The 5 Most Ridiculous Attempts to Reinvent Superheroes

So why not something for the socially repressed across the pond?

How It Got Ludicrous:

What would have happened if Kal-El's rocket had landed not in Kansas, but in Somerset, England? The answer is True Brit. And you can tell right away what you're in for: a metric quantity of irreverent puns.

Monty Python's John Cleese has a co-author credit on True Brit. Now, if comedy was a superpower, Cleese would have a "C" stamped on his chest and a cozy seat in the Hall of Justice. So it's kind of a personal crisis for me to report that this book does for satire what a stillborn Chihuahua does for a rich girl's libido.

DC
So ... no pain, then?

You would expect this Superman to battle uniquely British foes like Maggie Thatcher's dole-zapping lizard henchmen. But no, Superman is too afraid of making a scene to use his powers.

OK, but surely Colin "Superman" Clark at least faces Anglican challenges like tea shortages or naming his kids something even more English than "Benedict Cumberbatch," right? Wrong again. It's 90 pages of Superman stammering haplessly just to belabor the point that British tabloids are shallow rags. Oh, and the villainous news mogul looks like John Cleese, just in case any flush producers were in the market for an adaptation-ready property with a marquee name attached.

The comedy isn't funny, and if there had been action it would also not be funny. With no supervillains to fight, the queen tasks him with making the trains run on time, speeding up their state health care system, and revamping BBC programming into something interesting -- which seems like an unfair request, considering he can't even do that for a Superman comic.

DC
Truly this was Superman's Career Opportunities.

There's a running gag where the Clarks are so embarrassed by their son drawing attention to himself that they keep moving farther away without telling him. This eats up 10 percent of the book just so it can propagate the myth that Wales is a real place. And no offense to the Welsh, but if your country exists, how come there's no portal to it in the back of my wardrobe?

The book ends with Superman emigrating to America because he's sick of Great Britain -- although his is a biased perspective, since he never needs health care. So after watching him bust his ass for the country he loves, nothing changes, and Superman says, "Sod you all, I'm going someplace easier."

English Superman would have had more dignity chasing Lex Lutheran through a "Yakety Sax"-filled highway.

But I still love you, John Cleese.

The ludicrous part happens next. Wolverine finally learns his mysterious origins, and they're not pretty. Say "Oh, hell" to Logan's great-great-not-very-great-grandfather, Moon-Boy:

Marvel
No way did he sire Wolverine. Moon-Boy couldn't get laid in Swaziland if his semen cured HIV.

This paragon of dignity is one of the "Small Folk," which are what human beings were supposed to be until alien gods, called Celestials, tinkered with our DNA. That's right -- Wolverine's not the mutant. You are. And your mutant power is not having a healing factor. So thanks for saving us from that, outer space people.

Moon-Boy is a member of the Moon Clan, aka the Wolf Clan, and all the feral heroes of the Marvel Universe (like the Beast) are descended from him. By the time Earth X takes place, their proud lineage has petered out to a fat, hairy little guy prone to psychopathic fits of violence. So basically, the true face of humanity is Joe Pesci.

But what about the feral villains? Oh, it's explained. Wolverine's arch-nemesis, Sabretooth, gets his powers from inhuman ancestors in the Bear Clan, the Moon Clan's mortal enemies. It's just one of those weird coincidences that true human beings and their monstrous foes evolved the exact same abilities.

The Bear Clan and the Moon Clan have been bickering for eons, and didn't quit trying to destroy each other even when history invented better things than feuds, like pornography and video games. Which explains why they're dying out. Now, I'll grant you, Moon-Boy might have gotten lucky only because of his sweet ride: a T. rex named Devil Dinosaur.

Marvel
He's basically the Knight Rider of Parallel-Lithic Earth.

But none of that matters, because when Earth X Wolverine met Days of Future Past Wolverine (who is another future timeline Wolverine), the latter laughed his fat counterpart right out of his own book.

That's just how badass Wolverine is -- you give him the answers he's been seeking his entire life, and when they're not worthy of his legend, he shames an entire timeline out of existence.

How It Got Ludicrous:

Since all manga characters, male or female, are the prettiest ladies you've ever seen, it's not weird that the Punisher is now a sexy school administrator. What is weird is that her parents died in a pogo stick accident. And with that pair of corpses, the similarities to her counterpart end. Sensei Punisher spends her evenings engaging Tokyo's crime lords in light BDSM for literal punishment, or as it's known in consenting circles, "sexual assault."

First off, where was this teacher when I was at private school -- this morning -- trying to find a date? And second, this particular brand of justice-meting is only going to encourage criminals.

That's right! This version of Hulk comes from Old Man Logan, an eight-issue series set in the apocalyptic wasteland of the future that centers on an old and tired Wolverine who vowed never to use his claws again. Old Wolverine just wants to spend the rest of his days in quiet, peaceful solitude, but a number of ridiculous comic-book-related shenanigans force him on a cross-country road trip that finds him coming up against a variety of enemies, including a whole clan of inbred, redneck mini-hulks born of the Hulk's unholy pillaging of his cousin She-Hulk.

I've thrown a lot at you just now, so I'll break it down a bit simpler: Hulk's cousin got Hulk horny (and you won't like Hulk when he's horny), and their incestuous union yielded a crop of backward-ass Hulk cannibals.

Marvel

Science may never know if they're messed up from the radiation, the incest, or the bad parenting, but lord, it ain't good any which way. When Logan stalks out into the wasteland to scratch up rent money, the Hulk brood up and murders his whole family, leaving the corpses lying around like sun-bloated Pick Up Stix. That's enough for the low-key Logan's claws to finally come out, and he gives it back to every last green abomination.

After Wolverine wipes out all of the hulklings, Bruce Banner, the OG Hulk, EATS Wolverine.

Marvel

And then Logan bursts back out of him like a goddamn Alien, because of course he did, and then he rides off into the sunset with the last remaining Hulk, a baby called Bruce Banner Jr.

Marvel

So, a guy who just wants to live a peaceful life is thrown back into a life of violence when his family gets murdered and then he ends up with a green inbred monster baby and ... what's the moral of this comic? Who the hell knows? Just pray that it doesn't end up being the plot of Avengers 2.