Snickers DC Comic Redoes History With Women

Snickers Comic #2: The Fastest Women Alive (with Supergirl and Jesse Quick)

Back in the day, there was a tradition of Superman and the Flash racing each other. It began in Superman #199 in 1967, and it’s understandable that the young male readers of the time loved “who’d win” showdowns. Superman was super at everything, but the Flash was “the fastest man alive”. Which was more important, overall power or a specialized skill? Most of these races end in a tie for various plot reasons.

Superman #199 cover

Recently, I discovered that Snickers, the candy bar, has worked with DC Comics to create a promotional comic that evokes that storied history (and that famous cover). Except this time, it’s Supergirl vs. Jesse Quick in a story called “The Fastest Women Alive”. And you can get it free from ComiXology.

Snickers Comic #2: The Fastest Women Alive (with Supergirl and Jesse Quick)

The 16 pages of comic story are written by Stuart Moore (whom I always remember as the founding editor of Helix, DC’s short-lived science fiction comic line) and illustrated by Paco Diaz. The cover above is by Ivan Reis and Eber Ferreira.

I’ve always liked Jesse Quick, as a legacy hero (daughter of Liberty Belle and Johnny Quick, with both their powers… and hunh, it appears she’s also married to Hourman now). The two women are racing around the world for charity, watched by guest stars Superman and the Flash, when their stadium starting point is attacked by the Parasite (a giant purple Hulk-like monster). He’s hungry, so he’s draining everyone’s energy. What’s the cure to restore the audience? That’s right, candy bars!

It’s a simple story, although portraying the “relatively new to Earth” version of Supergirl gives it a little more emotional depth than just a power competition. And it’s great to see the two women save the day without any patronizing.

This is marked #2 in a series. It seems that the first Snickers/DC giveaway comic was called Justice League: Hunger Scares and featured the “big three” of Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman. It was a print giveaway at last year’s New York Comic Con. There was also an ad campaign last summer that incorporated comic pages inserted in DC publications.

There’s a similar ad I noticed last week in a DC comic, two pages that looked like this:

DC Snickers ad 2017

That ad ties into the transformation theme that the candy has been using in TV ads, where a normal person becomes someone else when they’re hungry. And it leads into this comic book, with the couple going into the stadium to see the race. (Like the Wonder Woman logo t-shirt on the woman!)

And hey, marketing works. At lunch I bought a Snickers that fit my mood today. It was labeled

Troublemaker Snickers bar

Troublemaker



2 comments

  • I wonder where Wonder Woman fits into the “fastest woman alive” hierarchy…

  • You know, I was thinking how clever it was of them to feature Supergirl, what with the popularity of her show, but the absence of Wonder Woman didn’t even occur to me.

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