The Bizarre History of Superhero Porn [NSFW] [Video]

Are we in the golden age of superhero porn? It sure seems like that. The Avengers continues to break box office records, and meanwhile a ton of superhero porn spoofs come out every month. There will probably be a dozen Justice League porn films before a real Justice League movie ever comes out.

But superhero porn has a long, if not necessarily proud, tradition, going back to 1940s comics featuring Superman and Plastic Man doing weird and obscene things. Here’s the history of superhero porn, of the last 60 years.

Note: This is necessarily an incomplete history, because there’s never going to be perfect archiving or cataloguing when it comes to teh pornz. Also, we’re leaving out things like Flash Gordon porn, or Barbarella, because they’re sort of grey areas in terms of being superheroes.

Tijuana Bibles
In the 1930s and 1940s, one of the most popular forms of porn consisted of tiny erotic comic books called “Tijuana Bibles” — including some which parodied popular characters of the time like Flash Gordon… or Superman. According to TijuanaBible.org, there’s an early 1940s comic called Superman and Lois, in which Superman “rescues Lois’ virtue,” and then has sex with her himself. (So if someone asks you what the worst Superman comic of all time is, now you know.) And of course, Superman co-creator Joe Schuster drew a series of fetish/bondage comics depicting Superman and Lois look-alikes doing BDSM. (Pictured at left.)

In the late 1940s, an artist called “Mr. Dyslexic” (who’s come in for harsh criticism from Art Spiegelman) produced a series of erotic parodies of various National (DC) superheroes, including Superboy, Captain Marvel Jr. and Plastic Man — see a panel at left where Plastic Man turns himself into a chair so an unsuspecting woman will sit on him. (Warning: Links very NSFW! Also, some of these comics are rapey.) Also, apparently Superman made frequent appearances in a 1950s TJ Bible called “Boarderless and Barber Pole.”

Eric Stanton’s Blunder Broad
Stanton is one of the most famous bondage/fetish artists of all time, and classic Wonder Woman comics are all about bondage and strange fetishes like women dressing up as deer — so it’s probably not surprising that Stanton produced his own erotic version of Wonder Woman in the 1970s. As the name suggests, Blunder Broad is sort of an inept superhero who gets captured and tied up a lot. And true to form for Stanton, the Blunder Broad comics tend to be both slapsticky and wildly sadistic. At one point, Blunder Broad gets put into a corset with a saddle on it, so the supervillain Count Dastardly can ride her around like a pony. These are easy to find online.

Bat Pussy
This 1973 Batman porn spoof is widely described as the worst porn movie ever made, thanks to some incredibly unarousing sex and a general attitude of awfulness. There’s a lengthy and painful deconstruction of the film here, but let’s just quote from Something Weird Video’s Souperman
This 1976 porn film starred Marc Stevens as the eponymous hero, whose alter ego is Clark Bent, a reporter for a sex magazine. Yes, it made sense in the 1970s. The villain is Luther (not Luthor), who has developed a special formula that will kill everybody’s sex drive — but luckily Souperman has some magic nuts (actual nuts, get your mind out of the gutter) that will save everybody’s libidos. Not making any of this up. This film is usually paired on a DVD with Super Lady, the 1975 film about a superheroine whose superpowers have the side effect of making her a nymphomaniac. She fights the supervillain Zabor, whose “sphere of influence” threatens the entire world. According to AVManiacs, “The soundtrack for this movie is amazing. It’s all ‘oodle doodle wee wee poot poot doo da doo’ computer noises and moog sounds. For some reason the movie also cuts to illustrated comic book style pictures of Super Lady at really random moments. It’s horribly directed and the sex is pretty plain but the soundtrack is so completely bad ass.” Yes, it’s porn that you love for the soundtrack alone.

Ms. Magnificent
Released in 1979, this film is pretty much a straight-up spoof of the then-new Superman: The Movie — to the point where Warner Bros. sued. Supporting characters include Lois and Clark, who both work at the same big newspaper where Ms. Magnificent has her secret identity as a reporter. Ms. Magnificent is sent to Earth from her doomed planet, and develops superpowers including flying and super-strength. Oh, and the supervillain Kreetia Borgia has a dildo made out of the one substance that Ms. Magnificent is vulnerable to. (Yes. Really.) We’ve assembled a collection of Kreetia Borgia’s greatest moments from the film, at left — including the insane moment where she announces, “I LOVE MYSELF.” The wrongness of this film pretty much knows no bounds, and it’s easy to see why more recent superhero porn spoofs have avoided such out-and-out supervillain tropes.

Hup! Comics
Famous underground comics artist R. Crumb hates superheroes, so it’s not surprising that he took the opportunity to make fun of them in this 1987 comic. It’s basically a zany mind-control sex romp, in which a ridiculous superhero team, the Mighty Power Fems, gets hypnotized into becoming sex kittens and helping to destroy capitalism. You know, the usual. It’s very, very smutty and as weird as you’d expect.

The Dark Knight Rises XXX

The Dark Knight XXX

Batman XXX

BatfXXX: The Dark Knight XXX

Katwoman XXX

Supergirl XXX

Superlady

The Avengers XXX

Incredible Hulk XXX

Captain America XXX

Thor XXX

Iron Man XXX

Spider-Man XXX

Superman XXX

More Superman XXX

Justice League XXX

The Justice League of Porn Stars

Wonder Woman XXX Hardcore Parody

Wonder Woman XXX Interactive

Superheroine 3D XXX

And so on. It’s all Joss Whedon’s fault, really.