Hey, Is This the Work of Some Joker?

What’s wrong with this picture?

“Batman Forever” is being featured prominently on the covers of magazines coast to coast, not to mention in TV specials and at the drive-through lane of your local McDonald’s.

But two recent issues of a children’s magazine, showcasing Jim Carrey as the Riddler and Val Kilmer as Batman, with assorted “Batman” features, interviews and quizzes inside, have some people in supermarket checkout lines doing double takes.

The reason: The magazine is Disney Adventures. And “Batman Forever” is, of course, the latest in the lucrative caped crusader franchise--from Warner Bros.

But the editor of Disney Adventures, which has a national circulation of 1 million and is aimed at 7- to 14-year-olds, says the magazine’s studio-blind editorial direction is intentional.

Despite the magazine’s title, “we’re not a Disney promotional vehicle,” says Editor in Chief Phyllis Ehrlich. Disney Adventures is published by the New York-based Disney Magazine Publishing, which also owns Family Fun, Discover and Family PC magazines.

“We cover the entire world of things that appeal to kids, from entertainment to sports to comics to video games to adventure, both real and fantasy,” she says. “They look to us to find out what’s hot and happening.”

And what’s hot and happening doesn’t always happen to be Disney-related. Cover stories this year have included one on Paramount’s “Star Trek Generations”; 20th Century Fox’s “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie” and Universal’s “Apollo 13” are scheduled for forthcoming covers. But there’s no Disney blacklist, either; “Pocahontas” is planned for a cover in late July.

“We are the voice for kids today,” says Disney Adventures circulation director Thomas Slater. “When we do a Batman cover, it raises a few eyebrows within the organization here, but Disney knows we are being true to our kids’ audience and to our organization.”

(Ironically, a division of Time Warner distributed Disney Adventures from its inception in November, 1990, until November, 1993, when Murdoch Magazines’ distribution division took over. That company is a unit of Rupert Murdoch’s News America Publishing Inc., owner of . . . 20th Century Fox.)

Naturally, Warner Bros. is thrilled, if bemused, by the cross-coverage.

“Gee, do we own this magazine or something?” says Barry Reardon, Warner Bros. president of distribution. “It’s hard to believe that Disney would be this nice. I can’t believe that they did this knowingly. But that’s all right--we’ll take it.

“I wish to thank Michael Eisner and Joe Roth,” he says, referring to the chairmen of Walt Disney Co. and Walt Disney Studios, respectively. “They’re even nicer than I thought. I’m sure I would reciprocate, but we don’t have a magazine to do it in.”