Ambush Bug
fictional character
Ambush Bug is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics.
The character was created by Keith Giffen and Paul Kupperberg, and first appeared in 1982. Ambush Bug was intended as a deliberately silly character to spoof conventions of superhero comic books, often breaking the fourth wall. He was first portrayed as an incompetent villain, who was actually more of a nuisance than a serious threat, with delusional beliefs and the power of teleportation. He gradually became more of an anti-hero or bumbling do-gooder. Ambush Bug wore a green costume similar to a union suit or jumpsuit, but also covering the head and face and with two antenna emerging from the head.
His real name is supposedly Irwin Schwab, but Ambush Bug has mental problems that prevent him from truly understanding reality around him, so even his true identity might be no more than a delusion. His origin is disputed, although the most commonly accepted origin is that Brum-El (an allusion to Beau Brummell as well as Superman's father Jor-El) of the planet Schwab sent his clothes from his supposedly doomed planet, hoping that his wardrobe would survive, only to have it intercepted by a giant radioactive space spider. In the resulting crash, only two articles of clothing survived: the Ambush Bug suit, which was subsequently found by Irwin Schwab; and "Argh!Yle!", an argyle sock with a Doctor Doom–like complex, complete with metal mask.
Publication history
Created by artist Keith Giffen, Ambush Bug first appeared in DC Comics Presents #52 (Dec.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ambush Bug” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.