Everybody Loves Kang

Is there a better time travelling world-conqueror?

I don't think so!

First of all, his mask is totally kick-ass. It's some sort of future style clear plexi that moves around when he talks. That rules. It's so future that you can't even explain how it works. Plus, it's blue, like some sort of primary color glam rock full face aviator sunglasses. Add a baggy green tunic and some striped purple thigh highs, and you have David Bowie, Scourge of the Avengers.

Then there's the whole Rama Tut thing. Kang was once a Pharoah; do you know how decadent those dudes were? Kang must have been waist deep in sexy Egyptian tail day and night. That rules. He just wandered around with his shirt off, ordering people to cook Dodo eggs for his breakfast and then fellate him.

I have been reading the trade that Marvel put out this week, reprinting some old Kang tales. There was a little stretch in the eighties where Roger Stern was writing the AVENGERS and it was being drawn by Big John Buscema and Tom Palmer. When I was in elementary school reading these books, it just seemed like boilerplate Marvel, but looking back, that is some sort of Dream Team Supreme. Buscema gave Kane the kind of aniamlistic enrgy that makes him seem ferocious and regal at the same time.

I'm not saying these are the best AVENGERS books I've ever read, but they hold up surprisingly well for sheer ridiculousnessosity. And the art is just madness, with power and punches and explosions of Crazy on every page. I wish more action books had this kind of Crazy. It's something to behold, when Big John Buscema really knocks it out of the park in every panel.

That Kang. There's just something about his totally madcap costume that inspires ridiculousaciousness. He TRAVELS THROUGH TIME so that he can CONQUER HIS ENEMIES and RULE PEOPLE IN EGYPT. That's awesome.

You just know that he eats whatever he wants, whenever he wants. His palate is refined, but he still like to eat raw gat with Vikings sometimes, and then he buys one of their bosomy blonde women with the riches of Victorian India!

He can do crazy shit like that, all the time! Because he Rules TIME ITSELF!!! (insert manic laughter) Then he has his way with that viking wench, and she cooks him dinner. She knows what a pimp he is. He just sits back and watches an opera in Vienna in 1750. He don't care.

Kang rules.