Captain America: Return of the Asthma Monster - Atop the Fourth Wall

Welcome to Atop the Fourth Wall, where bad comics burn. In this episode, Linkara looks at a PSA comic about asthma and the monster that wants to spread it!

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Originally uploaded August 8th, 2011.

ORIGINAL INFO: Yes, a villain so good that people DEMANDED his return! After all, YOU remember the asthma monster, right?

RUMINATIONS: At some point I really need to do a review of the first asthma monster comic, which I do have (though not in great condition). I think my problem with reviewing it is that I doubt there’s anything I could say about it that isn’t already covered here – the asthma monster’s motivation makes zero sense, the PSA elements are fine, and the overall story, while stupid, would be fine for anyone looking for information about it. That being said, I haven’t actually taken a close look at the original comic, so it’s entirely likely there are whole NEW stupid things about it.

There’s something very upbeat and fun about the theme from the Reb Brown Captain America series. I mean, I much prefer the music from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but there’s something nicely seventies and happy about the song that I think could have worked for a series if the pilot movies hadn’t sucked so much.

This episode marks the beginning of the ending credits Entity messages. The idea was to play a sort of augmented reality game with the audience by providing them with single-frame clues about the Entity that would all make sense once it was completed. However, my audience took it a step further in a manner I really WISH I had thought of – leaving coded messages into the comments section of the blog using a text formatting that would make it look really weird, like a jumble of scribbles and melted text all together. The only aspect that I really build on that was that I claimed to my audience when they questioned me about it that I “didn’t see anything.” The inspiration for this was Marble Hornets, the webseries about Slenderman. One of the messages, “I’m not that thin,” was deliberately put in there because I figured people would say that the Entity was Slenderman (and they did).