SUPERMAN MEETS THE QUIK BUNNY

That little boy is literally is no danger of being swept away by anything except emotion.

Bless Superman’s bullet-resistant heart, but I don’t think the man knows how to say no. When the Radio Shack Whiz Kids asked him to do a crossover comic, of course he said yes. When the anti-smoking folks asked him to beat up Shane MacGowan only dressed as a brown cigarette, he could only agree, even though it meant throwing the frontman for the Pogues over a building and into space. And when the Quik Bunny asked for a crossover, what is there for a Man of Steel to do?

It’s the Eighties, the era of Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns, and in Superman’s case there’s also a depressing newsprint abortion in which he teams up with the Quik Bunny. If Frank Miller had been in charge, we might’ve gotten Batman crossing over with a heroin-addicted Kool-Aid Man and his stable of hookers, but instead we get this, which is slightly more disturbing.

This opus to vertical integration and the phrase “Quick Thinking” is brought to you by writer Mike Carlin and artists Carmine Infantino and Dick Giordano. It’s worth remembering that, at different times, Infantino and Giordano were the most powerful men on the floor at DC Comics. Consider that as you picture them they putting the final artistic flourishes on a bedraggled rabbit twisting its ears in orgasmic delight while it sucked back what appeared to be beige motor oil.

And also, seriously, I hope you don't get sick of “Quik Thinking.” Seriously.

Honestly, this kind of brainpower seems wasted on a "Quik Qlub."

The story starts commonly enough, for a superhero comic: We open on Superman chasing down one of the multitude of antisocial stage magicians in pajamas which bedevil the world of superherodom. In this case, it’s Flash baddie The Weather Wizard, whose costume – green bodysuit, flated collar, pixie boots and a golden sash – help him cut a figure which is slightly less intimidating that the Quik Bunny…

While the Wizard is pouring torrential rain down on the city of Metropolis, four plucky kid geniuses are busily constructing a super-robot treehouse off in the suburbs somewhere. The multicultural and gender-balanced Quik Qlub – who go by the individual names of Ronnie, Patty, Maureen and Miguel, which sounds like a Protestant family of three and their gardener – apparently do all this at the behest of their manic mentor, the Quik Bunny. Like the mass hallucination shared by a doomsday cult, the Quik Qlub cannot stop themselves from obeying the harried, hectoring commands of their cotton-tailed tyrant. Some day there’s gonna be something extra in that chocolate milk.

While hanging out in their magic robotic treehouse, the Qlub chances upon a tvbroadcast of Superman's life-and-death battle against moisture and a fey Mister Greenjeans. Understandably, the Quik Qlub begin to fear for Superman's safety – possibly because they're idiots, or maybe they have Weather Wizard confused with a black hole or God – and rush off in their transforming magic clubhouse to offer assistance. And chocolate milk.

"Some kinda moon man language, Let's
invade his country and steal his oil."

Luckily for the Qlubbers, Superman has a long history of accepting help from people far weaker than himself. “Sure Robin, come help me defeat Brainiac. Hey the Atom, thank goodness you’re here, how else could I beat Doomsday without you?” It’s condescending but his heart’s in the right place. I suspect this inclination on Superman's part is half fatherly good nature, and half that he knows the Weather Wizard couldn't even beat the Quik Bunny in a fight – and he's RIGHT!

So while the Weather Wizard is throwing hurricanes and tornadoes around the nation’s capital and making it snow in Egypt and what-have-you, the Quik Qlub follow around in their big happy schoolbus of delight while solving mazes and word puzzles and whatnot along the way. It's pretty enlightening stuff - I, for one, learned that the easiest path to the Great Wall of China is via the Canals of Venice. Thanks activity book mazes!

The whole story wraps up in China, where Weather Wizard's been making it hail, and oh man, the Chinese hate hail. Seriously. They must, otherwise why else would he do it? Hail, the one weakness shared by the entire nation of China. One billion people, brought low by hail.

Amazingly - or actually NOT amazingly really, if you think about it - the Weather Wizard is outgunned and outclassed by the Quik Bunny, who quickly fashions a lightning-attracting Quik Bunny metal decoy, and sets it up on the edge of the Great Wall. When the Weather Wizard zaps it with electricity, thinking he's striking the Quik Bunny himself, he instead ... somehow gets walloped himself, I think. The science seems to wear a little thin on the inner thigh around this point of the story, but from what I gather, the Weather Wizard is kind of a puss and then he's dead and thank you Quik Choclate Mouthwash, you've saved something from the forces of whatever!

Then it's back to the Qlubhouse and all its horrible, dark secrets for a celebratory chug of powdered chalk dust and a hearty Kryptonian backslap, bringing to an end another exciting occasion wherein Superman slowed down long enough to let nitwits like the Quik Qlub, the Radio Shack Whiz Kids or Jimmy Olsen fart around and let super-criminals go on massive sprees of destruction and mayhem just so they could feel like they helped.

"I'm drinking this down and it's bitter, as bitter as ashes."