Character Spotlight: Richard Sionis

As I mentioned last week, I love when researching a canon immigrant helps me find another one. And just like last week, I found this one while reading up on Gotham's Bridgit Pike.

Richard Sionis is another of Gotham's many characters where it's hard to tell if they're supposed to be a prototype for a more established character or simply a loosely adapted version of an established character. The established character in question is Roman Sionis, aka Black Mask, a businessman/gang leader who wears a black skull mask when he does crime.

Richard Sionis, who first appeared in the season one episode "The Mask" (November 2014), is a businessman who liked masks and inadvertently caused some deaths through a strange ritual where he would make new hires to his company fight each other. Although the deaths weren't intentional, Sionis didn't seem to concerned about them and covered them up. When Detective Gordon came to his business to investigate, Sionis tried to get some of his employees to kill him, and when that didn't work, he donned a black kabuki mask and tried to kill Gordon himself. He eventually ended up in Arkham Asylum for his trouble.

A couple years later, Richard Sionis appeared in Catwoman #51 (April 2016) as the father of Black Mask and the founder of the False Face Society, a role that previously belonged to Black Mask. He went by "The Mask", just like the name of the episode, and as you can see, he also favored Japanese masks.

What's strange about this is that Black Mask already had a father in the comics - Charles Sionis. They could've just made Richard his uncle or something, but DC has never been accused of caring too much about continuity, especially in the last couple of years.

Flashback Friday: Firestar

Each Friday, I take one of the entries from my old Super Posts and expand it into its own featured article.

This week: Firestar!

Comic book adaptations in the past were much more willing to create original characters than they are today. If you take a look at a show like Young Justice, it has an enormous cast but all of them  - perhaps with one or two exceptions - are characters from the comics, even if they're very minor ones that only made a couple of appearances. Compare that to something like Batman: The Animated Series, where it seems like half the characters are original to the show. It's that mindset that gave us Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, a show where 1/3 of the main characters was somebody kids had never seen before.

There are many rumors about Firestar's appearance on the show. One is that she was originally meant to be the Human Torch, which makes sense because Spider-Man often hangs out with the Human Torch (and Iceman to a lesser extent) in the comics. There are a few reasons why people say the change happened, but the fact is that the Human Torch's rights were tied up in a solo animated series that never got made, so he would've never been considered for this show. The most likely explanation is that they knew they couldn't use him so created someone similar to him, and then decided that since they were creating an original character anyway, they may as well diversify and make her female.

Similarly, there's a popular rumor that her secret identity was originally going to be Mary Jane Watson instead of Angelica Jones. Other than the two characters having similar looks, this rumor has no grounding. Regardless, she first appeared in the first episode of the show ("Triumph of the Green Goblin", September 1981), and we eventually learn that she is a former member of the X-Men and one of their earliest recruits.

Her first comics appearance was in the tie-in Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends #1 (October 1981), an adaptation of the first episode...

...but her first appearance that counts was a few years later in Uncanny X-Men #193 (March 1985), although surprisingly not as an X-Man or even a potential X-Men recruit. Instead, she was part of the Hellions, a team of rivals to the New Mutants led by Emma Frost.

Her next appearance was the following year (January 1986), when she received a mini-series called Firestar that told how she ended up at the Massachusetts Academy and joined the Hellions, then left and became a solo hero. Notably, she was kept in the dark about their true intentions, so she didn't realize they were bad guys.

Since then, she's had a steady career as a B-list superhero. She was a main member of the New Warriors...

...and the Avengers...

...and the Young Allies...

...and finally the X-Men.

She also appeared in Spider-Man Family: Amazing Friends #1 (August 2006), a one-shot to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the show, in which she, Spider-Man, and Iceman team up for a story.

They also teamed up in Amazing X-Men #7 (May 2014) and Iceman #3 (November 2018).

I'll finish up by talking about a strange quirk of Firestar: no one really knows who owns the rights to her!

As you might know, in the 90s Marvel sold off the rights to nearly all of its characters to various production companies, but for the past ten years or so, there have only been three groups worth talking about: Fox, which owns X-Men and Fantastic Four; Sony, which owns Spider-Man; and Disney, which owns everything else.

So does Firestar fall within the X-Men rights because she's a mutant who's been a Hellion and an X-Man? Or does she fall within the everything else rights because she is mainly known as an Avenger and New Warrior? But maybe she falls under the Spider-Man rights because she was created for a Spider-Man show and was a Spider-Man supporting character in Ultimate Marvel. If any of these companies know, they're not saying. But I'm pretty sure nobody really knows and that's why nobody's used her in adaptations in any substantial way. Luckily, it soon won't matter now that Disney is buying Fox and has a deal to use Spider-Man characters in the MCU, but it's interesting to think about nonetheless.

Appearance Spotlight: Firefly

As I was doing research into my post about Firefly, I discovered information for this entry. I love it when that happens! It'll be a short one today, but one I'm fond of.

Firefly is a Batman villain with a long history. Long histories usually come up with a few change-ups in appearance, and Firefly is no different. Here he is in his debut in Detective Comics #184 (April 1952):

While later he looked like this:

In the 90s, he got an outfit more befitting a professional arsonist:

And The New Batman Adventures took inspiration from that, while giving him a buggy mask:

But The Batman took the insect theme to the next level. In fact, the Firefly of this series, who premiered in the episode "The Big Heat" (November 2004), could be mistaken for being bee/wasp/hornet-themed if you don't see his bulbish jetpack.

This costume, as striking as it is, never really caught on in the comics. And until today, I thought it never appeared at all, but that's not the case. It was used in Superman/Batman Annual #3 (January 2009).

To my knowledge, it was never used after this, but who knows if that's really true. I've always liked this version of Firefly, so I'm glad it got used in the comics, even briefly.

Flashback Friday: The Wonder Twins

Each Friday, I take one of the entries from my old Super Posts and expand it into its own featured article.

This week: the Wonder Twins!

Super Friends holds a very interesting place in DC Comics fandom. On one hand, it represents almost every comic book stereotype that the industry has fought for decades to avoid - simple, disconnected, sometimes preachy, and often nonsensical stories, told with flat characters and bad art, made only for children. The show is near-singlehandedly responsible for Aquaman's poor reputation, which he has only started to shake in the past few years (thanks, Jason Momoa!) On the other hand, it's also an iconic piece of fiction that nearly everybody watched growing up - for many, being the introduction to this world and these characters - so it's a touchstone that everyone can understand, and creators seemingly can't resist making reference to it when they get the chance.

I think this dilemma goes a long way to explain the odd contortions so many Super Friends characters go through when they finally make it onto the page. Sometimes they'll come in unscathed, like El Dorado, but more often than not, you'll get things like Wonder Dog, the man-eating demon, or Manitou Raven, what Apache Chief would be if he dressed like a voodoo priest. The Wonder Twins are somewhere in the middle.

The Wonder Twins first appeared in the first episode of The All-New Super Friends Hour (segment: "Joy Ride" (1977)).  They were a replacement for Wendy and Marvin, and an improvement; although they still provided the young characters for kids to relate to, they were also superheroes in their own right and could join in on the action.

As an aside, I want to talk about their powers for a second. They are often given as examples of characters with lame powers, but let's examine that. Zan can turn into any form of water. That's usually depicted - especially in parodies - as "a bucket of water" or "an ice slick", but that's also things like any form (and any amount!) of precipitation and ice in any shape. He could also theoretically turn into multiple forms of water at once, meaning he could scald you and freeze you at the same time. Here's Zan as an ice unicycle - if he can turn into complex machinery, he can turn into anything. It's loophole abuse of the highest caliber, but it still counts.

Jayna's EVEN MORE powerful. She can turn into any animal. Any. Animal. Real or mythological, native to Earth or alien, she can do it all. She can turn into a Kryptonian and suddenly have Superman's powers. That's canon.  (Pictured is a Kryptonian animal, but considering she turns into a human in her secret identity, nothing's stopping her from also turning into a Kryptonian person. Regardless, Kryptonian animals have Superman's powers too.)

I'll get off my soapbox now. Anyway, while appearing on the show, they also made appearances in the Super Friends tie-in comic book series, beginning in issue 7 (August 1977). There's some debate over whether Super Friends is part of continuity or not; usually tie-in comics are not, and it's published specifically as a "DC TV Comic". On the other hand, comics of the time were generally written so that they and Super Friends did not contradict each other. If that's the case, this article can pretty much end here.

If it's not the case, though, then they first turned up in comics for real in Extreme Justice #9 (August 1995). To support my earlier point, in this issue the Wonder Twins were the antagonists and the team had to stop them from destroying a town. It was probably a misunderstanding related to them being runaway slaves owned by an alien overlord. The team later emancipates them and they join in issue 16 (March 1996), although they also made a few appearances in between. In addition to their more serious backstory, they're also given more serious outfits - at least from a 1990s point of view.

They faded into obscurity after that series was cancelled, but later appeared in Young Justice #49-52 (September - December 2002) as part of a storyline that included nearly every teenage superhero active at the time. I note this because it gives them new costumes that appear closer to their animated versions, and confirms they are from Exor, just like in the cartoon.

They continued to show up here and there, including on Smallville, of all places...

...but the next important thing to note is their post-Rebirth SERIES that debuts next month (February 2019)! In the closest they've been to their original versions, the series will follow them as they navigate school and Earth life under the tutelage of Superman, while also working at the Hall of Justice.

Finally, I forgot to mention the brief detour they took on Justice League Unlimited as Downpour and Shifter, but you can read more about that here.

Name Spotlight: Harriet Cooper

Many people believe that Aunt Harriet is a creation of the Batman (1966) tv show. It's not true, but it's not surprising. After all, with only around 25 appearances until recently, and with most of those appearances being from an era that isn't often collected in trades, television is the only place fans have seen her.

Before I go further, I should probably explain who she is. Harriet is Dick Grayson's aunt, who came to live at Wayne Manor after Alfred died. This occurred in the last couple pages of Detective Comics #328 (April 1964). At this point, you may have the same concern I always have: if Dick has a living aunt that knows where he is, why is he living with Bruce? To my knowledge, this is never explained. This came up a lot in the Pre-Crisis world - basically, there's no reason for Bruce and Dick to grow up the way they did because they have family members coming out of the woodwork all the time.

So now we get to the point of the post: although the character herself was not a creation of the show, her name is! See, in her first appearance - and for most of her appearances afterward - she was simply "Aunt Harriet". Maybe the presumption was that her last name was Grayson, who knows. But the show gave her the last name "Cooper".

It's not a change that happened right away, but in Detective Comics #373 (January 1968), the comics address her by her full name for the first time, and we see that her last name is, in fact, Cooper. This particular issue also changed Mr. Zero's name to Mr. Freeze, so it's clear they had the show on their mind.

Flashback Friday: Mr. Freeze

Each Friday, I take one of the entries from my old Super Posts and expand it into its own featured article.

This week: Mr. Freeze!

Mr. Freeze is an interesting case because he's not a canon immigrant...but pretty much everything about him is.

Mr. Freeze first appeared in Batman #121 (December 1958) as "Mr. Zero", a villain who spilled cryogenic chemicals on himself as he was creating an ice gun, causing him to only be able to survive in subzero temperatures. At the end of the story, Mr. Zero is cured of his condition and he's never seen again...or was he?

Almost ten years later, Batman got a hit tv show you may have heard of. At the time, Batman didn't have the robust rogues' gallery he's known for today, so the show mainly used a mixture of new characters and villains with only one or two appearances - with the exception of Joker, Catwoman, and Penguin, that's pretty much all there were. In fact, many characters - such as the Riddler - started to be seen as major Batman antagonists because they were featured on the show. This was the case with Mr. Zero...or should I say "Mr. Freeze".

Mr. Freeze first appeared in the Batman episodes "Instant Freeze/Rats Like Cheese" (1966), an adaptation of his comics appearance. In addition to the new name, he had a new outfit that emphasized his iciness. Mr. Freeze would go on to appear in two more two-parters, played by a different actor each time.

Since he now had a rising star thanks to the tv series, he appeared in comics again in Detective Comics #373 (January 1968), this time using the Mr. Freeze name. Surprisingly, they didn't use a more show-accurate costume for him.

He continued to show up here and there, and in 1986, received a costume based on a recent DC Super Powers action figure. You can read about that in more detail here.

TV would update the character again when the Batman: The Animated Series episode "Heart of Ice" (1992) updated his origin.  He now had a name - Victor Fries - and his condition was still caused by exposure to cryogenic chemicals, but this time he felt into a vat of them during a fight with his boss, Ferris Boyle, over the misuse of company resources to keep his wife Nora in cryostasis.  This was brought over to the comics in Batman: Mr. Freeze (1997), understandably written by Paul Dini, and was even used in the movie Batman and Robin (1997).

In fact, Batman: Mr. Freeze also introduced his animated appearance as well, and the trademark goggles later returned in The New 52. Conveniently, this one page includes all the changes I mentioned.

But the canon immigration doesn't end there. The New Batman Adventures episode "Cold Comfort" (1997) had Mr. Freeze surviving as just a head on a robotic spider body, and in DC's Flashpoint altered reality, he existed essentially the same way, as seen in Flashpoint: Citizen Cold #1 (August 2011), although with a design that more closely resembled his Animated Series depiction rather than New Batman Adventures.

But his New Batman Adventures design DID appear in Batman Beyond 2.0 #16 (March 2014)! Batman Beyond 2.0 takes place in the future of Earth-12, one of the 52 Earths, based on the DC Animated Universe.

All of these changes survived the New 52, with one minor exception: Nora. She still exists in the New 52 as well, but her story isn't quite the same. I'll talk more about that in a future Flashback Friday!

Character Spotlight: Firefly (Bridgit Pike)

Gotham. What can I say about Gotham? If you've never seen the show, it's meant to be a Smallville-esque look at Bruce Wayne before he became Batman, but it plays so fast and loose with the continuity that it's essentially an alternate reality where Batman is a kid. Smallville kind of did the same thing, but it at least took a few years before familiar characters started popping up regularly. Gotham started that early and never let up. Sometimes they play it up as a proto-version of a more familiar character, but most of the time, it's just the character as we know them (although often with some strange interpretation that doesn't make them quite like we know them). And I'm not sure which of these Firefly falls under.

In the comics, Firefly is Garfield Lynns, a pyrotechnic expert who becomes a professional arsonist. He first appeared in Detective Comics #184 (April 1952). It should be noted that, Pre-Crisis, Firefly's gimmick was light-based. It didn't become fire-based until the 90s. 

In Gotham, Firefly is Bridgit Pike, a member of a poor family of criminals who was burned on a job they forced her to go on. After that, she made a fireproof suit and struck out on her own, using fire as her signature. She died in her first episode ("Scarification", October 2015), but was later revived by Hugo Strange at Indian Hill, where she teamed up with other villains to take over Gotham.

Bridgit Pike was introduced into the comics as Lady Firefly in Detective Comics #988 (September 2018)., where she is a protege of Ted Carson, the second Firefly. In this issue, she's hired to kill Batman. 

With Gotham ending soon, it'll be interesting to see if she has staying power, or if she'll quietly disappear once that show is off the air.