You're reading this and thinking to yourself, "Is this guy serious? I know my comic book heroes!" Snorting with derision as to the audacity of my article, you yell out at your screen, "I've watched the movies, I've seen the animated films & series! I know my comics." You may be (possibly) wondering which comic characters I might be listing, and are waiting patiently to quickly jump in and learn about them, or your chance to debunk every item I list. However, I'm curious about the mainstream audience, the people who are now, recently, starting, or have enjoyed comic book heroes, on a casual basis. Even if you are completely new to comics because of all the fanfare they've been given in a mainstream limelight in the last decade. Hardcore fans of comics should know the listing below, yet i'm always surprised, in my travels, how many self-proclaimed "hardcore fans" actually don't know some of their comic history. This topic came up recently at a convention, and I was asked in a panel about one particular heroine. The question was about Wonder Woman, "Why does, or did she have a Jet? An Invisible at that, isn't she a greek?" I found it to be a very valid question. Wonder Womans a character with this particular vehicle that doesn't (really) make any sense, yet it was in the comics a year after her first appearances, it's been utilized, and rationalized (nicely) throughout the years. Yet, for the most part we don't really see this vehicle very much in other modern canon for the character. Even if it has had a few "nods" in recent animated features. "Why Camacho, Why!?" I was asked. This prompted me to go and take a deeper look at other comic book mainstream media. To research where the origins of some of our favorite characters still hold true (to the first appearances and versions), and see where some origins are so mixed up, over the years, that even some of the geekiest of comic book fans are lost in the mix, or even in translation.
Wonder Woman's Invisible Jet
This is the topic that sparked my interest to write this article. In terms of a modern (present and mainstream) audience, many of you may have seen
Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths (2010). This film displays how our
Justice League Unlimited Wonder Woman (evidently) gains, or steals if you prefer, a jet with cloaking technology. A jet which ends up damaged, leaving it permanently cloaked, from a character named
Owlman; who is actually
Thomas Wayne Jr. in the comics. Owlman is Bruce Wayne's brother in this
universe, and is touted as "Batman" of this alternate universe, which isn't completely accurate, Batman here is
Thomas Wayne Sr..
If you happen to have been born in the 60's or 70's (even the early 80's), you might have been old enough to (normally) watch and enjoy the
Super Friends cartoon, which in the late 70's changed to
Challenge of the Super Friends. If you happened to watch this as a kid, sitting with your bowl of cereal during those early mornings, or watching the recaps on Sunday morning; bowl of cereal possibly still in hand, you've been exposed to some of the earliest animated versions of characters that will be further down this list, and (seemingly) closest to their origins. But I digress with reminiscence, let's focus on Wonder Woman for a moment. During the Super Friends, Wonder Woman had her "Invisible Jet", and we as kids, or older comic book fans, just accepted the jet, without question. Probably because it was pretty freaking cool! During that time, the
live action Wonder Woman series was also airing, starring the wodnerfully amazing
Lynda Carter, the jet made its appearances here as well, however it was mostly shown in a WWII era fighter plane, and later shown as a 70's style jet before being completely removed, due to obsolescence, as Diana was now capable of flight and super speed. This 70's style jet is the one most of us have come to know or remember. But in truth, what is the real origin of this aspect of the Wonder Woman Comics?
If you happened to watch the
Wonder Woman (2009) animated feature, you would have seen a very different take on the origin of the Invisible Jet, which is a bastardization of the original story. As it goes, the Jet, arrived via Air Force pilot,
Steve Trevor, who accidentally crash lands on Themyscira's, Paradise Island. The jet itself was nothing special and was, reconfigured into more of a stealth fighter by the Amazons; made to be invisible for Diana to escort Trevor back to the US. Later on in the film we see the jet being used to protect Themyscira, piloted by Trevor, himself, and in a moment of confusion, he can't seem to fire the jets missiles? Eventually, realizing they were also invisible (after they destroyed their intended target). A nice touch, a nod if you will, to the original concept of the invisible jet.
In truth, I've been typing "Invisible Jet" but really it's
"Invisible Plane" as the original in the golden age comic had a propeller (despite it being able to travel just over mach 2, about 2000 mph), its first appearance was in
Sensation Comics #1 (1942). Most folks refer to all of this as
"Pre-Crisis Era", because most of our heroes origins, purpose, and powers were re-written after the events of the Crisis Era. Back then, Wonder Woman was simple not able to fly, and needed the plane for her travels to the outside world, and similarly setup, as in the Wonder Woman animated feature, an enchantment was given so that it would be undetected. It became an obsolete concept that was slowly phased out.
The Justice League
The Justice League (JLA)... Known to so many of us in a variety of formats and story-lines. Heralded in multiple animated films and series, soon to grace the silver screen in a wide theater release by Warner Bros. A Topic that sets most of us in the geek community ablaze in terms of what will happen? Who will play who? What will be the origins of our heroes; these questions asked ad infinitum. For the most part, we accept that we know the individual components and their own origins. We know Superman came from Krypton, we generally know Batman lost his parents as a child, eventually donning the cape to protect the innocent, we know about Wonder Woman, The Flash (in this case Barry Allen), Aquaman... We know where the heroes came from, and in some cases, don't, hence the topic of this article. But as far as the creation of many-a-comic-book-fans favorite super powered team-up, how did they get together? For most people the debate of Superman needing a team of heroes has always been an interesting one. For the most part, Superman is a being (in a variety of interpretations), be it writers creative license, or producers in their attempt to make all elements work; has been watered down to exist with all of these amazing heroes. In other cases, Superman is pretty much near-godlike in his abilities. So why create a team if he pretty much can do the work alone?
The good thing here is i'm not going to give you my retrospect opinion as to why he made that decision, because in the end it could simply be interpreted based on justifications writers set in place to help you (the reader) accept the need to form a team, not the how they were formed. It is widely accepted that the Justice League was formed out of necessity by it's three principle leaders, Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. Even so, that is actually not the case, well that's a trick piece of commentary (we'll come back to this). Looking at recent entries for the Justice League, as a group, we can see various aspects in the animated films about how they actually came together as a team. One of my favorite re-interpreted entries from the animated films comes from
Green Lantern: First Flight. The film essentially retells an origin story for Hal Jordan, then compiles it together with a need for a team of heroes to come together, in the end of the film, to protect our world from the enormous threat that is now perceived by Hal Jordan gaining his powers; Now able to see what was out there lurking in the Universe. I found this amazingly interesting because it was definitely a different take on the concept.
Going back to my earlier example of the Super Friends, rather Challenge of the Super Friends, The earliest roster also included
Robin, and
Aquaman. Later to include creations by the studio that were not part of the comics. Those missing, early on, were
Martian Manhunter,
Green Lantern (Hal Jordan),
Hawkman,
The Flash (Barry Allen),
Green Arrow, and
Plastic Man. Challenge, corrected this roster (to a degree) and focused more on the creation of the
Legion of Doom. Yet we still got some odd characters that older fans of the material will recognize, like the
Wonder Twins.
The original comic team-up of the Justice League occurred with
The Brave and the Bold #28 in 1960, however this was a circumstance that was born from
Gardner Fox being given the task of reintroducing the first ever comic book super-team,
The Justice Society of America. which had been gracing comic pages since 1940 in
All Star Comics #3. The main lineup consisted predominantly of
The original Flash (Jay Garrick),
The Original Green Lantern (Alan Scott),
The Spectre,
Dr. Fate (Kent Nelson), Hawkman,
The Atom (Al Pratt),
Hourman (not the 1985 Todd Mcfarlane recreation), Johnny Thunderbolt &
Sandman. Superman and Batman had their own respective comics and were not full members of the group as most had believed, only making minor appearances. Lantern and Flash as well weren't always in the group, but were among it's founding members. They would depart more often, especially after their individual comics started to be pushed into the mainstream market (mainstream for the golden age).
Eventually, after Gardners recreation of the Justice League, and its popularity soaring, DC reinvigorated some of the characters from JSA into this new League. However most of the JSA storylines that were reintroduced were stated to be part of an alternate universe, referred to as
Earth-Two, while the league existed in our universe,
Earth-One. Leading to future multi-dimensional crossovers, and the fantastically setup storylines we've gained for the Crisis-Era, and so on. At one point, DC setup a storyline for JSA that placed them predominantly as a WWII Era incarnation of the League, as its predecessors. Some of this storyline was used to work in JSA characters into the Smallville TV series. To a degree you can say the Justice League Unlimited series was intended to combine much of what was the JSA and JLA together under one roof with alterations to continuity (meaning ignoring continuities) to make the series a minor animation masterpiece.
Wolverine
Wolverine has always been among my all time favorite characters, while growing up. The films available to us (now) since the first X-films have only touched on a minute amount of Wolverines origin, they've focused more time on his Adamantium origins then anything else. However, the question always asked stems from his age, "When was he born?", "Who were his parents?", etc. We have been given glimpses and various interpretations, but for the most part, the first three X-Men films; while I can say I like watching them, and enjoy them as general pieces of cinema. I can also say from the inner recesses of my elitist-comic-book-nerds-heart, I hate them, and the subsequent
X-Men: Origins Wolverine. Because they, apparently, took to much creative license to alter what was seemingly a perfect origins live action film, and added their own spin without the need for it. It already appealed to a broad mainstream audience. Now I know I am being intentionally vicious, and those films are (relatively) decent in general, as long as we turn off our inner-comic-nerds. Origins is one of those films I'll watch for the opening montage, and sometimes up until Wolverine walks away from
Team X (If I'm feeling punchy). These films take so much "Screw it...put it in!" mentality with the material, the bulk of it is completely inaccurately pieced from an accurate concept (does that make sense?). Because of this, when talking about Wolverine I have to restrain myself from an all out tirade of nerd-raging. So let's look at the source material. The Comics. Their Creators, the institution that is,
John Romita Sr., and
Len Wein.
Wolverine first appeared at the very end, of
The Incredible Hulk #180, and then in a full edition of
The Incredible Hulk #181, and in a small part of the finale to this storyline in
#182. Wolverine was originally a partial throw away character that was created (as many others were) to toss him into-the-pit with the Hulk. His origin didn't state anything beyond being Canadian, small, and that his claws were not able to retract. The only reason they retract now, as we know them, John Romita Sr. applied common sense to the character stating, "...How can he scratch his nose, or tie his shoes?" Wolverine wouldn't appear into comics for another year, until
X-Men #94. If you have ever watched some of the 1990's animated X-Men series, to a degree, it takes a lot of what was in these early bronze age comics and attempted to remain true to the stories the X-men and Wolverine shared (by the time this series aired Logan had already gained popularity as a fan favorite). Especially, his longing for Jean Grey, which consequently is the strongest aspect of the Bryan Singer & Brett Ratner X-films, continuing (still) the sentiments into the most recent Wolverine film. Logan was almost dropped from the X-Men comics in the 70's until a Canadian comic writer and artist,
John Byrne, pushed forward to keep him in the storylines. He began creating back story and material for a clearer origin of the character. Using storylines from a team he created called
Alpha Flight, which is also a Canadian based super team, citing arguments that the Canadian government spent a lot of money on Logans' training. Wolverine didn't get his own self-titled comic book until 1988. Technically, he had a couple of comics, each standalone, four and six, part mini-series; one worked on by fan favorite
Frank Miller. One particular argument is that Wolverine was an animal that mutated...This is not true, and his creator specifically has argued, nearly ranted, that this is not true (emphatically). Fans went crazy with this notion because of a particular character in the comics Logan has dealt with named,
Blu-Ray, better yet, go buy the
Frank Miller graphic novel - then come back and finish the rest of this article (I won't wait for you, but the article will be here when you get back :P <-- consider that a punctuation.
The original Batman appeared in
Detective Comics #27, and while the cover said "The Batman", he was referred to as "The Bat-Man" at first. I'm one of the fortunate few to have one in a sealed glass encasement which I will likely be buried with. What's interesting about this? After being introduced, you could see him in the comics chasing down villains using guns, shotguns, and rifles, and a variety of grenades. Not only using them to "Strike Fear into their hearts..." but shooting those filthy bums dead. Yes! Batman was pretty much an early inspiration for Marvels Punisher, which Stan Lee himself has talked about during interviews (Stan created the Punisher name). I'm pretty certain the scenes we observe in The Dark Knight with the fake "Batmen" using an M1A rifle and a standard Benelli Shotgun, were minor nods to the original "The Batman" comics (both were used in the comic). Nicely done Nolan, i'm not sure that was intentional, if it wasn't than it's a happy coincidence.
What most "mainstream" comic book fans might not know is the separation between the terms "Batman" and "The Batman" - "Batman" usually refers to the Batman most of us know and recognize. An incorruptible genius detective that is among the greatest, if not greatest, martial artists and minds in the world (if you discount Lady Shiva). "The" added to his name on the comics is more specific to a much darker, vicious, and brooding type of Dark knight from the original 1939 comics (and onward). Audiences recently may have watched a few of the Batman-only entries out of the DCAU animated films like,
Batman: Year One,
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns: Part I, and the aforementioned Batman: the Dark Knight Returns Part II, all three are excellent films (with some minor quirks, sorry I can't help it, especially the weird emaciated Superman scene in part II). However the main issue with Year One is very simple. It is not at all what Batman 1939 is like...As I said above, the dude would simply kill his way through villains without any "Ruth"...O_o can I say it like that, screw it, he was Ruthless. Those origins were changed later on to make him a different kind of character, making him more interesting, because it seemed stupid to DC that a detective with a gun would run around in a costume. That concept eventually inspired
The Question, which later inspired Alan Moore's
Rorschach from the Watchmen series. Batman as most of us know him functions from a wide variety of skills, abilities, and personally tortured psychological demons that make him absolutely awesome gothic comic-noir splendor. Notable to his earliest incarnations are the fact that the
Batmobile did not come first, the
Batplane did in Detective Comics #31 2 years prior to the first official batmobile, he originally didn't have a utility belt either, that was introduced later on, as well was his Batarang. This is how DC made him interesting over time, no killing, no guns, just brains, ingenuity, and a lot of scaling of buildings.
Detective Comics #35 if you break down the character, we can always blame the bi-polar variation of "Kill" or "No Kill" to the writers that pen his adventures. But here is another example that helps polarize him in the focused direction that DC/WB wanted to keep him in, that no longer shadow his origins.
If you go back to the first episode in
Batman Beyond, you will see an aging Bruce Wayne still struggling to fight crime, now in his newest high tech "Beyond" suit. when he gets overpowered by a thug, he scrambles to gain said thugs gun and trembles as he points it toward him. Having no alternative but to simply kill him, or die himself. The look on Waynes' face and the subsequent retirement from the cape and cowl (possibly a second or third retirement if we follow earlier works and thread it into this story) pretty much screams to the audience he can't do this anymore without killing. This is the origin that DC has completely run away from. Their hero that was born in blood (did I just steal that from Dexter...oops!) and eventually began to deliver a whole lot of death of his own, was neutered. So many variations exist on individual pieces of his origin, so little time to talk about them all (I've written a lot of the various wiki's so go do some exploring).
So I'll leave you with this much, god bless Tim Burton (if you believe in the "blessing" sort of thing, if not, the more politically correct - Hail almighty flying spaghetti monster!) for giving us the 1989 Batmobile. Regardless of where Burton got his consultation on the Batman origin (which was actually mostly Frank Miller), I will always love that interpretation and that car! I hope you all enjoyed the read, this is part I of nearly 25 characters I will be writing about. Hopefully you learned something new about some of your favorite characters, if you knew it all, great!.
Now go teach it to your friends that are new to our world. What other character origins do you think are completely obscured by popular and current media? Comment, share, tweet, Book of Face, click the giant red thumbs up button (it makes me smile)
By
@EmanuelFCamacho