A joke from The 40 Year Old Virginian

I saw both "The Aristocrats" and "The Fantastic Four", and while the former was extremely good and the latter almost killed my inner child the way that "Batman And Robin" actually did, they both reminded me of this old joke that has been passed down from comic book writer to editor to artist over the past fifty years or so...

"Jack Kirby, this broke, out-of work artist comes into Stan Lee's office at Marvel Comics to try and sell him on an idea for a new series.

'Mr. Lee, have I got an idea for you-

'Make it fast kid, I ain't got all day-'

'Okay, okay. It's about this family... husband, wife, wife's brother, and this other guy, their best friend. The husband is a big brain scientist with the space program and somehow gets the government to okay an experiment where the whole group of them are shot up into space-

'This is fast?'

'-I'm gettin to it, I'm gettin' to it... Anyhoo, while up in space they're hit with this strange cosmic radiation, which just, just soaks them, and knocks their ship out orbit and back to Earth-'

'Science-fiction is out this year-'

'It ain't Science-fiction, it's better... so they wake up unharmed and stagger out of the ship. At that moment, the ship explodes, but the wife's kid brother absorbs the entire blast! What's more he can control this fire, turn it on and off his body at will. The husband reaches out to shield himself from the explosion and his arm stretches out two miles, he's a human rubber band! He looks around for his wife, who calls out to him from what sounds like very close by, but she can't be seen- because she's invisible! In fact, some of the falling pieces of spaceship never fell on her, because she can also create these invisible force-fields that protect her-'

'What about the best friend?'

'Oh, he got it the worst! He looks okay at first, but then when the explosion happens, his body transforms into this orange... rock for skin... thing! He's super-strong, pretty much invulnerable, but he can't turn it on and off like the others- he's stuck like that forever! So the scientist husband swears he will look for a cure, while they all swear to use their powers for the good of humanity!'

'Sounds pretty good. Whaddya call this group?'

'The Incredibles!'

Okay, maybe I didn't tell it right. But when I heard it at "Jay And Silent Bob's Secret Stash" the other day, it killed.