South Park’s Parody Superhero Name Just Became Marvel Canon

Warning! This article contains spoilers for Dark Ages #4

In the dark alternate future of Marvel Comics known as Dark Ages, South Park’s parody superhero name becomes Marvel canon. Dark Ages pushes Marvel’s heroes to their limits as many of their fellow heroes have died while trying to stop the desolation of what remains of the Earth by the villainous conqueror Apocalypse. During one of Marvel’s darkest events, one unique stream of humor runs through it as the name of a joke-hero created by South Park becomes canon. 

In Dark Ages #4 by Tom Taylor and Iban Coello, the remaining heroes of Earth have joined together to create a giant ship made from a flightless Helicarrier that they are using to rescue people from the tyrannical rule of Apocalypse. Apocalypse has taken over Europe, leaving Wakanda as the only safe haven left in the world. On their trips back and forth from Europe to Africa, the X-Men and the rest of the heroes realized there was limited room on the ship for a crew plus refugees, so they came up with an elegant solution. Multiple Man acted as the entire crew of the vessel, multiplying himself to the required number of people needed to run the ship, then became one individual again to make room for the others. When taking on this role, Multiple Man was rebranded with another superhero name, one so unfortunate that it appeared in South Park first. 

Multiple Man, while working as the entire crew on the rescue vessel, had become known as “Multiple Seaman” which is in part the same name as a spoof-hero that appeared in South Park. Seaman was the name of the parody version of Aquaman in South Park, a hero who was constantly ridiculed by his fellow Super Best Friends because of his name. Throughout the episode of the adult animation series in which Seaman appeared, the Aquaman spoof was often referred to as “Semen” because of his unfortunate moniker. 

While Multiple Man’s new name is the same as a South Park superhero parody who was created to be ridiculed, at least he doesn’t add to the joke beyond his terrible name. South Park’s Seaman has a sidekick named Swallow who is a superhero with bird powers. Seaman’s common catch phrase to Swallow is “Swallow, come!” which is just as bad as the hero’s name (if not worse) as he is adding to the joke without meaning to. 

Seaman’s complete obliviousness to South Park‘s underlying dirty joke associated with his name, his sidekick’s name, and his catchphrase to his sidekick is part of what makes the joke land. While Multiple Man doesn’t perpetuate his unfortunate new name with other aspects of his life or personality as Seaman does, he is like the parody hero in that he seems to be oblivious to how terrible the name “Multiple Seaman” truly is. Luckily for Multiple Man, Dark Ages isn’t set within the main Marvel continuity so the new name won’t last. However, since he went by the name in a Marvel book, South Park’s parody superhero name did become Marvel Comics canon with Multiple Man sharing the stage with the ridiculous Seaman.

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