Superman and Batman: World’s Funnest #1 (2001)
by Evan Dorkin & various
cover by Brian Bollard
This is a pretty hilarious special focusing on a fight between Bat-Mite and Mr. Mxyzptlk.
And it has A LOT of pencilers!!!
The reason why the two imps are fighting is that Mxy kills Batman and Bat-Mite kills Superman.
Not content with that, Mxy also kills Supergirl.
That’s why the Legion shows up!
He doesn’t even have to fight them: he’s caused so much damage to history that they simply cease to exist.
Yep. It’s that kind of story.
They continue to bring chaos and destruction for the rest of it.
Not content with destroying the Silver Age universe, they go trough several others.
They even go through our reality with an… unfortunate choice for a background.
We also get some lore about Mxy. Like his full name!
They even beat up Darkseid…
…and we learn the true meaning of the Anti-Life Equation!
The humor is a bit hit-and-miss, but there’s a ton of creativity at play.
I mean where else would you see a spoof of both the Super-Friends and of the Dark Knight Returns in the same book?
Eventually the two imps get mixed up with Crisis…
…and Kingdom Come…
…but they laugh it off after destroying the entire multiverse for fun.
Does any of this show up in any regular continuity?
SHOULD any of this have happened in regular continuity?
Silver Age-ness: 7/10
You’d expect to see a higher score, right? But this is WAY too meta for the Silver Age, plus when the absurdity is on purpose and for parody it’s not the same thing.
Does it stand the test of time? 10/10
Comedy is subjective, so this may not get you laugh. But this kind of spoof is timeless.
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