Diet Coke-Babies

Every once in a while, I think that kids today are missing out, with the Golden Age of sugary licensed products in the past.  Candy and other related companies have become rather complacent.  Instead of pioneering new ways to get children to ingest buckets of sugar a day, they seem content to rely on their past successes. 

Then, recently, I discovered something that reaffirmed my faith in society.  Well, I didn’t actually recently discover it, and my faith in society hasn’t been fully reaffirmed, either.  I was in 7-11 after a hockey game, looking for something to drink.  I have read that drinking chocolate milk after physical activities is good, because it replenishes all of the things you lose by exercising.  Except your dignity.

So, I was in the chocolate milk section (surprisingly, there actually is a chocolate milk section) deciding if Yoo Hoo falls under the chocolate milk umbrella, or if the “chocolate milk” versus “chocolate drink” difference meant that buying a post-game Yoo Hoo was a mistake.  But then I remembered that “buying a Yoo Hoo” and “mistake” do not belong in the same sentence, and purchased it. 

While in the chocolate milk section, I came upon our subject matter:  Marvel Slammers Ultimate Milkshake.  Finding out the actual name of this product wasn’t easy; there are words all over the packaging, in varying sizes, colors, and fonts.  I decided to pass them over; I was too tired to drink something with a wrapper that brightly colored.

Then, recently, I came upon the mother lode of Slammers (not to be confused with POGs,) while shopping in… Waldbaum’s.  I bet you thought I was going to say Pathmark.  I think they have actually been carried in stores for a while, I just never noticed them.  I was probably confusing them with those other drinks that have the licensed character heads for a lid, and come in a variety of repugnant flavors and colors.  I think they are called Throat Washers, or something similarly perverse.

Realizing they were, in fact, different, I gave them a closer inspection.  With the combination of their garish packaging and some of their dubious flavor choices, I decided that they needed to be tried.

We will start off with the most popular flavor of milk (besides plain, I guess): chocolate.  To me, this seems like kind of a waste.  In a line of flavored milks, chocolate is almost definitely going to be the best seller.  So why pair it with Marvel’s most popular character?  Put Spidey on another flavor, since kids will buy it no matter what, and instead make Luke Cage Chocolate Milk.

Instead, they decided for an unstoppable duo.  So, without looking at any sort of sales charts or Chocolate Milk Business magazines, it is obvious that this is the line’s best seller.  For now, ignore what I said about the crazy packaging, as this is probably the blandest of them.  The most notable part of the label is that it claims it will give you “Spidey Sense.”  It does this by providing Omega 3 Fatty Acids, Vitamin E, and Choline.  I have no idea what Choline is, but according to PDRhealth.com, “The foods richest in phosphatidylcholine, the major delivery form of choline, are beef liver, egg yolks and soya. Beef liver, iceberg lettuce, peanut butter, peanuts and cauliflower are some foods that contain free choline.”

So, it seems that they are using the chocolate flavor to mask the taste of the liver and cauliflower that is included in the milk.

Oh yeah, apparently the Slammers each provide you with vitamins, minerals, etc, that coincide with whichever hero is represented.  The aforementioned ingredients are supposed to “boost your brain power” which is the same thing as having Spider Man’s ESP-like warning system in your body.  I guess.

Not only will you boost your brain power, you will also boost your waistline.  God DAMN, these Slammers are bad for you.  Granted, it is chocolate milk, but come on.  You definitely will “Hulk up” (get it?) your body with almost 40% of your daily saturated fat.  Another odd nutritional quirk is that apparently Captain America makes his own nutritional rules.

All of the other labels say that 5 grams of sat fat is 18% of your RDA.  Captain America doesn’t agree.  He thinks that 5 grams should be 25%.  No wonder he’s so ripped.

Anyway, back to chocolate Spider Man… how does it taste?  Actually, really good.  It is really thick, almost to the point of being creepy.  It is also very chocolaty, but not disgustingly so.  I only drank about one cup’s worth, and that was more than enough.  It was good, but the sweetness and thickness was hard to take eventually.  I didn’t bother with pictures, because you know what chocolate milk looks like.  Overall, a solid B+.

Next up, we have the aforementioned Captain America.  His flavor is “Red, White, & Blue Vanilla.”  Huh?  Is it a light purple?  That doesn’t make sense; that would be Hawkeye’s flavor.  Apparently we are supposed to ignore the red and white part, and realize that is just Blue Vanilla.  Uh, ew.

Making Captain America’s flavor vanilla is a great choice: boring flavor, boring character.  This drink’s benefit is that it is a “Super Serum” and provides you with 20% RDA of 10 essential vitamins.  What a rip off; Spider Man’s drink had almost all of those vitamins, and it also had Choline.

I was very interested in seeing just how blue the milk would be.  Okay, maybe not “very interested,” more like mildly intrigued.  I’m not that much of a loser.

Ugh.  I can’t believe I am about to put that inside me.

WOW, it is sweet.  Forget what I said about not being able to drink all of the chocolate flavor… this is the new benchmark.  I made it about three sips in and had to stop.  Imagine injecting a marshmallow with vanilla ice cream, soaking it in vanilla extract, and then coating that with cane sugar.  The blue milk was sweeter than that.  BLEH.  I’m still tasting it.

Not for long, though.  Like a true connoisseur, I am cleansing my palate between courses, with Fresca. 

I can’t really knock the milk for being too sweet; it isn’t being made for people like me.  It’s meant for children, not almost grown men who act like one.  Even still, I can’t imagine any kid drinking the whole bottle on purpose.  Overall grade… C-.

The next flavor, I must admit, I do not have any photographic evidence of, or much of a description.  It is Wolverine’s flavor: Fierce Caramel.  I don’t still have the bottle or the leftovers because I drank this on the way home, and threw out the bottle when I was cleaning my room by accident.

Marvels sexiest brunet gets the shaft here, being associated with an absolutely terrible flavor.  Caramel, no matter how you try to approach it, just is not acceptable as a milky drink.  In coffee, I guess, but not in milk. 

Sorry for the lack of information, but heed this warning:  stay away.  D.

The last two flavors feature characters from Marvel’s worst big budget movies.  First up are Daredevil and Elektra.  That’s right, Daredevil doesn’t even get his own flavor, he has to share it.  Hey, that’s what you get for being blind.

The label claims it helps your “Perception,” by including vitamin E, lycopene, and ginseng.  That sounds all well and good, except when the product’s co-spokesman is Daredevil, the only thing I assume drinking it is going to do is make me go blind. 

Even the flavor itself is something of an insult: Dark Strawberry.  I assume that it is dark because that’s all Daredevil sees. 

I should also not ignore Elektra, the drink’s other character.  In the comics, Elektra was awesome: she was an absolute psycho, a ninja, and, like all comic book females, hot.  Then Jennifer Garner went and turned her into a vaguely mannish loser.

Hmm, I don’t really see where the “dark” in “dark strawberry” comes in. The color is actually quite bright, very reminiscent of Pepto Bismol.  But hey, that’s cool; if it shares both a color and deliciousness level with Pepto Bismol, we’re good to go.

But no, it doesn’t.  It tastes like typical strawberry milk, except much thicker and much sweeter.  Damn it, I really wanted to like this flavor, since I really like strawberry milk.  I just can’t handle the sugar.  I can’t believe I just said that.

Overall, B-.

Finally, we have clearly the most interesting flavor.  Star of Marvel’s worst movie ever and one of the best roller coasters ever, The Hulk gets a flavor that has everything going for it: potential to be great, a greater potential to be horrible, and even odds to be overbearingly green.

Cookies & Green just sounds strange.  Obviously, it is supposed to taste like cookies and cream, except the oh-so-clever name twist enables them to pop the Hulk on the label.  And drinking this will give you “power,” with its B vitamins. 

Okay, that’s just gross.  It’s not even bright green, like everything associated with the Hulk is.  It’s almost an olive green, much darker than the picture suggests.  Well, the visual aesthetics are only part of the package, so how does it taste?  Damn good.  Wow, I am very surprised.  It tastes just like the name suggests, like melted cookies and cream ice cream.  It doesn’t have the over the top sweetness the other flavors have.  While it is definitely very sweet, it keeps it somewhat under control.

Cool name, scary color, and great taste. A-.

An overabundance of sugar, an array of strange colors, a variety of vitamins, and the inevitable raging stomach ache.  I’ll call that a night.