What The--?! works that spoof some of their all-time greatest successes. For example, in issue #2, Byrne creates a tale pitting his work on the Fantastic Four franchise against his work with Superman. The issue goes so far as to have the Lex Luthor character complain about the changes Byrne made to the Superman legend after DC Comics' "Crisis on Infinite Earths". Though it carried the Marvel Comics label on the front left corner, "What The--?!" touted itself as being published by "Marble Comics". "What The--?!" parodied Marvel institutions such as the legendary Marvel Comics fan mail page, with staged articles called
Captain Marvel (DC Comics) Mary Marvel appeared together as a team in another Fawcett publication, "The Marvel Family". In addition, there was a funny animal spin-off character, Hoppy the Marvel Bunny, which was created in 1942 for Fawcett's "Funny Animals" comic book and later given an eponymous series as well. With Bill Parker having been drafted into World War II, chief writing duties on the Captain Marvel-related comics stories went to Otto Binder by 1942. C.C. Beck remained as lead artist, and he and Binder steered the Captain Marvel stories towards a whimsical tone that emphasized comedy and fantasy elements alongside the superhero action.