We have a winner

The caption contest is finished, by virtue of (a) having no more new entries; (b) remembering what I was supposed to be doing on Tuesday. Great entries, too. Here are your top three:

• Bronze - Cullen: "You see, Abe, I eat planets. So, no, I can't just eat the slave owners. Tell you what, just for you, I'll give you guys another hundred years."
• Silver - the Judge, Rob Going: "Look! Our American Cousin's playing at Ford's Theater tonight!"
• Gold - newcomer Jeff of Sepiamoons.com: "Three words, Abe - Hostess Fruit Pies."

That just kills me. Anyone who read enough comics in the seventies will remember ads like this one. If only Tony Stark had remembered the good old days, when evil was thwarted with a few well-placed snacks, Cap would still be alive.

It didn't even have to be pies: click this picture for a closer look at hardened crooks dropping sacks of money and jewels mid-heist to gobble pastries. It's brilliantly cracked. (Bonus points for Peter Parker sewing up the annual "Suddenly Clark Excuses Himself Award" by saying that, in the middle of a brazen daytime robbery, he "just remembered something" - he HAD to have him some week-old preservative-packed baked goods.)

The crook couldn't help himself, and neither could Petey. You think people won't believe that? They can accept without question that somehow, while ducking out for a snack, Pete still got awesome eye-level pictures of Spider-Man hanging upside down from a forty-foot ceiling. Trust me, the Hostess thing is no stretch. We're lucky that MJ and the guard didn't join the scramble.

So there's your winner. Rob takes second for making me duck and cover under my desk, waiting for the skies to open on me for laughing at his caption; and Cullen sneaks through a crowded field to show.

Until next time, true believers - excelsior!