Summary
- Gary Larson took swipes at DC's Superman in his comics, making fun of the character and his iconic status.
- Larson mostly places Superman in mundane settings, such as feuds with neighbors and marital discord.
- Richard Donner's 1978 Superman movie likely influenced Larson the most, and clearly influenced his best Superman parody.
Despite originating in 1979, Gary Larson's Superman.
First appearing in 1938's Action Comics #1, Superman was a well-established pop-cultural icon way before Larson began his comic career. However, it's likely that the Man of Steel particularly appealed to Larson because Richard Donner's 1978 Superman movie launched just a year before The Far Side, with its beloved sequels playing out alongside the start of Larson's own international success story. Larson didn't give Superman the same repeat focus as The Far Side's clown obsession, but the Man of Steel does make multiple appearances in the classic comic strip. Here are all Larson's Superman comics, from the prosaic to the hilarious. If you enjoy these strips, don't forget our end-of-article poll, where you can vote for which Far Side Superman comic is funniest.
5 Tension Enters the Kent Household
This 1994 Comic Imagines Trouble in the Super-Family
While Larson has a very specific comedic viewpoint and isn't afraid to test his readers' intelligence, his pop-culture jokes tend to fixate on the most well-known aspects of the subject. In this strip, Superman's famous love interest Lois Lane takes issue with her superhero husband, tampering with his costume for a bit of mild embarrassment. There are some fun details for fans of the Man of Steel - his cloak on the coat rack is a funny detail, and Clark would of course be reading the Daily Planet - but ultimately the joke is more goofy than hilarious.
It's also a little sexist, with the implication that it's Lois' household chore to darn Superman's costume. In fact, Lois is perhaps the Superman ing character with the least involvement with his costume.
Over his comic history, Clark Kent's blue and red costume (which was actually inspired by a circus strongman) has received several different origins, most frequently presented as something his mother created out of the Kryptonian blankets the Kents found in his childhood spaceship (though he's also taken credit for inventing its near-invulnerable fabric.)
10 Funniest Far Side Comics That Reference Iconic Movies
Some of The Far Side's funniest comics reference classic movies including King Kong, The Godfather, and Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.
4 Superman In His Later Years
This 1987 Comic Plays with the Idea of an Aging Superman
Larson likes giving fantastical characters mundane problems, and here an aging Superman's failing memory means that just as he's about to fly out to save the city, he forgets what he was actually setting out to do. This premise has also been explored by MAD Magazine's Kerry Callen, whose hilarious Superman parody comics are constantly circulating online. Callen's 'Kryptonians Age Too' arguably sells the joke better - as Superman flying deep into space gives the anticlimactic realization more build-up - but Larson's discipline in telling the full joke in a single is a big part of what makes The Far Side so beloved.
However, it's unlikely Callen would disagree with any celebration of Larson's skill. Callen's affection for Gary Larson's work is made clear in their work for MAD, which includes comics mocking DC characters in the style of Garfield, Peanuts, and The Far Side.
While Larson's 'old Superman' idea has potential, DC got there first and pushed the idea even further in Action Comics #251. In this bizarre 1959 comic from Robert Bernstein and Al Plastino, Superman is rapidly aged into an old man - with an appearance that goes even further than Larson's take on the idea, giving the Man of Steel a walking stick even while flying.
The story makes a muddled point about ageism, while also reveling in the imagery of an elderly Superman struggling to still play the hero - for example becoming exhausted while flying and having to catch a lift with a ing helicopter.
3 "Kill the Lights, Murray!"
This 1981 Comic Makes a Weird Amount of Sense in Superman Lore
A fan of the natural world and lover of insect life (to the point that one scientist fan actually named a type of louse in his honor), it's no surprise that Gary Larson would look at Superman flying like a bird (and/or plane) and instead imagine him as a giant moth.
Moths heading for light is a natural process called positive phototaxis, and is speculated to be caused by artificial lights messing with their natural system of navigation, which uses distant (and therefore far more fixed) focal points like the moon. Weirdly, this would make sense for Superman - the Kryptonian hero gains his powers from Earth's yellow sun, so it would make sense that he'd have some evolutionary instinct to seek it out.
10 Funniest Far Side Comics Where Everybody Dies
The Far Side doesn't consider humans the smartest animals, depicting a variety of ways in which its hapless characters meet their end.
2 Cards with the Millers
This 1983 Comic Imagines a Late-in-Life Nemesis for Superman
Again, Larson tackles Superman in a mundane setting, as it's revealed that the Man of Steel has a running rivalry with Warren Miller. However, far from one of Metropolis' supervillains, Miller is just a friend of the family who objects to Clark cheating at cards. Miller apparently really hates Superman's sneaky behavior, as he's managed to get his hands on the ultra-rare mineral Kryptonite - a detail added to Superman lore by his '40s radio serial, which wanted ways to downplay his powers so as to tell more varied stories.
This feud with Warren Miller isn't the first time Superman's X-ray vision has gotten him in trouble - in fact, the power is the reason that Clark Kent didn't fight in WWII. In Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's 1942 newspaper comic 'The Failure,' Clark is rejected from military service after an eye test. It turns out that Clark's X-ray vision caused him to see through the wall to the next room, reading out the wrong test and obliterating his chance to serve.
Superman did eventually get some wartime stories, however there was very little suggestion of him directly helping the war effort. Mostly, the superhero handled minor annoyances for American servicepeople, like delivering mail.
1 Telephone Booth
This 1983 Comic Is Larson's Most Affectionate Superman Reference
As is often the case, Larson's best Superman comic is both the simplest and the most specific to the character. This Far Side strip sees Clark Kent pause in a phone booth while changing into Superman, wordlessly checking whether there's any spare change. It's a subtle, specific joke that Larson sells with wholesome, surprisingly expressive art, while referencing one of the weirdest parts of Superman pop culture lore.
Superman changing in phone booths is such a weird detail because it was never intended to be an iconic image. In the original comics, Superman changed in lots of different locations - he used a phone booth a couple of times, while thinking to himself that it was a pretty poor choice. However, when 1941's The Mechanical Monsters adapted a story where Supes just so happened to duck into a phone booth, the image somehow hooked the public imagination, and it became a frequently referenced and parodied aspect of the character. Once people associated the phone booth with Superman, the comics started using it more often, and most movie and TV adaptations since have included some kind of nod.
If The Far Side was created today, Gary Larson would doubtless have a lot to say about superheroes like Spider-Man and Batman, however with the strip's heyday taking place well before the superhero movie boom, these Superman comics are essentially the entirety of Larson's superhero output, with their quality surely making fans wish that Larson had loved costumed crusaders as much as wildlife and aliens.
