Flashback Friday: Mystique's Movie Design

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

This week: Mystique's movie design!

It can't be understated how big the first X-Men movie was in 2000. Avengers: Endgame becoming the top-grossing movie of all time can be traced directly back to the success of this movie. It was certainly the most important Marvel adaptation at the time, and Marvel - generally not one to have major canon immigrants at the time - bent over backwards to make the comics better reflect the movies.

As I'm sure you know, X-Men was much different from the comics of the time. The team was smaller and wore black leather. Xavier's was an actual school. The Brotherhood was made of some of the team's biggest villains (and Toad), and nearly all of them had a less human appearance than normal. The changes go on and on. Mystique in particular was naked with small spikes all over her skin. The rationale for her nakedness was that, if she morphed clothes, she'd be naked regardless (although let's be honest: they just wanted Rebecca Romijn to be naked); the textured skin was never explained.

But that's not how Mystique appeared in the comics. From her first appearance in Ms. Marvel #18 (April 1978), she's had more or less the same iconic look.

In 2001, Marvel started publishing a miniseries called X-Men Forever, ostensibly to build on the success of Avengers Forever. Like that series, this one would travel through the X-Men's history, but that's where the similarities end. While Avengers Forever's ultimate goal was to explain away some continuity bugs, the goal of X-Men Forever was simply to make the X-Men more like the comics. And that is how, in issue 6 (April 2001), Mystique came to look like this:

To say the change didn't last would be putting it lightly. It might as well have not happened at all. Her next published appearance that wasn't a flashback or morphed was a year later in Uncanny X-Men #404 (April 2002). She looks normal.

In fact, the only other appearance I can find of Mystique's movie form is in X-Treme X-Men #32 (October 2003), when a mutant named Revenant make Rogue think she's turning into Mystique.

And that's not even really Mystique. But that's for the best, because it's not a great design. I think the movies have realized that too, because over time, her skin has gotten smoother and smoother and she's started wearing clothes even when unmorphed.

Flashback Friday: X-23

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

This week: X-23!

Marvel doesn't have the culture of canon immigrants that DC does. If I had to speculate why, I'd guess it's because Marvel has had fewer adaptations and the adaptations they have had are generally made by them, so they're more likely to use characters from the comics (especially after Toy Biz bought them, so they could make toys out of as many comic book characters as possible).

X-23 was perhaps the first Marvel canon foreigner I knew of. She debuted in an episode of X-Men: Evolution called "X-23" (August 2003). As X-Men : Evolution re-interpreted the X-Men as high school students, but kept some of them like Wolverine and Storm adults to be teachers at Xavier's school, the creators wanted to have a version of Wolverine that could connect more to the teens. But they also wanted to keep her interesting by making her the complete opposite of Wolverine - instead of an old man with no memories, she was a teenage girl who remembers all too well the things she's done and she's trying to escape them.

She made the jump to comics VERY quickly, appearing in NYX #3 (December 2003). Maybe they should've waited a little bit. In the early 2000s, the X-Men franchise greatly expanded to explore different facets of mutant culture. NYX was part of that effort and told stories about teenage mutants trying to get by on the streets. Not a bad idea for a book, and arguably not even a bad place to introduce X-23. Making her a prostitute, on the other hand, and one who specializes in cutting her clients...maybe not such the best idea (keep in mind she's also a minor, so there's that too).

She joined the cast of Uncanny X-Men the next year in #450 (October 2004) that unfortunately continued - though downplayed - her plot from NYX. Luckily, she received a miniseries beginning in January 2005 that put her more in line with her X-Men: Evolution self. Notably, the miniseries was written by Craig Kyle, who created the character.

And from there, she's taken off like a rocket. She's been a member of both the X-Men and X-Force, has had several ongoing series - under both her original name and as the All-New Wolverine - and has even gotten her own sidekick/clone, who goes by the name Honey Badger.

And she was faithfully adapted in Logan (2017), as well as having cameos in numerous other projects, including Wolverine and the X-Men (2009) and many video games such as Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (2011).

I would say she's Marvel's most successful canon immigrant, no question (Who would even be her competition? I mean, have you seen Firestar in a movie lately?).

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.

Wolverine's Heat Claws

I don't know what to make of this one, I really don't. It may very well be the strangest entry on this blog, and may I remind you we've had characters imported before they debuted, characters imported as different characters, characters that technically immigrated but never appeared in the thing they immigrated from, whatever oddness was going on with Venom's Spawn, and more. But first, some backstory.

As you may know, Wolverine died back in 2014 in the aptly named miniseries Death of Wolverine. Everyone knew at the time that his death was a stunt, but what people didn't realize was how long it would take for him to come back. Four years gone for a character of his magnitude is a lifetime, especially since there was a reality reboot in the middle there. Marvel had the perfect opportunity to erase Wolverine's death during the Secret Wars event and they chose not to use it. That's huge.

But now Wolverine has returned, in the equally aptly titled miniseries Return of Wolverine (September 2018), except there's something different about him. His claws, specifically. There's something different about his claws. They're "heat claws".

At San Diego Comic-Con in July, the writer, Charles Soule, stated in a video message that the heat claws are based on Wolverine's appearance in the fighting game Marvel vs. Capcom. But here's where it gets weird: nobody knows what he's talking about.

Basically, Wolverine doesn't have heat claws in Marvel vs. Capcom (1997). He doesn't have special claws of any kind. The closest thing people can figure is that he's actually talking about Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (2011).  In that game, Wolverine's special moves are depicted as a series of flashing slashes. This could've given Soule the idea for Wolverine to have energy claws.

Some other fans have suggested that Soule is mistaken about the video game that influenced him, and that he was actually talking about the X-Men arcade game from 1992. Although Wolverine didn't have heat claws in that, either, his swipes were often illustrated with an energetic effect.

No matter how you slice it, everyone agrees they're a canon immigrant but no one is sure where from. And that's nuts.

Magneto’s Telepathy-Blocking Helmet

CBR, formerly Comic Book Resources, has a feature called “Follow the Path” that’s essentially the same as this blog. Sometimes they post things I was not aware of, and unfortunately they go into so much detail that anything I wrote about the subject would basically be plagiarism. In cases like that, I just post the link and be done with it. But since it’s not a “real” post, I’m doing it on Saturday instead of the usual Wednesday. 

In the following link, you can learn all about how the idea that Magneto’s helmet is to block Xavier’s telepathy was a product of the 2000 X-Men film. I don’t know if I completely buy it; I don’t recall being surprised by that fact when I first heard it, which makes me think I’d heard it before. Unfortunately, I can’t find any evidence online.

https://www.cbr.com/magneto-helmet-telepathy-protection/2/

Appearance Spotlight: Iceman's Jagged Form

Once again I have to think CBR for the assist, and you can read a more detailed background of this entry at their recent post on the subject.

But basically it goes like this: Scott Lobdell thought Iceman should be able to have greater control over his appearance, but the X-Men editors thought that Toy Biz - who owned Marvel at the time - wouldn't go for the idea since they had recently released an Iceman figure and would want the figure to match the comics.

However, Lobdell came up with a storyline that would allow him to play with the appearance temporarily. In Uncanny X-Men #314 (May 1994), the White Queen takes over Iceman's body and shows him he's not using his powers to the fullest extent.

Toy Biz saw this design and was basically like, "Whoa! Do you know how many action figures we could sell with that design?" So in 1995, they released an Iceman figure with a more jagged look and the ability to "grow" different parts of his body.

Iceman was changed in the comics to follow suit, of course, but it didn't happen all at once. In X-Men #50 (January 1996), he still had a smooth look overall, but he also had SOME shape control. His ice form had hair now, and he could turn his arms into spikes:

One month later, in Uncanny X-Men #331 (February 1996), he got the jagged look from the comics.

It didn't stick, but few things do in comics.

Appearance Spotlight: Negasonic Teenage Warhead

This is going to be a quick one.

Negasonic Teenage Warhead is a Genoshan mutant who first appeared in New X-Men #115 (June 2001). She was a telepath who also had some precognition powers:

Surprisingly, she appeared in Deadpool (2016), although with a different look, backstory, and power set. Her role in the film was originally meant for Cannonball, but they couldn't use him, so they picked Negasonic based solely on her name. Frankly, her name makes more sense for someone with explosive powers like she has in the film:

She has since started appearing in Deadpool and the Mercs for Money (July 2016, et al.) with a look clearly inspired by the movie. Her association with Deadpool at all derives from the movie, in fact.

The Origins of the Maximoff Twins

This is a bit of a controversial one, folks, so strap in.

The Maximoff twins, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, are the children of Magneto. They didn't know this when they joined his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants in Uncanny X-Men #4 (January 1964), but it eventually came out, and it's been the source of many storylines since then, including House of M (2005).

At least...that used to be the case.

See, back when Marvel was selling off the movie rights for all of its characters to whoever would take them, things got a little muddled. There were certain instances where it wasn't clear which rights package characters should belong to. Take Kingpin, for instance; he debuted as a Spider-Man villain and appeared as the primary antagonist in his animated series, but he's also a major Daredevil villain. Where does he go? (Daredevil, it turns out.)

The twins are in a similar situation. They're mutants who debuted in X-Men and Magneto is their father, but they've spent most of their time as Avengers characters. But unlike the Kingpin situation, Marvel and Fox decided to just share them. Which is odd, frankly. So in the same year, we had Quicksilver show up in X-Men: Days of Future Past, where he hinted Magneto was his father (this would be confirmed in X-Men: Apocalypse):

And Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch debuted in Captain America: Winter Soldier, where they're not mutants and Magneto doesn't exist (they would make a larger appearance in Avengers: Age of Ultron):

The problem was solved even further by killing Quicksilver in Age of Ultron (2015), so now Fox has Quicksilver and Marvel has Scarlet Witch.

But what happens if people who are only familiar with the movies stumble upon the comics? won't they be confused? Well, Marvel fixed that too. In Avengers and X-Men: Axis #7 (December 2014), Scarlet Witch puts a curse of sorts on Magneto's family...but she and Quicksilver aren't affected! Later, Uncanny Avengers #4 (May 2015), we get the whole story:

Basically, the twins' parents are the people who raised them, and instead of mutants, they're experiments of the High Evolutionary. People blew a gasket over this, but here's the thing: it makes sense.

For one thing, this isn't the first time their parents have been retconned. Magneto himself was a retcon! I won't get into the nitty-gritty - you can read more in-depth analyses here and here - but the gist is that this is actually the simplest origin story they've had. The Maximoffs and the High Evolutionary have been part of their story from day one, this just cuts out the middle men, whether those middle men are The Whizzer and Miss America or Magneto and Magda.

I also doubt this will be the last time their history changes, but at this point, that's just par for the course.

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/

Scott and Jean's Marriage

I don't want to accidentally plagiarize anyone, so I'll note that I read about this on Comics Should Be Good and you can read a more in-depth version of it at that link. But the long and short of it is that there had been plans for Cyclops and Jean Grey to get married as far back as 1990, but they kept getting put off or cancelled by creators shifting books, leaving books, and higher-ups not wanting it to happen. However, when Bob Harras learned that X-Men: The Animated Series was planning a similar storyline, he used that to convince Marvel editor-in-chief Tom DeFalco to have it happen in comics as well and coincide with the show. And it did, in the summer of 1993.

Marvel's Other Immigrants Super Post!

Every so often, a random change made in an adaptation will find its way into the original comics.  They're not whole new characters, they're not a certain look, they're just...stuff.  These are their stories.

Morph's name

A character named Changeling (Kevin Sidney) first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #35 (August 1967) as a member of the villainous Factor Three; he later secretly joined the X-Men but died the same issue.  In the first episode of the X-Men animated series (1992), the creators wanted to show the seriousness of the series, so they made the character an X-Men member so they could kill him off; however, in the show, he was named "Morph".  This would be the name he used when he appeared in the alternate reality "Age of Apocalypse" in X-Men Alpha (January 1995).

Spider-Man's organic web spinners

Until the Spider-Man movie (2002), Spider-Man's webs had always come from a device he invented.  The creators of the movie thought it wouldn't make sense for a high school student to invent such a complex device, so they gave him organic web-spinners.  The storyline Spider-Man: The Other (2005) gave him organic webshooters as well (among other new powers), but they have all disappeared after the Brand New Day storyline.

Rogue's real name 

One of Rogue's defining traits was that she had no recollection of who she was.  In the X-Men movie (2000), though, her name was Marie. After X-Treme X-Men #43 (April 2004) claimed her name was "Anna Raven" (alluding to actress Anna Paquin and using Mystique's first name as her last), the Rogue ongoing series followed in the footsteps of both in September 2004 by revealing her name is "Anna Marie", last name still unknown.

Arc Reactor

J.A.R.V.I.S. (Just Another Rather Very Intelligent System)

Mutant Response Division

The Mutant Response Division is a UN-affiliated office whose purpose is to deal with international mutant threats.  They first appeared in the first episode of Wolverine and the X-Men (September 2008) and later made the jump to comics in X-Factor #204 (June 2010).  They have since also been mentioned in The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes (episode: "The Man in the Ant Hill", September 2010).

Marvel Appearances Super Post!

Yesterday I mentioned that Marvel doesn't do canon immigrants as often as DC, and that's true.  What it's more a fan of is importing the looks of certain characters, mainly because it helps them create synergy between the comic book and the adaptation (which supposedly makes it easier for people to make the jump to the comics; the jury's still out on that one).

The Falcon

Spider-Man (Negative Zone)

X-Men

 Left: The X-Men during the Revolution storyline (which began April 2000)
Middle: The X-Men in the films (first released May 2000)
Right: The Grant Morrison X-Men (first appeared in New X-Men #114 (June 2001))

Mystique

The Toad

 Left: Toad in the comics
Middle: Toad in the X-Men film (May 2000)
Right: Toad since X-Men Forever #6 (June 2001)
(Note: How close he resembles movie Toad really depends on the artist. He may have green skin or not, he may have an athletic build or not, he almost always has a long tongue these days, but again, sometimes not. But the point of X-Men Forever was to make him more like the movies, whether or not it always sticks.)

Magneto

Left: Magneto's original appearance
Middle: Magneto in the X-Men films (May 2000)
Right: Magneto post-New X-Men #146 (October 2003), although he now has a different outfit

Spider-Man (MC2)

Left: Alex Ross's unused design for the Spider-Man movie (image released September 2000)
Right: Spider-Man, the son of Spider-Woman in the MC2 universe (May 2001)

Bullseye