Look! Up in the Pantry!

Many hardcore Superman fans are relatively unaware of the last son of Krypton's long, storied history with the peanut. It's high time someone cracked the shell on this historic, heroic team up.

One of the most the most highly recognized super hero food products is Superman Peanut Butter from Kane-Miller Corp. They pop up on eBay and in blogs from time to time. My jar has the year 1981 on the label but the expiration date seems to have been lost to the ages. Even though I'd love a taste, I'm going to assume that it's already passed.

"It's strength is its great taste" was the crunchy condiment's tag line and seemed to be well known to everyone except Lex Luthor. In fact, in a bizarre example of misplaced priorities, Superman seemed willing to die to protect the secret of his peanut butter's tastiness:

So successful was this super hero/legume pairing that society demanded more. And if society wants some dry roasted supers snacks then someone will surely step up.

This jar of Superman Peanuts comes to us courtesy of Old Dominion Foods and has the year 1987 on the label. Apparently this wasn't nearly as popular as the original peanut butter so it wasn't long before someone else tried to capture lightning in a bottle.

Or rather, peanut butter in a jar.

A more recent Superman peanut butter came with a new plastic recyclable jar and an expiration date of May 1993. RW Gourmet foods got the band back together for this short lived attempt.

But it's a safe bet that this won't be the last. Wherever hungry kids gather, wherever ants need to be logged, wherever jelly is lonely...you can bet Superman will be there.

Air Force

The superhero food scene can be a lonely at times and sometimes you just can't rely on a fully branded Spider-Man Canned Ham to greet you at the grocery store. It's at those time when you have to settle for something a little more mundane. Fruit snacks typically hold the top spot when it comes the frequency of its superhero tie-ins, but coming in at a close second are Airheads.

I've never eaten Airheads and I've never watched "Batman: The Brave and the Bold," so obviously I'm the perfect person to opine on the various virtues of these Batman Airheads from a few years ago. We'll start with the positives: Much like the format of the TV show, the candy incorporates various lesser known characters from DC Comics.

On the negative side: Like many reasonable adults who feel the need to write about superhero candy, I maintain high standards and semi-reasonable expectations when it comes to the bottom line. If they promote six different characters and sell a six pack of candy then the optimist in me hopes to get all six with the first purchase. Alas, the candy gods were not smiling that fateful day at 7-Eleven.

Blue Beetle, Green Arrow, Batman and Red Tornado (with duplicates of Blue & Red), not a bad collection of characters but the absence of Aquaman and Plastic Man leaves a hole in my soul that no amount of high fructose corn syrup could ever fill.

In an attempt to make nice for my incomplete set, the Airheads website was completely Batman-ized and I spent the better part of the day coloring pictures of Plastic Man...

...and Bizarro Plastic Man...

That calmed me down. And since you were dying to know, according to the site's superhero quiz, I'm Batman. I'm the %$!@*# Batman!

Let's Roll

As I've stated before, when it comes to Super Hero food products, fruit snacks are usually a fairly pedestrian offering. But this summer's disgraceful lack of Iron Man edibles and a seemingly similarly low Dark Knight nosh turnout have left us with little options on the fanboy aisle at the grocery store.

Since beggars can't be chooser we must look on the bright side of our ever dwindling grocery lists. Sure there's nothing new about Fruit Roll Ups...but Fruit Roll Ups with a gimmick? Fruit Roll Ups with the flimsiest of premises masquerading as a high concept RPG? Well sir, that's a horse of a different color.

 Get acquainted with Batman Battle Rolls Fruit Roll Ups:

I know, I know, it seems like every other crappy Fruit Roll Up you've never been interested in. But at the very least they made the tiniest effort to break away from the pack. It's a game, you see. But the most challenging part of the game seems to happen before you even get started. I don't know if fruit Roll Ups have always been this hard to unroll or if there is a special trick to it that just escapes me but my first several attempts at de-packaging ended up looking like this:

It's hard to have a "battle" with results like that. After finally getting a couple out of their plastic cocoons, it was game on...and here's the playing board:

At first glance I'm sure we all had the same reaction: "Wow, that looks like blood splattered human flesh." Hungry, yet?

Ok, so the rules, as I understand them, are simple: Tear your "Batman Battle Rolls Fruit Roll Ups" in two (for some reason). Then add up each character's points and whichever side has the most points "wins."

Also, in the game's defense I spent about four seconds trying to figure out how to play so I could have just completely fabricated the above rules. So how did I do, you ask?

Round 1:
Evil: Joker Bomb, 5 points vs. Good: Gotham City, 1 point
Evil: Scarecrow, 7 points vs. Good: Batarang, 7 points

WINNER: Evil!!! 

 Round 2:
Evil: The Joker's Motto, 6 points vs. Good: Rachel
0 points (The box seems to indicate that Rachel has 4 points but for the life of me I couldn't find any kind of points on the actual fruit roll up. Plus the character always seemed pretty pointless to me so, zero it is.)
Evil: TwoFace, 8 points vs. Good: Batman, 10 points

WINNER: Evil!! 

 At this point in the "game" I was pretty bored and thought I had more than enough to fill a blog entry so I called it quits. What can we learn form this? When it come to Fruit Roll Ups, evil always wins.

BONUS: By the way, I also came across a new case of Batman Bottled Water, so here's one for your "looking at" pleasure:

Justice League Cookies

Not too long ago the universe provided us with some Justice League Unlimited "Graham Snacks"...a.k.a. cookies.

They taste pretty good for only being 150 calories...essentially just like Teddy Grahams. Yes, I'm man enough to admit I've eaten and enjoyed Teddy Grahams. Not surprisingly, the shapes come in the form of the "big 3." Supergirl is also included. I guess they wanted to throw in another female character, but I think it really should have been Hawkgirl. Why not?

Top row (from left): Batman and a nearly unrecognizable Superman. Bottom row (from left): Supergirl, Wonder Woman and another odd choice, the JLU logo. Not nearly as recognizable as the bat logo or the super logo. Seems like a shame to leave out a fifth character just to have this. Martian Manhunter gets the shaft again.