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Superheroes have become one of the most popular fiction concepts in modern culture. From their early days in pulp comic books, through serial radio dramas, then often campy television series, and on to today, where a movie based on a comic book hero generated Academy Award buzz, superheroes have made their way into almost all aspects of life.
They're popular for advertising, such as the Yellow Pages superhero. Oh no! I broke a nail! Whatever shall I do? In swoops Yellow Pages Man, with the phone number for a local manicurist to save the day. That was probably much more impressive before the internet made business searches as easy as clicking a mouse, but since when did we expect commercials to make sense?
Some of the superheroes made us wonder what on Earth someone had been smoking when they dreamed up this one, such as Stan Lee's short-lived "Stripperella" series. Stripperella, voiced by and based on the appearance of Pamela Anderson, was a superhero whose mundane identity was that of a stripper. One thing about that scenario; it certainly didn't lend itself to the old Clark Kent/Superman trick of wearing the hero costume under the ordinary business suit. It would be rather difficult to hide a hero costume that way when your everyday job involves repeatedly taking off what little outer clothing you're wearing. One of Stripperella's super powers was that her breasts were lie detectors. I suppose this makes sense in some ways, since Anderson's surgically enhanced bustline probably had more conversation directed towards it than her face did, and heaven only knows how many lies were told by men obsessed by her mammaries. Audiences, however, apparently didn't find the idea much more appealing than I do, as I don't believe it lasted more than one season.
Some superheroes are ridiculous on purpose, going for the laughs. The Tick is one of the more well-known examples of this, and you can usually find other Tick fans by yelling "SPOON!" in odd places. Another example that I can only hope didn't fare so well was in one comic handed to me at Comic Con some years back - Captain Dingleberry. For those unfamiliar with the term, "dingleberry" is a slang term for a small amount of feces tangled in the hair on the back end of a dog or cat. Captain Dingleberry was a superhero who flew around, accompanied by assorted pieces of poop.
I swear I am not making this up. Someone actually wrote, drew, printed, and distributed this at Comic Con a few years ago. I will not, however, go into how Captain Dingleberry defeated his foe. It was a disturbing concept that - with sufficient brain bleach - I hope to forget someday.
What started me thinking about this was a page in a Fiji travel book I picked up recently, which discussed HIV and safe sex while traveling. The discussion itself was tastefully handled and presented important information people need to remember if they find themselves considering some casual romance with someone they meet on vacation. The illustration on the page, though, just struck me as funny. It shows the typical spandex-costumed, muscular hero type, with the letter 'C' in a square on his chest. This is CONDOMAN!
Now, if your first reading of that was "Condo-man", and the image of a guy fighting crime out of an upscale duplex popped into your head, your thinking was much along the line of mine. It took reading the page text to realize this was "Condom - man", whose superhero task is making sure we remember our prophylactics.
Excuse me for saying this, but were I to have the ability to choose the kind of superhero I could be, Condoman would not be it. Swooping down on amorous couples about to engage in unprotected coitus, in order to provide them with "protection" and the strong encouragement to use it, might not be too bad if all those couples were young and attractive. Swooping down on the 50 Year High School Reunion, where the old jock and the former cheerleader are about to relive their teen-aged crush could be even more disturbing than Captain Dingleberry. Older folks need love, too, but this isn't the kind of thing most of us would want to see on a regular basis as part of our "save the world superhero" campaign.
Maybe it's time we scaled back a bit on the superhero schtick. When we have superheroes with lie-detector breasts and superheroes handing out condoms (you know, now that I think about it, those two could work together rather well), not to mention a superhero with scatological sidekicks, it's almost scary to think of what could be next. Is Colonel Colonoscopy going to appear, screening our bowels for cancer? Look! Up in the sky! It's Raging Hormone battling the Phantom Prostate! Which of these aging heroes will dominate the health complaints in the home?
I wish I could tell you, but I have to go now. There's a chatroom in dire need of a visit from the Galloping Grammarian. With my red pen in one hand, and my copy of Strunk and White in the other, I'm off to save the written language!
(You can see the Condoman poster and references at http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/VC/B/B/G/Y/ )
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