Independent Month Appearance/Backstory Spotlight: Salem the Cat

It's Independent Month here at Jor-Ellis Island! As I stated back in the Thirty Days of Turtles, I want to start branching out this blog beyond Marvel and DC. It won't happen often because I'm not as familiar with other comics companies and I'm not sure they take to immigrants as well as Marvel and DC do, but I will be on the lookout for them in the future. They won't always be in a theme month like this, I don't think, but we'll see how it goes. Let's get to it!

Sabrina the Teenage Witch first debuted in Archie's Madhouse #22 (August 1962) in a story that was meant to be a one-off. The character was very popular, however, and gained multiple series of her own over time, not to mention several tv shows. Since the beginning, she's had a pet cat named Salem.

If you're mainly familiar with Sabrina through her ABC series, that picture was probably surprising to you. It will also surprise you to learn that Salem was just a regular cat. He couldn't even talk. For those of you who aren't familiar with that show, Salem was a black cat. And more than that, he was a former wizard named Salem Saberhagan who was cursed to be a cat for making moves on the wrong witch.

Until the live-action series, Sabrina had not had a comic series in over ten years. But a new one started because of the show, and - wisely - it instituted some changes to make it better match the television series.

I can't find specific issues for when changes to his backstory took place, but luckily for me, it's still in effect even in alternate realities. In Chilling Adventures of Sabrina #6 (July 2016), we get Salem's backstory and it's pretty much exactly the same, only his name is Samuel and it's told in a more adult way.

Independent Month: Zelda and Hilda's Appearances and Last Name

It's Independent Month here at Jor-Ellis Island! As I stated back in the Thirty Days of Turtles, I want to start branching out this blog beyond Marvel and DC. It won't happen often because I'm not as familiar with other comics companies and I'm not sure they take to immigrants as well as Marvel and DC do, but I will be on the lookout for them in the future. They won't always be in a theme month like this, I don't think, but we'll see how it goes. Let's get to it!

Sabrina the Teenage Witch first debuted in Archie's Madhouse #22 (August 1962) in a story that was meant to be a one-off. The character was very popular, however, and gained multiple series of her own over time, not to mention several tv shows. In her most popular show, she had two aunts named Zelda and Hilda.

They're from the comics, but they're not what you'd expect. Hilda actually premiered before Sabrina, as "Hilda the Witch", the host of Archie's Madhouse, beginning with issue 19 (April 1962).

She didn't become "Aunt Hilda" until Archie's Madhouse #37 (September 1964). Aunt Zelda wouldn't show up until Archie's Madhouse #65 (October 1968), and by that time, Hilda's appearance changed somewhat; she now had red hair.

As you can see, the ones in the show were much more attractive and hip than in the comics. But in 1997, Sabrina got a new comic series to capitalize on the hit show. And it - wisely - decided to make the comics characters a little closer to what the show depicted. In the case of Hilda and Zelda, they got younger and hipper, and gained the last name Spellman, as seen on the cover of Sabrina the Teenage Witch #5 (July 1997):

(Obviously the last name goes for Sabrina too, but I'm not making a whole extra entry just for that.)

Independent Month Character Spotlight: Marcus Williams

It's Independent Month here at Jor-Ellis Island! As I stated back in the Thirty Days of Turtles, I want to start branching out this blog beyond Marvel and DC. It won't happen often because I'm not as familiar with other comics companies and I'm not sure they take to immigrants as well as Marvel and DC do, but I will be on the lookout for them in the future. They won't always be in a theme month like this, I don't think, but we'll see how it goes. Let's get to it!

Kick-Ass, if you don't know, is a series of miniseries about a kid who wants to be a superhero and then becomes one. Mark Millar wrote the comic at the same time Matthew Vaughn wrote the movie, and while they kept in contact, they took the stories different directions.

For example, there's a superhero duo named Big Daddy and Hit-Girl. In the comics, Big Daddy is a former accountant who really loves comics. In the movie, he's a former cop. Therefore, when the movie came out in April 2010, it introduced a character called Marcus Williams, Big Daddy's former partner. He takes in Hit-Girl after Big Daddy is killed.

Mark Millar incorporated some of the movie ideas into the next miniseries, so that is also the status quo when Kick-Ass 2 starts (December 2010). But, while Marcus is still a cop, he's not Big Daddy's former partner.

Independent Month: Jessica Priest

It's Independent Month here at Jor-Ellis Island! As I stated back in the Thirty Days of Turtles, I want to start branching out this blog beyond Marvel and DC. It won't happen often because I'm not as familiar with other comics companies and I'm not sure they take to immigrants as well as Marvel and DC do, but I will be on the lookout for them in the future. They won't always be in a theme month like this, I don't think, but we'll see how it goes. Let's get to it!

Image Comics had noble intentions when it first started: creator-owned superhero comics that were still set in a shared universe like Marvel and DC. Best of both worlds. And at first, they succeeded really well. A great example of this is Spawn.

See, Spawn's backstory was that he was a mercenary that was killed and then he went to Hell and bonded with a demon and became a spirit of vengeance. You know, like you do. The trick was that he didn't remember who killed him. But his subconscious knew, and it kept leading him to a particular church.

As it (cleverly) turns out, the killer was a fellow mercenary named Chapel, who was one of the protagonists of Rob Liefeld's Youngblood. (He's the one with the skull paint.)

Here's the thing, though: Rob Liefeld owned Chapel, not Todd McFarlane. So what happens when you want to adapt Spawn into another medium...say, a movie? You have to fill that role with a new character. Enter Jessica Priest. (August 1997)

But that worked out for the best, because a year before the movie was released, Liefeld left the company and took his characters with him. Suddenly there was no Chapel around to kill Al Simmons anyway. Enter Jessica Priest again! She was first seeded into the comics in Spawn #61 (March 1997) a few months before the movie was released, and was revealed to be Spawn's true killer.

And since that was pretty much her only role, she didn't show up much after that. A few instances here and there and an origin story in Curse of the Spawn, but only six or seven issues total.

Character Spotlight: Bud and Lou

This is a pretty cut-and-dried one, so it'll be quick.

In the Batman: The Animated Series episode "Harley and Ivy" (1993), we learn that Harley Quin has two pet hyenas named Bud and Lou, after Bud Abbot and Lou Costello.

Not long after Harley Quinn got her own series, Bud and Lou appeared as well, in Harley Quinn #4 (January 2001).

And, although this is a bit surprising, they survived the New 52, appearing here on the cover of her first issue (September 2011), although they didn't actually appear within a New 52 comic until Suicide Squad #15 (December 2012).

Character Spotlight: Condiment King

I've previously included Condiment King in the Batman the Animated Series Super-Post, where I said this:

Condiment King

The Condiment King, aka Mitchell Mayo, is a comic relief villain that first appeared in the Batman: The Animated Series episode "Make 'Em Laugh" (1994).  He first appeared in comics in Birds of Prey #37 (January 2002), also in a comic relief role, although chronologically he first appeared in Batgirl: Year One #8 (September 2003), where his costume and equipment has a much more home-made vibe.


Except for a couple issues of Final Crisis Aftermath: Run! (2009), those were the extent of his comic appearances. He belongs to an important-but-overlooked class of villains that's good for cameos and brief fight scenes but not much else. And there's nothing wrong with that.

It's in that regard that he makes a post-Rebirth appearance, locked up in Arkham in Batman #9 (October 2016):

Character/Team Spotlight: The Awesome Threesome

This is one of those tricky ones, and I never would've known about it without the tip from user shadzane. Thanks!

The Awesome Threesome is a trio of supervillains that first appeared in Aquaman #36 (September 1967). The team is comprised of Torpedoman, Claw, and Magneto.

Torpedoman also appeared in the Aquaman cartoon episode "Treacherous is the Torpedoman", which debuted in October 1967. He returned in the November 1967 episode "The Torp, The Magneto, and The Claw", which featured the debuts of Claw and Magneto (obviously).

So why are these on this site? They clearly showed up in comics before animation. Well, not so fast. First, both of these episodes and the issue were written by Bob Haney. Furthermore, we've seen several times before that the lead time for animation can cause characters created for animation to jump over to comics before the animation airs. And beyond that, check out the cover to Aquaman #36.

It's the only issue to feature that banner at the top, so I'm pretty sure this issue was meant to promote the cartoon by featuring characters created for the cartoon. I think that also holds true for Tusky the Walrus, as seen last week.

Update - 11/7/25:

The Awesome Threesome are back! They somehow missed Post-Crisis Earth, New Earth, Earth-0, Prime Earth, and any minor continuity refreshes along the way, but in the anything-goes present-day "Dawn of DC" DC Universe, they're back. From Batman/Superman: World's Finest #15 (June 2023).