MOON JELLY MONDAYS #7 - DOCTOR KILL

I'm just going to say it: Doctor Kill is nothing more than a figment of my immaturity.

I think skeletons are funny. I've always thought skeletons are funny.

I grew up on video games. If you've played enough video games, chances are you have fought a skeleton. They are the most common thing to show up in a video game, especially ones set in a fantasy-type setting.

The permanent smiles. The lack of flesh. The hollow areas of where eyeballs are supposed to be.

Skeletons are HILARIOUS to me.

I remember a kid, my mom used to get this catalog of party favors, and they had these skeleton keychains. I wanted one so badly, but the problem was that you can only buy them in bulk, and there was no way any parent would buy their kid a lot of 20 skeleton keychains. My friend, George, had one, and I was super jealous of him for years. (The dude ended up breaking it.)

So going back to Doctor Kill, the whole joke was basically this:

However, I wanted to make this skeleton even more ridiculous.

I was watching the Angry Video Game Nerd's review of Frankenstein video games. He's commenting on how generic the name "Dark Warrior" was for one of the villains, and then quips:

"Then you fight Dark Warrior. Ooooooh. Scary name. How about 'Death Guy' or 'Mr Kill?"

These are purposely bad names. I played around this in my head for a few seconds on how I could possibly make this concept even worse. 

I began to think of Ed Wood's "Dr. Acula," and then it hit me: "Doctor Kill."

It's a dumb name, but man, do I feel that it can potentially be an iconic dumb name.

From there, the rest was history.

I drew a mock cover for Bloodwar X-Treme X-ecution Squad: 20XX, and I included "Doctor Kill" to the team. His design continued in the trend of 90's comics with kevlar body armor, wristbands, and elbow pads. The parts of his design that I feel make him stand out in regards to ridiculousness all stem from the fact that he is a doctor: a hospital standard issue name tag ID, a surgeon face mask, and a pair of daggers, which are supposed to be his operating tools. 

Lastly, I included a high-tech eyepatch scanner. Why? Because it's what's supposed to be a giveaway that this whole thing is a joke. Why would a skeleton with no eyes ever need such a thing?

I wanted to make Doctor Kill to be this thing that would come off as menacing and badass to a 7 year old, but if anyone were to really sit down and dissect it, it's really stupid. I wanted a recurring joke to be that while he is equipped with really intimidating and threatening looking knives, Doctor Kill is not a killer. Contrary to how deadly and terrifying his giant, sharp knives look, they bestow Doctor Kill with healing powers.

I believe this is a good place to stop. Next week: I will talk about the story of Doctor Kill.