10 Weirdest Superhero Comics

Since the Golden Age of Comics was created by the introduction of Superman, the superhero genre has dominated print, with Batman and Spider-Man spearheading the comics industry’s success. While the average superhero comic takes itself fairly seriously, at least as far as its own continuity and narrative goes, others can be just plain bizarre. Whether it’s through the exploration of unusual power levels or unconventional heroes, these titles are loved for their oddities.

For many readers, the weirder the comic book, the better it is, and the more skillfully a creator can subvert or experiment with the genre, the more credit is due. While some of these comic books are intentionally strange and lean into parody and satire, others can be weird in an entirely different way, with creators pushing the limits of their own creativity. Weirdness and comics go together, and these series are a testament to the power of imagination.

10 Black Hammer

Created by Jeff Lemire and Dean Ormston

Created by Jeff Lemire and Dean Ormston, Black Hammer tells the story of a team of heroes inspired by the Golden Age of Comics, replete with analogs of Captain America and Martian Manhunter. Once the valiant heroes of Spiral City, the team were mysteriously transported away, and trapped in a small town where they live together on a farm.

Black Hammer is a fantastic love letter to the creativity of the Golden and Silver Age, with heroes like Talky Walky and Colonel Weird standing as a testament to this. The series and its extended universe is full of unique takes on classic superheroes and literary characters, with the likes of Cthu-Louise being a great representation of how fantastically strange the universe is.

9 Ambush Bug

Created by Keith Giffen

While some see Harley Quinn as DC’s alternative to Deadpool, the reality is that role was filled by Ambush Bug years before either of those antiheroes were created. The hero is a fourth-wall-breaking man in a bug suit, one with the power to teleport as well as dumb luck. His adventures often revolve around him stumbling into elaborate, high-stakes plots, including a recent botched attempt to aid the Suicide Squad in kidnapping Luthor. However, his original creator, Keith Giffen, is responsible for his most absurd tales.

Ambush Bug stands out as a meta, self-aware series that pokes fun at the trends and tropes of superhero comics of any given era, with Giffen describing him as “Bugs Bunny as a supervillain.” Despite initially appearing as a Superman enemy, his best stories cast him as a hero, with an equally absurd rogues’ gallery that includes a living sock and a comic book artist with the powers of a god.

8 Creeper

Created by Steve Ditko

Created by Steve Ditko, the Creeper serves as a heroic, albeit maniacal, character in DC, one often portrayed as a Jekyll and Hyde-type figure. By day, the character is shock jock journalist Jack Ryder who, at night, dons one of the most bizarre costumes in comics to fight criminals. Unfortunately, the hero is so strange that writers don’t know what to do with him.

Creeper is one of DC’s most retconned heroes, with his origin having been everything from a scientific transformation to the work of a demonic possession. In effect, readers have something of an anti-Joker, a vigilante who shares all the eccentricities and volatility of the Clown Prince of Crime but channeled into heroism. From his unique design to his unpredictable nature, Creeper offers readers a strange take on the superhero formula.

7 Doom Patrol

Created by Arnold Drake, Bob Haney and Bruno Premiani

During the Silver Age, the Doom Patrol were basically DC’s version of the X-Men, a team of standard — albeit weird — superheroes led by Niles Caulder, and initially comprised Negative Man, Elasti-Girl and Robotman. Together, they saved the world from their equally bizarre villains, such as Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man and the Brain. Their series was a great encapsulation of ’60s science fiction, but in the 1980s it took on a darker tone, one that embraced the idea of their outcast nature.

Thanks to visionary writers like Grant Morrison and Rachel Pollack, the Doom Patrol are almost unmatched when it comes to the sheer embrace of weirdness in the DCU. If there was ever any doubt that DC wanted the team to be defined by its quirky, oddball nature, the original pitch for the team’s name says it all: Legion of the Strange.

6 The Inferior Five

Created by E. Nelson Bridwell and Joe Orlando

The Inferior Five are DC’s resident parody superhero team, particularly poking fun at The Fantastic Four (though not exclusively so). First appearing in Showcase #62, the team includes Merryman, Awkwardman, the Dumb Bunny, White Feather and the Blimp, all of whom are exactly as strange as their names suggest.

The Inferior Five recently received a miniseries under Jeff Lemire, a writer known for leaning into the weirder side of comics. Many of the stories give them relatively mundane challenges, focusing instead on how their oddball personalities clash as they experience adventures like meeting DC’s editorial staff. The team itself is defined by their irony, with juxtapositions like Merryman, the weakling martial arts expert, or White Feather, the expert archer who’s no good in combat.

5 Action Comics #593

By John Byrne

While not a full-blown series, Action Comics #593 stands out as perhaps the strangest comic book in DC Comics history owing to its scandalous story. The issue follows the Man of Tomorrow as he’s tricked by the villain Sleez into starring in a sex tape with Big Barda, cementing John Byrne as one of Superman’s most controversial writers.

Action Comics #593 is simultaneously the strangest, most scandalous and sleazy comic in Superman history, with the latter being accentuated by the aptly-named villain himself, Sleez. While not as strange as some of the other books out there, it was the issue’s tone relative to the standard Man of Steel adventure that made it stand out. For a run that had mostly been defined by action, seeing the wholesome hero embroiled in a sex scandal threw readers for a loop.

4 Funnyman

Created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster

The lesser-known invention of Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Funnyman started out as a man who, as a publicity stunt, dressed up as a clown to prevent fake crimes. However, after stopping an actual criminal, he decides to become a full-time superhero. Naturally, the idea of an ironically-dressed clown superhero didn’t catch on.

Funnyman was actually created by Siegel and Shuster to mock the various Superman pastiches that had become common throughout the 1940s. Taking on aptly-named villains like Doc Gimmick, the series is essentially one big critique of the creators’ imitators, following its somber yet comically-designed hero through bizarre adventures.

3 The Boys

Created by Garth Ennis and Darrick Roberston

Created as a satirical work of superhero deconstruction, Garth Ennis and Darrick Robertson’s The Boys takes place in a world where superheroes are secretly corrupt, criminal and scandalous villains. While there are some exceptions to this rule, the entire series is effectively an inversion of Marvel and DC, exploring how heroes like Captain America and Superman would work in a more realistic setting. One of the most fascinating, yet bizarre, aspects of the series is how Ennis takes various superpowers to absurd degrees.

The Boys produced some of the strangest comic book moments of the 21st century, most notably the infamous superhero orgy story. In Ennis’ series, superheroes are a dark parody of themselves, with bizarre obsessions, scandalous lives and often times horrifying superpowers. Considering the writer’s own distaste for superheroes, the morbid treatment of the genre makes complete sense, and is more than worth a read.

2 Herbie

Created by Richard E. Hughes and Ogden Whitney

Debuting in the pages of Forbidden Worlds #73, Herbie Popnecker is a 1950s American kid known for his heavyset build, lethargic personality and the fact he’s one of comics’ most overpowered heroes. Gaining these abilities through a combination of innate genetics and super lollipops, he can do anything from teleport great distances to communicating with animals.

Herbie is often forced to step in to rescue his wholesome yet bumbling father, Pincus, who is unsupportive and often insulting towards his son. Interestingly, though far from a surprise, Herbie is a favorite of Alan Moore, owing to the peculiar nature of his powers and satirical adventures.

1 Reagan’s Raiders

Created by Monroe Arnold, Rich Buckler and Dick Ayers

Reagan’s Raiders takes place in a world where Ronald Reagan and his cabinet develop superpowers, allowing them to take on the challenges of their administration in a more direct manner. Written at the height of the Iran-Contra scandal, the three-issue miniseries serves simultaneously as conservative foreign policy wish fulfillment and satire of ’80s American politics.

Reagan’s Raiders is such a bizarre comic that some readers have been left confused whether it was intended to be a ra-ra patriotic romp or a piece of satire against the administration. The superhero series isn’t strange for its story content as much as it is for its tone and premise, with an eccentricity that somehow appeals as much to fans of Reagan as his critics.