Bizarre Characters: Arm-Fall-Off Boy

There are weird comic book characters and then there are really stupid comic book characters and Arm-Fall-Off-Boy probably falls into the latter of these two descriptions. Arm-Fall-Off-Boy’s first appearance was in Secret Origins Vol. 2 #46, in December 1989 in a story based on a fan parody, this came as a bit of a surprise to me as in my mind the character was a throwback to the late 1960’s silliness of DC comics. The characters powers are pretty much as you would expect from his name, he can detach his own limbs and use them as weapons – well I did say he is a pretty stupid character.

Above the splash page from the"Sercret Origins" tale that introduced Arm-Fall-Off Boy to an unsuspecting world. The only thing more surprising than a comic character with these powers was the fact that DC hired Superman legend Curt Swan to illustrated this tale.

Despite the silliness of the character, DC did give Floyd Belkin aka Arm-Fall-Off-Boy a second outing in the pages of “The Legion of Superheroes in the 31st Century “(splash page above at header) which featured tales based on the Warner Bros animated cartoon series of the same name.This was actually a really fun comic expertly illustrated by Shawn McManus as can be seen from the opening page above.

Despite the abusurdity of the character Arm Fall-Off Boy has even been used in movies where his name was changed to TDK (The Detachable Kid) played by Nathan Fillion, a member of the Suicide Squad. And in comics in an attempt to make him more believable, the character was reintroduced as Splitter.

Above the cover to "Legion of Super-Heroes in the 31st Century" Despite my misgivings of the character I actually enjoyed both this comic and Secret Origins # 46.