Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Double-take

While I am in the mood to compare two images:

This image was floating around the interwebs some time ago, apparently taken at a store in India:


It's a pretty standard oops-the-unlicensed-merchandise-got-it-wrong deal, but I think it was the slogan that really sold it: man behind brief and mask.

But it got me to thinking: maybe this wasn't the standard oops-the-unlicensed-merchandise-got-it-wrong deal, bur rather a special oops-the-unlicensed-merchandise-got-it-wrong deal. Maybe that Indian silkscreening had a dim memory of the classic villain Composite Superman, and got that wrong:


Wouldn't that be something?

2 comments:

  1. LOL! I'm not so sure this was a mistake, though. What if this was some t-shirt maker knowingly making a winking reference -- "What's better than Superman OR Batman? My totally original character, Super-Batman! He's both in one!"

    I mean, there's some of that playful impulse in the idea of the Composite Superman...as well as Super-Duper, the amalgam of five Justice Leaguers in JLA #31...or Marvel's Super-Adaptoid, combining the powers of the then-current Avengers...the Mimic from the X-Men...numerous other examples up to the present day. There's obviously such a primal appeal in the superhero mash-up that one can well imagine even the creator of unlicensed knockoff merchandise getting the same idea.

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  2. You might be on to something there! In fact, that imperitive even expressed itself in the second Fantastic Four movie, when Johnny shortly became something like the Super-Skrull.

    Also: OMG! I remembered Amazo but had completely forgotten about Super-Duper. Now there's a character ripe for a revival.

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