There’s this guy named Matthew Hess. He’s the president of MGMbill.org, a lobbying group with the goal of criminalizing the circumcision of any male under the age of 18 anywhere in the United States. It turns out he has a creative side, and is the author of a short series of comic books about an anti-circumcision superhero named Foreskin Man.
Yes, I’m serious. No, you’re not the only one fighting off that mental image.
Foreskin Man protects innocent babies from the forces of evil, who will stop at nothing to cut the bibbity flibbity yabbida ha these comics are really awful. Just awful. There are only two issues and they’re not long, so you shouldn’t hesitate to check them out if you don’t mind your brain infected with this sophomoric trash. Nothing about them deserves attention other than that they exist in the first place, and are sort of darkly funny in the way that people with no sense of humor can sometimes be funny without meaning to be, or noticing. Let’s go on a journey to find out why!
The journey begins with character cards. Marvel Comics released its first trading cards in 1990, and my friends and I were absolutely enthralled. They were like baseball cards, only better. Sure, Robin Yount had a .990 lifetime fielding percentage, but we were all pretty sure he couldn’t spin a web, or win a fistfight using echolocation in lieu of eyesight. Marvel cards were great, and even managed to include some good socializing messages: Spiderman’s elderly Aunt May got her own hero card for her volunteer work at a homeless shelter. I’m pretty sure those cards paved the way for the modern-day viability of trading cards devoted to anything other than professional sports. It seems only natural, then, that Foreskin man—I’m going to stop apologizing after this, but really, that’s his name—would have cards devoted to him, his heroic friends and his shockingly implausible enemies.
Try not to look at the emblem on his chest. Oops! You looked! Yes, that’s a stylized cross-section of an uncircumcised penis. I have to give credit for bravery to anyone who goes out in public wearing such a thing.
I’m a little unclear about this: plasma boots? His power is that he has special boots that let him fly? How does that leave him uniquely equipped to fight circumcisers? I’ve attended several ritual circumcisions (including my own), and every one of them has taken place at or near ground level, not up in the air.
Say it with me: The Museum of Genital Integrity.
Why would anyone organize a museum dedicated to a cause they feel passionately about, only to build it on a small island? Wouldn’t that limit exposure? Also, since San Diego is part of the California mainland, how is this island surrounded by San Diego’s beaches?
Final thought: Does Miles Hastwick shave his goatee every time he becomes Foreskin Man, or does he just go around wearing a fake beard without anyone noticing?
There’s something painfully clunky about the phrase, “the eyes and ears for Foreskin man,” don’t you think? Too many body parts.
You know, that burning sensation may not be love’s passion. Probably best to drop by urology when your next shift is over.
There’s a trend that runs pretty consistently through this series: The villains have foreign-sounding names while the heroes have silly ones that sound comfortably English (unless they’re righteous ethnic persons). I’ll grant you that subtlety is not what comic books are about, but I had hoped that we, a society shaped by multiple waves of immigration, would be able to work past those sorts of biases. “Hess” is a German name, you know.
If he really trades medicine for madness, shouldn’t his alter ego be called Mr. Mutilator?
Dehumanizing physicians who perform procedures you don’t like? Yeah, that always ends well.
To be honest, I’m having trouble coming up with snark for some of these cards. They do such a good job of ridiculing themselves that I am left feeling that I have nothing else to contribute.
Did you know that there really is a San Diego General Hospital? It’s true. Most responsible writers of fiction come up with fake institutions, even if they’re only thinly veiled stand-ins for real ones, in order to avoid issues of libel or misuse of a name. Hudson University is a neat and tidy example.
This is one weird-looking baby. Seriously, if Marlon Brando and Peter Lorre were to have a son, and that son were raised to adulthood just so his face could be grafted onto an infant, the result might look something like this kid.
This is at least relatable. I know I’d be unnerved if I learned that a company in which I’d invested much of my accumulated wealth were trafficking in infant foreskins.
Wait. What?
What kind of sense does that make? Of what possible use is an excised foreskin to anyone? (If you know the answer, please promise never to tell me.)
I can’t articulate why, but for some reason I find this the most surreal card so far. Guy flying around with a penis on his chest? Two words: Southern California. A doctor who gets all enormous-teeth-and-no-neck whenever he sees an intact foreskin? Well, I once knew a girl who was terrified of balloons, so I guess some people just react badly when presented with certain stimuli. Marlon Brando and Peter Lorre having a kid? Try and prove that it didn’t happen. But a trade in foreskins? I got nothing beyond an old dirty vaudeville joke. No, I’m not telling it.
One more thing: If you don’t know the difference between an ellipsis and a comma, consider that your wordsmithery may not yet be fit for publication.
Oh hell, where do I even start? My first point has to be something about Jews as drinkers of children’s blood, or the implication that murder is a justifiable means of preventing circumcision, or maybe just the weird way the artist drew his beard. For lack of time (more yours than mine, honestly), let’s just say that everything on this card is wrong, wrong, wrong.
I learned the word years ago, and I still can’t say “intactivist” with a straight face.
Sarah Sacks married for money. She’s Jewish, after all.
Jethro Sacks is rich. He’s Jewish, after all.
Note the ethnic card again: “Sarah Sacks” is a pretty mainstream-sounding name with a Jewish tint, while “Jethro” sounds conspicuously foreign. Incidentally, I know a lot of Jews, and I’ve never met anyone named Jethro in my life.
Phew! Back to safe, cozy English surnames!
How many people can honestly say that they’ve always been passionate about protecting boys from circumcision? Was this a childhood hobby of Miah Redstone’s? I can only imagine what her Scholastic book orders looked like.
Glick? This boy’s given name is Glick? The name Glick is not all that uncommon among Jews of Eastern European ancestry, but it’s a surname. “Glick Sacks” is about as plausible a name for a baby boy as “Smith Murphy.”
Fun fact: It’s extremely unusual for adults to have any non-confabulated memories dating from before their second birthdays. The average age for the earliest concrete memory is around three years.
Is it me, or does “Amanda Pagan” sound almost, but not quite, like the subject of one of Bart Simpson’s crank calls?
One of the quirks of this narrative is that it takes place in a world where circumcision is a major, divisive political issue rather than a mundane practice opposed by some fringe groups. I guess if you’re part of the fringe, the world might look something like that.
Though I’ve never served as a mohel’s apprentice, I have been around the block, seen a few sights, learned a few things. In my experience, when situations get out of control the best people to have around are level-headed, pragmatic, flexible thinkers. Depravity almost never helps.
What kind of name is Yerik? My guess is that his parents wanted to call him Yirmeyahu, the Hebrew equivalent of Jeremiah, but his mother hiccuped when she was dictating the birth certificate. No wonder the poor guy turned to crime.
You know what they say about Hasidic Jews and automatic weapons, right? No? Too bad. I have no idea what they say, but the author seems to believe it’s a thing.
The Frequently Asked Questions section of MGMbill.org insists that there are plenty of Jews involved in this movement, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Matthew Hess probably doesn’t know too many of them personally. The names of Jewish males in this series consist of one heavily anglicized Biblical name that nobody uses (Jethro), an Ashkenazi surname (Glick), and two gibberish names (Yerik and Jorah) that probably sound Biblical to people who don’t know the Bible very well. Tool Tip: The Hebrew language has no indigenous J sound.
It’s not fair. It’s really, really unfair. I’m trying to criticize, analyze, and maybe just mock this series, which necessarily involves pointing out things that aren’t 100% bloody obvious. What am I supposed to do with a character named Tia Kumming who looks like a porn star and appears in a comic book series about things that happen to penises? It’s just not fair.
If I were a gambling man, I would bet good money that this is an author proxy character. Motorcycle, long hair blowing in the breeze, devil-may-care attitude toward society’s rules—much cooler than a guy who runs a web site to advocate for a misguided yet well-intentioned law that would be overturned on constitutional grounds within five minutes of its theoretical passage. And dude, his name is his job! Like an anti-circumcision vigilante Berenstain Bear. Note once again the implication in the final line that murder is a good way to deal with people who perform circumcisions.
That’s all I have for now. Tune in next time when we review the first issue of Foreskin Man, in which our hero defeats Dr. Mutilator by the clever stratagem of punching him in the face. Really, that’s it. Did I mention that these comics are awful?
Posted on June 5, 2011
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