Cows as Superheroes

In the "Spotlight" section of today's Rocky Mountain News (paper version), there is, for the readers' edification, a little sidebar that lists Dutch and Swedish superheroes in the Marvel and DC universes. (Note that this sidebar appears on the page facing the article on show cats. Quality reporting every day!) I took note of the Cowmen (Koemannen) because they brought to mind Kellogg's Üder, the Hermaphroditic Cow.

I first learned of Üder in the fall of 2001, when I participated in my alma mater's study abroad program in Oxford. There, my Oxford roommate and I became quite fond of Kellogg's milk and cereal bars. Üder appeared on the back of every box of them in Ye Merrie Olde Englande. He stood, bipedal, wearing his dashing protective goggles and sporting his infamous udder gun.

Udder gun?

How could this be, thought my Oxford roommate and I. Üder was male--always referred to with masculine pronouns. How could he have an udder? Could this, wondered my Oxford roommate and I, be the result of a patriarchal culture that will not allow any superheroes, including those with fully functional mammary glands, to be female? No, no, we concluded. Kellogg must have deliberately made Üder a hermaphrodite in a surprising show of acceptance of one of society’s most downtrodden pariahs.

Sadly, it now appears that Üder's Web site is now for sale. One can still see a tiny picture of him, however. Could it be that Üder is fading into the abyss of Cereal Promoters Past?

I fear it is so, my friends, I fear it is so. But maybe not all hope is lost. Perhaps Üder can hook up with the Cowmen and stage some sort of confrontation in the style of WWF Smackdown. Let the better cow win. And truly, wouldn't cows be the way to go about promoting the WWF? I can think of no better spokesanimal.