Two of the more recent Marvel Studios film franchises feature a talking raccoon with machine guns, a dancing baby tree, and Paul Rudd shrinking to the size of an ant. If you think that's as goofy as the Marvel Universe can get, you're either not into comics or not into the right ones.
As you take a break from binging on Netflix's ultra-gritty Daredevil, here's a reminder of the batshit insanity that could potentially (hopefully?) take place in that same universe:
#6. Loki Is A Candy-Obsessed Maniac
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In the movies, Loki is a ruthless manipulator whose triumphs tend to involve kingship, global domination, and massive casualties. In the comics, however, his priorities are a little ... different.
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And more delicious.
That's from the time Loki turned an entire street into sweets as part of a cunning plan called "annoying the shit out of Thor." Now, we know Loki is supposed to be a trickster god, but the story titled "The Vengeance of Loki!" from Journey Into Mystery #88 might be one of the most ham-handed slapstick bad-guy plots ever engineered. Loki starts by summoning a tiger to attack Thor's romantic interest, Jane Foster, who is an intrepid nurse instead of an intrepid astrophysicist in this version.
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Her greatest aspiration was polishing Thor's hammer.
By attacking Jane, Loki forces Thor to let go of his hammer for more than a minute -- which, as we've covered before, causes the mighty god of thunder to turn into a puny doctor named Don Blake. Loki encases the hammer in an impenetrable force field, leaving Thor powerless. Now Loki is free to do whatever the hell he wants ... and the best thing he can think of, apparently, is turning stuff into ice cream and candy. And then for good measure, he also transforms a bunch of people into colorless beings, thereby realizing the same goals of the baddies in Rainbow Brite.
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"Hey, Stan, what if in this issue some people turn into blank outlines?"
"What if you draw a full comic for once, you lazy bastard?"
Thor/Blake overcomes this truly diabolical scheme by hiding behind a friggin' plastic Thor replica. This blows Loki's fucking mind. When Loki sees what appears to be a very, very motionless Thor standing in front of him, he takes away the force field to check on the hammer just to make sure he's not tripping balls. Dr. Blake then leaps out of the bushes, grabs the hammer, turns into Thor, and chases Loki's ass back to Asgard using a bag of peanuts and a tennis net.
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"It's not cool to make fun of my lack of depth perception."
As for the blank people, we never see them again, but we wouldn't worry too much about them: Thor already proved in a previous issue that his hammer has literally any power the writers want to pull out of their asses, including turning negative people back to normal with anti-matter.
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Science!
#5. Kingpin And The Red Skull Strip Down To Their Underwear And Fight In A Bubble
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Kingpin and the Red Skull are two of Marvel's deadliest villains, each responsible for more suffering and atrocities than any real-world serial killer. Can you imagine what it would look like if these two merciless bastards were pitted against each other? You don't have to, because that's already in a comic! And the answer is: It looks completely bonkers.
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Trust us, context doesn't make this any less ridiculous.
In Captain America #378, Kingpin and the Red Skull have an argument about who gets to sell all the drugs in New York. Kingpin is doing it because he thinks culling the weak-willed will make America stronger, while the Red Skull just wants to make everyone OD until there is no more America.
To that end, the two decide to sort things out with a gentleman's agreement: Whoever can beat the other senseless gets to keep distributing. This doesn't seem like the wisest choice for the Red Skull, considering the fact that he's a little bald Nazi and Kingpin is built like a dump truck. But then, the Red Skull is completely crackers, and in his defense, Kingpin doesn't really look like exercise is his thing.
So, in order to satisfy honor and make sure no one has any secret weapons, the two villains naturally have to take off their clothes, revealing that Kingpin is a boxers man and that the Red Skull has been walking around in a tiny black banana hammock all this time.
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"H-How did he find out about my crippling foot fetish?!"
Remember, this is a comic book set in a world full of superpowers and fantastic technology -- if they wanted to, the writers could have easily made it so the villains simply scanned each other with X-rays to make sure they had no weapons. This clearly comes down to someone at Marvel really, really wanting to see Kingpin and the Red Skull punching the shit out of each other without clothes. The biggest blows, however, are verbal:
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Yeah, Kingpin, that sounds way more convincing than, "I'm big-boned."
As much as he protests to being called fat, Kingpin's winning move is the same one every pudgy kid used in the fifth grade: pinning the other dude under his enormous gut until he gives up.
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Captain America wisely waited for the greasy shitshow to be over before intervening.
And so, Kingpin effectively wins the fight and sees to it that if the people of America want to smoke meth, it's going to be his meth.
And speaking of meth ...
#4. Captain America's Meth Rage
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The Streets Of Poison arc of Captain America focuses heavily on drugs, possibly even behind the scenes. Before the amazing pantsless brawl between the Red Skull and Kingpin, Cap has a breakthrough realization about "the No. 1 problem" in America, and it does not go well for anyone.
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SPOILERS: No, it isn't.
Yep, this storyline doesn't shy away from the fact that Cap is technically a drug user, since he gets his powers from a Super Soldier serum -- in fact, that's central to the plot. Captain Hypocrite takes the fight against drugs to the streets, where he stumbles into a meth lab. Because Cap's primary battle tactic is bashing things, and because meth labs are insanely volatile and dangerous, the whole place explodes, filling the air and/or dousing tiny sharp objects with all the horrible things meth is made of. Somehow, the drug binds itself to the serum in his blood, turning him into a full-blown addict.
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"Devil" is the second-strongest curse word Cap has ever used, after "France."
This is no ordinary addiction, however. Because this was the early '90s and the "Just Say No" campaign was in full swing, Cap doesn't just become a junkie -- he becomes a caricature of a junkie. He hears voices in his head, is perpetually in rage-mode, literally bocks like a chicken, and stops shaving, of course. Because that's, like, drug addiction 101.
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Oh no, he's reached the "everyone looks exactly like me" phase.
Eventually, with the help of Ant-Man, Cap ditches his serum-infused blood and teaches a nation of young, impressionable comic readers that he doesn't need drugs in order to be a superhero.
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"I'm more awesome than all of you, is what I'm saying."
Except that, nope, he totally does. It's later explained that his DNA has been irrevocably changed by his previous treatments to the point that his body now produces the serum naturally, and he gets to keep all the benefits. So instead of having a major impact on the Captain America legacy, this arc went down in history as "Hey, remember that one time Cap got super addicted to meth and made chicken noises in a bar?"
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