The other day Jim is flipping through the first reprint issue of “Marvelman – Family’s Finest” and he starts chuckling over some obscure character called Young Nastyman. When he came over to show me the issue, I instantly started humming a song but couldn’t place what it was that was in my head. At first I thought it was a character from Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s comedy film “Orgasmo,” but I was confusing that with Orgasmo’s arch-nemesis Neutered Man. After about five minutes of head-scratching, I realized Young Nastyman was from the Tenacious D song “Wonderboy.” In fact, Young Nastyman was Kyle Glass or KG. How could I forget his importance to the D? This got me curious about the real origin of Young Nastyman. Who was this rapscallion and was he really as nasty as his namesake?

As it turns out, Young Nastyman is the arch-rival of 1950s superhero Dickie Dauntless, better-known-as Young Marvelman. Young Nastyman is originally a “lazy and unsporting” loser from the planet Victo who is jealous of the world’s athletes. His real name is Pontag, which is disturbingly close to being named Puntag. Okay…nasty enough. He gets his superpowers from a potion (later revealed to be nictobarbonic phrenoherpescular sodium-sicrate for those interested in the science of nasty), which he receives from the hermit Nastyman. Decent origin for 1954, I guess. After rampaging his home planet (essentially putting wise-men in armlocks and knocking over corinthian columns), Young Nastyman decided to take on someone equal to his power: Earth’s Young Marvelman. Once on earth, the power-crazed Pontag continues his riot by randomly tying people to lap-posts and breaking into candy stores. Seriously! Add in an overabundance of the phrase “And How” and you’ve got one nasty villain on your hands. A few panels later Young Marvelman deduces his power is from a potion and confiscates the bottle, returning Nastyman to his lowly Pontag form and easily defeating him. Still, for about a page he was his equal. It was nasty, and how!

Roughly 50 years later, Young Nastyman is Wonderboy’s enemy (Jack Black or JB) and has “power comparable to Wonderboy.”

Meaning:

The power of Flight! That’s levitation Holmes.

The power to kill a yak, from 200 yards… with mind-bullets. That’s telekinesis.

And of course, the power to move people.

Watch for yourself in the epic, barbarian music video for Wonderboy

I think that’s really all you need to know.

Nasty!

-Jon

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