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No Heroics is a thoroughly British sit-com about 4 superheroes, with some PG-13 sexual humor.

This felt time-worn but likable.  I appreciate that the superpowers are not meant to be laugh-lines. Absurdly useless superpowers are rarely funny.

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FIRST COMIC — PREVIOUS COMIC — NEXT COMIC

FIRST COMIC — PREVIOUS COMIC — NEXT COMIC

“When you kill one person, it’s a tragedy. When you kill a thousand people, it’s a statistic. When you kill a million people, you’re in.” – The Supervillain Hall of Fame

Agent Orange: Kids today are so hard to please.

Agent Black: I don’t even want to think about how you might know that.

Agent Orange: Yesterday…

Teacher: Class, today our guest speaker is Agent Orange.

Agent Orange: I’m a Special Investi-Gator.

Teacher: Could you explain what it is you do?

Agent Orange: Are you sure? There are kids here.

Student 1: Have you ever killed anyone?

Agent Orange: Laws need claws or they’d just be words.

Student 2: How many people have you killed?

Agent Orange: The confirmed score or a rough estimate?

Agent Black: …

Agent Black: Suddenly I have questions of my own.

Superheroes should never ask “are you thinking what I’m thinking?” The answer is never helpful.

But where could you find that much nitroglycerin at this hour?

–Dr. Darpa

Unless your IQ has tripled since we’ve last spoken, probably not.

–Catastrophe

You are now.

–Mr. Mental

Don’t flatter yourself.

–Paingod

Agent Orange: I have learned something important about mammals. Two quasi-mystical words will put a mammal into a hypnotic stupor that will force him to believe anything.

Agent Black: You’re crazy.

Agent Orange: I am prepared to demonstrate my new-found learning of mammalian psychology. First, I will greet a victim-mammal of your selection. Then you will make an outlandish statement. And I will administer the two word hypnotic spell.

Agent Black: Let’s see it.

Five minutes later.

Agent Orange: Greetings, Mammal-Darpa! We have learned something intriguing on our latest posting.

Dr. Darpa: What?

Agent Black: We were attacked by robotic, flesh-eating airplanes.

Agent Orange: IN JAPAN!

Agent Black: … !

Dr. Darpa: Egads! How did you survive?

Agent Black: …

Agent Black: NO!

[end] (If you’d be interested in reading a related article, “Stuff Mammals Like: Japan,” please see more.

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Agent Black stumbles into the Special Investigations lunchroom, his face and suit covered with ashes, dust and blood.

Captain Carnage: You look like you done tried your IRS mojo on a Texas woman.

Agent Black: Would you rather have Agent Orange drive a car or handle a submachine gun?

Captain Carnage: Is that a trick question?

Agent Black: Do I look like I’m feeling tricky right now?

Captain Carnage: Well, is Agent Orange in a combat zone on another continent, or is he somewhere where a red light actually means something?

Agent Black: Washington, DC. In my car.

Captain Carnage: Hotdamn, kid. I wouldn’t get in a tank if I knew O.J. was driving it. Give him the submachine gun, I reckon it’s less likely to hurt nastylike when he gets you killed. Those damn reptiles, they drive like everyone’s limbs grow back.

Agent Black: So, I was driving Orange. He was late to a meeting on Capitol Hill.

Captain Carnage: Hooh boy. I like where this is going.

Agent Black: We got a red light and Agent Orange says something like “why are you stopped? Keep moving, keep moving, dummy.”

Captain Carnage: Alligators reckon green and red’re the same color. When they talk about traffic lights, y’just gotta take it like Congress talking about collateral. They’re talking, but they’re not really talking, y’reckon?

Agent Black: Well, uhh. I’d heard about the green-red colorblind thing before. So I said “shuddap, I know we’re late.” And then the back of our car exploded.

Captain Carnage: Rocket launcher ambush?

Agent Black: Ambushes.

Captain Carnage: Many?

Agent Black: Four cars.

Captain Carnage: Hot damn! So you had to pick between driving or shooting. Damn sure he ain’t doing the driving. He makes NASCAR look like bumper cars. You know he once managed 8 digits of damage with a golf-cart?

Agent Black: I believe it.

Captain Carnage: Since you survived, I reckon you gave him the gun. But how did he shoot it? His hands are big enough to palm a rifle.

Agent Black: I took the gun.

Captain Carnage: But that means…

Captain Carnage: !

Agent Black: I long for death’s sweet embrace.

Later that day:

Agent Orange: Greetings, mammal-Mike!

Mike: The Captain said you had an interesting day today.

Agent Orange: I met a wily mammal-gelatoier.

Mike: A gelatoier?

Agent Orange: A mammal that sells gelato. He introduced me to the seedy and sinister gelato underworld by tricking me with a gallon of orange-flavored gelato. That was very interesting. No doubt Mike-flavored gelato would interest you. But his alleged “orange” flavor was not even remotely similar to my real orange flavor, which proves that it was a foul ruse. I also seem to have lost feeling in my digestive tract. In retrospect, I have concluded that gallons of orange gelato are better-suited to mammals than cold-bloods.

Mike: I think Carnage was referring to an attempted assassination with rocket launchers.

Agent Orange: Oh, there was that, too.

Mike: …

Mike: Don’t you think that was a little bit more interesting than the gelato?

Agent Orange: (Mammals). Before today, I had not ever been offered gelato, let alone gelato that was (purportedly) in my flavor. But assassination attempts are a dime a dozen. In fact, perhaps the gelato was an assassination attempt.

Scenelet of the Day: That’s the Spirit! (Parts 1 and 2)

Agents Orange and Black enter a Missouri restaurant in the dead of night.

Agent Orange: Greetings, waitress-mammal!

Waitress: (Weirdo).

Agent Orange: We’re from Homeland Security. Have you seen an anorexic purple cat?

Waitress: What is this, a joke?

Agent Orange: …

Agent Orange: No, but it ends with you in cuffs and me laughing.

Agent Black: What my colleague just attempted to say is that we are looking for a purple mutated cat. The cat is, uhh, probably from New York.

Waitress: Figures.

Agent Black: He may be a witness to a crime.

Waitress: I don’t reckon I’ve seen him.

Agent Black: We’re offering a $50 finder’s fee.

Waitress: Downstairs in the bar, second table. He comes in every night.

Agent Orange: …

Agent Orange: I could have done that.

[end part 1].

Agents Black and Orange enter the bar. The purple cat is so drunk that he’s holding on to the table to avoid falling off his stool. He is damp with beer and has several $20 bills on the table.

Agent Orange: Greetings… mammal? (Right?)

Catastrophe: So I says… what the hehll? Is that?

Agent Black: He’s a mutated alligator.

Agent Orange: I’m a Special Investi-Gator. I’m like Agent Black, but with real teeth and a tail. And awesomeness.

Agent Black: …

Agent Orange: (It’s true!)

Catastrophe: So I finds that the bartender is my neighbor, right. Right! And so I says to him—bartender. Bartender, the only thing you’s got that I don’t is a freaking smart neighbor.

Agent Black, to bartender: Mind if we take him off your hands?

Bartender: He’s still got $40 left.

Agent Black: Here’s $50.

Bartender: Have a nice night!

Catastrophe: You too! I’m here all week–

Catastrophe passes out.

Agent Black: You want to carry him, Orange?

Agent Orange: Sweet mercy, no. He reeks of foul brews… Miller Lite?

Bartender: All night, every night.

Agent Orange: I will not sully my claws with the Lite.

Agent Black: He’s too heavy for me to carry alone.

Agent Orange: (Mammals).

Agent Orange: Bartender-mammal, do you have any beers that smell better than a rotting carcass?

Bartender: Coors?

Agent Orange: Indeed! I will have your largest denomination.

Agent Orange grabs a Coors keg and slices it in half, soaking Catastrophe’s prone body with cold, refreshing Rocky Mountain brew. The agent then hoists Catastrophe onto his shoulder.

Agent Orange: Ready?

Agent Black: For a new partner, yes.

B. Mac gave me this to post. He says he will be healthy enough to return to full-time status within a few days.

Agent White, junior recruiter: Mr. Smith, I have no doubt that you are an excellent IRS auditor, but I’d like to know more about how an accountant might be qualified for this agency. What about killing. Have you done any of that?

Gary Smith: No, sir.

Agent White: Have you ever seen someone die brutally? A de-limbing, perhaps?

Gary Smith: No, sir.

Agent White: I see. You seem like an excellent fit… for the IRS. I’m going to do you a favor and ask that you leave now. You would break in ten minutes here and you probably wouldn’t even be the first.

Gary Smith: …

Gary Smith: Is that a request or an order?

Agent White: …

Agent White hits his intercom button.

Agent White: Agent Orange, could you step inside, please?

Agent Orange, a hulking mutated alligator, enters the room.

Agent Orange: Greetings, mammals! Mammal-White, Mammal-Smith.

Agent White: Sir, could you please describe to Mr. Smith what your job is here?

Agent Orange: Indeed! I’m the head recruiter and trainer. I determine who enters training and then how best to systematically destroy them. We’ve reduced our mortality/psychosis rate to a historically low 6%!

Agent White: Mr. Smith, so far Agent Orange has broken six Navy SEALS, five Force Recons, ten Army Rangers and so many Special Agents we’ve stopped counting.

Gary Smith: But no accountants, I bet.

Agent Orange: …

Agent Orange: When are you available to start?

“I only gradually realized that Gary Smith was wily for a mammal. That should have been obvious. He was an accountant and, as a rule, accountant-mammals are masters of chicanery and deception. (That is why they, like lawyers and journalists, receive graduate degrees: it takes years to learn the arts of subterfuge).”

–Agent Orange

“Life is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.”  — Thomas Edison

“Success is 1% swagger and 99% dagger.”  — Cadet Davis

Hey! I’ve revised and updated Agent Orange’s quotes. (You can see the old one here, but it’s harder to read and the quotes are worse). Enjoy.

Agent Orange, our resident mutated alligator, offers us these insights into Things Mammals Like:

1. Seatbelts. Why anyone would want to be attached to a flaming, twisted deathtrap is beyond me. If you find yourself in a car with a mammal– particularly one named Agent Black– the windshield is your surest path to freedom. Indeed, attempting to escape his mobile coffin by hurling yourself through the windshield would probably improve your odds of survival.
2. Traffic signals. These hypnotic lights calm mammal drivers but scare mammal driving instructors when a reptile is taking a driving test. Relatedly, did you know that alligators are red-green colorblind?
3. Playing golf. The mystery of golf-playing has fascinated alligators for eons, which is why you can find so many of us at golf-courses. Then the mammals shoo us away because they know how goofy their clothes look. (Mammals).

St. Patrick’s Day

Agent Orange: Greetings, mammal-Black!

Agent Black: You’re wearing a green trenchcoat.

Agent Orange: Daringly green. I notice you’re wearing a green tie.

Agent Black: Yeah, I’m celebrating St. Patrick’s Day. I would assume that you are, too, but yesterday you claimed that St. Patrick was a reptile-hater that cleansed Ireland of its snakes.

Agent Orange: Indeed! And St. Patrick’s grim legacy of reptilian removal is precisely why every alligator eagerly observes Gatriot’s Day.

Agent Black: Gatriot’s Day?

Agent Orange: Yep. We wear green to celebrate alligator virtues.

Agent Black: Such as…

Agent Orange: Well, there’s carnage, whupass, and charity. Ooh, teeth, too. That’s a big one.

Agent Black: Does it bother you that every, uhh, human wearing green today is celebrating St. Patrick?

Agent Orange: Ehh. American gators survived him and other predators. In fact, only the American and Chinese gators survived. Everyone else died out. Why do you think we lived?

Agent Black: A favorable climate, stable food supply and relatively little human contact?

Agent Orange: No, you dummy! Because of Gatriot’s Day.

Agent Black: Oh, uhh… I see. That makes sense. (Nutcase).

Agent Orange: So, on every Gatriot’s Day, American gators use four-leaf clovers to explain the true nature of our awesomeness to heathen mammals. Not coincidentally, the Four Pillars of American Awesomeness are green: the Statue of Liberty, dollars, military camouflage and go-signs. These four pillars represent freedom, happiness, strength and energy. And they, like the leaves on a clover, rest on the stem, which obviously represents gators.

Agent Black: (Obviously). … Hey, do you actually have a four-leaf clover? I’ve never seen one before.

Agent Orange: Indeed! Look, here…

Agent Black steals the clover.

Agent Black: Thanks.

Agent Orange: Hey!

Agent Black: And a happy Gatriot’s Day to you, too!

“I’m not a poker shark.  Did you know that coconuts kill more people than sharks do?  I’m like a hurricane of coconuts.”
–Catastrophe

“The war on terror will not be won with just bombs and guns. We’ve got knives, too.”

–Agent Orange

It has been incorrectly claimed that the Office of Special Investigation’s Human Resources branch terminates with extreme prejudice. Make no mistake: we are 100% committed to equal opportunity.

–Agent Orange, OSI-HR Director

Our mutated alligator, Agent Orange, presents us this nugget of reptilian wisdom.
Many mammals believe that, because alligators are friendly and helpful, that all reptiles must be similarly awesome. This is not the case.

The Associated Press gives a grisly account of an alligator forced to prove his awesomeness after being attacked by a python.

The snake apparently tried to swallow the gator whole—and then exploded. Scientists stumbled upon the gory remains last week.

Unsurprisingly, snakes have proven completely ineffective against gators.

And we here are, [a gator-snake fight has] happened for the fourth time,” Mazzotti said. In the other cases, the alligator won or the battle was an apparent draw.

And the only reason there was a draw was because the gator felt merciful.