Unca Cheeks the Toy Wonder's Silver Age Comics Web Site!
The Rise and (Prat)fall of DC's The INFERIOR 5
... and here you
all thought that Marvel's X-FACTOR was irretrievably lame and awful. 
)
The Inferior
Five were the brain children (in a manner of speaking) of legendary DC
Comics Silver Age innovators E. Nelson Bridwell and Joe Orlando, and were
published during that (sadly) bygone era during which the notion of the
ongoing "humor" title hadn't yet been derisively hooted into virtual extinction
by jaded adolescent pseudo-sophisticates within the comics readership.
(DC, alone, also published -- at this point in time -- THE ADVENTURES OF
BOB HOPE; THE ADVENTURES OF JERRY LEWIS; THE FOX AND THE CROW; PLASTIC
MAN; STANLEY AND HIS MONSTER; SWING WITH SCOOTER; and the immortal SUGAR
AND SPIKE. Comics fans didn't take themselves so insufferably seriously,
back then, you see.)
The team's membership consisted of:
-- MERRYMAN: the team's frail, bespectacled (and mortally embarrassed) "leader," who wore a fool's motley on the not altogether unreasonable grounds that "... if I'm going to humiliate myself in public, I might as well dress appropriately for the occasion";
-- AWKWARDMAN: more powerful than 1,000 rampaging buffalo; more graceful than 1,000 blind, rampaging buffalo; and very nearly the intellectual equal of a dead buffalo;
-- THE BLIMP: who could rocket himself through the outermost stratospheric reaches at pretty much the same breakneck velocity as that evinced by a bowling ball rolling uphill;
-- DUMB BUNNY: stronger than Hercules; more beautiful than Aphrodite; and smarter than a pigeon (almost); and --
-- THE WHITE FEATHER: whose amazing prowess with the bow and arrow stood rivaled only by his unparalleled skills at panicky screeching; groveling for mercy; and fainting dead away.
Yeah, yeah; go ahead and snicker, fanboy. They're still cooler
than TEAM YOUNGBLOOD.
The queasy quintet had all been "pushed" into doing the super-hero thing,
see, by their doting parents (retired heroes and heroines, one and all).
Never mind that the five of them, acting in concert, would have been hard pressed
to lick a postage stamp, much less anyopponent
as unrelentingly fearsome in battle as (say) the late Vivian Vance (of I
Love Lucy fame). I'm just sayin', is all.
In the course of their very first adventure, in fact, the unlikely heroes
(and heroine) found themselves confronting the assembled arch-foemen of their
(ostensibly) fabled sires and dams: the geriatric jeremiad of "The
Masked Swastika"; "The Speed Demon"; "The Sparrow"; and "The Silver Sorceress."
(Any resemblances] to Marvel's Captain America;
Quicksilver; Hawkeye; and the Scarlet Witch being, of course, highly coincidental.
*kaff*kaff*)
The varicose'd villains, led by their verminous leader, the Masked Swastika
-- who'd been hanged for various war crimes at the end of World War Two, only
to be later cut down "for good behavior" -- managed
to stage just enough of a "crime spree," upon slinking
out of retirement, to (inadvertently) set in motion the sequence of events leading
to the creation of the green-skinned, gamma- irradiated behemoth known only
as "the Man-Monster." Who, incidentally, didn't the least little bit resemble
-- in any way, shape or form -- Marvel's Hulk character.
No... seriously. I mean it. Honest to God. Except for
them both being really big and strong, maybe. And green.
And... ummmm... stuff like that, there. Except for that, I mean.
(If you're getting the feeling that maybe -- just maybe, mind, now
-- the staff writers and artists over at DC Comics, Inc. had a few... ahhh,,,
whaddyacallem... issues, maybe, with their opposite number, down Marvel
Comics way: good lord, but you're a suspicious, un-trusting sort,
aren't you? Try showing a little more faith in your fellow men,
for goodness sakes!)
Along a similar vein: the entirely laughable (if it weren't so darned tragic, I mean) notion that DC was making cruel sportof Marvel's teen-oriented X-MEN comics of the day with the creation of "Dean Egghead's Academy for Adolescent Misfits" is similarly errant nonsense, of course. [See cover reproduction, accompanying]
(Do you ever stop to wonder if Julius Schwartz ever sauntered over to the
local animal shelter; picked up an entire box full of frisky, adorable
li'l baby puppies; took 'em home; named each and every one of the little darlings
"Stan Lee"; and spent long, enjoyable weekends remorselessly stalking the wee
dearhearts throughout the house with a claw hammer, in his underwear?
I dunno... maybe it's just me. I'm sure it's just me. It's
not as if glossy, full-color photos can't be faked, after all.
Let's just agree to let the matter drop, shall we...?)
This story is probably my very favoritest of all the entries in the INFERIOR
FIVE canon, due to the mean-spirited (and spot-on) mockery with which the
entire overworked and overwrought "teenage mutant" schtick is clubbed
throughout, like a particularly slow-moving baby seal surrounded by crazed arctic
furriers. The best gag of the lot, I think, is the bit -- as rendered
by Silver Age JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA veteran Mike
Sekowsky -- wherein the incalculably wealthy
winged teenage student is asked by the Blimp -- in all honest candor -- how
he manages to get his costume on over said avian appendages. (I
often puzzled over precisely the same point, back in my pre-adolescent "day.")
The INFERIOR FIVE series was not a long-lived one, unfortunately; about a dozen issues, all told, not including a three-issue "tryout" stint beforehand in the pages of SHOWCASE. The characters, however, have maintained the rarefied sort of "fan favorite" status that is more often associated with (say) the native "cargo cults" of the South Pacific island peoples (both Steve Gerber and Phil Foglio, for instance, have -- in recent years -- submitted proposals to DC for the possible resurrection of Dumb Bunny and her pals), and -- given the irrefutable fact that DC Comics would publish a perfect bound, gilt-edged THE GREATEST BAT-MITE STORIES EVER TOLD hardback collection tomorrow, were that the only way to legally maintain copyright and/or trademark on the name -- I imagine we'll be seeing the characters pop up again, sooner rather than later.
(... and am I the only comics fan still drawing breath and upright, by the
way, who's often thought that THE INFERIOR FIVE would make an absolutely terrific
animated kidvid program...? It's never too late to teach small, innocent
children that blondes and obese people are just naturally funny; that's
my motto, by golly! I'm just sayin', here.)
The All-Time Lousiest Super-Hero Comics Ever Made
MORE of the All-Time Lousiest Super-Hero Comics Ever Made
"MORE COMIC BOOKS," YOU SAY...?
The DC Comics Sub-Directory
The Marvel Comics Sub-Directory
The Miscellaneous Comics Sub-Directory
The "Gotta Find That DC Character" Menu
The "Gotta Find That Marvel/Miscellaneous
Character" Menu