Character Spotlight: Nadia Van Dyne (Sorta)

I've known about this one for a while, but I brushed it off. I figured people were making guesses without knowing the whole story and that I knew better. But I recently found evidence that I was wrong, so here we are.

Our story starts all the way back in 1998. A very popular issue of What If...? - a series that genreally told alternate outcomes of various Marvel stories - featured a story about Peter Parker's baby if she hadn't disappeared, and she grew up to become Spider-Girl. The issue was SO popular that Marvel soon launched a whole imprint called MC2, short for "Marvel Comics 2", about a new generation of superheroes. Ironically, although set about 15 years in the future, the comics themselves were very old-fashioned in a good way. Mostly one-and-done stories that appealed to all ages and were easily accessible, but also had overarching stories to bring the reader back for more.

After a cameo in A-Next #7 (February 1999), A-Next #12 (July 1999) introduced a character called the Red Queen and her team, the Revengers. The Red Queen, aka Hope Pym, was the leader of the team and the biggest believer in their goal of destroying the Avengers. She and Big Man were the children of Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne.

Almost two decades later in 2015, Ant-Man received his own movie, and a major subplot dealt with Hank Pym's strained relationship with his daughter, Hope Van Dyne. This version of Hope uses her missing mother's name to honor her, and to also distance herself from her father. Hope is upset at Hank for many reasons, one of them being that she has the skills and experience to use the Ant-Man suit but Hank got Scott Lang to use it instead. But instead of going out on her own and becoming Red Queen like the comics version, she becomes the Wasp and got to co-headline the 2018 sequel, Ant-Man and the Wasp.

In Free Comic Book Day Civil War II (May 2016), we're introduced to the new Wasp, who is named Nadia Pym. She's Hank's daughter from his first marriage, and she was raised in a Russian secret spy-training organization called the Red Room. She escaped, however, and became the Wasp to honor her stepmother.

At the time she was announced, people made a big deal of her being the Marvel Comics version of Hope Van Dyne. They even pointed out that "Nadia" means "Hope" in Russian. This never felt right to me. For one thing, Hope already has a comics version...Hope. And Nadia is one of the most common Russian names in Western fiction. It's like Natasha, then Boris, then Nadia. Ivan's in there somewhere. But again, IF the name was chosen because it means hope, how do we know it wasn't referring to the Red Queen? After all, only a couple months before in Astonishing Ant-Man #6 (March 2016), Cassie started using her previously-MC2-exclusive identity of Stinger.

So I never featured it. But last week I learned that Mark Waid is on the record as saying that Nadia is inspired by the movie's Hope, so that closes the book on that.

Just a Small Little Thing: Mad Hatter's Robot Rabbit

I've been waiting to do this one so long, you guys.

Years ago, I created a list of things I wanted to include on the website if only I could find proof of them. Most of the list has since appeared, a couple turned out to be misinformation, and one - this one - just kept hanging around, taunting me.

Mad Hatter's Robot Rabbit.

What am I talking about? you're probably asking. And that's exactly the problem. I've never been able to confirm it for three reasons, and the first is that it wasn't a big detail to begin with. It wasn't a fan favorite character like Harley Quinn or a cool design like the various Batmobiles or a tie-in to a current show like Aqualad. No one had any reason to talk about it. In fact, it wasn't even on tv! It was an accessory to an action figure.

The next problem was that it was a small detail of the issue it appeared in. Just background decoration, really, no relation to the plot at all. So, again, no one had any reason to talk about. And people may not have even seen it, because the scene was poorly lit.

And the third problem was that I knew it was in Secret Six #1, but I had a hard time figuring out WHICH Secret Six #1. But find it I did, and now I get to share it with you, and cross it off my list!

Edited to Add: It was Secret Six volume 2 #1, published in May 2006.

Character Spotlight: Veronica Vreeland

I've been doing this for however many years and I still get surprised.

Veronica Vreeland was a character created for Batman: The Animated Series. Seemingly a stand-in for Vicki Vale, she was a Gotham socialite who ran in the same circles as Bruce Wayne and often got caught up in supervillain schemes. She first appeared in the episode "Birds of a Feather" (February 1993), where she struck up a relationship with the Penguin to use him as entertainment for her rich friends. This plan, as if you have any doubts, did not go as she planned.

Twenty-five years later, Ms. Vreeland made her comics debut in DC's Beach Blanket Bad Guys Summer Special #1 (July 2018). The special was a series of villain-centric short stories that all took place during the summer - an odd choice, to be sure, but not necessarily a bad one.

Veronica appeared in a Penguin story, although it was uniquely set in the past when Penguin was still a teenager. The story positioned Veronica as a debutante who Oswald Cobblepot has had a crush on for a long time. Oswald spots the closest thing he has to a friend leaving her house one day and kills him because he thought they had slept together, but at the funeral, Veronica tells him the guy was trying to convince her to go out with Oswald (which is not an idea she was into). The story finishes with "The End - For Now", so maybe we'll be seeing her again soon.

Thanks to Thomas Parks for telling me about this one!

Character Spotlight: Volcana

Sometimes canon immigrants only make cameo appearances and that's unfortunate, but it still counts! Volcana is one of these cases.

Volcana is a villain created for Superman: The Animated Series. She debuted in the episode "Where There's Smoke" (September 1998) as basically a grown up version of Charlie from Firestarter. She learned she had pyrokinetic powers as a teenager and her parents sent her to a school that turned out to be a front for a secret government organization that wanted to use people with powers. She escaped, but had to live on the streets and eventually turned to crime.

Superman used a lot of original villains during its run. Batman: The Animated Series did too, I suppose, but Superman stands out to me more for some reason. Maybe it's because many of them could have been replaced by already existing villains - why isn't Luminus Dr. Light, for instance? - or maybe it's because they weren't as memorable. Whatever the case, they never became popular and have rarely if ever been used outside of that show.

So it shocked me to learn that Volcana made a brief appearance in Superman 80-Page Giant #1 (2010). Interestingly, they reversed the colors of her dress and jacket.

Thanks to Thomas Parks for telling me about this one!

Character Spotlight: Downpour and Shifter

This is an exciting one, but also a strange one.

I have an unabashed love for the Super Friends original superheroes: Apache Chief, Samurai, Black Vulcan, the Wonder Twins, and El Dorado. I think they have great designs and that they could shine if they just had the chance.

In fact, I know they could shine when given the chance because I've seen them do just that. Once was in Young Justice, but before that, they got a spotlight episode on Justice League Unlimited. At least, a version of them did.

In the episode "Ultimatum" (December 2004), the Justice League meets a team of superhero created by Project Cadmus to be loyal to the United States. Their names are Wind Dragon, Juice, Longshadow, Downpour, and Shifter.

As you can see from the above links, all the Super Friends characters have made their way into the comics, one way or another, including the Wonder Twins. So it shocked me to learn that in Superman/Wonder Woman #26 (February 2016), Downpour and Shifter ALSO got introduced into the comics universe!

In this series, they're the children of Vandal Savage for some reason, and they don't use their powers (although they can fly and have eyebeams). They're also not called "Downpour" and "Shifter", but they're clearly meant to be the same characters.

In Superman #49 (February 2016), we briefly see them again. During the issue, all of Vandal Savage's children get powers awakened, and these two are no different. they join the battle with the rest of their siblings and we see they do, in fact, have water and animal shapeshifting powers.

Thanks to Thomas Parks for telling me about this one!

Spider-Verse: Vintage Spidey Costume

Happy Halloween, everybody!

Canon immigrants are plentiful, with new ones coming all the time. That's the whole premise of this blog, after all. But for every one that gets media attention, three or four slip under the radar. Which is how it came to pass that I'm posting a new Spider-Verse spotlight YEARS after that event.

For those who don't know, Spider-Verse was an event that had "every" version of Spider-Man teaming up for reasons that aren't really important. I put "every" in quotes because there were a couple versions that were left out for legal reasons, and a couple more that just didn't appear. But overall it was surprisingly thorough, as this entry can attest.

I'm not sure we realize how lucky we have it as comic book fans these days. Just look at toylines like Hot Toys are Figuarts, which give us hyper-poseable action figures that look exactly like the character they're supposed to be, even if that character is from a live action movie. If you buy a Hot Toys Avengers: Infinity War Captain America figure, I hope you like Chris Evans's face because you're getting Chris Evans's face. It's like they shrunk him down and encased him in plastic.

But it wasn't always that way. Accuracy was more a suggestion than anything, and you need look no further than this Spider-Man Halloween costume to see the results.

This costume is from 1963 and made by a company called Ben Cooper. And this is surprisingly one of the more accurate ones of the era. As you can see from the below catalog, they were still selling this costume as late as 1986, and the general style of costumes - at least from this company - had not really improved in those 20 years.

Surely no one would be upset if this costume stayed in the past where it belonged, but when Spider-Verse said "every Spider-Man ever", they (mostly) meant it! So when we get a shot of the Spider-Army in Spider-Verse #2 (January 2015), there he is, in the bottom left corner:

The coloring isn't completely on-model, but it's closer to the Halloween costume than the Halloween costume is to the original character.

Spider-Gwen's New Alias: Ghost Spider

With Halloween just around the corner, I figured it was a perfect opportunity to talk about "Ghost Spider". So what is Ghost Spider, anyway?

To answer that question, we have to go back a few years to a little event called Spider-Verse. You may have heard of it. The premise was that a group of bad guys was traveling to all the different alternate universes to kill all the different Spider-Men and -Women, so a bunch of different Spiders teamed up to help defeat them. It was billed as featuring "Every. Spider-Man. Ever.", and although that isn't true, it came very close. It also introduced several new Spider-Men in the pages of a mini-series called Edge of Spider-Verse, and one of those new characters was Spider-Woman, aka Gwen Stacy. She debuted in issue 2 (September 2014).

This version of Spider-Woman had a great costume, and the issue had a punk rock sensibility, both of which greatly appealed to fans, so it didn't take long for her to get her own series, Spider-Gwen (February 2015), set on Earth-65. (Side note: although the series is called Spider-Gwen and that's what fans call her too, her superhero name has always officially been Spider-Woman.)

Spider-Gwen has quickly become one of Marvel's most popular characters, so she's started appearing in merchandise and adaptations as well. In December 2017, she was announced to be in a movie called Marvel Rising: Secret Warriors. Only in this movie, she goes by Ghost Spider.

In July 2018, Marvel announced she'd be getting a new series called Spider-Gwen: Ghost Spider, which released last week.

I dig the name. Not only does it play up her unique outfit, but it cleverly has the same initials as Gwen Stacy. And that's not the first time they've done it. It took me a while to notice, but she lives on Earth-65 because 65 looks a lot like GS.