scans_daily: Wally Wood does Superman part 1 - MAD #4

a2zinc (

a2zinc) wrote in

scans_daily,
@ 2007-12-15 01:20:00

Entry tags:

ec, mad magazine, superman, supreme, wally wood

Wally Wood does Superman part 1 - MAD #4 - Superduperman!
I'm going to be doing a retrospective on Wally Wood's Superman parodies. Since some of this is NSFW and some of it isn't, I'm going to break up these posts a bit so forgive the slight post flood. This segment is safe for work. Wood's Superman parodies began back in the 1950s with the first ever published Superman parody, Superduperman! in Mad #4.

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Safe for Work

Now, DC filed a lawsuit against EC Comics for this Superman parody, and MAD settled by agreeing never to parody Superman again. Of course MAD didn't keep that promise, but it's no longer relavant because DC bought out MAD. Two decades later in the 1970s, DC hired Wood to draw serious Superman material in All Star Comics. Here's a brief scene from All Star Comics #62 to show how that worked out. Wood inks over Keith Giffen sketches.

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Alan Moore cites the original Superduperman! story as the story most influential on his work because it's the first ever deconstruction on the superhero genre. In the 1990s, Moore included a Superduperman! tribute in Supreme as part of his metatext on EC Comics in the 1950s (LINK

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Note that the artists, Rick Veitch, homaged the "When better drawings are drawn" self promotion in the original comic. Also note the sign on the first Supreme page that says "Oda wuz here" refers to letterer Ben Oda who not only did the lettering for the MAD parody, he also did lettering on the serious All Star Comics story.

(Post a new comment)

	kd_the_movie 2007-12-15 11:38 am UTC (link)
	quick fact: The Capt. Marbles and Superduperman fight gave Alex Ross the idea to have Capt. Marvel and Supes fight in Kingdom Come (Reply to this)

	btravage 2007-12-15 01:59 pm UTC (link)
	That art is exceptionally well don for a 50's comic! (Reply to this)(Thread)

	besamim 2007-12-15 02:15 pm UTC (link)
	It's EC! Nearly all their art was exceptionally well done for 50s comics. That's part of the reason the rival publishers formed the Comics Code: to squelch the company that was making them all look bad. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	smuu 2007-12-15 02:26 pm UTC (link)
	That first parody is a thing of beauty. I laughed hysterically the first time I read it as a teenager, and it's still damn brilliant (Reply to this)(Thread)

	Ox, Power of (Another)! cmdr_zoom 2007-12-15 11:14 pm UTC (link)
	Motto. Moore and Veitch did a great job on theirs too, IMO. Really captured the look and tone. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	starwolf_oakley 2007-12-15 03:00 pm UTC (link)
	Frank Miller used the "head explodes in mushroom cloud" bit twice, once in his section of WORLD'S FUNNEST and once in SIN CITY: THAT YELLOW BASTARD. (Reply to this)

evanwaters
2007-12-15 07:04 pm UTC (link)

You see, what I heard was that the suit was a bit of a victory for EC, because it helped establish precedent for parody as protected by the 1st Amendment.

Also, in "Supremelvin!", Professor Newt saying "Not a harpoon! Not a spitoon! A lampoon!" is an homage to the magazine's subsequent "Batboy and Rubin!" parody, which referenced the suit by continually inserting reminders that this was a lampoon and not the real thing. (The one bit I remember well is "Batboy mit un 'boy'! Rubin mit un 'U'!")

(Reply to this)

	demonghost13 2007-12-16 03:06 pm UTC (link)
	The Superduperman/Marbles fight reminds me of that JLU episode 'The clash' mainly because of the bit where Superman smashes Marvel with a safe. XD (Reply to this)

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