Dear Ray Fillet,

I always thought you were the coolest of the Mighty Mutanimals when as a kid, because manta rays are awesome.  I like the big, brooding shoulder wing dealies and the devil tail, too. Plus you’re clearly super strong and can live underwater. You’re like Aquaman if he was a manta ray.

All that aside, I think there’s some things we need to discuss. First off, is that yellow part a women’s gymnastics leotard that you’re wearing?  And if not, why do you wear boots but no other clothes?  And how useful are sweatbands to someone that lives underwater?

Also, please give the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles my contact info.  I’ve always wanted to eat weird pizzas with them.

Yours,
Keith McGuffey

Dear Mr. Terrific,

Being invisible to technology sounds cool, but I think it provides you with some very crippling everyday weaknesses.  How do you use gas station bathrooms?  Or do you just never wash your hands?  How do you get into grocery stores with automatic doors?  Can you use an IPad?  Will Siri listen to you?  That’s a stupid question, Siri never listens.  And I think if I was looking for the guy that was invisible to technology, I would just look for the blank spot on Google Earth and shoot that spot.  And what about when Rocket Red is aiming his rockets at something but his sensors don’t pick up that you’re in the way and you get shot with a rocket?  It just seems like a lot to give up for what is a very limited version of Invisible Woman powers.

And how can Red Tornado see you? Since he’s an android? And how does the airlock on the JLA watchtower know to open up for you?  And can you use the microwave?

It’s just a lot of stuff that confuses me. Me, who understands why the Hulk’s pants are always purple.

Yours,
Keith McGuffey

Dear Thing,

I have the same question for you that they did in the movie Mallrats.

Is your junk a rock too?

I assume it has to be since all of you is rock and you’re modest enough to wear man panties. What is your blood made of, some sort of liquid rock. For that matter, what is anything that comes out of your penis made of?

Do you shed like a turtle molting it’s shell? If the Baxter towers restrooms need new tile, does Mr. fantastic send a robot out to buy it or do they use peeled off scutes of orange rock to line their countertops? I hope it’s the former, because the latter sounds disgusting, both from a biological perspective and an interior design one.

If you get hurt, is it like that episode of star trek where that creature that burrows through rock gets injured and Dr. McCoy patches it up with quick dry cement instead of a bandage? When your unconscious ass gets hauled into the ICU, do any of the doctors ever say “Dammit man I’m a doctor not a bricklayer!”

Yours,
Keith McGuffey

Dear Hawkgirl,

I’m still really disappointed that you were used in the Justice League cartoon. You’re one of the few superheroes that can make people say, “Man, I really wish Aquaman was on this team instead.”  You’re easily the worst member of the team, because you only have one gimmick: Hit with mace.  Burglary at bank? Hit with mace.  Giant Cthulu monster attacking city? Hit with mace. Political tensions with foreign dictator at UN? Hit with mace. Missile hurtling towards Gorilla City? Hit with mace.

And I know what you’re thinking. “But Keith, surely you just make up ridiculous situations to prove how inept a superhero can be in said ridiculous situation.” But that last one is actually from an episode of Justice League.

Rarely does hit with mace attack actually work.  I can count on one hand the number of enemies you actually defeated in your time with the Justice League.  And one of those guys was Solomon Grundy, who came back to life like 4 episodes later. Batman did more throwing a spread of batarangs at Brainiac clones* than you did in 5 seasons.

Isn’t Hawkwoman a better name for you?  Especially for those times when the universe restarts and you’re married to Hawkman?  I’m just saying it’s creepy.  Invisible Woman made the change and so should you.  Or better yet, define your as some other bird of prey woman instead of being a character obviously created to go along with the male hero. Here are some ideas of names that still sell the bird/female thing:

Lady Osprey
The Cardinal Chick
Madam Falcon
Mrs. Eagle
Ostrich Woman
The Female Fowl
Lark Lass
Vulture Vulva

I’m REALLY sorry about that last one. That’s terrible. I was thinking about alliteration and that came out. Oh my god.  That’s awful. I could erase that, but that’s really funny in the most terrible way.

Yours (and sorry again),
Keith McGuffey

*In the season 2 episode “Twilight”. How is he so accurate with those things?!

Dear Matter-Eater Lad,

How low are the standards in the Legion of Superheroes that they let a guy who’s power is to eat anything? And it’s not really even a power, since everyone on your planet can do the same thing.  Why would anyone bring you on a mission? Wouldn’t it be easier for them to just keep you on retainer and then when there’s some super evil device that they can’t destroy they just beam you in to eat it?

You have basically the same weakness as a zombie. If you can’t bite me, then you’re just a normal guy. And judging from the latest season of Walking Dead, only the lowliest of background characters are allowed to be eaten.

How do you handle normal crime? A guy swipes a lady’s purse, Superman swoops in to punch him in the throat and teach him a lesson about how stealing isn’t the American way.  Cat stuck in a tree, Flash runs to nearby pet store to pick up some cat treats to lure out cat.  Someone steals a candy bar, do you eat his face, or do you eat the candy bar? Both seem pretty wrong.

How often does the decision of whether or not to eat a living person to save the day come up?

Yours,
Keith McGuffey

Dear Beast Boy,

My dad and I used to watch Teen Titans and try to guess which animal you would become next. It seems like ‘bear’ is an answer to most of the situations you’re flung into. Is there any other animal so majestic, so noble, so able to beat the stuffing out of Slade?  Maybe gorilla. Sometimes elephant. But bear, mighty bear combines the best of all worlds. If there were a way you could turn into a bear with wings, I don’t think you’d have a need to shapechange anymore. Just change your name to ‘Bear Bird’ and save the planet multiple times over.

I was really writing to find out what bathroom you prefer. It sounds like a stupid question, but do you turn into a human every time you need to use the restroom? Or is there a litter box in Titans Tower? Does Cyborg have to let you out if you turn into a dog? Who shovels your poop if you turn into a horse? Do the Teen Titans draw straws to figure out whose job is it to line the floors with newspapers each day, or do they just make Aqualad do it?  Do you ever get mad at someone and turn into a bird so you can shit on their car? Have you ever played a prank where you turn into a bunny and poop in the kitchen so people think it’s just chocolate chips?  Have you ever turned into a wombat so you can make square poops?  In Ace Ventura 2: When Nature Calls, they talk about how bat guano is a multimillion-dollar industry. Does any of the funding for the Titans’ base come from your poop?  Do you and Starfire have some sort of secret handshake that means, “Please turn into a cow and shit in my garden because my tomatoes look terrible.”  If you eat a big meal and then turn into an ant, do you still make human size poops, or is it the equivalent of a giant ant shit?

Please answer all of these questions. I just need to know so badly.

Yours,
Keith McGuffey

Dear Cyclops,

From my All-New All-Different X-Men pop-up book: “Cyclops’s eyes project a beam of HEATLESS ruby-colored force, capable of devastation and destruction.” So then why do your eye beams let you melt gold bricks in Lego Marvel Superheroes?

I know what you’re thinking: There’s no way a grown man wrote that first paragraph.  Well you’re wrong (and I’m embarrassed). I understand that you don’t control how video games are made, but do you even try to correct people when they say you have heat vision?

How do you do that thing where your eye beams bounce off of reflective surfaces?  How did you figure out what materials had that effect? I can only assume it looked like that YouTube video where a kid kicks a ball at the wall and it comes back and smacks him in the head.

How does one man have such a messed up family life? Your dad is a space pirate, your son is a time traveler with a cyborg arm, your other son who is genetically the same as the first one but technically different because his mother was a clone of Jean Grey instead of Jean Grey is one of the most powerful telepaths ever.  I thought my second cousin was my uncle and that’s thrown me off my entire life. How do you keep track of all of that family tree?

What really troubles me about you is the visor. I get that it holds back the doom rays emanating from your face, but that dial thing on the side that you have to turn every time you want to shoot something? That seems cumbersome. And it’s not like you got kidnapped and chained down to a table or something where you couldn’t reach your visor in like every other episode of the Saturday morning cartoon. Mr. Sinister is the greatest evil mastermind because he realizes how nerfed you are then you can’t reach your temple.  If I were you, I’d just have Jean Grey or Emma Frost or whatever telepathic hottie you’re banging this week project images of the surrounding environment into my head and keep my eyes closed. Then when she shows me trouble, open my eyes and leave a crater free of any danger a mile wide in front of me. And I could say really cool action hero lines like, “Guess the hand ISN’T faster than the eye.” (Feel free to use that.)

Yours,
Keith McGuffey

Dear Dazzler,

I’m going to keep this short, because there’s a lot to make fun of you for and I don’t typically write novels.

Is there a suckier power than yours?  Turning sound into light just seems like it would never be useful outside of a cave.  And even then, there’s a flashlight on my phone. Everyone tells me you can make the light into a laser and shoot it, and my argument is that Cyclops is already in the X-Men.

What I really hate about you is that you’re in one of my favorite arcade games ever: The super-cool 6 player X-Men arcade game. Inevitably, SOMEONE WILL HAVE TO PLAY AS DAZZLER. And when that happens, friendships get ruined. It’s an achievement on the Xbox to play through as every character, so I blew off robot heads with Cyclops, ripped up Blob with Wolverine, snapped alligator-man necks with Colossus, warped around in an awesome purple blur as Nightcrawler, summoned typhoons with the wand that Storm had for some reason, and then got really drunk and played through as you. And by ‘played’ I mean ‘walked on every deathtrap in the game.’

Seriously, I’m sure the rest of the X-Men apologize to their enemies any time you come into the room. You’re like what happens when someone with a huge crush on Jessica Simpson circa 2001 decides to make a comic book.

Yours,
Keith McGuffey

Dear Dr. Manhattan (‘s penis),

Lately, Facebook has been showing only the crotch of the superheroes associated with my blog.  I’ve decided that I should retaliate by writing to a superhero whose entire power is wrapped up in his junk.

Seriously.  They spent how many millions of dollars painstakingly and meticulously animating your penis, but didn’t even get the plot of the story right. Yeah, you were naked in the comics, but it was a modest, kind of had to squint, Michelangelo’s David sort of naked.  Not this incredibly detailed appendage I was in the front row on opening day for.

And I understand the argument is that you’re so detached from society because you have godlike powers that you don’t wear pants because you’re no longer human and no longer follow human customs, but I don’t buy it.  Brainiac wears underoos and so can you. Hell, even in depictions of the Christian god he’s usually wearing some sort of toga or whatever. Does a being made entirely of energy even need a penis?

I’ll move away from your penis now. There are more pressing issues.

I’m pretty sure you fall into the category of comic book scientist who is incredibly bad at science.  There’s only so many of you guys that can explode yourself before they stop handing out PhDs. Don’t any of you have grad students? That’s their job. You just delegate and let some schlub with a ponytail get turned into a Hulk or whatever.  I will always assume that you had an erection when your lab accident happened, and all your blood was being monopolized by your penis, which drew resources away from your brain and caused you not to think straight.

Sorry, I moved back towards your penis there.

In closing, I’d like to say that radioactive things should be green not blue, the depiction of the atom on your head is grossly outdated from the model currently used by scientists, and wear some fucking pants.

Yours,
Keith McGuffey

Dear Angel,

Is it hard being the weakest link of the X-Men?  Your only superpower is flight, and not even like supersonic flight or anything, you have like pigeon flight as a power.  Your main power is a secondary power. Your only power is a footnote on other characters.  Like Rogue is super strong and invulnerable and can suck out peoples’ powers and happens to fly. Or Magneto can lift bridges with his mind and stop bullets and happens to fly.  Or Jean Grey can mind control people and get possessed by a genocidal space parasite bird and happens to fly.  Or like how Storm can shoot lightning and make hurricanes and happens to fly.

And seriously, that’s off the top of my head and only X-Men.  There are THOUSANDS of examples of how your flight power is outdone.  What are you going to do in a fight, pick up Wolverine and drop him on a sentinel? As cool as that sounds*, the X-Men have a fucking jet!  Why, WHY are you on the team!?

The X-Men only keep you around because you’re rich, you know.

Yours,
Keith McGuffey

* And how improbable that is considering most birds are only able to carry only half their weight. Keith Facts!