Batman & Supergirl Say, 'It's Just a Comic, You Should Really Just Relax'

CBR

By Brian Cronin

Published Mar 31, 2019

In their feature spotlighting examples of heroes breaking the fourth wall, CSBG shows Batman and Supergirl telling the audience to chill out.

This is "A Wall Between Us," where I spotlight notable examples of comic books breaking the fourth wall. What I'm looking at here is mostly examples from characters other than She-Hulk, Deadpool, Ambush Bug, etc. You know, the kind of stuff that is a bit more of a surprise to the reader. If you have any suggestions, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!

Today, based on a suggestion from reader Matthew O., we see Batman and Supergirl (technically SuperWOMAN in the comic, but since that headline would be confusing, I went with SuperGIRL for the headline) tell the readers to chill out.

This is all part of an imaginary story that is at the heart of Superman #192. The story is by Otto Binder. The art is by Curt Swan and George Klein.

The concept of the imaginary story (which was DC's version of "What If...?" comics, alternate reality comics where anything could happen) was that Superman gets hit by a combination of Kryptonites that strips him of his powers AND wipes his mind of the fact that he is, in fact, Superman. So the world all believes that Superman is dead or lost somewhere. Without Superman around, though, Clark is able to finally devote himself to Lois Lane 24/7 (and since he no longer has powers, it proves to Lois that he is not Superman) and they have a whirlwind romance and get married...

Dang, if Curt Swan wanted to, he could really draw an attractive Lois Lane.

Anyhow, Clark disappears for a while and when he finally returns home, he is shocked to find that he and Lois have a kid. And the kid has SUPER POWERS!

The reference to the popularity of Batman and Robin was a really cheeky joke by Binder, since this comic book came out at the end of 1966, near the height of Bat-Mania.

The problem for Clark and Lois is that their son is a BIT of a super BRAT...

Anyhow, the years fly by and the main "Super" hero on Earth is the now grown Supergirl, who goes by the name Superwoman now.

Eventually, there is a big motion picture made about the life (and death?) of Superman and all of his friends and fellow superheroes attend the premiere. Do you all see the plot hole here?

Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='The cheeky way Binder gets around the plot hole...']

At the premiere of the movie is Batman and Superwoman (who are presumably the new World's Finest team), but since they both know that Clark Kent is Superman, why haven't they told him all these years?

They know that it is an issue, so they begin to address it....but then...

They just tell the audience to chill out and enjoy the imaginary story! I love it! I mean, it's sort of a cop out (I'm sure Binder could have come up with a good reason why they didn't tell Clark), but it's super funny and clever!

At the end of the issue, Clark discovers that he is Superman, but in one last funny bit, the issue ends and it notes that they're not even sure if it will ever finish (I know they mean whether the actual EVENTS will ever happen, but I decided to read it as them not being sure that the story will ever happen)...