The Inferior Five made their debut in Showcase No. 62, around May of 1966. Created by E. Nelson Bridwell and Joe Orlando, this was a group of not so super heroes who nevertheless attempted to fight crime, somehow managing to lampoon a wide number of real superheroes (mostly of the Marvel variety) of the day. The I-Five consisted of Merryman, The Blimp, Dumb Bunny, Awkwardman and the White Feather. What powers they had were derived from their parents, who were thinly veiled copies of several of DC’s Golden Age heroes (I.E. Awkwardman’s dad is Superman Mr. Might and his mom Lori Lemaris the Mermaid), except that these offspring's genetic inheritance was ersatz, to say the least.
This is was simply inspired stuff. I stumbled across some of them in a quarter bin when I was a kid and couldn’t resist the purchase. I've never read the complete run but the ones I did left an impression. Apparently the Inferior Five have made a number of cameo appearances in the DCU since their own title faded away in 1968, the latest being something called ANGEL AND THE APE from way back in 1991, as well as in CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS (supposedly in a crowd scene, but I can’t find ‘em). Somewhere along the line it was revealed that the Inferior Five were from Earth 12 (destroyed during the Crisis) but I assume they’re now somewhere in the DCU, just waiting for Grant Morrison to make them commercially viable.
I hadn’t thought about the I-Five until I ran across an article in an old (July 1981) issue of the COMICS FEATURE magazine while I was looking for my Treasury Edition version of SHAZAM. (Found it - more on that later.) This article reveals perhaps the most amazing thing about the I-Five: they were seriously considered for their own Saturday morning cartoon series. The article -- largely an interview with Mark Evanier -- can be read in its entirety here. I think an I-Five cartoon would hold up today, but I still watch old THUNDARR cartoons and maybe shouldn't be the judge. Should DC ever manage to put out a complete collection of the original Inferior Five books, I’ll be among the few first to buy it.
Grant Morrison used the Inferior Five... or at least Merry Man, in the end of his Animal Man run.
Posted by: e | July 25, 2005 at 04:41 PM
I'm not surprised. These guys have Grant Morrison written all over them.
Posted by: Kurt | July 25, 2005 at 05:14 PM
i really need to pull out my old long boxes from when i was a kid and dig through them...
Posted by: Zilla | July 26, 2005 at 06:43 AM