10 Most WTF Moments In Comics History

3. The World’s Finest (B)romance

The Punisher Blackface
DC Comics

By March 1983, Batman and Superman had been regularly teaming up in the pages of World’s Finest Comics for some years. Issue 289, however, brought us ‘The Kryll Way Of Dying’, which almost took their relationship to a whole other level.

Having each had a bad week, both men turned to one another for someone to talk to, retreating to Superman’s Fortress Of Solitude. Their one-on-one bro time is unusually erotic, the two heroes sharing lingering looks and talking about their “naked feelings”.

Indeed, with writer Doug Moench using phrases like “neither of us should spend this night alone”; “we fit each other like hand and glove” ; “and now to see where our hearts have led us” ; and “the heat of Superman’s blazing passage”, it seems clear that the Dark Knight and the Man Of Steel are about to have a particularly special sleepover…

That is, until all this emotion attracts a wave of giant phallic tentacle aliens obsessed with emotion, who proceed to have writhing tentacle sex with each other until they crumble into dust. The ending sees Batman and Superman embracing, weeping over the deaths of these noble, weird-ass creatures.

You can go ahead and read that back, but it won’t make any more sense. Comics would be treated to an alternate version of the Superman/Batman romance decades later with the debut of the Apollo/Midnighter relationship in Wildstorm’s The Authority.

Contributor
Contributor

Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.