Ode to The Best Niche Superhero of All Time - Superciuk

Superman fights for "truth and justice." Batman fights crime. Spider-Man fights his own landlord. Cowards, all of them. Not one dared to have an actual political program.

Then in 1969 Italy created Alan Ford, a satirical comic about a group of broke, incompetent secret agents operating out of a flower shop in New York. And inside it, they created the greatest character in superhero history:

SUPERCIUK.

By profession, a street sweeper. A man who spent his entire life cleaning up garbage and reached the only logical conclusion: the poor throw trash everywhere and make his life miserable, while the rich keep their streets clean and smell nice.

So he became a superhero with the most honest political program ever written:

HE STEALS FROM THE POOR AND GIVES TO THE RICH.

Robin Hood in reverse. And unlike every real government running the same policy, he ADMITS it. That alone puts him above half the finance ministers in history.

His superpowers? He drinks cheap wine and transforms. His weapon is his breath: one exhale of pure alcohol fumes drops a grown man at ten meters.

Batman needed billions. Superman needed an alien sun. Spider-Man needed a radioactive spider. Italy armed its hero with wine. Of course they did.

Technically, Superciuk is the villain of the comic. Ignore that. The man was such a strong character that when Alan Ford was exported to Yugoslavia and nobody cared for the first 24 issues, his debut in issue single-handedly turned the comic into a national religion. It stayed one of the best selling comics there for the next 50 years, in a country the authors weren't even writing for.

A "villain" so good he conquered an entire foreign country without firing a shot. Show me one Avenger with that resume.