Like any other art form, comics can be corrupted by cheesy promotional gimmicks. Whenever this happens, the comic book community does a collective rolling of their eyes. You hate to see it, but sometimes comic companies have to do what they can just to get by.
The worst examples of overt advertising in comics are when the characters themselves actually choose to promote a product. Often it's some of our favorite heroes doing this. There's nothing worse than seeing your hero sell out to a corporate empire. Often times the hilarious ridiculousness of it all makes up for it. Here are the ten most hilarious times a comic book superhero endorsed a real-life product.
10 Black Widow & Captain America - Harley Davidson
While they didn't overtly praise Harley Davidson, it's pretty clear that Captain America and Black Widow were meant to promote the brand. In this Avengers comic sponsored by Harley Davidson, the artists were sure to put in several ridiculous images of both heroes posing on their bikes.
With all the advanced technology at the Avengers' disposal, it seems a little odd for them to be riding these bikes everywhere. When the two heroes have their backs to the wall and all hope seems to be lost, reinforcements arrive in the form of the Road Force, a group of "heroes" all riding Harley Davidsons.
9 Justice League - Subway
This Subway tie in is absolutely one of the worst. It's cheesy, stupid, and simply cheapens the Justice League's name. Olympians Michael Phelps, Apolo Ohno, and Nastia Liukin are all at a pool when suddenly a superhuman fight breaks out.
Batman arrives, fighting Mr. Freeze and Solomon Grundy. Instead of Batman saving the day, the Olympians do. When asked about how they could possibly take on such powerful villains, they reply that their secret is actually Subway sandwiches.
8 Batman - Snickers
This may be one of the strangest examples of them all. Virtually every other example in this list involves either a brand sponsoring their own issue of a comic or a quirky advertisement.
When Batman held a Snickers bar up to Doomsday's face, it wasn't in some stupid promotional comic. He did it in a real, mainstream continuity issue of Action Comics. More specifically it was issue #959. Bats even says, "You can get really cranky when you're hungry," an actual slogan from the candy company.
7 Spider-Man - Twinkies
Spider-Man is known to have a few product placements littered throughout his comics. This is to be expected considering that the webhead is Marvel's most popular character. What's not expected is seeing him is such a stupid add for twinkies.
When Spider-Man runs into a new villain named June Jitsu, it's up to him to find a clever way to stop her. So, he distracts her with twinkies. And it works.
6 Green Lantern - KFC
It's absolutely believable that a DC hero might also happen to be a fan of KFC. Who doesn't love fried chicken? What's a little more unbelievable is the Flash and Green Lantern teaming up with KFC's mascot Colonel Sanders.
Colonel Sanders isn't just any crimefighter. In this comic, he actually combines the powers of both Flash and Green Lantern in order to stop his evil, alternate reality duplicate, Colonel Sunders.
5 Black Canary - Pontiac
Cars are much more easy to promote within the pages of a comic, especially if they are high-end vehicles. It seems like this would be a piece of cake. Take one very cool superhero, put him/her in the car, have them go on some sort of fantastic chase.
Pontiac had a different idea in mind. In an issue with Black Canary, instead of giving her the car Pontiac decided to create a new hero all their own. His name is Rush, and he drives a Pontiac Solstice. His archnemesis? A car/man cyborg named Gearhead. This story sounds more like fanfiction than an actual, published comic book.
4 Justice League - Craftsman
The worst examples of heroes promoting real-life brands are when it doesn't make any sense. In this Justice League comic, the team hires a handy repairman to take care of the Justice Leagues base of operations, also known as the Hall of Justice. The handy repairman is treated like a hero all his own and even has a codename: The Technician.
The Technician uses his Crafstman power drill to fix all sorts of problems ailing the heroes' base. Simply by using his repair skills, the handyman hero even manages to save the day.
3 Superman - Nestle
Apparently Superman is a huge fan of Nestle products. Not just that, he is also great friends with the Nestle mascot, Quik Bunny. The title of this story is "Quik Thinking."
In this issue, the Man of Steel decides to team up with his small, furry friend in order to stop the Flash villain Weather Wizard. Although the baddie is known for being able to give Flash a hard time, it should have been easy for Superman to take him out. Then again, that's probably the least ridiculous thing about this comic.
2 Hulk - Sleepy's Mattress Professionals
Anyone who has a hard time sleeping at night can probably relate to the Hulk's horrible temper. When the jolly green giant gets a horrible case of insomnia, he gets much angrier than usual.
The solution to this problem? A comfortable mattress to sleep on. No matter how many scientific experiments Bruce did on his sleep patterns, he couldn't seem to figure out that all he needed was a mattress from Sleepy's Mattress Professionals.
1 Spider-Man - Ren And Stimpy
Perhaps one of the newest promotional tie-ins on this list, it was very weird to see Spider-Man hanging out, and endorsing, Ren and Stimpy.
This issue is full of horrible jokes and very child-like, cartoonish animation. Spider-Man doesn't quite fit in with this wacky tone, and the whole comic just feels like a weird commercial for Ren and Stimpy.