Today at ComicsAlliance, I’ve used the recent release of Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver to revive one of the ISB’s most punishing recurring features: Chris vs. Pokemon!

I’ve done these articles before as a punishment for my readers, but this time things are different, as I’m joined by CA contributor David Uzumeri, who rose to the challenge admirably, even dropping science like the equation seen above. So if you want to see us eventually work our way through all 453 (or whatever) Pokemon, leave a comment and let ‘em know!

A new month brings a new Previews Catalog, and once again I’m your guide through 500 pages of ephemera with an all-new Chris vs. Previews, featuring luchadores, zombies, and a joke about Bring It On.

Because really, what else would you expect from me?

I’m not going to lie to you guys. Cubone is messed up.

On the one hand, Cubone not only wears armor and uses weapons, which makes him a badass, but the armor and weapons are made of bones, which makes him some kind of super-metal caveman badass. He’s not just going to use Quick Attack on your enemies, this little guy’s going to beat them unconscious with the bones of his fallen enemy. He is rude.

On the other hand, things start to get a little weird once you find out that his helmet is made from the skull of his dead mother, and is less an affirmation of rudeness than the source of Cubone’s profound psychological problems. And from there on in, he becomes the Saddest Pokémon Ever.

According to our pals over at Bulbapedia…

During the night, it cries for its lost mother and it is unable to let go of the memory of her. Its cries echo within the skull and it comes out as a pained and sad melody that can travel
for miles around its mountain homeland. Sometimes, it can emit mournful sounds during the day. On the night of a full moon, its cries are the loudest – for it seems to recognize its mother’s face in the moon.

Jesus, man. I think I need to go sit down for a minute.

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And here we have another fine example of the “fuck it, just draw a face on whatever you had for lunch” school of Pokémon design.

Anyway, as you can tell from the picture above, Shroomish is an angry mushroom that really ought to evolve into an angrier mushroom called Wartobello, but doesn’t. And really, I don’t want to belabor the obvious here, but come on, Shroomish. There have been a lot of video games about angry mushrooms. You’re not really adding anything to the conversation here.

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So, uh… it’s not just me, right? You guys see a really super-racist caricature of a Jewish robot too?

Christ. And I thought Jynx was bad.

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And then there was the time that they just cold drew a face on a vagina and put it in a children’s game.

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Straight up, y’all: Snorlax. Is. The Motherfucker.

This dude goes where he wants, when he wants. And if he decides he wants to sleep on the highway, then guess what? You better find your ass a flute and start putting out some slow jams, because otherwise you are going nowhere, son. Literally all this guy right here does is eat, sleep, and beat ass. That is it.

He is living the American Dream.

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Special thanks to Evie and her mental Pokédex.

#126: Magmar

Oh now what is this bullshit?

According to Bulbapedia, Magmar here has characteristics of both a salamander–the one from the Monster Manual, not the one from science class–and a duck, and that is just fantastic. Big ups to whatever mad elder god responsible for this world of junior-league cockfights decided it would be a good idea to combine an elemental fire lizard with nature’s least threatening creature. Great job.

I mean, look at this guy, it’s like he was assembled from spare parts, capped off with the forehead of Exeter from This Island Earth. It’s like Charmeleon mated with a Koopa Troopa’s hillbilly cousin and the kid was raised on moonshine.

You’re a biter, Magmar. A fake-ass, buster-ass biter.

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#288: Vigoroth

Vigoroth was a sadistic tyrant of Carpathia, a kingdom located in the Carpathian Mountains in central Romania. Self-described as the “Scourge of Carpathia” and “the Sorrow of Moldavia,” he was also known as “Vigoroth the Cruel, Vigoroth the Torturer, Vigoroth the Despised, and Vigoroth the Unholy.” His quote, “On a mountain of skulls in a castle of pain, I sat on a throne of blood,” sums up his ruling style and the probable reasons why he was not well-loved by his subjects. An apparent expert in sorcery and black magic Vigoroth enjoyed an unnaturally long life which came to a very unnatural end when he was poisoned, stabbed, shot, hanged, stretched, disemboweled, drawn and quartered by his own people. As the story goes, as his severed head lay dying, it prophesized that “death is but a doorway; time is but a window – I’ll be back.”

No, wait… sorry, that was Vigo the Carpathian. Vigoroth here is actually some kind of albino monkey, with claws, I guess? And that’s kind of cool, but it’d probably be a lot cooler if he fought Bill Murray.

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#279: Pelipper

GAH!

Jeez! That thing looks like one of those drawings where you look at it one way and it’s an old crone, but then you look at it another way and it’s a hideous giant-mouthed bird monster. And yet, as disturbing as it is–what with its dead, glassy eyes and the fact that its mouth extends all the way around to its… tailfeathers–it’s not actually intimidating, is it? I mean, these things are supposed to fight each other, right? Pelipper doesn’t look like he’s capable of movement, let alone combat. What’s it gonna do, creep you out so bad that it gets the forfeit? It’s not that weird, all things considered.

Unless… oh man. This thing can talk, can’t it? I bet it sounds like Kuato.

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#62: Poliwrath

Now this is more like it. Poliwrath rules.

First off, his name: It means many angers. That alone puts him ahead. Then, just look at the guy. He is not here to mess around. He looks like a bouncer at an alien strip club who will hypnotize you with his body-spiral and then punch you in the face. He’s the Hypno-Hustler of the Pokemon world.

And he wears gloves. Why? Because he’s classy.

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