The Crimson Centipede made his one and only appearance in Wonder Woman #169 (April 1967), and surely must have driven WW artist Ross Andru "buggy" that month, having to draw all of those arms and legs. At least this Human Centipede didn't require anyone's mouth to be surgically attached to anyone else's butt; just some godly intervention from the clouds:
That's right, Mars don't care what pantheon he's supposed to be in, so you know he don't give a crap about nuanced storytelling. Crimson Centipede got the cheapest, easiest origin of all: the old "because the gods said so" trick. This happened to a lot of Thor villains as well, though Loki and the Enchantress usually at least picked a mortal to act as their pawn. Mars doesn't even have to put in that much effort, and apparently just poops out a Crimson Centipede when the whim hits him. Two panels later, the little rascal is robbing banks with no further explanation:
Wonder Woman tried to stop him, but quickly found herself overcome by the wily Centipede's amazing powers of brushing things aside and scurrying away:
This being a typical Silver-Age Wonder Woman story, the entire city immediately loses faith in our heroine! Luckily, she has a good man by her side to encourage her when times are bad:
Finally, Wonder Woman and the Crimson Centipede meet for a final showdown. The Centipede brings sixteen guns with him, and fires at the Amazon, who deflects his bullets with her magical bracelets. Now of course, this wouldn't be an old-timey Wonder Woman story without some freaky bondage subtext, so his next move ends up being a huge mistake:
That's right, kids, when Wonder Woman loses her Bracelets of Submission, she loses all self control and goes crazy-ape bonkers! WW beats the Centipede and starts tearing up the city, until a man (well, Steve Trevor) replaces the bracelets and puts her back in her place. Under control where she belongs, WW and Steve share a happy ending while Mars fumes and Aphrodite gloats (and Ares calls his lawyer).
And the Crimson Centipede was never seen again, another addition to the Legion of Subpar Villains.
12 comments:
That has to be one of the most appealingly loopy things I've ever read. Thanks for posting it.
*SNAP*
Well, there goes my brain for today...
I was going to scoff, but then I saw, on the cover, that the Crimson Centipede had eight shoulder holsters, one for each gun.
That's when I realized that this was a work of genius.
"And the Crimson Centipede was never seen again"
Well now hold on there! He was wearing a mask, right? (At least that looks pretty masky, that noggin of his.) So how do we know he hasn't shown up in LOTS of stories, in his civilian identity, huh, how, huh?
Yes, clearly he was one of those 16-armed, 16-legged civilians seen in the background of countless DC stories over the years!
But which one? That's the question!
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Pshaw - this guy only has 16 arms and 14 legs. That's a paltry Thirtypede!
wonder woman...... i like i will buy one shirt
Wonder Woman is the most
Crazy Wonder Woman is pretty great.
I can't imagine keeping up with and the daily process of creation that you've been going thru... I have a blog as well... I think it has three or four entries in it....
I'll see you on the boards and somewhere in person down the road buddy....
John Spencer
Domain reseller
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