Character Spotlight: Dr. Wu

This is an interesting one.

This is Dr. Wu. He appeared in Iron Man 3 (2013):

What's that? You don't remember him? That's because he only showed up in the Bern conference scene at the beginning and in the surgery scene at the end (where his face was covered)...for most audiences. In China, he had several other scenes. Several pro-China scenes specifically, that seem to have been requested by whatever Chinese production studio co-funded the movie.

Yet, somehow this character made the jump to comics anyway...in Amazing Spider-Man volume 4 #1 (October 2015), of all places. And he's a recurring character, the head of Parker Industries's bio-tech division.

And you're probably thinking what I did: the name's just a coincidence, right? But no:

Item Spotlight: Loki's Scepter

This is Loki's scepter. You know all about it.

But in case you don't, it first appeared in The Avengers (2012), as a weapon given to him by Thanos to help him invade Earth. In Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), we learn that it houses the Mind Stone inside its bauble.

It made its way into the comics in Loki: Agent of Asgard #16 (July 2015), although this one is just a modified version of Freyja's staff created by King Loki. (This particular image is from issue 17.)

I know they don't look exactly the same, but I think it's pretty clear the inspiration is there. Oh hey! I just realized kid Loki's jacket has the same weird half-zipper lapels that his movie outfits have. I'm not going to make a separate entry for that, but it's noted.

Appearance Spotlight: Ice

When Ice first appeared in Justice League International #12 (February 1988), she had a very skimpy costume that looked like this:

Technically, this costume first appeared earlier on Icemaiden of the Global Guardians, but there are some out-of-universe, continuity-finagling shenanigans at play there that aren't germane to this article. Her Wikipedia page goes into detail, if you're curious, however.

Anyway, she eventually changed her costume to the VERY 80s one seen here, which debuted in 1989 (I can't find a specific issue) and became her iconic one. She had a few others here and there, but this is the one she'd always return to.

In 2004, Ice made the first of many Justice League Unlimited appearances in the series premiere (July), and her costume design split the difference. It was mainly her classic one, but with a keyhole and bare arms to suggest the sexiness of the first one.

She would stick with her classic one in the comics whenever she appeared...that is, until Justice League: Generation Lost #18 (January 2011), where this costume showed up. As you can see, it's essentially her JLU one but with a filled-in keyhole and the stripes' colors inverted.

She kept that costume for a while in the New 52, which was a smart move. It's a good one.

Appearance Spotlight: Katana (post-Rebirth)

This is another short one.

Here's what Katana looked like in the New 52:

In Suicide Squad (August 2016), she looks like this:

And in Suicide Squad: Deadshot and Katana #4 (April 2016), she changed her outfit from her New 52 look to this:

Now I know what you may be thinking: those dates don't line up. But when you consider how long Suicide Squad was in production, and that they first released pictures of the characters in May 2015, it makes more sense

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.

Appearance Spotlight: Vixen (post-Rebirth)

DC's Rebirth initiative has two goals, which at first seem at odds with each other, but seem to be working so far. The first is to shake up the majority of their line, taking their books in new directions that feel fresh. The other is to make it feel more like the pre-New 52 DC Universe by bringing back fan favorite characters, iconic outfits, and popular backstories. I guess there's also a third category that falls in between these two, which is adjusting their books to better match popular adaptations. This falls under that third category.

Vixen has been featured on this site before for her wardrobe changes. You can read about that here. That post will bring you up to the New 52, but shortly after that, Vixen got an animated series on CW Seed (August 2015). So while in the comics she looked like this:

On the show she looked like this:

The series turned out to be fairly popular, to the point that the character made a live action appearance on Arrow, played by her voice actor. Another Vixen, the first Vixen's grandmother, appeared this season on Legends of Tomorrow as a member of the Justice Society. With all that exposure, it makes sense to update her costume again (especially to get rid of that plunging neckline), so in DC Rebirth #1 (May 2016), we got this:

Which was modified a little into this in Justice League of America: Vixen #1 (January 2017):

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.