Mad Book of Almost Superheroes
Mad Magazine specialized in satire, or sending up established material. So movies and TV shows. The media, mainly because they loved doing ad parodies. Political figures. That sort of thing.
I’ve previously looked at their take-offs of famous detectives. This book, written and illustrated by Don “Duck” Edwing, does something similar with superheroes. Some of these also-rans are parodies of recognizable heroes – Ms. Wonder Blunder, Fat Bat, The Macho Hunk, Superdud – while others are new inventions. Or at least they seemed like new inventions to me as I couldn’t identify any originals. In this latter camp we get Captain Trivial (“The superhero for the minor annoyances!”), Ragoo of the Jungle (“The gourmet of all comicdom!”), and The Masked Bernard (“Follow the adventures of this wonder dog of the mountain tops in his never-ending search for a fire hydrant!”).
The humour is that of the gag, running for three or four pages with a quick set-up and then a punchline. Aside from the long Ms. Wonder Blunder story, which is also the weakest piece in the book, that’s how everything is presented here. There’s a breathless structure to it, with each new gag being introduced by a quick bit of table-setting: “Meanwhile . . .” “As you remember . . .” “Suddenly . . .” “Later . . .” Different plot lines are adverted to, but they’re left unexplained. The Blue Blowfish is trying to save Buddy and Sue from being turned into jumbo shrimp, or anchovies, or French fries by Doctor Froglips, and I guess he’s successful some of the time, though we never see any of these other characters. It’s always just on to the next gag. You flip through a book like this in a single sitting, and I mean that in a good way. I don’t think I laughed out loud, but I had a goofy smile on my face through all of it.
Alex Good 
MAD comics had their place, but definitely not something I could see people ever re-reading.
Is Ragoo of the Jungle a riff on George of the Jungle?
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That would be a stretch. He’s basically a chef out hunting for recipe ingredients. There’s another almost superhero called Apeman who’s closer to George/Tarzan.
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Gotcha. I know George was already a parody of Tarzan, but wondered if Mad had decided to go even a step farther. From what you say though, it definitely doesn’t sound like it.
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Is Captain Trivial a pastiche of Captain America maybe?
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♪Captain America’s Mighty Shield!♪
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I don’t think so. I think the Captain title is honorary for a lot of superheroes. He just deals in minutiae.
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I never got into the “comic” book. Comic strips were a different thing. I might have liked Captain Trivial, though. He sounds like my kind of guy. : -)
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He fights a never-ending battle against jaywalking, spitting, and ill-mannered store clerks.
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So he’d take care of those clowns who park their shopping carts on islands instead of putting them into the corrals. He’d probably regret going to a Walmart parking lot. He’d never get out!
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There seem to be a lot of people who live in Wal-Mart parking lots. Saw a guy this week who had a sleeping arrangement set up in the back of his hatchback. Didn’t seem to worry that he wasn’t wearing any clothes.
Captain Trivial doesn’t have many gags in this book. He deals with a snooty customs inspector who complains about his alligator bag being made out of some poor defenseless animal. But Captain Trivial’s alligator bag is actually a sack with an alligator in it, and it jumps out and chomps the customs guy.
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