Drew Friedman has posted many scans relating to “It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s SUPERMAN,” a 1966 Broadway musical I could have seen (hey, I was eleven and lived in New York) but never did. I’d never run across the souvenier program book before, but the instant I saw the cover posted there, I noticed something very odd.

If you’re as big a Silver Age comics fan as I am, you’ll notice it, too.

Take a look.

Did something inappropriate leap out at you? If you read comics back in 1966, you’d have immediately recognized that something was very, very wrong. And that is …

… even though Superman is a DC Comics character, three of the blocks of text on that cover are from Marvel Comics logos!

The word “Fantastic” is obviously from the Fantastic Four logo, though the crossbar on the F has been tinkered with.

And “Collectors’ Item” and “Classic” were both taken from Marvel Collectors’ Item Classics.

Presumably, no one at DC Comics had anything to do with assembling this program, and it was prepared by someone related to the show who probably thought that all comics were the same. But I’d love to know how DC Comics’ execs reacted when they went to the theater and saw logos belonging to that upstart Marvel decorating the souvenier program for their Broadway show.

Who knows? Perhaps this misappropriation is what jinxed the production and caused the show to tank!