10 Little-Known Facts About Your Favorite Superheroes Comic Book Characters
Superheroes: they’re everything we wish we were ourselves (apart from
the spandex; that stuff chafes, apparently). But so many of our
favorite comic book characters very nearly weren’t what they are today.
In fact, they had to go through many chops and changes before they
became the characters we’ve loved, feared and revered through the
decades. So here are ten little-known facts about your favorite comic
book characters:
10. Marvel Feared That Spider-Man Would Scare People
Spider-Man is without doubt one of Marvel’s most famous, popular, and
money-spinning characters. But Spidey was very close to being kicked in the wastepaper bin
mere moments after making it off the drawing board. Martin Goodman,
head of Marvel at the time, told Spider-Man creator Stan Lee that he
thought the new hero was a “rotten idea” for a comic book hero.
Goodman sincerely believed that the character would struggle to
ingratiate himself with Marvel’s adoring fans, for the simple fact that
people were scared of spiders—so they’d supposedly be scared of him.
9. Superman Was Originally a Bald Megalomaniac
Let’s list Superman’s visual attributes: tall, handsome, with a
charming smile; broad shouldered, and with a full head of slicked-back
hair. But things could’ve been very different indeed.
The son of Krypton’s creators, Jerry Siegel
and Joe Shuster, originally conceived of The Superman as a telepathic
scientist obsessed with world domination. And the kicker? He was bald.
An evil Professor Xavier if you will. Butby the time Superman had found
a publisher—a six year process—the character had become the dashing
hero, with a full head of hair, whom we know and love today.
8. Captain America Had to Change His Shield
One of Cap’s most popular features has to be his shield.
He’s walloped Hitler with it, rescued it from the deepest, darkest
depths of the sea, and beaten various villains to a pulp with his
silvery shield of justice. But the shield was originally intended to be very different from the versatile disc-shaped one adorning Cap’s front covers today.
Joe Simon and Jack Kirby originally dreamed up a heraldic-shaped shield. But rival comic publisher MLJ
already had a patriotic character called The Shield who had a very
similar looking heraldic logo on his chest. Due to legal pressure from
MLJ, Marvel (then “Timely”) changed the design—and by the time Captain
America made his first appearance in America Comics No.1, in March 1941,
the new shield had been penned, inked, and signed off.
7. Stan Lee Worried Daredevil Would Offend People
Although Ben Affleck did his best to butcher the character in the
movie version of the comic, Daredevil fans are some of the most loyal
comic books followers out there (right up there with fans of DC’s
Flash). But the acrobatic avenger of the streets very nearly fell from his perch a few moments after taking flight.
Stan Lee made it clear to the Marvel team: if there were even the
vaguest whiff that the comic was causing offense to blind people, or
blind organizations, he would pull the book from the shelves quicker
than you can say Matt Murdock.
6. The Hulk Was Supposed to Be Gray
What’s the first thing you think about when you imagine the Hulk? The
fact he’s bright green, right? Well, this very nearly wasn’t the case.
Stan Lee always intended for the Hulk to be grey—and so he was, in the very first issue of the series The Incredible Hulk in 1962.
This didn’t last for long, however. Due to the fact that there were
major problems with the inconsistency of the printing, they ended up
having to choose a color instead. One of the most consistent colors in
print at the time was green, so they opted for that.
When the comic book was first made into the classic TV show, the
executive producer Kenneth Johnson pushed for the Hulk to be red, to
symbolize anger. And in a further twist, as printing has become more
proficient, a grey Hulk has appeared numerous times in the modern comic era. How long will it be until we see him in red?
5. The Joker Was Going to Die in Batman No.1
The Joker has to be the best super villain of all time. But Batman creator Bob Kane was ready to kill off the evil jester
in his very first appearance. As with many of Batman’s early villains,
the plan was to have the Joker die through some fatal accident. Batman’s
editor Whitney Ellsworth saw potential in the character, however, and
forced Kane to include a panel showing the Joker coming back to life.
4. Venom Was Going to Be a Woman
When the Symbiote—an evil alien-suit which takes over its host—was
discarded by Spider-Man, writer David Michelinie didn’t know what to do
with it. Eventually, he decided to give the suit to a woman.
But Michelinie decided that she needed to hate Spider-Man so much that
she wanted to kill him, so he plotted out a story which, in true comic
fashion, is massively convoluted.
Brace yourself—this plotted version went as follows:
a heavily pregnant woman is traveling in a taxi cab; Spider-Man
distracts the driver, and the cab crashes into her husband. The husband
dies in front of wife’s eyes, and she loses her baby due to the shock.
She ends up institutionalized with mental illness, and promises herself
that she’ll avenge the deaths of her husband and her baby.
When Michelinie moved over to Amazing Spider-Man, he pitched that
very idea to his boss, who said that the readers would never see a woman
as a realistic physical threat to Spider-Man. Eventually, Michelinie
came up with the character of Eddie Brock instead—the name eventually
becoming synonymous with Venom.
3. Iron Man Was Created as a Dare
Stan Lee and artist Don Heck created Iron Man at the height of the Cold War in 1963, when the American people were very much aware of war and its impact on their lives.
On paper, Tony Stark offered no alternative to this; in fact, he
really wasn’t the most like-able superhero at all. He was an arms
dealer, a bit of a womanizer and more arrogant than possibly any other
comic book creation. But this was the point. Lee was challenged by his
publisher Martin Goodman to create a superhero who was also a “wealthy
capitalist war profiteer.” Lee took on the challenge, believing all the
while that Stark would be a big hit—and he was dead right.
Perhaps one of the reasons for Iron Man’s success was the fact that he was loosely based on the celebrity Howard Hughes,
who embodied many of the superhero’s traits in real life. And when the
artist Heck first sketched the hero, he imagined the popular actor Errol
Flynn.
2. Wonder Woman Was Created as a Feminist Ideal
Throughout the Golden Age (1930s and ‘40s) and the Silver Age (1950s
and ‘60s) of Comic Books, the industry had many critics. One such critic
was Fredric Wertham, a child psychiatrist who believed that comic books
were turning American youths into perverted juvenile delinquents.
In true comic book fashion, however, a hero saved the day. Dr. William Moulton Marston
was not only an American psychologist, but also a passionate advocate
of women’s liberation. And Marston had the complete opposite view to
that of Wertham, believing that comics could have a considerably
positive affect on kids’ ethical groundings.
To prove his point, Marston created Wonder Woman in an attempt to
educate Marvel’s readers about feminist ideals (Marston believed that a
period of ‘American matriarchy’ was coming . . . although he also
believed this would, in part, be achieved through the enslavement of men
via seduction).
Of course, the comic-book hater Wertham saw the worst in this new
character, and despised what he called the “lesbian overtones” of the
book. We should also bear in mind that Marston was rather liberal in his
personal life; he lived in a house with two women, and had children by
both of them. In fact, both his wife Elizabeth and his mistress Olive
were huge influences on the creation of Wonder Woman.
Incidentally, Marston was also responsible for inventing one of the
early polygraph machines—which is the reason why anyone caught in Wonder
Woman’s lasso is compelled to tell the truth.
1. Wolverine Was Nearly Called The Badger
Wolverine was created by writer Len Wein, because he needed a character who could do battle with the The Incredible Hulk.
The Wolverine made his debut in issue 181, way back in 1974, as a
Canadian special agent ordered by a government department to capture
Hulk and “bring him in.”
The early Wolverine displayed many of the traits—the claws, the
yellow-and-blue costume, and the mask with the pointed ears—which would
remain when he became a fan favorite as a member of the X-Men. But
things could have been very, very different.
The character of Wolverine was conceived when Wein decided that he
wanted to create a character who would be popular in Canada. He knew
that heroes based on animals were a big hit in the US, so he
brainstormed Canadian animals, eventually narrowing it down to two: The
Wolverine and The Badger.
Thankfully, Wein’s editor stepped in and suggested that the
connotation of a wolf would make for a better superhero . . . and so the
entire Marvel Universe dodged a bullet of considerable size. “This
summer! In a cinema near you! The Badger!” just doesn’t have the same
ring to it, does it?
source : http://listverse.com/2013/04/12/10-little-known-facts-about-your-favorite-comic-book-characters/
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