As Woody Allen said, the heart wants what it wants. So, why are you here?

I guess Superman really is a dick.

My dad sent me this link here, which gives us 15 of the worst offenders in the "Unintentionally Funny Comic Book Panel" - and by "unintentionally funny," I mean "wildly sexual or chauvenistic when you consider them in modern contexts." The best of the lot is the one at the bottom of link. I always had my suspicions about Batman.

All of the comics are stolen from Superdickery, an extremely funny but terribly slowly-loading site based entirely around the concept that Superman, defender of our freedoms and champion of the people, is a complete dick. They collected hundreds of panels and covers from - what, seventy, eighty years of comic book reading? It's not surprising that they found more than a few double entendres* in there.

The best ones, or at least my favorites, are the ones from the comic covers, where the editors are just trying to sell issues. Superman has been known to have a little bit of a dark side from time to time, but on the covers, he takes it to a whole new level. He's an absolute lout.

Here's a few of my favorites from the site (and yes, internet wonks, I stole 'em all outright and I'm not claiming credit, so no flame mail allowed). Click on the thumbnails to see the ones that catch your fancy, they may take a second or two to load but it's nowhere near as bad as the main site.

Let's start out with the longtime storyline "Superman - World's Worst Lover"

1. The beginning of an ongoing pattern of Superman keeping everyone else as far away as possible from the sweet, sweet taste of success.


2. A deeply, deeply, deeply disturbed man. Like Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver, only with superpowers. Ugh.


3. That's right, Superman. The chick had it comin'.





3. And finally, learning self-reliance. My favorite of all the ones we've done so far.



Now, let's create this imaginary exchange one might have with the precocious boy.

"Superboy, you've built a nifty-looking time telescope there, and, yes, it allows the viewer the ability to see through to the future. Very cool. And it looks like Bruce Wayne is suitably impressed that you've shown him how the two of you are going to be friends forever. But let's discuss some more useful things you could be doing with the machine:

For example, you could use it to foresee natural disasters like tornadoes and earthquakes, and warn the world so that nobody gets hurt. Or, if you're a little more mercenary, you could use it to correctly predict sports outcomes and make a killing in Vegas. Or, maybe, you could use the machine to let Bruce Wayne know that his parents are going to be gunned down in front of his very eyes in a filthy alley, you tool!"

It's especially great that the common complaint about why people can't get into Superman is that "he's too perfect, it's hard to relate." Funny, I wouldn't think that would be so difficult.




*side note: most spellcheckers, especially internet spellcheckers, don't recognize the word "entendre." Considering that this is the internet, you'd think the word would come up fairly often and the problem would be addressed. But no.

You know what word is also not recognized? Spellchecker. They won't accept the now universally recognized one-word spelling. Strange.

posted by Ben Wyman @ 5:21 PM