When you think of superheroes or supervillains getting around town, you probably imagine them flying, capes rippling in the wind. Flying superbeings are a comic staple, but not every comic book character has wings or even basic levitation abilities.
Famous examples of super-vehicles include Batman’s Batmobile, Wonder Woman’s invisible plane, and the Silver Surfer’s chrome-colored surfboard. Historically, however, several comic characters have gotten around in the strangest of contraptions. Here’s a list of the four oddest vehicles in comic book history that may have you wondering what the heck their creators were thinking.
Jokermobile
The Joker has never been a low-key personality, but most would agree that the Jokermobile was a bit much, even for him. First seen in 1946, the Jokermobile came equipped with the usual supervillain tricks and devices, such as a bullet-proof exterior, machine gun in the front and back, and, of course, a giant boxing glove in the trunk to knock out any curious caped crusaders. Matching its owner’s purple, green, red, and white color scheme, the Jokermobile also sports a giant Joker face. Branding was always important to the Clown Prince of Crime.
The Thanos Copter
When not committing cosmic-scale democide in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thanos, aka The Mad Titan, tools around in a special, flashy yellow helicopter with his name written on the side. Yes, you read that right. Truthfully, the Thanos Copter only appeared thrice, once in the tongue-in-cheek 1970s series Spidey Super Stories, created to help young children improve their reading skills. The Thanos copter showed up later in a fantasy sequence in the equally tongue-in-cheek if more adult comic Deadpool. The little yellow copter made its last appearance in the MCU’s Loki series, permanently grounded in the Void.
The Bat-Train
Batman gets by just fine without superpowers, though some have suggested that his main superpower is being rich. Truly, he must be rich to afford the variety of high-tech gizmos and doohickeys in his utility belt and the Batcave. Nowhere is this more obvious than in his apparently endless supply of Batmobiles, Batwings, and Batboats. But while the last three, despite the absurdity of their names, remain iconic parts of the Batman mythos, things got decidedly weird with the Bat-train in 1955. A product of the delightfully goofy Golden Age of comics, the Bat-train allowed Batman to travel from town to town, in the daylight no less, to lecture folks on being law-abiding citizens. It was a different time.
US-1
Here’s the last of the four oddest vehicles in comic book history, and yes, it really happened. US-1 was a short-lived 1983 series about driver Ulysses Solomon Archer (US Archer, get it?) and his truck, the titular US-1. US-1 started out as a regular, hard-working semi-truck but later became a spaceship…that still looked like a truck. One wonders what sort of cosmic diesel fuel additives it requires to enhance its planet-hopping performance.
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