In Part 2 of my Holiday Wish List, we take a look at 5 characters that I would like to see appear in Marvel Comics. This list was in some ways harder to write than the DC one, because while Marvel has fewer canon immigrants overall, they also have fewer canon foreigners in the first place. And they mostly make the jump if they AT ALL deserve to. But I did come up with five, though I had to fudge one, and here they are.
1) Whistler
Whistler has appeared in both
Spider-Man: The Animated Series and the
Blade trilogy as Blade's human mentor/father figure/armorer. He's a pretty substantial character, and there's a whole generation of people who probably have no idea that he has no basis in the comics. What happened was that the
Spider-Man episodes were made as a tie-in of sorts to a
Blade movie that ultimately wasn't made until years later, and the Blade presented in said movie - and therefore said cartoon episode - has very little in common with the Blade of the comics. Yet those two disparate sources are where most people know Blade from, and since they're so similar, people assume they're an accurate depiction of the character.
In short, just put Whistler in the comics already. Everyone already assumes he's in there.
2) Jack McGee
Jack McGee is the "Red Lantern Razer" of Marvel Entertainment. He was a major and important character in
The Incredible Hulk, which was arguably Marvel's most successful venture into live action tv: a tabloid reporter who was looking into the mystery of the Hulk and always hot on the heels of David Banner, yet he's never even been mentioned in the comics (as far as I know). He wasn't even name dropped in the 2008 movie, which was basically a love letter to the series. And I find that odd.
I'm not saying he needs to join the cast of a Hulk book long-term or anything like that, but he could at least show up for an arc or two.
3) Lightwave
Lightwave is a minor character from
Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, a mutant with light powers. And even though she only appeared in one or two episodes, she holds a very important role: she's Iceman's sister. His sister! If Aunt May's DOG can show up as one of the Pet Avengers, I think Iceman should finally be able to meet his sister. Plus, she's a SHIELD agent. So she can naturally appear in Spider-Man comics, X-Men comics, or Avengers comics, which isn't easy for most characters to pull off.
4) Agents of SHIELD
I know they're probably waiting to see if the show stays successful before bringing these characters over - after all, it took Coulson something like five years to show up and he was pretty much an overnight sensation - but I think that's a bad idea. If the show doesn't do well, they can always sweep the characters into the background or just never mention them again; but right now, one of the major problems with the show is that it doesn't feel like part of the Marvel Universe, and a major part of that is the fact that none of the main characters were created for the comics, and only one of them is currently appearing on the comics page. Marvel should fix that.
5) Buzz Lightyear and Star Command
I originally had The Incredibles in this spot, for obvious reasons, but then I decided that since there's no way that would happen in a million years - because The Incredibles already exist in the Marvel Universe under the name "Fantastic Four" - I'd give the slot to something that has a
chance of happening. Only a slightly bigger chance than the Incredibles, but still a chance.
The way I see it, Buzz Lightyear and Emperor Zerg would be good additions to Marvel's space books, especially is Star Command was a rival organization to the Nova Corps. Imagine what a great story could come out of Buzz and Nova having to team up even though their groups butt heads at every turn.
