Stupendous Man
From The Calvin and Hobbes Wiki
| Stupendous Man | |
|---|---|
 | |
| First appearance: | October 30, 1987 |
| Last appearance: | August 31, 1995 |
| Other characters | |
Stupendous Man is one of Calvin's many alter egos. Calvin puts on a red home-made mask and cape, and pretends that other people are villains or monsters. When things begin to tilt away from his favor, he takes off the costume, and becomes "mild-mannered" Calvin once more.
Stupendous Man is Calvin's second most-frequently employed alter ego, even though, according to Calvin, Stupendous Man has only won "moral victories." [1] Stupendous Man is also Calvin's most powerful alter ego, achieving such feats as flying a telescope lens into the atmosphere and turning time back a day. However, these powers are largely wasted, either on supervillains Stupendous Man cannot defeat or on ultimately futile plans, such as getting mild-mannered Calvin another day out of school. During one comic, Calvin made a chant for Stupendous Man:
- S for Stupendous!
- T for Tiger, ferocity of!
- U for Underwear, red!
- P for Power, incredible!
- E for Execllent physique!
- N for ...um... something ...hmm, well I'll come back to that...
- D for Determination!
- U for ...for... wait, how do you spell this? Is it I?
Calvin never finished his chant.
[edit] First Costume
On October 30, 1987, Stupendous Man made his debut appearance, albeit in a dramatically different costume than his famous crimson look. This costume was minimalistic at best, apparently including only a simple domino mask and cape. Stupendous Man's first costume only appeared in three panels of the same strip, then vanished forever.
While Stupendous Man's second costume drew from an eclectic range of pre-existing superheroes, this first costume was clearly based off of the costume of the DC Comics superhero and Batman sidekick Robin. In addition to both the domino mask and cape, Stupendous Man's first appearance borrowed much from the status quo of the Batman line of comics, notably the internal monologue (although Stupendous Man's was in the third person, as opposed to the comic book contemporaries first-person tense) and the glaring down on the city streets from above a conveniently placed skyscraper.
The only power Stupendous Man demonstrated in this costume was "ultra-sonic hearing," and this was matched by an apparent fear of heights.
The next appearance of Stupendous Man began with Calvin announcing that Mom had made him a superhero costume, suggesting that this strip may be apocryphal to the Stupendous Man canon.
Standard Costume
[edit] Epithets
- Crimson Bolt
- Mysterious Masked Man
- Champion of Liberty
- Defender of Free will
- Defender of Freedom
- Advocate of Liberty
- Friend of Freedom
- Opponent of Oppression
- Lover of Liberty
- The Amazing Marvel
- Foe of Tyranny
- The Masked Man of Mega-Might
- The Whirlwind Wonder
- Champion of Liberty and Justice
Known Powers
- Ultra-sonic hearing
- Stomach of steel
- Flight
- Augmented speed and strength
- High-speed vision
- Stupendous powers of reasoning
- Stupendous powers of concentration
- Stupendous muscles of magnitude
Foes
