Wednesday, November 12, 2008

WTF Wednesday: Zee Superman, he ees very French, no?

One of the things I always found amusing about Silver and Bronze age Superman stories was the incredibly goofy lengths Supes and Lex Luthor would go to in order to trick each other instead of just, y'know, bopping each other in the head or something.

A good example of this is Superman #416, which has Superman disguising himself not once, not twice, but THREE times during his pursuit of an especially slippery Lex (hellooo, Google search!). In all fairness, though, I should mention Luthor only breaks out the costume kit once. On the other hand, Superman disguises himself as a bum (Lex: "Get lost, vagrant!") and a soda jerk in quick succession.

But it's his last bit of camouflage that won 'em over in Cannes, using nothing more than a beret and an accent so bad you can actually hear it. Oui! Il est Superman français!

Hey, nice nameplate, Lex!

Well, sorta.

Panels from Superman #416
Elliot S. Maggin, writer; Curt Swan and Al Williamson, artists

5 comments:

Sea-of-Green said...

"Frog"? They actually used "Frog"? I don't know whether to laugh or just be appalled -- or both!

Maxo said...

Oh man, it's terrible, right? I groan every time I read it!

Christian Zamora said...

Hahahahaha! Monsieur Frog! ROFL.

And considering Superman to be a master of disguise, I mean, only a pair of glasses and no one recognizes him, I think this French outfit is flawless!

BTW, I'm adding your blog to my linked ones ;). Hope we can exchange links.

Maxo said...

I guess that's true — compared to his daily disguise, this is almost a Lon Chaney, Jr.-level effort!

Thanks for reading and for the link — I'd be happy to add you to the blogroll!

Christian Zamora said...

Thanks to you! And from time to time I go on linking rampage, lol. It's fun to always find Sea of Green and SallyP wherever I go, heehee.