In the parallel universe of old comic book ads, huge muscles, deadly karate skills, hilarious pranks, and pet monkeys could instantly be yours for a dollar or less. Among these low-cost miracles was the amazing Hypno-Coin and its eerie power to thrill, amaze, and command those around you!
(click on the ad for a thrilling and amazing view)
Despite being one of the ugliest ads to ever appear in a comic book, the pitch clearly worked on someone...as page 20 of my copy of Thor #127 (1966) demonstrates:
Apparently, somebody was so anxious to Thrill and Amaze, he decided to save a buck and cut out the printed image of the Hypno-Coin. Unfortunately, he applied a bit too much pressure on his cutting blade and cut through the next two pages as well! Of course, Big Spendin' X-acto Boy never got the "FREE revealing booklet of secrets and instructions", so truly Thrilling and Amazing feats of hypnotism would never be his!
(serves him right for jacking up my Thor #127)
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LOL! What always got me about the hypnotize people thing was that it always showed a woman, often reclining on a couch. Now why would somebody want to hypnotize a woman? I'm thoroughly baffled here.
Posted by: Pat Curley | March 14, 2009 at 12:26 AM
With the ad's crummy photo quality, it looks like Mr. Hypno-Coin has a middle-aged DMV clerk doing the zombie-walk instead of the hot babe the ad guys think they're enticing us with.
Posted by: Mark Engblom | March 14, 2009 at 12:39 AM
See, as I said on another thread about comic ads, it was my plan to get all the items and use them to become a super-hero with X-ray spex, throw your voice, Charles atlas muscles, maybe even one of the full-sized vehicles to turn into a whatever-mobile. The coin would make me like the Ring Master (Oh yeah, he had a Circus of Crime. I guess he was a bad guy. Still cool, though). Wait, didn't Superman have super-hypnosis from time-to -time? Didn't Reed hypnotize Doctor Doom in FF Annual#2? Yay, another power for the never-ending battle!
Posted by: zubzwank | March 14, 2009 at 08:48 AM
Sounds like a solid plan, zub...if I don't beat you to it, that is!
Yeah, the Ringmaster had what appeared to be a spinning Hypno-Coin attached to his top hat, which allowed him to hynotize (and rob) his unwitting audiences. Superman used super-hypnosis quite a bit, but I don't recall Reed hypnotizing Doom. I'll have to check out my copy and refresh my memory.
Because zub's hypnotic suggestion compels me to.
Posted by: Mark Engblom | March 14, 2009 at 09:41 AM
Reed did hypnotize Doom in FF Annual#2; he made Doom believe he had defeated and destroyed Mr Fantastic in a battle of wills, and Doom stalked off in triumph. It was a year or so before he found out how he'd been duped.
Posted by: Pat Curley | March 14, 2009 at 03:27 PM
Zubzwank's idea would be a great supervillain origin! Someone who bought all that crap (and a monkey!) but, through some weird comic book alchemy, it actually all *works* for him!
He'd team up with my revised version of '80s Flash villain Colonel Computron - a guy with all this fancy equipment that (somehow) can be used for amazing feats... BUT still only works with '80s equipment, so he's using a TRS-80 with a cassette drive, many of his "big heists" involve knocking over a warehouse of old Atari 400 spare parts, etc....
Posted by: suedenim | March 16, 2009 at 10:36 AM