The Weirdest Comic Book Gimmicks Of All Time

With wildly disparate target audiences and established fan bases, superhero comic books and daytime soap operas have little in common besides "evil twins" and characters who never stay in the ground. But with talk shows and reality programs taking over daytime TV in the mid-2000s, networks found even their long-running staple soaps struggling to hold an audience. In a desperate gambit to attract new viewers and stave off the impending cancellation of its Guiding Light series, CBS in 2006 attempted to bridge the worlds of soaps and supers with a bizarre cross-promotion between the show and the Marvel Universe.

In the November 1 episode of Guiding Light titled "She's a Marvel," Harley Cooper (Beth Aitoro) developed super powers after a freak incident involving spilled soda and electricity. With super speed, electrical powers, and a disturbing lack of irises, Harley chose to use her newfound powers for good. Donning a superhero costume and calling herself "Guiding Light," Harley attempted to clean up the mean streets of fictional Springfield one overly dramatic event at a time.

The episode was promoted with an eight-page Marvel Comics back-up story that brought Guiding Light together with Wolverine, Spider-Man, and the Avengers in a battle against the Sinister Six. Harley's powers dissipated after the comic book battle, the off-screen explanation for why she never used them again in the series.

It's not uncommon for real-world athletes to make appearances in comic books. Typically, they appear in homage or as guest stars, but sometimes they even tussle with comic book characters. "The Greatest" famously fought the Last Son of Krypton in DC's classic Superman vs. Muhammad Ali graphic novel from 1978, while "Sir Charles" infamously shot hoops with the King of the Monsters in Dark Horse's bizarre Godzilla vs. Barkley one-shot from 1993. Much rarer, however, is it for comic book characters to leap from the pages of their fictional universes and into a real-world athletic magazine.

ESPN was likely counting on the oddity of the pairing - and, no doubt, the worldwide pan-demographic popularity of Marvel Studios movies - to boost sales of its annual The Body Issue by including a comic-style insert featuring superheroes in its 2015 edition. Daredevil, Captain Marvel, Luke Cage, She-Hulk, and others were featured in the buff, flexing or striking poses, accompanied by basic stats and quotes from Marvel artists about athletic inspirations and drawing dynamic anatomy. Russell Dauterman revealed that Bruce Lee's physique is on his mind when drawing Iron Fist, while Leinil Francis Yu said that he inspired by the "functional" builds of MMA fighters when drawing superheroes like Luke Cage.  

About her take on Captain Marvel, artist Sara Pichelli said, "I work to combine correct proportions and powerful muscle shapes with a commonly accepted idea of beauty."

ESPN has yet to publish a sequel to The Body Issue: Marvel Super Heroes Edition. Apparently, the appeal of drawings of exaggerated comic book physiques in a publication dedicated to showcasing real human athletes failed to make much of a splash with readers.

Comic book publishers were raking in cash during the speculator boom of the early 1990s, but the executives at Marvel Comics realized that it couldn't last. Looking to hedge their bets against the inevitable bursting of the speculator bubble, Marvel attempted to diversify their output beyond superheroes. Despite having had only limited success in previous pairings with musicians like KISS in their Marvel Comics Super Specials, Marvel saw the popularity of Revolutionary Comics' Rock 'N' Roll Comics line of unauthorized biographies and felt there was enough of a market to publish books about musicians.

To avoid legal hassles, and with the goal of producing work "elevated slightly above" that of Revolutionary, Marvel partnered with the musicians, giving them complete creative control. Musicians like Onyx, Sticky Fingaz, Alice Cooper, and the Rolling Stones were allowed to dictate how they were represented and tailor their graphic novels to support existing or upcoming releases. Marvel created a post-apocalyptic story for Onyx: Fight! that tied into the artist's second album, All We Got Is Us, while KRS-One's Break the Chain came with an audio cassette to listen to while reading the book.

After just one year, and with only eight titles published, Marvel Music was shut down due to poor sales, with Marvel President Terry Stewart calling it "doomed" from the beginning. Reasons for the failure of the brand are numerous, from lack of support from Marvel creatives working on superheroes, to editor Mort Todd's extravagant spending on trips to meet and woo artists, but most agree that Marvel simply failed to market the books properly to music fans at record stores and concert venues. 

Ranked as one of the greatest metal bands of all time and still rocking the pants off of fans after nearly 50 years, KISS has become a pop-culture institution. KISS is also a merchandising powerhouse, the Star Wars of licensing in the music industry. Their patented likenesses and the distinctive "KISS" logo can be found on countless products (including coffins!) and, in 2020, the band joined forces with Marvel to release new, co-branded retail items.

With such distinctive fantasy-themed alter-egos as "The Space Ace" and "The Demon," and stage performances that involve smoke, fire, and blood, KISS and comic books seem like a match made in heaven. And, in fact, the relationship between the band and comics has lasted nearly as long as the band itself. First appearing in, of all comics, Howard the Duck #12 (April 1977), KISS would go on to appear in countless comics from various publishers over the next 40 years.

Some of KISS's comics have been good, some have been terrible, but none of them compare in sheer KISS-ness to their debut solo appearance in Marvel Comics Super Special #1 (September 1977). The issue was a 40-page monster filled with never-before-seen photos of the band, as well as their own four-color adventure. To hype the book, KISS made a "contract" with their fans... in blood! A nurse drew their blood during one of their tour stops, and it was sent to Marvel's printing plant where the it was mixed into the red ink used to print the comic. A notary was even on hand to authenticate the process.

Serious collectors try to keep their comic books in near-mint condition. They bag-and-board every issue, sleeve the rarest ones in Mylar, and have investment issues slabbed and certified. They are the lifeblood of the industry, but often the bane of comic book shop employees because they won't even consider purchasing books from their pull lists that have even the slightest creases or wrinkles.

To poke fun at their own community's obsession with perfections, and to spark some interest in their indie brand, Adhesive Comics in 1992 filled 3,000 copies of Jab #3 full of holes. Artists contributing stories to that issue were informed in advance of the idea and designed their artwork around where the holes would be so as not to disrupt their stories. Shannon Wheeler, creator of Too Much Coffee Man, claimed that multiple implements were used to create the effect over a three-day period (though his last comment was likely in jest):

The standard issue was shot with a .22. We had special editions of a 9mm, a .45 and a shotgun issue. We charged more for the higher caliber books. The shotgun issue came in a bag for $20 and was guaranteed unreadable.

That same year, Malibu Comics swiped the idea and published Protectors #5 with a die-cut bullet hole that went all of the way through the comic. Unlike Adhesive, Malibu failed to inform the artist of the idea - or their advertisers, who were understandably upset - and never acknowledged the origin of the idea.

As the average age of comic book readers rose during the late 1980s and early '90s, publishers adapted to the trend by offering more mature content, including a whole spate of aggressive new characters and titles targeted at high school-age teens. Marvel had already found success tapping and retapping the "extreme" well for years when they decided to cater to the runaway libidos of their target audience with comics stripped of stories - and clothing - that turned superheroes into sex objects.

In what was later admitted to be a desperate cash grab, Marvel gambled that its readers would be just as interested in gazing at pin-ups of frolicking, mostly unclothed comic book characters as they had been about reading about grim armored terminators covered in pouches and blood. Five Sports Illustrated-style Swimsuit issues were published between 1991 and 1995, each with a different theme or reason for the characters to be stripped to their bare essentials. 

The series inspired other publishers to follow suit over the years, but Marvel has yet to revive the concept. A "sun-splashed" Swimsuit homage was solicited in 2019, but Marvel canceled the title without explanation.