10 Comic Book Characters who Debuted outside the comics (who are NOT Harley Quinn)

There’s this phrase that gets occasionally uttered when you discuss comic book characters, “They’re like Harley Quinn”. Meaning they debuted outside of the comics and somehow weaselled their way into the “main canon” of the comics. But she’s not alone in this in fact I’d argue she’s not even the best example, so I’ve compiled this list of 10 such examples ranking from least important to most important characters who debuted outside of the comics (and of course some trivia about these marvel and DC characters along the way).

10. HERBIE

I wasn’t kidding about my earliest entries being obscure (I promise more well known characters are coming later). But HERBIE debuted in the 2nd Fantastic Four cartoon as a replacement for the Human Torch, now there are 2 stories as to why Johnny Storm was not in this series one was that TV censors thought he would encourage kids to douse themselves in petrol and set themselves alight the other the less bizarre rights hold ups on the Human torch. 

HERBIE does sporadically appear in Fantastic Four comics either as Franklin’s Robo-Nanny or as Reed Richards floating robot multi-tool and either way Dan Slott if you’re reading this (or the writer of F4 after him, I don't know who you are I can't see the future) use HERBIE more look at how cute the little robot is.

9. The Wonder Twins

Form of a walking punchline!! Of course DC didn’t really create these 2 and their monkey. But somehow over all the other ethnically diverse characters added to the Super Friends cartoon, they made the leap while; Apache Chief, Samurai, El Dorado and Black Vulcan (who probably didn’t make the leap due to DC having the very similar character of Black Lightning). The Super Friends creative teams also designed Cyborg but due to production delays he was fairly established as a Teen Titan by the time Super Friends made it to air (the Super Friends version is also voiced by GhostBusters Ernie Hudson). Super Friends also popularised Firestorm after his 5 issue mini-series was cancelled as well as defining what his powers are (even if his weakness to organic materials is vague and inconsistent).

8. Firestar

Debuting in Spider-man and His Amazing Friends, purely because Marvel didn’t want to give Mary Jane Super powers or have her know Spider-man’s secret identity, Marvel’s animation (Marvel in the 80’s where an animation studio, their other projects include GI Joe and the Muppet Babies) added a girl who looked exactly like her and gave Angelica Jones fire powers and teamed her with Spider-man and Iceman who was currently absent from the X-men.

Firestar after the series end joined the team the New Warriors in the 90’s lead by Nova and full of B-listers.

Spider-man and his Amazing Friends also debuted Aunt May’s dog Ms Lion, who has gone on to be in the Pet Avengers.

7. Spider-Woman

Marvel Animation decided that they needed to make another Spider-man series, but this time make it different, inspired by He-man’s She-Ra they made a Spider-Woman, and the character is popular. Jessica Drew the more popular Spider-Woman. The other spider-woman is the reformed X-men villain Arachne/ Julia Carpenter, both versions have been Avengers but the Jessica Drew one has been in more line ups as well as having a close friendship with Carol Danvers.

Side note Jessica Jones was almost Jessica Drew living a new life.

6. Mr Freeze

This one way actually be a bunch of technicalities because Batman fought an ice themed villain called Mr Zero back in the 1950’s but Batman 66 renamed him to Mr Freeze. Mr Freeze also had no origin story until Batman the Animated series created one for him in the Episode Heart of Ice. So maybe it’s more the Comics didn’t care about Freeze as much as TV did, but I say he counts.

5. X-23

Wolverine but a teenage girl first debut’s in an episode of Wolverine and the X-men as a clone of Wolverine… what more do I have to say? 

Now many may point to Morph appearing in X-men The Animated Series but the version in the comics looks nothing like him and only appears in the Exiles while X-23 has become a staple of modern Marvel much to the chagrin of progress hating fans cursing “All New, All Different Marvel”. 

4. Barbara Gordon

William Dozier was given 2 choices as of what to do to save Batman from low ratings, his first option was to make a series long arc about the Killer Moth coming to the aid of all of Gotham’s criminals, the second was to take Elvis Presley’s ex girlfriend and dress her in a skin tight purple outfit. He chose the Second. 

This entry is specifically Barbara Gordon and not Bat-Girl because there was a previous Bat-Girl introduced in the Silver Age with the simple goal to prove Robin wasn’t gay after The Seduction of the Innocence called Batman and Robin “a pair of Homosexuals living in sin”. 

Barbara’s comics debut was rushed into production and features as an in-joke her in her first ever story vanquishing the Killer Moth. But due to this production rush the confusion about Barbara and Jim’s relationship emerged with her in the comics being his daughter and the TV show she’s his niece who just moved to Gotham City.

3. General Zod

Ask somebody who doesn’t casually write Comic Book blogs to name 5 Superman villains and I bet after Lex Luthor they probably said General Zod. Appearing in 2 Live Action Movies Zod is probably the most well known Superman antagonist after Lex. But Zod didn’t debut in the Comics until The Man of Steel (1986) mini-series by John Byrne and Superman killed him by tricking him into opening a box full of Kryptonite. And if that didn’t make it clear Superman 2 was released in 1980. 

2. Jimmy Olsen and Perry White

Superman’s boss and the little office boy where both unnamed until the radio series. Sure DC have tried to claim Jimmy Olsen debuted in Action Comics 6, but that’s not Jimmy the character is unnamed and blonde. I’ve also seen claims that Jimmy debuts in the Max Fleischer Superman cartoons but, the paperboy in one of those cartoons proclaims “My Name is Lewis”. So maybe DC would’ve given these 2 the same names if it wasn’t for the radio series but they weren’t the first to name this pair of Daily Planet employees so… they made it on this list.

1. Alfred Pennyworth

Yes, I bet you can’t imagine Batman with his trusted right hand man, but if it weren’t for the original Batman film serial he’d be somebody different. Batman 16 debuted Bruce Wayne’s Butler Alfred Beagle and bumbling overweight oaf who fancied himself a great sleuth but was never told the Bruce and Dick where Batman and Robin. In the same month as Batman 16 theatre’s across the US where projecting the first Batman serial (which was in production before Batman 16 was graphite from Jerry Robinson’s Drawing board) with Alfred Pennyworth Batman and Robin’s trusted confidant and maker of cups of tea. 

If it weren’t for adaptations Alfred might be absent from Comics now as the character was killed off in 1964 and replaced with Dick Grayson’s Aunt Harriett who was more like Beagle than Pennyworth. Alfred was revived in comics the next year as the Villainous “Outsider” and then before the 66 TV series debut was performing his old duties as if nothing had happened.

Justice For Lori (An Open Letter to DC Comics)

Well done DC, I didn’t think you could do it. You have truly sunk to a whole new low, everyone knew that Superman Year One would be bad, everyone except you. From Frank Miller’s (the book’s Author) previous comments on “How he hated Superman”, to well what more do you need?. Now you could call Superman Year One a deconstruction of Superman, but it’s not Superman Secret Identity by Kurt Busiek was a deconstruction, what Miller and Romita have produced is a sabotage of Superman. The book that is only on it’s second issue has many problems reflecting the character of Superman, unlike many of other versions The Man of Tomorrow retains his super-intelligence but lacks any of his usual altruism, instead of being a champion of the few he’s part of the military complex he’d often fight against. But that’s nothing, you have the big blue boyscout do one of the worst things I’ve ever heard of, not only did he rape somebody, he raped a Mermaid, a literal Mermaid with a fish tail and everything. So not only did he penetrate somebody a feeling person with callous disregard, he did it violently, perforating her tail and then what was probably gushing with blood continue to stick his dick in her, in and out lubricated by her blood, all uncaring, without compassion or empathy. Thankfully this was only done in words, but Lori (the mermaid in question) reacts with approval and admiration for her violator. Now Superman is supposed to be somebody to look up to, the man who fights for “Truth, Justice and The American Way” and this is what he is now, his truth is an abuser of women and gets away with it because they live underwater isolated from the rest of the world. No that’s not Superman, that should never be Superman, this character does not deserve to use that nom de plume. Superman’s reputation and character could bounce back from this, this is just one out of continuity story written by somebody who doesn’t know what good taste is, but Lori. Lori Lemaris is an obscure character, she’s rarely featured in Superman stories, and this series when it’s completed will be on book store shelves. But her original back story and earlier stories won’t they won’t be accessible to new fans, they won’t know of the sweeter version. The version where she was Clark Kent’s college finance who hid her tail under a blanket and went round college in a wheelchair. They won’t know that Clark didn’t know she was a mermaid until after she broke off the engagement, no she’ll be the Mermaid he forced himself on.

What’s most shocking to me, is this is not an isolated event. Tom King’s run on Batman had a scene where a “Jokerfied” version of Hal Jordan used his Green Lantern ring to commit suicide, in front of Booster Gold who responded to this with “That was pretty cool”. And King actually won an Eisner award for writing this. Is this what you want now, violence and shock for no value and to get patted on the back? is it all for the approval of the vocal minority of Comicsgaters who think your competition is just a bunch of SJW’s. Because thats not what your heroes should be, they’re the Justice league, they fight for Justice, they fight for everyone. You shouldn’t be giving hate monger’s like Frank Miller a soapbox to scream their agenda from, as to use their own rhetoric is virtue signalling, but those are bad virtues. Hate Minorities, Hate Islam, Hate Women. These ideas would make Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster spin in their graves. You would take their creation, the creation of two Jews and make him the voice of White Supremacists and Nazi’s.  

To quote a DC writer who isn’t Frank Miller, Grant Morrison “Superman is the greatest idea mankind’s ever had”. Yes that is true an all powerful being who always does the right thing and is a constant doer of good. A god who walks among us care’s for us, stands up for those who can’t stand up for themselves. A being of great intelligence who does what he can to guide us to a greater future is a wonderful idea. What you’ve made in Superman Year One Issue 2 is a bad idea, it even sounds like the parody of a bad idea, “Commando Mermaid Rapist”.

The question I really have to ask is “Why did you let this happen with Superman?”, why did nobody in editorial or John Romita Jr say no to this idea? This was after all Romita and Miller’s “Passion project” why this? Would you let this happen with Batman? why Lori? is it because Lori is a lesser known character? would you let Batman rape Harley Quinn? 

Right now DC Comics I hope in a few years you fail to renew the copyright on Superman and he enters the public domain so we can all write our own Superman stories, because I guarantee they’ll be better than the one you’ve just released. 

K Ben on Comics Presents: Two in One Team ups and The Bold

I’ll admit it either you get this title or you don’t, but with the impending cancellation of Scooby Doo Team up after 50 issues and the recent revival of Marvel Team up, it felt like time to write about the Team up books. 

The Team up book is easily the most underrated of all ongoing comic books. How often do you see a celebration of Marvel Two-in-One? The stories are rarely reprinted in collections and if they are, it feels more like they’ve been added to fill out the trade paperback. And with comics being written for the trade, a book thats meant to focus on one-shot stories with a different guest star on the cover each month (sometimes they would be multi-part stories but the star of the book eg. The Thing on Marvel Two-in-One would team with different heroes in each part). 

While a different hero every month makes the book harder to collect in Graphic Novel form, do you wait for Spider-man and Captain Marvel to team up 6 times before you put the trade together or do you just collect the first 6 issues and only put the two most popular character on the cover? Editorial decisions must be made. But showcasing lesser known heroes is the biggest bonus it gives to the publisher, sure an A-lister and an A-lister together should get both lots of fanboys to buy the book but you put a B-lister without their own book in there and you retain the rights to the character. Which is especially important when retaining copyright on the character DC infamously lost the rights to the name Captain Marvel, leading him to be known as Shazam on the cover until eventually everyone gave up on trying to distinguish him from Marvel’s array of Kree Warriors who used the name and just called Billy Batson’s alter ego Shazam. This system also seems more effective than having all your in-between-heroes together in one team like the Champions which was formed for this exact purpose, but didn’t make sense as it really felt like a hodgepodge of random heroes (Angel, Beast, Iceman, Black Widow, Hercules and Ghost Rider). The team never found it’s audience and ended up being a punchline for years to come despite guest-starring in Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider and Godzilla’s Marvel book. DC most blatantly used this trick in DC Comics presents 77 & 78 by teaming up Superman with a team called the Forgotten Heroes (the teams line up was Cave Carson, Immortal Man, Congorilla, Rip Hunter, Animal Man, Rick Flag, Dolphin and Dane Dorrance) to battle a team called The Forgotten Villains (Mister Poseidon, Faceless Hunter, Atom-Master, Kraklow, Ultivac and Enchantress), and yes that is the same Rick Flag and Enchantress featured in the Suicide Squad and the same Animal Man Grant Morrison would make a name for himself writing for.

The Team up book is a much more efficient way to tell if the Comic-buying public wants more of this B-lister, all they have to do is check to see how well that issue sold and if it proves sufficient demand for a new Amethyst princess of Gem-World solo series, although DC may always attribute it to being a red comic book cover (yes DC believes that Red covers sell the best, then blue and nobody buys yellow).

Now the biggest flaw of the Team up book is that sometimes the Hero feels like they don’t belong in the story, the most notable instance I can think of is Marvel Team up 41-43, where Spider-man teams up with Scarlet Witch and ends up in the Salem Witch trials, the the pair need saving by Wanda’s husband the Vision in the next issue only for all 3 to team up with Doctor Doom in the last issue. At no part in that story did it need to be Spider-man, however this does allow the other characters to shine as the audience on a Spider-man book will most likely know how cool Spidey is. This problem was not found in the 2009 Deadpool Team up which pretty much lived off Deadpool breaking the fourth wall and pointing out that his co-star was a B-lister and that they hadn’t shown up in a while. But sadly the book was cut short and not reaching it’s lofty goal of 900 issues (as the series counted backwards and ended on 883). 

I should probably mention Brave and the Bold the comic that inspired the Batman cartoon that referenced Silver-Age and Bronze Age stories and made Aquaman cool. That’ll do, but Mark Waid used the book in a more interesting way, removing Batman as the A-lister and having both members on a rotating door. Under Mark Waid the Brave and The Bold was an epic crossing the DC Universe with different heroes at different times (and sometimes different earths) being effected by the same by the same maguffin “The Book of Destiny”.

Disney/Marvel's Children of the Atom

Ok after the Atomic Box Office Bomb that was Dark Phoenix, Marvel has stated they’re in “no rush to reboot the X-men”, but that doesn’t mean I can’t post my notes and ideas for the reboot online, it also means it has longer to reach Kevin Fiege who MUST implement them all. So here we go my list of ideas of what the new X-men must do different to the original film series owned by Fox.

New Creative team.

This may seem obvious (thats because it is) but don’t hire, Bryan Singer or Simon Kinberg to oversee the whole new Disney Marvel X-men. They’ve had their turn and they fucked it up. Now I’m not saying I’m the man to do it, I have literary zero film industry experience (despite the sheer arrogance to post about films almost as much as comics on this blog) unless we’re accepting a writing a couple of skits for youtube as film experience. I could get behind James Mangold (Logan’s Director) or Noah Hawley (Legion and rumoured to be working on a project involving Dr Doom) it should be somebody fresh.

Don’t make Wolverine the main character.

Yes we all love Wolverine, and casting rumours are flying everywhere suggesting Keaunu Reeves, Jason Mamoa or Taron Eggerton being in the role. But Wolverine was the main character of the last incarnation, and yes he is the most popular X-man ever. 

But that in itself is problematic, Wolverine is a mysterious angry loner, that was how he was introduced as the scary guy in the corner (well he was actually introduced getting his ass-kicked by the Incredible Hulk). That’s his appeal, more screen time and the more we peal back and often you don’t want to actually know the real answer, that’s part of why X-men Origin’s didn’t work, the origins Mini-Series in the comics isn’t universally accepted (I only begrudgingly accept as works by Jason Aaron mention his brother Dog Logan). I would also be remised to not mention I know exactly who should play Wolverine, Henry Rollins. Rollins has everything you need to be Wolverine he’s short and angry, and don’t forget Wolverine was never a teen character, even when X-men Evolution put all the X-men in High School, Wolverine was still a middle-aged man who had to take orders from Cyclops.

So if not Wolverine who do you make the main character, well X-men is littered with point of view characters; Jubilee, Kitty Pryde, Iceman, Barnell Bohusk the list goes on… almost anyone who was a later recruit was the audience point of view as they had to have everything about the Xavier institute explained to them. The first X-men movie almost did this with Rogue, but seemed to after act one get cold feet or Bryan Singer wanted to focus more on Wolverine and Cyclops being petty little children arguing over Jean.

Have Jean be already dead.

Yes longtime readers will be familiar with my feelings towards Jean Grey, but if you’re not here the cliff notes. The most interesting thing Jean Grey ever did was die and the worst thing she did was come back. 

But with Jean’s death came character development, theres tension in the air for our new recruit, something is bumming out the team and nobody will say what it is, why do Scott and Logan hate each other. The X-men are in splinters racked with guilt and need to learn to trust each other again and that’s your character arc for the team, how do you move on from loss and thats very MCU.

Use more than one villain.

The best way to open this movie is with action, yep I said it, it worked for Indiana Jones it’ll work here. It also worked in the MCU for Winter Soldier.

The only problem is who do you use to open the movie? Well I have a couple of thoughts, first Arcade, a lesser known X-men villain who is basically Jigsaw from the Saw Franchise minus the Edge-lord philosophy bullshit and just murders people with Killer clowns because he can. Arcade lacks depths but his visual style is far removed from the “Realistic look” of the previous X-men movies and more in line with James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy.

Second thought is Krakoa, a mutated land mass that is responsible for the formation of the second X-men line up, and this would be a good in joke and would also show a major change from the previous as mutated land masses were too out there for Singer (who didn’t even like characters flying). 

As for your main Villain… I actually have no idea somebody whose a threat to the X-men (so not Apocalypse as he’s just full of hot air)

Embrace the weird.

Seriously the X-men where originally labelled as The Strangest Heroes, don’t take that away from them now the Guardians of the Galaxy are mainstream with their talking cyborg Racoon. 

The Mutant Bomb

The (Fox) X-men franchise has just sung it’s end song, and it was a major Box office bomb. A bigger one than expected, and a pricey bomb at that with extensive reshoots to make the film “Watchable”, but in the words of Adam West “Some days you just can’t get rid of a bomb”. Of course it can’t be as simple as bad film equals bad reviews which means poor Box Office turnout, no. One Fox executive believes the X-men films where failing because “the team name isn’t progressive enough”. While. Pro Life lobbyist are claiming this is their first boycott to actual make an effect on the Box Office (similar Right Wing Boycotts where in place for Star Wars Rogue One, Last Jedi and Captain Marvel, all of which made around 1 Billion Dollars at the Box Office), due to Sophie Turners comments on Georgia’s abortion law and Disney (who recently purchased Fox, all hail the overlord mouse) refusing to work with Georgia which used to have the biggest Sound editing studio, a movie they can make owning exclusively the second (being Skywalker Sound).

So why have the X-men movies gone from beloved by Comic book fans to so unloved that the latest instalment made less than a 10th of it’s budget back in it’s opening weekend. Well the simple fact is they never got any better (the ones directed by Bryan Singer), the first one to be beloved by Comic fans only had to be better than Steel which to be liked had to be better than Batman and Robin which is often seen on worst ever lists (and Steel in my opinion is far worse because at Batman and Robin is entertaining). With a bar that low almost anything could jump over it and the X-men movies did despite their directors feelings toward the series varying from contempt to hatred, going so far as banning the comics from the set of the movie because “he didn’t want his actors drawing inspiration from them”. Singer's goals with X-men where singular, as a soapbox for him to talk about the persecution of Homosexuality, a stance that got Ian McKellan interested in playing series Antagonist Magneto, completely ignoring the idea that the X-men are all different and represent all diversity and persecution (this is why they have different powers). 

The first X-men ushered in the era of Superhero movies that where sometimes watchable, the other notable superhero film franchise of this time was Sam Raimi's Spider-man and these 2 franchises directors couldn’t be more different. Raimi is a massive fanboy of Spider-man and was a maker of cult hits like Darkman and the Evil Dead Trilogy, while Singer had before the X-men had only one hit film The Usual Suspects. 

After the first X-men movie came X-men 2 (logically) but while this film is more beloved than the first, it would cement how Singer viewed used the source material far more. X-men 2 is based on the storyline “God Loves, Man Kills” (the best single story in X-men history) but very loosely. Everything that made the original story interesting or worth telling, gone was the discussion of religious zealotry, instead the stories villain the Reverend William Striker who believed all mutants where an abomination and the devils work was made into a military colonel who hated mutants because. The movie was not devoid of christianity because added for this movie was Nightcrawler, but a one dimensional version of the character who is just Catholic guilt, not the fun loving prankster. Nightcrawler lost his “Mutie and Proud” identity, whilst the comics version declined a Holographic projector to hide his unusual appearance movie Nightcrawler actually asks Mystique “Why doesn’t she look like a normal human all the time” which is completely different to Nightcrawler’s belief that “God made me like this for a reason, who am I to question why” also gone was the most powerful moment of the story where Nightcrawler confront the religious zealot Striker and explains that “Mutants can’t be godless because he feels Gods love” and exposing Striker as a Bigot using religion as a platform for his hatred. The film also failed to show that Magneto and Striker are more a like, instead Magneto is less of an Antagonist but feels more like a victim fighting back. 

X-men 2 ended with a teasing of an Adaptation of the Phoenix saga, but Bryan Singer left the franchise to go and make a Superman movie where instead of saving people he stalks his Ex-wife. Why did Singer choose Superman over another X-men? Halle Berry asked for a bigger part in the movie. Halle Berry of course played Storm who happens to be Chris Claremont’s (writer of X-men comics for over 20 years) favourite character and his favourite in a comics franchise known for strong women. Singer wanted to focus on the men, as far as he’s concerned if you’re not Wolverine, Professor X, Magneto or Cyclops why are you there? Jean Grey was allowed screen time because she was a vehicle to get James Marsden and Hugh Jackman to take off their shirts and he has a warped view of the Phoenix saga. For those who don’t know, the Phoenix saga is a storyline which starts in Uncanny X-men 102 when Jean Grey to save the other X-men becomes host to a malevolent alien entity and tries to maintain her own personality (or lack there of). The Hellfire club seeing how powerful Jean is try and make her their puppet to control by psychically raping her and destroying everything she is from within. They succeed in this and Jean becomes a warped Dominatrix version of herself before eventually the malevolent psychic alien entity eats a sun and the X-men are put on trial for Galactic crimes, with Jean coming to her senses and using the phoenix force to destroy her body and the entity itself. Somehow Singer and others have viewed this story of rape and casual genocide as a “Coming out” story, and in Singer’s case he has a reason and it’s disturbing. Bryan Singer likes to molest 14 year old boys, this isn’t slander even if he has been acquitted of these crimes, he’s had multiple accusers and his acquittal has been based purely on “lack of evidence” like most rape cases. Bryan Singer believes the Hellfire Club are the Heroes like he is, because through rape, he has unlocked their potential or shown them who they really are.  

With Singer gone we got 2 terrible X-men movies, and despite adding fan favourites Beast and Kitty Pryde (my favourite X-man), they still failed to capture the spirit of the X-men comics that is until X-men First Class. X-men First Class is a prequel to the first X-men movie directed by Matthew Vaughn, and in it Magneto is on a killing spree to kill all the Nazi’s who mistreated him in a concentration camp while Professor X tries to convince him to let go of his hatred and to use his mutant gifts to help all of Humanity. Xavier is unsuccessful at convincing him this long term but he does convince him intervene in the Cuban missile crisis. This being a core ideal of the X-men that being yourself and working to help people is better than succumbing to hatred be you, Black, Gay, Autistic or Blue Gorilla man (not limited to those 4 groups), or to quote the Tick “Choose Love not Hate”. 

After this came The Wolverine a movie that film critics deemed boring, but they couldn’t be more wrong. This movie is introspective, it’s about dealing and learning to live with consequences, (something that X-men comics did when they where at their but post Claremont forgot about) and then Wolverine fights a man in a giant robot suit wielding a Katana. 

Of course the good times couldn’t continue, Bryan Singer returned to the franchise and decided to remove all the interesting part of one more Claremont Era storyline Days of Future Past. Singer of course changed the main character of the story from Kitty Pryde to Wolverine, thus making another character nothing more than a helper to Wolverine. But again the Antagonist has been made into a simplified caricature of his comic counterpart (odd because a comic book has less time to expand on a one shot villain than a film), instead of being a parody of Walt Disney wanting to maintain family values by creating giant robots to kill all misfits (Mutants) because a misfit is obviously a delinquent, the movie version is a short man suffering from “Napoleon complex”. The jab at Disney (then rival company they where in a blood feud with) is lost because of Singer’s lack of care, not to mention the film ends with lazily retconning everything to the second scene of X-men 3 before Jean murdered everyone, no consequences for anything Wolverine.

The films after that weren’t all losers in fact the ones not directing by Bryan Singer are good, Deadpool although detached from main continuity is a fourth wall break of bad-taste jokes. Not to mention the never afraid to be weird TV show produced by Fox Legion, which acts as the anti-thesis to Bryan Singer’s play it safe and make it bland ideas of super heroics, even introducing concepts from the comics like Astral duelling which are visual stunning and weird. But the real nail in Singer’s X-Coffin is Logan, a movie so good in a genre hated by the academy it got an adapted screenplay Oscar nomination (normally superhero movies only get nominations for technical awards). But Logan gives a finality to the 2 out of 3 characters who audiences actually liked from the early films in the franchise, which causes the feeling of why bother following that, and the answer really is there isn’t nothing can. Wolverine finally found closure and nobody really liked X-men Apocalypse so why follow it up other than so Singer can cut anyones part if they beat him in X-men trivia (see Olivia Munn explaining why Psylocke’s costume is purple).  

U.S Godzilla relations

You might think Godzilla is as Japanese as Pikachu in a Kabuki Mask drinking green tea, but you’d be wrong I think, I’m not sure the origins of Kabuki or green tea. No Godzilla is American, well sort of, he’s the symbol of the relationship between the United States of America and Japan. 

The role of Godzilla has changed over the years, starting in 1954 when he made his debut. Godzilla in the original movie is a wrecking machine unleashed on Japan by America’s careless testing of nuclear weapons near his cave. The Atomic bomb woke the Dinosaur now mutating him, irradiating him and he now destroys Tokyo. The Japanese version of the film is a much darker film than it’s American re-release with scenes of Japanese peasants crying and praying for a quick death while the American has Steve Martin (played by Raymond Burr, and not being the popular comedian) doing newscasts about the monster with random Asian-Americans as stand-ins for the Japanese actors. 

The film was a huge success for the Japanese film industry so of course sequels where made, and ones that attempted to hammer in the idea of Godzilla as a villain, but with more Kaiju (giant monsters), the first challenger was Mothra. A Beautiful protector of nature with painted butterfly wings looking like a giant Geisha, that got squashed by Godzilla in the final battle of the film. The next rival to Godzilla was King Kong, the cold heartless reptile that was killed in his first movie by a Japanese inventor vs the primal giant ape who in his film was killed by the US Air Force. Kong wasn’t Toho’s first choice, the movie was originally to be Godzilla vs Frankenstein which explains the ending where Kong is super-charged by Electricity and defeats Godzilla, but with this America’s enemy defeated Japans.

Despite Godzilla vs King Kong ending with the 2nd death of the giant lizard he returned to Japanese theatres, but after that he was a changed reptile. It was time for Godzilla to be the hero of his franchise, this was partially due to America and Japanese trade relations becoming more amicable but also because of the perceived idea that Rubbersuitmation (yes that is a word) was purely for kids like how in the west some deem cartoons and comics as “Kids stuff”. Godzilla being there most popular Kaiju, they either needed to make new heroes for him to fight every time or make him the hero. But how do you do this? Well Heroic Godzilla isn’t so much Superman but more John Wayne. He’s not a crusader for justice but more fighting for dominance over the other monsters, sure he’ll stop an alien invasion but it’s not because of loyalty to the humans it’s more “they’re messing with my stuff”. Over the course of the Toho-series Godzilla softens which would eventually cause the end of the series, starting with Son of Godzilla where Godzilla would find another Kaiju egg and raise it’s hatchling as his own son (who in later films would be called Minila with the l pronounced as an “r”). After this the series would implode on itself with the disappointingly long title “Godzilla: All Out Monsters Attack” where Minila helps a Japanese schoolboy to stand up to his bullies defying all rhyme, reason or logic. This would lead to one more Godzilla movie in this series that bombed so hard at the Japanese Box Office they did what any current Hollywood film producer would do, put the franchise into hibernation for 10 years and reboot.

Of course in 1978 during this hiatus, Toho sold the animation rights to Hanna-Barbera who would make a Saturday Morning cartoon losely based the film series. In it a bunch of scientists who are the adoptive parents of Godzilla’s other son “Godzooky” who judging by his behaviour I can only assume the other parent of Godzooky is Mutley. After 2 seasons of a cartoon Godzilla that didn’t topple building or blast his Atomic breath (it was changed to breathing fire), the film series was rebooted with a direct sequel to the 1954 original ignoring all the other films. Toho was so confident in this being a beloved international classic that while in pre-production they shopped the film rights around all the US Distributors to which all the major distributors said “no thank you” and they had to settle for Roger Corman’s production company. Now in 1984 Japanese art wasn’t as respected as it is now, Anime then was used to fill in gaps in US TV schedules and was often badly dubbed by writers and actors who plain didn’t give a shit about the source material. Godzilla however was an exception, Godzilla (1984) had one person who gave a shit about it, Raymond Burr despite years earlier getting really mad at Mark Hamil for telling him “that Godzilla was his favourite film with him in”, Burr wanted to do Godzilla justice. While Corman used it as a way to make a quick buck and to fill it with product placement for Dr Pepper (which sounds like the most American thing I’ve ever heard using a giant lizard to sell a worse tasting Coca Cola). Raymond Burr knew this version of Godzilla wasn’t a joke and reprised his role from the original under that condition. Despite Raymond Burr’s attempt Godzilla (1984) was a commercial and critical flop in the US, unlike in it’s native Japan where it was a success and relaunched the series.

Now it’s time to address the Elephant in the room the over bloated mess that is the first American produced Godzilla from 1998. Yes, we where still in the days when America looked down on Japan, so much so most fans of the real Godzilla dub the Kaiju in the film Not-Zilla. Of course a parody of this Godzilla would later appear in Godzilla Final Wars the last of the rebooted Godzilla movies. But thats it, in the 90’s and early 2000’s America wanted to steal any idea from Japan they could but didn’t respect it, this was the age when Pokemon was the big craze but every other show would insist on called it Pokey-Mon, while the US version of it tried to fit the Square peg of Japanese culture into the round hole of American ideals.

Japan needs America and America Fetishise Japan, but Japan is aware of this and uses it to it’s own benefit as much as they can, with Toho profiting off of another attempt by the US to make their own Godzilla franchise and this time a whole cinematic universe where he’ll get a rematch against Kong. While the first film in Warner Bros and Legendary pictures Godzilla was an uninteresting mess with subplots that are resolved as they are introduced the same year Japan made their own new Godzilla known as Shin-Godzilla. This movie reimagines Godzilla and brings him back to his roots as a history villain. In Shin Godzilla, Godzilla is an ever evolving unkillable irradiated sea creature, but as a rarity in a Kaiju film the human scenes are actually interesting as it delves into Japanese political satire almost being Godzilla meets the Thick of it. The United States are also involved in this one, but not as valiant heroes but as another threat. The President actually tells them to deal with Godzilla within 48 hours or he’ll nuke Japan out of existence, The United Nations do actually help Japan to defeat this version of Godzilla. 

Godzilla is what America is to Japan he’s saviour and oppressor, fighter of cosmic threats and the destroyer, America and Japan have an interesting duality that I just glanced over. 

Top 10 Sidekicks

Sidekicks, Under Appreciated and only Occassionally getting there own book or recognition for even existing in comics. But where would comics be without them? Well we'd have fewer uninspired Gay-Jokes about comics and less secondary characters, which is important in a medium almost defined by bland protagonists. So lets tip our hats to the great supporters of superheroes and countdown my picks for the creme-de-la-creme.

10 ‘Dum Dum’ Dugan

Ex circus strongman and one of the original Howling Commandoes, Dum Dum Dugan has played second banana to everyone from Nick Fury and Captain America to Iron Man and fricking Howard the Duck. He’s even been the Commander of SHIELD during several of Fury’s many fake deaths, proving too vital to SHIELD to resign from it during World War Hulk.

The only real superpower he has is that he’s is basically a copy of the original Dugan’s mind in an LMD, or Life-Model Decoy. But he has been completely unaware of his situation throughout most of his adventures. And that’s the real cool factor to the character. He thought he was a mortal man with no hope of resurrection after death and he still went into dangerous missions with all guns blazing. He doesn’t need any powers or augmented armour or anything like that to go up against the forces of evil. He just his fists, his moustache and his hat. Badass.

9 Pip the Troll

The thing about Sidekicks is they’re inherently a bit pathetic, no Superhero sidekick lives up to this idea more than Pip. Adam Warlock even gave him the Space Stone because the only thing Pip would do with it is run away to somewhere safe. Yet somehow this cowardly troll has stood up to Thanos and other universe wide threats so kudos. (Pip has also been Sidekick to the Silver Surfer, Captain Marvel, Dr Strange and been a member of X-Factor)

8 Clea

This character fits perfectly into two forms of Sidekick, the Sidekick as love interest (other examples include Black Canary and Gamora) and the Sidekick as apprentice (like any of the Original Teen Titans). While not the most well known of Dr Strange’s sidekicks, but Wong has certain problems being his Asian Man-servant who teaches Dr Strange Kung Fu (also in the Comics, Wong isn’t a Sorcerer). 

7 Lockheed

Ya know whats cool, Dragons, Ya know what else is cool, Aliens. So logically an Alien Dragon whose also a secret agent for Sword (intergalactic Shield) and Kitty Pryde’s pet Dragon has to make the best sidekicks. Sure there was that period when he wasn’t in Excalibur because Ken Lashley couldn’t draw him but… who doesn’t want a dragon he’s a friggin’ Dragon!!

6 Bat-Girl

There are many Bat-Girls, but the most famous and popular has to be the Barbara Gordon Bat-Girl, introduced in Batman 66 to boost ratings. 

But Barbara’s more than a pretty face and a purple and yellow colour scheme, she’s also the Batcave’s tech-expert, even after the events of the killing Joke Babs had a role in the Bat-Family and was even an aid to the whole Justice League.

5 Black Widow

Best known for being played by Scarlett Johanson, but Black Widow was originally Iron Man’s Archenemy. Now a Career Sidekick for everyone for almost anyone including; Daredevil (whom she was once engaged to), Hawkeye (another Ex-Boyfreind), Captain America, Wolverine and Nick Fury. Now she’s not the only former Villainess turned Sidekick, but unlike Catwoman or Black Cat, Black Widow doesn’t seem like she’s going back to being a villain anytime soon. 

4 Arthur Everest

The Pancho-via to the Tick’s Don Quixote, do I need to say anymore? Arthur and the Tick are inseparable and a great crime fighting duo. Arthur functions as the brains and the responsibility to the Tick who is the ultimate Socratic hero, he only 3 things, He must do good, he must stop people doing bad and Arthur is his friend. And with this he never exploits the Tick he is always there to lend him a hand.

3 Jubilee

The point of view character for the X-men in the 90’s, who wouldn’t want to be Wolverine’s sidekick? seriously he was and still is the most popular character in the series. 

The Dynamic forged between these 2 is really want needs highlighting, the dark brooding mentor and the big mouthed brat sidekick, I think DC have tried to replicate this with Batman and Jason Todd and then later Damian Wayne. But it’s never worked as well as this possible Father-Daughter duo… and even if she isn’t his daughter Wolverine is so Badass he can hang out with a 14 year old asian girl and it doesn’t ruin his street-cred or popularity despite the fact many people hate Jubilee.

2 Jimmy Olsen

What kind of Sidekick do you give the Man of Steel? a Dog of Steel, a little cousin of steel? Well the answer is actually yes to both of them, but his most enduring sidekick is Jimmy Olsen. A teenage Dork in a Bowtie with freckles who looks up to him and no matter what will never learn not to drink whats in Professor Potter’s lab.

Jimmy Olsen was also allowed in Earth-One to grow into his own hero and fought Darkseid. And Bonus Trivia he was introduced in the Superman Radio series way back in the 1940’s before making his way to the comics, making him one of the first characters to do that pre-dating Harley Quinn by 50 years.

(Honourable Mention) Ebony White

The Black sidekick to me always come off a bit racist (see Captain Caucasian and Blackie the Wonder-Negro from Love Bunny and Mr Hell), but Ebony White is the first non-white character in comics and while he is in fact an ethnic stereotype which and most modern versions of the Spirit ignore him (interestingly Brad Bird’s test-footage for a Spirit animated film features him quite prominently).

1 Robin

Of Course it had to be, you think Superhero Sidekick and Robin is the first one you think of, but which one? 

Now I don’t want to start a fight but… Dick Grayson, he can’t stop being Batman’s sidekick. Even as Nightwing when he’s fallen out with Batman what does he do, help Batman. He’s Batman’s sidekick whether he likes it or not.

He also ushered in the trend of mini-me sidekick’s in DC Comics which then led to the Original Teen Titans, featuring the Justice League’s sidekicks and Donna Troy a character created be cause they couldn’t think of Supergirl.