COSTUME DRAMA : MAN AND SUPERPANTS

It's cold that they're calling Star Hawkins a never-was before he's even born.

In lieu of something happening, the be-helmeted Superman in DC Comics’ latest water-treading weekly “series” (I put that in quotes because the word typically implies a progression of events, and famously nothing has ever happened in a weekly DC Comics except in “52.” They may as well put out postage stamps with third-string characters on it and call it a comic book) was recently revealed to be the New DC universe’s Captain Marvel, the superhero whose name sounds like a sneeze, Shazam.

Misandry is real.

Cap and Superman have switched outfits before, including in the Superman/Batman story arc “Public Enemies,” an occasion so noteworthy that an action figure was made to commemorate it. Imagine if they did statues with that reasoning, “The Time Admiral Nelson Wore Napoleon’s Socks.”

As far as I’m aware, though, the FIRST time the pair ever switched costumes was against their will wayyyy back in DC Comics Presents #33 (and continuing into #34, May-June 1981). Responding to the sounds of a runaway train, Clark Kent dashes off to a Daily Planet storeroom expecting to change into his familiar costume. What he finds under his clothes, however, is the red-and-yellow togs of Captain Marvel, complete with – as Superman calls it – “This puny little cape!” Haha, Superman basically just shamed the size of Captain Marvel’s cape’s dick. Raw, dog, that was raw.

The wardrobe switcheroo works both ways, and Cap is flying around in Superman’s togs (with Superman’s powers, for that matter) over on his own Earth. The culprit behind the interdimensional panty raid is Mister Mxyzptlk, briefly teamed up with Monster Society of Evil founder, one-time electric chair survivor and all-around evil worm Mister Mind in one of those appealing one-from-Column-A team-ups that were the hallmark of crossed continuity. As the misaddressed undies are sorted, the duo is joined by Mary Marvel, Captain Marvel Junior and their pal Dudley, a.k.a. Useless Fart Marvel as the threat to the then-dubbed Earth-S expands to the funny animal planet which super-powered Hoppy the Marvel Bunny calls home.

Hoppy's O-Face.

This crossover happens about half a decade before the Crisis on Infinite Earths and was issued at roughly the same time as Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew were debuting and enjoying their first run at DC, making a brief golden age of superhero funny animals at the Big 2 (considering that Peter Porker was swinging out of Marvel “Tails” over at the competitor). This was, basically, a time when cross-continuity crossovers – even with properties now wholly owned by one company – were still a bit of a rarity. It’s remained in my memory that this one was handled very much like AN EVENT, with representative villains from both sides and a three-fer surprise cameo crossover.

I was still a kid when Crisis was released, and I remember being legitimately concerned about the fates of Earth-C (where Captain Carrot and his pals resided), the associated Earth-C-Minus (where legit funny animal versions of DC heroes resided, which you think woulda earned a spot in the JSA/JLA Summer crossover event calendar at some point but no-o-o) and, most of all, Hoppy’s Earth, which was never even named! It seemed clear to me that all those poor funny animal superhero Earths were obliterated in the wake of the machinations of the Anti-Monitor, the villain who hated monitors. I wish I could paint for you the mental picture I had in my head in those days, of bewhiskered super-rabbits and cloaked super-pups dying amidst the crackling red skies of oblivion, murdered and blown to pieces by merciless shadow warriors. It was like one of those Sarah Maclachlan ads, only with more spandex.

"As long as they don't give him an idiotic hood and stop callin' him Captain Marvel!"