The Inferior Five #4

History

The Inferior Five were conceived when DC editor Jack Miller proposed a group of incompetent heroes to writer E. Nelson Bridwell, who expanded the concept — originally called 'The Inferior Four,' a direct Fantastic Four parody — into a five-member team of bumbling legacy heroes, the under-achieving children of the Justice League pastiche known as the Freedom Brigade. Bridwell had previously written for Mad magazine and brought that sensibility to the series; artist Joe Orlando (also a Mad veteran) designed the characters for their debut in Showcase #62 (May–June 1966), while Mike Sekowsky and inker Mike Esposito took over for the ongoing title starting with issue #1 in 1967. Issue #4, edited by Jack Miller and scripted by Bridwell with pencils by Sekowsky and inks by Esposito, arrived in October 1967 as the fourth installment of the team's solo run, fitting squarely within the strongest creative stretch of a series that Bridwell drove with his encyclopedic knowledge of mythology, literature, and comics history.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Cover date: October 1967; published by DC Comics (National Periodical Publications) as issue #4 of the ongoing Inferior Five (Vol. 1) series.
• Story title: 'Valhallaballoo!' — the Valkyries, acting on Odin's request for champions, mistakenly deliver the Inferior Five to Asgard, where the team blunders through the realm of the Norse gods.
• Beyond parodying classic Norse mythology, the story specifically targets the Marvel Comics version of Thor and its Asgardian supporting cast, with featured Asgardian characters including Odin, Thor, Loki, Sif, Heimdall, Bragi, Freyr, Freyja, Njord, Mimir, Tyr, and named Valkyries.
• Full creative team: script by E. Nelson Bridwell, pencils by Mike Sekowsky, inks by Mike Esposito, lettering by Ira Schnapp, edited by Jack Miller — the same core team responsible for issues #1–6 of the series.
• The Inferior Five themselves — Merryman, Awkwardman, Dumb Bunny, the Blimp, and White Feather — are all children of the Freedom Brigade, a parody of the Justice League of America; the team had previously appeared in Showcase #62, 63, and 65 (1966) before graduating to their own title.
• The letters page of this issue includes a contribution from Mark Evanier, the future comics writer, historian, and Jack Kirby biographer, who was then a teenage reader and enthusiastic fan correspondent for the title.
• The series concept originated when editor Jack Miller asked Bridwell for incompetent heroes; Bridwell pitched 'The Inferior Four' as a Fantastic Four parody, but after creating five characters, Miller renamed it; Joe Orlando designed the costumes, and Bridwell developed all five hero identities.
• The series ran for ten issues of original material (1967–1968), was briefly revived in 1972 with two reprint issues (#11–12, retitled 'Inferior 5'), and the team later appeared in cameos in Crisis on Infinite Earths, the Grant Morrison Animal Man series, and a 2019 Keith Giffen maxi-series reinvention.

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