{"id":35,"date":"2008-06-30T23:27:00","date_gmt":"2008-07-01T04:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/?p=35"},"modified":"2016-03-28T11:24:16","modified_gmt":"2016-03-28T16:24:16","slug":"silver-age-comic-books-superman-stops-the-litterbug-and-more-super-kink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/?p=35","title":{"rendered":"Silver Age Comic Books: Superman stops the LITTERBUG, Super-Kink, and the GLOP falls in love with Wonder-Girl!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">by Robert Eldirao Gillis 7\/2008<i><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"><br \/>\nWhat was so special about the silver age of comic books? Read about it <a href=\"http:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/?p=32\">HERE<\/a><\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\">\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/uploaded_images\/superlitterbug-774934.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/uploaded_images\/superlitterbug-774879.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: left;\">\nThis panel is from a 1960s story called, &#8220;The Great DC Contest&#8221; and up to this point in the narrative the Bizzaro-Supermen have been rampaging across the world, destroying historical landmarks and causing a big mess. So where&#8217;s Superman?<\/p>\n<p>Um, stopping a little boy from LITTERING.<\/p>\n<p>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p>Y&#8217;know in the movie when Martha Kent says to Clark, &#8220;Your father always said you were put here for a reason?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This ain&#8217;t it.<\/p>\n<p>Some thoughts on this panel.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Does anyone call anyone &#8220;Sonny&#8221; anymore?<\/li>\n<li>This is perfect example of why people think Superman is a total dipshit.<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Retrieve that wrapper!&#8221; Even the command sounds stupid.<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;&#8230;Or you&#8217;ll be known as a litterbug!&#8221; Believe me, there are far worse things to be known as than &#8220;litterbug.&#8221; How about, &#8220;serial killer,&#8221; or &#8220;psychopath,&#8221; &#8220;arsonist,&#8221; or &#8220;most likely to go on killing spree?&#8221; There are probably thousands of things worse than being known as a litterbug.<\/li>\n<li>Does anyone say &#8220;Litterbug&#8221; anymore?<\/li>\n<li>This is the official beginning of the &#8220;go green&#8221; movement in comics, and Superman was the first to acknowledge the primary cause of global warming &#8212; little kids throwing candy wrappers on the ground.<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Keep our streets neat!&#8221; Um Superman, they aren&#8217;t your streets, you don&#8217;t pay taxes. And the kid doesn&#8217;t either.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Finally, I&#8217;d pay real money if the kid said things like this:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Hey, shouldn&#8217;t you be stopping the Bizzaros from trashing the planet?<\/li>\n<li>Good work, Superman! Thanks for stopping my life of crime!<\/li>\n<li>Isn&#8217;t there a super-villian you should be battling right now?<\/li>\n<li>Sonny? Who are you calling Sonny, dipshit?<\/li>\n<li>Congratulations, Superman. This is definitely why Jor-El sent you to Earth!<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;ll put the candy wrapper in the trash after you rebuild half the city you demolished battling Brainiac!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>But let&#8217;s face it, these days the kid would just give Superman the finger.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s another Superman panel that is disturbing on many, many levels:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/uploaded_images\/superman_probably_a_perfectly_normal_explanation-780979.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 355px;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/uploaded_images\/superman_probably_a_perfectly_normal_explanation-780961.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nThere&#8217;s so much wrong here that it&#8217;s difficult to know where to start.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Why is Jimmy wearing a Superman costume?<\/li>\n<li>Why is Jimmy sleeping in a Superman costume?<\/li>\n<li>Why is Superman in Jimmy&#8217;s apartment when Jimmy is sleeping?<\/li>\n<li>Why does Jimmy keep HEAVY ROPE among his Superman souvenirs?<\/li>\n<li>Even the way Jimmy is posed is creepy.<\/li>\n<li>I just can&#8217;t think of any GOOD reason Superman would want to do this.<\/li>\n<li>Superman: &#8220;Now&#8217;s my chance!&#8221; Ew.<\/li>\n<li>Oh, and this one time, at Superman camp&#8230;<\/li>\n<li>Superman: &#8220;Say my name!&#8221; Jimmy: &#8220;Kal-El! Kal-El! Oh, God help me!&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Marlon Brando Jor-El: &#8220;It is forbidden! Forbidden!&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>The REAL reason the character of Jimmy Olsen left the Smallville show.<\/li>\n<li>No means no, Superman!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>And finally, Wonder-Girl gets a boyfriend &#8212; well, something falls in love with Wonder-Girl: The GLOP!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-6138\" src=\"http:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/glop1.jpg\" alt=\"glop1\" width=\"305\" height=\"278\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/glop1.jpg 305w, https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/glop1-300x273.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 305px) 100vw, 305px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-6140\" src=\"http:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/glop2.jpg\" alt=\"glop2\" width=\"570\" height=\"395\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/glop2.jpg 570w, https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/glop2-300x208.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 570px) 100vw, 570px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>While admittedly a dream sequence, things like this happened every day in the Silver Age &#8212; the creature from outer space with the perpetual goofy happy smile absorbs anything, including hundreds of 1960s record albums, falls in love with Wonder-Girl, and sings REALLY bad 1960s teen music while chasing her.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As the saying goes, &#8220;Still a better love story than Twilight.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Robert Eldirao Gillis 7\/2008 What was so special about the silver age of comic books? Read about it HERE This panel is from a 1960s story called, &#8220;The Great DC Contest&#8221; and up to this point in the narrative the Bizzaro-Supermen have been rampaging across the world, destroying historical landmarks and causing a big [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[155],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comicbookhumor"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertxgillis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}