Name: Rainbow Raider
Powers: Goggles that shoot colors

Color blindness has terrorized one-in-lots of Americans for centuries now. This is a debilitating handicap that leads to mismatched socks, your lunch lady's eyeshadow, and the Rainbow Raider. Roy Bivolo grew up a painter, but as he himself said, "a black and white world would handicap anyone." Plus, this was the seventies. A decade of sexual freedom and survival of the fittest. There were no wheelchair ramps or instructions on soup cans. You were on your own. And it drove Roy to become Rainbow Raider and a start a beautifully colored life of crime.


During a "color-related crime," Rainbow Raider relives some painful high school memories, where he and his color blindness could clear an entire party in seconds.
Since the 70's, we've become more sensitive to the needs of the handicapped. We've even celebrated them with our olympic events like one-legged skiing and color-free painting. Tragically, our benevolence got spoiled by a few evil opportunists, who not only took performance-enhancing drugs, but could distinguish between reds and greens. In 1984, two Canadian three-legged skiers were actually discovered to be three normal skiers strapped together. That's why a committee was hired that thoroughly searches each athlete for the proper number of legs, and performs crafty flash card interviews to trick deceitful color-knowers into revealing their illegal advantage. The testers hold up different colored cards at varying speeds and demand the athlete-painters to identify them. Some say it's degrading to the actual color-blinders to have to repeat "I DON'T KNOW!" for three straight days, but admit it's necessary to make sure they're competing on a level field.

Could you imagine the hardships of these people? Having to trust your personal shopper to not play fashion pranks on you, not being able to tell which basketball team is which, and having no way to know someone didn't write all over you with a marker while you slept. Go buy a black and white TV, just for a small taste of their horror. Then maybe you can understand how the Rainbow Raider could kill so easily.


If you still can't imagine the pain of color blindness, here are two pictures of the Tough Hangin' New Kids on the Block. One with color, and one chillingly without. See how the color version makes you smile, content in who you are and what you'll someday be. Your dreams are dancing in flower-shaped clouds around your head and the bustling world outside seems aglow with energy and love. But in the black and white version... wicked stripes form on the boys' faces... you start to notice how none of them are hugging poor Joey. Please, for the sake of our families, stop looking at it before it drives you to a life of crime.
Rainbow Raider's Powers: To help his handicapped son function like us, Rainbow Raider's dad invented special color-seeing glasses. I guess he jammed too many space rocks in it, because the thing ended up doing a lot more than that. It shot lasers, rainbow sidewalks, beams that make you moody, and a few other things that were kind of super neat, but shouldn't have convinced him he could start a war on society. Below, you can see an example of how his emotion rays work, as his incredible goggles screw up a party even more than his bad social skills and terrible outfit can. And on the left, you can see the effect of another of his special weapons -- it takes the color out of a person MAKING THEM A LITTLE BIT TIRED. I really think it was a power they had to give him because the colorist stormed out of the comics studio after refusing to paint another damn rainbow trail. But it doesn't matter why he had the power, it's about as scary as a kid with a can of white paint.


Look out, marble pillars of the world. Rainbow Raider's prescription color-vision goggles have demonstrated their indescribable power. And he's as powerful as Captain Guy-With-A-Sledgehammer.
Oh... Rainbow Raider... this is so sad. It's terrific to feel good about yourself, but save the affirmations until the only person watching is your mirror.


Fuck me, how can the police possibly stand against this man while his platform is such a beautiful rainbow? Wait, I just realized he might be stoppable if one of those cops remember their guns can fire the whole 9 feet up to him. I just realized something else -- see the hard-boiled detective in the front talking to Fisketti? That name came straight out of the screenplay-writer's handbook for cop names. For example, "You're a loose cannon, Fisketti!"




Sargeant Meatbeef: "Take a look at this, Linguetti. 'Rainbow Raider was Here'... it looks like the Rainbow Raider was responsible."

Patrolman Linguetti: "Hold it! I've got something over here, Sargeant! This wall says the culprit was Doctor Fucklick. Wait! According to this one, it was Mr. Bigballs! ... Uh oh. You're not going to like this, sarge. This last mark was made by... YOUR MAMA. And there's a phone number next to it. Let's roll."

Seanbaby: Look, Rainbow Raider, I know how expensive rainbow tights are (not first-hand... a friend of mine wears them), so I understand you're short of money. But you should worry less about your beacon of gayness, and save up for some business cards. Would Doctor Doom scribble his name on the wall with a crayon? Would you ever see "Lex Luthor was here" scratched into the bottom of a nuclear crater? Have some self-respect. 		Rainbow Raider had a lot more stupid color powers including a paint that made him invisible (right), the ability to make very pretty things to posture on (left), beams to turn people different colors, and bright flashes of light. Basically, if it had to do with color and was completely useless in stopping a superhero, Rainbow Raider's goggles could probably do it.

Bonus Pages: Rainbow Raider's Greatest Hits!

Bonus One: He builds a machine that sucks the color out of one city, transfers it into another universe, and... I don't fucking know. It's stupid even for comic books.

Bonus Two: Witness the true power of the Rainbow.

Bonus Three: The stunning origin of the idiot.

Bonus Four: Another amazing display of rainbow powers.

Nobody even had to punch him, he just blew himself up. And not even for anything worthwhile, he was in the middle of a diabolical plan to make something more colorful. I haven't even seen Aquaman do shit this stupid.


The most insane thing about this Rainbow Raider thing is that this isn't the first painter bitter from color-blindness and forced into crime. A psycho named "Crazy Quilt" did it before Rainbow Raider was even a Tourettic outburst in a writer brainstorming meeting. Mr. Quilt was a little bit different, though; he shot color rays out of his hat instead of his glasses, and he accessorized his rainbow outfit with a scarf.

How did two color blind villains even happen? Did some color blind bully beat the shit out of the DC writers when they were kids? I can't think of a better explanation. I guess we should be happy the kid didn't have a urinary tract infection. Because then the characterized representation of their impotent childhood rage would fire toxic pee from his codpiece instead of rainbow beams from his head.

Final Analysis:
Here's the official description of Rainbow Raider from Who's Who. You'll need to remember it for an important analogy later:
"Embittered by years of frustrated hopes, Roy turned to crime. He resented the fact that his vision deficiencies prevented him from ever fully appreciating great works of art, so he created the identity of the Rainbow Raider and used his new powers to steal those works, so no one else would be able to appreciate them either."

You'd be surprised at the merchandising pull of Seanbaby.com. It gets me t-shirts, video games, and sometimes a thrown pair of panties. It even got me a free copy of Jewel's $15.00 book of poetry, a night without armor. Because what better name for a book of bad poetry than a shitty pun? (Back cover shown to the right where her photographer caught her with a hand on her tit) Jewel "has been searching for truth and meaning, turning to her words to record, to discover, and to reflect" according to the inside cover flap, and isn't famous for writing A Couple Sitting on a Bench, transcribed here in its entirety:

He's the skinny one of the two.
He reminds her of it constantly.
He's a very funny guy that way--
ha-ha as she wobbles-to-walk wobbles-to-walk.

Shit, even a COLOR-BLIND person could do better than that. There's no reason to switch from art to crime if crap like that can get published. Of course, then you have to decide which is more embarrassing -- being the Rainbow Raider, or being Jewel. Let me tell you something -- I understand that I can suck. But I know that I'll never suck enough to be able to enjoy Jewel's poetry. And if I can't enjoy it, then no one will. From this day forward, I swear to the world that I shall destroy all of Jewel's books, never stopping until the last one is burned or until my father builds me goggles that help me enjoy them by curing me of my non-suckiness.

Bibliography
Crazy Quilt's guest appearance courtesy of Batman #316, "Color Me Deadly!"

Rainbow Raider pictures taken from the series of humilations in Booster Gold #19 and #20, The Flash #286 and #299, and The Brave and the Bold #194. And in closing, I personally apologize for not making more gay pride jokes during this.

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