 Meet the Flaming Carrot, the comic book world's most mysterious, arcane and perhaps, ridiculous character. One of the founding members of the Mysterymen, his exploits set the style for a torrent of offbeat 1980's heroes. Appearing on the scene in the late 1970's and going into a regular series in 1983, the majority of comic book readers didn't quite know what to make of him and many even found him quite disturbing.
But the comic book world soon warmed to the charming, outrageous and often surreal stories, making Flaming Carrot a cult hit with back issue prices soaring to record levels for an independent comic.
While most comic story lines revolve around and are predicated by the superhero's special powers and secret identity, Flaming Carrot had no special super powers was Flaming Carrot all the time. The formula here was that of a second-string, blue-collar, mill-town superhero. This angle was expanded with the introduction of THE MYSTERYMEN, a strange collection of oddball superheroes with character flaws, mediocre powers and downright goofy costumes.
The MYSTERYMEN were a spin-off and occasional back-up feature in Flaming Carrot Comics, first appearing in "I CLONED HITLER'S FEET", a two part story in Flaming Carrot #16 & 17 (available in Flaming Carrot's Greatest Hits Vol. 3).
He is the comic book superhero of not only the blue-collar man, but the darling of the avant-garde. He is a one-man tour de force of Dali-esque surrealism, strange stunts, and totally outrageous behavior. A whimsical, picaresque and puckish character, his life itself is his art form and Hell follows with it.
Flaming Carrot haunts the eerie shadows of the night (much the same as Batman). But while Batman is a quick thinker with a sharp, deductive mind, Flaming Carrot is almost childlike in a state of Zen witlessness. In a tough spot he is more likely to blast his way out in a hail of gunfire than use some campy scheme. In his state of Zen Stupidity, he can convince you that the earth is flat or that a hundred pounds of lead is heavier than a hundred pounds of feathers.
As Batman's frightening, sinister costume and dark legend strikes fear into the underworld, Flaming Carrot's insane, outre appearance can be even more unnerving, disturbing, and outlandish to criminals caught in the act. As preposterous as it may seem to us, his bizarre, outfit is rather frightening, even horrifying to any criminal he sneaks up on.
Flaming Carrot has a utility belt but in it are things like a pen knife, silly putty, invisible ink, a bubble pipe, super glue, and band-aids with little stars and rockets on them. Instead of speeding across the horizon in a Batplane, he hops around town on a nuclear-powered pogo stick.
He lives in the Palookaville district of Iron City, a generic north east industrial town in the rust belt. He is helped and aided by his good friend and mentor, Dr. Heller; a somewhat mad scientist and great inventor. It is Dr. Heller who provides him with the pogo stick, canned tornadoes, and a number of other hi-tech devices.
But the mysterious speaker surgically implanted in his chest over his heart, from which unknown voices come, was not put there by Dr. Heller, or perhaps anything of this earth. It was first discovered by a friend and lounge singer named Dorothy Vallens, when FC had crashed at her flat after a three-day bender. He had no memory of how it appeared but suspects that aliens or mad scientists must have gotten to him while he was passed out in some alley.
With no superpowers, he has his utility belt and his mind-state of "Zen Stupidity" to fight hoodlums, monsters and costumed villains. With his mind in that state, he is able to transcend ordinary human considerations and commit great acts of bravery or gain tremendous insight from simple things.
And so, Flaming Carrot is off, into the industrial skyline of Iron City, facing bullets, danger, mystery, and then off to get in some bowling at the All-Star Lanes down on Route 341 just past the Willowville Turnpike.
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