Superlópez is a Spanish comic book character created by Jan. Created in 1973, Superlópez is a parody of

Superman Superman is a superhero created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, which first appeared in the comic book ''Action Comics'' Action Comics 1, #1, published in the United States on April 18, 1938.The copyright date of ''Action Comics ...

. Born ''Jo-Con-Él'' (translated as ''Damn-with-him'') on the planet ''Chitón'' (Spanish

slang A slang is a vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in everyday conversation but avoided in formal writing and speech. It also often refers to the language exclusively used by the members of pa ...

meaning something like ''Shut up!'') much like Superman's home planet of

Krypton Krypton (from 'the hidden one') is a chemical element; it has symbol (chemistry), symbol Kr and atomic number 36. It is a colorless, odorless noble gas that occurs in trace element, trace amounts in the Earth's atmosphere, atmosphere and is of ...

, he leaves his planet when he enters a spaceship and presses a button, an accident that sends him to Earth. He was raised by adoptive parents in

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

and concealed himself under the identity of office-worker ''Juan López'' (which is actually author Jan's real name). He works with his girlfriend, the bad-tempered '' Luisa Lanas'', the not-so-pally '' Jaime González Lidenbrock''; and his demanding, unnamed boss. This was revealed in the 8-page origin story in the first issue of his magazine. Other stories in the first issue reveal his "Fortress of Solitude", the "Villa Soledad" in the Arctic and have him fighting a rubber robot, the Galactic Gladiator, a sorceress from another dimension, La Incredible Maza (The Incredible Hulk), an atomic monster and a metal robot. Other recurring characters include ''Inspector Hólmez'' (a reference to

Sherlock Holmes Sherlock Holmes () is a Detective fiction, fictional detective created by British author Arthur Conan Doyle. Referring to himself as a "Private investigator, consulting detective" in his stories, Holmes is known for his proficiency with obser ...

), an excessively bureaucratic police officer who suspects everyone; ''Martha Hólmez'', the Inspector's daughter, and computer geek ''Chico Humitsec''.

Editorial career

Euredit (1973)

In 1973, cartoonist Juan López Fernández "Jan" was commissioned to produce a book of very short comic strips parodying Superman. Antonio Martín, then editorial director of the comic book area of the Barcelona publisher Euredit and responsible for the commission, had to convince Jan -who did not consider himself a comedian- to do the job, and he did it quickly, without much faith. The work was included in the collection Humor siglo XX, dedicated to the satire of characters from comic books, literature and American cinema, such as King Kong, Tarzan or Frankenstein. The comics had to be silent, printed in black and white and in a 48-page landscape format, so, to overcome these creative restrictions, the author resorted to all kinds of graphic resources, such as thought snacks, kinetic signs or accentuation of expressions, with which he achieved great expressiveness in his drawings.
Jan conceived his parody of Superman in the manner of an ordinary Spaniard, "in the key of a tacky marriage" because it seemed to him to be the closest thing to the public at the time. This character, faced with the daily difficulties that he cannot solve and which frustrate him, adopts as an escape valve the tactic of imagining that he is a superhero. The jokes corresponding to this volume, traced with Rotring lines on sheets of folio paper and with an extension of up to four vignettes, have a simple and expressive line drawing, and present -despite the limitations of the format and the fact that they maintain little connection or continuity between them- effect gags on Superman, rather "domestic" mute jokes, which have little to do with the character later developed in the Superlópez comics of Ediciones B. Jan SalonBCN 2003 cropped

Recurring villains

Recurring villains include the evil professor ''Escariano Avieso''; ''Lady Araña'' (“Lady Spider”); the gangster ''Al Trapone'' (a reference to

Al Capone Alphonse Gabriel Capone ( ; ; January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947), sometimes known by the nickname "Scarface", was an American organized crime, gangster and businessman who attained notoriety during the Prohibition era as the co-foun ...

; he is accompanied by goons like ''Carasucia'', ''Caracortada'', ''Carapincho'', gun-wielding ''Pistolet'', etc.); and the mob boss ''Refuller D'Abastos''.

El Supergrupo (The Supergroup)

In Issue No. 2 and 3 (“El Supergrupo”), Superlópez served as a member of a group of superheroes, all of which were Jan's creations. These included ''El Mago'' (''The Wizard'', a parody of Dr. Strange); ''Capitán Hispania'' (''Captain Spain'', a parody of

Captain America Captain America is a superhero created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby who appears in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character first appeared in '' Captain America Comics'' #1, published on December 20, 1940, by Timely C ...

); ''Latas'' (''Tin-guy'', a parody of

Iron Man Iron Man is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Co-created by writer and editor Stan Lee, developed by scripter Larry Lieber, and designed by artists Don Heck and Jack Kirby, the character first appearan ...

); ''Bruto'' (''The Brute'', a parody of The Thing); and ''la Chica Increíble'' (''Incredible Girl'', a parody of the token generic superheroine). These spent more time fighting one another over the leadership of the Supergrupo than fighting evil (a parody or reference from the internecine strife that is part of Spain's history). They also made a short appearance in issue 6 where instead of going after the outlawed Superlopez, they argue then fight each other. The Supergroup come back in book 63, where a scientist is altering reality. In book 69, the Supergrupo meet Los Ligiones Justicieros, DC's JLA, featuring parodies of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and Aquaman. Superlópez began his career as a half-page comic strip without text then whole page strips with text where things for López normally ended up badly (reprinted in issue 13, The Genesis of Superlópez), before expanding into full albums which were later put together into annuals holding a number of issues, with adventures involving supervillains and criminal organizations, later evolving into longer, more complex stories concerning social topics affecting contemporary Spain (drug dealing and youth, political issues, pollution and environmental threats, etc.). Original writer ''Efepé'' (pseudonym of Francisco Pérez Navarro) left the character after the early issues and, from that point on, artist Jan took over the writing as well.

Other storylines

Juan travels around the world after stories with Luisa and Jaime and encounters lost races, treasures and so on. He also encountered assorted aliens, monsters, robots, mad scientists, wars, Aztec gods and even had a trip to

Hell In religion and folklore, hell is a location or state in the afterlife in which souls are subjected to punishment after death. Religions with a linear divine history sometimes depict hells as eternal destinations, such as Christianity and I ...

. The stories are full of gags with him burning his large nose whenever he uses heat vision, of him getting a bump on the head when Luisa hits him, of him hurting his fist when he hits a metal robot. As well as bees, odd-looking little yellow creatures feature in the background in some panels and are revealed as ectoplasms in the "Los Petisos Carambanales" story. He even becomes a popstar and meets the ghost of the Prado Museum. Nothing was too way out for the strips as the characters went from one crazy scenario to another. Often Superlópez not only parodies Superman but also popular literature. This is the case in ''El Señor de los Chupetes'' ("Lord of the Pacifiers", a parody for

The Lord of the Rings ''The Lord of the Rings'' is an Epic (genre), epic high fantasy novel written by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's book ''The Hobbit'' but eventually d ...

) or ''Al centro de la Tierra'' (after

Jules Verne Jules Gabriel Verne (;''Longman Pronunciation Dictionary''. ; 8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet and playwright. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the ''Voyages extraor ...

's A Journey to the Center of the Earth) From the 1990s Superlópez adventures take place in real scenarios that are drawn using a realistic style. Famous buildings and monuments in

are often portrayed in detail, as well as those in other cities of

Catalonia Catalonia is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationalities and regions of Spain, nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia of 2006, Statute of Autonomy. Most of its territory (except the Val d'Aran) is situate ...

(

Camprodon Camprodon (; from ''Camp Rodó'' "Round Field", ultimately from Latin ''Campus Rotundus'') is a small town in the Comarques of Catalonia, comarca of Ripollès in Province of Girona, Girona, Catalonia, Spain, located in the Pyrenees, near the Fren ...

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

(

Andorra Andorra, officially the Principality of Andorra, is a Sovereignty, sovereign landlocked country on the Iberian Peninsula, in the eastern Pyrenees in Southwestern Europe, Andorra–France border, bordered by France to the north and Spain to A ...

Grenoble Grenoble ( ; ; or ; or ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of the Isère Departments of France, department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Regions of France, region ...

Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

) or

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. As an internal joke, Superlópez says once that his adventures are evolving into simple traveling guides. Superlópez later often had science fiction stories like ''Tú, robot...'' (53) where an intelligent robot is created which then travels the world, unintentionally doing good and bad as it seeks to find out what it means to be human. Confronting the robot in the icy wastes, like in the original Frankenstein story, Superlópez is not sure what humanity is either. In ''El virus Frankenstein'' (56) a virus changes a young boy into a horrible monster while the ''El mundo de al lado'' (57) features a door to another dimension where maybe based on a Little Prince story, the people are enslaved into pulling huge wagons around the planet and ''Elecciones en Kaxim'' (58) feature him interfering in

election An election is a formal group decision-making process whereby a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold Public administration, public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative d ...

s on a strange alien world. In book 62, Superlópez goes near a beam giant aliens use to cut planets up and his left arm is cut off at the elbow. It suddenly reattaches itself a few pages later and is normal again. In book 64, "The Time Thief", Superlópez meets

Doctor Who ''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series, created by Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber and Donald Wilson (writer and producer), Donald Wilson, depicts the adventures of an extraterre ...

with his

Tardis The TARDIS (; acronym for "Time And Relative Dimension(s) In Space") is a fictional hybrid of a time machine and spacecraft that appears in the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who'' and its various spin-offs. While a TARDI ...

, the

Daleks The Daleks ( ) are a fictional extraterrestrials in fiction, extraterrestrial race of extremely xenophobic mutants principally portrayed in the British science fiction television programme ''Doctor Who''. They were conceived by writer Terry Na ...

and the Cybermen. In book 66, the "super group" go to the Skroll (Marvel Skrulls) planet and also borrowed some of the story line from Fantastic Four 24 (March 1964). The book deals with hospital overcrowding too. Later Superlópez books leave the caricaturesque tone of his first adventures to deal with current social issues:

illegal drug trade The illegal drug trade, drug trafficking, or narcotrafficking is a global black market dedicated to the cultivation, manufacture, distribution and sale of drug prohibition, prohibited drugs. Most jurisdictions prohibitionism, prohibit trade, exce ...

smuggling Smuggling is the illegal transportation of objects, substances, information or people, such as out of a house or buildings, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations. More broadly, soc ...

tax haven A tax haven is a term, often used pejoratively, to describe a place with very low tax rates for Domicile (law), non-domiciled investors, even if the official rates may be higher. In some older definitions, a tax haven also offers Bank secrecy, ...

, gunrunning in

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

, dictatorships, or

illegal immigration Illegal immigration is the migration of people into a country in violation of that country's immigration laws, or the continuous residence in a country without the legal right to do so. Illegal immigration tends to be financially upward, wi ...

are some later themes. Book 69 deals with the illegally built Algarrobico hotel in Almeria, southern Spain. Book 70 deals with Muslim radicalisation of youngsters and extremism, a subject few others dare to touch. Jan announced he would finish to draw the character in 2022.

Complete issues

# ''Aventuras de Superlópez'' (1980) # ''El supergrupo'' (1980) # ''¡Todos contra uno, uno contra todos!'' (1981) # ''Los alienígenas'' (1981) # ''El señor de los chupetes'' (1981) # ''La semana más larga...'' (1981) # ''Los cabecicubos'' (1983) # ''La caja de Pandora'' (1984) # ''La gran superproducción'' (1985) # ''Al centro de la Tierra'' (1987) # ''Cachabolik Blues Rock'' y ''El fantasma del museo del Prado'' (1988) # ''En el país de los juegos, el tuerto es el rey...'' (1988) # ''El génesis de Superlópez'' (1989) # ''El asombro del robot'' y ''Una vez, en una ciudad...'' (1989) # ''Los petisos carambanales y otras petisoperías'' (1989) # ''Los cerditos de Camprodón'' (1990) # ''Periplo búlgaro'' and ''El tesoro del conde Arnau'' (1990) # ''La banda del dragón despeinado (Yakuza)'' and ''La bomba'' (1990) # ''Hotel Pánico'' and ''La cosa del pantano, el flautista de Hamelín y otras soserías''(1991) # ''Un camello subió al tranvía en Grenoble y el tranvía le está mordiendo la pierna'' (1991) # ''El tesoro de Ciuacoatl'' (1992) # ''Los ladrones de ozono'' (1992) # ''El castillo de arena'' (1993) # ''La aventura está en la esquina'' (1993) # ''Tyrannosaurus sect'' (1994) # ''Los gemelos Superlópez'' (1995) # ''La acera del tiempo'' (1995) # ''El infierno'' (1996) # ''Los gemelos Superlópez: Vamos a ver elefantes...'' (1996) # ''Los cybernautas'' (1997) # ''El supercrack'' (1997) # ''Las minas del rey Soplomón'' (1998) # ''25 años de Superlópez'' (1999) # ''Otra vez lady Araña'' (1999) # ''La guerra de lady Araña'' (2000) # ''Adiós lady Araña'' (2000) # ''El dios del bit'' (2001) # ''El caserón fantasma'' (2002) # ''Nosotros los Papino'' (2002) # ''El gran botellón'' (2003) # ''El patio de tu casa es particular'' (2003) # ''Monster chapapote'' (2004) # ''Las montañas voladoras'' (2004) # ''Tras la persiana...'' (2005) # ''Gritad, gritad, malditos...'' (2005) # ''La casa amarilla'' (2006) # ''La feria de la muerte'' (2006) # ''Politono Hamelín'' (2007) # ''Hipotecarión'' (2007) # ''Iba caminando...'' (2007) # ''En busca del templo perdido...'' (2008) # ''La brújula esdrújula'' (2008) # ''Tú, robot...'' (2008) # ''La biblioteca inexistente'' (2009) # ''¡A toda crisis!'' (2009) # ''El virus Frankestein'' (2010) # "El mundo de al lado" (2011) # "Elecciones en Kaxim" (2011) # "El Abejón Rey" (2011) # "Asesinato en el Toral Express" (2012) # "Asalto al museo" (2012) # "Los recorta planetas" (2013) # "Otra vez el Supergrupo" (2013) # "El ladrón del tiempo" (2013) # "El gran deshauciador" (2014) # "El supergrupo y la guerra de las latas" (2014) # "La montaña de diamantes" (2014) # "Tres pizzas y un muerto... (2015) # "El Supergrupo contra Los Demoledores" (2015) # "Mambrú se va a la guerra" (2015) # "En el laberinto" (2015) # "El Supergrupo contra los Ejecutivos" (2015) # "Gran auténtico vidente curandero" (2016) # "El trastero infinito" (2017) # "El Supergrupo contra el Papa Cósmico" (2017) # "Menguante" # "Nuevas aventuras de Mambrú" (2018) # "XXL" (2018) # "Robinson" (2018) # "La isla de basura" (2019) # "El secreto de la biblioteca" (2019) # "El bullying de las sorpresas" (2019) # "La invasión de los huertos vivientes" (2020) # "Los influyentes influencers" (2021) # "Sueños frikis" (2022)

In other languages

*Catalan: ''Super Llopis'' (In Andorra: ''Superlópez'') *Danish: ''Superdan'' *German: ''Super-Meier'' *Norwegian: ''Superegon'' *Swedish: ''Super Nilsson'' (Mentioned in a Spanish magazine, but not independently verified)

Films

There is a 2003 short animation film named '' Superlópez contra el robot de bolsillo'' by Enrique Gato, the creator of '' Tadeo Jones''. A

feature length A feature film or feature-length film (often abbreviated to feature), also called a theatrical film, is a film ( motion picture, "movie" or simply “picture”) with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole presentation ...

Spanish film ''

Superlópez Superlópez is a Spanish comic book character created by Jan (comics), Jan. Created in 1973, Superlópez is a parody of Superman. Born ''Jo-Con-Él'' (translated as ''Damn-with-him'') on the planet ''Chitón'' (Spanish slang meaning something l ...

'' was released on November 23, 2018

References

External links

Cachis la Mar!Comic book coversShort Superlopez cartoon
{{DEFAULTSORT:Superlopez Spanish comics Parody superheroes Spanish comics titles Fictional Spanish people Satirical comics Superhero comics Parody comics Humor comics Spanish comics characters 1973 comics debuts Comics characters introduced in 1973 2022 comics endings Parodies of Superman Spanish comics adapted into films