Location Spotlight: Hall of Doom

The Hall of Doom was formerly featured in the "Super Friends Super Post", where I said this:

Hall of Doom

The Hall of Doom first appeared in 1978's Challenge of the Super Friends as the headquarters of the Legion of Doom.  It made its first comics appearance in Justice Society of America #6 (July 2007) as a former base of the Secret Society of Super-Villains. It has since had a handful of appearances in such books as Justice League of America, Final Crisis, and Superman/Batman.


More recently, it has popped up in Dark Nights: Metal #2 (September 2017). As with some previous entries, Rebirth is somewhat nebulously a continuation of both the New 52 and pre-New 52 DC universes, so I've decided to treat it as a first appearance just to be safe. Strangely, this Hall of Doom is in the lava pits of Antarctica instead of a swamp.

Who Designed Captain America's Shield?

In the comics, Captain America's circular shield was designed by Myron Maclain. Surprisingly, we don't learn this until Avengers #66 (May 1969).

In Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), we learn that Howard Stark - Iron Man's father - was a key member of the Super Soldier Program and designed the shield himself.

In Captain America: White #3 (2015), however, Cap mentions he believes Howard Stark invented it.

This is an interesting canon immigrant because it's not concrete. We don't see Howard Stark working on it; it doesn't even say for sure that he did invent it. All we know is that Steve heard he invented it. This allows writers going forward to keep it Myron Maclain or change it to Howard Stark and pretty much be right either way.

Character Spotlight: Gustav Fiers (aka The Gentleman)

Gustav Fiers is a rare case of a canon foreigner appearing in another adaptation before appearing in comics.

He first appeared in a novel called Spider-Man: The Gathering of the Sinister Six (1999) as the brother of Karl Fiers, an established character who was responsible for the death of Spider-Man's parents, Richard and Mary Parker. As the Gentleman, he became a man behind the scenes in the criminal underworld and was responsible for the creation of the Sinister Six, a team-up of some of Spider-Man's greatest foes. He went on to appear in Spider-Man: Revenge of the Sinister Six and Spider-Man: Secret of the Sinister Six, where he was killed off.

He later appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man (2012), where he was only credited as "The Man in the Shadows". He also appeared in the sequel, called Gustav Fiers this time, where he talks with Harry Osborn about forming the Sinister Six.

Fiers received a cameo in Civil War II: Kingpin #4 (October 2016), where he was one of several villains who supported Janus as the new Kingpin.

Costume Spotlight: Mr. Freeze's Goggles

I'm a little behind this week because of work, but better late than never.

Mr. Freeze is no stranger to this blog. From his name to his origin to his costume, plus more, nearly everything about him has come from non-comics sources at one time or another.

One thing that's never appeared in comics is his goggles. In Batman: The Animated Series (1992), Mr. Freeze had very distinctive red goggles that strongly contrasted with the cool colors of the rest of his outfit.

Even in Batman: Mr. Freeze (1997), which introduced a lot of changes based on the animated series, it didn't include the goggles. 

Unfortunately, one of those changes was walked back in the New 52. Freeze's origin was basically the same, only now Nora Fries was Nora Fields and Freeze only THOUGHT he was married to her. Surprisingly, he was given his iconic red goggles in the same issue (Red Hood and the Outlaws #9, May 2012).

It's funny...it's like DC can't help themselves. Even when they distance themselves a bit from one instance of canon immigration, they introduce another one!



(Note: while finding pictures for this piece, I discovered the red goggles had shown up before, in Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #190-191 [April/May 2005]. In fact, an entire Animated Series-accurate outfit appeared. Many stories in this series are of uncertain continuity so I don't know if this counts, but I've included them below for thoroughness.)

Appearance Spotlight: Cyborg

Cyborg has had many different looks over the years. When he first debuted, he looked like this:

By the New 52 (November 2011), he had a much bulkier, less humanoid look with red highlights. I don't like this style as much because, as a cyborg, I think his human parts should be about equal to his mechanical parts.

In the movie Justice League: Flashpoint Paradox (2013), Cyborg has the below look for the beginning of the movie. I like it a lot because it makes him look athletic - which he is - and shows that's he's mostly human with some modification. Unfortunately, he has an appearance similar to the one above for most of the movie.

Luckily, DC Rebirth happened and fixed a lot of the New 52's issues. In Convergence: Crime Syndicate #2 (May 2015), there's a Cyborg backup story where he loses both his arms. Then something happens - I'm not entirely sure what, even though I've read the pages - and he not only regrows his arms, but gets a whole new design more in line with the picture above. Silver and black with blue highlights, exposed upper arms, those blue baubles...it's not a 1-to-1 transfer (and these things usually aren't), but it's close enough to be noticeable. This backup story was to set up the ongoing series he got as part of Rebirth.

Costume Spotlight: Zizz

This is an interesting one, because Zizz is an original character. She's a Thanagarian who was
part of a new Suicide Squad along with other mythologically-named villains like Behemoth and Leviathan.

She was first mentioned in Suicide Squad Most Wanted: El Diablo and Boomerang #1 (August 2016), and then appeared for real in Suicide Squad Most Wanted: El Diablo and Killer Croc #4 (November 2016). And when she did, she looked like this:

A good look, but a strange one, because it doesn't really belong to Zizz. It originated with the Justice Lords version of Hawkgirl, as seen in the Justice League episode "A Better World" (2003).

The Justice Lords were a version of the Justice League from an alternate reality where they became totalitarian. Funnily enough, Lord Hawkgirl already exists in the DCU, on Earth-50.

Surprisingly - to me, at least - this isn't the first time someone has used the animated design of an existing character to make a new character. It also happened when Young Justice's Sportsmaster became Mad Dog.

Thanks again to austinpopdan for the accidental heads up! For the others that came from this miniseries he recommended, visit El Dorado and Sin Tzu.

Character Spotlight: Sin Tzu

This is one I never expected to see, and I have to give another shout-out to austinpopdan for (inadvertently) pointing me in the direction of it!

Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu was a video game that was released for all consoles in 2003. Set in the DC Animated Universe, the game introduced - who else? - Sin Tzu, a yellow peril villain that basically followed the plot of every event villain: he comes to Gotham to challenge Batman and recruits a bunch of Batman villains to soften him up first.

Sin Tzu was a big deal at the time. To my knowledge, an original character had never been created for a video game adaptation before, so DC got Jim Lee to design him and hyped him up to be the next Harley Quinn. That...didn't happen.

In fact, he didn't appear in comics at all (a pretty major step if you want a character to be the next Harley Quinn) until almost fifteen years later in Suicide Squad Most Wanted: El Diablo and Killer Croc #3 (October 2016).

I don't know why this second-rate Ra's al-Ghul, himself a second-rate Fu Manchu, exists. But he does, and he finally achieved his goal of becoming a canon immigrant. Join us next week for the final immigrant from Suicide Squad Most Wanted!