Ex-linebacker Phil Graysfield runs around fighting football-related crimes wearing the NFL corporate logo on his ridiculous but colourful costume. His suit would actually make an awesome football or BB uniform, but this comic, which ran for twelve issues plus a Superbowl special, has to be the lamest thing I ever heard of. Note that the first issue boasts a special appearance by Spider Man, which pretty much screams "we have no confidence in this concept." What I really don't get is that he's an EX-footballer, which naturally has me thinking that every linebacker out there is in better shape than he is. So what sort of superhero is he? Oh yeah, a lame one.

Billy Moon, unemployed former soldier and Roller Derby Skater fights crime with a utility belt and roller skates. His sidekick, a street kid named Paco, rides a motorized skateboard. Skateman likes to kick his opponents in the face while wearing roller skates, which I guess is kinda badass, but he's a normal human with no superpowers and he wears roller skates! He's a martial artist and former soldier, yet he decides to base his superhero identity on roller skating? Did I mention he's unemployed? This guy is a total loser.

Black Lightning is embarrassing. Not that his powers suck: he can generate, project, and absorb electricity. Ok, that's pretty cool. It's not that his first series only ran 12 issues, and that his career played out in other characters' titles. No, it's that he actually wore an afro wig as part of his costume, so that he could appear more "urban" than the olympic athlete that he was. Having already made the Panther-esque hero Luke Cage for Marvel comics, Tony Isabella went one step further for DC's coloured content, creating a black man who goes out of his way to talk jive. Throw in a goofy wig and a superhero name that actually references his race, and we got ourselves a pretty glaring bit of tokenism.

I suppose Flatman shouldn't really be here, since he's a joke character, a member of the Great Lakes Avengers, which was never a serious team, but really. He's Mr Fantastic, right down to the costume, except that he's nearly two-dimensional. To contrast with Mr Fantastic, he's also really stupid, apart from an extensive knowledge of fashion. Marginally interesting as an out gay character, but Marvel already had plenty of those, so so what? A completely derivative character, with a pretty stupid name.

Doorman's power is that he can teleport anything! Wow! But the limitation is that he can only move it from one room to the next. Hence the name Doorman, and golly what a lot of things a hero could do with a power like that! Once you think of some, please send him an email, because he's pretty much sitting at home these days watching UFC.

Apart from having a title that sounds like a sarcastic nickname thrown at you by your wife, Mr Terrific is a pretty awful character. Burdened with such genius and talent that he had accomplished all of his goals early in life, this hero considers suicide before accidentally realizing that he could use his amazing strength, speed, intelligence, business acumen, etc to help people less fortunate than he is. What a star. Later in life he passes on the mantle to a successor, an equally-talented guy with similar suicidal tendencies. Yup, this concept was so strong we now have two suicidal rich guys named Mr Terrific. Whee.

Wonderman goes down in history as the first case of copyright infringement in the comic book industry. Charged by a former DC accountant to create a Superman-like character, Wil Eisner produced Wonderman, who could fly, stop bullets with his chest, see great distances, you get the idea. He wasn't from another planet though; he got his powers from a Tibetan monk. The lawsuit succeeded, and Wonderman ended after exactlly one issue.

Emma Frost has awesome powers, and a lot of them. Emma Frost can turn her skin to hard diamond. Emma Frost can read minds and blast people with brain-bolts so they pass out. Emma Frost is really smart and good with computers. Emma Frost looks like a swimsuit model and she wears lingerie all the time! I love Emma Frost! I wish she were my girlfriend! Jeez, I've never seen such a cynical assault on nerds since Vampirella, and honestly, she was a vampire. She's supposed to be vampy. If Emma's powers had anything to do with seduction, her costume would make sense. As it is, guys, just buy the regular porn and we'll stop laughing at you. A little.

Ok, I admit I liked this show when I was in high school. That done, it was a pretty weak concept. Apart from giving us that #1 pop hit (and years later George Costanza's awesome answering machine message!), there was little reward to the idea of a high school teacher with an alien supersuit who lost the instruction book that showed him how it worked. That was the one gag the show had, so we had to deal week after week with the embarrassment of watching him fly into walls and cover his face when shot at because he wasn't sure if the suit protected the parts of his body it didn't actually cover. He just looked like a dork, and the haircut didn't help. Season Two had the aliens return with a new instruction book, but he lost it again when he shrunk himself down to microscopic size and then dropped it before returning to normal. Believe it or not!

OK, a lot of people pick on Matter Eater Lad for having a useless power: he could eat anything. In the real world, he'd be really handy at cleaning up pollution, but yawn, as a superhero you'd have to come up with a pretty crazy scenario to make him valuable at all. Which is what the Legion of Superheroes did: faced with the terrible might of the Miracle Machine, which could make thoughts into reality, and which was likely to be used to destroy the entire universe (gulp!), they asked Matter Eater Lad if he would be a dear and just eat the darn thing. Which he did, with a side of fries and a coke. Hooray! He retired after that and went into politics on his home planet of Bismoll (seriously). Anyway, what I think is lamest about this guy is his name. "The Devourer" or "All-Consumer" would have rocked, or at least been more palatable than this one. I figure no superhero should come up with a name that criminals can't say when they're drunk. And come on: "Lad" instead of "Boy?" Or better yet, "Man?" We're not kids forever, you idiot.