Ode to the Best Jheri Curl in the World
Danielle is In a Relationship and It’s Complicated with The Jheri Curl.
When I was four, my older sister convinced my mother to let her get a head of curly, squishy hair. Neither of them have ever forgiven the other. Meanwhile, I was so jealous (what) that I begged my mom for over a year to let me copy big sis and get the greasy style of my kindergarten dreams. Mom’s response was that I should “Stop crying,” and “Go read your book about witches or whatever.”
Big ups, Ma. While several years’ worth of elementary school portraits my sister took have gone missing under mysterious circumstances, I still have many cute baby selfies to run through an infinite array of Instagram filters.
Rudy Huxtable Christmas swag
So, yeah, Mom may have done me a huge solid, but as with all things taboo, my obsession with the Hair that Dare Not Speak Its Name carried through to adulthood.
Don’t stare directly at it. Juice so powerful it’ll get you through the monitor.
Another childhood obsession that I held onto even after I got these titties were comic books. Specifically, the X-Men.
We all know the X-Men, but for those of you who don’t own a television and don’t like big budget movies (and if this is you, please stop talking about how you don’t watch either like it makes you a culture warrior. You’re not a freedom fighter, you’re just a jerk that doesn't get my soon-to-be dated Honey Boo Boo references and no one likes you), the X-Men are a team of models with super powers who hang out in an upstate New York mansion with a boring bald dude who pretends like he’s not reading their thoughts like ALL DAY. When they aren't fighting other super folk who didn't get the mutant power of castability, they make out. Like, all the time. There are also approximately 1,000,000,000,000,000 X-Men, and depending on who the artist was, the only way to tell them apart was skin color and hairstyle.
To me, Hot Redhead, other Redhead and, um, that Blue One. Bluey. Get over here, I pay the cable bill.
This lead to the X-Men having some of the best hair in comics. People who follow me (aka, no one) know my obsession with 80s era Mohawk Storm. I’m not the only one. Mohawk Storm has many other fans, including awesome creators: http://fyeahmohawkstorm.tumblr.com/
But my other, secret obsession… the best hair in comics, claws down? Well. That title belongs to a different X-Man.
Bishop. Real name, no gimmicks.
You now have the 90s X-Men cartoon theme song stuck in your head.
Bishop was from an alternate, apocalyptic future with stores that still carried curl activator. Born a mutant with the ability to absorb energy and release it as a blast of power, he spent his childhood locked up the bullshit “please don’t send us angry letters, XOXOXOX” mutant version of concentration camps. Right before he came to the present day Marvel universe, he was a sell-out ass cop.
You know it’s the future because a man with a face tattoo has a government job.
There’s a lot more back story I could try to explain, but unraveling comic book continuity is like untangling yarn in one hand while drinking a beer in the other at your local MLB team’s annual Stitch n’ Pitch. That’s why DC has decided the best way to deal with decades of incomprehensible bullshit is to take an eraser to the chalkboard and start from scratch.
Shown, every DC Comics editorial meeting since 2004. Also, politics or whatever.
Aside from his amazing outfit, Bishop also came complete with a jheri-curl that was more than a jheri curl. The Alpha jheri-curl. Bishop has the first ever Jheri-Mullet in comics’ history. Maybe in world history.
There are other characters with jeri-curls and mullets, obvs. The Beyonder was a super villain with a curl, but it was short and sad compared to how Bishop’s locks cascade and drip down his back. Superman tried the mullet for a hot sec, but not even the man of steel could compete with the Mutant of SoulGlo.
Wanna know why Bishop is the only super hero that could rock a curl so glorious? Two words.
MichaelJackson PepsiCommercial
Here’s what your average superhuman battle looks like:
See all those dudes flaming on? All dem energy beams? Any other person with a juicy ass curl would light up like Richard Pryor smoking rock before naptime. Not Bishop, though. Catching fire and shooting it back is part of his whole deal. His curl isn't a hindrance, his head is an energy conductor! Plus, it works as a great distraction, like how the Punisher wears his white skull to draw the mobs bullet to his billet proof vest rather than aiming at his face. Who could resist the temptation of watching a curl go up in flames in real life? No one. And Bishop knows that.
Not me, not you, definitely not Kevin Hart
Shooting fire at this Delilah-proof Sampson is the like as trying to defeat Aquaman by drowning him.
da-na-na-NA-NA-na-na DAMN YOU RADFORD
Congratulations Bishop. The most powerful Curl in the World.
Even if you can’t go into a pool.
