Comic book universes are populated by human beings with larger-than-life superpowers and equivalently colourful costumes, fictional cities analogous to actual US locations, and far-off alien worlds that have their own distinct cultures which range from people but blue (Marvel's Kree) to whatever exactly the big pink bipedal hippo Kilowog from Green Lantern is supposed to be. And yet despite all of those differences from our own world, for some reason they all celebrate the exact same holidays as us. Well, the reason they do is so that companies can peddle seasonal specials featuring their biggest names juggling pumpkins, wielding cupid arrows or gathering beneath giant fir trees decorated with tiny ornamental versions of themselves wearing Santa hats. But that's besides the point. Over the decades of mainstream comic publication there's been scores of attempts to shoehorn various holidays into tales of superhero and supervillains, to varying degrees of success. For every issue of Spider-Man where the web head rather sweetly reminisces of past presents exchanged between him and the Fantastic Four's Human Torch there's a dozen other Christmas comics whose attempts to bring some festive cheer to the four-colour page feel a lot more forced. Then there are the ones that retell classic Dr Seuss stories using mechanical despots who talk about themselves in the third person. Sure there are plenty of wholesome, cockle-warming superhero stories out there, but they've been well documented. And really, that's not what you want. You wanna see the holiday season crash and burn like so many multiverses. Here are ten such totally deranged comic book Christmas specials.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
