Unbreakable

The 2017 Great Villain Blogathon is a tribute to the greatest, most sinister and most memorable antagonists in film history, presented by Speakeasy, Shadows & Satin and Silver Screenings. For a complete list of participating bloggers, visit the links at any of these sites.

Unbreakable
from my DVD collection

Elijah Price? Dude, there's no way he did all the things they say he did. I mean, if he were a billionaire like Lex Luthor, he could've afforded it. If he were a mutant like Magneto, he'd have the physical power, for sure. Hell, if he had some crazy-ass weapon, like Captain Cold's freeze gun or Weather Wizard's wand or like any of a million other small-time hoods, he could do some damage, at least. Price? He was some guy in a wheelchair.

I should know. He came into my comic shop one night!

Okay, before I get into that, let me say something up front: that so-called "superhero" from the papers? The one they say dropped a dime on Price to begin with? Lamest. Superhero. EVER. I remember reading about how he saved those girls from that psycho who had them tied up - and hey, he did a great job there - but a poncho for a costume? Seriously? I'll admit, the hood gives him a certain Moon Knight kinda look, or maybe even the Spectre if he were drawn by Mike Mignola, but it's so... ordinary. He doesn't even have a cool chest emblem like Daredevil or Nightwing that crooks can shoot their guns at instead of his head because, y'know, superstitious and cowardly.

Sorry. Needed to vent about that.

But dude! Lemme tell you how I met Elijah Price - or should I call him "Mr. Glass"? (Semi-dorky, yet kinda catchy, alias. I could imagine a Batman villain with that name.) The boss had left a couple of hours earlier. I had just completed the pull lists for that week, and I was goofing around on the Net, in a Marvel chat room, trying to convince this one douche bag why a Spider-Man movie where he has organic webshooters is the worst idea in the history of bad ideas. (Raimi better not mess it up further.)

I must have been pretty focused because I didn't hear Price come in. I saw his head near the adult comics section but I was too into my flame war to bother with him. I do recall kicking out of the store a couple of kids who thought we sold Donald Duck comics. What did they think this place was?

Anyway, I look up at one point and it's twenty after and I realize I gotta get ready to close! I finished off my douche bag opponent with a brief but detailed summation of the importance of Peter Parker's technical and scientific knowhow to the Spider-Man mythos - along with a gratuitous insult about Douche Bag's mother - and shut down the computer.

I didn't notice Price was in a wheelchair at first. He struck me as being more like the Chief from Doom Patrol than Professor X, at least at first - maybe because of his funny hairdo? He hadn't bought anything. I tried to hurry him along. I was hungry and wanted to stop at Popeye's on my way home before they closed.

Fifteen minutes later and he's still there. He's all quiet and brooding, like Bruce Wayne thinking about his dead parents. You know how it is when customers come in at like, five minutes before closing and take forever to decide what to buy? That had happened to me twice last week!

Enough was enough. I grabbed the handles on his chair and pushed him towards the door, because he wasn't doing anything other than sitting there, not even reading.

Then get this! He jerks his chair to the side and smashes into a table! He does this two more times, causing comics and displays to fall. Finally, I said forget it. I'm calling the cops. Let them deal with this mofo.

Just as I'm calling, though, he finally decides to buy a comic! It was an old issue of Sentryman, of all things: a Captain America knock-off from one of those second-rate publishers from the 70s, Charlton or Gold Key or Dell or one of those. I told him he was better off getting a Simon/Kirby Fighting American trade paperback, but he wanted Suckyman instead.

You know the rest. The police cuffed him later on, after getting tipped by Poncho Man, and the whole story about what Price supposedly did broke in the papers. I went to that art gallery of his, Limited Edition, before it closed permanently. I didn't even know it existed.

There was no one there but some old black lady, but check this out: he had all this original comic art on display. I saw a Curt Swan Superman page, some Neal Adams Green Lantern/Green Arrow covers, some Buscema Avengers, even some pages by Chaykin and Starlin - and wouldn't you know it? There was even a Sentryman page.

Price's trial starts next Monday. They say he'll probably plead insanity. I dunno, dude... he's a comics fan. He's one of us. There's just no way someone who reads stories about heroes, people risking their lives to protect the rest of us, can be evil.

Is there?

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Previously:
Superman II
Robot Monster