Parody Displacement / Comic Books

• Asterix:
  • The pirates in the comics are close parodies (allowing for the difference in art style) of Captain Barbe-Rouge (Redbeard) and his crew in the comic of the same name. Originally published in the same magazine as Asterix, Barbe-Rouge is almost unknown outside France. You have a shot at recognizing them if you've seen one of the 90s cartoon shows, but the parody characters have such a distinct look that it's not obvious. Iznogoud contained a Shout-Out to specifically the Asterix versions of the pirates in one story. They look much more like their Asterix designs and the crow's nest pirate observes that the ship they're about to attack "has no Gauls on it".
  • Furthermore the pirates, on yet another occasion when their ship is smashed by Asterix and Co, end up in a sequence with them parodying the painting "The Raft of the Medusa". Said painting is actually pretty famous in France, and a mainstay of school textbooks on French painting, but non-French readers will be less likely to recognize it.
  • Asterix generally is packed solid with references to French politics, society, and other such in-jokes, though in some cases the original reference are quite obscure nowadays. In Asterix and the Banquet Asterix meets a group of characters in Marseille, who are a shout-out to the 1930s movies Fanny and Marius by Marcel Pagnol, something most people of today, even in France, wouldn't get. The antagonist from Obelix and Co. is supposed to be a parody of Jacques Chirac. Yes, as in former President of France Jacques Chirac, though the parody was focused on his largely-forgotten-outside-France stint as Prime Minister.
• Lucky Luke: How many people today think of the Dalton brothers as the historical Bob, Grat, Bill and Emmett, compared to the Dalton Brothers as Joe, Jack, William and Averell? In Europe and the French-speaking world, at least, it's not even a contest.
  • Joe, Jack, William and Averell are supposed to be identical-looking cousins to the real Dalton brothers. The "historical" Dalton brothers were featured (caricatured) in the album Outlaw which is probably forgotten because René Goscinny didn't write it, plus it's just one album vs. over 20, plus they were actually Killed Off for Real whereas Lucky Luke moved to Thou Shalt Not Kill a few albums later.
  • There are others who may associate the Daltons as Dinky, Pinky, Stinky, etc. from Huckleberry Hound.
  • Morris' work on the series in general has resulted in this. He liked to parody various overused tropes from Western films, and the distinctive features and screen personas of actors associated with the genre. While the comics keep getting reprinted, much of the European audience is no longer particularly familiar with the parodied films (except perhaps the European Spaghetti Western subgenre), or with tropes that haven't seen much use since the 1960s. Most of the actors parodied are also long gone, and in some cases poorly remembered.
• Solomon Grundy, born on a Monday. Also, he is a zombie. If you know of Solomon Grundy, chances are you probably know him from the comics and cartoon, but not from the nursery rhyme. In Mexico, there is a wrestler known as Solomon Grundy, and people don't know about any rhyme, comic, or cartoon. The rhyme itself IS mentioned in the popular Batman series The Long Halloween. It is also briefly referenced in Justice League and Arkham City. One Justice League cartoon episode has him sacrifice himself for something (nevermind that being a zombie, he can't really die off permanently). The gravestone shown usually mentions the rhyme. The rhyme is also referenced in the Batman story "One Night in Slaughter Swamp", published in Batman: Shadow of the Bat # 39 (1995). The Crash Test Dummies also used his name for their Superman song, only because it rhymed with money. ...sorta. The rhyme was also used in Arrow, with Ollie quipping "Died on Saturday; buried on Sunday" after defeating him.
  • Note that the 19th-century nursery rhyme has a couple of variations, but is only eight lines long and gives the Grundy depicted no individual traits. Making it unlikely to receive many memorable adaptations. In its longer form, the nursery rhyme simply describes the rather conventional course of life for a man. Grundy was (in order) born, Christened, married, taken ill, having his medical condition further deteriorating, died due to his illness, and then buried.
• Deadpool was originally conceived by Rob Liefeld as a rather blatant ripoff of DC Comics supervillain Deathstroke. Later writers took the character and revamped him into a parody to save Marvel some face. While Deathstroke still has a strong fan following, Deadpool has pretty well eclipsed him in terms of popularity.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles started as an underground comic strip that affectionately parodied many popular Marvel Comics series of its era, but it went on to become much better-known than most of them after the cartoon adaptation became a major hit. In particular, the comic took major cues from the Daredevil and X-Men issues penned by Frank Miller, who was famous for his fascination with Japanese culture. The most obvious aspects were the Turtles' mentor "Splinter" (as opposed to Daredevil's mentor "Stick"), and their enemies "The Foot Clan" (Daredevil's were "The Hand"). The Turtles' origin story, involving a runaway canister of radioactive chemicals, also parodied Daredevil's origin.^note  Matt Murdock was hit in the eyes with a canister of radioactive chemicals as a teenager, while the Turtles were mutated after a canister of radioactive chemicals leaked into the sewers after hitting a teenage boy "near his eyes"; some versions even strongly imply that the teenage boy actually was Matt Murdock in a Lawyer-Friendly Cameo. And their basic character dynamic parodied the X-Men — another surrogate family of temperamental teenage mutants with contrasting personalities. Even their most iconic villains, the samurai Oroku Saki ("The Shredder") and the grotesque alien Krang, took some obvious inspiration from the Marvel villains Keniuchio Harada ("The Silver Samurai") and the grotesque mutant MODOK. And then there's Casey Jones, who started out as a parody of films about urban vigilantes (like the Death Wish movies) that were popular in the '70s and '80s; thanks to becoming a fan-favorite Turtles character, though, he remained popular long after "vigilante flicks" were mostly forgotten.
• Even with proper annotation you'll be hard pressed to identify most of the references to Victorian literature in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, with bonus points if you are even aware of the original work. To understand how far Alan Moore goes, there are references to Victorian porn novels that have been out of print for decades, and visual reference gags can number in the triple figures on one page. It gets even worse once he gets into the twentieth century.
  • In some cases the characters mentioned or encountered are from the 19th century, but not from British literature. There are cameos for example of Auguste Dupin (created by Edgar Allan Poe) and Anna/Nana Coupeau (created by Émile Zola). Also there are references to even older characters. Issue second includes a reference to the character Lady Termagant Flaybum. Flaybum is a major character in an 18th-century novel concerning flagellations, and having a sado-masochistic tone.
  • There are also unusual depictions of famous characters, such as Charles Dickens' characters outside their typical era. One scene involves an aging thief giving Fagin-like training to a group of child thieves. Moore does not give a name for the old man, but the implication is that we are seeing child-thief Artful Dodger in his old age. He became a copy of his mentor. Another scene involves a young rape victim who seems unusually optimistic. The name given for her is Polly Whittier, a character better known as "Pollyanna".
• Viz started as a parody of British children's comics and now the genre it parodies is all but dead with the exception of The Beano, which Viz even outsells.
• Nero: To this day many Flemings (especially from the older generation) will think of the protagonist from this popular comic book series whenever they hear the name "Nero", instead of the Roman Emperor on which his name was based. Meneer Pheip's son, Clo-Clo, has a name based on French singer Claude-François' Affectionate Nickname, but how many people remember that?
• Suske en Wiske: Similarly, the name "Barabas" will remind many people in Belgium and the Netherlands of the Absent-Minded Professor in this comic book series, rather than the biblical character.
  • There is a Suske en Wiske story called De Texasrakkers ("The Texas Scoundrels"), which was originally a shout-out to the popular 1950s TV western series The Texas Rangers, but this show is nowadays completely forgotten. In fact mention The Texas Rangers today in Flanders or the Netherlands and everybody assumes you mean De Texasrakkers.
• Agent 327: This series started out as a parody of James Bond, but mostly the campy 1960s version. For many people unaware of these movies they may not notice the parody element anymore. Similarly the character Olga Lawina has a Punny Name (lawine means avalanche in Dutch and the character is of Swiss nationality) which refers to the nowadays almost forgotten Dutch singer Olga Lowina.
• The Hellfire Club's introductory appearance in X-Men was originally a parody/homage of the classic The Avengers (1960s) episode "A Touch of Brimstone", where Steed and Peel battle a genteel criminal organization called... the Hellfire Club. Practically everything about the story arc's plot was inspired by the Avengers episode in some way: Jean Grey's famously kinky "Black Queen" outfit was an exact replica of Emma Peel's "Queen of Sin" costume, and Jason Wyngarde was modeled after British actor Peter Wyngarde, who guest-starred as that episode's villain. But while the Hellfire Club in The Avengers appeared only once, Marvel's Hellfire Club has remained a major part of the X-Men mythos for over three decades, and most younger fans don't know about its origins, especially in the US, where the syndication package omitted that episode and it only became available much later. It helps that their introductory appearance was in the first part of The Dark Phoenix Saga, the most beloved X-Men story of all time, and the tendency for adaptations to have the organization undergo Bowdlerization to the more family friendly name "Inner Circle" further distances the team from its inspiration.
  • Fewer people still may be aware that the Hellfire Club was a real thing, albeit not necessarily evil, but rather a series of 18th century gentlemen's clubs that took a satirical and ironic view of society and religion. Calling themselves "devils" and engaging in mock ceremonies that mostly just involved alcohol and pranks, Flanderization and Artistic License – History likely inspired their appearance in The Avengers.
  • The other part of Jason Wyngarde's name is from the TV series Jason King (1971–72), in which Wyngarde portrayed a foppish writer who is often mistaken for the hero of his adventure novels.
• Hitman featured a Take That! in its DC One Million issue to '90s Anti-Hero Gunfire, who was at the time fairly new, having debuted in the same Crisis Crossover as the protagonist of Hitman. In the years since that issue came out, Gunfire has appeared in about ten issues, and had a speaking role in only two of them, while Hitman remains a Cult Classic - consequently, chances are that if anyone has read an issue featuring the character, it's the one where he turned his ass into a hand grenade.
• The second annual for the SpongeBob SquarePants comic features a story that's a Whole-Plot Reference to Stardust the Super Wizard, even being written in part by the guy largely responsible for bringing the series to the public eye. Considering that Stardust is deep inside "cult fanbase" territory, and the few fans it does have generally don't overlap with people who buy SpongeBob tie-in comics, it's anyone's guess how many kids were left very confused by that issue.
• Megg, Mogg and Owl is a Subverted Kids' Show parody of the children's picture book and TV cartoon franchise Meg and Mog, about a kindly Witch Classic and her cat, which depicts the characters as nihilistic, self-destructive stoners. It's become sufficiently successful as to be more famous than Meg and Mog, which is now remembered only by those who were children during the era.
• The infamous "Arm Fall Off Boy" of Legion of Super-Heroes was essentially an early Ascended Meme; the Atrocious Alias was a joke thrown around a lot in the book's letters page. With the rise of the Internet enabling his single scene to be posted everywhere, people remember him a lot more than the original joke (and a good chunk of them seem convinced he was serious), which even inspired his surprise appearance as "The Detachable Kid" in The Suicide Squad.
• Captain Atom, The Question, and Blue Beetle are possibly the only Charlton Comics heroes which people still remember, the others being eclipsed by their expies in Watchmen as far as fame goes. Even then, they can't escape the shadow of their Watchmen counterparts, from Captain Atom gaining a blue-silver inspired form based on Dr. Manhattan instead of his earlier more-humanoid one, to the Question being used as an expy of Rorschach in Justice League Unlimited, to it being erroneously believed (until it was debunked by J.M. DeMatteis) that Ted Kord's weight gain during Justice League International was an homage to Dan Dreiberg. However, in The New '20s, Peacemaker — who inspired the Comedian — has started to gain more popularity thanks to James Gunn and John Cena.
• What's So Funny About Truth, Justice & the American Way? was an issue-long Take That! to the then-popular '90s Anti-Hero series The Authority, featuring Superman having to deal with a group of murderous anti-heroes known as The Elite. While The Authority maintains enough of a cult following to have been rebooted using Superman characters as Superman and the Authority in 2021, What's So Funny About Truth, Justice & the American Way? has become one of the quintessential and most iconic Superman stories, having been adapted into an animated movie, and The Elite, and their leader Manchester Black (who would ironically go on to help Superman form the Authority in Superman and the Authority), have pretty well eclipsed The Authority in terms of popularity.
• Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew!: Rova Barkitt is a play on gossip columnist Rona Barrett, who isn't exactly a household name anymore.

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