Marvel

Not long after Frank Miller concluded his iconic run on Daredevil, Ann Nocenti came along to put Matt Murdock through hell—literally. While still exploring the darkest corners of our hero’s soul, Nocenti didn’t rely on the same elements as Miller, who introduced Elektra and pitted Daredevil against ninjas. Instead, her more political approach led, among other things, to the creation of Typhoid Mary, one of Daredevil’s most emblematic archenemies today.

Though she has appeared in fewer than 200 issues to this day, Mary Walker cannot be ignored. From her striking beauty (and beautiful hair!) to her psychological instability—she suffers from dissociative identity disorder—Mary leaves an impression wherever she goes. She is undoubtedly a dangerous woman—highly trained as an athlete and martial artist, with the added abilities of pyrokinesis and telekinesis.

Read More »Typhoid Mary Comics Reading Guide, a Marvel List

In 1974, Marvel Comics was in the business of publishing magazines. One of them was The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, a black-and-white martial arts comics magazine that introduced in its first issue The Sons of the Tiger, a trio of crime fighters. Created by Gerry Conway and Dick Giordano, these characters each possessed an amulet (a tiger’s head and two tiger claws) that increased their fighting skills.

But this didn’t last and after many adventures, the three sons call it quits and throw away their amulets. However, in The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #19, an issue from writer Bill Mantlo and artist George Pérez, they are found by a young Puerto Rican named Hector Ayala who combined them and gained the power that transformed him into the hero called White Tiger!

Like the three sons, Hector Ayala used martial arts but acted like a more traditional superhero with a costume and a secret identity. With The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #33, the comics magazine ended, and the black-and-white adventures of White Tiger with it (his ended in #32 though). A few months later, he made his comeback, in color this time, in Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #9 written by Bill Mantlo who kept using the character that way.

Read More »White Tiger Reading Order (Hector Ayala, Angela del Toro, and Ava Ayala)

Created by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Don Heck for Marvel Comics in The Avengers #9 (1964), the character of Wonder Man, aka Simon Williams, is one of those who started as a villain before becoming a hero and a member of the Avengers–like Hawkeye, for example. But the most surprising part is that he apparently died in that first issue and didn’t reappear for four years, and then again, it was not for long. It was not before the mid-1970s that he would start to play a bigger part.

All of this is because DC Comics sued Marvel Comics for the right to use the name. DC had Wonder Woman and didn’t like the idea that Marvel would use Wonder Man. Stan Lee didn’t want to fight it (he created She-Hulk to avoid someone else doing it, it was the game at the time), but when DC introduced Power Girl (Marvel already had Power Man), it seemed fair to bring back Wonder Man.

Simon Williams was an industrialist who gained superpowers after being imbued with “ionic” energy by Baron Zemo. As Wonder Man, he infiltrated the Avengers but ultimately betrayed Zemo and seemingly sacrificed himself to save the team. Resurrected later, Wonder Man became a loyal member of the Avengers and grew into a prominent hero. He also developed a career in Hollywood as an actor and stuntman.

Wonder Man helped form the West Coast Avengers, and later joined Force Works, but most of all, he has been an Avenger!

Read More »Wonder Man Reading Order