While this type of self-referential literature was quite common in comics strips, the earliest story of this type that I uncovered,2 appeared in Captain Marvel Adventures #22³, dated March 26, 1943, some eight years after the publication of New Fun, the first comic book of original material. In "Captain Marvel and The Revolt of the Comics," all the characters in Dextrose Q. Penn's line of comics engage in a sympathy strike after Zartan, lord of the jungle, decides he's tired of living in the jungle and decides to move to the city. Penn enlists Captain Marvel in an attempt to stop the strike, but the hero cannot fight strikers because he "can only fight villains." The walkout ends after Zartan gets thrown out of every night club in town and decides to head back to Africa.

Another early metafiction piece ran in Green Lama #1 (December 1944). Written and drawn by science fiction writer Horace L. Gold, Lieutenant Hercules parodies the superhero titles of the period. Account Wilbur Klutz switches places for an evening with his boss, who has received death threats. Crooks kidnap Klutz, mistaking him for his boss, and lock him in a room with some comic books. The frightened nebbish wishes that he was "endowed with the super-human ability of these comic gentlemen." A crack of lighting and Merlin appears asking who does he "wish to resemble?" The shocked Klutz cannot decide, so Merlin rules he "can try them all out." After uttering the magic word "BRAAACK!", Klutz transforms into Lieutenant Hercules. Running through the first eight issues of Green Lama, Gold uses a satirical approach to super hero storytelling while his protagonist often talks to the reader.

Perhaps my earliest recollection of metafiction in comics, Fantastic Four #10 (January 1963) featured appearances by both writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, as chroniclers of the "real world" Fantastic Four. Dr. Doom uses the duo to lure Reed Richards into a trap. Doom and Richards exchange bodies and as usual, the FF narrowly stop the villain before his plot comes to fruition.

Extrapolating from this groundwork, writer James Sturm and artist Guy Davis relate the life of the troubled group of non-super powered individuals that influenced the creation of the comic book foursome. Set in the 1958, Fantastic Four: Unstable Molecules (2003) recounts the stormy relationship between Dr. Reed Richards and the much younger, orphaned Susan Strum, who functions as guardian to her teenage brother, Johnny. War hero Ben Grimm, Reed's best friend, manages a gym. Since Reed is often absent researching, the lovelorn Ben and the bored Sue develop a flirtatious friendship. The angry Johnny runs off with a group of beatniks. All these events come to an explosive finale at a Strum party. In attendance are the Sturm cartoonist neighbor and several of his comic book pals including the duo, Stan and Jack.

Strum's and Davis's multi-layered story encourages multiple readings, each time garnering new insights. By using 50s stereotypes, Unstable Molecules presents new and interesting incarnations of the well known characters.

Not surprisingly, Alan Moore has scripted several excellent metafictional texts. Among his best and least know example, Supreme: The Story of the Year (1996-97) re-imagines Rob Liefeld's Superman ripoff. In his initial story, Moore introduces the Supremacy, a place outside of reality that serves as the home for all previously retconned⁴ versions and variants of Supreme. Intriguing characters such as Macrosupreme, Son of Supreme, Sister Supreme, Suprememarch, Supreme White, Supreme Gold, Sally Supreme, Scrappy Supreme, and even Squeak the Supremouse litter the story landscape. As new each "revision" occurs, the then-current Supreme is "canceled from existence" and journeys to the Supremacy. Moore successfully uses this idea to re-envision the previously dull character, giving it relevancy as far more than just another Superman clone.

DC Comics Presents #52 (December 1982), starring Superman and the New Doom Patrol, introduced Ambush Bug, who from these humble beginnings evolved into arguably the funniest metafictional character in comics. Initially, a goofy teleporting villain dressed as a green bug, the character under the artistic talents of creator Keith Giffen and scripter Robert Loren Fleming embodied the combined inherent silliness of super-hero comics. Every corner of the DC publishing empire was ripe for parody. In the first issue of his eponymous solo series (June 1985), a doll flies through the windows of private eye (don't ask) Ambush Bug's office. Seeing this as a portent, he dubs the figure Cheeks, the Wonder Toy. Later in the same issue, Ambush Bug leaves his partner behind to defuse a bomb. Not surprisingly, the inanimate toy is destroyed in the explosion. The distraught Ambush Bug quickly recovers when he "detects a disturbance in the Force."

Ambush Bug: "Hey, that's not the Force."
Ambush Bug: "Wow! It's the source!!"
Ambush Bug sees "DEAD HEROES SELL" spray painted on a nearby wall and yells, "Hooray! Cheeks didn't die in vain!"
Drunken old dude floating in the clouds: "Heck no, kid. You're guaranteed an extra ten thousand sales! Hey, yer ole Guardian Angel's always looking out for you! Hic

Characters like Ambush Bug help mitigate the after-effects of a comic book industry that takes itself way too seriously. It's good to be reminded of the inherent goofiness of the super hero story.

Speaking of which, writer Brian Azzarello and artist Cliff Chiang attempted to return some fun to the currently moribund DC Universe with Doctor 13: Architecture & Morality (2007). Using Doctor Thirteen, the world's foremost skeptic who denies that anything supernatural or unexplainable exists, as the centerpiece of a quasi-team of truly forgotten and often forgettable DC characters, Azzarello scripts a surprisingly amusing and insightful treatise into the world of contemporary comics. Genius Jones (created by Alfred Bester!), I...Vampire, Anthro, the Primate Patrol (a team of intelligent Nazi gorillas!), Infectious Lass, the ghost of 19th-century Confederate general J.E.B. Stuart (from The Haunted Tank), and Thirteen's magic-wielding daughter Traci join Thirteen as he challenges the mysterious Architects -- the shapers of the universe, who wish to retcon him and the others out of existence.

J.E.B. Stuart: Who are The Architects?
Genius Jones: The ones who decide who's who and who isn't. The are the official guides to the universe. When it was decided that the one fashioned by The Architects that preceded them didn't make sense they knocked the old one down and built a new one. This is the fourth time it's happened -- in this universe.
Traci Thirteen: "This universe?"
Genius Jones: There's another universe that these Architects are at war with. One that reinvents itself every summer -- So "things will never be the same again," it claims.

¹ A form of self-referential literature concerned with the art and devices of fiction itself, Wiktionary accessed June 29, 2008.

² Thanks to Richard Lupoff and Lenny Bailes

³ Far more famous for the first chapter of the legendary "Monster Society of Evil" story arc

⁴ Retroactive continuity (or informally retcon) is the deliberate changing of previously established facts in a work of serial fiction. The change itself is informally referred to as a "retcon," and the act of writing and publishing a retcon is called "retconning". Wikipedia, accessed June 30, 2008