Author's Notes And Annotations
1. Introduction
I hate to admit it, but it all started out with a bad fan fiction contest on a Justice Society Of America newsgroup. I was trying to come up with an unoriginal idea (this was a BAD fan fiction contest after all), and thought that I'd write a story where Forbush Man meets the original Red Tornado, based on the premise that their costumes bore a striking resemblance to each other. I was sure that I couldn't be the only one to have spotted this, and did a quick search of the web just to verify that my idea was as unoriginal as I hoped. Needless to say my idea was strikingly unoriginal and I produced a story from it (which has now, with a minimal number of tweaks, become my "The Ultimate Hero" story - apologies for the shameless plug). Being quite happy with the resulting story (and therefore worrying that I wouldn't win the contest), I was trying to think of another story that I could enter. I remembered that while I was searching the web I'd also been reminded that Mad's Captain Klutz's costume also resembled the original Red Tornado's. Whilst trying to work out the ways that Captain Klutz could feasibly encounter the original Red Tornado, I realized that the EC world already had its own set of superheroes I could use. I also realized that EC, like the DC of yore, had multiple worlds (war, horror, sci-fi, Mad) and these had got replace by just one world (Mad Magazine). Thus was the Crisis set in motion.
2. Annotations
Crisis On Finite Earths - this is an obvious reference to Crisis On Infinite Earths, the Marv Wolfman/George Perez series that removed the DC multiverse.
Chapter One
Kill The Worlds (Let Them Know It's Crisis Time) - this is a pun on the UK Band Aid single Feed The World (Let Them Know It's Christmas Time). I came up with the pun when Crisis On Infinite Earths originally came out, but this is the first time I got to use it in print.
It all ended in June 1955 - The last issue of Mad Comic was dated May 1955, the first issue of Mad Magazine was dated July 1955. Needless to say that anything that comes across as copious research here was actually just me having a quick look at my Mad CD-ROMs.
Worlds had died, and, on the one world that survived, nothing was the same ever again - this story's partly a lament for EC comics. Their brilliant war, horror, and science fiction comics died. Only Mad survived, and that changed into Mad magazine (which I also love by the way).
The Bat. The Alien. The Amazon - When I first placed this story on the fan fiction site, I didn't mention that it had anything to do with EC comics, hoping that this would come as a nice surprise to people as realization dawned. That's why, in the earlier chapters, I go out of my way not to refer to the characters by their actual names (I call Plastic Sam just Plas, Superduperman Supes, Woman Wonder WW, etc. so that the reader will initially think they're the DC versions). Later, I realized that some people wouldn't have heard of EC comics so wouldn't appreciate the real DC heroes not actually being present in the story. Also, I realized that anyone who liked the Mad Comic's superheroes wouldn't necessarily realize that the story contained them, and so give it a miss. That's why I now give away the EC connection in the story description.
If ... but there's no point in thinking "If". That's how all of this began in the first place - I was trying to think of who I could use as the Pariah character (who featured in DC's Crisis) and thought of the main character in the EC war story 'Big If' (Frontline Combat issue 5). He bore a resemblance to Alfred E Neuman (brown hair and freckles), so I had him transform into Alfred over the course of the story. If you've read "Big If" you'll hopefully get the reference. If you haven't then you'll wonder why I'm using the word "if" all the time.
It all began in a world of war - a reference to EC's war comics.
A world of horror, a world of wonders - horror comics and science fiction comics respectively.
Finally, I was left in my final world, a world gone mad - Mad comic.
Chapter Two
How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Crisis - the title's based on Dr Strangelove's subtitle "How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb", and also a reference to Alfred E Neuman's catchphrase "What? Me Worry."
A chance meeting with a guy called Wheezy in a bar led me to my first superhero - Woozy Winks was called Wheezy Wunks in EC's Plastic Man parody "Plastic Sam".
He was being held in a specially made cooler - at the end of Mad's "Plastic Sam" story our hero's left imprisoned in a specially made cooler.
"tired of the war, ragged from the science-fiction, weary of the horror" - these words are taken verbatim from the introduction to the first issue of Mad issue 1.
I stopped worrying and started smiling. I never stopped smiling thereafter - these are references to Alfred E Neuman's "What? Me Worry" catchphrase and the fact that he's always shown smiling.
Lois finally knew Clark's secret but she still wouldn't give him the time of day - Lois Pain discovered Clark Bent was really Superduperman at the end of the "Superduperman" story.
It was changing from blue to grey - during DC's Crisis all the skies went red. Also, when the multiverse faded out all the final pages of that month's comics went to white. In the EC version I have Alfred E Neuman absorb all the world's color into himself, because Mad went from a color comic to a black and white magazine (with a colored cover featuring Alfred E Neuman).
Steve pulled Diana away from her ironing and pointed to the sky outside - at the end of "Woman Wonder" Steve Adore makes Diana Banana give up being Woman Wonder and spend all her time being a housewife instead.
Ten minutes later he entered the Society headquarters - there was no Justice Society equivalent in Mad comic, but seeing as how I came up with the idea for a JSA bad fan fiction contest I thought that I better make one up.
He looked at Supes and WW and, there, sitting at the back, the Red Tomato - the Red Tomato's another character I had to make up. She's just meant to be a Red Tornado parody. I originally had ideas to make up a whole JSA (There was Melvin Thunder who could call a thunderbolt if only he could find the right word. He'd be trying all the obvious Mad comic phrases - furshlugginer, potrzebie, domm da dom domm, and others that my spell checker can't cope with. Eventually he'd come across the right phrase and his thunderbolt would strike Captain Marbles setting him on fire, in a similar way to what finally occurs in the story. There was also Dr Fake, who'd be surrounded by smoke and mirrors and Dr Nite-Lite who could only see in the dark.). Fortunately, I realized that my story didn't actually contain any actual JSA characters and so was ineligible for the bad fan fiction contest, so I put the idea on the back burner for a while. By the time I got round to writing it as a proper piece of fan fiction I decided the extra characters would just confuse things.
Chapter Three
Panic - this was the name of EC's other humor comic.
"He's coming!" Plas screamed as he rushed through the streets - I was thinking of the end of the original Invasion of the Bodysnatchers movie when I wrote this.
"How do I escape." asked a short guy with a long nose and glasses - the short guy's meant to be Melvin Mole, who featured in the Mad comic's story "The Mole". He boasted that he could escape from anywhere (at the end of the story he reached an electric chair, but I'm sure he could escape from that). Melvin Mole also inspired a late 70s or early 80s Batman story by (as far as I can remember) Roy Thomas and Gene Colan.
"But Joe and Ed. They said they could escape. They said they were going back to the future." - this is a reference to Joe Friday and Ed Saturday from Mad's Dragnet parody. The going back to the future is a reference to Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' 2000AD story and EC homage of sorts "Chrono Cops", which featured two main characters who bore a striking resemblance to Joe and Ed. It's also worth mentioning here that Alan Moore's said that his attitude to superheroes was shaped in a large part by reading Mad's "Superduperman" when he was young. Also, one of his Supreme issues contains a story told in the Superduperman style.
The alien, the amazon, the bat - he dreamed of fighting alongside them in a team but doubted that day would ever come - this is a reference to Plastic Man being in the JLA these days.
The Anti-Janitor is coming - this is a pun on the original Crisis' Anti-Monitor, and also a reference to the janitor Sylvester P Smythe (Cracked magazine's equivalent of Alfred E Neuman).
Chapter Four
National Lampoons' Permanent Vacation - this is a reference to the fact that DC used to be known as National Comics (they only officially became DC Comics sometime in the 70s just after Jeanette Khan took over). However, strictly speaking Captain Marbles was a Fawcett lampoon and Plastic Sam was a Quality lampoon at the time. National Lampoon is also, needless to say, the name of another humor magazine.
The Just A Society Of America's headquarters - the name I chose for the JSA might have been inspired by the Justa Lotta Animals team that appeared in Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew. If so it was purely subconsciously - I've only just noticed the similarity now, whilst writing these annotations.
Batboy watched silently, with aloof attachment. He wondered when his teammates would be going asleep - he was feeling thirsty - this, along with the reference to the Sun setting in Chapter 2, are because Batboy was revealed to be a vampire in "Batboy and Reuben".
The shadow swiftly got bigger, and then I had a large cube of carbon steel smashing me into the ground - Captain Marbles was left trapped in a block of carbon steel in the "Superduperman" story.
"But I'm not just an ordinary klutz." laughed the Tomato ripping his mask off. "I'm a furshlugginer Captain Klutz." - this is a reference to Captain Klutz and Red Tornado/Tomato having similar costumes. It's also a reference to people ripping off masks a lot in Mad comic stories. It's also a paraphrase of Batboy's line "I'm not just an ordinary Batboy. I'm a furshlugginer vampire Batboy." from "Batboy and Reuben". Shameless Plug Department: Batboy's line was also the basis for my first piece of fan fiction "The History Lesson" - Buffy's no ordinary slayer, she's a furshlugginer vampire slayer.
Chapter Five
Not Brand EC - a reference to Marvel's humor comic "Not Branch Ecch!". Also a reference to the fact that Mad Magazine, unlike Mad comic, didn't carry the EC brand on the cover. I originally intended "Not Brand EC" to be the title of the whole story, but I was afraid it gave too much away.
"Very well, but don't think this means that you'll get to join our Society" - this is a reference to the fact that Captain Marvel joined the JSA fairly recently.
I got up, straightened my tie, and spat out a tooth that the joint blow had dislodged - this is a reference to Alfred E Neuman's missing tooth.
"What? Me worry?" I said smiling - this is, as I've said many times already, Alfred E Neuman's catchphrase.
"Surely this can't be the future." she exclaimed and then disappeared - this, and the sentences leading up to it, are an incredibly unsubtle allusion (I don't exactly know what that word means, but I was getting bored typing "reference" each time) to the next major comics company coming along (Marvel) and the Fantastic Four (the stretching man, the invisible girl, the flying man on fire, and the brick guy).
THE END
1. Introduction
I hate to admit it, but it all started out with a bad fan fiction contest on a Justice Society Of America newsgroup. I was trying to come up with an unoriginal idea (this was a BAD fan fiction contest after all), and thought that I'd write a story where Forbush Man meets the original Red Tornado, based on the premise that their costumes bore a striking resemblance to each other. I was sure that I couldn't be the only one to have spotted this, and did a quick search of the web just to verify that my idea was as unoriginal as I hoped. Needless to say my idea was strikingly unoriginal and I produced a story from it (which has now, with a minimal number of tweaks, become my "The Ultimate Hero" story - apologies for the shameless plug). Being quite happy with the resulting story (and therefore worrying that I wouldn't win the contest), I was trying to think of another story that I could enter. I remembered that while I was searching the web I'd also been reminded that Mad's Captain Klutz's costume also resembled the original Red Tornado's. Whilst trying to work out the ways that Captain Klutz could feasibly encounter the original Red Tornado, I realized that the EC world already had its own set of superheroes I could use. I also realized that EC, like the DC of yore, had multiple worlds (war, horror, sci-fi, Mad) and these had got replace by just one world (Mad Magazine). Thus was the Crisis set in motion.
2. Annotations
Crisis On Finite Earths - this is an obvious reference to Crisis On Infinite Earths, the Marv Wolfman/George Perez series that removed the DC multiverse.
Chapter One
Kill The Worlds (Let Them Know It's Crisis Time) - this is a pun on the UK Band Aid single Feed The World (Let Them Know It's Christmas Time). I came up with the pun when Crisis On Infinite Earths originally came out, but this is the first time I got to use it in print.
It all ended in June 1955 - The last issue of Mad Comic was dated May 1955, the first issue of Mad Magazine was dated July 1955. Needless to say that anything that comes across as copious research here was actually just me having a quick look at my Mad CD-ROMs.
Worlds had died, and, on the one world that survived, nothing was the same ever again - this story's partly a lament for EC comics. Their brilliant war, horror, and science fiction comics died. Only Mad survived, and that changed into Mad magazine (which I also love by the way).
The Bat. The Alien. The Amazon - When I first placed this story on the fan fiction site, I didn't mention that it had anything to do with EC comics, hoping that this would come as a nice surprise to people as realization dawned. That's why, in the earlier chapters, I go out of my way not to refer to the characters by their actual names (I call Plastic Sam just Plas, Superduperman Supes, Woman Wonder WW, etc. so that the reader will initially think they're the DC versions). Later, I realized that some people wouldn't have heard of EC comics so wouldn't appreciate the real DC heroes not actually being present in the story. Also, I realized that anyone who liked the Mad Comic's superheroes wouldn't necessarily realize that the story contained them, and so give it a miss. That's why I now give away the EC connection in the story description.
If ... but there's no point in thinking "If". That's how all of this began in the first place - I was trying to think of who I could use as the Pariah character (who featured in DC's Crisis) and thought of the main character in the EC war story 'Big If' (Frontline Combat issue 5). He bore a resemblance to Alfred E Neuman (brown hair and freckles), so I had him transform into Alfred over the course of the story. If you've read "Big If" you'll hopefully get the reference. If you haven't then you'll wonder why I'm using the word "if" all the time.
It all began in a world of war - a reference to EC's war comics.
A world of horror, a world of wonders - horror comics and science fiction comics respectively.
Finally, I was left in my final world, a world gone mad - Mad comic.
Chapter Two
How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Crisis - the title's based on Dr Strangelove's subtitle "How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb", and also a reference to Alfred E Neuman's catchphrase "What? Me Worry."
A chance meeting with a guy called Wheezy in a bar led me to my first superhero - Woozy Winks was called Wheezy Wunks in EC's Plastic Man parody "Plastic Sam".
He was being held in a specially made cooler - at the end of Mad's "Plastic Sam" story our hero's left imprisoned in a specially made cooler.
"tired of the war, ragged from the science-fiction, weary of the horror" - these words are taken verbatim from the introduction to the first issue of Mad issue 1.
I stopped worrying and started smiling. I never stopped smiling thereafter - these are references to Alfred E Neuman's "What? Me Worry" catchphrase and the fact that he's always shown smiling.
Lois finally knew Clark's secret but she still wouldn't give him the time of day - Lois Pain discovered Clark Bent was really Superduperman at the end of the "Superduperman" story.
It was changing from blue to grey - during DC's Crisis all the skies went red. Also, when the multiverse faded out all the final pages of that month's comics went to white. In the EC version I have Alfred E Neuman absorb all the world's color into himself, because Mad went from a color comic to a black and white magazine (with a colored cover featuring Alfred E Neuman).
Steve pulled Diana away from her ironing and pointed to the sky outside - at the end of "Woman Wonder" Steve Adore makes Diana Banana give up being Woman Wonder and spend all her time being a housewife instead.
Ten minutes later he entered the Society headquarters - there was no Justice Society equivalent in Mad comic, but seeing as how I came up with the idea for a JSA bad fan fiction contest I thought that I better make one up.
He looked at Supes and WW and, there, sitting at the back, the Red Tomato - the Red Tomato's another character I had to make up. She's just meant to be a Red Tornado parody. I originally had ideas to make up a whole JSA (There was Melvin Thunder who could call a thunderbolt if only he could find the right word. He'd be trying all the obvious Mad comic phrases - furshlugginer, potrzebie, domm da dom domm, and others that my spell checker can't cope with. Eventually he'd come across the right phrase and his thunderbolt would strike Captain Marbles setting him on fire, in a similar way to what finally occurs in the story. There was also Dr Fake, who'd be surrounded by smoke and mirrors and Dr Nite-Lite who could only see in the dark.). Fortunately, I realized that my story didn't actually contain any actual JSA characters and so was ineligible for the bad fan fiction contest, so I put the idea on the back burner for a while. By the time I got round to writing it as a proper piece of fan fiction I decided the extra characters would just confuse things.
Chapter Three
Panic - this was the name of EC's other humor comic.
"He's coming!" Plas screamed as he rushed through the streets - I was thinking of the end of the original Invasion of the Bodysnatchers movie when I wrote this.
"How do I escape." asked a short guy with a long nose and glasses - the short guy's meant to be Melvin Mole, who featured in the Mad comic's story "The Mole". He boasted that he could escape from anywhere (at the end of the story he reached an electric chair, but I'm sure he could escape from that). Melvin Mole also inspired a late 70s or early 80s Batman story by (as far as I can remember) Roy Thomas and Gene Colan.
"But Joe and Ed. They said they could escape. They said they were going back to the future." - this is a reference to Joe Friday and Ed Saturday from Mad's Dragnet parody. The going back to the future is a reference to Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' 2000AD story and EC homage of sorts "Chrono Cops", which featured two main characters who bore a striking resemblance to Joe and Ed. It's also worth mentioning here that Alan Moore's said that his attitude to superheroes was shaped in a large part by reading Mad's "Superduperman" when he was young. Also, one of his Supreme issues contains a story told in the Superduperman style.
The alien, the amazon, the bat - he dreamed of fighting alongside them in a team but doubted that day would ever come - this is a reference to Plastic Man being in the JLA these days.
The Anti-Janitor is coming - this is a pun on the original Crisis' Anti-Monitor, and also a reference to the janitor Sylvester P Smythe (Cracked magazine's equivalent of Alfred E Neuman).
Chapter Four
National Lampoons' Permanent Vacation - this is a reference to the fact that DC used to be known as National Comics (they only officially became DC Comics sometime in the 70s just after Jeanette Khan took over). However, strictly speaking Captain Marbles was a Fawcett lampoon and Plastic Sam was a Quality lampoon at the time. National Lampoon is also, needless to say, the name of another humor magazine.
The Just A Society Of America's headquarters - the name I chose for the JSA might have been inspired by the Justa Lotta Animals team that appeared in Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew. If so it was purely subconsciously - I've only just noticed the similarity now, whilst writing these annotations.
Batboy watched silently, with aloof attachment. He wondered when his teammates would be going asleep - he was feeling thirsty - this, along with the reference to the Sun setting in Chapter 2, are because Batboy was revealed to be a vampire in "Batboy and Reuben".
The shadow swiftly got bigger, and then I had a large cube of carbon steel smashing me into the ground - Captain Marbles was left trapped in a block of carbon steel in the "Superduperman" story.
"But I'm not just an ordinary klutz." laughed the Tomato ripping his mask off. "I'm a furshlugginer Captain Klutz." - this is a reference to Captain Klutz and Red Tornado/Tomato having similar costumes. It's also a reference to people ripping off masks a lot in Mad comic stories. It's also a paraphrase of Batboy's line "I'm not just an ordinary Batboy. I'm a furshlugginer vampire Batboy." from "Batboy and Reuben". Shameless Plug Department: Batboy's line was also the basis for my first piece of fan fiction "The History Lesson" - Buffy's no ordinary slayer, she's a furshlugginer vampire slayer.
Chapter Five
Not Brand EC - a reference to Marvel's humor comic "Not Branch Ecch!". Also a reference to the fact that Mad Magazine, unlike Mad comic, didn't carry the EC brand on the cover. I originally intended "Not Brand EC" to be the title of the whole story, but I was afraid it gave too much away.
"Very well, but don't think this means that you'll get to join our Society" - this is a reference to the fact that Captain Marvel joined the JSA fairly recently.
I got up, straightened my tie, and spat out a tooth that the joint blow had dislodged - this is a reference to Alfred E Neuman's missing tooth.
"What? Me worry?" I said smiling - this is, as I've said many times already, Alfred E Neuman's catchphrase.
"Surely this can't be the future." she exclaimed and then disappeared - this, and the sentences leading up to it, are an incredibly unsubtle allusion (I don't exactly know what that word means, but I was getting bored typing "reference" each time) to the next major comics company coming along (Marvel) and the Fantastic Four (the stretching man, the invisible girl, the flying man on fire, and the brick guy).
THE END
