Thursday Thirteen #6: Beta Ray Goodness

Welcome one and all to Lost Hemisphere’s sixth entry into the world of Thurday Thirteening.

This time around I’m not going to serve you up a heaping platter of VS card art, nor am I going to bandy about a pile of comics or otherwise assault your senses with visuals to bedazzle, bemuse and beguile.

Rather, this Thursday Thirteen is dedicated to Lost Hemisphere’s spokesalien – the wonderful, the spiffy-keen, the probably-doesn’t-taste-like-chicken Beta Ray Bill!

You see, I’m addicted to underdogs – D-Listers are a source of enormous glee for me… and while Beta Ray Bill commands as much (if not more) power than Avengers heavy-hitter Thor, he’s been consistently relegated to the abyss of comic stardom, most likely due to a giggle-worthy name and a face only a zombie horse could love.

He still amuses the heck out of me though, and was thus adopted as Lost Hemisphere’s mascot and fictional front-man. To that end, I present thirteen factoids about Beta Ray Bill.

1. He’s an accidental Asgardian. When Bill first appeared in comic history, he threw down with Thor – that’s right, one of Marvel’s heaviest hitters – and held his own. Separating Thor from Mjolnir, Bill got confused when both his opponent and his opponent’s weapon vanished, leaving behind a puny human and a stick. Whacking said stick against a wall, Bill proved his worthiness as the stick turned back into Mjolnir and gifted Bill with the power of Thor. Hilarity ensues, as Thor’s own daddy mistakes the horse-faced Beta Ray Thor for his own flaxen-haired son.

2. He likes it hot. Korbinites thrive under a hot climate. I mean, we’re talking volcanic hot, not just a week in Jamaica. This worked to Bill’s advantage when Odin, being the loving father that he is, decreed that Bill and Thor should battle to the death in Skartheim to see who got to keep Mjolnir. Skartheim’s got a lot of lava, ya see. 

3. He’s battled the biggest ego there is. Id, Ego, Superego, ignore all that psychoanalysis crap – I’m talking about Ego, The Living Planet. While trying to shepherd the Korbinites through space, Bill and his peeps came across Ego who’d been driven mad by a propulsion unit that had been slapped on him. I have to agree, I think someone slapping an enormous jet engine on my butt would have an effect on my sanity too.

4. He’s a war veteran. Aside from all the usual comic guff, including fighting to save his people and all that jazz, Beta Ray Bill has a human host – an American veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder who had sadly died in an alley. Marvel may have been commenting on the state of veterans and their treatment in the U.S., I dunno.

5. He’s also been a corpsman. Who are we to question the wisdom of Marvel’s editting peeps? Heck, we’re the fans! Power to the people! In the late 80’s some bright spark at Marvel came up with the idea that if one Thor is groovy, then four would be groovalicious! The Thor Corps even had a four-issue miniseries… oddly appropriate since there were four members, including the much maligned Eric Masterson, aka Thunderstrike.

6. He don’t need no stick. Throughout Thor’s history of using alternate identities, Thor has maintained a wooden walking stick in his human form that would transform into his uru hammer, Mjolnir, when struck on the ground. Bill needs no such contrivances – he just slaps the ground with his hand to spark the transformation from Simon Walters to Beta Ray Bill! Some sources will refer to his using a cane, but they’re just trying to drag Bill down to Thor’s level. For shame!

7. He believes in scuttlebutt. Well, more like Skuttlebutt. This is the unlikely appelation afforded his interdimensional means of transport,  a heavilly armed, heavilly armoured, sentient space battleship with a female personality that can act completely independently of Bill, even to the point of repairing itself. General Motors needs to learn that trick. 

8. He doesn’t get sick. One of the joys of being created by the merging of a carnivorous equine-like alien with cyborg bits is apparently an immunity to pretty much all known diseases. I’m not sure that’s much of a trade-off for being given the job of safeguarding your people, all the while not really looking like any of them, and knowing that there’s no such thing as a Beta Ray Betty.

9. He’s the ultimate survivor. well, maybe penultimate, since Galactus is supposed to be the last survivor of a universe that existed before this one…. but Beta Ray Bill was billed not only the last surviving Korbinite, he’s the last survivor of the “Burning Galaxy”. That’s right, an entire bloody galaxy. Take THAT, Jeff, Probst!

10. Michael Avon Oeming like him. Why is this significant? Cos Oeming wrote not only the seminal mini Stormbreaker: The Saga of Beta Ray Bill, but he also wrote Bill’s most recent appearance, the Omega Flight mini. I actually accosted Oeming at a convention to demand why, three issues into the series, I hadn’t seen Bill. It turns out Oeming had plans for an ongoing with much more Billy goodness, but Marvel decided to cut him off at a miniseries. Bah.

11. Bill converted to Norse religion. When you’re the last surviving member of your entire freakin’ species, it’s not surprising that you’d question the faith of your forebears… but when he was adopted by Marvel’s Asgardians, he took on their belief system wholeheardly. I guess meeting the “gods” themselves could have that effect on a guy. 

12. Bill can kick Galactus’ Herald’s butt. According to a discussion at comicbookresources, the general consensus is that Bill would win in a throwdown against any of Galactus’ goons with the exception of the Silver Surfer. In comics, of course, it all barrels down to who’s doing the writing and whose title it’s printed in, but it’s nice to see I’m not the only one with a healthy respect for Bill’s bifftastic nature.

13. He’s not the first. When the Korbinites first decided to create an artificial being to be their cosmic guardian, they created Alpha Ray. Unfortunately, Alpha Ray was a fruit loop. Bill was their second attempt, and has had to spank Alpha Ray and put him back in his box on more than one occasion.

So there you go. Thirteen pieces of Bill trivia. Eat it up, then go buy the Stormbreaker TPB and watch Bill layeth the smacketh down on Stardust.