Put down that chainsaw and listen to me. If you’ve been following Mark Waid’s Batman/Superman: World’s Finest since it launched in 2022, you just might recognize that this week’s crossover special featuring the world’s foremost song parodist, Hawaiian shirt model and twinkie-wiener sandwich connoisseur “Weird Al” Yankovic—Batman/Superman/Weird Al: World’s Weirdest—isn’t even the weirdest idea. But if you haven’t—or, really, even if you have—you may be asking: what makes the guy who writes accordion medleys of popular music and occasionally recaps Star Wars movies in song a reasonable fit for an adventure alongside the Man of Steel and the Caped Crusader?

Well, I’m glad you hypothetically asked. To answer that, we need to answer an even more basic question…why do we like Batman and Superman?

Since 2022, Waid’s Batman/Superman has been deliberately set apart from every other book in the ongoing DC Universe—not just in tone, but in time. Taking place during Dick Grayson’s tenure as Robin, the series explores the DC Universe of the relatively recent past. It was a more innocent time when Superman spent every season outsmarting Mr. Mxyzptlk and Batman’s rogues were more dedicated to staying on theme than sending a violent message.

As we connect the dots here, we must also consider that the Weird One isn’t the first celebrity to grace this series. The likes of Jerry Seinfeld, Paul McCartney and William Shatner have all been featured on variant covers through landmark issues in the book’s four-year run. What do these icons all have in common? Whimsy, wonder and a whiff of nostalgia for the culture of the 20th century, yet strong enough to remain relevant symbols here in the 21st. And in that, we’re also talking about Batman and Superman, who set the tone for the heroes of that time.

What many forget about the creation of Superman is that his first writer, Jerry Siegel, primarily considered himself a humorist. Superman was a champion of the oppressed and a figure of awe, but when you go back to those first stories, he was always funny about it. The idea of Superman itself was a transgressive farce in its conceptualization of a figure with power who would use that to stand against those with power. It was the opposite, Siegel would show us again and again, of how those with power usually tend to act. Batman, too, like Weird Al himself, is a cover artist, reframing the work of his predecessors in the Phantom, the Shadow and Superman himself to form a new context—one which could often itself be funny in its camp and absurdity, as anyone who’s seen Adam West in a surfing competition against Cesar Romero can attest.

Yes, we like Superman for his powers and how he inspires us, and Batman for his cool gadgets, his hyper-competence and his personal angst. But before all that, all of us liked Batman and Superman for one reason: they were fun. They put on long underwear and punched out other guys wearing the same, or beeping robots, or mad gorillas. That’s not everything they’re about, but it’s a central facet of who they are—the very one that World’s Finest was drafted to celebrate.

Similarly, Weird Al’s music has had one consistent message as he’s shared it from his college bathroom in the 1980s to the full orchestra tours of today and it’s that your favorite music is still fun, and perhaps even more so, when you stop taking it so seriously. Whether it’s a direct parody of a radio hit or a style pastiche of your favorite band, when you hear a Weird Al send-up, it’s never a lazy effort. It’s always a piece of music with meticulous craft, matching its inspiration meter for meter, capturing and transforming its musical spirit with the kind of joke only someone who truly, sincerely loves what they’re poking fun at could make.

Since Mark Waid’s triumphant return to DC after more than a decade abroad, that’s exactly the tone this leg of his oeuvre has taken. His signature meticulous care and research are both there, but with a zealous attraction to the weirdest elements of our world. It’s no coincidence, after all, that his very first World’s Finest team-up put Batman and Superman back-to-back with the Doom Patrol, and the teams have only gotten weirder from there.

In incorporating Al into the world of World’s Finest, Waid and his World’s Weirdest co-writer Tyrone Finch ply that same depth of love for that at which they laugh. Weird Al fans will beam with delight at every acknowledgment of Harvey the Wonder Hamster, Spatula City and the deep lore of a magical place called Albuquerque. But in its narrative, it’s all about the thing that made Running With Scissors and Superman’s ’90s “Bizarro’s World” saga the first album and comic I bought with my own money—its weirdness is what makes life interesting. Nobody can tell you what kind of weird to be. It’s all about riding the vibe you’ve got. And for a certain kind of kid like me who has always dared to be stupid, it’s exactly why Weird Al stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Superman and Batman as personal heroes.

And if all that doesn’t convince you to check out World’s Weirdest, take a look at all this stuff… they’ve got allen wrenches, gerbil feeders, toilet seats, electric heaters, trash compactors, juice extractors, shower rods and water meters, walkie-talkies, copper wires, safety goggles, radial tires, BB pellets, rubber mallets, fans and dehumidifiers, picture hangers, paper cutters, waffle irons, window shutters, paint removers, window louvres, masking tape and plastic gutters, kitchen faucets, folding tables, weather stripping, jumper cables, hooks and tackle, grout and spackle, power foggers, spoons and ladles, pesticides for fumigation, high-performance lubrication, metal roofing, water proofing, multi-purpose insulation, air compressors, brass connectors, wrecking chisels, smoke detectors, tire gauges, hamster cages, thermostats and bug deflectors, trailer hitch demagnetizers, automatic circumcisers, tennis rackets, angle brackets, Duracells and Energizers, Soffit panels, circuit breakers, vacuum cleaners, coffee makers, calculators, generators, matching salt and pepper shakers—
 

Batman/Superman/Weird Al: World’s Weirdest #1 by Mark Waid, Tyrone Finch, Dan Schoening and Fico Ossio is now available in print and as a digital comic book.

Alex Jaffe is the author of our monthly "Ask the Question" column and writes about TV, movies, comics and superhero history for DC.com. Follow him on Bluesky at @AlexJaffe and find him in the DC Official Discord server as HubCityQuestion.

NOTE: The views and opinions expressed in this feature are solely those of Alex Jaffe and do not necessarily reflect those of DC or Warner Bros. Discovery, nor should they be read as confirmation or denial of future DC plans.