Fixing the Stan Lee Girls

Fixing the Stan Lee Girls

Comics from the 1960’s weren’t enlightened on their portrayal of women. It’s just a fact, no two ways about it. Sure it was a genre aimed at young boys written and drawn almost exclusively by men, but under a modern lens the early Marvel comics don’t hold up very well in this regard. To quote Professor Marsden when asked to weaken Wonder Woman (his creation) “How are young boys to grow up to respect women if we don’t show them examples of strong women”. Now the Stan Lee girl is a variant on how women (who weren’t Wonder Woman) where written in this era. The Stan Lee girl is young glamorous and has all the personality of day old dish water but is also very important to the male protagonist(s) of the Superhero book. Not all characters that fit this mould are Stan Lee creations, like Saturn Girl from the Legion of Superheroes or Elasti-Girl from the Doom Patrol, but Stan and his tendency to put his name on every book produced by Marvel (even if he had nothing to do with it) makes him synonymous with the trope.

Now that’s explained why not continue reading this as I explain how 4 of Stan’s creations became well actual characters not just “oh gosh isn’t she pretty”. I will not explore every female character that has a Stan Lee creator credit or I’d be writing a 200 part piece on the subject and Black Widow has been omitted because she wasn’t actually created by Stan and in no way fits the profile being first introduced as Iron Man’s Archenemy and not his love interest.

Sue Storm

The first woman of Marvel Comics (assuming the Fantastic Four haven’t lost their status as the First Family) and master of running away. Sue in the early comics is really good at getting kidnapped, especially by Doctor Doom or Namor. She brings antagonists to the Fantastic Four, while Doctor Doom uses her as bait for the other 3 members of the team out of convenience, Namor is to be the other rival to her husband Reed Richards. Prince Namor tries to lure her to be his queen, always unsuccessfully, because for her to be actually tempted to turn evil would imply some form of personality. Susan is actually so notoriously useless that in a weird Meta issue (Fantastic Four 11) the F4 read letters sent to them by “Fans” and Sue bursts into tears because all the letters get call her useless. This of course outrages Mr Fantastic who invokes the name of Abraham Lincoln to defend his future wife. 

Fantastic Four 22 is when the attempts to make Sue better started, before this issue Sue could only turn invisible and hide, this issue gave her the comics code classic Telekinesis. Telekinesis is one of the girliest superpowers in comics (not that it’s effeminate but it’s mostly held by female characters) because it can easily adhere to Comics Code Authority guidelines about violence between men and women. The female hero using Telekinesis can fight back without actually hitting the super villain or henchman and with this at least Sue could fight back and didn’t need her sign saying “kidnap me” as much anymore, although Dr Doom might still do that because “expediency often outweighs originality”. 

Sue’s next biggest developments were marriage and motherhood. Side note it’s officially canon that their son Franklin was conceived after the first time the F4 saved the earth from Galactus which makes me ask the question after the earth was safe did Mr Fantastic give The Thing and The Human Torch some of their pocket money to go the cinema. But the change from teams eye-candy and damsel in distress to motherhood really suited Sue as she pretty much filled that role in the team anyway. The Fantastic Four are a squabbling family who often fall out and Sue is the under appreciated peace-keeper and emotional support for the boys. With Franklin added well she just has another child to look after but this one shouldn’t know better than to be an immature show-boater, I’m looking at you Johnny Storm. 

Sue’s last real moment of characters development comes from Fantastic Four 280, where the villainous Psycho-man (kind of an obvious villain name), turns Sue into Malice; Mistress of Hate. Now with a name like that she’s obviously an enemy to the rest of the Fantastic Four who she proceeds to beat the snot out of (once and for all proving she is actually the strongest member) which to many fanboys is the most important thing. But this has to end abruptly by Mr Fantastic realising its Sue and declaring “Susan stop acting hystericaly” which somehow (plot contrivance) snaps her back into her old self.

The Wasp (Janet Van Dine)

Unlike most female characters from silver-age Marvel, Jan started with some semblance of a personality. She was the plucky rich girl who was Hank Pym’s fan-girl and really wanted to join him on his scientific adventures. Jan seemingly relegated to the sidekick role by the virtue of being a female character even if Ant-man was dependent on her because she paid for all of his scientific equipment. But I’m ignoring the elephant in the room, their relationship is just the fucking worst. Panel to panel all these 2 do as a couple is squabble, Stan Lee once while tried to decipher why Ant-man was never a colossal hit like The Hulk or Spider-man. Now I’m going to go out on a limb and say young boys reading their superhero comics for a little escapism from their parents arguing don’t want to read about the male hero in the comic declare “Get in the kitchen” and his girlfriend/sidekick say “no I bought the kitchen you go in it”.

The lack of popularity lead to the cancellation of all Ant-man books and the duo became stalwarts of The Avengers where they kept trying to rebrand Ant-man because “he has a silly name” so he took on names like Black Goliath (despite being neither African American or wearing Black) Giant-man and finally after a mental breakdown Yellowjacket. Dr Pym became the joke of the team and his team mates often made fun of his mental instability and the fact that Jan was better at superheroing than him. In a last ditch effort to stay on the worst Superhero team of all time (1970’s Avengers are just terrible) Dr Pym created a fake Ultron attack that would prove his worth. This is when the infamous slap panel comes from (the slap is actually an artistic flub and was intended that he pushed her out of the way). After this incident Hank and Jan divorced (despite the fact they never should’ve gotten married in the first place), and also Jan became the leader of the Avengers and while she occasionally stumbled with her confidence she lead the team admirably even if she did keep changing costume every other issue because she was a “fashionista”.  

Scarlet Witch

First appearing in the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, Wanda was manipulated by Magneto’s magnetic personality (not a joke actual reason), into joining his terrorist organisation. This is a strange trend that still exists with female villains, Marvel did it with Medusa when she had amnesia and joined the Frightful Four and DC currently have the Cheetah (Wonder Woman’s Archenemy) being manipulated into crimes by Lex Luthor. Comic writers have this strange idea that women can’t be mastermind villains, they have to be arm candy to the big bad, female villains are still rare even when they’re not arm candy, Batman’s Poison Ivy is often portrayed as more of an Anti-hero than a true terrorist or Catwoman as a criminal with a heart of gold. 

Scarlet Witch and her brother Pietro (aka Quicksilver) where rescued from their life of crime by Captain America who had them enter his new team (the second ever line up of Avengers) nicknamed Cap’s Crazy Quartet with the fourth member being former Iron Man villain Hawkeye. As time went on Wanda stopped spending so much time telling her brother “the whole world doesn’t hate you” despite the fact he is a complete and total jerk. Avengers and the few X-men comics she appeared in focused more on her bizarre back story and this is truly a sign of gender equality because most of the male Superhero characters don’t have much in the way of personality traits but they have extensive adventures.

Wanda’s history includes being raised by a mutated Cow named Bova (with her brother), previously mentioned manipulations by Magneto, training under Agatha Harkness in witchcraft, marrying a robot, being unable to have children with a robot, magicking up her own babies (that turned out to be demons), blowing up Avenger’s mansion, rewriting all of reality, travelling back in time and being persecuted for witchcraft, getting engaged to Doctor Doom and a search to find out who her father is. With all that, it’s not surprising that she hasn’t developed a personality, with that much back story you try having some hobbies.

Gwen Stacy

How did modern Marvel fix Gwen Stacy? They created a whole new character of course. Gwen’s initial storyline was a love triangle with Peter Parker (secretly Spider-man) and Mary Jane. Mary Jane was the more fun of the two girls, she was a party girl, she was the hip cool one who talked in Jazz lingo while being completely oblivious to the fact her name was a slang term for Cannabis (but what do you expect this was a funhouse mirror look at youth culture written by a middle-aged man to an audience of 13 year olds). Gwen was a more quiet studious girl whose ideal evening was curled up on the sofa with a good book and drinking hot coco. Marvel’s writers wanted to end the love triangle but they couldn’t have the notoriously indecisive Peter pick between one of them, so the next logical choice was made to have her be dropped off a bridge by the Green Goblin.

Gwen was now treated as a what if to Marvel writers, whenever Peter was too down on his luck or fighting with Mary Jane something might happen to bring Gwen back. Most notably her Biology teacher cloning her in an attempt to get revenge on Spider-man (yes it is as confusing as it sounds).

In the 21st Gwen was made cool, the drummer in an all girl punk rock band, with a cool new costume. The Spider-Gwen comics actually make you realise something about Spider-man comics which is we only care about Peter Parker because he is Spider-man.

Explaining the DC Multiverse

So what is a Multiverse, why does DC have one and why am I explaining it? Well let me explain the last part first and the spend the rest of the blog answering the other two. I find that Superhero comics have a lot of aspects to them that may not be easy for newcomers to grasp and I want to do my part to help people get and understand comics, especially as Superheroes are extremely popular but comic books are still seen as the scary artefacts that only a high priest (or complete weirdo) can comprehend and hoard. 

Multiverses are a hot topic in popular culture nowadays with Rick and Morty almost exclusively revolving around the concept, but where does it come from. Erwin Schrodinger came up with the theory and presented it to an audience in Dublin in 1952, but he called it “The many world theory”. This idea inspired many Sci-Fi writers to have different Parallel Universes that can interact with our own and is surprising well respected and looked into by actual scientists. I once saw Neil Degrasse Tyson in a Documentary claim that some Physicists think thats what Dark Matter (which makes up the majority of the universe) is actually the space other realities take up. Like all advanced physics it has yet to be completely proven, but this has never stopped writers from using it, most versions of a Multiverse work on the idea of infinite universes with infinite possibilities (this is the model that Rick and Morty and Marvel Comics use) DC has a specific set of rules including a finite number of universes. 

DC First introduced the concept of the Multiverse in The Flash 123 “The Flash of Two Worlds” in 1961 where the new younger Silver-Age Flash was transported to the Earth of the Golden Age (earlier) Flash Jay Garrick. From then onwards DC’s history was split between Earth ONE (the newer prime universe of Barry Allan) and Earth TWO (The one with all the old guard in it). This lead to a slight problem, DC had relaunched many of their heroes into new personas like the new Green Lantern- Hal Jordan and an Alien Hawkman, but many of their heroes never left publication and interacted with the new heroes in the Justice League (the relaunch of The Justice Society). DC chose to not address this, which is why if you look up the first appearance of the Earth ONE version of Aquaman, Wonder Woman or Green Arrow it’s just a random story not an official first story (Green Arrow’s is even the second part of a story),but if you must have a logical first appearance of these characters I would go for The Brave And The Bold 28 (the first appearance of the Justice League as crossover stories where very rare at this time). Alternatively if you’re a real pedant you can pick Justice League 12 a prequel comic tells how the Justice League was formed, spoiler alert it was to stop an alien who tried to turn them all (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, The Flash, Aquaman and The Martian Manhunter) into trees. Of course as their flagship heroes Batman and Superman have a logical first appearance, Superman 76 a story that tells of the first time they met, a week when no crimes at all where committed in Gotham City and Commissioner Gordon insisted that Batman goes on holiday, so Bruce Wayne goes on a cruise that is taken over by Terrorists that capture Lois Lane who was reporting on the launch of the cruise for the Daily Planet. 

After Flash 123 turned out to be a success DC had a nearly annual tradition of having a “Crisis” storyline where 2 or more earth’s collide. The alternate earths had one of two purposes either to be a wacky what-if scenario (different from DC’s staple of the Imaginary tale like “What if Lex Luthor killed Superman”), like Earth THREE which was filled with the Justice League’s evil counterparts and had the lone hero of Alexander Luthor or Earth PRIME which had no superheroes in it (originally intended as our earth but DC got creative and added a Superman). The other was to show off that they had acquired new properties from the companies they had bought up. DC unlike Marvel is a conglomeration of other companies that got bought up by one company, DC even became DC after National Comics merged with ALL STAR Comics. With the merger of the two companies they needed a new name because having National distribution was no longer a brag and ALL STAR was the smaller company with it’s only big recognisable hero being Wonder Woman who was rejected by National. The name DC was not picked as commonly stated as an abbreviation of Detective Comics, because who would name their company after a book that only sold moderately well when Action Comics and Sensation Comics are both better names for your company. DC was chosen for it’s connotations with the Government. When the National and ALL STAR merged both publishers were only a couple years old and it was rare for their characters to meet each other. Batman and Superman wouldn’t be in a story together until 1954 with World’s Finest 71 and this was done as a finical decision as they where always both featured on the cover but had different stories inside. DC chose to shrink the size of the publication and with the shrinking publication the only way they could justify keeping the pair (often with Robin as well) on the cover was to create stories with the two of them together. By 1961 DC and their absorbed companies each had their own established universe, Charlton’s heroes often met, but if they suddenly appeared with Green Lantern with no explanation, it would raise the question as to why they had never met. This concept would only be made worse by Captain Marvel and the Marvel Family being introduced with Captain Marvel being a pastiche of Superman and him having Zeus shared in his origin’s like Wonder Woman. So these new heroes and their universes where given their own separate Earth to explain why they weren’t part of Batman’s softball team. 

DC established their multiverse and had them all clearly marked; Earth-ONE was your main universe where most stories happened, Earth TWO was older stories and where Black Canary originated from (during one Crisis story her husband was killed and grief stricken she chose to join the Justice League). Earth Zero was a square earth created by Bizarro where the laws of physics only worked when they felt like it (it was also entirely populated by distorted clones of other DC characters and is often referred to as “Bizarro World”). Earth THREE was the mirror universe, Earth FOUR was characters acquired from Charlton Comics (Blue Beetle, Captain Atom and The Question probably being the most notable). Earth AD was the setting of Jack Kirby’s Kamandi and Omac (despite these series explicitly being set in the future, Omac even being the Grandson of Superman and Lois Lane and Kamandi being Omac’s grandson). Earth-C the home of Captain Carrot and the Zoo Crew (a superhero team consisting of anthropomorphic animals). Earth-S home to the Fawcett heroes (then called the Marvel family now known as Shazam). Earth-Prime a goofy world with just a Superboy. Earth-Quality home to the characters acquired from Quality Comics (probably the most famous of these being The Spirit) and the last one I’m going to mention The Anti-Matter universe where Sinestro first got his Yellow ring and home to the Anti-Monitor.

The DC Multiverse was changed forever in the 1986 storyline Crisis on Infinite Earths. All Earth’s got destroyed by the Anti-Monitor who was only defeated by The Flash (Barry Allan) when he ran so fast he absorbed both into the Speed Force. The only survivors of this being the Supermans of Earth ONE and TWO, Lois Lane of Earth TWO, Jay Garrick (EARTH TWO), Alexander Luthor Jr (EARTH THREE), Superboy (Earth Prime) and the Psycho Pirate (DC has ignored and retconned out the survival of Vandal Savage). It was now up to these surviving heroes and the Psycho Pirate to recreate the Earth, the result of which being New Earth. The Superman of Earth One, Jay Garrick and Psycho Pirate decided to live on this New Earth, although Superman would soon forget all about this as his whole history was about to be rewritten in John Byrne’s Man of Steel mini-series. Alexander Luthor Jr, Superboy Prime, Superman and Lois Lane of Earth Two would instead live in a dome outside the universe called Heaven. 

The Multiverse concept was gone for a while and replaced by the new idea of “Hyper-time”. Hyper-time was abandoned in 2005 to be replaced by the Multiverse because nobody understood Hyper-time. The storyline that reintroduced this into official continuity was Infinite Crisis, but this new version of the Multiverse had stricter rules, there could only be 52 Earths. This was stated because thats the amount of vibrational frequencies the Flash could generate and only worlds he could recreate the frequency of he could access. All Earths the Flash could access where number with a number like “Earth-1”. “Earth One” and “Earth-1” are different places in the multiverse, 1 is the next variant from New Earth and Earth One is for stand alone stories published in original graphic novels. The whole DC Multiverse has been mapped out by Grant Morrison for his mini-series’ Multiversity and even has 4 earths that nothing is known about other than “their purpose is sinister”. The Multiverse also temporarily housed the Milestone (Static Shock) and Wildstorm universes until they where both folding into the main universe during Flashpoint. The DCAU (DC Animated Universe of animated series) has a placement in the Multiverse as Earth-12.

Now there are two other concepts that need explaining as they are outside the DC Multiverse but effected their inhabitants; The Fifth Dimension and The New Gods. 

The Fifth Dimension is inhabited by cartoonish characters who can warp reality at their whims, notable examples would be Mr Mxsptlkz a being whose whole goal is to make Superman look foolish, Bat-Mite an obnoxious fanboy for Batman, QWSP a well intentioned imp who helped Aquaman in the 60’s and Mopee who before Crisis on Infinite Earths was said to have created the Speed Force. The Fifth Dimension is based on the idea that height, width and breadth are the first 3 dimension and time is the 4th, and we can’t perceive the 5th so it’s full of omnipotent beings. 

The New Gods are something different but similar, they are parasites that are the living embodiment of the concept they represent, the stronger their concept is in the Multiverse the stronger the New God is.The Supervillain Darkseid is the most famous of the New Gods and he is the embodiment of Hatred so the more people feel hatred the stronger he is. Of course some New Gods are positive things Bekka is the New God of Love and Mr Miracle is the embodiment of Hope (something that makes Tom King’s decision to make him suicidal even worse). The New Gods did have a placement in the pre-Crisis on Infinite Earth’s multiverse as Earth FOURTEEN however this feels like a mistake even then when the “good” New Gods live on New Genesis and the Evil ones live on Apokolips. The New Gods can only enter the multiverse using devices known as Mother Box’s that create “Boom Tubes” which are portals that will alter their size so they can actually fit on the planet they wish to conquer or save (each New God is roughly the size of a Galaxy). 

And that I hope has made you wiser on how the DC Multiverse works and why it exists THANK YOU.

Sabrina the Comic Code Approved Satanic mistress

Worried that Comic books are a bad influence on your children? what you need is the Comics Code Authority, a bunch of faceless pencil pushers to enforce a strict code of rules that must be obeyed under any context. This includes banning of all things occult, to the degree that writer Marv Wolfman couldn’t be hired by DC because his last name is the same as a Universal monster.

The Comic Code Authority was more interested in enforcing the word of the “Code” than actually the spirit of it. And if you’ve made it this far and have no idea what the Comics Code Authority was, let me explain. After World War 2 the sales of Superhero books declined and in their place new comic genres became popular, genres like Horror, Real Crime, Romance and Westerns. But Comic books where thought of as a “Kids medium” and some of those genre’s are less family friendly than the adventures of Superman. With absolutely no censorship or age restrictions, kids where reading comics with any level of sex and or violence in them. Parents where livid and The Reverend Fredric Wertham answered their call and wrote the book “The Seduction of the Innocent”. With Comic book writers and artists as pariahs they came to the solution that they would create a self regulating body that would deal with this, the strictness of their rules put parents minds at rest because now Comics didn’t have words like “Horror” or “Fear” in the title and the undead didn’t grace the covers or interiors of their children’s funny books. The code actually had no power other than just being a symbol on the front of comic covers, it was entirely enforced by Elementary school teachers and store owners only complied with the ban out of fear that the school principal and a hoard of angry mothers protesting outside their premises. 

The code slowly eroded and Marvel became the badboys of the Comic industry flaunting their rules any chance they got and working around them as subtly as they could. I really hope you now have a mental image of Stan Lee hanging by the Bike racks wearing a Leather Jacket and smoking a cigarette. Marvel started their post Comic code authority days chasing after every fad, Romance comics, War Comics, Westerns all to keep the lights on. But the fad that changed things for them was Science fiction comics, which naturally lead to Jack Kirby drawing monsters. The popularity of Science Fiction comics lead their storied rival of DC to reinvent the Superhero starting with the new Flash, then Green Lantern, then to The Justice League of America. The popularity of the last one lead to Timely (that in a few months would become Marvel) to order Stan Lee and Jack Kirby to create a new Superhero team. A team of explorers who get exposed to the nations biggest fear radiation and ended being mutated permanently and one even into a literal monster. Marvel’s biggest hits of this era all of Sci-Fi Horror roots, as mentioned the F4 a team of explorers who fight monsters and fight an evil Warlock who dresses as Death, The Hulk who shares many similarities with Jekyl and Hyde and a Spider-man (who they almost got sued by a manufacturer of Halloween costumes for plagiarism). 

That’s all well and good but what of Sabrina? While Marvel Comics where working on eroding the system from within, Archie where more complicit with the code. Having experimented and failed earlier with new Superheroes (after the days of Comic’s being used as scapegoats). Archie found success with a series of B-Stories with a protagonist named after the company, Archie where anything but subversive. They portrayed the everyday adventures of a teenage boy who can’t decide who his “best gal” is while his best friend just wants to eat a lot of Hamburgers. Archie Comics image was so squeaky clean they got green-lit for a cartoon series about their band after the PTA had found a new folk devil in Saturday Morning cartoons, Cartoons that included a very faithful adaptation of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s Fantastic Four comics made by Hanna-Barbera. 

But hiding within this wholesome slice of Americana was a Witch! A teenage witch who enjoyed Milkshakes. Debuting in Archie’s Mad House, a PG version of Mad Magazine (not a Horror Comic). Sabrina a debuted as a troublemaker, The Archie universes answer to Dennis the Menace, spiking drinks with Love Potion number 9. The character was envisioned by George Gladir and Dan DeCarlo as a one shot strip, but fans of Archie wanted more and with no backlash of her teaching children about the Occult (the original strip actually refers to Salem as her Familiar). The Choir boys managed to get away with something that the bad-lads at Marvel would’ve had to fight for. 

Sabrina continued to appear in Archie’s MadHouse until issue 74 when she would be spun off into her own ongoing book and a Filmation animated series. But in this time the character had been altered by an Archie Comics committee into a goody two shoes who only uses her magic for good. If anything she was now a High-School aged clone of Samantha from Bewitched with her own supporting cast, Salem was now her Pet cat. This was how Sabrina was until the 1990’s when changes like Salem being a former warlock where introduced. Archie’s characters where stagnant because the company often reused old scripts, believing their audience wouldn’t notice if they only used the script once every four years because the audience for comics either threw them away after reading them or would only collect them between the ages of 8 and 13. DC also did this in 60’s and the early 70’s on their B Superman books (World’s Finest, Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane and Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen). Sabrina’s Comics changed with whatever TV series they where tied to, sometimes Fummetti (an italian word for “photo comic”) or redrawings of the show packaged as a comic.

But whatever happened to the Comic’s Code Authority? Well they tried to use the power they never had and it imploded on them. Marvel where given a letter from the White House that said “This drug situation is getting pretty bad could you write a story with Spider-man warning kids about them” and Stan Lee and Gil Kane (with John Romita Sr illustrating the cover) obliged President Nixon’s stationaries request. But the CCA did not approve of this and tried to pull Amazing Spider-man 97 from stores and… nothing happened, no parents protesting, Newsstands sold the comic without their logo and the world moved on. From that day onwards Marvel published all their comics with the Comics code Authority logo on them without even sending their scripts or pages for approval. The Comic Code Authority was a corpse that only DC and Archie supported. DC obviously didn’t submit every comic but their standard ones (things that aren’t Watchmen or Vertigo) did go through processing until 2006. Where the Comic Code Authority was one retired Fourth grade teacher who was reading free copies of Archie and DC who would sometimes 9 months after the comic was published sent them a note saying “This Batman comic is too violent”.

Of course once the Comic’s Code Authority was a complete non-entity, Archie Comics where deeply uncool, being sold at Supermarkets and bought by parents in vein attempts to shut up their kids while they buy groceries. Archie needed reinvention, they needed to get with it, and stop the Superheroes from giving them wedgies and stealing their lunch money. 

Archie first dipped its toe into the water with the introduction of Kevin Keller an openly gay character, this got Archie comics good media coverage. No longer where they the butt of an unfunny joke, they where revolutionary not just being held by a Sitcom character to show what a Dork they are. The next step was simple kill Archie, which they did having him leap in front of a bullet meant for Kevin. The US media was in shock, and of course the other thing Warner Bros second comic company stole from it’s first was Reboot. Now Archie comics where more mature or self aware and subversive, Archie vs the Punisher wasn’t a one-off now he could meet the Predator or Debbie Harry or live in a Zombie Apocalypse. Sabrina also got a reboot, a new version that wasn’t inspired by her kids shows, now they could fully explore the occult. Sabrina’s first NEW Archie role was to bring the dead back to life, After life with Archie was such a success that Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa was asked to do more. So in came a new version more in line with the original, a comics Sabrina who has Harvey under love spells and argues with her Familiar. What a strange ride.

Why DC Loves Batman, and only likes Superman?

I’ve written about Superman’s decline in popularity and I’ve written about Batman’s rise in popularity. But I never really discussed why that happened, other than the rise of a new cynical wave of comics. However “Cynical Comics” are a symptom not the disease, Batman’s greatest power is money both in reality and the comics and that is also Superman’s greatest weakness (not that Superman has trouble acquiring money, he crushes coal and makes it diamonds, no one can do that will ever need to file for bankruptcy). Batman is very exploitable for cash, think about it from the stance of a kid playing dress up in their back garden, to be Superman all they need is a piece of red cloth, to be Batman they need, a cape (properly cut to look like Batwings), a mask, a utility belt full of assortment of gadgets and a toy car. Because Superman has Superpowers that can’t be replicated in the real world, all of what makes Superman special exists in the child’s mind, Warner Bros can’t get a toy manufacturer to make real X-ray glasses or a Superman branded flight suit but they can make ride on pedal cars that look like the Batmobile or plastic Batarangs. Superman’s powers even get in the way of toy manufacture, how does a Superman toy fly? a kid runs around the living run holding it over their head yelling swoosh. a radio controlled one is expensive, but also by Superman never requiring new gadgets unlike Batman, less variants can be made to seem authentic, although DC have tried in various ways to create more variants like how Superman the Animated series took away his ability to survive in outer space so they could make a rocket ship and space suit variant toy or the abysmal non sensical Red vs Blue from the comics which literally doubled the amount of action figure variants they could make. Simply Batman is very Toyetic, Superman is not, and when you’re owned by a company that cancelled production on a popular TV show (Young Justice) because “it didn’t sell enough toys” guess whose the golden boy (and getting ANOTHER cartoon series).

But it’s more than Superman’s lack of a Malibu beach houses that have hindered him, Superman has often been used to explore anti-consumerism ideas. The Monicker the Man of Steel actually stems from John Henry, a proletariat hero who smashed a machine because it stole livelihood from workers and died destroying it. Superman as the Man of Steel can do that and survive as he’s made from the same material as the oppressor, he can smash through and save the people. Superman’s archenemy Lex Luthor is even a selfish capitalist (based on Donald Trump in John Byrne’s Man of Steel mini-series). Lex seeks power for power’s sake and doesn’t care about anybody else, and the only one who can stop him is Superman. Of course Marxist ideology was downplayed in Superman comics in the 1950’s after Siegel and Shuster where accused of being Communists. This lead to the new version of Superman, The Man of Tomorrow. The new spiritual Superman, a smarter, kinder man with more power than anyone else, in touch with his higher self. A more ascended being who thought more about others than himself, the Super in his name does not refer to his immense Superpowers but to him being a manifestation of the Super-Ego (from the Freudian trio). As the Super-Ego man, he feels the weight of the world on his shoulders and must try to figure out whether to help or not as sometimes short term help is long term hurt. This version of Superman is still used by Grant Morrison and the ideas where first explained to me by a Buddhist Guru. But what do Buddhist and Marxist ideologies have in common? well they both believe the acquisition of material objects is bad for you, leading Superman to being an anti-capitalist hero.

Of course the corporate overlords of Warner Bros can’t have a flagship hero who says “don’t spend all your money”, especially as they’ve survived on a Whales not Fish. This probably needs explaining “Whales and Fish” comes from freemium online games, a Whale is a player who will drop lots of money on the game and help sustain the games longevity for longer, (like how a Whale will feed a village for months) whilst a fish will only give them a little bit of money if they ever payout. DC has been using this kind of economics for years, in fact Wonder Woman has always had fairly bad sales in the comics but been a very popular license for clothing and other more expensive items. To make up for being in 3rd place in comic sales (first being Marvel and second being Image), DC sell a lot of Toys and massively expensive variant covers.

Batman is a much easier sell to a creepy Billionaire filling his penthouse with Toys, that doesn’t mean DC have never tried selling Superman to these people, but the results have been divisive at best. Look at Zack Snyder’s vision for the character; a first movie where he only cares about the hot redhead, then a movie where he fights Batman and then a 3rd unmade movie where he becomes an evil overlord. 

Modern Batman seems modelled on James Bond, film’s most profitable misogamist. The preferred idea of Batman is an angry loner with a Harem of action figure ready ladies who he attracts by being emotionally distant and abandoning at the drop of a hat. Some are allies other are enemies but one things constant an underlying sexual tension even when it’s creepy or doesn’t make any sense. Poison Ivy is portrayed as lesbian except when she’s around Batman then she wants to find out whats under his utility belt, Harley Quinn has the mind of a child but DC Comics will have her posing suggestively licking a baseball bat as a phallus, Bat-Girl his best friends girlfriend he has no qualms about banging. Meanwhile Superman has had the same love interest in Lois Lane, a progressive hardworking girl trying to make it in a man’s world that Superman treats as an equal and stays with even if she has some negative personality traits. Well Batman and Superman do share a love interest, Wonder Woman, often the one woman in the Justice League reduced to the middle of a love triangle, DC made it officially canon a Superman and Wonder Woman after years of shipping between the two (see Dark Knight Strikes Again or Red Son both storylines that reduce her to nothing more than that), but it made some sense. Wonder Woman and Batman only makes sense in Bruce Timm’s mind as many version of the two have Wonder Woman hating Batman, Wonder Woman respects truth, honesty and vulnerability three things Batman can never be or he’d lose his bravado. But who cares about character consistency when you can have some creepy Batman fan buy his girlfriend Wonder Woman themed lingerie for Christmas that year and claim “She’s like totally empowered” as he ties her up remember that’s the characters only weakness. 

Batman pays the bills, Batman is aspirational to creepy dudes, caring for others doing the right thing, they’re not profitable. That’s the truth, but superheroes where meant to teach little kids to be a good person and do the right thing. Chasing after money is what DC do, with bespoke services like a Brazilian hotel that lets you pretend to be Batman for the night. But those who can afford that, often didn’t get that way by being good people, more Billionaires are like Lex Luthor rather than Bruce Wayne. In the real world parodying comic, Lex became president and we have his inspiration as the real world president. The only real difference is Trump has molested more women than Lex and doesn’t have Superman to stop him. But DC doesn’t want to lose their gravy train by making people question this status quo. Both characters are completely successful at what they’re creators wanted, Siegel and Shuster wanted to create a new American folk lore hero for the Sci-fi-Atomic age and that’s what Superman is, he even in the real world fought the Ku Klux Klan and poses with eagles. Bob Kane he just wanted to make money, he even stole from anywhere he could, Batman comics even stole antagonists from Superman. Seriously a fair amount of Batman villains are clones of the Prankster and even more on the nose is Riddler and the Puzzler (the Puzzler debuting a year earlier in the comics), The Planteer and Maxie Zeus are almost indistinguishable, is it any wonder that Superman the Animated Series feels like sloppy seconds. But at least Superman gets the seconds while Batman cartoons steal his stories, there has never been a Flash or Wonder Woman animated series, I would even say the Flash is tailor made for a cartoon show, the characters known for witty comebacks, using science (sometimes highly suspect science) to defeat his enemies and has a main power with a long history in cartoons (Super speed being shared with Speedy Gonzales and Road Runner). Green Lantern was given a brief a chance to shine, but it was hardly given a chance his movie was originally meant as a slapstick comedy and his cartoon was cancelled in mid-production. Meanwhile Batman is on what his 12th cartoon series now? If anything DC needs to stop having one flag bearing hero and let all of it’s heroes shine, especially as more and more derision is being laid at Batman, except by his fanboys of course.

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”.