Q: How’d this all start?
A: Back in November of 2004, a guy named Mike Miksch started a thread at a Transformers message board called The Allspark about insane comic book covers throughout the ages. Initially it was a laugh in at the expense of Lois Lane Comics, but before the responses had even gotten past the first page, Mike had posted a pair of pictures depicting Superman burning a father’s day gift from Jimmy and laughing in Lois’s face as she begged him to prevent her from being forced to marry Titanman, and inadvertently set the tone for the resulting 30+ pages of responses:
Technically he said “Superman is such a dick,” but the “such” was subsequently dropped from the mantra. And from there it spread across a fair number of blogs and other discussion board forums, which Mike didn’t become aware of until his coworker came up to him and told him he’d seen the thread and was surprised that Mike started it. From there it was imitated by I-Mockery when they did a write up about about stupid comic book covers focusing on Jimmy Olsen comics. That made the front page of Fark.com, where someone posted a link to the original thread on The Allspark, so it all came full circle.
At more than a quarter million views, that thread beats out the nearest competitor ten times over. Such is the appeal of Superman is a Dick.
Take in account that these lurid covers were sales pitches to incite curious customers into reading the contents just to gain some comprehension about just why these respectable iconic figures were going to such lengths, and you get some idea for the mad rush for filling in the gaps, even when the answers were somewhat lax in giving perfectly plausible reasons for undergoing such contrived circumstances. In actuality, due to DC's mandate, the covers were designed first, and then the story revolved around finding plausible (or implausible, depending on your suspension of belief) reasons for indulging such practices in the first place. In contrast, Marvel had the comic artwork worked out first, and then ensuing dialogue was implanted later. (Some might say extensively in some instances) The comic weirdness resulted in a wide range of reactions as noted below:
- I think my brain just snapped in half...
- This thread is awesome. People call the good old days wholesome, but damn, people were on some screwed up drugs back then.
- How did comics last? By making a lot of money by selling comics to a wider audience than 20 year old geeks. Lois Lane was also the best selling comic series of the 1960s. Seriously. Not even Marvel at it’s peak could top it.
- I can’t believe I’ve never seen these covers before.
- Who were these comics marketed to anyway? Young girls or young boys? Or were they trying for both?
- And why did they make Superman a dick or Lois a bitch in every issue?
- Wonder if the folks at Something-Awful can do anything with these covers. These pages are begging to be photoshopped.
- Hell, a ton of them already look like they were photoshopped.
- I’m weeping from reading this. Seriously, I can’t stop laughing. I think blood is going to start spraying out of my temples.
- You know what this thread needs? Hostess Fruit Pies. The only sure way to stop villainy.
- Jesus H Christ, this things are incredible. I can’t believe they’re real. I don’t think you could make them funnier or more unbelievable if you were purposely trying.
- Oh man. Those are absolutely hugging hilarious. Pure gold, man... I’m laughing my ass off.
- What frightens me, is how these things sold. Just who actually bought them?
- People threatened by marriage and papooses, I’d gather.
- I just spent the last hour laughing my butt off and putting every single one of these on my computer.
- I’m not gonna be to sleep because of the pain in my sides from all the laughing.
- OMG, what IS all of this absolute CRAP!? I may never be able to read another comic again, I’m so scarred!
- Why do you people keep doing this to me!? It’s like a compulsion, I can’t not look.
- Was the writers intention to make Superman look like a dick? It’s surprisingly easy how quickly he managed to shrug it off and become a respectable superhero in the last twenty years or so.
- I left this thread Friday and when I came back, it exploded into a dozen pages and everyone’s changed their avatar. If any topic in this world deserves such attention, it’s these comic covers.
- I found boxes of these comics on Saturday and wanted to get one or two, but they’re pretty valuable, so none were in my price range. Still, it was cool to see some I didn’t catch here.
- Wow. They just keep coming and coming. Great stuff...
- Oh my God. I just found this and I haven’t stopped for 15 minutes. Tears are streaming from my eyes, and my stomach literally hurts. Please make it stop.
- How can words EVER encompass a description for this thread?!
- I had to register and say thank you to all who contributed. This has been one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.
- Hoooooly poop.
- I just noticed that this thread has 129,240 views. That’s gotta be a board record of some kind.
- I couldn’t help but notice... all the really ridiculous shit here is from Silver Age DC!
- ... and seems to be focused around one character in particular!
- That Lois Lane title must’ve been like Archie Comics on acid, man.
- What were they smoking up there?
- And what’s with the “Interspecies Romance” angles on Supergirl?
- My favorite thing about these Silver Age weird-ass covers is stuff like that isn’t even vaguely sensible.
- Wow, how times change. In the Golden Era, Superman was a dick. Then John Byrne wrote Superman, and Supes wasn’t a dick, but then Byrne... well... y’know.
- I wanna see an Elseworld where Superman’s characterization is REALLY based on these covers.
- Why DID DC like to depict Superman this way? There seems to be an awful lot of naive psychosexual weirdness, which you often see in stuff trying the hardest to be “family friendly” in the DC of the 50s and 60s. Odder is that Jimmy could be seen as having been meant as an identification character for young reader (though of course, when we were kids we hated Robin and Jimmy and liked the heroes, not their wussy sidekicks; kids never seem to mind when the sidekicks get killed), which takes on an unconscious air of sadism and contempt for their readers.
Since then, there's been a webpage devoted to SuperDickery, along with other noteworthy covers and panels. However, it hasn't been updated in several years, and it's also been laden with viruses and Malware (to the extent that I'm worried about linking to it). Even if those problems were addressed, it also has the fault of only choosing ONE line of commentary for the accompanying cover, and isn't usually the funniest one. Not to mention that the AllSpark forum that inspired these covers is no longer in circulation. To make up for that oversight, I've compiled a list of Fifty of the most extensive amusing replies to various covers, as well as other covers of potential interest. There were more, but I felt that 50 was approaching the breaking point.
SuperCrack after the break:
Competition
- How could whatever’s wrong with her be any less embarrassing than walking around with a lead box on your friggin’ head?
- Dammit, now *I’M* curious about this too... what IS behind that lead mask?
- Nothing. She was hypnotized to think she had a curse on her that turned her head into a cat’s, but she looked perfectly normal to everyone else.
- They give away the entire plot on the cover! It’s like there’s no reason to read the inside!
- Funny, I’m not seeing anything about her thinking she’s been turned into a cat anywhere on that cover. If anything, it’s incentive to actually look inside and find out WTF is going on.
- It looks like Lois’s hand has heat vision.
- No, it looks like Superman’s ASS has heat-vision.
- Looks more like a super-fart to me.
- Is it just me or is this kinky on so many levels?
- I see nothing kinky about this. Its just a grown woman spanking the bare ass of the infant version of her boyfriend. What could be more natural? Perv.
- Two women spanking the infant version of their alien heartthrob. With a brush and tennis racket, which I believe violates the rule of thumb for instruments of punishment.
- Oh, and is it possible for Lois to have a picture of something OTHER than Superman? Break it up. Have a picture of a rabbit or Jimmy Olsen as a giant turtle or something.
- Ah, those were the days, when men were men, women were women, child versions of superheroes were child versions of superheroes, and domestic child abuse was accepted and encouraged.
- Those two chicks to the right look more interested in *each other*.
- This is my favorite issue of Lois Lane ever, and the only one I actually own. I mean, look at that cover with its lurid promises of creepy clown sex - how could you not buy that? I swear, DC totally missed the bandwagon by not launching a Spicy Clown Tales title.
- “Lois, you tramp!”
- I think I read a fan fiction like this somewhere, once. Err.. on accident.
- Ah, my absolute favorite cover of the Golden Age. Impatient Aquaman and all...
- Hmmm. Fresh Air Fund? Is that like Clear Skies?
- Uhm... see it doesn’t really matter and all... but... I was wondering... is it the give fresh air to Superman fund, or give to Superman fresh air fund?
- Superman man be a dick, but Lois is a Slut.
- Bizarro digs chicks whose heads look like thumbs.
- But technically, if she’s super intelligent, shouldn’t she know the answer to that question?
- Everyone knows Super-Brains© are the latest craze on the runways of Bizarro-Paris.
- So if Superman is a dick, does that make Bizzaro a... *SILENCED*
- Well, Lois has... interesting tastes...
- Give up, Superman, you’re no match for these others. Lois is out of your league.. she’s got very discriminating tastes.
- I think the divorce rate in this country has been heavily skewed by the fact that Lois Lane was married and divorced a few thousand times during the 60s...
- I don’t venture into GD much, but this cover is just so stupid. She needs... a “thinking machine”. To think. Wow. Just wow.
- It’s like some sort of 60s version of an internet romance or something.
- Ok... first, she likes having super-powers, then she wants to kill someone for giving her superpowers...
- Um... maybe it’s super-powered PMS or something?
- Seeing as how the effects of Red Kryptonite only last 24 hours, banishing Clark to the Phantom Zone forever seems kind of harsh...
- What’s the K stand for?
- Country music...
- It’s like they had a parrot on the staff during the editorial meetings that just kept pitching “Lois gets super powers!” over and over again.
- And they kept listening...
- The same with the “Lois gets married” idea:
Marriage
- I just love how completely indifferent Superman looks in this cover.
- Kicking up his feet in a church. That's one smug dick.
- Wait a minute. Cobra Commander had a wedding? And I wasn’t INVITED?!
- “WTF?” doesn't even begin to encompass it.
- The Anatomy's wrong for one thing.
- Now if she had the head of a fish and the body of a woman, MAYBE it’d be plausible...
- That makes Superman a furry. Well, maybe a scaly.
- Superman is so fickle...
- Dude, after all the times she tried to get you to marry her, you’ve got no right to complain.
- And for crying out loud, stop sneaking around the neighborhood at night peeking into people’s windows. The neighbors are complaining.
- Yes, she’s marrying Batman for himself. I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact he’s filthy stinking rich.
- Note that these are two consecutive issues.
- One of Superman revealing his stash of poster-sized photos he has of Lana cat-fighting with Lois, and the other of Superman clearly staring right up Lois’ skirt.
- But I don’t think anything’s going to top the messed-up scale of Lois seeing Supes ram his tongue down Lana’s throat, and she starts admonishing herself about being “jealous”.
Death
- Yeah, we sure showed you, Superman! We’ve decided to sacrifice everything we ever knew or loved purely out of spite!
- ...
- Wait, maybe we should think about this...
- Holy jive!
- It just shows you though, if Supes and Lois were still based on earlier notions of good people they’d be utter shallow bastards.
- This is exactly why NASA didn't send women into space until the 80s.
- HE won't marry HER? I've seen enough of these covers to know this MUST be an Imaginary Story.
- Didn’t he just kill her the other day?
- They should’ve gotten out of that relationship long ago.
- Long long ago.
- Long long long ago.
- But he always seems so happy when he’s killing her...
- Drama queen.
- “You...you killed Lois? ......Does this mean you’re free Saturday?”
- So it’s not enough that he kills Lois Lane, he has to kill Perry White too?
- Oh, I don’t know... maybe next issue?
- What I find laughable is the “Great Imaginary Novel” description for a story that was what? 17 pages at most?
- The goal of most old comic book covers was to startle people as much as possible. The “No way can that superhero be doing THAT!!” reaction was the tactic behind most comic sales of the era. In fact, in many cases, the cover would be thought up first and then the story would be written afterward. Lois Lane was no stranger to this practice...ergo, Superman tried to kill Lois every other month.
- What kind of name is Lanie for a kid?
Jimmy Olsen
- That’s wrong, Supes. SO WRONG. Jimmy Olsen actually was USEFUL. Comparing him to Aquaman!?
- Ahahahahaha Aquaman is so lame. I mean, he’s facing JIMMY OLSEN in a fight for his life and the match is pretty much even.
- And look. It’s even got ice cubes.
- ...or you could fly with superspeed to bring Aquaman a bathtub with a water filter, and Jimmy a few more pitchers of water.
- I love that . . .
- (1) It’s not just water, but iced water, really amping up the torturing those in a hot desert aspect by using ICE-COLD water, and...
- (2) Supes is carelessly spilling some of the precious liquid.
- Also, judging by the skull and bones behind Supes, it’s not the first time he’s done this to people.
- There’s no way the story behind this cover could possibly be as amusing as the cover itself!
- It would’ve been even better if they showed Supes drinking the water.
- What’s so weird about a red robot with quadleptic legs, snaky tentacles, large round eyes and a visible brain?
- Why, nothing at all!
- Personally, I’d be wary of those tentacles myself...
- Why does stuff like this have to happen to Jimmy and not Lois?
- So, wait, after following Jimmy around like a stalker, he now hates him and the man who rescues him?
- Yeah, that makes sense.
- I see the Jimmy Olsen title borrowed some of the Lois Lane writing staff.
- WTF, I just noticed that Superman’s the friggin flower girl on this one. What. The. Hell.
- Two words: PINK KRYPTONITE.
- So how many times has Lois been married/not married?
- Lois has a special government dispensation that allows her to marry/not marry on a whim with no repercussions.
- These two plots get used a million times...
- You know, I’m actually starting to see the appeal of these Jimmy Olsen books. What does Superman do when he’s bored? He plays retarded practical jokes on good old JO. And then JO gets even with an equally retarded practical joke.
- See what I mean? One prank after another. These two don’t miss a beat!
- Wait... except the insane asylum issue came out before the dying fake out, so Olson wouldn’t have had to faked dying to learn Supes real identity!
- I love Superman’s expression in this one.
- Talk about throwing a fight.
- You know, if you crop it so that just Superman and his speech bubble are in the frame...
- This is sooooooooooooooooo wrong...
- Jimmy, you cruel cruel bastard.
- Jimmy could die and then all of Superman’s tears make everything better, a la the Pokemon movie.
- That’s one sad movie if it meant it was Superman’s SADDEST DAY!
- Superman’s only weaknesses. Kryptonite and chick-flicks.
- What movie would make Superman cry?
- NOT LUDWIG VAN!!!
- What year was this one?
- I think they may have successfully predicted the now-relatively-common laser scalpel.
- Isn’t Jimmy like... a coffee boy at the Daily Planet? WTF is he doing surgically implanting computers in Superman’s brain and such?
- I love Jimmy’s face on this one...
- I wonder why the title is “Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olson”? They don’t seem like pals to me.
- So far, we’ve seen Jimmy as a crazy scientist, a hippie, a king, Superman-Batman of Earth-X, a groom, a marble expert, an upside-down-seer, and now he’s a crazy scientist again. Fun fact: we’ve yet to see him take a single picture.
- It’s funny how the logo says “Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen,” seeing how half of the covers I’ve seen tell the harrowing tales of Jimmy trying to kill Superman, Superman trying to kill Jimmy, Jimmy faking his death to make Superman reveal his secret identity, or Jimmy messes with Superman’s girlfriend. Christ, Superman fights with Jimmy Olsen more often than Lex Luthor.
- After seeing all those covers, I’d hate to be Superman’s Pal.
Controversial
- OK, why does the press have a crank at all? No one else could possibly turn it.
- Same reason Superman’s diary has to be 50’ tall, made of diamond, and have letters burned into it with heat vision: because it can. Because even when Superman’s by himself he’s gotta do every trivial task in a SUPER way.
- I really, really don't want to know how Superman manages to use toilet paper in a SUPER way.
- Just for fun, sometimes he likes to clamp his super ass cheeks together and crap diamonds.
- “This industrial-strength belt sander tickles, but it’s the only thing that can keep my super-ass clean!”
- Man, Kevin’s never gonna leave his board unattended again, is he? He’s the thin blue line separating civilization from Superman’s toilet habits.
- This cover is wrong on so many levels.
- You know, you could do a lot with that cover by changing the captions. Gives Superman is a dick an all new meaning.
- Keep your mind outta the Gutter!
- Yes, that comic cover is spooky. So much that I think DC would force someone to take it down if they saw it on a website recaptioned. Somebody do it! Now!
- Supergirl falls in love with her horse.
- And as a bonus, Superman has a fling with a girl who looks exactly like his cousin Supergirl apparently. Creepy.
- My God, how many stories were in that issue?
- “Tell me something I don’t know!”
- “I once open-mouth kissed a horse.”
- “What?”
- “That's something you don’t know.”
- Why does that sound like something Leslie Nelson said on Due South?
- Looking at this scan I keep getting Sailor Moon flashbacks where ChibiUsa kissed Pegasus. Lesbians, transvestites and bestiality... that was a great show.
- So is it really bestiality if the horse has been turned into a man? Because this one time - No. I probably should just stop right there.
- Am I the only one here thinking, “Poor Comet – he hasn’t gotten any from a mare because he’s too ashamed to do it with a horse, but then all the girls are too ashamed to do it with him!”?
- That’s one bizarre fetish there.
- I think the real question is, “Why does dummy Supes look so happy about all this?”
- And why does Superman look so hot and bothered?
- And why is the puppet wearing makeup?
- That has to be the most bizarre S&M session I’ve ever seen.
Body Double
- The scariest Superman cover in world history:
- I just wasted twenty minutes this morning looking at old covers and found this beauty. I never actually owned this issue of Superman (though I later went back and bought it), but it really freaked me out when a kid in my street passed it to me. I was six or so and the fleshy false face of the Superman mask was especially frightening to me because it’s exactly like a statue perched above the doorway of my old church. You probably don’t know the story of Saint Bartholomew, but the basic idea is that he was tortured by the Romans because he refused to deny Christ and they eventually peeled his face off. The life-size statue above our church doorway had St Joseph holding up the flesh mask of St Bartholomew, holes where his eyes were, BUT COMPLETE WITH BEARD AND HAIR. It was easily the scariest holy statue in the world and why this cover chilled me to the marrow.
- I suppose someone could try and make some sort of analysis how this is somehow representative of Superman’s own sense of self-loathing, which results in him being a dick to everyone.
- But it’s more fun just to point and laugh.
- Superman is even a dick to his OWN SECRET TWIN. In short: THIS IS JUST WRONG.
- And what’s with the bowl of chocolate sauce? Or whatever that is.
- Chocolate body paint. Duh.
- I’m more disturbed by the fact that, with that configuration of restraints, it’s impossible to adjust your clothing. Supes 2 had better have superhuman bladder control.
- I assume it’s feeding time for the prisoner? (Note the overturned bowls behind the slave!) However, I don’t see any utensils in the picture, which leads me to believe that (a) master Clark’s going to make slave Clark suck the chocolate sauce off his fingers, or (b) he’s just going to pour it on slave Clark’s face, getting him all messy and dirty, sauce dripping wetly down his chin...
- Or, you know, possibly I’m overanalyzing.
- Check out the “Mom and Dad just busted me with a 3 foot stack of porn” face on the unchained Clark.
- Y’know, you could read the Bat & WW’s comments another way... they’re spitting mad that Supes never invited them to this little party.
Destruction
- Is the Pope Catholic?
- If your first thought isn’t “He’s probably trying to run away from a problem he caused in the first place”, you haven’t been visiting the site enough.
- It makes sense. I mean, you take a slightly dense farm boy from out west somewhere, and make him the most powerful man in the world.... what do you expect?
- That settles it. Years of abuse have finally pushed him over the edge.
- That, or saving/killing Jimmy/Lois all the time...
- Not merely a dick, but a big dick.
- I remember reading an article where Alan Moore said that Mort Weisenger’s reign over Superman and his related books was partly driven by sessions with Mort’s therapist - he would take issues that his therapist brought up and work them into the comics.
- It explains. So. MUCH.
- I’m almost afraid to see what happens when he starts being helpful again.
- Oh, wait. No I’m not.
- Given the amount of destruction that seems to all be occurring at once, I think it’s amazing the human race lasted long enough for Superman to get there. Good lord.
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