Character Spotlight: Dr. Wu

This is an interesting one.

This is Dr. Wu. He appeared in Iron Man 3 (2013):

What's that? You don't remember him? That's because he only showed up in the Bern conference scene at the beginning and in the surgery scene at the end (where his face was covered)...for most audiences. In China, he had several other scenes. Several pro-China scenes specifically, that seem to have been requested by whatever Chinese production studio co-funded the movie.

Yet, somehow this character made the jump to comics anyway...in Amazing Spider-Man volume 4 #1 (October 2015), of all places. And he's a recurring character, the head of Parker Industries's bio-tech division.

And you're probably thinking what I did: the name's just a coincidence, right? But no:

Item Spotlight: Loki's Scepter

This is Loki's scepter. You know all about it.

But in case you don't, it first appeared in The Avengers (2012), as a weapon given to him by Thanos to help him invade Earth. In Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), we learn that it houses the Mind Stone inside its bauble.

It made its way into the comics in Loki: Agent of Asgard #16 (July 2015), although this one is just a modified version of Freyja's staff created by King Loki. (This particular image is from issue 17.)

I know they don't look exactly the same, but I think it's pretty clear the inspiration is there. Oh hey! I just realized kid Loki's jacket has the same weird half-zipper lapels that his movie outfits have. I'm not going to make a separate entry for that, but it's noted.

Appearance Spotlight: Ice

When Ice first appeared in Justice League International #12 (February 1988), she had a very skimpy costume that looked like this:

Technically, this costume first appeared earlier on Icemaiden of the Global Guardians, but there are some out-of-universe, continuity-finagling shenanigans at play there that aren't germane to this article. Her Wikipedia page goes into detail, if you're curious, however.

Anyway, she eventually changed her costume to the VERY 80s one seen here, which debuted in 1989 (I can't find a specific issue) and became her iconic one. She had a few others here and there, but this is the one she'd always return to.

In 2004, Ice made the first of many Justice League Unlimited appearances in the series premiere (July), and her costume design split the difference. It was mainly her classic one, but with a keyhole and bare arms to suggest the sexiness of the first one.

She would stick with her classic one in the comics whenever she appeared...that is, until Justice League: Generation Lost #18 (January 2011), where this costume showed up. As you can see, it's essentially her JLU one but with a filled-in keyhole and the stripes' colors inverted.

She kept that costume for a while in the New 52, which was a smart move. It's a good one.

Appearance Spotlight: Katana (post-Rebirth)

This is another short one.

Here's what Katana looked like in the New 52:

In Suicide Squad (August 2016), she looks like this:

And in Suicide Squad: Deadshot and Katana #4 (April 2016), she changed her outfit from her New 52 look to this:

Now I know what you may be thinking: those dates don't line up. But when you consider how long Suicide Squad was in production, and that they first released pictures of the characters in May 2015, it makes more sense