Comic Features

Marvel Character Affinity: The Thing

ITS CLOBBERING TIME!!  This is Thing’s battle cry before going into action. Ah yes, Thing, Marvel’s oldest and one of their most popular monsters. This character was created in 1961 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby along with the other three members of the Fantastic Four starring in their own comic of the same name. The Thing , whose real name is Ben Grimm,  is a native New Yorker from one of the toughest city blocks Yancy Street. The Thing’s origin is very simple yet brilliant for its time. He and the other three Fantastics go out into to space for exploration. When the crew arrives to their destination, they are unexpectedly hit by a cosmic ray and exposed to cosmic radiation. Once the new heroes are hit by the cosmic ray radiation, they along with their ship crash back to earth.  All the members of the ship survive and gain some incredible powers. Reed Richards(Mr. Fantastic) inherit elasticity, Sue Richards (Invisible Woman) can turn invisible and Johnny Storm (Human Torch) can turn into fire and manipulate it.

Marvel Character Affinity: Moon Knight

He is one of Marvel’s vigilante heroes. He is a billionaire, a cab driver and a soldier of fortune. Created by Doug Moench and Don Perlin originally doing the art. Originally conceived as an enemy of Jack Russell (Werewolf By Night), appearing in Werewolf By Night #32. He proved to be a popular character and was awarded his own series.

It was in the first issue of his own series that his true origin tale was explained. Marc Spector was working as a mercenary with Raoul Bushman and Jean-Paul “Frenchie” DuChamp. Bushman killed an archaeologist and Spector felt guilty, he helped the archaeologist’s daughter to escape. Bushman was annoyed and beat Spector, leaving him to die in the desert. From here, Marc Spector crawled to a tomb and Marlene put him under the statue of Khonshu, Ancient Egyptian god of the moon and vengeance. Spector died, but suddenly came back to life believing Khonshu had brought him back to life.

Marvel Character Affinity: Jubilee

From mall-rat to vampire, it’s time for everyone’s favorite Chinese-America girl from the Valley. She’s known
for her love of rollerblading, gymnastics and has been a member of
the X-Men brand for years. She’s young, fun, bubbly and sassy to boot.
She is the one and only Jubilation Lee. But what is actually good about
Jubilee? When Jubilation Lee was a little girl,
she was born and raised in Beverly Hills California. When she was
young she was a gymnast, with skills of Olympic proportions. In the
mist of being a success her parents were murdered, thus making her an
orphan. Hating the orphanage and with nowhere to turn she flees to
her second home, the mall. While hiding at the local mall she discovers
that she has the mental talent to create fireworks from her hands.
With her new found talent she hustles by entertaining customers
until the mall’s security tries to shut her down. But alas the mall’s
finest is no match for Jubilee’s sassy ways and the M-Squad is called
to do work.

Marvel Character Affinity: Mystique

Mystique’s origin is as elusive as the many guises this shape-shifter uses to get out of (or into) trouble. She has often fought against the X-Men and is one of the few bisexual characters in comics. The few facts acquired through years of X-Men comics about Mystique are that she is over 100 years old because of her powers, was probably born in Australia and her real name may be Raven Darkholme. She was originally created by Dave Cockrum and first appeared in Mr. Marvel #16 back in ’78. She has been an assassin, spy and a mercenary. She has had military training and often uses her shape-shifting abilities to gather top secret information. Mystique also has a healing power like Wolverine’s and is immune to drugs and poisons.

DC Character Affinity: Swamp Thing

Created by Lein Wein and Bernie Wrightson, big vegetable guy Swamp Thing first appeared in House of Secrets #92 in the 70s with the name Alex Olsen. set in the early 20th century, when scientist Alex Olsen is caught in a lab explosion caused by a co-worker, who wanted to kill him for the love of his wife. the explosion from the chemicals physically altered Olsen into the Swamp Thing. After the success of the short story, Swamp Thing #1 debuted by Wein and Wrightson now based in the mid 1970’s and featured a new character named Alec Holland as the monster. The origin is almost the same except that this time the explosion was due to sabotage. Now Swamp Thing is pretty much a rip off of marvel’s Man-Thing (I know its a funny name) that was created  years before Swamp Thing. They look pretty much the same with similar backgrounds. Even, Wain worked on Man Thing before Swamp Thing; is amazing that marvel never sued.

DC Character Affinity: Doomsday

With the “Reign of Doomsday” already starting at DC (be it a slow start) what better character to look at than Doomsday? Sure everyone knows him as the man who killed Superman, but what else is there to this character? Doomsday is practically a house hold name and makes people shit their pants upon his arrival, but why? What is it about this character that is so scary that he chills even the likes of Darkseid? Well let’s start with the boring stuff first the origin story. Born on Krypton and dubbed “The Ultimate” he was a test tube baby that was exposed to the planets harsh environments. After each death the remains of the child were gathered and used again in order to create the perfect life form. Well go figure those deaths were genetically remembered in each clone and after tons of deaths “The Ultimate” became a bit nuts and now hates all life. He hitched a ride on a supply ship sent to the planet and began a 245,000 year murdering spree. Finally he was “killed” by a being called the Radiant on the planet Calaton. As customary on the planet they suited and shackled him, then put him in a big metal coffin and shot him into space where eventually he landed on earth.

DC Character Affinity: Agent Orange (Larfleeze)

Mine!
Mine! Mine! This is what you hear when you face Agent Orange, better known as
Larfleeze. Every time I read something
with this character I just get so giddy like a kid and I can help but chuckle
at what he might do next. The Character
was created by Geoff Johns as a key participant in the Blackest Night plot
line. He represents the orange color spectrum which in turn represents Avarice
or greed in the color spectrum. His origin is part of what makes this
character so intriguing to me. His origin is explained in a conversation between Hal and himself in Issue 41 of Green Lantern. Larfleeze’s origin took place billions of years ago when Larfleeze was a member of a small group of thieves that specialized themselves in stealing artifacts from their home world Maltus.  In one of their adventures the group was off to find a mysterious box that was supposedly worth an entire star system to the right buyer. Worried that the group might succeed in their mission, the Guardians sent their Manhunters to pursue the group.

DC Character Affinity: Etrigan The Demon

Etrigan the Demon is a character from the DC Universe that was created by Jack Kirby in 1972, first appearing in The Demon #1. Etrigan is a demon from hell and even though he is normally really violent he is often found helping the forces of good because of the friendships between the heroes and Jason Blood, the human whom The Demon possesses.

Even though his first series was short lived and his second was cancelled after only five years, Etrigan has stood the test of time as a favourite being a reoccurring character in other titles such as Kevin Smith’s “Batman The Widening Gyre”,Green Arrow “Quiver” and Neil Gaiman’s “The Sandman”, with mini-series peppering the markets over the years.

DC Character Affinity: Lobo

Lobo is a loud-mouthed bounty-hunting biker with looks akin to Kiss singer Gene Simmons. But instead of busting out a rocking single he’s busting out the big guns. Lobo was created by Roger Slider and Keith Giffen, first appearing with his flying motorcycle in Omega Men #3. He continued to appear in the series and was revealed to be part of a race decimated by the Psions, known as the Velorpian’s. This origin story was later scrapped and Lobo’s current origin story was introduced in “Lobo: The Last Czarnian.” Similar to the previous, Lobo is the last member of his race – now the Czarnian’s. Unlike his original origin, however, Lobo killed all the other Czarnian’s rather than an opposing race. Why? For fun of course!

DC Character Affinity: Power Girl

A hero is an upholder of everything good and just. Having the powers of a near god or being able to deduce the greatest of mysteries doesn’t mean anything to most heroes. Heroes have certain qualities that put others to shame. Qualities like: justice, right-and-wrong and putting others first is just a day in the life as a hero. That’s why Power Girl knows what she is doing in the field of battle. Being one of the multitudes of Supergirl’s, thanks to alternative universes Power Girl was born on Earth-2’s doomed planet of Krypton. Zor-L learned of Krypton’s destruction to late to make a ship for him and his wife, so having a ship built for one person, Zor-L placed his infant daughter in the ship and rocketed her away from the planet. Having shipped off his daughter at the same time as Jor-L, Kal-L’s ship landed before Kara’s. The ship that Kara was placed in was slower than Kal-L’s and it took decades for her to finally arrive on Earth. During the trip Kara’s ship was called the Symbioship, which kept Kara in stasis for the entire ride. While she was in stasis, her mind was virtually growing with the laws of Krypton as her body grew. She interacted with her parents and friends, and continued to learn until she was a young adult.