Team Spotlight: The Terrific Trio

The Terrific Trio are a team of superheroes turned supervillains that fought Batman in the Batman Beyond episode "Heroes" (1999). The team consists of 2-D Man, Freon, and Magma, and they're clearly based on the Fantastic Four.

These characters have not shown up yet and probably won't, but a new Terrific Trio is referenced in Justice League Beyond #23 (May 2013), this time consisting of Earthmover, Zeta, and an elderly Plastic Man. According to the author, the idea - which was never fully established - was that the Terrific Trio became a Royal Flush Gang-type group that regularly changed members but always had the same basic make up.

These aren't new characters, however. Plastic Man has been appearing in the comics since the 40s, and Zeta and Earthmover first appeared in Batman Beyond. Earthmover first appeared in the episode of the same name, and his deal is that he was caught in a cave-in of an abandoned mine/toxic dump and died, but the toxic chemicals allowed him to create and control living dirtmen.

Zeta is more interesting to me, though. He is an infiltration/assassin robot created by the NSA that can mimic the look of anyone. He becomes self-aware, though, and decides he doesn't want to do that kind of work anymore. After his first appearance, "Zeta" (2000), which was great, he was given his own spinoff, The Zeta Project, and given a new, more humanoid look. He is therefore the protagonist of the only show in the DC Animated Universe not based on a pre-existing comic book.

Character Spotlight: Mad Stan

Mad Stan is the third character who originally appeared in the Batman Beyond Super Post, where I said:

Mad Stan

Stanley Lebowski's first appearance was in the Batman Beyond episode "Rats" (1999).  In comics, he first "appeared" in Batman Beyond [miniseries] #4 (November 2010), but it was actually just someone in a disguise. He was killed sometime previously.


What I should've said was seemingly killed sometime previously, because Mad Stan seems to have been mentioned again in Batman Beyond #1 (January 2011) before finally making his first appearance in Batman Beyond #3 (March 2012), where he was the focus of a whole story arc
.

Character Spotlight: Curaré

Curaré is another character that originally appeared in the Batman Beyond Super Post, and at that time I said this:

Curaré   

Curaré first appeared in the Batman Beyond episode "A Touch of Curare" (1999). She was later mentioned in Batman Beyond (vol. 5) #17 (January 2013):

And then appeared, but not literally, a few weeks later in issue 20 (March 2013).

Curaré made her first actual comics appearance in Justice League Beyond #21 (March 2013), where it was revealed she was the sister (or perhaps "sister") of Green Lantern Kai-Ro. She later appeared as a member of Justice Lords Beyond in Justice League Beyond 2.0 #19 (May 2014).

Character Spotlight: The Jokerz

The Jokerz have previously appeared on this blog in the Batman Beyond Super Post, and that information looked like this:

The Jokerz

The Jokerz are a Joker-themed gang that first appeared in the Batman Beyond episode "Rebirth" (1999).  They later appeared in comics in Countdown #21 (December 2007) on Earth-12, though their first New Earth, present day appearance was in Detective Comics #868 (October 2010).


However, new information has come to light, so rather than give an update and have their information split over two entries, I'm removing them from the Super Post and giving them their own, complete entry. The new entry is as follows:

The Jokerz - a gang of Joker fans made up of J-Man, Dee Dee, Woof, Chucko, Scab, and Ghoul - first appeared in Batman #700 (June 2010) with members J-Man, Dee Dee, Chucko, and Ghoul, though wouldn't appear with the full roster until Justice League Beyond #1 (February 2012). Most of this group originated as the Joker's Jokerz in Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker (2000), while J-Man first led a group of Jokerz in "Rebirth", the first episode of Batman Beyond (January 1999), and Scab appeared in the same episode as a member of the gang.

Character Spotlight: Felicity Smoak

This is another of those tricky ones.

Felicity Smoak has appeared in this month's Green Arrow #35 (October 2014). Now, even though Smoak is most well-known as Oliver Queen's techie sidekick on Arrow (first appearance: "Lone Gunmen", Oct 24, 2012), she was actually a comics character first. Specifically, she was the manager of a software company that eventually became Firestorm's stepmom, who first appeared in Firestorm #23 (April 1984).

However, as you can see from the pictures below, this new Smoak is clearly based on Emily Bett Rickards' portrayal on the show. So at the very least this is an Appearance change, but I'm willing to call this a full Character immigrant. I'll tag it as both, though. And 52 Shakeup, just to be thorough.

Important note: starting with this issue, Green Arrow will be written by two of the main writers of Arrow, so I fully expect more of these. Diggle and Smoak are just the beginning. They brought back Mia Dearden; I'm willing to bet we'll find out soon she's secretly Ollie's sister.

52 Shakeup

The Batman Beyond post from earlier this year made me realize that the New 52 has affected this site more drastically than I originally thought. No longer can I go on just presuming that past stories still "count", however loosely. They do for the purposes of this site, but in terms of the New 52, nothing exists until we see it again. So I think it's important to take note of what makes it through and what doesn't. And let me tell you...not a whole lot has made it through. Below is the list of everything I could find, and most of it is exactly what you would expect. In the future, if anything else shows up, it'll get a brand new spotlight and a "52 Shakeup" tag, because it's essentially a new character

Batman:
Harley Quinn

Batgirl first appeared in Batgirl #1 (September 2011). She's Barbara Gordon again and looks like Batgirl.

Renee Montoya first appeared in one panel of Batwoman #1 (September 2011) and then appeared in one panel of Batwoman #0 (September 2012). That's it so far.

Mr. Freeze's real name, costume, and part of his backstory haven't changed from the Animated Series version. And of course he still calls himself "Mr. Freeze", which is from Batman '66. And, as part of his backstory, Nora Fries is still around..sort of. Her name is Nora Fields, and Mr. Freeze is obsessed with her but they were never actually married. In fact, they never even met. (Batman Annual #1, May 2012)

Clayface is looking more like his animated self than ever in Justice League #30 (May 2014).

The Batmobile's afterburner is still around, but I don't have a first appearance for it.

Presumably this whole page, if the Batman Inc. stuff still counts

Superman:
Perry White and Jimmy Olsen first appeared in Superman #1 (September 2011).
The Daily Planet has definitely appeared in the New 52, but I can't find what issue. I'm sure it came out in September 2011, though.

Mercy Graves first appears in Justice League #31 (June 2014). She's Asian now, supposedly to match Tao Okamoto in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, but I don't know which one really came first.

Livewire first appears as a member of the Secret Society of Super-Villians in Justice League #30 (May 2014).

Non first appears by name in Action Comics #23.2 (September 2013), although I've read he appeared as early as Action Comics #5 (January 2012). Interestingly, he appears with Faora instead of Ursa; presumably this is to be more like Man of Steel, but then why wouldn't they use Jax-Ur instead of Non?

Sgt. Casey is mentioned in Action Comics #1 (September 2011). As far as I know, he hasn't actually appeared yet, but he's out there somewhere.

Mr. Mxyzptlk first appeared in Action Comics #15 (December 2012) with a new backstory: he's now a court jester for the 5th-dimensional King-Thing Brpxz of Zrff.

Bizarro first appears in Superman #23.1 (September 2013) as a failed Kryptonian/human-hybrid Superman clone called Subject B-0.

Metallo first appears in Action Comics #1 (September 2011) as John Corben, a soldier under Sam Lane. In issue 2 (October 2011), he joins John Henry Irons's Project: Steel Soldier and wears the Metal-0 suit, The Metal-0 suit is then revealed to be sentient - thanks to a Brainiac virus - and through a series of events, Metallo and Corben become one person and they get a Kryptonite heart in issue 8 (April 2012). Later, they upgrade to Metal-2.0, and then by Forever Evil they begin calling themselves Metallo.

This whole page, except for maybe the Phantom Zone appearance

Other:
Giganta's powers, as seen here in her first appearance, Trinity of Sin: Pandora #2 (August 2013):

Green Arrow's costume, as seen here, seems to be a mixture of his Smallville and Arrow outfits. From what I've seen, it tends to lean more toward one or the other based on the artist:

John Stewart's costume, as seen here. John Stewart first appeared in Green Lantern Corps #1 (September 2011).

Team Spotlight: Agents of SHIELD

Marvel's Agents of SHIELD premiered on September 24, 2013, as the first television series set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It follows a small team of SHIELD agents, led by Phil Coulson, that generally acts outside the constrains of the larger SHIELD organization. Surprisingly, instead of choosing characters from the array of SHIELD agents already existing in the comics, or even promoting the agents (screen-first or not) already appearing in the movies and One-Shots, the show decided to go with wholly new characters: grumpy lone wolf tactician Grant Ward, stoic martial artist pilot Melinda May, tech engineer Leo Fitz, biochem engineer Gemma Simmons, and hacker-outsider-with-a-mysterious-past Skye.

With the show now in its second season, Marvel is debuting a new SHIELD comic that will be released on December 31. From all accounts, it seems to be a new version of Marvel Team-Up, with done-in-one stories and new guest stars each issue. The book will, of course, focus on this new team of SHIELD characters, minus Ward for obvious-to-anyone-who's-seen-the-show reasons, but plus the monkey Fitz has so desperately wanted since the first episode.