User blog comment:Raidra/Batman versus the Ugly Horde/@comment-28266772-20160913153520

I love how the era's flippant attitude to human life is reflected in the subtle quirks of storytelling e.g. the prank involving actual disfiguring chemicals. Like you said - just use some damn food colouring. Also it's a pretty dark prank if it involves convincing someone they're going to be scarred for life. Old school stories are full of that stuff though.

Also this strongly reminds of a Dredd strip where a trend runs across Megacity (the start of like 80% of those old Dredd strips) and everyone gets plastic surgery to be ugly as sin. This is because, in a world where plastic surgery is comman as muck, it's far easier to stand out by looking like a bulldog chewing a wasp than it is to stand out by looking conventionally pretty. Gloriously fun picture included below.