Peel me another grape, Pocahontong!

As promised, here's that 1974 Robin trading card that ends with a thrilling scene of Batman beating a withered old man. Go get 'em, Caped Crusader!



Actually, despite the anti-AARP ending, it's not nearly as bizarre at the Aquaman card I posted a here a few days ago. No cavemen mermen, no wacky mental powers, no three-headed sea creatures. Just some inane clock puns and one brief, shining moment of violence. But that ending, lame as it is, reminded me of another comic book scene, involving Batman's super-powered pal -- or at least a twisted version of him:



Ever see this? It’s the classic opening panel of Harvey Kurtzman and Wally Wood’s immortal “Superduperman!” (MAD #4, 1953). It’s been reprinted dozens – hell, hundreds – of times, but still retains its power. You just don’t see the big blue boy scout sock a helpless old man in the stomach very often, and I’ll bet this was the fist time anyone saw it, ever. Hell, I remember the first time I saw it: Our library had a copy of THE MAD READER and, when I was in fifth or sixth grade, I took it home. Hoo boy.

I’d seen copies of the old MAD comics before, in those NOSTALGIC MAD inserts they’d include in MAD SUPER-SPECIALS. A fourth-grade classmate passed one around that included “Starchie” and “Flesh Garden!,” and I was blown away. Raised on Marvel and DC comics, I was completely unprepared for the brutal comedy of Kurtzman and Co. It was funny, it was beautifully drawn (especially Wally Wood’s version of Dale Arden – yowza!) and most of all, it was a little scary. But you know…in a good way.

Trouble is, I only was able to read that issue when Mrs. Simon wasn’t watching, catching tantalizing glimpses of Biddy and Salonica in between math problems. But this MAD READER from the library, this was something I could spend some time with. While I had it, I pored over it again and again and again, studying every line, every joke. And that did it. Seriously. I was never the same.

I’ve read interviews with comics pros describing how a brush with Kurtzman’s MAD changed them forever, and I don’t doubt it. Even a couple of decades after those strips were written and drawn, they still packed quite a wallop. Oh, I’d read plenty of CRACKED in my day, but that was a kids’ magazine, content to put the Fonz on the cover every other issue. And, in the mid ‘70s (which is the era we’re talking about here, by the way), MAD was busy mocking movies I didn’t see (“One Cuckoo Flew Over the Rest”) and shows I didn’t watch (“Rhota”). Sure, Don Martin was funny, and Al Jaffee was usually good for a snappy answer to a stupid question or some joke involving dog poop (It’s amazing how much MAD humor in the ‘70s involved dog poop). But otherwise, reading MAD meant grooving on the art, chuckling at the puns and feeling cool to be reading such an “adult” mag. (NATIONAL LAMPOON was like PLAYBOY to us back then – a nudie mag we might catch a glimpse of, if we were very brave and very lucky.)

But the strips in THE MAD READER, they mocked what I knew – Superman, The Lone Ranger, Archie, Flash Gordon, newspapers, Gasoline Alley (I was big into old comic strips). And what’s more, they mocked them savagely, bitterly, utterly without mercy. The art – courtesy of Will Elder, Wally Wood and Jack Davis -- was darker than I was used to, full of shadows and alcoves that concealed hidden jokes and whispered asides. And the scripts – courtesy of Kurtzman – were even darker, telling us that what we were beginning to suspect was true: The world can be a cruel place, adults will lie to you, bad things happen, good guys don’t always win, sex and violence are powerful forces, etc, etc, etc. But, strangely enough, after learning these grim lessons in MAD, we didn’t feel frightened and depressed. We felt like we’d been let in on the Big Secret, the one our schoolbooks would never tell us. And now that we knew the real deal, we didn’t have to be scared of the world. Hell, we could laugh at it. We could make fun of it.

Years later, when I got my first real job, I bought myself a present: Russ Cochran’s four-volume hardcover collection of those original 23 comic book-sized issues of MAD, printed big on nice paper in gorgeous full color. They still might be the best books I ever bought. I pull them off the shelf and page through them every so often, planning to just gaze at the art, but I always find myself drawn into Kurtzman’s stories, each one a satirical sniper’s round that picks off its target with effortless, deadly precision. At a Chicago comic book convention a few years before he died, I was able to tell Harvey how much I loved his work, and even got him to sign that first volume of MAD reprints. It made a prized set of books priceless.

And so, to close up this rambling entry that began with Superduperman beating an old man on crutches as the crowd cheers and Lois Pain practically quivers in ecstasy, I’ll end with the last panels one of the finest MAD stories ever, “Bringing Back Father!” It’s a note-perfect vivisection of comic strip violence by Kurtzman, Elder and Bernie Krigstein. I mentioned it in my “favorite comic books” entry, but really, you need to see this one to appreciate it:



It is good to be serious once in a while. And if you can be funny while doing it, well, then my friend, you're really on to something.