Superman Ice Cream Is A Mashup Of Mystery Flavors And A Midwestern Staple

While the Man of Steel had a hearty appetite in the historic comic book series (one of his favorite dishes being beef bourguignon — accompanied by ketchup), you may not have witnessed Superman eating a whole lot of dessert. Perhaps the lack of clues from those pages is why the frozen scoops that bear his name are a bit of a mystery. So what exactly is the colorful flavor known as Superman ice cream?

The answer is a little vague, and seems to lack any hard and fast rules. Just as the name of the ice cream may vary (from Super Moo to Super Rainbow to Super Kid, among others), so too may its trio of flavors. The red can be anything from cherry to bubblegum to strawberry, the yellow might be vanilla, lemon, or banana, and you may find the blue section to taste of blueberry, blue raspberry, vanilla, or yet another tough-to-define option known as Blue Moon. 

The Meijer grocery store chain produces its own version called Scooperman, but while the label calls out a combination of vanilla, black cherry, and Blue Moon, the ingredient list offers no additional insight into this last one — simply citing natural and artificial flavors. As it turns out, not even history can offer a definitive answer as to what Superman tastes like, but it does provide some inspiration.

There may be some debate about which country invented ice cream, but this particular multicolored confection is widely believed to be a staple of Michigan culture. And while there are lots of once-popular ice cream flavors you never really see today, this one has stood the test of time — in fact, it was probably first crafted before Superman himself was drawn up. A commonly held belief is that it started cropping up as early as the 1920s, while Clark Kent's alter ego didn't hit the pages until 1938.

It's hard to know what folks called this ice cream prior to that cultural moment, but it seems the original flavors were unique, too. The first iteration, purported to be created by Stroh's Brewery in Detroit, was a combination of lemon (yellow) and Blue Moon (blue), while the red component was made from a fruity red soda — a fizzy strawberry drink made by Michigan producer Faygo, which you can still find today.

There are plenty of ways to make ice cream at home without a machine, and the beauty of the ambiguity is that if you want to make Superman ice cream, you won't be limited by a strict definition of flavors. Whether you embrace the idea of an all-vanilla ice cream that just happens to come in three colorful layers, or create individual batches with their own character and blend them together, this Midwestern classic gives you a chance to demonstrate your creative superpowers.