A monthly comic book originally published by Valiant comics, "Archer and Armstrong" recounted the adventures of Archer (a "harbinger" with the ability to subconsciously manipulate probability fields, and also the world's greatest martial artist) and Armstrong (a five thousand year old immortal bum, who has lived life to it's fullest, and beyond).
The comic began with issue #0, which itself was something of an anomaly. It was pencilled by Barry Windsor-Smith and written by Jim Shooter.
The idea behind the book was simple. "What if the Odd Couple had posthuman abilites?" The dynamic that worked so entertainingly in the "Odd Couple", of course, was the examination of a basic schism between liberal and conservative ideologies, and it's as old a story as Time itself.
Archer was born the son of a evangelical preacher, who travels the Bible Belt performing faith healings, which are almost certainly a con, like in the movie, Leap of Faith. The local kids seem to think Archer is some sort of nerd, and indeed, he really is a religion geek.
Archer doesn't care what the kids say, though, because when he is overcome with what he calls The Power of the Lord he could bust anyone of them up without even trying.
This "Power of the Lord", which comes upon him infrequently, seems to allow him total control over his body. He can, for example, make jump shots that would make Michael Jordan vomit from envy. As Archer himself puts it: When the Power of the Lord is on me...Every shots a 'SWWIISSHHH!' Naturally, being a super hero comic (except without the fucking spandex, thankfully) this ability has nothing to do with God, but is rather an aspect of his budding powers.
After beating some local thug-boys at a not so friendly game of HORSE, Archer runs home early to tell his parents of his deeds. By doing so, he nearly catches them in the act of murdering a boy. It turns out that Archer's parents are both serial killers who use the faith healing schtick to find new victims.
Archer doesn't understand that the indifference his parents usually show him is a direct result of them being heinous monsters who kill for sexual gratification. They act as though he doesn't exist in order to hide the truth about what they are.
Wanting nothing more than affection from his parents, Archer concentrates on controlling the "Power of the Lord" so that he can show them that he, too, deserves their love. He manages to conjure forth the power by throwing paper balls into a waste basket...and when every incredibly wild shot (like spinning underhanded tosses from behind his back) lands, he rushes to tell his folks. And by doing so, he runs in on them commiting a grisly murder.
His parents decide in a cold blooded fashion to ice their only son by knocking him out, tying him up in the kitchen, and burning down the house. Archer escapes, however, due to his new found control over the Power of the Lord.
Fearing his parents, Archer goes on the road. His travels eventually take him to China, where he hopes to learn Kung Fu so that he can go back to America and kill his parents.
Eventually he is kicked out of the one temple that actually accepts him (all the others turned him away due to the fact that they get a steady stream of crack pot requests like this because of the Kung Fu television show) because he is full of hate for his Mom and Pop.
Although by this point (he is a young man, now) Archer doesn't seem to believe in God--who can blame him, after the shit he went through?--he has nontheless become a staunch conservative. Being raised by a preacher, and then being trained kung fu by monks in China will probably do that to you. (What's Rush Limbaugh's excuse?
Returning to America, Archer finds out that his parents have been incarcerated, and all his training has apparently been for nothing. Wandering around the streets of Los Angeles, Archer has a few opportunites to show off his amazing skills (being a perfect shot, everytime, and being better than Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan put together) but is woefully without direction in life. Which is when he meets Armstrong.
Armstrong is over five thousand years old, and as such, writing his life story up until he meets Archer is impossible. (Plus, only brief snatches of it were shown in the comic. Go figure.) To be brief about it: In addition to being immortal, Armstrong is super-strong and is a big lush. Unlike the immortals in Highlander, who are are apparently filthy rich and good-looking, Armstrong is broke, fat, and he probably smells to high Heaven. His brother, Gilead Anna Padda, (Armstrong calls him "Gilly") is the Eternal Warrior, the man chosen by the earth herself via geomancers to be, essentially, the One. (Anybody who's seen the Matrix knows what that means.) Both of the brothers are immortal, obviously.
Armstrong has lived an incredible life by any man's reckoning, and being as how it is seemingly limitless, this gave the writers a lot of room for story material. But the point of it was this: Armstrong learned from a relatively young age that conservatism as a life policy eventually leads to suffering...Armstrong originally lost his entire tribe (except for Gilly) when they couldn't "grow up" with the world, and were thus overmatched and annihilated by the technologically and culturally superior Sumerians. Whether or not this idea of conservatism leading to destruction is true is open to debate, obviously, but that's his world view. So when he meets this Archer kid, who's about as conservative as they come, his natural liberalism goes into high gear.
The two take an instant disliking to each other, and they quickly part ways. But fate has other plans. When an occultish sect of assassins working for the Catholic church hires Archer to rid the world of a Great Undying Satan, the young kung fu master soon discovers himself fighting Armstrong. This doesn't sit well with Archer's ethics, since Armstrong is really nothing more than a harmless drunk...
Through a neverending chain of events, the two are stuck together in kooky (and possibly homoerotic, depending on how you look at it) adventures that proceed from there. Though often humorous and/or action-packed, the comic was dealing with a range of ideas that you won't normally find in super-hero fare. The constant collision of two disparate world-views made this a peach of a comic, and one that is probably ripe to be made into a movie. If you can find it in the comic bins at your local geek store, it wouldn't be such a bad thing to check it out.