Gone & Forgotten: Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: Superman Meets the Quik Bunny

Superman vs the Chocolatey Hare of Doom!

This is slightly better than this one other cross-promotional
book that I own, Superman Meets The Press.

In lieu of the other prominent 1980's food-mascot-teaming-with-super-hero comic I'd WANTED to review – that being Frank Millers Kool-Aid Noir “The Dark Knight Returns, OH YEAH!” – I bring you instead what I think can only be accurately described as “a depressing newsprint abortion,” Superman Meets The Quik Bunny.

"By Rao, I am choking this down and it tastes
bitter, as bitter as ashes ..."

It must be said, before we go on, this kind of thing offends me - and I'm not easy to offend, when it comes to comics. I sat through Hal Jordan going from essential icon of the DC Universe to crazy nutball in the world's ugliest metal tuxedo to a dead guy to a dead guy in footed pajamas, and all the time I just chuckled like Fred MacMurray and thought "Boy, are they going to have to eat a lot of shit to bring this guy back to the status quo in ten years."

I sat through Jim Starlin's THE END, this Summer's event of choice for Marvel Comics, in which EVERY SUPER HERO IN THE MARVEL UNIVERSE DIES … AT LEAST THREE TIMES! And I just laughed. A lot. I mean a really whole lot.

I know, it's some kind of
goddamned Moon Man
language ... aw, fuck it,
let's bomb his shit all up
in this piece.

So seriously, it takes a Secret Wars 2 or an IronJaw to drive me nuts, and yet the mere mention of a cross-promotional team up between Superman and some international chemical conglomerate food-hucking mascot sends me into a tizzy. You know why? Because SUPERMAN'S A LEAD CHARACTER, BABY! And my proof: Superman Peanut Butter!

Superman ain't here to help sell your chocolatey-ass milk, rabbit! Superman makes his OWN chocolate milk, and he does it out of space dust and magic wishes! You ain't got NOTHING on imaginary potential Superman Milk, fool! GO HOME, RABBIT! GO HOME!

This opus to brand collisions and paean to the phrase “Quik Thinking” is brought to us by writer Mike Carlin and artists Carmine Infantino and Dick Giordano. Because, of course, who else would? For the record, in their respective times, both Infantino and Giordano arguably each held the post of “Most powerful individual at DC Comics.” I bet that made them cry a little, as they put the final artistic flourishes on a bedraggled rabbit twisting its ears in orgasmic delight while it sucked back what appeared to be beige motor oil.

Right, Quik thinking, got it, very funny.

And also, seriously, I hope you don't get sick of “Quik Thinking.” Seriously.

The story starts commonly enough, what with Superman chasing down an antisocial stage magician in pajamas. In this case, it's Flash baddie The Weather Wizard, whose costume – green bodysuit, flared collar, pixie boots, golden sash – helps him cut a figure slightly less intimidating than the Quik Bunny hisself.

It's like some junior version of the Ethnic Super Friends, only everyone's wearing pants.

While the Wizard is pouring torrential rain down on the city of Metropolis, four plucky kid geniuses are busily constructing a super-robot treehouse off in the suburbs somewhere. The multicultural and gender-balanced Quik Qlub – That's Ronnie, Patty, Maureen and Miguel, which sounds like a Protestant family of three and their gardener – apparently do all this at the behest of their manic mentor, the Quik Bunny, who rushes in once all the hard-work is finished and turns on the TV. Yes, they have a TV in their treehouse. Patty built it. She's a genius.

Jesus, Ronnie, could you be any less cool?

Chancing upon a newscast of Superman's life-and-death battle against moisture and a fey Mister Greenjeans, the Quik Qlub begin to fear for Superman's safety – possibly because they're idiots, or maybe they have Weather Wizard confused with a black hole or God – and rush off in their transforming magic clubhouse to offer assistance. And chocolate milk.

Luckily, Superman enjoys a long tradition of humoring pathetic, weak-ass fucks who try to join him on adventures. “Sure, Robin, you mutt! Let's you and me stop Braniac!” and “I can stop Mordru .. er, but only if Triplicate Girl and, um, hey, Invisible Kid come along! Seriously, I won't be able to do it withoutcha, you crazy guys!” So with gentle but firm rebuffs, Superman slows down long enough to be visible to the human eye and lets the Quik Qlub tag along.

Right, we GET it, thanks.

I suspect this inclination on Superman's part is half fatherly good nature, and half that he knows the Weather Wizard couldn't even beat the Quik Bunny. And he's RIGHT!

So while the Weather Wizard is throwing hurricanes and tornadoes around the nation's capital - his strategy, by the way, is apparently that if he throws enough tornadoes at Washington D.C., he'll be allowed to run the place. Wh ... what? - and making it snow in Egypt and what-have-you, the Quik Qlub follow around in their big happy schoolbus of delight while solving mazes and word puzzles and whatnot along the way.

If there's a paucity of content in some high school history text, possibly, yes.

Whereas it's pretty enlightening stuff - I, for one, learned that the easiest path to the Great Wall of China is via the Canals of Venice - I sort of ended up confused. Then again, it's my own fault, as I'd decided earlier on to deliberately make-believe I was reading a sequel to that Superman/He-Man team-up promo comic, and I kept waiting for Quik Bunny to make with the Sword of Eternia and Battlecat and so on ...

The whole story wraps up in China, where Weather Wizard's been making it hail, and oh man, the Chinese hate hail. Seriously. They must, otherwise WHY WOULD HE DO IT?

Amazingly - or actually NOT amazingly really, if you think about it - the Weather Wizard is outgunned and outclassed by the Quik Bunny, who quickly fashions a lightning-attracting Quik Bunny metal decoy, and sets it up on the edge of the Great Wall. When the Weather Wizard zaps it with electricity, thinking he's striking the Quik Bunny himself, he instead ... somehow gets walloped himself, I think. The science seems to wear a little thin on the inner thigh around this point of the story, but from what I gather, the Weather Wizard is kind of a puss and then he's dead and thank you Quik Choclate Mouthwash, you've saved something from the forces of whatever!

OKAY. WE GET IT.

Then it's back to the Qlubhouse and all its horrible, dark secrets for a celebratory chug of powdered chalk dust and a hearty Kryptonian backslap, bringing to an end another exciting occasion wherein Superman slowed down long enough to let nitwits like the Quik Qlub, the Radio Shack Whiz Kids or Jimmy Olsen fart around and let super-criminals go on massive sprees of destruction and mayhem. I like me some Superman, no doubt, but I think the guy's priorities are a little screwed ...

Well, I'm thinking you're the devil ...