Saturday, January 8, 2011

1995 Skybox DC Villains: The Dark Judgment Scarth Trading Card #7



A most intriguing man, this Mr. Scarth. On the surface, he appears to be nothing more than a hired gun, a thoroughly obnoxious lout. Yet, he possesses strength far beyond the norm... and his claim of "nothing can hurt me if I see it coming" is no idle boast. He does seem quite durable.

You know the '90s were running out of visceral nouns combined with hardcore verbs to form rad new character names once you got to Scar... th. Scarth! Yeaaaaah...

I wonder if painter Thom Ang even had reference for Scarth, seeing as how the art goes out of its way to obscure the figure. Let's take a silhouette, then shine a bright yellow light right up against it to essentially form a negative of the first silhouette. What colors is this guy (flesh, hair, costume?) I realize he's in a sewer or something, careful not to extend his gun arm at innocents/into a treacherous darkness, but I always misread this image as Scarth accidentally shining a flashlight in his own face. He's obviously too extreme to see standard spots, so I expect he'd have shatterstars instead.

There were actually three Chase Lawler Manhunter villains in this set, and unlike White Lotus, Scarth appeared in almost every issue of that especially low-selling book. I guess that qualifies his appearance, but I'd still chalk this up to DC having an unreasonable amount of faith in their Zero Hour spin-offs. At least Xenobrood had the excuse of being a mini-series (and no trading cards!)

Relishing New Year's Evil this week? Find more malicious pin-up fun at the following blogs:

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