Remember the early ’90s? Sure you do. Those were some fun times! We were all being slackers and grunging it up and, if we could get away with it, committing the sin of the Lambada, the Forbidden Dance. It was also kind of an odd time when it came to environmentalism and superheroes, because there was a strange urge to combine the two. Remember Captain Planet? That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about.
Other organizations got into this environmentalism-via-cheap-cartoons game, including some organizations that probably were doing it for, let’s say, less than forthright reasons. Like oil giant Texaco. In 1990, for Earth Day, Texaco released a comic book featuring Captain WOW, which was an acronym for “Wipe Out Waste.” Captain WOW was a sort of environmentally-focused superhero who fought against evil forces (some alien named OW?) who sought to, let’s see, make recycling sound unappealing?
I think that was the basic plot. Anyway, there’s now someone on Facebook Marketplace selling what seems to be an offically-converted WOWmobile, based on a 1990 Pontiac Firebird:
Just so you can see the resemblance, here’s a panel featuring the WOWmobile, which can travel in space or drive with wheels on the ground. I suspect the one for sale on Marketplace can only pull off the latter.
…and here’s the WOWmobile venturing through the vast emptiness of the cosmos:
Here’s the big thing about this whole WOW business, though – Texaco was absolutely terrible environmentally. Even among other oil companies, which I think we can all agree don’t exactly have stellar track records when it comes to being good to the planet, Texaco was especially awful.
For example, they had operations in Ecuador from 1964 to 1992, and during that time Texaco dumped 18.5 billion gallons of toxic water into the rainforest, contaminating 2,000,000 acres of Ecuadorian Amazon land. Their time there is referred to as “Amazonian Chernobyl.”
At the time they published this comic, they would still be wreaking havoc in Ecuador for another two years.
With that in mind, I think all of this Captain WOW crap takes on an extra element of hypocritical crappiness.
The plot of the comic is hilariously weak; this alien comes in a big spaceship with a grand plan to … convince people that recycling is a waste of time. No giant trash-beams encrappifying Earth, no launching trash-missiles into national parks, just a poorly-planned information campaign to derail consumer recycling efforts. His big evil master plan for doing this is, let’s see, buying some airtime on a TV station:
He paid for five whole minutes of airtime! Oh no!
They do mention an “unknown middleman,” and the writers and artists were careful to include panels showing OW in makeup and getting used to reading cue cards. Riveting stuff!
It’s also worth noting just how deeply ugly the kids in this comic are. Look at that kid in the middle! Holy crap, what happened to his face? Also, I’m not crazy about “segregating” as a word choice for recycling.
Texaco is such a pack of hypocrites here; they even published these “15 Commandments of Environmental Stewardship” while they were still, it’s worth remembering, dumping millions of gallons of toxic water into the rainforest.
Texaco’s dumping was about 30 times the amount of contaminant that poured into the ocean in the Exxon Valdez spill, to give some perspective.
Anyway, maybe you really want to drive an artifact of all this cynical mess? If so, the car does look pretty fun:
Very spaceshippy. Especially around back, where the “engines” are:
The dash seems to be a slightly modified version of the Knight Rider car-star KITT’s dashboard, with a very similar-looking steering yoke and control panels:
It does have WOW decals in the middle there, so you won’t forget what you’re driving.
Is this actually an official Texaco-blessed Captain WOW car? The seller hasn’t gotten back to me to answer any questions, but just think about how infinitesimally low the odds are of any private person choosing to spend their own time and money making a replica of the WOWmobile. Who would do that? Nobody, I say.
I mean, I hope nobody would. Who even remembers this ridiculous bullshit, anyway? Well, if you decide you’d like to rep Texaco’s half-assed attempt to paper over some atrocities, and you have $17,500 to blow, boy are you in luck.
Looks like Captain WOW was cheesing it pretty hard:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pHZfCPW7hlE
Seriously, why is everyone so fucking ugly in this comic? Did the artist secretly hate that he was working for Big Oil and try to sabotage the project?
The comic’s artwork reminds me of Blackthorne’s. They were a particularly cheap press that was in existance in the middle years of the Eighties and went under as fast as it arrived. They did a lot of very half-@$$ed mass media tie-in comics.
The car looks weirdly 1950s and 1990s at the same time, much like the comic book. I dont think that was an artistic choice, either
Wait, so Rob Liefeld WASN’T the worst thing to happen to comics in the 90s?
Chick Tracts is like Vermeer compared to these dreadful things.
Even the cover is hideous. It looks like the offspring of Conan O’Brien and Vince Vaughn.
Odd to see the Mobil pegasus on a Texaco-themed car.
Nice pull. Good question
That leads me to think this car is not an “official” build, but a fan boy knock-off.
There’s fan boys for THIS? I mean, I know everybody has some interest others would find weird, but, really? And to put that much effort into it?
This is like if someone decorated their entire house in a Canfield’s Diet Chocolate Fudge soda theme
Okay yes the oil companies did do horrible things and maybe, probably not, didn’t know better at the time. But playing devil’s advocate:
1. Despite being evil incarnate and doing poor comics they did convince kids to care about the environment. I bet they didn’t see that coming.
2. Why is it when crude oil is underground it’s okay but once above the surface it’s pollution? It’s the same stuff. This is like saying water on a stream is okay but if you use it to water your lawn or drink it is pollution
You ever try to drink oil?
They don’t do anything voluntarily. You’d still be using leaded gas and chewing the air if they weren’t regulated. Water to oil analogy is the dumbest one I’ve heard today.
Pour some oil on your house plants and get back to me.
An added layer of hypocrisy is that recycling programs have been, in large part, propped up by oil giants in an effort to make plastics look more sustainable than they are. The portion of plastic that gets recycled is abysmally small. So those aliens might have been the true environmental heroes after all…
Hah I tell people this all the time. Glass, metals and papers almost always get recycled. Plastic yeah no sure there is research going on to convert it back to oil but it is just not a cost worthy process so it just gets tossed. Just a note I worked in the Oil R&D field for ~5 years (don’t anymore) and my dad has for over 30.
The easier and cheaper it is to recycle the more likely it is to be recycled. Can we just blame the problem where it belongs, on tree huggers. We can replace the trees but they said no.
Did the tree huggers force glass to no longer be used? I think you need to head over to Truth Social with that bullshit.
Aluminum cans subsidize the rest of bottle recycling. It’s inherently cheaper to recycle aluminum than to smelt it from ore which requres amounts of electricity so vast that smelters are sited not necessarily near where ore is mined, but where there’s enough cheap hydro power to run the plant.
I have a client that is a trash and recycle company. They are working with a major company to make single stream work. Colors matter. Recycling is going high tech
I think those kids were probably Ecuadorian refugees subjected to Toxico’s poisons.
Your forest will be scarred
By the man who wears the star
The big, blight Toxico star!
They had so much potential the Toxico avengers genetically mutation of hot teenagers by pollution have super powers to fight pollution. I wonder if anyone ever realized if we kept up with Clean nuclear power we could dump all garbage into the reactor and vaporize it thereby eliminating the need for dumps. Or so says my rambling mind. With nuclear power making a comeback did I just solve the worlds garbage problem?
Damn I’m good
Haha! If only. Sadly, AI Joe says these would be the consequences of such actions:
1. Disruption of the Chain Reaction:
The materials typically found in trash (plastics, metals, organic materials) are not designed to be part of the nuclear reaction. They could absorb neutrons necessary to sustain the chain reaction, slowing it down or stopping it altogether.
2. Undesirable Byproducts:
These materials, upon exposure to the intense radiation within the reactor, could undergo unwanted nuclear transformations, potentially creating hazardous or difficult-to-manage radioactive byproducts.
3. Cooling and Structural Impairment:
The structural integrity and cooling efficiency of the reactor could be compromised. Trash could block cooling channels, leading to localized overheating and potential damage to fuel elements or other components.
4. Contamination:
Introducing non-nuclear materials could lead to contamination of the reactor’s systems with unwanted substances, necessitating costly and time-consuming cleanup and repair operations.
I’m sure Musk Melon can come up with a solution for us , like forcing the poor to eat garbage. Of course we’d have to do something about all the human waste that would generate.
Weren’t we supposed to have a Mr. Fusion powering our cars by 2015?
Shit, we’re supposed to Replicants and off-world colonies, too.
I’d hate to be the front passenger. Nothing like staring at the pointy end of a V-shaped dashboard ready to meet your acquaintance.
Wow…
Ben Stein approves.