What Do Superheroes Eat?

I spent a few hours yesterday trying to make sense of the comic collection. I had it in my head that I would empty all eight comic boxes and create and catalog master anthologies and duplicates. And just like the book collection, this valiant effort to impose order was met with abject failure, as it has every single time I’ve tried to do this. It’s my own personal Sisyphusian rock. Instead of staying mission focused and looking only at titles and numbers, I get sidetracked: I start reading a few books, which means that hours later, I'm still reading and making a bigger mess than what I’d started with originally. It’s funny; the comic book collection is similar to the book collection in spirit, if not in letter: there’s a core set of interest (in this case, “X” titles – Uncanny X-Men, X-Men, X-Factor, New Mutants), surrounded by satellite miscellany (Amazing Spiderman, Daredevil, pretty much everything Bill Sienkiewicz ever did, Dark Knight, Infinity Inc. [early Todd McFarlane], etc.), and then the odd shelf, one-shot books (early Image Comic books, Chips and Vanilla, and Hamster Vice [don’t ask]).

Except for the aforementioned “Chips and Vanilla,” about a boy and his murderous, carnivorous dog, no other comic book addressed gastronomic considerations. How is it possible for New York’s superheroes to live in one of the world’s great food capitals and never be seen eating? Do they not read the Wednesday edition of the New York Times? You can’t tell me that in a comic book of 20-some pages there can’t be at least one panel devoted to eating (food)? “Calvin and Hobbes” was never more than four or five panels and still we know about his predilection for Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs and his revulsion with most of his mother’s cooking (excepting the notable episode in which she told him she made stewed monkey brains).

Surely superheroes have time in between battling powerful villains and routing Galactus to replenish their caloric needs? Which brings up another issue – the only “consumption” I’ve ever seen in the Marvel universe (because I do not read DC Comics) consists of planetary ingestion.

Consider Jean Grey of the X-Men, Galactus’ fellow devourer of worlds. As Marvel Girl in the Silver Age, she was probably a cheeseburger, fries and shake kind of girl. In her incarnation as Dark Phoenix, she consumed an entire planet of celery people which makes it difficult to discern if she’s vegetarian or omnivorous. I’m pretty sure her teammate Storm is a vegetarian. Storm grew up in Africa, revered as a nature goddess so it’s unlikely that she eats animals for whom she provided cooling rain and sheltering warmth. Maybe she experimented with meat during her cold-as-ice, lost-my-powers, get-a-Mohawk phase. Her antipodal counterpart is, of course, Wolverine who is undoubtedly a carnivore. Not your namby-pamby fowl type of meat eater, but seriously red, fatty, and heart-killing bovine flesh. Downed with lots of beer. His mutant ability isn’t his adamantium-laced skeleton or those killing claws; it’s actually a rapid healing factor. Therefore, he can pretty much eat anything and not get sick. As dour, troubled and humorless as Cyclops is, I think his food of choice is cold gruel (which is apt if you consider his hard childhood in an orphanage: “Please sir, may I have some more?”). Angel and Psylocke grew up privileged as Warren Worthington III and Betsy Braddock, so they’re probably four-star cuisine aficionados; but Betsy is British so it's debatable because I don’t know if “gourmet” and “British kitchen” are complementary. However, she did undergo a brain switch from prim English miss to Japanese warrior goddess so who knows? Rogue's difficult to figure out. On the one hand she's a Southern girl which means fried chicken and cuisine capable of rendering vegetables unhealthy. On the other, she's got Carol Danvers, Boston-born New Englander, trapped in her head (as a result of a physical absorption gone wrong) -- which means clam chowder. I guess whoever's in charge gets to pick.

The X-Men live in Westchester so their choices aren’t as unlimited as say, Spider-Man’s. Spidey lives in New York City, but on his salary as a freelance photographer, he’s probably a hot dog and pizza kind of guy. Maybe now that he’s married to MJ, who is a relatively successful model/actress, they can afford more upscale fare. I don’t know. MJ has always struck me as the kind of person who’d rather eat Pastis than go for the real thing at Les Halles. I’m biased because MJ paled so completely next to Felicia Hardy (Black Cat).

Daredevil alter ego Matt Murdock lives in Hell’s Kitchen, which has undergone a recent gentrification push; in 1992, Amy’s Bread opened in the neighborhood, the start of what has since become a culinary renaissance in the area. For a blind guy whose senses are ultra-heightened, the smell of fresh bread has got to be manna from heaven, yes? He’s one of the moodier superheroes though – always brooding and sulking. Maybe he just needs to go to Therapy. It's a stylish new bar over on 52nd and I'm pretty sure they appreciate a man in skintight red leather there...

Batman. Makes Daredevil look like Pollyanna. Bruce Wayne eats nails and drinks single malt scotch. I'm pretty sure of that. Wait. He's DC Comics (I read him only because Frank Miller and David Mazzuchelli were his writers. Also, Selina Kyle was infinitely interesting. And then came ghastly Halle Berry). We'll skip that.

So I wonder: who's the gourmand out of the entire 2-D bunch?

My friend Dani suggested Elektra. I thought so too, originally. But then I pointed out that she was too busy killing people to have time to savor a meal. Dani thought she'd be great help in a kitchen though because she could really slice and dice. We had a whole discussion about Emma Frost and psychic calorie consumption better left unreported.

I need to get a life.

Comments

[souris]

bar none. the best entry yet. SO BEST. bravo ki!

[emily]

i was just wondering this today. here's what i came up with:

ninja turtles and batman both love pizza. that is all the further i got.