by Luke McKinney

The Irish Defense and Justice Interdiction Team were trapped in their secret headquarters, a pub hidden in the shadow of a Guinness distillery. They kept trying to move to a better base – one where they could actually hear the Emergency Alert over the constant ceili, or could drink something which wouldn’t leave Ireland defenseless every morning as they spent two hours on the bog — but were trapped by their mortal enemies: the writers. Because Irish superheroes are a greater collection of stereotypes than a sound equipment catalog.

Just after hiding her Lucky Charms behind a chunk of solidified celtic-ish swirl

 Let’s see how they’re spending St Patrick’s Day.

Shamrock

Molly Fitzgerald is red-haired, wears green, her father was an IRA terrorist, and she gained her powers because he prayed for them. Apparently in Ireland God is much more responsive and considerably less picky. The only stereotypes she doesn’t have are dwarfism and breakfast cereal. Her power is the “Luck of the Irish,” a phrase never actually used by the Irish, a probability-altering field which causes things to go her way and is powered by the souls of the innocent victims of war. Apparently “luck” includes the “tough” and “s**t” kinds.

Drawing power from the blood of the innocent is generally a supervillain schtick.

That’s quite literally a hell of an afterlife: you and your entire family are massacred in a random bombing, and you get to spend eternity making sure people don’t punch a mocking sterotype that desperately needs it.

How She’s Spending St Patrick’s Day:

Since her luck powers ran out and she retired (translation: even her own writers got sick of her), she’s been working as a hairdresser. That’s not a joke. That’s in continuity. She has since appeared in other comics, doing the hair of female superheroes, to prove that the writers can stereotype genders just as badly as nations.

On the other hand, giving up superpowers meant she could stop dressing like this, so it was a good trade.

Given her true abilities of being a terrible cliché, she’ll spend the day drinking green beer, getting sick, and being stupid.

Siryn

Red hair, green clothes, but you can tell she’s not Shamrock because she doesn’t literally have a shamrock printed on her chest. That’s pretty much the only way though.

Theresa Maeve Rourke Cassidy apparently isn’t kidding about her goddamn name. Jesus, that’s more Irish than County Fermanagh. As an infant her mother was killed in an IRA bombing, because in the Marvel universe, Ireland’s sole exports are terrorist bombings and drinking problems. Siryn also has a drinking problem, because her writers used their entire supply of originality coming up with that stupid spelling of “Siryn.” Which explains why her father, Banshee, had the exact same powers.

At least she doesn’t have his 18th century shepherd’s haircut and live in a haunted castle.

Her powers are a horrific brain-piercing shriek which none can endure, because comics writing certainly doesn’t and has never had a problem with literally comical sexism. (The comic male with vocal powers, Black Bolt, never says a single word, and in fact leads his entire country with nothing but stern gazes.)

How she’s spending St Patrick’s Day: 

Pretty well, considering she’s the only person in the entire world sure of getting her order heard quickly at the bar on Sunday.

Ramrod

…Glenn Danzig?

Ramrod’s real name is Patrick Mahoney. He’s a drunk and carries a shillelagh, and if there is any justice in the world his writer is named “Cliché O’Moron.” His mutant power is to control wooden objects, because Ireland is a lovable backwater that missed the Iron Age.

How he’s spending St Patrick’s Day:

The same way he spends every day: trying to extend his wood-based powers to work on paper so that he can erase every trace of his own embarrassing existence.

Black Tom Cassidy

Points for a cool costume. No points for having the lesser of two sets of shillelagh powers.

Siryn’s first cousin once removed, he happened to be present when the IRA bomb killed her mother and became her adoptive father. Because as every Marvel writer knows, Ireland is only twenty feet across. It’s basically a village where everyone’s related but without as much banjo music.  An X-Men villain, for a time he gained all the powers of being a plant, but most of the time he simply channeled powers through plants and wood, like the shillelagh he always carried. Wait a goddamn minute …

How he’s spending St Patrick’s Day:

Fashioning a wooden boat to sail across the mighty ocean, to the fabled New World, where he’ll use his shillelagh to beat comics writers while screaming “IRELAND IS NOT STUCK IN PRE-MEDIEVAL TIMES! AND EVEN IF IT WAS, THEY KNEW ABOUT METAL TOO!”

Hellstrike

The Troubles were Ireland’s version of radiation.

Nigel Keane was an Irish policeman (not a Garda, he was in Belfast) until he was almost killed in an IRA bomb blast. Because the only things that happen in my home country are MC1R mutations and sectarian violence. Instead of dying he manifested as an ass-kicker, a sentient bag of super-powered plasma who can fly, fire energy blasts, and is colored green. Though in fairness that might not be because of Irishness. It could have been to avoid lawsuits from the Human Torch and Doctor Manhattan.

You could combine them to form a cosmic TV signal.

His main contribution to superheroics was working out that he could still have sex in his new form, extruding as much organ as desired from his plasma containment suit. He proved this by having sex with another pyrokinetic superhero on a space station, thereby having the hottest possible sex that was also out of this world, with the slight side effect of almost burning the station out of the sky.

Whoa! This took a fast and unexpected turn into sexual harassment.

How he’s spending St Patrick’s Day:

First we’ll assume that he wasn’t killed by the xenomorph Aliens, of all things, who worked out that he was basically an aggressive balloon and popped him with their pointy teeth.

Only one of many reasons Alien birthday parties suck. Or bite, as the slang may be.

He’d be in the smoking section outside the pub, where he doesn’t feel the cold, and is able to meet lots of lovely ladies. By always having a light and being quite capable of keeping them warm. 

Hitman

Tommy Monaghan is a true Irish-born, despite growing up in Gotham City. Gifted with X-ray vision and telepathy by a brutal alien attack, he’s the first person in comic history to realistically shout “With powers like these, I could be FAR MORE SUCCESSFUL IN MY REGULAR LIFE!”  The fact that his regular job is regularly killing people is incidental.

The only character on this list we’d drink with, and also the only one created by an Irish writer.

Another thing that most superheroes don’t acknowledge: using his powers is a serious effort and he usually doesn’t bother. Unless he’s hanging around Catwoman or Wonder Woman, both of which have happened in-continuity–in which case his x-ray vision proves quite useful. He lives in a bar. He fought a zombified aquarium. He thinks Superman is awesome and Green Lantern is a moron, and told them both to their faces. He once vomited on Batman, but he didn’t mean to.

He’s also the only person in the entire world of fiction who understands that regular guns still work on vampires.

It’s hard to keep posturing when you’ve lost all your limbs, but vampires find a way.

More importantly, and he may be the only actual human in superheroics. He’s nowhere near the toughest person in his own comic. He’s had the s**t kicked out of him by people who are simply better on several occasions, without revenge, and the stories work anyway because they’re actual stories instead of people taking turns to win. Hitman is one of the best comics DC ever printed.

How he’s spending St Patrick’s Day:

In the pub, enjoying a pint with his friends, and not doing a single goddamn stupid, green-tinted, Leprechaun-throttling, begorrah-buls**tting thing beyond that. As should you.

Can you guess who it is?

Luke McKinney watches the new Halo series and mocks The Craziest Scientific Theories of U.S. Politicians.

And nobody sang the Wild Rover.