As
Archie Comics struggles (
again) to find any success with the
Red Circle (a.k.a.
Black Circle) super-hero comics, it's probably a good time to recall that they have
this guy is their stable:
Super Duck started as one of those not-uncommon funny animals parodies of
Superman et. al. Just an anthropomorphic fowl who took some special vitamins and became super. Familiar, huh?
However, whether it was the end of the war, or fear of lawsuits, Super Duck quickly became just another funny animal book, the super powers and/or parody all but forgotten:
He was still
named Super Duck--I don't think he ever got another name besides "
Supe"--but he wasn't any kind of hero anymore. He wore
lederhosen and hard
Donald-like stories.
When I say Donald-like, it's a case of one of the sincerest forms of flattery available. Supe got a nephew who lived with him (
Fauntleroy), a never-happy girlfriend (
Uwanna--yes, that was her name!!), and a world seemingly designed to abuse him whenever possible.
Here's a typical story from
Super Duck #20 (1948):
Yes, Uwanna is very disturbing,
both in design and in character.
Anyway, the non-super adventures of Super Duck lasted for 17 years, until late
1960. His stories were fairly regularly reprinted in various Archie publications for years, and he's actually appeared as a fictional comic character within some Archie stories, as well as occasionally actually
interacting with the
Riverdale gang via magic.
Well, as Archie continues to fail to find any kind of traction with their repeated attempts to restore their super-hero line, well, they could do worse than give new life...to Super Duck!!
Maybe
Mark Waid is interested...
1 comment:
I here that Robert Crumb read a lot of those when he was a kid, even though he knew they were just knockoffs of Donald Duck and not half as good.
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