Marvel has several of their own versions of Hyperion, yet their strangest version is no doubt Wundarr the Aquarian. Created by legendary writer Steve Gerber and artist Val Mayerik, Wundarr first appeared in Adventures into Fear #17 from 1973 and has perhaps the most bizarre riff on Superman’s origin in comics.
It is not unusual for companies to have versions of another company’s characters. The aforementioned Sentry is a “Marvel-ized” Superman, and Hyperion’s team, the Squadron Supreme, consists of Justice League pastiches. DC has their own versions of Marvel characters too—Red Lion, a version of Black Panther, among them. The appeal of such characters is watching the character’s origin and backstory altered to fit the other company’s sensibilities, which can shed new light on the already existing character; Wundarr is a perfect example of this.
Man-Thing. He survived the encounter and would eventually gain intelligence, rechristening himself “The Aquarian” and having a heroic career.
Wundarr’s creator Steve Gerber has said that the character was intended as a homage/parody of Superman, and it shows. Gerber and Mayerik continually play with Superman’s origin story, subverting it every step of the way. The elderly couple who see Wundarr’s rocket crash are not kindly but are instead hateful and full of paranoia. A key component of Superman’s origin is he was born with his powers, but Wundarr was not; he got them the same way the Fantastic Four got theirs—by exposure to cosmic rays. Finally, Superman’s moral code and great intelligence put him above the rest, but Wundarr has none of that.
Not only is Wundarr’s Marvel’s most bizarre Superman pastiche, he is arguably the most brutal as well. He shows what Superman could have been if he had not had the advantages he did growing up, and the result is terrifying.
