there.

Shakeisms: 1/10. Shake without teeth. That’s about it.

Carl Factor: 0/10. No Carl.

Meatwadded 0/10. Meatwad without tooth. Also about it.

Guest Stars & Cameos 0/10. They couldn’t find a better character for Blancha to voice? Come on. Gary the Dairy Fairy might as well been Bart Oates again. Pass.

Review: This feels like a normal episode and then apparently their fixation on Dr. Wongburger needs a fix and here he is again, but now he’s a tooth seeking teeth to escape Earth. Groan.

#127 – Ep. 2 And A Half Stars Out of 5

Monster of the Week: Drewbacca, the Chewbacca parody.

Plot Insanity 3/10. In what really feels like an episode of old, this one has another quirky/insane guest character running around. The problem is he runs into the ground.

Shakeisms: 1/10. I was waiting for a Love Mummy-esque “Yeah you’re Chewbacca, shut up, enough already”. Never got it.

Carl Factor: 2/10. Carl gets killed by Chewbacca so that’s at least normal.

Meatwadded 0/10. Another episode where he a non-factor.

Guest Stars & Cameos 1/10. Drewbacca is voiced by Scott Adsit, aka “Tina Fey likes me so I get work” guy. And the Moonities show up at the last minute to fill time.

Review: The big hook of this episode is the constant orchestral soundtrack, ala Star Wars throughout the episode. It’s mixed poorly, probably on purpose. The episode is largely innocuous but that soundtrack makes it unwatchable.

#126 – Ep. 131 Mouth Quest

Monster of the Week: Honest Abe Lincoln, the sausage links mascot.

Plot Insanity 4/10. This one at least breaks the fourth wall, a lot. It was at least pretty silly.

Shakeisms: 1/10. A handful of Shake one liners.

Carl Factor: 0/10. No Carl!

Meatwadded 0/10. No mouth for Meatwad so not a lot to be said or added.

Guest Stars & Cameos 2/10. You don’t realize how annoying Justin Roiland’s Morty voice is until you watch this episode. This one would probably jump 10 spots if it was any other voice. But Henry Zebrowski (Gary from Pretty Face) is a welcome addition though.

Review: To go with the live action episode, there is… the Claymation episode! I think it would have worked better if it didn’t break out of the normal episode structure and just did it’s normal thing, but in clay. This is probably the first episode on this list that has some redeeming qualities, unlike the previous 14.

#125 – Ep. 55 Spacegate World (aka Carl)

Monster of the Week: Carl’s depressing life.

Plot Insanity 0/10. It’s just Carl, by himself, watching Dewey, Vanessa and Boxy Brown.

Shakeisms: 0/10. Basically no Shake.

Carl Factor: 5/10. A lot of Carl but not necessarily a good amount of Carl.

Meatwadded 0/10. Basically no Meatwad

Guest Stars & Cameos 0/10. None of note.

Review: Unless Carl is giving you his Stonecold Lock of the Century of the Week, he shouldn't be running solo. The show itself works well because Carl plays back and forth off of the other characters, main or guest and when he’s by himself like this, no thanks.

#124 – Ep. 114 Rocket Horse Jet Chicken

Monster of the Week: Rocket Horse! And Jet Chicken!

Plot Insanity 5/10. Not so much insane as it is a Meatwad stream of consciousness.

Shakeisms: 0/10. He’s in this episode for a minute and he does what he usually does – try and make a buck.

Carl Factor: 0/10. No Carl.

Meatwadded 6/10. This is a Meatwad episode, no question. Without any other main characters to play off, and the two guest characters not doing the job, it’s not as good as it could be.

Guest Stars & Cameos 3/10. George Lowe voices Jet Chicken, so that’s nice.

Review: A nearly full crayon drawn episode but it’s just all over the place. The guys must have been really high when they came up with this one.

#123 – Ep. 86 Fry Legs

Monster of the Week: Frylock’s new legs.

Plot Insanity 4/10. Frylock turns into a total creeper with the weirdest legs possible. Then it gets worse.

Shakeisms: 0/10. Shake and Meatwad both basically sit this one out.

Carl Factor: 0/10. No Carl. He stayed far away.

Meatwadded 0/10. See Shakeisms.

Guest Stars & Cameos 0/10. None of note aside from George Lowe.

Review: There are some amusing gags, like the Computer Repair Woman’s butt bending over but otherwise this one is bordering on too weird. The ending with Frylock as FrankenRay is quite a thing to see. However, this is not a truly bad episode, just one that illustrates why Frylock is better left the straight man.

#122 – Ep. 37 THE

Monster of the Week: Frylock’s disgust with his roommates

Plot Insanity 1/10. One of the least insane plots from Season 2. Frylock has had enough of his roommates so he moves out. That’s it.

Shakeisms: 6/10. Shake burning the garbage is pretty great, as is his getting-worse swelling eyes.

Carl Factor: 2/10. Carl plays the don’t give a crap Carl in this episode. He doesn’t get killed though.

Meatwadded 3/10. Meatwad is a good accessory to Shake here.

Guest Stars & Cameos 0/10. None.

Review: The worst episode of Season 2, which isn’t in the top 20 of worst episode overall because Season 2 is amazing. The plot is fairly mundane which keeps it from getting off the ground and ranks it so low.

#121 – Ep. 00 Boston

Monster of the Week: The city of Boston, basically.

Plot Insanity 6/10. It gets off the rails pretty quickly, but most of it is a parody to Boston’s asinine response to the ATHF marketing campaign.

Shakeisms: 3/10. Pretty par for the course but he’s kept in the rails of the whole Boston thing.

Carl Factor: 3/10. Carl is just literal cannon fodder here, which isn’t a bad thing.

Meatwadded 0/10. Meatwad with Christmas lights… like Shake, he’s just hear to rip into Boston.

Guest Stars & Cameos 0/10. No real ones to speak of.

Review: This is an OK episode but plots so low just because it’s unfinished.

And that’s it for the bottom of the barrel. Like I said on Mouth Quest, there are only really 14 or so bad episodes of this show and everything else is just ok or has a minor flaw which rates it lowly. Now onto the OK/Good episodes, which is quite a long list.

The Officially Official Aqua Teen Hunger Force Rankings Intro

Oh boy, he's writing more nonsense. This isn't to annoy Claw (he probably doesn't like ATHF anyway) but to waste time. What's that? Play games? Watch TV? NO! Let's... write pointless shit on the Internet. Could be worse.

So here comes the ATHF rankings. This will be all 140 episodes (including Boston) in order of my like-atude. Here's the criteria:

The movie won't be included: Regardless of your feelings on the movie, it's 80 minutes long and hard to judge against 10 minute episodes. A lot of great ATHF episodes rely on killing the characters and that doesn't work when you have 70 minutes to go. I'll probably do a bonus review of the movie itself. Since it's a movie review, it will make claw mad. Probably.

Shake Like Me and Boston will be included: Boston is unfinished and that will be considered since Adult Swim apparently has a history of chickening out but it will be included. Shake Like Me has been removed from HBO Max and I don't give a fuck. It's fucking satire and Carey Means is black. Get over yourselves, Twitter horde.

A minimal amount of information will be given for each episode: Spoilers abound because the last episode aired in 2015. Oh god I'm old. No air dates or season numbers, just the order they were released, 1 through 139 and 0 (Boston). Episode name will be given as well as Monster of the Week, Cameos and other notes (like the live action episode). No pictures because that would require way more effort and at this rate, this is a lot of effort.

The following categories will be used to help judge episodes: Damien gave me some good suggestions but I don't want 12 categories so I combined them down. (There will not be an overall score for the episode beyond the ranking it earns). The categories are:

Plot Insanity: This category will cover the general aspect of the plot and how nuts it is and how much it works.

Shakeisms: This encapsulates the positive and negative effect Shake has on an episode. Sometimes he is the episode, sometimes he adds to the overall plot. Sometimes his conflict with the other characters makes the difference. Sometimes he's just fucking annoying.

Carl Factor: This show wouldn't have been nearly as good without Carl. Good episodes use him great, bad episode don't. This will cover his interactions, his deaths and dismemberments and his other quirks (like the end of Unremarkable Journey).

Meatwadded: Sometimes Meatwad drives an episode. Sometimes his fights with Shake do. Sometimes he tries to pick his nose and punches a hole through himself. Yes, this will be a max rating for Multiple Meat.

Cameos & Guest Stars: A rankings for the guest stars, guest voices and monster of the week that are in said episode. Do they work? Yes (Zack Wylde). No. (Tera Patrick). This will gauge that workingness.

There's no category for Frylock because he's the straight man and episodes focused on him are usually not great (Party All The Time, Fry Legs). His interactions with the other characters will be noted where appropriate.

So that's that. I will probably break them up into 7 posts, 20 episodes each. Depends on how much I crank them out. The first one will come with Rankings 140 through 121. Soon.

Make Claw Mad #1: What If Volume 1 Is Dumb

Here's a new series of posts, for a blog that has no other posts besides an intro post. That would be... MAKE CLAW MAD. Here I will say and talk about things that make Claw mad. These won't be things I don't actually believe but things I think and believe and I know they will annoy claw. Hurray.

Over the past 2 years, through gifting and purchasing, I have bought the 4 trade paperbacks that make up the entire volume 1 of What If. This is the first series that ran for 47 issues from 1977 to 1984. They take a normal issue and change something so they can go WHAT IF AMIRITE. It's a great idea for a series but as far I am concerned, the first volume of the series is pretty half baked and dumb.

The biggest problem I've seen out of the 7 issues I've read is that the dude Roy Thomas or whatever struggled to take these amazing, great, classic stories (since the original What Ifs were largely origin story adjustments) and make them What If-able.

Speaking of divergence, don't get me wrong - What If is great. What if Volume 2 #1 is one of the most mindblowing fucking things I've ever read in my life. It's so fucking bizarre that the whole thing is amazing. And Roy Thomas wrote that one too. So the logic is he just struggled with Volume 1.

Let's look at the first couple of issues:

#1: What if Spiderman joined the Fantastic Four. That's just dumb in concept. That's like this: 

And what happens is the Fantastic Four just fly off the table. The FF is a family and Spiderman shows up like some dipshit cousin, daddy-o. It so doesn't work. Plus, wasting no time, here comes fucking Namor.

What a fucking douche. I hate Namor. He's somehow more boring than Aquaman. And he's in so many of the early What Ifs. GO AWAY. NO ONE LIKES YOU NAMOR. Not only that but at the end of the issue, Sue Storm runs off with Namor basically because Spiderman takes her spot. After giving her gills. What.

I rank this issue negative one human claw's dads out of 10 (which means it's actually 1 claw's horse dad out of 10 normal human dads).

#2: What If The Hulk Had The Brain of Bruce Banner. Ok this one starts off just fine and logical and what the fuck why is Professor X, Mr Fantastic and Bruce Banner combining into some giant gold man baby?

Not only that but this giant gold man child scares GALACTUS off. What. Clearly Roy Boy got his plane off the runway and then crashed it into the ocean. 

I rate this issue 2 cartoons that come on before Casper out of 10. Because this issue is truly the cartoon before fucking Casper comes on, isn't that right claw. This issue is Casper's doughy butt. 

Issue #3 What If The Avengers Had Never Been: Here's another big problem with these issues. Thomas takes a good concept and then hones on a specific event in the original comic and when he does, it doesn't work because he can't let that original event go. In this one, basically Thor, Iron Man, Giant Man and Wasp basically tell each other to eat shit (does that make claw and I the NES avengers... Edsel is clearly Dr Druid) and walk out the door while Iron Man is like "Oh right the Hulk". And here Thomas zeroes in on the fight against the Hulk and Namor and DOESNT LET IT GO. The rest of the issue is focused around it and it's just so dumb. The issue ends with RICK JONES (man does Roy Thomas love him some Rick Jones) in an Iron Man suit. Dumb.

AND MORE GODDAMN NAMOR. FUCK OFF NAMOR.

I rate this issue 1 useless Iron Man suits out of 10.

Issue #4: What If The Invaders Stayed Together After WWII?: Here's the problem right off the bat... this issue barely takes place after WWII! What the fuck dude. What happened here is Thomas spent forever building up the What If storyline just to never deliver on the concept. 

The issue itself is weird, but amusing because... THE WHIZZER shows up.

Gee golly, it's the Whizz'! Also Miss America shows up. And the original Human Torch had a sidekick like Bucky ala Captain America. WHO KNEW! Yes, I know you knew, Claw. Some jerk subs in for Captain America and dies in the lamest way possible too. Probably the biggest intersection of MAJOR CHARACTER and LAMEST WAY TO DIE IN A COMIC. 

HEY GUESS WHAT, NAMOR'S BACK AGAIN. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, ENOUGH.

This issue is a mess. I give it 0 foamy shits out of the zero variety pack of claw shits I will never receive.

Issue #5 What If Captain America Didn't Vanish After World War II?: This is the first issue approaching readable. While it ends up running in circles for a while and the ending is set up with literally THE ENTIRE COMIC BLACKING OUT (so anything that happened is never seen and it's hand wavy bullshit), it has Captain America running Shield as Steve Rogers. It also has Bucky, like, nerd in a ballet outfit Bucky, not Bucky on roids Winter Soldier Bucky, as the "next Captain America" which is just sad. Like I said, approaching readable.

I think Namor is in this. I can't remember.

I give this issue 3 stainman NFTs that I won't pay claw for.

Issue #6: What If the Fantastic Four Had Different Powers? This is the fucking worst comic I have ever read. Holy shit, where to begin. First off, Thomas phoned this in so hard, he just gave Mr Fantastic's powers to Sue Storm. Really. Was Sue that one dimensional that you couldn't come up WITH LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE especially since you didn't reuse anyone else's powers?

Next, he gave Ben Grimm dragon wings. THAT'S IT. He can fly. NO SUPER STRENGTH, NOTHING. Did he look at Angel from the X-Men and say "Well... flying is a super power but I can't use bird wings...."

Johnny Storm becomes the MANDROID, where Roy Thomas's writing becomes as robotic as the Human Torch now is. This is the only one that is decently inventive... until the story picks up.

And finally, Mister Fantastic becomes... BIG BRAIN. A BRAIN. HE BECOMES JUST A FLOATING BRAIN.

That's it. He's not telekinetic, he just floats. THAT'S IT. DUMB.

What makes this issue even worse is Doctor Doom shows up and shows how utterly useless this entire team is. He rips MANDROID'S arms off and the other two are so so useless, that Doom is only defeated by more handwavy bullshit and BIG BRAIN ends up in Doctor Doom's body. Or something. If you read the entire issue up to the last page, you'd be certain that the four of them were dead. And then Roy Thomas said LOL NOPE.

At least namor isn't in it.

I can't even score this one. It is so bad.

Issue #7: What If Someone Else Besides Spider-Man Got Bit By The Radioactive Spider: Another issue approaching readable, but that's only because the end is actually creative and thought out. So now Flash Thompson, Betty Brant and John Jameson get bit by the spider and get powers. And here's the rub: Flash and Jameson die because LOL NO WEB FLUID. That's it. Lazy writing. Did Thomas read back issues for Spiderman and find a spot where Spiderman's survival depended ENTIRELY on his web shooters? Because that's what it feels like.

Betty Brant is a little more less dumb but that's because Peter Parker makes her web shooters. And of course Betty has a horrible costume where her tits are basically smacking in the face. I'm not woke but that outfit is impractical. She ends up bailing out of SPIDER GIRLIN IT because she lets Peter's uncle get shot. Uh, ok.

What saves the issue are two things. One, John Jameson being Spider Jameson makes JJ less of a cocksucker because his son was one. And two, the issue ends with all three What If universes having the same result: Peter Parker saves the spider's corpse and drinks its venom to also become Spiderman. A nice little bow. Also, no Namor doesn't become Spiderman. I'll take that.

This one also gets 3 overdone claw jokes out of 10. 

So that's all I read so far. I bet this will make claw madder that I am judging an entire volume of a series on 7 issues. But I am reading the TPBs on the can and it takes time because I, at most, poop once a day. And these What Ifs are LONG and VERBOSE so it usually takes 3 shits to finish an issue. Meanwhile modern comics I can read 3 comics in the span of one shit. Different times.