The winning team, Alpha Flight. As one person there said, "That's a sentence you'll never hear often." A little inside comic book joke. Note their judo trophies with throat-crunching action poses! 'Nuff Said!
I finally got to participate in this annual tradition at my local store! For years, I have worked a Tuesday-through-Saturday shift and never could rationalize a day off which was also required an exception (my team’s staffing is always the minimum on weekends).
Well, I got my wish and I tried to form a team. Then the date turned out to be close to when Luke (see earlier story) was due. This took out the best ringer (Kelly) I could find. Luck was on my side because there was another guy (Marc) who usually had Marvel stuff in his cube or shirt; I’m more of a DC guy so I figured there would be balance. Besides, it was an opportunity to get to know my co-worker better, always a victory.
How did it go? Teams were organized into pairs. Our hosts made us draw random names based upon rather goofy or unpopular superhero teams (maybe unsuccessful too): Thor Corps; Outsiders; Infinity, Inc.; Defenders; All-Star Squadron; Alpha Flight; Justice League Europe; and Metal Men. We got the most comical…Power Pack: this awful Marvel title about four kids under 12 with superpowers that started back in the Eighties. Get ready for Disney to develop this bad idea since they acquired Marvel Comics. Questions were presented in funny categories: characters with mullets, afros, mohawks, no hair or hats; Russian characters (complete with Yakov Smirnoff joke); non-sparkly vampires; cat themes; youth of today (sadly, nothing covering the hip, happening Archie stuff); etc. Oddly, there were no Sean Connery-Jeopardy outbursts from the audience. A team picked an active category and the operators asked a question with a multiple-choice answer (thank goodness). Players could ask if the question originated from Marvel or DC along with a repeat of the question or answers. If you got it wrong, you received a strike. Three strikes and your team was eliminated. Each team was also allowed to dump the question on another team once (a ricochet). However, the recipients of the ricochet then had immunity from any further screw jobs (a force field). We didn’t need to sweat any of the sudden-death stuff as the contest concluded in an hour.
How did Marc and I do? We were the first to be knocked out! Oh the shame. I don’t think we got one right. However, the two of us will always remember the one that was the final nail in our virtual coffin.
From the Mullet Category: Who taught the Beyonder (from Secret Wars II) to pee?
Based up on the four choices, we agreed upon The Thing because he is the most down-to-earth superhero in his language use, attitudes, etc.
(In an Alex Trebek voice). Oh, sorry…it was Spider-Man.
Overall, we had a great time. The jokes, the asides, the references…it was Comic Book Geek central but even a fair-weathered fan such as myself was chuckling often. I’m confident a friend like Helen who only knows the ones from the recent movies would be laughing.
I can’t wait to try again next year. After being eliminated first this time, doing better won’t be very hard.