Visit the original place where these letters of comment appeared ar the Avengers Message Board

See Ian's parody fan fiction from Baron Zemo's Lair at The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom

Doc Sampson's Problem Page

Note: This piece comes from January 1999, around the time that volume 3 #12 was out, if it helps to work out the in-jokes.

A full bag of problems from readers today, starting with JvanD from upstate NY:

Dear Doc,

I am a woman who was either recently divorced or divorced in the mid 80's depending on whether you believe John Byrne or not. My ex-husband had a history of mental illness and beat me up as well as trying to hurt all my friends. He did all the usual things - calling me names, resenting me trying to help him with my countless millions, building giant robots to destroy my super-team. Eventually I had to get rid of him and have a mad fling with playboy AS and international mercenary Paladin. I thought I was over him.

Then I found myself inexplicably pairing up with him again, despite his improbably long scarf. I even forgave him when his experiments first turned me giant size in my agent's swimming pool and then into a giant bug. I found I would follow him anywhere, even into the Liefieldverse, from which I was able to return as a vapid airhead characterised as I was during my first appearances in the early '60's (or June 1994 Eastern Byrne Time).

Some of my friends think this complete reversal undercuts a decade of careful character development. But what I really want to know is, do you think this retro blue and red costume goes with these earrings?

Doc replies: Well, JvanD, lots of divorced couples find themselves reverting to old patterns of behaviour briefly, reuniting for a fling and then feeling guilty about it. Take John Byrne and Roger Stern for example. They were a solid duo back when they wrote Captain America during the early '80's, putting out some of the best work on the title ever. Then they split up. Now they have briefly reunited for one last almighty continuity f***up. My advice is to hang in there and hope that Avengers Forever does something interesting with you.

Next up we have Resurrected of Hollywood:

Dear Doc, For a while now I've been having these feelings about my sister-in-law. She's a wonderful woman, caring and forgiving, who really just wants a man to make her complete like all 1960's superheroines. She doesn't mind that I murdered a couple of people in my own comic book, just as she forgave her husband when he tried to take over the world by downloading his consciousness into computers, and her brother when he tried to kill off the Avengers using the zodiac robots.

I haven't been able to stop thinking about her. I have a copy of the banned bondage cover of Avengers#3 posted in my locker. I came back from the dead and endangered all New York with the Grim Reaper just to be with her. Now our relationship has reached a new physical level, although like her husband I don't need to use birth control methods, in my case because I'm entirely composed of ionic energy and roll-top sweaters. My question is, when it comes to the sex scenes, should I get a body double?

Doc replies: It sounds as though your family relationships are a little complicated. Think through what you are doing. You wouldn't want your sister-in-law's children to grow up to be supervillains in a complicated multi-part crossover would you? Isn't one brother trying to wipe out you and your team enough? Why haven't you visited your old mother? Why don't you just forget this unhealthy obsession and go after that fat girl from the Wonder Years painted series?

Then we hear from AJ, a troubled teenager who is having Boyfriend Problems:

Dear Doc,

I don't know what to do. My boyfriend is dragging me into some pretty heavy stuff and I don't know if I'm ready for it. He has made me join this new gang who are not like our old friends at all. They want me to wear this sort of costume which is very tight and revealing down the front and do all kinds of dangerous things with them. V---- is very excited about it all and won't stop talking about them.

Things aren't going too well in the romance department. My friend Bonita says that its good to Save Myself for my wedding night because God frowns on whore sluts like Crystal. My other friend Carol says itsh all right and my body'sh mine to do with what I like, shister, =hic=. Meanwhile V----'s character regresses about two years every issue and is probably too young to have hit puberty by now anyway.

Do you think I should just give up and date the Beast?

Doc replies: Well, AJ, this is America in the late 90's (at least until the next continuity revision) and you are an Avenger so by now you should be involved in at least one love triangle and be sleeping with at least two team-mates and a supervillain. Look around you. There must be one or two teammates your friend Crystal hasn't had.

Finally, we hear from a Patriot:

Dear Doc

What is becoming of America today? Where are the values of my youth like thrift, oppressive labour laws, the Bowery, and world wars? Everywhere I look I see things going to the dogs.

Take superheroes for example. There was a time when all male superheroes had to be a god before they could have either long hair or strange speech patterns. Now they all have improbable hairstyles and specialised lettering typefaces by ComicCraft. And why can't they all be called sensible things like Giant Man or the Human Torch? Now they have names like Grunge and Spleen and Trollop and belong to groups with improbable X's in their names.

Some of the people I work with are no better. Only recently a longtime colleague wiped humanity's memory clean of his secret identity. I have had to speak with T--- before about this kind of thing when he attacked federal employees and enabled a major prison break and later when he murdered two Avengers associates, crippled a teammate, and attempted to conquer the universe for the time-travelling Kang (steroid version). That time he was so ashamed that he came back as a teenager. Now he seems to be suffering no remorse at all apart from an allergy to iron.

All of this is having an effect on me. I had one bad dream in which I thought I was married to a Life Model Decoy and had a Jubilee-clone/Dark Knight sidekick Bucky. Then there was the one where I was in this team-up with lots of pointless characters I had never seen before fighting some villainous race with no dramatic potential or interesting features. Now I seem to be having relationship problems with my on-again off-again girlfriend Sharon. She isn't the sweet girl she was, even in retcon flashbacks in my second title. She snaps at me for no reason, like when I told her that my last girlfriend stopped dying her hair pink so that I wouldn't be ashamed of her and she told me where I could activate my new visual effects shield.

Do you think there is any hope of a return to the good old days?

Doc replies: Your best hope is to get Tom DeFalco as a writer. He will rehash every old Stan Lee plotline to death, ignoring any character development that has taken place since 1969.

Well that's about it for this column. I hope that the Norwegian person who wrote in last time trying to contact his long lost family has had some success, and that CB found a way of convincing his new friends to just say no to supervillainy. Until next time, this is Leonard Samson wishing you good mental health.