Character Spotlight: Raina

One of the many issues people have with Marvel's Agents of SHIELD is that it almost insists on using original characters despite the depth and breadth of characters available to it from the Marvel Universe. This was especially true in the first few episodes, which is where we were introduced to Raina:

Raina, played by Ruth Negga, first appeared as the "Girl in the Flower Dress" in the episode of the same name (2013). She was a mysterious woman obsessed with "evolving", and right away she showed that original characters weren't always to the show's detriment. In fact, she was such a good character that the episode title was changed to focus on her, from its original title "Scorch".

She appeared several more times over the course of the season as a lackey to various bad guys, though she always seemed to have her own agenda. The first hints we got she was part of something bigger came in the final shot of season 1, when we learned she knew Skye's father, and then in season 2 we finally got to see her "evolve" as we learned she was an Inhuman.

She was quite a popular character and that was shown when she made an appearance in Inhuman Annual #1 (2015), complete with flower dress. In this issue, she is one of several people who get told telepathically that she's an Inhuman. To date this has been her only appearance, but who knows; there may be more in store for her down the line.

Character Spotlight: Jason Stryker('s Name?)

"Comics Should Be Good!" has a recent article about how Marvel recently introduced Jason Stryker into X-Men comics and the continuity problems it introduced. I'll provide a link so you can read the article yourself, but the short version is that in Marvel Graphic Novel #5: God Loves, Man Kills (1982), Rev. William Stryker mentions his son dying. In the movie X2: X-Men United (2003), Colonel Stryker's son, Jason, is alive and a mutant with illusion powers (they combined him with Jason Wyngarde aka Mastermind). In All-New X-Men #19 (November 2013), we find out Stryker's son - now named Jason, while he previously went unnamed - is actually alive. He hasn't been shown to have illusion powers as far as I know but it still counts.

http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2015/10/04/the-abandoned-an-forsaked-god-loves-man-kills-and-comic-book-writers-retcon-stuff/2/

Gadget Spotlight: Lola

This is a short entry because there's not much to say.

The Agents of SHIELD pilot (2013) introduced Lola, Agent Coulson's flying car.

Lola later made an appearance in Deadpool #22 (January 2014) of all places, flown by Agent Coulson. Side note: it'd be great if this season of SHIELD had Scott Adsit playing Agent Scott Adsit.

Lola has since appeared in several issues of SHIELD volume 3.

Character Spotlight: Jiaying

I recently mentioned that Quake has moved a lot closer to her tv counterpart, Skye (and I didn't mention it, but Skye is also moving closer to her comics counterpart, Quake). And this month's Quake: SHIELD 50th Anniversary Special #1 (September 2015) continues that trend.

In SHIELD #7 (June 2015), we learn that Quake's mother is an Inhuman. This month, Quake meets an Inhuman named Jiaying who implies she knew Quake as a little girl.

If that name sounds familiar to you, it's because Jiaying is the name of Skye's mother (an Inhuman) in Agents of SHIELD. She first appeared in the episode "The Things We Bury" (November 2014).

Relationship Spotlight: Mockingbird and Lance Hunter

Mockingbird, aka Bobbi Morse, and Commodore Lance Hunter have a lot of things in common. They're both secret agents (Morse works for SHIELD, Hunter is the head of STRIKE). They both debuted in the 70s. And they both made their first appearances in England: Bobbi at the front door of Ka-Zar's mansion, Hunter in the pages of Captain Britain.

And that's about where their similarities end. They certainly don't have a similar number of appearances; Hunter has only shown up in a handful of issues since his debut, and the majority of those were in the spring of '77. Other than that, he's only appeared in a Civil War tie-in in 2007 and one issue of a miniseries involving Marvel UK characters called Revolutionary War in 2011. That is, until this month's Mockingbird: SHIELD 50th Anniversary Special #1 (September 2015). Which is the most important.

See, last year - for whatever reason - Lance Hunter became a recurring character in Agents of SHIELD season 2 (2014-2015). He wasn't the head of STRIKE; heck, he wasn't even a member of STRIKE, which in the MCU is an elite subgroup of SHIELD. He was just a mercenary. But he was British. And as a new wrinkle in his backstory, he took Hawkeye's place as Mockingbird's ex (as Hawkeye was in the movies and off-limits, and - as we'd later learned - married with kids anyway). Over the course of the season, we see them move slowly from angry exes to a love/hate relationship.

That relationship, at least to some degree, is now codified in the recently mentioned Mockingbird special. Whether it'll continue remains to be seen, but as Hunter seems to have been de-aged (no more combover) to more closely match his tv depiction, I think it's likely.

Daisy Johnson...or is it Skye now?

ComicVine posted an article yesterday about some new information coming out of SHIELD #7 (June 2015), which you can read at http://www.comicvine.com/articles/shield-7-merges-the-marvel-tv-and-comics-character/1100-152710/

But the jist is that Daisy's mom was an Inhuman, and Daisy is nicknamed Skye now (for a dumb reason). Mr. Hyde was also drawn to look like Kyle MacLachlan in this issue, but I don't think that'll stick.

Secret Wars's Weird Shield Things

As you may or may not know, Secret Wars started out as a toyline, and the miniseries was only made to promote the toyline. The action figures came with a pretty odd accessory: a shield that displayed one of several images.

These shields didn't factor into the comic book storyline at all, so it's anybody's guess what the intention was. Fortunately, during Marvel's NEW Secret Wars event, Deadpool's Secret Secret Wars #2 (June 2015) gave us the answer...sort of!

Blade's Powers

Comics Should Be Good has written a great article showcasing how Blade went from having just immunity to vampirism to full blown "all of the powers, none of the weaknesses" after his movie came out. As usual in cases like this, anything I said on the subject would basically be plagiarism, so here's a link.

One thing it doesn't mention is that these powers first appeared in season 2 of Spider-Man: The Animated Series (1996). This episode was supposed to tie in to the movie, but production trouble meant the movie would get released two years later.

The Maybe File: Wayne-Powers

Posts on this site are not always cut-and-dried. I wish they were. And there are definitely a lot of entries that should either clearly be on the site or should clearly not be, but there are also a lot of maybes, and including them comes down to a judgment call. This one is by far the maybe-est. In fact, I'm creating a new category just for it, because it's close enough that I wouldn't feel right not including it, but still hazy enough that I feel like including it is cheating a bit. So I'm including it with a big caveat.

This week in The Maybe File: Wayne-Powers.

Wayne-Powers first appeared in the first episode of Batman Beyond (1999) as a future version of Wayne Enterprises that had merged with Powers Technology (I can't find a picture of a sign, unfortunately). It was decidedly less well-intentioned than Wayne Enterprises, which makes sense since it was run by a supervillain called Blight.

In this month's Free Comic Book Day Divergence Special #1 (May 2015), we find out that two months from now, Batman has died and a company called Powers International, run by Geri Powers, has taken over Wayne Enterprises.

Now here's the question: does this count? It's not in the future, it's not (yet) officially called Wayne-Powers, and Geri Powers may or may not be related to Derek Powers. That being said, I think the intention is there, and I think the recent popularity of Batman Beyond backs me up. It's basically just like the Kingdom Come kick DC got on in the 2000s. So like I said, I'm including it, but there's a big ol' asterisk on this post for now.

52 Shake-Up: Wally West

After DC's The New 52 happened, several mainstay characters were nowhere to be seen. These characters - Donna Troy, Spoiler, Cassandra Cain, and others - became the patron saints of all that fans considered wrong about the New 52. But none so more than Wally West.

Wally West had been around since the 50s, longer than most current comic book characters. Over that time, fans had seen him grow from Kid Flash to Flash, join the Justice League, get married, and have kids. In fact, by the time Flashpoint happened, Wally had been the Flash almost as long as his predecessor Barry Allen had been. And yet, for the first three years of the New 52, Wally was nowhere to be seen. Never even mentioned.

And then he was: in April 2014, in The Flash Annual #3, he finally showed up. Sorta:

Some fans argue that this isn't the real Wally West, just a new character that happens to have the same name. It's easy to see why: he has a different race, age personality, background, and costume than the Wally West people were asking for. No one can say for sure why DC decided to change the character so thoroughly, but one change CAN be explained.

See, around the time this issue was being made, they were also filming the pilot for the 2014 series The Flash. And in that pilot, Joe and Iris West look like this:

So DC wanted Wally West to look the same across media. And I know what you're thinking: maybe the Wests were cast as black because Wally is. And that would be a good point, except that, besides the producers saying it was the other way around, Iris HAD already appeared in the New 52, and she looked like this:

So they made Wally biracial to explain it.

Convergence: "Injustice: Gods Among Us"

This week saw the release of Convergence #0, the official kick-off to DC's summer event where remnants of destroyed alternate realities find themselves stuck together on one planet and fight it out (but please don't get that confused with Marvel's upcoming summer event where remnants of destroyed alternate realities find themselves stuck together on one planet and fight it out, Secret Wars). The last ten or so pages of the issue clarify who will be involved by giving a list of 41 worlds. Most of them are ones you'd guess: past versions of DC (Flashpoint, pre-Flashpoint, pre-Zero Hour, etc), possible futures (various version of the Legion of Super-Heroes, Kamandi, Hex, etc), older versions of alternate earths (Earth-4, Earth-S, Earth-X), and popular Elseworlds (Kingdom Come, Superman: Red Son, etc). Some are more surprising, like Sugar and Spike. And then, at the very end, is Injustice: Gods Among Us.

Injustice: Gods Among Us is a 2013 fighting game pitting heroes against villains and other heroes, and I hate it. The storyline is atrocious (it starts off with Superman killing The Joker after The Joker kills Lois Lane, and then Superman establishing a new world order with him as the high chancellor) and somehow the costumes are even busier than the New 52 versions, which is quite a feat.

I have no idea how Injustice made it as one of the 41 worlds when things like The Nail didn't, or why it's the only non-comics media world to be included, instead of something like Super Friends or the DC Animated Universe. But here we are.

And here's a page from the upcoming Convergence #1 that shows just how dire this stupid reality is.

52 Shake-Up: Lock-Up

"52 Shake-Up" is a series focusing on DC's New 52. Posts get a 52 Shake-Up tag if it's an already existing canon immigrant who now exists in the New 52 as well, or if it's a previously existing character who was changed so drastically by the New 52 to fit a version of themselves in another medium that they could be mistaken for being a canon immigrant.

It's always strange to see who will be a canon immigrant, and especially who will show up in the New 52. The following character was actually the first immigrant from Batman: The Animated Series (not counting Renee Montoya, who made it into comics before the show even started), even beating Harley Quinn, despite the fact that he only showed up in one episode. I wrote about him before on the Batman: The Animated Series Super Post, but I've moved his entry here:

Lock-Up

Lock-Up first appeared in the Batman: The Animated Series episode "Lock-Up" (1994).  His first comics appearance was a cameo at the end of Robin #24 (January 1996), before getting a full appearance in Detective Comics #697 (June 1996).


Likewise, Lock-Up now fully exists in the New 52, beating such characters as Cassandra Cain, Donna Troy, Elongated Man, and most of the Justice Society. He first appeared in Batman: Eternal #3 (April 2014) as part of a gang of low-rent Batman foes, including Cluemaster, Signalman, and Firefly:

Appearance Spotlight: Superman's New S

As part of DC's upcoming "Divergence" initiative, they're dropping from 52 titles to 49 and majorly shaking up all of their books. New creators, new storylines, new costumes, new everything. As part of these changes, Superman (and Wonder Woman, but it's Superman we're talking about today) gets a new look, seen here on the cover of Superman/Wonder Woman #18 (June 2015):

As you can see, the new outfit is a callback to his appearance in the early issues of Grant Morrison's Action Comics run (2011-2012), but more important is the new shield, because it's a call back to something far older; namely, the Superman shorts from Fleischer Studios (1941-1943):

Character Spotlight: Brainiac (Animated)

In this month's Futures End #44 (March 2015), there's a scene where Superman punches Brainiac SO HARD that...something happens to him. The page shows multiple versions of him; I don't know if these are Brainiacs from alternate earths or from Hypertime or both, and I don't know if the're actually appearing or if it's more symbolic, but it doesn't really matter. What does matter is who shows up.

In front, we have the Brainiac getting punched. Behind him is the New 52 Brainiac (I don't know how they're different; I assume the Futures End Brainiac is from the future), then at the end is the original Brainiac from the 50s, ahead of him is the "New Look" Brainiac from the 70s, and in the middle - for whatever reason - we have the Brainiac from Superman: The Animated Series (1997).

I've mentioned this Brainiac before in regards to the importance of his head symbol, but this is the first time he's appeared in full. And again, this could be the Brainiac from either Earth-12 or Earth-50, or just from some alternate timeline where Superman: The Animated Series happened, or something else entirely (maybe it doesn't really mean anything and the artist just likes this style of Brainiac), but it's in there either way.

Character Spotlight: Lau

Mr. Lau is not a very important character. You probably don't recognize his name, and even once you see his picture, you may not know what he is or what he comes from. He appears in The Dark Knight (2008), as a mob accountant from Hong Kong. Overall he's a pretty weaselly guy, and after Batman goes to retrieve him from China, Lau ends up being burned alive atop a mountain of money by the Joker.

He's only appeared in one issue, but that's enough to count: Red Robin #23 (May 2011), where Lucius Fox meets with him as a diversion, much like what happens in the movie.

100!

I never thought it would happen, but I've finally reached 100 posts on this blog. I'd love to say that means I've featured 100 canon immigrants on the site, but a couple posts didn't have any and several had multiple entries, so who knows how many there really are. A lot more than 100, though, which in a way is even better!

I couldn't really think of a good way to commemorate the big 100, so instead I've decided to use it as a platform to help fill in some gaps on the site. With that in mind, here's a list of some things I've been looking for and never quite been able to find. If you have any of these things, drop me a line in the comments!


Pictures of
1. "Look, up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Superman!"
2. "A strange visitor from a distant planet"
3. "Faster than a speeding bullet, etc"
4. "mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper"
5. Farmer Brown - Streets of Gotham #4
6. Stalker - Batman Beyond (mini) #4
7. Aunt Harriet's last name - Detective Comics #373
8. Raza - Invincible Iron Man Annual 2010

Confirmation of
1. Batman: The Animated Series being the first time Scarecrow was portrayed as an Arkham employee
2. Superman: The Animated Series being the first time Lois used "Smallville" as a nickname for Clark (I don't doubt it, but an episode title and issue number would help a lot)
3. Batman's Giant Penny first appearing in a non-comics medium (I don't think this is true, but I've heard it mentioned)

Issue numbers of first appearances for
1. Any of Superman's catchphrases ("up, up, and away", "this looks like a job for Superman", "strange visitor from a distant planet", etc)
2. Superman's changing in a phone booth (I have Action Comics #345, but there may be an earlier instance)
3. Superman's ripping open his shirt to reveal the S
4. Wonder Woman's spinning costume change


And for a bonus, here's a panel I've never really been sure should count for the site or not, but either way it's a nice little reference to DC's The Super Dictionary (1978). From Superman #709:

"Ultimate Spider-Man" and Ultimate Beetle

In 2005, ActiVision released an Ultimate Spider-Man video game. It was written by Brian Michael Bendis, the author of the Ultimate Spider-Man series at the time, and it was promoted as being in continuity with the comic. And then it got released and...it wasn't. And it was. Some stories ignored events that happened in the game, yet others referred to them.

Three years later, it was finally accepted that the game didn't count, so it was adapted into a storyline near the end of the series's run called "War of the Symbiotes"...with some details changed, because they just can't make it easy, can they?

As part of the storyline, a character who first appeared in the game - Ultimate Beetle - was also introduced in the second part (Ultimate Spider-Man #124, August 2008), with the same power suit.

52 Shake-Up: Artemis

"52 Shake-Up" is a series focusing on DC's New 52. Posts get a 52 Shake-Up tag if it's an already existing canon immigrant who now exists in the New 52 as well, or if it's a previously existing character who was changed so drastically by the New 52 to fit a version of themselves in another medium that they could be mistaken for being a canon immigrant.


You'd be forgiven for thinking that the archer named Artemis first appeared in Young Justice (2010), but she didn't. She actually first appeared all the way back in Infinity Inc #34 (December 1986) as a villain who was the daughter of Golden Age villains Tigress and Sportsmaster, just like Infinity Inc were the children and proteges of Golden Age heroes. In Young Justice she's likewise the daughter of Sportsmaster but trying to be a hero (or is a mole pretending to be a hero; it's been a while since I've seen the show)...at least until she becomes Tigress in season 2.

In the New 52, she makes two brief appearances. The first is in Teen Titans #8 (April 2012), where she's seen wearing a rugged version of her Young Justice outfit. She also has the blonde hair and long ponytail of her animated counterpart. She dies during "The Culling" crossover, but is later revealed to have been revived along with the rest of the teens "killed" during the Culling.

Appearance Spotlight: Vixen

Vixen is a DC Comics character who's mainly known for being a part of the much-maligned Justice League Detroit era. She actually first appeared in Action Comics #521, where she looked like this:

But by the time she joined the Justice League, she looked like this...for some reason.

After she dropped out of the spotlight her appearance changed a couple times, and by October 2004 she had this very generic look:

But right after that (December 2004), she appeared in the Justice League Unlimited episode "Wake the Dead", where she more closely resembled her classic appearance, but with a more modern haircut.

Vixen went on to have several guest spots on the show, with the last one being the episode "Grudge Match" (March 2006). Just a few months later, she joined the Justice League again in Justice League of America #0 (August 2006) with a very similar look:

 She later appeared in the New 52 with a similar but not quite the same design, although with her having a completely different costume in her upcoming animated series, I'm curious to see whether her comics self will once again follow suit (no pun intended).

Appearance Spotlight: Static

I've mentioned Static before on this site in the DCAU Super Post, but I recently found out some new information about him, so I'm removing him from that post and giving him his own.

Static, aka Virgil Hawkins, first appeared in Static #1 (1993), published by Milestone Media. Like most superpowered people in Dakota, he got his powers in an event called the Big Bang, but whereas the others were generally gang members and criminals, he was a smart kid who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

In 2000, Milestone Media adapted Static into a show on the Kids' WB called Static Shock. As it was a Saturday morning cartoon, they made it more kid-friendly and a little brighter, which included a more standard superhero costume for Static:

In 2001, Milestone and DC published a miniseries called Static Shock: Rebirth of the Cool. Although a sequel to the original Static series, this time he wore his animated outfit. The costume actually first appeared in printed form on the cover of Static Shock: Trial by Fire, which was published in anticipation of the animated series, it does not appear in the book itself.

Static Shock season 3 (2003) saw a number of changes to the show, including Static's outfit, as seen below:

In December 2008, Static made his first appearance in DC Comics proper, in Terror Titans #3, wearing his season 3 (and 4) outfit. This signaled the merging of the Milestone and DC universes, a move which had already happened in the DC Animated Universe during Static Shock season 2. 

The DC/Milestone merger survived the New 52 and Static was one of the first 52 series launched, but it only lasted eight issues. Milestone Media has since announced plans to relaunch, and what that means for their characters appearing in the DC universe remains to be seen.

Spider-Verse: Spider-Carnage

Spider-Verse is a currently running event in the Spider-Man comics that will involve every* Spider-Man we've ever met, including several Spider-Women and Spider-Girls (not to mention Scarlet Spiders and Spider-Hams and whatnot), and several brand-new versions. The premise is simple: there's a group of people trying to wipe out every Spider character across the multiverse, so all the Spider characters will team up to stop them. This is, of course, a massive event - multimedia even, since it will also feature in the Spider-Man Unlimited video game and the animated series Ultimate Spider-Man - and given the premise, it's only natural that it will add a few entries to this catalog.

*I say "every" because Marvel says "every", but there are a few that won't be showing up, such as Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield. (Although see here for more information on that.)

Today's entry is Spider-Carnage.

This version of Carnage first appeared in the Ultimate Spider-Man episode "Carnage" (2.08, March 2013). In the episode, Carnage begins as an "improved" version of the Venom symbiote, which Harry Osborn forcefully bonds to Peter Parker. Perhaps a coincidence or perhaps because Peter is Spider-Man, the symbiote takes on the spider-esque appearance you see above.

This Carnage appears in a cameo in Amazing Spider-Man #9 (October 2014), as seen below.

To read about the normal version of Ultimate Spider-Man appearing in Spider-Verse, visit this page.

Starfire's New Look! (Plus Some Info About Her Old Looks)

In June, DC Comics is going to re-organize their line, cancelling all but 24 books and launching 20 new books (plus four miniseries). The goal is diversity in genre, tone, style, character, and creator, and unlike The New 52, which also seemed to strive for diversity, I think they'll actually succeed this time.

One of the new series being released is Starfire, and they also released some promotional art for it:

From the looks of this art, I think it's a safe guess that this book will be targeting teen girls, who happened to grow up on the Teen Titans animated series, which premiered July 2003. In the show, Starfire looked like this:

It's not a 1:1 match, but the overall look is the same. They got rid of the collar, added sleeves, and changed the skirt to shorts, but it still has the silver accents and gauntlets (which are even the same shape), the thigh-high boots, the crop top, the straight hair, and perhaps most tellingly, the pupils in her eyes. 

For comparison, I've added her previous looks below. These first two are from The New Teen Titans (1980) and Titans (1999). They don't really look anything like the above photos except being purple:

These next two are from Teen Titans (August 2003) and Red Hood and the Outlaws (2011). As you can see, and as I've mentioned before on the Teen Titans Super Post*, Teen Titans took her back to her original costume but added her thigh-highs from the show and sort-of straightened her hair, and the New 52 version on the right is just a mess, but kept the thigh-highs and added the silver accents from the show.

*as I've repeated the entry with more complete information here, I'll be removing it from that page