What would Thor, Batman or Ariel be doing at eighty? Russian cartoonist Lesya Guseva answered that question with a series of illustrations known in English as Pensioners, in which Marvel, DC and Disney favourites have finally hung up their capes. Instead of saving the world, they bake, knit, play chess, nap and argue with nurses, and each picture hides small jokes for fans who know the characters well.
Guseva works in Perm, a city near the Ural Mountains, and shared the drawings on her Instagram account, from where they spread across the internet in 2018. They are fan art, not official continuations of any franchise, and that freedom is what makes them fun: she can let Captain America date Snow White or put the Genie and Doctor Strange at the same chessboard. Below are fifteen of the illustrations, grouped by universe, with notes on what to look for in each.
More of her work: Instagram.
Who is Lesya Guseva?
Guseva is a Perm-based cartoonist whose bright, rounded style owes a lot to classic animation. Russia Beyond, which featured the series in June 2018, described it as superheroes and fairy-tale characters drawn as retirees, and noted that she added her own short comments to several pictures. The full set is larger than the selection here; it also includes, for example, an aging Hulk visiting an eye doctor.
Her trick is to keep each character's signature look, the cowl, the hammer, the red hair, while changing everything around it. Wrinkles, glasses, hearing aids and walking sticks arrive, but the costume stays on, so the character is still instantly recognisable.
DC heroes and villains in old age
The Flash
The fastest man alive is still fast, only now in a wheelchair, racing down a hospital corridor with a nurse and her syringe in hot pursuit. The sign on the door reads "Palata No. 6", Ward No. 6, a nod to Anton Chekhov's 1892 story about a doctor who ends up locked in his own asylum ward. Russian readers get an extra layer of the joke.
Catwoman
Selina Kyle, still in her cat suit and pointed ears, blows at a birthday cake that is more candle than sponge. According to Guseva's own caption she is 90, as the calendar on the wall shows, and the framed cat portraits around her suggest a lifetime of feline company. The artist joked that turning down Batman does not seem to have done her any harm.
Supergirl and Wonder Woman
Two of DC's best-known heroines share a park bench like any pair of old friends. Supergirl, in a cardigan over her emblem, scatters seeds for the birds, while a grey-haired Wonder Woman winds her famous golden lasso like a skein of yarn. Even the little dog at their feet seems to be enjoying the quiet.
Harley Quinn
Harley has become a grandmother, rolling out dough with her trademark baseball bat while a little girl in a chef's hat helps. Her red-and-black costume pieces and fishnet stockings hang on the washing line behind them. It is one of the warmest pictures in the series: the chaos has turned into home cooking.
Joker
The Clown Prince of Crime still does his own make-up, now with reading glasses and a cane hooked over the dresser. He paints on his red grin in front of a Batman poster with a dart stuck in it and a child's drawing pinned beside it. The bat-print boxer shorts suggest that, after all these years, the rivalry has turned into something closer to fandom.
Batman
Bruce Wayne goes to bed early, still wearing a mask, with a hearing aid in and a soft Joker doll tucked under his arm. The clock says 20:58, the Bat-Signal shines in the window, and nobody is getting up to answer it. A framed photo of Batman and the Joker hangs above the bed, as if the two old enemies had become an old married couple.
Marvel heroes take it easy
Thor
The God of Thunder has found a practical use for Mjolnir: building a birdhouse with his wide-eyed grandson. A crow watches from the table, and a framed portrait of Thor and his brother Loki hangs on the wall. Thor is the most-shared image of the series, and it is easy to see why.
Deadpool
An elderly Deadpool in a trench coat and hat creeps along a fence with his cane, past a cinema poster for "Iron Man XVII", back in theatres. The joke lands on two fronts: Deadpool's fondness for mocking other superheroes, and the film industry's habit of making sequel after sequel.
Spider-Man
Peter Parker relaxes in a rocking chair with milk and cookies while his wife knits, using his web as the yarn. Cobwebs hang from the lamp and ceiling, which is either neglected housework or a very on-brand decorating choice. Russia Beyond summed it up as Spider-Man finding a creative outlet for his powers.
Iron Man
Tony Stark has kept his playboy lifestyle into old age: in a smoking jacket and fluffy pink slippers, he sits in an armchair surrounded by women in bunny costumes, one of them carrying a whisky tray. His old armour stands in the background like a retired butler. It is a cheeky take on the character's reputation as billionaire, genius and ladies' man.
Disney classics grow old gracefully
Ariel
The Little Mermaid is now a white-haired grandmother in a cosy bathroom, a finger to her lips as the youngsters splash in the tub. A red-haired young mermaid tends the children, Flounder watches from a fishbowl on the shelf and a red crab lounges on a cushion. The book on Ariel's lap hints at bedtime stories about life under the sea.
Mickey and Minnie
Mickey and Minnie, leaning on a walking stick, sit on a bench in front of a fairy-tale castle and a Ferris wheel while a small orange character offers them a cake marked 90. The number is not random: the couple's official debut, the cartoon Steamboat Willie, premiered in New York on 18 November 1928, so they turned 90 in the same year these drawings went viral.
Crossovers between universes
Snow White and Captain America
Captain America shields Snow White from the rain with his famous round shield, used here as an umbrella. Guseva lets Marvel's most old-fashioned gentleman step into the Disney world to court one of its oldest princesses. They sit on a park bench with a castle behind them, proof that good manners never retire.
Genie and Doctor Strange
Two masters of magic float above a night-time city, settling their rivalry over a chessboard balanced on a cloud. The Genie from Aladdin wears glasses and a smug grin, while Doctor Strange casts a glowing green spell, perhaps to help his position. It is the only picture in the set where the old characters still use their powers openly.
Superman, Pocahontas and Meeko
A wiry, elderly Superman, still in cape and red briefs and hooked up to a drip stand, dances with a long-haired Pocahontas who leans on a cane. Her raccoon companion Meeko keeps up with a walking frame, and a portable stereo supplies the music on a sunny deck by the sea. The picture says what the whole series says: age slows everyone down, but it does not have to stop the party.
Why aging heroes strike a chord
Mainstream comics and cartoons rarely let their stars grow old, because a hero who ages eventually has to stop. When publishers have tried it, the results tend to become classics, from Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns (1986), with a Batman in his fifties, to stories about an older Wolverine. Fan artists like Guseva explore the same idea with a lighter touch.
Part of the appeal is personal. Many of the people who grew up with these characters are now parents or grandparents themselves, and seeing Thor with a grandson or Harley in an apron mirrors their own lives. The humour is gentle: the heroes keep their quirks, their friendships and even their old rivalries, which is a hopeful way to imagine getting older.
Sources: Russia Beyond: What Marvel and DC superheroes might look like when old (June 2018), Bored Panda: Lesya Guseva's Pensioners, Wikipedia: Steamboat Willie, Wikipedia: Ward No. 6, Lesya Guseva on Instagram. All illustrations by Lesya Guseva.
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