Is Reba McIntire’s Colonel Sanders The One From DC Comics’s Earth-11?

Could the Colonel Sanders portrayed in a newly-released ad by country music legend Reba McIntire have debuted in a comic book?

Well, let’s look at it this way: while KFC has cast Colonel Sanders using a female actor for the first time ever, there was already a female Colonel Sanders in Colonel Corps, a comic book that featured The Flash and Colonel Sanders teaming up and blasting through DC’s multiverse.

(Yes, really.)

In the issue, Colonel Sanders of Earth-1 found that he had forgotten all but one of the eleven herbs and spices used to make the KFC fried chicken recipe. Making his way to various other Earths within the DC multiverse, he recruits a multiversal army of Colonel Sanderses to take on Colonel Sunder, the Sanders of Earth-3.

The first of the Sanders to be recruited, and arguably the most significant, as she brings a Flash along who can help them travel the multiverse to recruit the team, is Colonel Arla Sanders, the Colonel of Earth-11.

Earth-11 is a universe where most of the major DC characters are female rather than male, often colloquially referred to as the “gender-swapped” Earth.

…And that right there is your indication that, no, despite having pioneered a female Colonel Sanders, writer Tony Bedard and artist Tom Grummett did not inadvertently create #ColonelReba.

Why? Well, becuase as Sanders sings in the new ad, “I’m definitely not a woman.”

While KFC has been getting a lot of mileage (and a little bit of controversy) out of the first female actor to play Colonel Sanders, Reba is (at least as far as we can tell) playing the standard Colonel Sanders, with the same wink-and-a-nod attitude toward the ever-changing roster of actors that has become common among those playing the role.

Of course, Colonel Corps is the second of three KFC/DC crossovers that have happened so far, with the KFC/DC comic becoming a staple of recent San Diego Comic Cons. So just becuase #ColonelReba is not Colonel Arla does not mean they couldn’t have a little fun with the idea down the line…!