[Analysis] Sergio Aragonés Massacres Marvel and Destroys DC

The world of comics has very marked standards and topics, which although they are not met in 100% of cases, a huge number of works continue to keep them afloat today.

For example, the topic of the American comic where a strong guy dressed in colors and with his initial or logo on his chest dedicates himself to hunting criminals using his powers, which will undoubtedly be linked to his name that ends in man or woman.

These topics have been the subject of many parodies, although normally without the consent of the characters' publishers, since it wouldn't be very common for them to lend their characters to ridicule themselves, would it?

Well yes, that has happened on some occasions, the comic that I am going to comment on is a very special situation, well Both Marvel and DC left their characters in the hands of artist Sergio Aragonés, willing to suffer a fun self-humiliation.

Sergio Aragonés, born in Spain but having spent almost his entire life in Mexico and the United States, is generally known for his participation in the humorous magazine mad (where he got a job drawing jokes in the margins of the magazine) as well as for his most popular character, Groo, where he has worked with his “long-time” screenwriter Mark Evanier and with Stan Sakai (known for being the creator of Usagi Yojimbo).

Aragonés managed (I don't know exactly how) that both Marvel and DC Comics allowed him to make a comic known as Sergio Aragonés Massacres Marvel and Sergio Aragonés Destroys DC, where he would parody the most famous characters of each company, both in form (drawn with Aragonés' own style) and in background (pointing out the obvious clichés and flaws in superhero stories).

This cartoonist was lucky (or unlucky) that during the 90s (at which time this comic was published) The characters of both companies were undergoing great changes of personality and style to try to renew its outdated standards. I clarify this fact, because it is possible that someone wonders why Hulk is intelligent and gray, why Batman goes without Robin, why Aquaman is one-armed and has a beard or why there are clones of Spider-man.

Sergio Aragonés Massacres Marvel

Sergio Aragonés and his inseparable friend and screenwriter Mark Evanier arrive at the Marvel offices, where the former aims to get him hired for his excellent work. The offices are empty and on the wall there is a note that says that all the series are late, but fortunately Sergio is there to save the day!

“Other cartoonists work very slowly, they waste time with nonsense like perspective and anatomy!” Aragonés says to himself as he takes us to the world of Marvel, or his vision of the Marvel world.

The first pages of the comic introduce us to a pair of veteran characters from the company, Uatu (the Watcher) and Namor (Sub Mariner), the latter having a confrontation with a new character, the Seagoing Soarer, who has the ability to manipulate water at will and whose goal is to reunite the main Marvel heroes.

From here we move on to the Fantastic Four, who are now 3, because The Thing leaves the group, which bothers Invisible Woman and Human Storm, because last time he also left and of course, on the wall there is a list to know the order in which each of its members must leave the group. The situation will become complicated when Daredevil, Iron Man (who does not know who is inside the armor, but the character is Iron Man) and Thor, after not being accepted as the fourth member, also leave the Fantastic Four. The joke is repeated with the arrival of Dr. Doom and the reappearance of Mr. Fantastic. But wasn't the latter dead? Well, not even he himself knows, so he solves the problem by abandoning the Fantastic Four. But none of that matters, because the Seagoing Soarer has arrived to take the Fantastic Four, well, the Fantastic Three as prisoners.

Here Sergio demonstrates one of the topics of superhero groups: formation changes, but when dealing with the topic with “the first family of superheroes” these common changes become a drama, a situation experienced in the real Fantastic Four comics.

And from here we go to Spider-man, who laments inconsolably for having a miserable life: possessor of special powers, married to a red-haired model... everything is suffering for Peter Parker! Who just saw his Aunt May die at the tender age of 137. “Don't worry, Peter, I'll be back in a special issue,” the one who has been “his mother” for decades tells him, but nothing can stop Parker from throwing his Spider-Man suit into the trash can… to go look for it seconds later.

Aragonese manages to summarize the topics of Spider-man in a couple of pages, the “worried superhero” remembering events that were repeated (and are repeated) ad nauseum in the adventures of the spider character, who no matter how much he advances temporally, is forced to return to his sad story of “Peter Parker the unfortunate” when sales decline.

After the Spider-man parody we meet the other unfortunate superhero, Silver Surfer, who despite having powers and living adventures in space is still a potential depressant. Luckily for them Seagoing Soarer will add them both to his collection, allowing the comic to move forward. The next to be part of the list of those trapped by Soarer should be the Avengers (well, the 90s formation, with some characters that no one remembers anymore), but unfortunately they cannot be trapped because they have voluntarily frozen themselves to skip that era of decadence that they have lived through, so Soarer heads to the desert in search of the Hulk.

Not finding the stupid green giant, Seagoing asks a hunky guy with a ponytail who is in the middle of the desert and who turns out to be the Hulk!, which gives us one of the stupidest and most hilarious conversations in comics, and which summarizes in just 2 pages the changes that Hulk underwent in the 90s, while remembering the unnecessarily exaggerated 90s drawing style, where anatomy is left aside to make smaller heads and bigger muscles.

Seagoing Soarer's next stop is the X-men Academy, where they have just had their electricity supply cut off in what appears to be a direct attack for being "a minority", to which the electricity company worker answers them with one of the most enormous truths that exist in Marvel comics: "A minority? In Marvel those who are a minority are humans without powers, I could be the only one of my kind!"

With all the superheroes gathered in an unknown location by the Seagoing Soarer, the inevitable happens. Does anyone remember the Secret Wars or any similar situation? In case you don't remember, Daredevil gives us an explanation: “Marvelland Rule 178: When two or more heroes converge, they must fight for no apparent reason.”

In this situation the evil figure of the Seagoing Soarer seems to have gotten his way, but who really is the Seagoing Soarer? (If you don't want to read the comic, look for clues in its name, which is clearly stated).

Sergio Aragonés Destroys DC

This time Sergio Aragonés goes to the DC offices to present his drawings and get work, however the artist is tremendously ignored and returns home determined to make DC superhero stories, since surely they have not given him work due to the fact that he has not drawn them before.

The adventures of this Aragonese-style DC universe begin with a couple of pages where Martian Manhunter and other DC characters are warned by Hawkman about an enormous danger that threatens their universe. From here we jump to the origin of Superman, placing us in the last moments of Krypton, where Jor El (Superman's father) tries to flee the planet in his small miniature rocket. Seeing that it is not possible, he decides to send his son to the Sun (at night, so that he does not burn), but after reasoning with his wife, they finally send him to Earth. From here we jump to the offices of the Daily Planet, where a guy named Clark Kent and "nothing like Superman" tries to flirt with his partner Lois Lane, who has been ignoring him for 50 years. Suddenly news arrives, a child is going to be run over on the main street (the news comes sooner every time, eh?), a situation that causes Clark Kent to dress up as Superman and save the day without any effort, to finally meet Hawkman who warns him that the entire DC universe is doomed.

Siguiente página, el origen de Batman y sus métodos “totalmente lógicos” de buscar información asustando y golpeando a vagabundos hasta que recibe un chivatazo de la posible localización del Joker, con el cual comparte un intenso combate… bueno no, el Joker le convence de que es mejor que no le haga nada, porque sino DC Comics ganará menos dinero. El combate queda interrumpido de nuevo por Hawkman, el cual avisa a Batman de un peligro desconocido.

Siguiente página, Wonder Woman y el fetichismo que provoca en los varones, que quieren ser golpeados por las piernas de la amazona (que cambian de tamaño según convenga al dibujante) lo cual hace que vuelva a Isla Paraiso, donde se encuentra con el problema de que los hombres quieren entrar a ese territorio aunque esté prohibido para ellos, cosa que terminan logrando gracias al Tribunal Supremo justo en el momento que Hawkman llega para avisar sobre el enemigo que los acecha.

Tras eso nos trasladamos al futuro, donde la Legión de Superhéroes está haciendo un casting para reclutar nuevos miembros, y que resultan ser bastante decepcionantes (el Chico Nixon, Chico Dèjá Vu, Chico Donut, Chica Rechazo, Chico Dèjá Vu, Chico One Hit Wonder, Chico Dèjá Vu, Chico Palillo y ¿he mencionado ya al Chico Dèjá Vu?

Con ese casting, Sergio parodia los nombres y poderes de algunos miembros de la Legión, así como sus cambios en la plantilla y su enorme número de miembros, broma que se redondeará cuando el villano de turno aparezca y pregunte por el líder del equipo… que resultan ser todos, claro.

Y llegó el turno de Hawkman, que les avisa que el peor enemigo del Universo DC está por llegar, pero ¿quién es el peor enemigo de DC Comics?, se pregunta Sergio Aragonés, que decide rebuscar entre los cómics clásicos de la compañía para dar con el villano más repugnante de toda la historia de DC, haciendo un guiño a los seguidores más veteranos de la compañía.

Is this comic worth buying?

Mi valoración de este cómic es algo contradictoria, por lo que explicaré a continuación.

Sergio Aragonés consigue hacer broma de todos los tópicos de superhéroes, algunos de ellos muy manidos y típicos y otros de una genialidad muy grande, sin embargo, en términos generales hay que reconocer que muchas de las bromas pierden sentido para el público general de cómics, que sólo conoce los personajes de verlos en películas o series de televisión y desconoce los múltiples entresijos y cambios que han tenido.

Para empezar, el hecho de que esté ambientado en los 90 hace que algunas bromas sobre personajes que fueron cambiados o endurecidos ya no tengan mucho sentido porque en la actualidad han vuelto a ser lo que eran anteriormente y por lo tanto ya no son las versiones que parodia Sergio. Esto puede hacer que algunos chistes pierdan el sentido que tenían en los 90.

Quizás a modo de guía y como solución parcial al problema sobre el desconocimiento, las páginas centrales de este cómic doble están llenas de explicaciones e historia del Universo Marvel y DC, al menos en la edición española.

En resumen, este cómic tiene un humor y un estilo visual muy parecido a los trabajos previos de Aragonés, pero al mismo tiempo requiere tener conocimientos mínimos sobre personajes, escritores, dibujantes o hechos concretos de los años 90 para entender los chistes, pues a más conoces el universo de Marvel o DC más chistes encuentras en cada viñeta o comentario. Esta situación coloca al cómic en tierra de nadie pues seguramente los fans acérrimos de los personajes no se sientan atraídos por el estilo humorístico de Aragonés y los fans de las historietas humorísticas no tendrán los conocimientos necesarios para entender todos los chistes.

Sin embargo, quiero aclarar que sabiendo lo básico de los superhéroes más comunes también es un cómic divertido, aunque muchas de las genialidades cómicas se pierden y perjudican al resultado final en mayor o menor medida.

Para finalizar el artículo me gustaría comentar que este cómic recibió el premio Eisner al mejor cómic de humor en 1997 y forma parte de una trilogía de parodias que finaliza con Sergio Aragonés Stomps Star Wars.