More of the World's Finest Crap!

So once upon a time, on a nerd farm far, far away... We were en-gaged in an important piece of funnybook archeology: figurin' out, once and for all, whether it was Superman or Batman who had to put up with the most crap in their classic funnybook appearances. Then Halloween happened, and there was that whole "November" thing, and well... We just forgot about it. But today one of the new nerd wranglers (a Christmas temp) fell into the dig site. Turns out some of the boys had covered it with a tarp, hopin' to use it as a sorta... Burmese Tiger Trap? For wayward trick-or-treaters? And it just laid there gettin' covered up with leaves and snow til it finally caught itself a victim. We'll be sendin' his family a nice memorial fruit basket this Christmas, but in the meantime... Let's all go enjoy ourselves some Pure-T Classic Funnybook Crap!

Now, seein' as this thing's a competition, I thought it might be nice to lead off this round with a few covers featurin' Supes an' Bats squarin' off against each other...

1. Whether they were just brawling in general...

Real men battle with boulders!

2. ...fighting over the love of a pretty lady...

Somehow, I never pictured Supes as a size queen.

3. ...or over a love that can't be named...

Are cape rides a Boy Wonder fringe benefit?

...Superman and Batman's relationship was always a tumultuous one.

World's Finest Crap

So in my tireless quest to figure out who really was the most humiliated character in the history of funnybook covers, I finally settled upon the series Superman and Batman co-starred in for something like 40 years: World's Finest Comics. And here, at last, I hit the motherlode. This book was the king (the KING, I say!) of batshit crazy cover images. I am in awe of its horrible glory. And now, I share a taste of it with you...

1. Early on, the World's Finest covers were relatively tame. They showed Superman, Batman, and Robin palling around together, engaging in any number of wholesome sporting activities, such as... log-rolling!

Superman, Indeed, Puts Up With An Awful Lot of Crap

So I've been digging through Cover Brower again, this time checking out Action Comics covers in an effort to determine, once and for all, who really did have to put up with the most crap: Superman or Batman. Honestly, I think it's a toss-up. Batman found himself in some pretty embarrassing situations, sure. But at least he didn't spend the 40s primarily fighting the Prankster.

(Seriously! I think the Prankster was on every fifth Action Comics cover in the 40s. I had no idea he was such a hugely popular villain. By contrast, Luthor doesn't make a cover appearance til well after issue 100! No wonder the Superman rogues gallery sucks!)

Anyway. Since I was digging, I thought I might as well post up some of my favorite Action Comics covers while I was at it. They lack the style of the Batman covers, I think. There's no early Superman cover even half as cool as that one with Batman and Robin jumping through a flaming hoop on a motorcycle, for instance. Superman was far more whitebread, even from the beginning, when he was tossing corrupt landlords out of windows in the name of liberty. But there's still some fun stuff in the mix. Again, there's no particular order here, except whatever I thought was funniest. Or, in the case of this first one, the most offensive...

1. No matter how much degrading crap Superman went through, he earned every bit of it with this cover right here:

Sure, we were at war. But DAMMIT, Superman! Makes me feel a lot better about crap like this...

Batman DOES Have to Put Up With This Kind of Crap!

So I found a big gallery of Batman covers the other day, and kinda got sucked in. Amazing what the combination of "exhausted brain" and "time off" will do. I looked at every Batman cover ever published in the space of an hour, and it's some dizzying stuff. Here, in no particular order, are a few of my favorites...

1. Proof that Batman is a scientist!

Batman Doesn't Have to Put Up With This Kind of Crap!

One of my favorite things about old DC comics are the insane covers. They'd throw any whacky, impossible, wrong, bat-shit idea they could think of on there to get you to buy a copy. The Superman comics were maybe the best for this, and somebody's put together a collection of  75 Action Comics Covers That Are Worth Their Weight in Gold for our enjoyment. They're all pretty awesome, but here's my favorite: