Thursday, April 10, 2014

TRULY GONE AND FORGOTTEN : THE UGLY SUPERMAN

He's ugly - AND he likes hash!
Superman’s rogues gallery abounds with reverse and imperfect Supermen – there’s Super-Menace, Ultraman, Bizarro Superman, Negative Superman, Sand Superman, Chainsmokin’ Superman, Butt Out Of His Pants Superman, Teenage Mutant Ninja Supermans, ALLLLLL kindsa suck-ass Supermans.

Meanwhile, Superman’s girlfriend Lois Lane has been romanced by all sorts of faux Supermen, none of whom I can recall at this moment but I bet they were called Hyperman and Wonderman and Marsman and dumbass stupid names like that, because comics. Oh, and Hercules I think? Samson? But also definitely – UGLY SUPERMAN.

Referee Earl Hebner presiding.
Debuting in Superman’s Girlfriend (and we can’t all say that) Lois Lane #8, Ugly Superman was a pug-ugly wrestler with a bust face who falls hard for the lovely Lois when she begrudgingly attends one of his matches. A heel (that’s bonafide wrestlin’ terminology, folks, we do our research around here – not counting those first two paragraphs) whose gimmick involves (A) being ugly and (B) dressing like Superman, the rough-hewn and dimwitted grappler slowly begins to win Lois’ affection with his boundless devotion.

Originally only indulging the poor slob in kind of a huff, she genuinely feels pity – which, if I’ve learned anything from reading those pickup artist sites for that Supergirl article back in January, is a totally valid strategy to get laid – and accepts a marriage proposal. Superman manages to break it off by dressing up like an old man and making Ugly Superman look like an idiot and then waiting around for him to appear in the newspaper strip and to fart in a fancy restaurant (I did not make that up), instead of breaking it off by throwing Ugly Superman into the sun. Because Superman’s a nice guy.

A great concept like Ugly Superman they couldn’t let die, so he reappeared in Superman’s Pal (and we can’t all say that) Jimmy Olsen #111 as a coterie of in-ring wrestlers Jimmy reports on and bad-mouths continually throughout the matches. Juicing up on elasti-serum, Jimmy dons his Elasti-Lad outfit and proceeds to make mincemeat of every wrestler up to ol’ Ugly S, who ALSO drinks the serum and becomes I guess Elasti Ugly Superman? Ugly Elasti Superman? Either way I feel confident in declaring this THE SCREW-JOB IN METROPOLIS although I think we can all agree that Ugly Superman screwed Ugly Superman…

No, but Clark looks into it.


5 comments:

neofishboy said...

.... "beef-trust character"?

Calamity Jon Morris said...

Old-timey slang for a fattie.

BillyWitchDoctor said...

Wiktionary sez of 'beef trust': "Originally the name of a conglomerate of beef producers; later adopted ironically by US carnival showman W.B. ‘Billy’ Watson, who used it as the name for his sideshow of overweight women."

Oh, how NICE.

Love that last panel; "Gorgeous Superman"'s opponent is clearly Captain Marvel's enemy, Ibac.

Calamity Jon Morris said...

It's probably worth mentioning that Weisinger never saw a fat joke he didn't think wasn't worth adding to a script...

neofishboy said...

And yet, strangely, dude isn't really fat at all ... just looks like his mom may have gotten it on with a Sontaran.

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