Flashback Friday: Mercy Graves

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

This week: Mercy Graves!

Mercy Graves first appeared in Superman: The Animated Series (Episode: "A Little Piece of Home", 1996) as Lex Luthor's valet/bodyguard. She appeared in the series often as she was basically the only person Lex trusted. In Justice League (2000), she becomes CEO of LexCorp while he's in prison. Their relationship sours over the course of the show and they eventually part ways, but she is seen working for him again in Justice League Unlimited.

Her first comics appearance ever was tie-in series Superman Adventures #1 (September 1996)...

...but her first in-continuity appearance wasn't for a few more years. Surprisingly, she didn't debut in a Superman book, but instead in Detective Comics #735 (June 1999) during the "No Man's Land" crossover event.

She was first identified by name in a character profile in Batman No Man's Land Secret Files and Origins #1 (October 1999), but in-story, it was Detective Comics #740 (November 1999). She also - as far as I know - wears her chauffeur's uniform for the first time in this story.

In the decade between her first appearance and the New 52, Mercy was allowed to grow beyond her animated origins, mainly by giving her new origins. In President Luthor Secret Files and Origins #1 (January 2001), she and fellow Luthor bodyguard Hope were implied by Circe to be Amazons. Prometheus confirmed this in Justice League: Cry for Justice #6 (January 2010).

Before I get into her New 52 version, let's talk about her adaptation appearances a bit. The most notable is probably Smallville's Tess Mercer, who's technically an original character, but who's actually a combination of Mercy Graves, Eve Teschmacher, and - spoiler alert - Lena Luthor.

She's also appeared in Young Justice, DC Universe Online, and Superman: Doomsday. More interesting is the version of her that appears in The Batman episode "The Batman/Superman Story" (2007), as they decided to make her Asian.

Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) followed suit, although I'm pretty sure they didn't take inspiration from The Batman. This version seems to be more of an assistant than a bodyguard.

In the New 52, Mercy is likewise Asian and definitely Lex's assistant. She first appeared in Justice League #31 (June 2014) and most certainly inspired the film version.

Now, was this version inspired by The Batman? I can't say, but I can't rule it out.

Character Spotlight: Luis

I feel a little uneasy about this one, but I think there's enough evidence for it to count. (And, if we're being honest, I have a gap to fill and I'll take what I can get.)

2015's Ant-Man was a surprise hit for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Although all their movies do well, people weren't expecting much from this one, and on top of that, there was a lot of controversy surrounding the movie thanks to Edgar Wright's departure.

I'm going to get on my soapbox for a second to say that I'm completely on Marvel's side for this one. I respect his decision to leave if he was being asked to make changes to his script he didn't want to make, but also...come on, dude. He knew what he was getting into when he signed up for it back in 2006. And if he didn't then, he certainly knew by the time they started production if he had paid attention to the 11 other movies (and multiple shows) made in the meantime. Marvel allowed him to delay Ant-Man until he was ready to make it - almost ten years, if you're keeping track - and agreed to his request to cut all references to the Ant-Man franchise until the movie was released, yet he still couldn't bring himself to play ball. But that's ok; by all accounts, we received a better movie for it.

Anyway, one of the most breakout parts of the movie was Luis, Scott Lang's cellmate/friend/literal partner-in-crime. Played by Michael Pena, he elevated the fun energy of a movie that already had quite a bit of it, and his storytelling became a trademark that people still talk about today.

Thanks to the movie, Ant-Man received a new comic called The Astonishing Ant-Man, which premiered in October 2015 (three months after the movie came out). The series finds Scott back in prison, with the first arc an extended flashback to how he got there. And his cellmate, true to form, is Luis.

Here's the thing, though: he's never called Luis. He never speaks so I don't know his personality. In fact, I can't even tell you if the person I've pictured is, in fact, Scott's cellmate because his face is never shown when they're in the cell. But this character, who looks a lot like Luis, is seen near Scott twice.

Normally, that wouldn't be enough for me. Even if the internet has decided this is Luis, I usually need some hard proof. If not actual in-comic evidence, then a quote from the writer or something. However, taking the rest of the book into account, I'm willing to go ahead with this one. After all, the series is meant to benefit from the heat of the movie. It uses the movie's logo. It puts Scott back in prison (just like the movie), has Cross Technologies as the villain (just like the movie), and focuses on Scott's relationship with Cassie (just like the movie). So I think it's safe to say that, just like the movie, Scott's cellmate is Luis.

Flashback Friday: Spidey's "Spider-Man Unlimited" Costume

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

This week: Spider-Man's Spider-Man Unlimited Costume!

In 1999, Fox Kids released an animated series called Spider-Man Unlimited, that had the strange premise of sending Spider-Man to Counter-Earth - a planet in the same orbit as Earth on the opposite side of the Sun created by the High Evolutionary, obvi - along with Venom and Carnage, and giving him a new, hi-tech suit. Partly this was to cash in on the success of the recent hit Batman Beyond, but it was also because a little movie you may have heard of called Spider-Man was in production, meaning Fox Kids and Saban Entertainment had to somehow make a Spider-Man cartoon without access to any of the classic parts of the Spider-Man franchise, including his costume. Which, as I'm sure you know, looks like this.

But in Spider-Man Unlimited, he looks like this.

Spider-Man Unlimited premiered in October 1999. The following month, Webspinners: Tales of Spider-Man #13 (November 1999) was released with the following cover:

In the story itself, you discover that Spider-Man receives visions of characters from the Spider-Man Unlimited world, and then enters the Negative Zone, where his suit changes - for absolutely no reason - into the Unlimited costume. It's back to normal by the end of the next issue. As you can see from the footnote, this was just a way to promote the show and the tie-in series that was debuting the same month this issue came out.

Later, during Spider-Verse, we'd see this costume again. The Spider-Verse creators considered Spider-Man Unlimited and Spider-Man: The Animated Series to be the same reality, although that was not the show's intentions.

Character Spotlight: Ding-A-Ling Family

Shout-out to Thomas Parks for suggesting this one!

Last week we featured a character who originated in an ad, and this week we have some other ones. If you're not aware, in the 60s and 70s, it was common for ads to feature comic book and comic strip characters and be done in the same style as the real stories featuring those characters. Although the ads were often made by the real comics creators - because ads had a higher pay rate - they were designed by the ad teams who often put no thought into the world these stories are taking place in, meaning they often used original villains. This phenomenon is no stranger to this blog.

These particular characters are the Ding-A-Ling Family, and they appeared in a Hostess Fruit Pies ad from 1977 that featured Thor.

Why not a Ding Dong ad, you may ask? Those kinds of questions are beyond the scope of this blog, but I'm wondering right along with you.

At any rate, they briefly appeared in Silver Surfer #7 (November 2014) in a flashback where they had abducted the Silver Surfer's companion, Dawn, and they even have Fruit Pies!

The book doesn't explain how the hillbillies got out into space, but I guess the original ad doesn't either. Silver Surfer was a great book where anything could happen, and this is just one small example of that!

Flashback Friday: Lionel Luthor

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

This week: Lionel Luthor!

But before we get into Lionel Luthor, I should note that Lex Luthor's father does have a history in comics. So we should go over that first in order to better understand how depictions of Lionel Luthor differ.

Jules Thorul only made two appearances: one in Superman's Girlfriend, Lois Lane #23 (December 1960) and one in Superman #292 (August 1975). The story is that the Luthors were a comfortably middle class family in Smallville who disowned Lex when he turned to crime, then changed their names to "Thorul" just to complete the picture.

Fast forward to 2001, Lionel Luthor first appeared in the Smallville pilot. Lionel served two roles on the show: one, he filled the classic Lex Luthor role as the evil businessman, and two, he provided a contrast in parenting styles to the Kents. He was upgraded to the main cast in season 2, and stayed on more or less until the end, even transitioning over time into one of Clark's allies (in a storyline that never felt completely believable).

In 2004, DC released a re-telling of Superman's origin called Superman: Birthright. When first released, it was unclear whether it was a standalone story or if it were meant to replace Man of Steel as his official origin, although that is what eventually happened regardless. One of the changes it made, no doubt inspired by Smallville, was restoring Lex Luthor's past as growing up in Smallville and knowing Clark. In issue #8 (March 2004), we meet Lex's dad. He goes unnamed here, but his appearance is certainly inspired by John Glover and he appears to be wealthy, although we don't learn anything more about him than that.

The year after that, Teen Titans revealed that the human half of Superboy's DNA came, not from Cadmus director Paul Westfield like was once thought, but from Lex Luthor himself. In Teen Titans #26 (July 2005), we learn Lex was going to name Superboy "Lionel" after his father.

In Countdown #34 (July 2007), we get a short history of Lex Luthor. His background in Smallville is for real for real restored, and his father is once again a businessman with a passing resemblance to John Glover. He goes unnamed, but since Teen Titans previously established Lex's father's name is Lionel, we can assume it is here.

Here's where things get a little wonky. In Adventure Comics #6 (January 2010), we meet Lex's sister, Lena, and learn a little bit about their past. Here's the thing...suddenly he's not a wealthy businessman anymore. He's also not called Lionel here (although we can assume that's still his name). The Luthors are, at best, on the lower end of middle class. Since this issue was written by Geoff Johns, I'm sure it matches Superman: Secret Origin (2009), another re-telling of Superman's origin...and the most pointless, if I do say so myself.

It's pointless for several reasons. One, Birthright was only about five years old at this point. Two, it was mostly just a remix of previous origins. A little from Birthright, a little from Smallville, a little from Man of Steel, a little from various other things, and a LOT from Superman: The Movie. But mostly it was pointless because, only two years later, DC decided to reboot the whole universe. That gave us Flashpoint, and in the Flashpoint alternate reality, Lionel is at his most Smallville-esque. He debuts in Flashpoint: Project Superman #2 (July 2011).

After Flashpoint came the New 52, then DC Rebirth, and it seems like DC can't decide whether they want Lionel to be poor or wealthy, because Superwoman #6 (January 2017) fits what was pictured in Adventure Comics...

...but in Action Comics Special #1 (May 2018), he's a businessman again.

Then, Justice League #17 (February 2019) throws another wrench into the whole thing. Now, not only was Lionel a wealthy businessman, he was also studying aliens.

And Justice League #18 (March 2019) goes even farther to show him as a super-scientist who worked with Vandal Savage to harness the hidden power sources of the DC Universe, including the Still Force, the Ultraviolet part of the Emotional Spectrum, and the Tear of Extinction. I have no idea where they're going with this.

Surprisingly, this is all kind of still in line with Smallville's version of Lionel. See, beyond the "meteor rock" experiements LuthorCorp did, season seven revealed that Lionel Luthor was a member of a secret society called Veritas, which was interested in both alien life and strange artifacts on Earth, such as the Stones of Power and the Kawatche Caves. So while the comics take it quite a bit farther, it's not entirely out of left field.

One final note: Lex Luthor's father appears or is mentioned in many adaptations, but usually doesn't get named. He is, however, named Lionel when he appeared in Supergirl (2017).

Team Spotlight: Earth Protection Force

I haven't had a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles post in a while, and the reason for that is that my main source for them, TMNT Entity, is no longer active. So while I used to be able to count on it to regularly update about the new issues and all the intricate continuity and connections to other Ninja Turtles media, I don't have that anymore.

I was able to find this one on my own, but most canon immigrants aren't major enough to make it into story synopses. If you ever see one in the IDW TMNT series that I haven't featured yet, be sure to let me know!

Anyway, the Earth Protection Force originated in the 2003 animated series. They were a black ops unit created by President Ulysses S. Grant and led by Agent John Bishop, with the goal of protecting Earth from alien invaders. I can't find a specific first appearance for them, but Bishop first appears in "Space Invaders, part 2" (October 2004), so I'm going to assume the organization does as well.

They later appeared in the 2012 animated series in "The Invasion, Part 2" (September 2014), almost exactly ten years later. Bishop is still a member, and presumably they have the same role in this continuity, although on this show they fight a Kraang invasion, while in the 2003 show, they fight a Triceraton invasion.

Bishop has been appearing in the comics for a while now, so it makes sense the Earth Protection Force would come along at some point too. In fact, it didn't take that long: he first appeared in January 2016, and their first appearance was in August 2016 in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Universe #1, an anthology series.

Flashback Friday: Wendy, Marvin, and Wonder Dog

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

This week: Wendy, Marvin, and Wonder Dog!

For a long time, writers decided that children couldn't relate to superheroes. They needed an audience surrogate - a child - as a way in. I've never understood this, but it was the going theory for a long time, and it's one of the reasons kid sidekicks were so ubiquitous (the other being that it gave someone for the superhero to explain things to).

With that in mind, when Hanna-Barbera created Super Friends in 1973, they added two groupies of the Super Friends: Wendy and Marvin. Wendy and Marvin wanted to be superheroes but had no superpowers. They did, however, have a dog they called Wonder Dog. He didn't have any powers, either. They first appeared in the Super Friends episode "The Power Pirate" (1973).

The trio made their comics debut in The Super Friends #1 (September 1976), a tie-in to the cartoon, though as I've discussed previously, the "DC TV" comics - as they were called - were written in a way that not only didn't contradict mainstream comics continuity, but often used elements of that continuity to kind of blur the lines of which continuity these books fit into. The Super Friends was no different, and established that Wendy and Marvin hang out with the Super Friends because they're related to people the superheroes know. Wendy, now Wendy Harris, is the niece of Harvey Harris, one of the people that trained Batman when he was young. And Marvin, aka Marvin White, is the son of Diana Prince, the nurse whose identity Wonder Woman took when she came to Man's World.

Wendy later made a cameo of sorts in Wonder Woman #186 (October 2002) as an Amazonian who's tutoring Circe's daughter, Lyta. Although the character isn't named, she looks just like Wendy.

Wendy and Marvin first appeared in comics (Teen Titans #34, March 2006) as Wendy and Marvin Kuttler, twins that are tenth-level geniuses, the caretakers of Titans Tower, and secretly the children of the Calculator. They were later joined by Wonder Dog in Teen Titans #62 (August 2008), who turned out to be a demonic monster. The less said about that, the better.

 

Unfortunately, I have to keep talking about him because he killed Marvin and paralyzed Wendy. The Calculator tried to restore Wendy's legs in a miniseries called Oracle: The Cure, which I hear was originally meant to restore Barbara Gordon's legs so she could become Batgirl again, then Wendy would take her place as Oracle. That didn't happen, but Wendy did eventually become an Oracle-esque character named Proxy that worked with Oracle and Batgirl (Stephanie Brown) in Stephanie's Batgirl series.

That was the last time we saw either character (Marvin appeared in one issue as a ghost or hallucination), but they have both appeared in the series Young Justice as classmates of some of the characters.

They're not bad characters. There is certainly a spot in comic books for hero-adjacent characters without superpowers. The right writer just needs to come along to find something good to do with them. And one of the benefits of DC's whole New 52/Rebirth shenanigans is that they can be re-introduced without having to worry about some of the stories they've been a part of.

Character Spotlight: Mel O. Dee

A character who's been around as long as Dick Tracy is bound to have some canon immigrants, so I don't know why it took me this long to learn about them. But I found a few that we'll talk about over the next several weeks.

This week: Mel O. Dee!

Mel O. Dee first appeared in the film Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome (1947), which may sound familiar to you if you regularly follow this blog, only his name was Melody. Melody was a former criminal turned pianist at a club called The Hangman's Knot, who's pulled back into a life of crime to be Gruesome's getaway driver.

When he appeared in the strip for October 27, 2014, his name was changed to Mel O. Dee. I'm not sure if that is to give him a more masculine first name or if it's because he's not a musician anymore, but either way, Mel remains a former associate of Gruesome's, only now he's a fellow actor and they perform in Arsenic and Old Lace together.

To learn about the significance of Arsenic and Old Lace, visit Gruesome's entry!

Flashback Friday: Renee Montoya

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

This week: Renee Montoya!

Renee Montoya is an interesting case.  She was created by the writing staff of Batman: The Animated Series to add diversity to the series, and first appeared in the episode "Pretty Poison" (September 1992).  However, she first appeared in comics in March 1992 in Batman #475.  This is due to production delays on the animated series.

Since her introduction, Montoya has become a very popular character. In 2002, she was the lead in the series Gotham Central, and during 52, she took over the role of The Question, and then shortly after that, received a back-up feature in the pages of Batwoman.

She was initially absent (essentially) from the New 52, appearing in one panel of Batwoman #1 (September 2011) and then again in one panel of Batwoman #0 (September 2012).

The implication was that she had died, but in Detective Comics #41 (), she is re-assigned as Harvey Bullock's partner and we learn that she has just been living in Bludhaven this whole time.

Surprisingly, she has not appeared in many adaptations. Beyond various entries in the DC Animated Universe, she has appeared on Gotham...

...as The Question in DC Universe Online...

...in Batman: The Telltale Series...

...and she'll be played by Rosie Perez in the (presumably upcoming, though you can never tell with DC movies) movie Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn).

And that's it. But despite the lack of adaptations, she has managed to make herself an indelible part of the Batman world.