Friday, July 29, 2011

Grudge Match: Little Lotta vs. Herbie Popnecker

This one was suggested by Sean Gaffney, the ultimate face-off of comic books' two greatest advertisements for obesity. Who would win a slow slugfest between

Little Lotta (Harvey Comics), a girl whose obesity gives her superhuman strength,



and

Herbie Popnecker (Forbidden Worlds), an obese boy with superhuman strength and any other power the story requires.



The smart money has to be on Herbie, simply because he has more powers and, as you can see at the link, can do literally anything. However, there is a case for Lotta, and it goes like this. As demonstrated in her comics, Lotta can beat up anyone. There is not a single superhero who would stand a chance against her; the girl has defeated entire armies.

Now, on the other hand, we're not talking about her going up against any old superhero here. Lotta would easily beat Superman, but Herbie would too, after first scaring the crap out of Superman with his icy glare. Herbie is basically the comics predecessor to (or since he appeared after the short story was published, equivalent of) that kid in "It's a Good Life" from The Twilight Zone: he has absolute God-like power and all adults are terrified of him.

But the argument for Lotta is that Lotta is simply too stupid to be scared of anybody. She once defeated lions and the Ancient Roman army without ever realizing she was doing it, because she is such a moron that she didn't know it was impossible. Up against an opponent who is too stupid to scare, Herbie may find himself at a loss.

As I said, Herbie probably wins this, but there's a chance that Lotta simply grabs a bus and crushes him with it, before he realizes what's going on. An alternate scenario is that they team up to take over the world, but then we'd be looking at a future where every important government post on earth is held by one of Little Dot's uncles.

2 comments:

Jorge Garrido said...

My money's on Lotta!

VariousVarieties said...

This video clip shows Alan Moore being asked who his favourite superhero is. Rather than just saying Spider-Man or Batman, he replies with Herbie the Fat Fury, and gives enthusiastic descriptions of some of Herbie's adventures. He's right, he does talk a bit like Rorschach from Watchmen!

Endorsement from Alan Moore is enough to tip this match in Herbie's favour.