In The Incredibles, Mr Incredible had a comic series, toys, & an animated cartoon.
Check the Bonus Features on the DVD.
I’m pretty sure it was specifically stated that the pirate comics became the standard and there were no superhero comics in that world.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Booster Gold licensed his likeness to comics; he always was after a buck (at least, at first).
In American Flagg!, Reuben Flagg is the star of “Mark Thrust, Sexus Ranger” while he’s fighting crime in Chicago, though he’s been replaced by a hologram version of himself on the TV show, which is why he’s working as a cop.
One relevant wrinkle from that story: when a superheroine shows up at his office to express her displeasure about the comic’s insinuations concerning the nature of her relationship with her (also female) sidekick, the publisher blows her off, pointing out that the laws don’t allow her to bring a civil action without revealing her secret identity. How the laws in a particular universe deal with that issue raises a whole other raft of complications for the OP situation – if there’s no provision to sue while keeping a secret identity, anybody can print anything with little fear of repercussions (unless they push it far enough for the target to either unmask or just beat the crap out of the writer).
FF #10 just came out today which addresses this very thing.
Note: the writer has been paralleling events from the original run of the series, which is why there is a page of the old comic there as well.
For an example of just how meta Marvel could get, in 2000, they published a miniseries under the banner “Marvels Comics Group”
The idea was that these comics were the versions that existed in the superhero universe, whose portrayal of the character varied depending on how closely the subject was associated with the publisher. For instance, the Captain America comic was billed as being written by Rick Jones and drawn by Steve Rogers — the comic was only subtely different than the stories we read. Spider-Man, however, being branded as a menace by the press in the comics we read, was portrayed as a monstrous creature.
This. Also the actors do not exist. (But their movies mostly do, just played by different looking people.)
The most annoyingly stupid breaking of this rule has got to be Ocean’s 12, in which Julia Roberts the actor does exist, and there is a plot point of the character played by Julia Roberts looking like her.
Apropos Sherlock Holmes, I find that example quite interesting, since the host of fictional characters based on him do exist in fiction. (House, Monk, etc.)
Yeah, a villain named Glowworm; he portrayed Glowworm as racist, and it turned out that Glowworm was black under that glow.
Then the publisher in the hospital decided that villains were too dangerous, and came up with a new plan; (paraphrased) “Hey, I know! I’ll publish comics about those cosmic types who don’t care about what we mere humans do!”
The story ended with the viewpoint character showing up at work to find a huge hole where the building used to be…
In Marion Harmon’s Wearing the Cape series, the merchandising is full-on. The heroes provide input to their comics and movies with the LA contingent starring in their own films, there’s a teen-hero version of Tiger Beat, a Hard Rock-type night club they hang out at to be ogled by fans/groupies, and a version of Comic-Con attended by the actual superheroes.
There had been, though. There are at least two passing references to Superman, and that world had an early version of DC Comics but the divergence was early and stark.
I’ve always thought that was one of the most impressive depictions of Superman onscreen that I’ve ever seen. Apparently that actor was a stuntman, normally, and IIRC played the Terminator in the Universal Studios theme park attraction.
Not exactly a superhero movie, but I liked the way Last Action Hero handled this (OK, something like it) - Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn’t exist in the movie-within-a-movie universe - all of his roles were played by Stallone.
Also pretty meta is the Marvel series “1985”, about a kid from our universe who reads marvel comics, but then Marvel villains start turning up in his town thought a portal.
He eventually travels to the marvel universe, where no one believes him, until he corners Peter Parker and tells him he knows his secret identity and starts recounting details about Peters life
Way back when (60s?), there was a story in which (among other strange happenings) Lois and Jimmy knew Superman’s secret identity because they read a Superman comic. The whole story turned out to be an April Fool’s joke, it was called “The Night of March 31” or something like that.
I have that story in one of my hardcover compilations. It’s just one goofy thing after another, Bizarro-Perry White, Luthor and Brainiac singing “Happy Birthday”, lots of background nonsense in a lame ripoff of Will Elder… But the final panel (where presumably there’d be an “April Fool!” annoucement) was for some reason left off. It’s like asking someone why the chicken crossed the road and walking away before giving the punchline.
I remember that one. The comic in question had the villain teaming up with the KKK. The villain, who didn’t have normal human skin, shouted “do you even know what color I was before I changed?” implying that he was likely an African American. Oops. One of the female superheroes was pissed off at the same publisher who used her as a character and implied that she was in a sexual relationship with her female partner. “What do you mean by ‘we’re closer than sisters?’” and he replied “Are you a homophobe?”
I haven’t read a lot of Astro City stories but the ones I have read covered parts of life in a comic book universe we don’t usually get to see.
More recently, DC did a book called “Secret Identity,” about a kid named Clark Kent who discovers he can fly, has super strength, etc. The catch is that Superman/Clark Kent is an established fictional character in his universe, every bit as popular and pervasive as he is in ours - the kid’s parents thought they were being cute naming him after a famous fictional character.
But in the Marvel Movieverse, Captain America is a real guy to the real world. But in the 1940s, he wasn’t known to be a superhero. He was a film reel celebrity. It would be like if Mr. Rogers had a trading card line. It’s not that crazy.