Flashback Friday: HERBIE

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

This week: H.E.R.B.I.E.!

Back in the 60s, Marvel was kind of a big deal. So it made sense that they would start branching out into toys, tv shows, and movies. They made several cartoon versions of their comics, one of which was Fantastic Four (1967). But there was a problem. Marvel had licensed Human Torch to Universal to get a solo cartoon that never happened, which means that when it came time to make Fantastic Four, they couldn't use him. You can't have a team called "Fantastic Four" with only three characters, so they introduced HERBIE, a robot created by Reed Richards.

HERBIE makes his first appearance in the comics in Fantastic Four #209 (June 1979), which even explains that the Human Torch didn't appear in the cartoon because he wasn't in town to sign the contract. If you're not aware, a strange quirk of the Marvel Universe is that Marvel Comics exists within it and publishes comics about the heroes, to varying degrees of accuracy. This mainly shows up in Fantastic Four, because they have public identities and license their likenesses for merchandising, and She-Hulk, because she frequently breaks the fourth wall. So it stands to reason that, if the comics exist, the comics adaptations can exist as well.

He sacrificed himself a few issues later because he was possessed by Doctor Sun, but you can't keep a good robot down. He has continued to appear in comics in a variety of roles, usually either performing security functions in the Baxter Building or being a companion for Franklin Richards.

Probably the most notable later appearance is in 1998 when Reed Richards becomes HERBIE! See, in What If...? #105 (December 1997) and the MC2 Universe that that issue spawned, it's about twenty years in the future and the marvel heroes have mostly been replaced by the next generation. In this world, the Fantastic Four is now the Fantastic Five, comprising an adult Franklin Richards, The Thing, the Human Torch, Lyja the Skrull, and Reed Richards...who's now just a brain in a HERBIE body.

HERBIE's latest appearance is in the pages of Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, where it was revealed Reed first built to HERBIE to monitor for Galactus. No one can say for sure why a small robot from a 50-year-old one-season cartoon has managed to have the staying power that it has, but I think it's safe to say that cuteness goes a long way!

Appearance Spotlight: Doctor Doom

Let's talk about Secret Wars. Like Super Powers for DC, Secret Wars was one of Marvel's first action figure lines (1984) and they promoted it heavily. DC did so by rebranding Super Friends, while Marvel made one of the first Comic Book Events to capitalize on it.

But even with that being the case, the miniseries did not very well reflect the toy line. Characters often appeared in one but not the other, none of the vehicles or accessories made their way into the comics, etc. In fact, it sometimes seems like, at the time, the toy line only impacted the comics in one way. Read on to find out how!


When they were designing the first wave of Secret Wars toys, they felt that Doctor Doom looked too medieval. They may have been on to something.

I don't know why this was a problem, but they felt it was, so they gave him a more futuristic appearance, including a pretty-ahead-of-its-time thigh pouch belt.

This doesn't have anything to do with this article, but I'd like to point out that the Doctor Doom and Iron Man figures in this line share arms and legs.

Anyway, Doctor Doom was the main antagonist in the Secret Wars miniseries, but he had his classic look. That is, until his armor was destroyed in Secret Wars #10 (December 1984).

By #11 (January 1985), he had new armor that resembled his action figure (and a new face)

which you can see more clearly on the cover of #12 (February 1985).

Gadget Spotlight: Thing Rings

Back in the 60s and 70s, adapting comic books into cartoons was really popular, but actually staying true to those comics wasn't. And possibly the best example of this is the late 1979 cartoon "The Thing", one half of the cartoon series Fred and Barney Meet The Thing. In the cartoon, The Thing is a kid named Benjy Grimm who can turn into The Thing when he touches two magic rings together as he says, "Thing Ring, do your thing!" (The jury's still out on whether he needs to say it or if it's just an affectation.)

Someone - Matt Fraction, to be exact - finally found a way to incorporate those into the comics in FF #1 (January 2013) with the introduction of Darla Deering, aka Ms. Thing. Deering uses two decidedly not magical rings created by Reed Richards that release Thing-shaped unstable molecules when she touches them together. She too says "Thing rings, do your thing!" but it is definitely not necessary.

Marvel Characters Super Post!

Marvel isn't as crazy about canon immigrants as DC is.  This means that there are fewer of them, but it also means that the characters that do immigrate generally become popular and are used in the long-term.

Dazzler

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure that Dazzler should be featured here.  But I'm going to do it anyway for the sake of completeness, and also because the story's interesting.  In the mid-1970s, Casablanca Records (the people behind KISS, the Village People, Parliament, and others) approached Marvel Comics with a cross-promotion idea that would feature a comic book character, a real-life singer, and a movie.  The character was changed several times in preliminary stages - going through such names as the Disco Queen and the Disco Dazzler - before Casablanca backed out of the deal altogether.  However, Marvel had already been promoting the character for several months and she had already premiered as The Dazzler in Uncanny X-Men #130 (February 1980), so Marvel decided to go ahead with their plans and released Dazzler #1 in March 1981.

HERBIE

Firestar

Ms. Lion

Videoman

 

Videoman first appeared in the Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends episode of the same name (1981) as a creation of Electro, and then later as an actual supervillain (1982), and later still as a superhero (1983).  He made the jump to comics in  Spider-Man Family Featuring Amazing Friends #1 (October 2006).

Orange Hulk

 Orange Hulk first appeared as an unlockable character in the video game Marvel Vs. Capcom (1998).  He later appeared as a member of the Black Legion in Uncanny X-Force #12 (July 2011).

The Spike

 Spyke, aka Evan Daniels, first appeared in the X-Men: Evolution episode "Speed and The Spyke" (2000); he was a student at Xavier's school and Storm's nephew.  He later made the transition to comics in the form of The Spike, aka Daran Elliot, a new member of X-Force (X-Force #121, December 2001).

X-23

Reptil

The Next Avengers

 The Next Avengers first appeared in the direct-to-dvd movie Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow (2008).  They first appeared in comics in Avengers #1 (July 2010).

Whiplash (Anton Vanko)

 

This version of Whiplash was created for the movie Iron Man 2 (May 2010), where he is named Ivan Vanko, and is an amalgam of Whiplash and the first Crimson Dynamo (Anton Vanko).   The character was brought over to the mainstream Marvel Universe in the Iron Man vs. Whiplash miniseries (December 2009-March 2010) in anticipation of the film's release, and because the movie character was dissimilar to any other version of Whiplash in the comics. You can see on the right that he even resembles Mickey Rourke.  He has made several appearances since then, but sharing a name with Crimson Dynamo seems to be a coincidence in-universe.