This radio show, made famous for its true-life storytelling on subjects ranging from building superintendents to summer camp, occasionally dabbles in the world of fiction. Very occasionally, they dabble in the world of superhero fan fiction. They’ve done so on at least 2 different occasions, both with stories by writer Jonathan Goldstein:
Episode 198: “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” A sad-sack man tells what it’s like to date Lois Lane after her break-up with Superman… while also serving as Superman’s ineffectual sidekick. It’s not easy being Superman’s sidekick, especially when he starts hitting on your girlfriend. Luckily, he finds a comforting soul in Clark Kent.
Episode 241: “20 Acts in 60 Minutes.” The Penguin and Mary Poppins compare notes on umbrella flight techniques only to find they have little in common. To make matters worse, Mary loses interest in the Penguin and strikes up a conversation with Bruce Wayne about controlled jumps off of buildings.
Note that we have at least two violations of Mlawski’s rules on good fanfic: both stray far from the mood and style of their original sources, and the second one crosses over two different fictional universes. Fortunately, these rules aren’t hard and fast; besides, more conventional fanfic wouldn’t really work in the context of, you know, NPR.
Readers: what are some other unlikely sources of fanfic, superhero or otherwise, that you’ve found?
We’ve done a lot of Overthinking(tm) of back story on this site. From Gossip Girl to Batmanto Sex and the City, we desperately want to know where our fictional heroes came from. We want to be able to relate even more closely to them than we already do.
Recently, a new hero has risen in our midst. She has no name. We don’t know where she came from, or where she’s going. We only know the nature of her true desire, and that desire has spawned legions of followers on “teh internets.”
I am speaking, of course, of the “I Can Has Cheezburger” LOLcat:
She has a name. It is Bumpkin Lambrini. And this is her story.
And it’s not even *good* fanfic. Obama and Palin are Mary Sues, the pair of them.
Let me be clear: Obama and Palin, the human beings, are as complex and irreducible as any other human beings. But Obama and Palin, the candidates, are wholly illusory creations shaped by their respective party machines and depictions in the media, and are only similar to the humans that share their names in so far as it is expedient. In short, they are fictional, and as such, they are subject to literary criticism of the particularly snarky kind that flourishes in the blogosphere.
So I ran them through a Mary Sue test (there are many of these, which you can find using google – I chose this one). I’ll admit that I was a little generous in some of my criteria… “Is he/she from a country or world different from the other characters in the story?” Alaska, check. Hawaii check. “Does she have special/magical powers that none of the other characters have?” Can field dress a moose, check. Anyway, here’s the feedback the test gave me for Obama.
Once upon a time, an 80s girl was reading a subversive comic book in a diner while listening to that one A-ha song everyone likes. But lo! Out of one of the comic’s frames pops a sketchy hand – the hand of Patrick Swayze-inspired 80s Motorcycle Guy. 80s Comic Book Man brings 80s Girl into the comic book, which seems like fun to 80s Girl at first. Little did she know that Evil Wrench Guy, Motorcycle Guy’s archenemy, is out for revenge!
Motorcycle Guy runs through the comic world with 80s Girl, realizes she is unsafe there, and sends her back out to her world through a portal made of pencil so he can fight dirty with Evil Wrench Guy. After his victory against Wrench Guy, Motorcycle Guy makes his way into The Real World to live happily ever after with 80s Girl.
We assume. But what might actually await Motorcycle Guy on Earth? What happens after the girl decides to take him on?
Never again will the real have the chance to produce itself — such is the vital function of the model in a system of death, or rather of anticipated resurrection, that no longer even gives the event of death a chance.
–Jean Baudrillard
Let’s play a game: I’m going to say something ridiculous, just for the fun of it. Okay, here goes. “The Terminator franchise will come to an end with the upcoming Christian Bale movie, Terminator: Salvation. It will be the very last Terminator story ever told in any medium; the franchise will die when the credits roll.”
So why is that so absurd? Obviously a franchise is endlessly renewable as long as a corporate entity believes the property has value, and yet franchises do die. There is nothing inherently ridiculous about the claim that there will not be another Ghostbusters movie. The two that already exist present us with closed narrative forms, both individually and as a unit. If another Ghostbusters movie were to be created, it would be a resurrection of a dead property. The same is not true of the Terminator, which, as of the Sarah Connor Chronicles, exists outside of time.
And it’s not even *good* fanfic. Obama and Palin are 
Once upon a time, an 80s girl was reading a subversive comic book in a diner while listening to that one A-ha song everyone likes. But lo! Out of one of the comic’s frames pops a sketchy hand – the hand of Patrick Swayze-inspired 80s Motorcycle Guy. 80s Comic Book Man brings 80s Girl into the comic book, which seems like fun to 80s Girl at first. Little did she know that Evil Wrench Guy, Motorcycle Guy’s archenemy, is out for revenge!
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