ERB: A Historical Analysis

So, I’ve been a big fan of the Epic Rap Battles of History (also known as ERB) series for years. They take two figures (sometimes historical, sometimes pop culture, sometimes religious/mythical) and do a rap battle between them. For those of you unaware of what a rap battle is, it’s where 2 people brag and boast about themselves, while insulting the other person. Sommetimes you might see a pair or teams of people go at it and share verses. Now one thing to note is that ERB doesn’t always do historical things. They’ve had characters such as Thanos, Santa Clause, Wonder Woman, and Miley Cyrus as characters on their show. So what I’m doing here, is trying to stick to historical figures vs historical figures battles (and maybe later touch on some of the other ones). I will be breaking down some of their actual historical lines and references, and will suggest who I felt one the battle and why. I will also be linking the videos here. If you aren’t subscribed to ERB on YouTube, I highly recommend it, the two main guys behind it (EpicLLOYD and Nice Peter) put in some great work, do costumes, and even try to maintain in-character voices throughout. They also do a fair bit of research, and it shows with some of their lines.

Todays battle is going to feature George Washington vs William Wallace

 

George Washington vs Willian Wallace:
The Rap Battle Here:
Washington’s first verse: Right off the bat, calls out William Wallace for the fact that “I actually fought ’till I was free, Willy.” Immediately follows it up with “I got my face on a quarter, while you got drawn and quartered.” For our non-American friends, the $0.25 coin (known as a Quarter) in the US, has George Washington’s face on it. William Wallace was “Hung, drawn and quartered” which was a traditional punishment in England for treason against the crown. It meant that he was tied to a plank, and dragged by a horse to the place he was to be hung. And then they hung him (almost until death), then they beheaded him, quartered him (usually done after beheading, where they cut the body into 4 pieces, and then disemboweled them, emasculated, and then they burn the entrails in a fire). He moves on to compare their legacies (“A Mel Gibson movie is your legacy, while I’ve got a day, and a state, and a DC”)

So, the first verse only had a couple lines that really stood out. “I fought until I was actually free”, which is true. Scotland did not free itself, and the thirteen colonies became the United States of America. He also regularly attacked how Wallace died, which was true. Wallace was drawn and quartered, had his head cut off (it was mounted on a pike on the London Bridge). As far as legacies go, Washington is definitely more known, and internationally Braveheart made William Wallace a known name. But when you go into Scotland, and even England, Wallace’s legacy is far greater (he was considered the biggest threat to England up until Napoleon Bonaparte, almost 300 years later), and was also known as the “Guardian of Scotland”. So the historical accuracy on that is mixed, both of them left larger legacies than mentioned, but the Washington legacy is definitely more known as the first president of the USA.

Wallace’s first verse: Straight up says “You look like a stiffer white dick than your monument.” Then goes and attacks the fact that Washington died owning slaves, while Wallace died setting people free. He also mentions the line “I’ll knock your face off your moolah, Alba gu bràth” (Alba gu bràth translates from Scottish Gaelic as “Scotland Forever”). Then he attacks Washington’s inability to have children “You’re a founding father, but no children. You crossed the Delaware, but your soldiers can’t swim”. He also pointed out that the British Army turned him down when he tried to work for them.

Here it references the Washington monument (another of Washington’s legacies, that wasn’t actually mentioned earlier) and it’s common comparison to looking like a dick. “I died setting men free” is mostly accurate. While he never truly “freed” Scotland, he came rather close after capturing Stirling Castle, and even raided into northern England. And Washington definitely did own slaves, and never set them free. His founding father line is a shot at the fact that George Washington DID have children, but they were adopted (they were his wife’s children from her first marriage). And that his “soldiers” (sperm) can’t swim, but he crossed the Delaware. This is also a reference to the famous sneak attack of Washington crossing the Delaware, using boats and navy help. Most of the supporting attacks actually got called off due to a lack of ability to cross the river without boats (and swimming wasn’t an option, so it is another reference to “your soldiers can’t swim”). Before he was known as an American Hero, Washington actually DID attempt to become a British Officer, and did a large amount of unpaid work as an aide in an attempt to get noticed. His first couple diplomatic/military missions (done for the Royal Governor of Virginia) were absolute failures, strengthening the French resolve and revealing how much more powerful the French presence was in the region than expected. He did bounce back from those losses, but in the process got denied being an officer amidst accusations of committing war crimes and executing surrendering prisoners. This caused him to be turned down for being an officer multiple times, before joining the colonial forces in the civil war. Ultimately, George Washington had the lead in 11 major battles for both the British and the Americans, and only ended up winning 3 of those.

Washington’s Second Verse: This verse focused mostly on attacks, with few historical references. One line that stands out is “See, Power. That is what the meaning of my flag is. Your nation’s famous for golf and haggis.” After that, he focused on how he dressed, compared to how Wallace is dressed. He then mentions “I’m dressed like a pimp, best moves at the ball. Cockblocked more Scots than Hadrian’s Wall”.

Like I said, very few actual historical references. “Your nation is famous for golf and haggis” basically just plays up to stereotypes. There is other things Scotland is famous for (including whiskey, kilts, and it’s historical sites). But technically speaking, golf and haggis are things that Scotland is known for. The multiple lines about how Wallace dressed, are fairly inaccurate though. The video, they have Wallace dressed like Mel Gibson in Braveheart, which was more of a fantasy representation than historical representation. Example: The blue facepaint is based off of the Roman descriptions of the Caledonians (early Celts in that region), but those descriptions were only a little over 1000 years out of date. The Scots didn’t fight in torn rags, as even the poor Scottish peasants knew how to sew, or had someone in their family who did. It also wasn’t uncommon for Scottish soldiers to dress in bright colours (especially bright yellow and saffron). And realistically, many of the more well off would have worn armour similar to the English (another reason the Scots wore bright colours, to differentiate). One of my favourite lines in the second verse though is “Cockblocked more Scots than Hadrian’s Wall”, as it reinforces the previous line (about being a pimp), but also references the famous Roman wall that was built to separate the Roman Empire from the Barbarians in England (and emphasised Roman Power, in line with his other moves about focusing on defence of the empire, over expansion).

Wallace’s Second Verse: Starts off with him going after Washington’s clothes. “I don’t give a shit about your fancy clothes, you ripped those out of slave black folks.” He also mentions Washington’s farm life in-between working for the British Military and the Revolutionary forces “You grew weed and you made hemp rope, but if you think you’ll beat me you must be having a smoke”. The ending line of Wallace’s second verse was “You’re the father of your country, but I’m your daddy”.

The second verse here also contained less historical references, but the ones he made are pretty good. You see Wallace attack Washington’s use of slave labour again in this verse, saying that the clothes he wore were made by slaves. His reference to Washington growing weed and making hemp rope is of mixed accuracy. It is true that Washington grew hemp, it was after all, a “cash crop” worth a fair bit of money for all it’s industrial uses. BUT, the type of hemp he grew would have had incredibly low THC value (roughly 0.3%) making it virtually useless for drug use. But, he did actively use hemp for it’s industrial uses (the ropes were especially useful for the navy as they were stronger than linen ropes, they were also used for fishing nets, cloth sacks, clothes, and for canvases. The oil was used as a base for paints and varnishes). Washington was a large proponent of growing hemp because of it’s uses, but there is no evidence of him ever being known to use it as a drug. The line of “I’m your daddy) is a reference to the Scottish Declaration of Independence being the founding intellectual basis of the American Declaration of Independence, and part of the inspiration for the American Revolution. So while Washington DID found his country, the basis of that country came from Wallace’s actions.

In Conclusion:
I felt that overall, the historical accuracy has been pretty good, if not perfect. But for a thing meant to be more fun, it does a good job. As far as the actual battlers go, I feel that William Wallace won the battle, but Washington had a couple really good lines that stood out.

Roman Influence Over the World

So, we all know the Roman Republic (and later the Roman Empire) had a huge impact on Europe and the Mediterranean world. But it wasn’t just the world back then that they affected. The ever-reaching impact of the Roman’s on the world, shaped European, Middle Eastern, and North African history until the late 20th century. In fact, it wouldn’t be out of line to say that we still feel the Roman impact today.

Sport:
You’re in London, England, watching England play Argentina in an international match at Wembley Stadium
You’re in London, England, watching Roger Federer play Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon.
You’re in Pasadena, California, watching college football at the annual Rose Bowl.
You’re in Boston, Massachusetts, watching the Red Sox play the Yankees at Fenway Park.
You’re in New York City, New York, watching The Rangers play the Maple Leafs at Madison Square Garden.

Lastly, imagine yourself, in 100 AD, in Rome, watching gladiators fight to the death, at the Flavian Amphitheatre, or as it’s more commonly known today. The Roman Colosseum.

One major impact that the Romans had on sports, was setting large grand arena’s, for everyone to enjoy some intense competition. While there were other amphitheatres and colosseums, they were often smaller, with a far more limited use. Some sports were played in fields, between two groups. But nothing lead to a semi-professional (or professional) competitive sport, until the Roman’s turned gladiatorial arena into an international competition. The winners were showered in riches, fame, and renown. Not only that, but look at many of the stadium designs now. Architecturally, they are still heavily influenced by the Roman Colosseum, with the tiered seating (to fit the most people), and many still have the oval shape popularized almost two thousand years ago.

There are also many modern sports or sporting events, heavily influenced or inspired by, the Romans.
NASCAR and Chuckwagon Racing. These sports would have heavily been influenced by chariot racing, which was a huge event. The fastest horses, hitched to chariots, and raced each other.
Boxing: Pugilatus, was also known as Roman Boxing. While no time limits, or rounds, it was two fighters, wearing hardened leather gloves, fighting until one gave up. This sport is also the root of the word Pugilist (a professional boxer). Not to say fist-fighting, even with rules in place, was unique to Roman’s, but this would be the closest comparable to modern Boxing.
Wrestling: Could be reasonably compared to the Gladiatorial arena’s. While some Gladiator matches were to the death, a good many of them were solely for show, and for entertainment of the masses. While weapons were used, they were often non-fatal, and as such used heavily to entertain and show fake death’s. Wrestling as we know it today often uses similar tactics with their steel chairs, ladder matches, and other “improvised” weapons.
Mixed-Martial Arts: While it’s definitely more known now, and uses many more types of fighting, the Roman’s had an early form of MMA known as Pankration (a mix or Roman-Greco Wrestling, and Pugilatus/boxing).
Track and Field: While there may be some differences, it’s heavily the same as the Track and Field events enjoyed by the Romans and the Greeks. Discus throw, shot put, Roman-Greco wrestling, the long jump, and the sprint (known to the Romans as a stade, which was a 200 meter sprint, or a two-stade/400 meter sprint), and Pankration.
Rugby/American Football: While there isn’t much known about the rules of the sport, there was a sport often played in downtime amongst the military that was similar to the two sports. They would split into two teams (between 5 and 12 players), and a ball (roughly the size of an American Football). The premise appeared to be keep the ball in the air as long as possible in their half of the pitch/field. The other players would than try to get the ball by tackling the players on the other team. Historians are unsure how points were scored, but given the similarities to rugby and football, they believe it may have had to do with touching the ball down in a certain spot on the field.

Architecture and Infrastructure:
As noted briefly above, you see many sports stadiums influenced by the Colosseum’s design. But it’s not just that. the Pillars/Columns of Greek fame were adapted well into Roman Culture. Unlike the Greeks where the columns were used as the building’s supports, the Romans used curved roofs, and arches, to support their buildings, and used the columns as decorative pieces. And pillars as decorative pieces are still common today. Look outside many courthouses through Europe and North America. It’s a staple of architecture on university campuses. It’s an iconic style, taught in introductory architecture. A strong example of Roman architecture being used for modern buildings is the U.S. Capitol Building, which is heavily influenced by the Roman “rotunda” (building with a circular ground plan, often covered with a dome. Also, circular rooms are also called rotunda).

It’s not just the pillars though. The Roman Arches are a huge part. Those arches had angles designed to be used in most buildings, often seen in the aqueducts that Rome built throughout their territory. These arches were also used in Roman roads, at a lesser angle, designed to cause rain water to flow off their roads. The roads were often designed with 3 layers, with compact dirt at the bottom, a layer of gravel in the middle, and then slabs of stone on top. The vast network of roads made travel throughout the empire much quicker (as you aren’t as worried about terrain slowing you down). It also lead to the phrase we still use today “All roads lead to Rome”, as following the roads, you would eventually be able to make it to Rome back then (as Rome being the capital, every major city had a road that lead to a “highway” of sorts to Rome). Another road related influence that is heavily used today that the Romans were known for, is road signs. While the “speed limit” and “stop signs” are much more modern, the Romans placed road signs every Roman mile (roughly 0.94 Imperial Miles), and also had sign posts telling how far to the next town, and which Roman military division built the road.

Roman city planning and roads laid a blueprint used for many centuries. While not wholly unique to Rome, the structured “Grid” map of buildings and roads was spread heavily in Roman border towns (as it made it easier to fight building to building against invasions). While that grid style has been found in other cultures, it was fairly unique to the Roman world (Europe, the Middle East, and Northern Africa), and those grid style designs are still often used for city planning today. Cities based on classical Roman design would include London, Paris, and Washington DC.

Language:
The Romans, having conquered so many lands, and becoming a major center of trade, both in Europe, and internationally (after all, Rome was one of the few European stops along the “Silk Road”), they spread their language, Latin, around. Traders throughout Europe, but even going so far as Indonesia and China, or into Central Africa, often spoke, wrote, or understood. Latin was also mandatory if you were to enter an administrative role within the Republic/Empire.  There were many other languages within Rome, often by region, Greek was considered an “acceptable” language (due to early Greek influence on the Roman peninsula), and was popular amongst the aristocracy of Rome. Punic, Aramaic, Coptic, and Syriac were other major languages spoken in the republic/empire. But Latin itself evolved into two separate branches. Literary Latin (used for literary purposes, and amongst high society/aristocratic circles), and “Vulgar” Latin (which was used and spoken by the masses and common people). Vulgar Latin was known for adapting languages from other regions into it (evolving and developing as most languages do). This adapted Vulgar Latin eventually became the forefather of the modern “Romance Languages” (Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, French, and various regional dialects such as Aragonese, Tuscan, Leonese, Lombard, Piedmontese, or Corsican). And while English itself isn’t a “Romance” language (being a Germanic language), it does use and take many words of Latin origin, to the point of many English majors study it to learn many of the root words common within English. It’s also a popular feel of study for Etymologists.  The Latin language itself is also heavily used within law and other legal matters.

As far as written word, the Roman alphabet did have some basis in the Greek alphabet. But as it eventually developed an “uppercase” and “lowercase” for many of it’s letters, it started influencing other languages (such as Spanish, German, and English). It was also the Roman language that gave rise to western/European style calligraphy (which itself gave rise to hand-writing). Newspapers themselves have their roots in the Roman Empire, where Julius Caesar would have a metal sheet engraved with recent happenings, and upcoming events, within the empire put up at major public places (such as town squares, amphitheaters. and public forums). He would also have smaller versions scribed and given to important foreign dignitaries or province governors. This process was known as Acta Diurna.

Art:
Art, being as subjective as it is, is influenced by everything one encounters. As we learned more and rediscovered much about ancient Rome, it inspired more art and lead to a “renaissance” of sorts for Roman iconography. Museums throughout the world often show marble busts of Roman sculptures. Many authors wrote about or were influenced by Rome in their writings. Examples of this could be Shakespeare (Julius Caesar, and Antony and Cleopatra for example), Robert Graves (I, Claudius), John Milton (Paradise Lose), Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy (Inferno especially, where Dante is guided through Hell by Roman poet Virgil). Another aspect of Roman Art we see on a regular basis appears whenever you look at your money. The concept of putting the Emperor’s face on coins (and bills now-days) was a uniquely Roman thing (that got popular throughout the world as contact with Rome was made). We also have many famous Roman poets, such as Virgil, Horace, Seneca the Younger, or Juvenal. Modern influences of Rome on art today, could be on Movies, such as Gladiator, Pompeii, The Last Legion, The Eagle, or Centurion. Or on TV shows such as Rome, Spartacus: Gods of the Arena, Spartacus: Blood and Sand, or Plebs.

Religion:
This one can be a touchy subject, but it’s tough to argue against the importance that Rome played within a religious context. While early on, the common belief system was closer to the Ancient Greeks (Mars=Ares, Jupiter=Zeus, etc..) and the various provinces often had their local culture’s god’s worshipped, it eventually became dominated by a single dominant religion. While Judaism existed within the provinces of Judea, Syria, Arabia, and Cyprus, it’s hard to judge how the development of Christianity and Islam would have gone without the Romans. In fact, if it weren’t for the Romans (and their roads), it’s hard to say if Judaism would have gotten large enough to have a splintering into Christianity. Or if the Romans didn’t crucify people regularly (it was one of their favourite methods of execution), would Christianity ever spread beyond being a cult-like faction within Judaism. And without the rise of Christianity, would we have had Islam as we know it? While there is a whole bunch of what-if’s involving Rome if they did one thing differently, how it would have impacted everything, it’s safe to say that thanks to the roads developed, and the spread of the written and spoken word that was used throughout the whole Mediterranean, the spread of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam hit far reaching regions that would have taken far longer to do, or possibly never would have reached in the first place. With the roads making travel far quicker, and also far safer, it allowed priests, imams, and rabbi’s to travel and spread their message to cities and towns far outside the regions their religions formed in. And thanks to the spread of Latin, there was a common language to understand and preach in. The scriptures may have been taught and written in another language, they were able to convert people who didn’t know those languages, and taught those languages later. Ultimately, no matter what religion you follow (if you even follow one), it’s hard to deny the impact that Rome had in the spread of the Abrahamic faiths.

Moon Knight: Marvel’s Batman?

The answer, no. That’s it. He is not Marvel’s Batman. Though he is often called as much (I have also heard “If Batman and Joker had a child, it would be Moon Knight” which is probably more accurate, but still a no). So where do we start?

Original Comic Appearances:
Moon Knight first appeared in Werewolf by Night, issue 32 in 1975. In this issue, he was originally hired by the villainous organization “The Committee” to capture Werewolf by Night, but upon learning of the less-than-good intentions of his employers, he ended up turning on them and worked alongside the Werewolf by Night. His next appearance was in 1976 he reappeared in Marvel Spotlight issues 28 and 29, those two issues, combined with Spectacular Spider-Man issues 22 and 23 in 1978 helped recast Moon Knight as an actual hero who was only involved with The Committee (a reference to his first appearance in Werewolf by Night) as part of an undercover operation. His next two appearances (Marvel Two-in-One issue 52, and The Defenders issues 47-51) had him team up and join the Defenders. Some of the artwork in some of his other early appearances (Hulk! Magazine, and Marvel Preview) helped lead to his reputation as a “Batman rip-off”. He was given his first ongoing solo-series in 1980, where he was given a complete origin story.

Moon Knight’s first appearance in Werewolf by Night

 

Origins:
Marc Spector is a Jewish-American child of a Rabbi. Growing up, he always had some psychological issues. This stemmed from the time  a young Marc finds out that their close family friend (Rabbi Yitz Perlman) was actually a Nazi war-criminal who actively hunts and kills Jewish Children. This trauma lead to the initial personality split of Marc Spector, leading to the Jake Lockley and Steven Grant personas. As an adult, he served as a U.S. Marine serving in Force Recon. After leaving the Marines he became a mercenary. As a mercenary, some of the work he did was for the CIA, other times for warlords throughout the world. During his mercenary days, he became close to another mercenary, a Frenchman named Jean-Paul Duchamp, or as Marc calls him, “Frenchie”. While working for an African mercenary Raul Bushman while in Egypt, they raided an archeological camp lead by Dr. Peter Alruane, and his daughter Marlene. The dig they were working on happened to be a temple to the Egyptian God, Khonshu. Bushman killed Dr. Peter, and Marc challenged him to a duel over it. Bushman won fairly easily, and left the fatally wounded Marc in the sub-zero temperatures at night. A few worshippers of the old gods found Marc and carried him to the temple of Khonshu, where he dies in front of a statue of Khonshu. Khonshu appears to Marc briefly in the afterlife and offered him a second chance at life, on one condition. That Marc becomes his avatar on Earth. Marc accepts and wakes up, and confronts Bushman, beating him this time. He returns to America with Frenchie, Marlene, and the statue of Khonshu. Upon getting to America, he crafts himself a full suit using a silver shroud he got from the statue. Thus started the vigilante career of the “Fist of Khonshu”. Attempting to distance himself from the “mercenary” past he created (or more accurately, re-created) two alternate personas. The first one was a millionaire named “Steven Grant”. The second one was a taxi driver named “Jake Lockley”.

 

The Personalities of Moon Knight:
Marc Spector: The “Prime” personality, Marc is the default personality. Well trained as a member of the military, a boxer, former mercenary, and a man who need psychological help (and is well aware of it). Despite being the “prime personality” he often fades to the background for extended periods as the stresses of both his life, and his vigilantism, requires other personalities.
Steven Grant: The millionaire playboy personality. On top of being a wealthy philanthropist, this personality also bankrolls the technology, and medical costs, of the personalities. This personality also mingles with societies elite, which allows the group to get information on the backers of a lot of criminal organizations.
Jake Lockley: Jake Lockley is a gritty, street smart, cab driver. Abrasive, aggressive, and violent, Jake is the protector personality. Any time something comes up that might hurt the other personalities, Jake takes over. And much like Steven Grant who gets access to high society, Jake Lockley gets a lot of access to the seedy underbelly of society. Through Jake he has access to some help (like Crawley and the Landers Family), and also low level criminals.
Moon Knight: The persona Marc takes on when he goes to fight crime. This personality is also known as “The Fist of Khonshu” or “The Silver Avenger”. Brutal, punishing, and effective, Moon Knight will beat the ever living crap out of criminals, both of the mundane, and mystic, and in one major case, cut off their face to send a message.

In Order (Left to Right):
Steven Grant, Jake Lockley, Marc Spector, Khonshu

 

Other Personalities:
Mr. Knight: This personality appeared shortly after the Civil War event, when Marc refused to sign the Superhuman Registration Act. Mr. Knight is a bit more restrained than Moon Knight, but works alongside the police (who make it a point to ONLY call him Mr. Knight, because if you were to find out he was “Moon Knight” then they would have to enact a standing order to bring him down, arrest him, and file a whole lot of paperwork). Mr. Knight covers his face with a pure white mask, and wears a nice white suit.
Khonshu: The personality that manifests within Marc’s mind that is the representation of the Egyptian God, Khonshu. He often directs and advises Marc, and his other personalities, and often pushes Marc to the edge of his sanity. While still God, eventually the Marc, Jake, and Steven personalities “kill” Khonshu, making him a subservient personality within Marc’s mind.

There is a case for 3 more personalities. Wolverine, Spider-Man, and Captain America, but it was more just a situation where Marc was hallucinating. But when he moved to the West Coast to film a “Moon Knight” TV series, he started having these visions of Wolverine, Spider-Man, and Captain America, telling him he needed to take up the role of Moon Knight and resulted in him fighting Mr. Hyde, and taking down a gang lead by Nefaria. During this time he also had gadgets that allowed him to mimic the abilities of Wolverine, Spider-Man, and Captain America.

 

Main Villains:
Seth: A rival Egyptian God (this one of Death and Evil), Moon Knight has come into conflict with him on a regular basis. Seth is also a super-genius, incredibly strong, and durable. He has been a foe of Asgard as well as other Egyptian deities.
Black Spectre: A Sin-Cong Conflict* vet, Carson Knowles, returned home to find that his wife had left him and his son was murdered. This drove him into the darkness, and when he was struggling to get by, he got mugged. This was the final straw as he snapped, and beat the mugger nearly to death. From here on he became Black Spectre, as he sought revenge on the city that treated him so poorly. He is a skilled combatant, and has gone toe to toe with Moon Knight on multiple occasions.
Shadow Knight: Randall Spector, Marc’s brother, is the evil counterpart to Moon Knight. He followed Marc into the Marines, later also became a mercenary, and eventually killed one of Marc’s (then) girlfriends. He then joined a Cult of Khonshu, and was granted many of the same powers that Moon Knight had. Eventually, he was killed by Punisher (Marc was on his way to kill him, but Punisher beat him there. There was a small conversation about it during the Civil War event).
Raoul Bushman: An African mercenary and warlord, had regularly worked with Marc before he became Moon Knight, and upon defeating Marc in the desert, Marc got saved by Khonshu. In a later rematch, to assert dominance and build is reputation, Moon Knight carved off Bushman’s face, which further added to Bushman’s terrifying appearance.
The Sun King: Also known as Patient 86, he was a former soldier who had experienced abuse throughout his life, and manifested pyrokinetic powers. Eventually, he was placed in the Ravencroft Institute (A psychiatric hospital, which Marc Spector was once a patient of), and his doctor noticed some similarities between him and Marc. Seeing this, the doctor introduced him to Egyptian Mythology, where he took a fascination with the Sun God, Ra (who is also the father of the Moon god, Khonshu), and burst into flame, declaring himself the Sun King, the physical manifestation of Ra. While he has more recently worked with Moon Knight on a case, and is no longer necessarily a “villain”, he is still a strong rival (as they are both the avatars of opposing Egyptian deities).
Midnight Man: There were two villains known as Midnight Man. The first one was Anton Mogart, who was an art thief. His motivation was simply to steal them, because he wanted them, not for money or fame. He taught his son, Jeffrey Wilde all his trade secrets while begging him not to become a criminal. After he lost a final duel to Moon Knight, he died, and his son Jeffrey Wilde took on the name Midnight and went to meet up with Moon Knight. Midnight apprenticed as a sidekick with Moon Knight, before seemingly dying, becoming a cyborg, and returned as a villain.

Moon Knight cutting off Raoul Bushman’s face in Moon Knight (2006)

 

Skills, Abilities, and Training:
General: Marc Spector is an Olympic level athlete, with a background in boxing, acrobatics, gymnastics and multiple martial arts. He was also trained in combat strategies while in the US Marines, and further developed those strategies during his time as a Mercenary.
Expert Pilot: His time within the Marines and as a Mercenary has left him as an extremely skilled pilot. Though it’s not uncommon for Frenchie to fly him, Marc is more than capable of flying a variety of aircraft himself.
Expert Detective: While not the worlds “greatest detective”, he is incredibly good at detective work, due to his broad array of skills, and his intimate knowledge of the players, both high and low, through his Jake Lockley and Steven Grant personas.
Expert Interrogator: He is an expert at interrogation, using techniques (including torture) employed by military secret police and other paramilitary groups throughout the world.
Expert Marksman: He is a top marksman, being impeccably accurate with any thrown weapons (able to throw one of his crescent darts with such accuracy he can split a bullet in half). He is also an expert level sharpshooter with all firearms as well (including modified and weighted firearms).
Weapons Master: Marc is experienced in almost every type of weapon invented, from pistols, to grenade launchers, swords, to shuriken, to 30 mm anti-aircraft fully automatic chain guns.
Master Martial Artist: He is well versed in many forms of martial arts. He is a heavyweight championship Boxer, but he is also proficient in Judo, Krav Maga, Silat, Savate, Dambe, Escrima, Muay Thai, Karate, and Kung Fu. He is proficient enough that he has fought Punisher to a stand still on more than one occasion (with Punisher being one of the best hand-to-hand combatants in Marvel).
Pain Resistance: Not so much that this is a power, but due to his own insanity, and the fact that he has been the victim of torture on more than one occasion, he has an incredible pain tolerance threshold. This may further be enhanced due to Khonshu’s blessing, and his ability to retreat into other personalities (such as Jake Lockley) making it harder to effectively do anything to him.
Telepathic Resistance: Psychics and Telepaths (whether mutant or otherwise) all struggle to do anything to Moon Knight due to training in psychic shielding, and his multiple personalities. Anything that attempts possession of him has an even harder time, going so far as Moon Knight purposely throwing himself into situations where he gets possessed to bring down the villain because he is virtually too crazy to mind control/possess.

Former Powers: In the past, Moon Knight actually had powers granted to him from Khonshu. It would increase his strength, stamina, and durability based on the phase of the moon. The fuller the moon, the stronger he got. Even during the New Moon phase, he had the ability to lift several hundred pounds. His last use of these powers was back when he was in the West Coast Avengers (which he left in 1989), and was officially removed in the comics during the Midnight Sun arc in 2007 (Where Khonshu said he was taking the powers away as punishment for Marc’s disobedience). So in reality, he’s officially been a normal (if insane) human for almost 13 years, but he has effectively been powerless for about 30 years.

 

Gadgets and Technology
Truncheon: His multi-faceted Truncheon can extend into a staff, seperate into nunchaku (linked by an adamantium chain), and can extend a hook to be used as a grappling hook.
Crescent Darts: His crescent darts are one of his most used (and arguably his favourite) weapon. They act as throwing weapons, but are also a signature weapon of his, that also acts as his calling card.
Twin Crescent Launcher Pistols: These pistols are specialized to shoot crescent darts with wire attached that allows him to pin, trip, or restrain targets, as well as act as grappling hooks for him to swing around on.
Energy Shield: This energy shield was designed to function the same as Captain America’s vibranium shield.
Web Shooter/Vibranium Claws: He has a pair of bracers that allows him to swap between extending claws that resemble Wolverine’s Vibranium Claws, or Web Shooters, to swing around like Spider-Man.
Silver Cestus: At times, Moon Knight has been known to use a pair of silver Cestus (which is a pair of ancient gauntlets, often having blades on them). Picture weighted boxing gloves with spikes or blades on them, and that is basically what you get.
Other Weapons: He has at times used an Ankh as a truncheon or club, that also would glow gold in the face of danger. He has also used boomerangs, scarab darts, a bola, and a san-setsu-kon (a three piece staff).
Mooncopter: The Mooncopter was a helicopter, often flown by Frenchie to support Moon Knight in the field. It has 2 mounted 20mm cannons, and 3 under helicopter propulsion systems. The Mooncopter (also known as Moon Knights Helicopter) doesn’t look anything like a helicopter, but in fact a giant crescent moon, with an area out the side for other controls. It has a max speed of 220 miles/hour, a range of about 1000 miles, and a height of 10,000 feet.
Angel Wing: The Angel Wing is a crescent glider jet with limited gadgetry that Moon Knight can use in areas that his Mooncopter wouldn’t be viable. It also has remote-control access for emergency access.
Moon Knight Suit: The Moon Knight Suit has had several upgrades over the years. Currently, his suit is reinforced carbonadium, which is nearly as strong and durable as Adamantium, but far more flexible. The base gauntlets in the suit have dart launchers, flashlights, a cable line, and a laser cutting torch. Some versions of the suit has jump jets on it to allow extended jumps and more controlled falling. His suit also has a built in two-way radio to allow for communication with team-ups, or just with Frenchie, while on missions.
Glider Cloak: While his cloak isn’t armored, it is designed in a way to catch air. This allows him to glide down from large heights, and steer his direction while doing so.
Limousine: He has a modified limousine (reinforced with armour) for when he travels around as his Mr. Knight persona.

The Mooncopter

 

Rising Popularity:
He has always had a bit of a cult following, as he is seen heavily in the same light as Punisher was, except with more magic, mysticism, and the occult involved. His multiple personalities allow him to be used in a lot of situations, and he’s been used as comic relief in some team ups. He has recently appeared in a couple of the Marvel animated shows, such as Avengers Assemble, and Ultimate Spider-Man. Kevin Feige has announced that there will be a live action Moon Knight series on Disney’s Disney+ Streaming service, and that he would appear in one of the MCU movies before the show airs. Part of the Moon Knight fandom has risen on Facebook in the form of the “Moon Knight-Core” Facebook page, which takes panels of Moon Knight comics, and re-write them (making him a Ketamine addicted money lender obsessed with cutting people’s faces off, who hunts down more and more outrageous villains for the money they owe him).

These memes courtesy of Moon Knight-Core on Facebook

 

Recommended Reading:
I’m going to give a few recommendations, some of these are from fan pages (again, Moon Knight-Core has their top 3 Moon Knight runs, and they are all great, and all of those runs are also mentioned in almost every “Best Moon Knight Runs” list you’ll find)
The Bottom (2006): Written by Charles Huston and drawn by David Finch, this is the start of Vol. 5 of Moon Knight, and the first story arc is called “The Bottom” which is a dark and gritty telling of Moon Knight falling from grace. It covers a lot of his origins (without having to go back and read a bunch of other stories, and avoids a lot of confusion). It shows Moon Knight get far more violent and aggressive, while Marc Spector deals with drug abuse and alcoholism.
From the Dead (2014): Written by Warren Ellis and illustrated by Declan Shalvey, this is the start of the 7th major run of Moon Knight. From the Dead really goes on to question which of Marc’s personalities is the Moon Knight. He also punches ghosts, and deals with a sleep experiment that drives people insane.
Lunatic (2016): Written by Jeff Lemire, and drawn by Greg Smallwood, this is the 8th run of Moon Knight. Lunatic is the first arc, in which we really get to explore the psychological aspects of Marc Spector, and we delve into which parts of his adventures were real, and which were just constructs of his mind. The art and story of this arc has a real “Alice in Wonderland” feel to it.
Crazy Runs in the Family (2018): Written by Max Bemis and drawn by Jacen Burrows, this is a continuation of the 8th run of Moon Knight as the third story arc. This run I really personally enjoyed, and was an introduction to both The Sun King, and The Truth. It was also the Moon Knight run that took place during the Marvel Legacy series (where they went ot Legacy Numbering, so even though the first issue of the Crazy Runs in the Family arc was the 15th issue of Volume 8, it was labeled issue 188 because it was the 188th Moon Knight comic). This one also reveals that Marc Spector has a child with on again off again romantic interest Marlene, that Jake knew about but the others didn’t
Run The Mission, Don’t Get Seen, Save The World (2012): This is actually the third major arc in the Secret Avengers run which Moon Knight was a recurring member of. This was written by Warren Ellis, and had 6 seperate artists, one for each issue. Here you see Moon Knight team up with Black Widow, Captain America, Sharon Carter, Beast, Valkyrie, and War Machine. The world was saved, jokes were had, Moon Knight even threatened to carve a dudes face off.

 

Analysis of the Batman Comparisons:
It’s basically a meme at this point that “Moon Knight is just Marvel’s Batman”. And honestly, there are a few (though very few) comparisons where it works. But after those few similarities, the comparison quickly falls apart.

Both are rich socialites who use their money to fund their vigilantism: TRUE: But, they aren’t the only heroes to do so. Tony Stark/Iron Man, Oliver Queen/Green Arrow are both other characters that do that. More importantly, that trait could almost be used to claim that Batman is a Green Hornet ripoff (as that was a key aspect in Green Hornet’s character, who debuted 3 years before Batman did).

Both have secret identities: TRUE: But then again, that isn’t new in comics either. Superman, Spider-Man, Flash, Green Hornet, Green Arrow, and many, MANY other heroes also do this. It’s not exactly uncommon.

Both have thematic weapons and ships: TRUE: Again, not super uncommon, but less common than the other two comparisons. Moon Knight does heavily use both Egyptian and the Moon as a theme throughout his career, and Batman does the same with Bats. Crescent Darts (that look like crescent moons), vs Batarangs. Batplane vs Mooncopter.

The problem is, once you go beyond that, the comparisons fall apart. Their origins are significantly different, their justifications for what they do are nothing alike. One is a social outcast, and the other just pretends he’s a social outcast. Seriously, Moon Knight has a very limited supply of people who are willing to work with him. His few appearances in teams are rather brief and limited. Batman pretends he’s a loner and an outcast, but he’s a member of, or at least influences, every important hero team. Batman has plenty of friends who would drop everything to help him, no questions asked. Moon Knight would struggle to get anyone to help him, and arguably his closest hero friends involve Punisher, and an unwilling Spider-Man. Batman is a master tactician, while Moon Knight doesn’t even have a plan. He has like, 12% of a plan. Batman uses a specialized set of skills for every scenario. Moon Knight mostly gets his ass kicked, and then takes the first chance he can get to fight dirty, and either kill them, or carve their face off. Moon Knight learns from his mistakes. He brought on a sidekick. Sidekick died, than came back, and was evil. He never gets another sidekick. Batman doesn’t. He brings a sidekick, they die, he gets another one, that one dies, first one comes back evil, and then his 4th sidekick almost dies. After that, look at the general tones of the stories between the two. Batman tends to be about the dark and gritty side of justice, while showing restraint. It’s a lot more like a crime drama with action in it. Moon Knight is still on the dark and gritty side, but it’s more of an exploration of a psychological thriller.

 

In Conclusion:
In conclusion, I would say that Moon Knight, while having some shallow similarities to Batman, is definitely not Marvel’s answer to Batman. The stories have a completely different feel to them, and nothing about their psychological makeup is the same. One is an exercise in brutality and dissociative identity disorder, the other is an exercise in restraint, and calculated skill. One shows arguably the worst side of vigilante justice, the other shows the best side. And in all honesty, one has more of a sense of humour. Seriously, Moon Knight is funny as hell, especially when written properly, because he is self-aware of his issues, and his personalities are always fighting amongst themselves. So while there is some similarities, it’s no more similar than what many heroes have in common.

This page is from the recent Punisher run (Issue 14)

 

*The Sin-Cong conflict was a recent ret-con in the Marvel universe meant to be an unspecified timeline of a conflict in the Indochina region of Asia with similar geographical attributes to countries like Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, to replace the Vietnam War. This was because characters like Black Spectre, but also Punisher, Tony Stark, Reed Richards, Nuke, and many others were all Vietnam vets or associated with the war efforts in an advisory capacity. This would mean, as Marvel moves forward with the timeline, all those characters would be well into their 80’s (without the use of Super-Soldier Serum, or immortality) and still be in their “physical prime”. Instead they turned it into the Sin-Cong conflict, and never put a date on the conflict, so any of those vets/advisors can actually still be relevant no matter what time the Marvel timeline is currently. 

State of the X-Men

So Marvel recently did something that is going to change the face of the X-Men for the foreseeable future. They have rebooted the entire franchise and group, but they did it in a way that doesn’t ruin, or shit on, the legacy of all the stories and writers of the past. But, let’s start with the people behind it.

In the past, different writers would just tell stories. Each of their runs were generally self contained. Things that happened in one series, had little effect on the other series. For example, Wolverine (using him as one of the most popular X-Men) would be in space in one series, would be in NYC in another series, and in Japan in his solo series, and all of these would be taking place at the same time. And that was something they wanted to address. In comes Jonathan Hickman. Hickman has some pretty good credentials, both with Marvel, and with other companies. Some of his works include Nightly News (Image Comics, 2008 Eisner Award Winner for “Best Limited Series”), Fantastic Four (Marvel, 2011 Harvey Award Winner for “Best Continuing or Limited Series”), The Manhattan Projects (Image Comics, 2013 Eisner Award Winner for “Best Continuing Series”, Hickman also won the Eisner for “Best Writer” on that series in 2013. He also won Best Writer for this series in 2014), East of West (2014 Eisner Award Winner for Best Continuing Series). In 2014 Hickman also won Eisner Awards for Best Writer on Avengers (Marvel) and Infinity (Marvel). Some of his other (non-award winning) works including Ultimate Comics: The Ultimates (Marvel), Secret Wars (Marvel), God is Dead (Avatar Press), and the Black Monday Murders (Image Comics).

Now, just adding an award winning writer (even one with history with Marvel) doesn’t solve some of the problems. So what do they do? Give him FULL CREATIVE CONTROL over the X-Franchise in comics. Every. Single. One. No more 3-4 creative teams working independently of each other stepping on each others toes, leading to conflicting storylines. Here, in something that hasn’t really been done in comics before (but Marvel has had success with in movies, see Kevin Feige in the MCU), Hickman was given overall control over the direction for every run. There is still going to be separate creative teams. But they’re all being overseen by Hickman, so that the events that happen for one character, will affect that character in the other runs. But it’s not just the general story arcs that are being overseen. We have to re-define mutants. The term “Omega-Level Mutant” gets tossed around a lot. And previously, it seemed to vary from writing team to writing team, era to era. So Hickman sat down, went through a bunch of X-Franchise history, and made a specific set of rules, for when you can, and can not, call a mutant Omega-Level. He also wrote a definitive list of Omega-Level mutants. This makes sure that it’s consistent, across all series.

Hickman talking about X-Men History and the “Omega-Level” problem

The new definition of Omega Level, and what mutants actually qualify as “Omega Level”

Now that he has addressed what constitutres “Omega-Level”, Hickman has the problem of “How do we establish this new era, without ruining the legacy of everyone else?” That was a problem Hickman had to deal with as well, and he answers that in his 2 “prelude” series that kicks off his mark on the X-Franchise (which is where he addressed the Omega-Level problem as well). His first 2 runs are titled “House of X” and “Powers of X”. They are two independent, but connected, stories that bring together the past, and the present, while hinting at a “possible future”. But how do you keep the past X-Stories canon, while completely changing everything? By adding background on a major supporting character of the X-Franchise. Moira MacTaggert, though perhaps more accurately, Moira X. While the House of X and Powers of X runs are connected, they follow separate things. House of X follows the founding of the mutant nation of Krakoa, lead by Xavier, with some of the aspects following Moira’s lives. Powers of X follows the future that will happen if Krakoa and the mutant nation fails to prevent the fall of Mutants. You see a little bit of Moira’s lives here as well. And you see the endgame of humanity in their struggle against mutants. Eventually becoming machine themselves and joining “Phalanx”. Evolution is halted when you become machine. All the classic X-stories we’ve come to know and love are all still canon, but they happened in the past lives of Moira, so the characters are still fundamentally the same. They just have a reason to now work together, with people they once thought of as enemies. 

Moira in her 9th life, as Apocalypse’s right hand

So, with the end of Powers of X and House of X, you get the proper formation of Krakoa. You see the basics of them setting up the island. You see Xavier send his message out to everyone. Mutant and Human alike (All mutants have a home on Krakoa, any human government that cooperates with that will be given mutant pharmaceuticals that will cure any disease, and can extent the human lifespan). All mutants get full amnesty for actions in the past. But that’s just the start, because they have to set up the nation. Establish laws, and leadership. Their leadership is almost fully established, and is done in seasonal tables.

Autumn: Is lead by the three most successful leaders of mutants. Professor X, Magneto, and Apocalypse.

Winter: Lead by others who are often considered cold. Mister Sinister (mutant geneticist), Exodus (12th century mutant, former Maruader and Acolyte), and Mystique.

Spring: Represented by the Hellfire Club, only 2 of the seats are occupied, as there is a third ranking Hellfire Club position that hasn’t been filled as the final seat. Currently represented by the White Queen (Emma Frost), The Black King (Sebastian Shaw), and the Red King seat is unfilled. If I’m offering pure speculation here, I wouldn’t be surprised to see if Madelyne Pryor (The Goblin Queen) fill this spot, as she was known as the “Red Queen” (The King/Queen aspect changes based on whether it’s a male or female currently leading).

Summer: Lead by amongst the most noble of the X-Men. You have Storm, Jean Grey, and surprisingly, Nightcrawler. Only reason that last one is a surprise is because Storm and jean Grey have lead the X-Men at various times, so the third you would think would also be a former team leader. Cyclops, Wolverine, and Kitty Pryde are the most obvious options. But Nightcrawler has always been a bit of the moral compass of many teams, and is well respected enough that everyone listens to him, so it does make sense he is there.

Krakoa: This section is lead by Krakoa itself (it is a living island), and the only person who can actively communicate with Krakoa, Cypher.

Those are the leaders of the new nation, rule by council. They call themselves the “Quiet Council”. But in the event of defence, or off island missions, leadership falls to the “Great Captains”. There are 4 great captains, and all are considered equal, but one of them (the “Captain Commander”) is considered first among equals in decision making (he gets final say in the field if there are multiple Captains). The Captain Commander is Cyclops. The other three captains are Gorgon, Bishop, and Magik.

Then you have to add the establishment of laws, and economy, foreign trade, and other nuances of running a nation. They openly talk about how it will take much longer than one or two meetings to get there, but they start off with the basics.
The first law is: No mutant shall murder humans. Mutants can come back to life, humans can’t. Killing someone who can not defend themselves is wrong. Obviously killing humans in the name of war (In defence of nation) is not considered murder.
Second law: Respect the Sacred Land. Mutants CAN own property, but it must be out in the world. On Krakoa, there is no property, no ownership. Respecting the (living) land that provides for them is paramount, for it is the biblical Eden for mutants.
Third Law: Be Fruitful, and Multiply, or more simply. Make. More. Mutants. The survival of the race is dependant on more mutants being born.

The Summer house

That covers the first two runs that kicks off what will likely be remembered as Hickman’s legacy on the X-Franchise. Ambitious and encompassing. But those first two 6 issue runs give hope for both mutants, and fans of the franchise. Multiple co-ordinated series like this hasn’t really been attempted, but if it goes well, do not be surprised if it starts becoming the standard. But two runs isn’t what makes everything. Those are the two runs that set everything up. We have the following runs starting (or started) already:

X-Men: The main X-Men run, going to follow the life of Cyclops, and his hand picked squad of mutants. Issue 1 has come out, and it revealed a little something that might be shocking to some people. Perhaps its a hot take on the third mutant law, but it turns out that the Summers house includes all the mutant summers family. And one notable exception. Wolverine. Wolverine lives with the Summers, and more interestingly, Jean Grey (who is married to Cyclops) has a door leading from her room directly to Wolverines. And also Cyclops’s. And it’s been implied that Cyclops knows what is going on.

The Marauders: Kitty Pryde (now going by “Kate”) is now the leader of the Marauders, who are now funded by Emma Frost to act as a black-ops group for the Hellfire Trading Corporation. This iteration of the Marauders is Captain (because she has a boat) Kate Pryde, Storm, Iceman, the original Pyro, and Bishop. Their mission? To help find mutants who are being oppressed and get them to the safety of Krakoa.

New Mutants: You see some of the original New Mutants, with a couple new faces. We see Sunspot, Wolfsbane, Magik, Mirage, Karma, Cypher, as well as Chamber and Mondo. This series isn’t out yet, but their first adventure ends up placing them alongside the Starjammers.

Excalibur: Mutants and their relationships to the world has always been strange. And this is no different. You have the new Captain Britain (Betsy Braddock) alongside allies, Rogue, Gambit, Jubilee, Rictor, and none other than Apocalypse.

Fallen Angels: Here you have Psylock, along with X-23 and Cable, are working together to find their place in this new world of mutants. Of course, these three are all trained killers, so who knows what kind of mayhem they’ll get into.

X-Force: The classic mutant black-ops assassin squad is back. The problem is, this time the team is split in two. One side is Jean Grey, Beast, and Sage. The other side is Wolverine, Kid Omega, and Domino. There is likely going to be some conflict, as you can see that half the team is people who absolutely abhor killing.

Build Up to Endgame: Phase 1

With Endgame coming next month, which will conclude Marvel Phase 3 (The Infinity Saga) I am going to do a series ranking the various movies in each of the three phases of the MCU (not counting Netflix or TV series, just the movie portions). This will include a plot summary of each movie in each phase, and the box office numbers of each movie and phase (so we can see how the MCU, and the cinematic landscape as a whole has grown/developed). At the end I will include a list of my favourites in order from the phase, and a few other peoples favourites from each phase.

Phase One: Avengers Assembled (Part 1 of the Infinity Saga)
The first phase of the MCU is what laid the groundwork of all movies going forward. It included the origins of the big guys (Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, and Thor), as well as introduction of the concept of “The Avengers Initiative” (Introduced in the first Iron Man post credits scene). It also introduced us to the greater universe, including our first look into the Infinity Stones and the overarching storyline involving the 6 year buildup of Thanos from Cameo in 2012’s The Avengers, until his Phase 3 full on debut as arguably, the most anticipated villain of all time.

Iron Man
Well, what can we say. This was the movie that started it all. The origin story of Tony Stark, aka. Iron Man. Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist. In this one, you are introduced to the Iron Man armour, during an interesting event which lead to terrorists from the Ten Rings group capturing him, and almost killing him in the process. This sets off the moral quandary about building weapons all together. Of course when he cancels the weapons projects, his competitor within the company, Obadiah Stane, has different plans. An epic battle, more technological gadgets than Batman could shake his bat-belt at, and the parting line: “Yeah, okay. The truth is… I am Iron Man.”.

Post Credit Scene: We start to see the larger picture and the first hints of a larger, shared, universe. Nick Fury, with a little file: The Avengers Initiative. It should also be noted, that Iron Man was the first movie to really start the trend of “ALL Superhero Movies have a post-credits scene.”

Stan Lee Cameo: A senior playboy resembling Hugh Hefner, with a couple ladies off his arms.

The Incredible Hulk
The mean, green, fighting machine. This is one of the few movies in the MCU that isn’t a “strict” origin story for the first movie of a character. That is because it was a reboot of a relatively recent Hulk movie produced by Universal (but Marvel had *some* involvement in). There were a few subtly nods to that movie, despite it not being officially part of the MCU. Unlike many other MCU movies, The Incredible Hulk is much less an “action” movie, and much more a “drama” movie. In this film we see Bruce Banner, trying to control his alter ego while avoiding general Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross and the American Military. With the fact that the military struggled to capture Banner, they created another monster. Emil Blonsky, who became none other than the Abomination. After destroying Harlem in the fight, Blonsky was detained, Banner was forced to return to fleeing from the military.

Post Credit Scene: Tony comes up to Ross to discuss creating a team. It’s not mentioned who, but in a later one shot (The Consultant) it was confirmed that both Banner as The Hulk, and Blonsky as The Abomination were confirmed to be on the list for this team (Blonsky was dismissed from the list).

Stan Lee Cameo: Man drinking a soda that happened to be contaminated with Banner’s blood.

Iron Man 2
The first sequel in the MCU, Iron Man 2 involves the first “retcon” in the MCU. This one involves Don Cheadle replacing Terrence Howard as James “Rhodey” Rhodes, aka. War Machine. In this movie, we start seeing the conflict between Tony Stark, and the government over the “Iron Man” suit and other technology related to it. Thankfully for the military, arms manufacturer and rival to Tony Stark, Justin Hammer and Hammer Industries was willing to provide knockoff Iron Man suits with the help of Russian scientist (who had an axe to grind with Tony Stark) Ivan “Whiplash” Vanko. In a big show, which included a bunch of drones modeled after the Iron Man armour, and Rhodes wearing a Justin Hammer “upgraded” armour, Vanko made his big play. Rhodey and Stark team up, take down all the Hammer Drones, and eventually stop Vanko. Over the course of this movie, we see another cameo by Nick Fury, and we are introduced to Natalie Rushman, an alias of Natasha Romanov, aka. The Black Widow. You also see a quick appearance of Captain America’s shield, and Tony invents a new element that helps cure himself of his palladium poisoning (which was a side effect of the chest reactor battery).

Post Credit Scene: Agent Coulson arrives in New Mexico and seeing Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir, in the ground (setting up the Thor movie).

Stan Lee Cameo: He is a Larry King lookalike (and actually called Larry King by Tony Stark)

Thor
The God of Thunder, Prince of Asgard, finally makes his debut in the MCU. Hinted at in the Iron Man 2 Post-Credit Scene, Thor (and his hammer) arrive in New Mexico from Asgard as a lesson from Odin to teach Thor about what being worthy means. Before his brief exile, Thor lead a small group of Asgardians (including his adoptive brother Loki), to fight frost giants in Jotunheim against Odin’s orders. Upon reaching Earth (or Midgard, if you are Asgardian) he almost immediately gets hit by a van driven by Jane Foster, as well as renowned scientist Erik Selvig, and Darcy. In the process of convincing them to go to his hammer, he tells them about Asgard, and the Rainbow Bridge (which Selvig points out is the Einstein-Rosen Bridge). While breaking into the makeshift SHIELD facility that contained his hammer, we are introduced to Hawkeye. Though upon getting to his hammer, Thor realized he still wasn’t worthy to wield it. Eventually Loki takes control of the Destroyer armour and attempts to kill Thor, and he stops just short of dying to protect the town (and in the process, becomes worthy which brings Mjolnir to him). This entire fight drew even more attention by SHIELD, and the theft of their research by the ‘Government jackbooted thugs”.

Post Credit Scene: Nick Fury recruits Erik Selvig into SHIELD as a researcher on the Tesseract project.

Stan Lee Cameo: He drives a truck attempting to move Mjolnir from it’s crater in New Mexico.

Captain America: The First Avenger
A journey to the past, Captain America shows how a scrawny kid from Brooklyn with health issues proved that experimental drugs can turn you into a superhero. I mean, that’s not the main take-away here, but after a bit of training at a camp during Project Rebirth, he proved that he had the moral fibre to be a hero (which included a test where he threw himself on a grenade that he didn’t know was a dud, to try and save everyone’s lives). This convinced Dr. Erskine that he was the perfect target (as he was worried about the Super Soldier Serum he was working on amplifying personality traits. Bravery, courage, and honour would be amplified, as would abusive behaviours). After the success he was used primarily as a prop by the US military to drive up recruitment and the sale of war bonds. Meanwhile in Germany, Johann Schmidt, aka. Red Skull, revealed that he has developed new energy based weaponry with the Tesseract (not the first appearance in the MCU, but this movie does take place in the 40’s so it does technically take place first) and announce HYDRA’s split from the Nazi’s. While doing a morale tour in Italy, Steve Rogers discovers that his best friend’s (Bucky Barnes), unit has been captured. He sneaks away with help from SSR agent Peggy Carter and techno-industrialist Howard Stark (Tony’s father) to get behind enemy lines and free the prisoners and kick some Hydra and Nazi-ass. Steve recruits a few guys (including Bucky) to join him taking down other HYDRA outposts as Captain America and the Howling Commandos. During their last mission as a team, they take on Red Skull, which results in Captain America taking down a jet with himself on it by crashing it into the Arctic Shelf, sacrificing himself in the process. Nick Fury and SHIELD recovered his body 70 years later as he wakes up and realizes he is a man out of place.

Post Credit Scene: Nick Fury gives Steve Rogers an assignment upon waking up from his coma. this sets the stage for him joining the Avengers, as this involves the Tesseract (an item of cosmic significance that Captain America is already familiar with).

Stan Lee Cameo: He is a general at a medal ceremony for Captain America, and has no idea what Steve Rogers looks like.

The Avengers
The final film of Phase One, this film saw the second retcon of the MCU. They replaced Edward Norton as the Hulk with Mark Ruffalo. This film brought together all the big heroes of the MCU, and put them against fan-favourite villain Loki, with the backing of an alien army known as the Chitauri. Naturally, the team, full of big ego’s, powerful suits, professional spies, and literal gods, did not get along so well at the start. We saw a budding friendship between Bruce Banner and Tony Stark, a rivalry between Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, a brief 1v2 fight between Thor and Tony/Steve. You also saw a disturbing revelation: Black Widow successfully lied to and tricked Loki, the god of Lies and Trickery (seriously, how good of a liar do you have to be to trick the god of lying).  Everyone eventually works as a team, when you hear Tony’s infamous line to Loki, “If we can’t save the Earth, you can be damn sure we’ll avenge it.”

Post Credit Scene: And here is where we actually have TWO credit scenes. One is mid Credits, and one is Post Credits. The Mid Credit scene involves Thanos (in his first MCU appearance) being informed of Loki’s failure to conquer Earth, and that fighting the Avengers would be the same as “courting Death”. The Post Credits scene shows all the Avengers eating Shawarma at the Shawarma Palace in dead silence after the battle of New York. This movie here started a trend in the MCU, where most movies now have a mid credit, and a post credit, scene (for simplicity sakes, they’ll be summed up under the Post Credit Scene together).

Stan Lee Cameo: Stan is an old man, playing Chess in the park who is unimpressed with “Superheroes in New York”.

Box Office Numbers:
Iron Man: 585.2 Million
The Incredible Hulk: 263.4 Million
Iron Man 2: 623.9 Million
Thor: 449.3 Million
Captain America The First Avenger: 370.6 Million
The Avengers: 1.519 Billion
Phase One Collectively: 3.811 Billion

My Personal rankings of Phase One (and why):
1. The Avengers: This was the big payoff of phase one, and it was something that I never expected to see in live action. This movie helped set the standard for what a team-up should be in movies. It definitely made it feel like everything came together, in a way that the comics would have it feel.
2. Iron Man: The movie that started it all. It’s success was a reason why the comic book genre is as big as it is today (no disrespect to the various Batman and Superman films, as well as others like Hellboy, or Blade. But this one was the kickoff to making Comic movies it’s own genre rather than just a “sub-genre” of action flicks. It also introduced a shared universe which created a more immersive storytelling experience).
3. Thor: A great introduction into one of the heavy hitters of the MCU. You got action, intrigue, and the introduction to one of the most beloved villains in Marvel (Loki). In here you got to start seeing some of the greater universe with trips to Jotunheim and Asgard, and a knowing that there was larger things out there than just Earth, that humans aren’t prepared for.
4. Captain America: The First Avenger: A good movie about how being a hero isn’t about powers, or even physical ability. It’s about doing the right thing, regardless of the cost. Of course, beating up Nazi’s is always a good sell for me as well. Being chronologically the earliest film in the MCU, taking place in WW2, we see some background on things mentioned throughout the MCU (including the SSR which preceded SHIELD, the Tesseract, which contains one of the Infinity Stones, and Howard Stark, the father of fellow Avenger Iron Man).
5. Iron Man 2: This one showed Tony Stark being more of a playboy, while still showing his disregard for both the military, and authority. Of course, it also showed a bit more of the playboy side as well, including his birthday party leading to a drunken fight with War Machine (one of the highlights of this film).
6. The Incredible Hulk: More drama, less action. Which is surprising for a guy who has an MO of “”Get angry, smash things.” It works, but “genius on the run” didn’t make the best movie, especially since it wasn’t a proper origin. The one thing they did right was the battle in Harlem between Hulk and Abomination.

Other peoples Phase One favourites:
Landon: “The Avengers. Hands down. Out of all the movies in Phase One, it doesn’t struggle at all. With the exception of Iron Man 1, a lot of the phase one movies felt like Marvel had something, but didn’t have all the pieces together to make a great film yet. Avengers feels like the first one to get their template right.”
Matt: “Avengers because I was already familiar with all these superheroes and it’s the first time I get to see a movie with a shared universe and all of them together.”
James: “Hands down the Avengers. The culmination of all the previous movies was just done masterfully. It was a moment I had been waiting for consciously for 4 years and subconsciously my entire life. On top of that, it was actually good. It was a great comic book movie. But it stood up as a good, not great, movie as well.
Cindi: “Avengers, because that’s when it all started coming together into something bigger. It was a good combination of action and comedy and the chemistry between the characters was good.”
Rejon: “Phase one…that’s a tough one, Ironman is the funniest, avengers is an epic spectacle, but would probably go for Captain America. He was a character I didn’t have much time for before the movie, I was a teen in the 90s and was a sucker for antiheroes and anything by Garth Ennis. They really managed to get me past the Boy Scout exterior to appreciate his heart and courage. Bonus points for making nearly the whole film a period piece, I am a sucker for history. Double bonus points for the present day parts being lifted straight from The Ultimates which I am a big fan of”
Juan: “Absolutely, its the first Avengers, it started the renaissance, and now every A lister wants a piece of the pie”
Ezra: “I’ve seen the OG Iron Man like 20 times. I saw it a couple times in the theatre so I’m probably gonna go with that one. The second one was alright. Avengers was pretty good too though. I don’t know, Robert Downey Junior is really good in the first one.”

Who Were Their First (Super)Villains?

This blog is going to be dedicated to some of the first villains of some major heroes. While some of the names may be familiar, some aren’t exactly known for being the big villains for these heroes. Hopefully you enjoy the first of what I hope will be a many part series.

Spider-Man:
There is two debates here. The first villain for Spider-Man could in fact be considered the mugger who killed Ben Parker. And while *technically* true, with him appearing in Amazing Fantasy issue 15, I wouldn’t really classify him as his first supervillain. Criminal yes, but not supervillain. So here, we are going into Amazing Spiderman issue 1. Spider-Man’s first villain is none other than: The Chameleon (important to note, Spider-Man actually fights the Fantastic Four in the same issue). Dmitri Smerdyakov, also known as The Chameleon, is a master of disguise and impression. He is the half-brother of Kraven the Hunter, and is former KGB, as well as having worked with groups like the Sinister Six, and HYDRA, as well as with people like Red Skull, Kingpin, and The Leader. He is a master thief, and has succeeded in tricking multiple people (including Spider-Man, and Deadpool recently), and is also heavily influential in Kraven’s hunting of Spider-Man.

Iron Man:
Invincible Iron Man issue 1 (from 1968), Iron Man didn’t just face off with a villain. He faced off against Advanced Idea Mechanics (also known as A.I.M.) and one of their leaders: Maxwell Mordius. Now, Mordius was an incredibly smart scientist, he suffered from megalomania which allowed him to be outwitted by Tony Stark multiple times. And while A.I.M. became a recurring villain group (for Iron Man, as well as many other heroes), Mordius proceeds to die in an explosion caused by Iron Man overloading multiple generators in his facility (multiple other miscellaneous grunts died as well).

Superman:
The first antagonists to the Man of Steel were all ordinary humans, mostly petty thieves, gangsters, corrupt politicians, and burglars. But the first real villain Superman fought was the Ultra-Humanite who debuted in Action Comics issue 13. Now, Superman, having been around as long as he has been, means that as one of the first superheroes in comics, means that Ultra-Humanite is also one of the very first comic supervillains. Ultra-Humanite is a super-genius, with abilities that include mind control, and mind transference (which allows him to gain additional abilities such as super-strength and super-durability depending on what body he transfers his mind into). Later on after DC started doing comics for Earth-2, Ultra-Humanite became not just a Superman villain, but a villain to the All-Star Squadron, and the Justice League of America (as well as other groups). Ultra-Humanite also has the distinct pleasure of being DC Comics first supervillain (and second supervillain in comics history).

Batman:
Much like Spider-Man, Joe Chill (the murderer of his parents) would technically be the first villain. But the first supervillain (and really, non-ordinary human one-off character) Batman faced off with was in Detective Comics issue 29, named Doctor Death. Doctor Death is not only considered a genius level intellect, but he has also shown superhuman strength and durability. In their first encounter, Batman chased Doctor Death around a warehouse, and Doctor Death actually ignited some chemicals causing an explosion. In their next encounter, Batman discovered that Doctor Death’s face had been horribly disfigured. Unlike many other original villains, Doctor Death had a decades long leave of absence, debuting in the Golden Age of comics, and not making a single appearance in the Silver Age before reappearing in the Bronze Age. When Doctor Death reappeared he remained primarily a Bat-Family villain.

The Fantastic Four:
Well, one of the golden families of Marvel, it’s only right we include them on this list. But, it also leads us to one of our more eccentric villains. Debuting in Fantastic Four issue 1, we bring to you, Mole Man and the Moloids. Harvey Elder was an American nuclear engineer, who while exploring Monster Isle ended up stumbling down a cave and into Subterranea. He eventually became leader of the group of Subterraneans who under him, became known as the Moloids. With his new army, he launched attacks all over the world before drawing the attention of the Fantastic Four. The Mole Man has poor eyesight, but his other senses are bordering on superhuman levels (similar to Daredevil). While he is primarily a Fantastic Four villain, he has also been an enemy of Iron Man, and the Avengers, as well as an ally to the Adam Warlock and the Infinity Watch.

Wonder Woman:
Wonder Woman, one of the first significant females in comics (but she wasn’t the first female superhero, nor was she the first to have her own run). but she is perhaps one of the most known female superheroes ever. And in Sensation Comics issue 2, she faced one of her first supervillains, Doctor Poison. The first Doctor Poison was Princess Maru, and was a recurring villain throughout the early days of Wonder Woman. Doctor Poison was the leader of a Nazi spy band designed to infiltrate and sabotage America. She also was a member of Villainy Inc. and worked with other villains against both Diana Prince and Queen Hippolyta. After the Crisis on Infinite Earths event, the granddaughter of the original Doctor Poison, took up the mantle while remaining primarily a Wonder Woman villain.

Legendary Weapons: The Lantern Rings

On our next edition of Legendary Weapons of Comics, we are going onto the Lantern Corps Rings. Not just Green Lanterns, or Red Lanterns, we’re covering all of the various Corps, because as the core of the ring is similar, they each function differently. And there is also one special ring that isn’t part of one of the Corps. It should be noted that there are some people who have wielded multiple rings throughout their time as Lanterns. Just because you are strong in one emotion, doesn’t mean you aren’t strong in another as well. Some people are incredibly powerful in multiple Lantern Corps, others are powerful in one, and rather weak in another (but strong enough to still become a Lantern of that corp). So under notables, you may see the same name multiple times (while many such as Sinestro and Hal Jordan have been part of multiple Corps, Guy Gardner is the one most known for wielding multiple rings, often at the same time).

General Abilities Regardless of Ring Colour:
Energy Construct Creation: The ability to create energy constructs. One of the most important aspects of the Lantern Rings. It allows them to make whatever they need to deal with the problem at hand (including temporary buildings, vehicles, creating giant hands to catch falling people, or if needed, condoms. Yes, I’m serious. The original Green Lantern movie concept featured Jack Black who would make things like giant green condom constructs to capture criminals. Now the Ryan Reynolds movie doesn’t seem so bad does it?)
Energy Projection: The user can project blasts of energy from their rings and/or constructs. Some people use this projection to create machinery/weapons and project the energy blasts from there (though the strength of the blast is not dependant on that, it is solely dependant on the strength of the ring-wielder). Lanterns can also use this energy projection to create and simulate radiation (including Kryptonite). These blasts can be manipulated into various shapes as long as the Lantern can imagine it and has the willpower to make it happen. The general appearance of the energy projections vary between Lantern Corps though, the projections from Red for example, often resemble blood.
Force Fields: The rings can use their energy projection to create force fields of varying sizes and shapes, to fit the needs of the ring-bearer. These force fields are constantly used by the various Lanterns because it actually allows them to survive in space (filtering out cosmic radiation, and repelling or shielding them from space debris that would kill them if they hit it while flying through space). The ring constantly adjusts this personal force shield to make the current environment hospitable to the ring’s wielder, so that they will always have the right amount of gravitational pull, and oxygen needed to survive. In fact, it is fully possible to use this personal force shield as the sole means of life support for the ring wielder (which is why on extended missions, the Green Lanterns never need to use the washroom, or eat, drink, or sleep).
Flight:  All Lantern rings grant the user the ability to fly. It manipulates anti-gravitons, and directs molecular movement. Generally the ability to fly is limited to roughly twice the speed of sound (1440 miles per hour) but in certain situations has been known to exceed the speed of light. Travel this way has no major affect on the ring wielder because their personal force fields protect them from things like heat and air friction.
Universal Translator: The rings provide the ability to communicate in any language because it can translate anything, and allows telepathic speech. Sometimes, there are problems though, as every now and then, they run into a species that has no known concept of language or sight that makes communication a problem (as they would have no known basis of communication).
Phasing: The wielders can move through objects with their rings. It’s not sure how (or if) there are any objects that they can’t phase through, or if it depends on the objects mass, molecular density, and the strength of the user’s emotional tie to their ring (Willpower for Green, Fear for Yellow, etc…)
Energy Twin: The wielder can create a ghost-like, twin of themselves out of energy, and send that out in their place. This energy twin can not interact with surroundings, but can be used to send messages and scout (and travels far faster than the physical body would). The Lanterns themselves will be motionless during this, but will gain all knowledge of the energy twin when it returns to the physical body. This ability is unable to be used (so far) by Black or Red lanterns.
Energy Absorption: The Lantern rings can absorb other types of energy, and store them (to release) until later. This energy doesn’t charge the ring itself, but even a fully depleted Lantern Power ring with stored electrical charges can release that electrical charge to attack or boost something else.
Telepathic Link: All Lantern Rings (except Black and Red) have the ability to have a telepathic link between the ring, and the owner if the ring is nearby, but not on the Lantern’s finger.

And all rings have a single common weakness:
Recharge Protocol: This applies to every Power Ring. Every Lantern must recharge their rings, though how often has improved with later versions of the rings. Originally it used to be once every planetary cycle (24 hours roughly), but current rings only need to be recharged when they completely run out of energy. During this period, they are quite vulnerable which is why most Lanterns will recharge even when they haven’t completely drained their rings power.

Green Lantern Ring:
Let’s start with the classic. The Green Lantern Corps, the masters of Willpower. There have been many iterations of the rings, starting with Alan Scott’s handcrafted ring powered by the Starheart, to the Guardians own Oan power ring, and the more modern Honor Guard Power Ring first wielded by Kyle Rayner.  The abilities unique to the Green Lantern Ring include:

Super Strength/Durability: While the ring doesn’t grant the user super strength or durability, the constructs created by the ring, do in fact, have super strength and durability. This allows even wielders of the physically weaker races, to be just as powerful (or more powerful) as those of other alien races, because their strength comes from their willpower.

But, the Green Lantern rings also have some weaknesses:
The Yellow Impurity: There is an impurity within the power battery that makes all rings initially weak to the colour Yellow. Yellow is the colour of Fear, and Green Lanterns can overcome this weakness by accepting their fear and still standing tall in the face of it. This means that most veteran members of the Green Lanterns no longer have this weakness, while newer members, are the most susceptible to this fear, and as such, the colour yellow.
Mental Instability Protocol: There is a protocol programmed into every Green Lantern ring that the use of drugs, or conditions like vertigo, or anything that is mentally incapacitating, immediately shuts off the Green Lantern ring. This is meant to basically prevent someone with an altered mental state from being able to use the power of the ring.
Vibrational Interference: The rings have been known to, at times, shown a vulnerability to vibrations of certain speeds. This doesn’t render them useless, but it makes them operate on a much smaller scale (Let’s say you make a pair of hands to catch a baseball, the hands created would only be able to catch a golf ball, or ping pong ball, and would be too small for a baseball).
Red Power Rings: The Green Lantern Rings have a unique weakness to the abilities of the Red Power Rings. The Red Power Rings can just outright dissolve constructs made by Green Power Rings.

Notable Green Lanterns: Hal Jordan, Kyle Rayner, John Stewart, Kilowog, Alan Scott. Guy Gardner, Mogo, Sinestro

Red Lantern Ring:
The Red Lanterns, unlike the green, are fueled almost purely by rage and anger. Upon accepting the ring, members undergo an indoctrination to give into their hatred and rage, becoming consumed with revenge and destruction. The ring itself completely takes over the function of both the heart, and blood, within the body of the users. Red Ring specific powers include:

Rage Plasma: The users can vomit a fiery plasma (that has replaced their blood). This plasma is capable of corroding and corrupting constructs of other power-rings. It is on fire, even in space, and burns like a combination of acid and napalm. If this plasma hits another living being, it burns them physically, spiritually, and psychologically, and ignites their own rage and anger before killing them.
Mind Reading: Red Lanterns can learn to read minds, and specifically, memories, of people they come across. This is often used to find out the downfall of previous tormentors, and the find out what enrages them to manipulate that. Only a couple of Red Lanterns have been shown to do this, but it is a skill that can be learned by any Red Lantern with sufficient rage.
Rage Absorption: Red Lanterns can absorb and re-release rage over vast distances. This often makes Red Lanterns far more powerful, because they can draw on the rage of everyone in a large vicinity to power themselves up.
Rage Infection: Red Lanterns are capable of infecting other people with pure rage, and can actually corrupt them to the point where they can become Red Lanterns themselves through this.
Rage Empowerment: Red Lanterns, unlike other lanterns, can actually manipulate their emotion (rage) in other beings. The strength of the Red Lantern itself, determines how much they can manipulate the rage in others (combined with Rage Infection, can be used to convert the opponent into a Red Lantern soldier).
Black Lantern Resistance: Black Lanterns often kill victims by ripping their hearts out, but Red Lanterns are capable of living through that because the Red Lantern Power Ring actually replaces their heart. The more anger/rage/wrath in the Red Lanterns heart, the more likely they are to survive if something happens to their physical heart.
Blood Replication: Red Lanterns can actually gain the powers of other beings by sampling (drinking/licking/eating) the blood of others. This was initially how the Red Lanterns learned how to make energy constructs (their primal, animalistic natures initially prevented them from learning how to make constructs).
Rage Suppression: Red Lanterns can learn to cloak their own rage so well, that they appear to be a completely different person. This requires intense focus and emotional control, to maintain. If that focus or control breaks, they would appear as they would normally.

Now, here are some Red Lantern weaknesses.
Red Ring Dependency: The Red Lanterns become so dependent on their Power Rings that removing the ring is almost always fatal (unless they are aided with the help of a Blue Lantern in removing the ring).
Emotional Dependency: All power rings are strengthened by their main emotion. But Red rings are so heavily dependent on their rage, that if the user doesn’t become consumed with rage, then their power will weaken considerably more than other colour rings when not angered.
Uncontrollable Rage: Before Atrocitus granted thought to those in the Red Lantern corp, they were all primal, animalistic, and beings of uncontrolled anger. This prevented them from being able to do even basic functions like talk. They would often attack anyone, and everyone, unprovoked and on-sight because of this uncontrolled rage. New recruits still suffer from this effect.
Love: Any Red Lantern who starts to experience love, will be immediately rejected by their ring, and the ring will leave them. This is (again, unless aided by a Blue Lantern) almost always fatal for the Red Lantern. This also makes contact with Violet Lanterns (the Star Sapphires) incredibly dangerous (as Love is their emotional domain)
Blue Power Rings: Hope (the domain of the Blue Lanterns) is the other severe weakness of the rage-fuelled Red Rings. It can help extinguish anger, severely weakening the power of Red Lanterns, and also, the power of the ring itself, allowing it to be removed from the user without killing them.

Notable Red Lanterns: Guy Gardner, Dex-Starr, Atrocitus, Rankorr, Hal Jordan, The Judge, Kara Zor-El (Supergirl), Lobo*

*Lobo has a Red Lantern ring, given to him personally by Atrocitus, the leader of the Red Lanterns. It is unknown if he has ever put on the ring, or used it though.

 

Black Lantern Ring:
Black Lanterns derive their power from death, and their power battery contains the Anti-Monitor. The Black Lanterns are mostly people brought back from the dead. Black Power Ring powers include the following:

Reanimation: The dead brought back to life in the Black Lantern Corps, are brought back with all their memories, intelligence, and abilities, with a body that functions normally (even if they still look like shambling, half-rotted corpses), with the main difference is their deepening belief in Death. These bodies are brought back without souls which can lead to some confusing situations (such as the body of Boston Brand being a Black Lantern, but his soul/spirit being the hero Deadman).
Healing Factor: No matter how much damage the Black Lantern takes, they will always make a full recovery. The limitation on this is that, the more damage that was done to the body, the longer it takes to regenerate fully. The Rings bond fully with the body, so you can’t actually destroy the ring. But if you shine two or more different lights from other Lantern Corps (minimum of two separate Corps, meaning Green AND Yellow/Blue/etc… for example) eliminates the healing factor.
Energy Spectrum Absorption: When killing someone who has strong ties to the emotional spectrum, the Black Lantern can rip the heart out and use their last feeling to recharge their power battery, and power their ring. Each heart ripped out by a lantern, increases their ring’s power by 0.01%. This means the more significantly emotional kills they get, the more powerful they become (often why the Lanterns families are often the first kills, because there is always a strong emotional attachment by the victims).
Aura Recognition: Black Lanterns can instinctively see the aura’s of everyone nearby, and can see their prevalent emotions. When that emotion reaches it’s peak, their heart becomes ripe for harvesting to power their ring.
Infection: A Black Lantern can bite someone, and that bite will slowly kill them, and then convert them into a Black Lantern.

Now for some weaknesses.
State of Peace: If a person dies in a state of emotional peace, then they are unable to be risen as a Black Lantern.
Emotional Balance: If a person is in a state of emotional balance, they can’t be converted into Black Lanterns either.
Healing Factor: Significant amounts of damage can cause their healing factor to be slowed to the point that it is a non-factor. If the damage is consistently large enough, and is capable of being able to out-damage the healing factor for long enough, it will destroy the Black Lantern.
Emotionless: Anyone who is completely emotionless is completely immune to any harm a Black Lantern could do. An example of this is Jonathon Crane (Scarecrow).
Red Lantern Weakness: The Rage Plasma vomit of Red Lanterns will consistently do enough damage, and starts to weaken and shut down the power of the Black Lantern Ring to the point that it will kill Black Lanterns.
Light of Willpower Plus: The light of a Green Lantern (Willpower) ring and any other lantern ring will break the connection between the body and the Black Lantern, killing them.

Notable Members: Nekron, Black Hand, Scar, Boston Brand, countless others

Sinestro (Yellow) Lantern Rings:
The Yellow Lanterns are known as the Sinestro Corps, and the Yellow Rings are technically the “Qwardian Rings”. Founded by Thaal Sinestro after he was kicked out of the Green Lantern Corps, he met The Weaponer and the The Weaponers of Qward while imprisoned in the Anti-Matter Universe, and had them create the Yellow Power Rings. The main emotion fuelling the Sinestro Corps is fear. Some of the unique powers include:

Instill Fear: The ring wielder can pinpoint fear in another person, and delve into their minds to exploit it. Once finding their fear, they can manipulate it, and increase it. They can also amplify it to the point of irrationality and pure horror.
Kryptonian Charging: Every Lantern ring can emit and create radiation, but the Yellow Lantern rings can create energy that will supercharge Kryptonians.
Environmental Playback: Each Yellow Lantern Ring can create simulations that can be replayed. They can observe everything happening, but they can’t change the events. It will show every colour regardless of the ring-users skill. It automatically cancels playing if the user’s attention is needed elsewhere.
Energy Twin: The wielder can create a green, ghost-like, twin of themselves out of energy, and send that out in their place. This energy twin can not interact with surroundings, but can be used to send messages and scout (and travels far faster than the physical body would). The Yellow Lantern themselves will be motionless during this, but will gain all knowledge of the energy twin when it returns to the physical body.
Energy Absorption: The Yellow Lantern rings can absorb other types of energy, and store them (to release) until later. This energy doesn’t charge the ring itself, but even a fully depleted Yellow Lantern ring with stored electrical charges can release that electrical charge to attack or boost something else.
Mind Alteration: The Sinestro Corps regularly alter the minds of others, and as such part of their training is the art of altering minds, both your own (to build psionic defences) and others (to exploit fear). Using this method though, Yellow Lanterns can actually beam information directly into eachothers heads.

Weaknesses include the following:
Blue Lantern Rings: Blue Lanterns wield the power of Hope, so their presence interferes with the Yellow Power Rings as the emotion of hope often replaces fear.

Notable Yellow Lanterns: Sinestro, Hal Jordan, Guy Gardner, Mongul, Arkillo

Blue Lantern Ring:
The Blue Lanterns are powered by the emotion of Hope. This makes them fairly powerful as that emotion helps override many others causing them to be useful against Red, and Yellow Lanterns. It was founded by two Oan’s who heard the Blackest Night prophecy, and proceeded to be ridiculed for voicing it by the other Guardians of the Green lanterns. So they left for another planet, and formed the Blue Lanterns based off of their hope at preventing others from being hurt.

Hope Empowerment: The Blue Lanterns can gather the power of people’s hope in order to achieve large tasks that would provide further hope for the people. An example of this is gathering the hope of a planet, to reverse the age of a dying star to a relatively newborn star, which in turn grants more hope to the people of that planet. They can also cause others to have more hope than they did originally.
Ring Enhancement: Blue Lanterns can actually use their ring to power and re-charge Green Lantern rings. To unlock the full potential of Green Lanterns requires a Blue Lantern to be nearby, because the hope provided actually boosts their own willpower. Blue Lanterns can also power and charge other lantern rings, but they must willingly choose and force that charge, while charging Green Lantern rings is far more passive.
Avarice Immunity: The immunity to greed is important for Blue Lanterns because “True hope is selfless”. As such Orange Lantern constructs can not absorb energy of Blue Lanterns.
Rage Immunity: Hope is the polar opposite of Rage in the Lanterns emotional scale, and as such, Rage has no effect on Blue Lanterns. This also gives Blue Lanterns the unique ability to actually heal the damage of the Red Lantern Rings on Red Lanterns, and to remove the Red Lantern Ring from the person, without killing them.

And while one of the most powerful lantern corps, Blue Lanterns still have some key weaknesses:
Emotional Dependency: Much like Red Lanterns needing to keep rage in their heart, Blue Lanterns require to keep hope alive in theirs to function. If you lose hope, you can actually lose your Blue Lantern ring altogether, and cause yourself to no longer be part of the Blue Lantern Corp.
Interference: The Blue Lantern rings frequently cause interference with other rings, which can be useful in some ways, but their closest allies, the Green Lanterns, also suffer some interference by the presence of Blue Lanterns (because hope starts overriding other emotions to the point that the other ring-wielders lose strength).
Willpower Dependence: The full spectrum of the Blue Lantern Ring’s powers can not be accessed without a Green lantern being present. All the basic stuff such as flight, and personal force shields are there in full force, but empowering hope in others is greatly reduced.
Hope Is Not Enough: There are plenty of situations where no matter how much hope you have, it is not enough to complete the task. This causes even the strongest Blue Lanterns to falter when there is hope, and be unsuccessful in both attacks, and defence.

Notable Blue Lanterns: Ganthet, Sayd, Saint Walker, Brother Eesok, Sister Sercy, Hal Jordan, Guy Gardner

Indigo Power Rings and Indigo Power Staff:
The Indigo Tribe of Lanterns rely on compassion for others for their strength. Wearers of the Indigo Power Ring’s are often reformed criminals. Upon wearing the ring, they feel remorse and regret for their actions in the past. Unlike other Lanterns, the Indigo Tribe don’t have a “Ring and Battery”, but more a “Power Staff” that acts as both the ring and battery. They also do use Power Rings, but it is secondary to their staff in nature.

Emotional Spectrum Emulation: They can emulate the emotions of other Lanterns nearby, and use the powers of their rings. The only exceptions to this are Black Lanterns, and White Lanterns.
Untraceable: While not technically completely untraceable, they are incredibly hard to track and follow, and are noted by even the other Lantern Corps as being almost impossibly hard to track down, especially if they don’t wish to be found.
Limited Healing Factor: While not huge, they are able to heal light wounds, and the psychological wounds caused by grief. They can even heal those wounds in other people, as long as they feel genuine compassion towards them.
Discern Motivation: They have the ability to discern any, and every, horrific thing a person has done while they are healing them.
Inability to be Translated: While every Lantern Ring has universal translators in them, the Indigo Tribe is able to communicate in a language that can not be translated unless you are wearing an Indigo Power Ring.
Exorcism: The Indigo Tribe is capable of exorcising any possessing being out of a living body.
Forced Empathy: The rings force their wearers to feel empathy for the things they’ve done. For the truly villainous within the Indigo ranks, they are often seen in chains that manifest while they are undergoing their transformation into beings of compassion.

There are a few weaknesses for the Indigo Power Rings though:
Weakened Constructs: Any constructs made with the Indigo Rings are significantly weaker and less effective than constructs made by any of the other rings.
Willpower Subversion: While it is a strength that they can emulate the emotions of other lanterns, and not be consumed by the emotion (especially in cases like Yellow or Red Lanterns), it is also a weakness that their hope and willpower are also likewise subdued and not that strong as well. This makes the ring very parasitic in nature, much like the Red Lantern Rings, and the Orange Lantern Rings.

Notable Indigo Lanterns: John Stewart, Munk, Ray Palmer (The Atom), Iroque

Star Sapphire (Violet) Power Ring:
The Star Sapphires wield the powers of Love. All new recruits get encased in a violet crystal before emerging with the Star Sapphire uniform. Despite having the main emotional strength being Love, almost every member of the Star Sapphire has also experienced great rage, which is the second most important emotion to their Ring. The members of the Star Sapphires are almost entirely females who have been deeply in love, and then spurned. The unique powers to the Star Sapphires are the following. Unlike most other Power Rings, outside of the recharge protocol, the Star Sapphire’s Violet Power Rings have no out-right weaknesses.  There are only a few male members to be in the Star Sapphires, and not all of them wielded the Power Rings.

Crystallization: They have the ability to put other people into a crystal of “love” that basically puts people in suspended animation. The more powerful Star Sapphires can actually place entire planets in this crystal for short periods of time.
Rage Immunity: Star Sapphires are generally immune to the effects of Red Power Rings, and can actually shut down the red rings themselves by making the Red Lantern feel love (which will actually kill the Red Lantern)
Avarice Immunity: True Love is not affected by greed, so Star Sapphires are immune to the effects of Orange Lanterns.

Notable Star Sapphires: Carol Ferris, Fatality, Guy Gardner

Orange Lantern Power Ring:
The Orange Lantern Ring is a ring powered by greed. As such, there is very rarely more than one member of the Orange Lantern Corps, with the rest being filled out by constructs as others are assimilated into the Orange Lantern Power Battery to become more constructs. Every time there is more than one actual ring-wielder of the Orange Lanterns, there is usually fighting, and death involved. Some of the strengths include:

Power Surge: While other power-rings can only charge up to 100%, the Orange Lantern Ring can charge up to 100,000%, making it the single most powerful ring there is.
Identity Usurpation: Identity Theft is the main form of recruitment for Orange Lanterns. If the Orange Lantern consumes the body of a person (or captures their Power Ring if they were a Lantern of a different Corps), the identity joins the Orange Lantern Power Battery permanently.
Orange Avatars: Any identity taken by the Orange Lantern can be recreated in full as an energy avatar. These avatars become corrupted by greed and act as an extension of the Orange Lantern.

Weaknesses include:
Insatiable Greed: The wearers become infected with the need to take everything they want, to the detriment of pretty much everything else.
Hunger: They have a constant hunger, which can never be satisfied. This hunger does fade in the presence of a Blue Lantern Ring’s light.
Blue Lantern Weakness: While greed can consume almost every other emotion, it can not destroy Hope. So they are unable to fight off Blue Lantern’s energy.
Star Sapphire Weakness: True Love can not be corrupted by greed, and as such, the Orange Lanterns can not affect Star Sapphires.

Notable Orange Lanterns: Larfleeze, Lex Luthor

White Lantern Rings:
The White Lanterns are the final major Lantern Corps. The White Lanterns are the guardians of Life itself, and actually encompass the other “Light Spectrum” based lantern corps (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet/Star Sapphire). This gives them access to any ability they need, when they need it, and utilizes all their emotions.

Emotional Spectrum Dominance: The White Lanterns can access all the powers of the other rings. They can also access the other rings in use by any other lantern of any corps to track them, or listen in and observe them.
Ring Overriding: If needed, a white lantern can override another Lanterns ring to temporarily turn it into a White Lantern ring.
Resurrection: White Lantern Rings can resurrect the dead. Unlike the Black Lantern Rings though, the White Lanterns restore them to life, as they were before they died.

They have some weaknesses though:
Black Hand: They do have a weakness to Death, and Black Hand is the avatar of Death and one of the main members of the Black Lanterns
Black Lanterns: Black Lanterns embodying death itself, makes White Lanterns weaker.
Recharge Protocol: White Lantern Rings recharge differently than any other ring. It recharges when the wearers do things that remind them of the joy of being alive. This could vary from user to user, but could include things like joyriding a motorcycle, or going skydiving.

Notable White Lanterns: Sinestro, Hal Jordan, Kyle Rayner, Boston Brand/Deadman

The Phantom Ring:
The Phantom Ring isn’t a corps of it’s own, but just a singular ring, created by the Guardian Rami over 6 billion years ago (and got him excommunicated). This ring can not be destroyed (despite over 5,000 separate attempts to, including black holes, kryptonite, and nth metal). It’s powers are simple:

Emotional Spectrum Conduit: It can control the powers of all the rings (except for White and Black). But not all at once, it changes according to whichever newest emotion the Phantom Ring wielder feels. It also causes the ring-wielder to have a personality shift to embrace the current ring-colour.

This of course leads to weaknesses:
Power Instability: Because the ring changes what colour it is, and subsequently shifts the wearers personality, it makes the wearer mentally unstable.
Emotional Spectrum Exposure: The Phantom Ring doesn’t have a battery, and doesn’t recharge. It gets its energy from the emotional electromagnetic spectrum. Prolonged exposure can actually cause the wearer to explode like a bomb, killing them.

Notable wielders of the Phantom Ring: Rami, Frank Laminski, Cyborg Superman

Breakout Characters

So, the year isn’t over yet, but I’m going to do something a bit different (inspired by Juan Wyatt of the Facebook group “Battleworld: House of Villains”. Check that group out, it’s great, plenty of discussions, theory, news, and debates) and that is talk about some characters I feel have broken out this year, or look like they are about to break out in the next few months (basically before the year is over). I will split these into two groups: “Breakout Characters” and “About to Break Out”. This isn’t a definitive list, but more ones I’ve noticed from comics I’ve been reading (so a definite lean towards Marvel, as that is primarily what I read).

Breakout Characters:
First: Venom: Venom (Eddie Brock) has had a big year this year. It started last year with Venom joining the Guardians of the Galaxy, and his solo-run Venom: Space Knight, it gave you a bit of insight into the origins of the Symbiote. But the Venom runs this year (Venom Legacy series, the new Venom run, Web of Venom, Venom: First Host) have all gone to expand on his origins, explore the creation of the Symbiotes in the first place (including the god of Symbiotes, Knull), and why the Symbiotes call themselves the Klyntar. You also delve into a couple of the previous hosts of Venom (including a Kree soldier, and a Vietnam War Vet). Venom also starts developing some new powers due to his contact with Knull. We have seen a lot of development on backstory, history, and just a little bit of retconning, with Venom over these arcs, but they have also made him a much more deep and complex character. And for that I rank Venom as one of this years Breakout Characters.

Second: Victor von Doom: Doctor Doom. The man, the myth, the legend. This year has been a good year to the character development of one of the biggest villains in the Marvel Universe. While his major character development did take place in 2017 during Civil War 2 and Infamous Iron Man, there was much more development on his character this year in the Invincible Iron Man series after Tony Stark came back to life. In fact, at one point, Doom put it ALL on the line, and sacrificed much of his gains, in order to protect both Tony Stark, and a recently revived James Rhodes (War Machine). While you haven’t seen much of Doom since his heroic sacrifice, it really has set new bars for and a wide open range for future creative teams to explore. Does he retake control of Latveria (and if he does, does he rule it in a much more benevolent fashion)? Does he stop using his version of the Iron Man armour and keep doing hero work in a more traditional Dr. Doom armour? Does he revert to his villainous ways? Who knows. What we do know, is that no matter what path is taken with him, you will always know that Doom is going to do whatever he chooses to do.

Third: Bizarro: The old Superman villain has taken on a bit of a heroic turn in the comic series Red Hood and the Outlaws, as one of the Outlaws. Initially the Superman clone was marked to be destroyed when Black Mask captured him to use as a weapon. Artemis and Red Hood talked with him, befriended him, and eventually freed him from Black Mask. Bizarro then joined Red Hood and Artemis (who he affectionately refers to as “Red-He” and “Red-She”) and they form an anti-hero group called the Outlaws. This group has worked with Lex Luthor when Bizarro fell incredibly ill (and temporarily died) because of his imperfect physiology. Upon being revived by Luthor, he was released back into the care of Red Hood, but made it quite clear that Bizarro is still “Property of Lexcorp”. This iteration of Bizarro shares many similarities with previous Bizarro’s (including a diminutive and almost child-like intelligence), and a reversal of some of Superman’s powers. But unlike many other iterations of Bizarro, the DC Rebirth version featured in Red Hood and the Outlaws, is caring, compassionate, trusting, and is ultimately a hero who is loyal to his two best friends. It is a new twist on a classic villain-turned-hero.

About to Break Out:
First: Robbie Reyes/Ghost Rider: Yes. First up on my about to break out list, is none other than breakout star of Agents of SHIELD. He hasn’t had a solo run since his brief 6 issue run in 2017 and before that, his introduction in his 12 issue run in 2014/2015. He has recently reappeared in the latest Avengers series (alongside Unworthy Thor, Captain America, She-Hulk, Iron Man, Doctor Strange, and Black Panther), where his powers have grown considerably, and developed new powers. He had briefly gained cosmic awareness while possessing the body of a dead Celestial (it is unknown how long that knowledge will last, but he was gaining knowledge of things he had no idea existed, or what they were). But the fact that he has recently developed the ability to do the Penance Stare (something he couldn’t do before, because he isn’t really a spirit of vengeance) and used it to kill Star Brand (one of the most powerful beings in the universe, whose power set is literally only limited by the current Star Brand’s imagination). This new run gives Robbie the ability to showcase who he is, as a member of an experienced supporting cast (which should hopefully get him more attention in the comics from the superhero community, and from the readers, possibly resulting in a new solo series and more character growth).

Second: Gabrielle “Gabby” Kinney/Honey Badger: Second up is one of the clones of Laura Kinney (X-23/All New Wolverine), Gabby. Who takes on the hero persona of Honey Badger. Introduced in the All-New Wolverine series, she eventually became the sidekick to Laura, who takes in her clone/sister, and works on raising her. Because she also has a similar power-set, she regularly helps out as a hero, and has even had her own individual team up with Deadpool. Recently she has also joined the X-Men on Jean Grey’s X-Men Red series (alongside her sister Laura). She is such a young character, with good potential. Perhaps she’ll even get a solo series of her own, but right now, I’ll keep catching up with her adventures in X-23 and X-Men Red.

Third: Amadeus Cho/Brawn: Yes, Amadeus Cho went from just being the 7th (or 8th, depending on who is alive and dead at the time) smartest person alive, to being the Totally Awesome Hulk, to his current form, known as “Brawn”. We haven’t seen a whole lot of Brawn, except that Cho’s gamma form took on this appearance at the end of his own version of World War Hulk, where instead of Hulk being a separate entity within his psyche, he absorbed it into the same psyche (acknowledging that his old Hulk psyche was everything about himself that he hated). We haven’t seen many feats from Brawn yet, but judging from his much smaller stature, he is probably weaker than his previous incarnation (though still far stronger than the average person, and probably on par or stronger than many heroes with strength as a power).

Copy Cats

So we all know that there are often striking similarities between characters and groups within competing comic companies. Some are blatant copy cats (or rip-offs), and some are a little less subtle. Others are just very odd coincidences (if similar characters/groups come out within a couple months of each other, odds are, it was a coincidence. Especially in the 70’s and earlier when debuting a new character and the first story arc, artwork, backstory, and everything would have taken a couple months to even plan). On top of the “who did it first?” section, I’m going to do a “who has been more successful” bit. And that’s not to say that both characters can’t be successful, just some get more mainstream success than others (despite both being incredibly successful characters). There are many copy cats, and many won’t be mentioned here, this is likely to be another multi-part series due to the sheer volume. So let’s start with a popular character people might not know was a copycat:

Wolverine (Marvel) / Ripclaw (Image) / Timber Wolf (DC):
This one is funny, because the original was a C-list character at best, Timber Wolf from DC Comics, who debuted in Adventure Comics #327 (in December 1964). His power set was Superhuman reflexes, strength, durability, and enhanced senses, as well as an accelerated healing factor. Originally known as Lone Wolf, he was rebranded as Timber Wolf. Wolverine of Marvel Comics, debuted in Incredible Hulk #180 (October 1974) almost a full 10 years after Timber Wolf. With the similar basic powerset of Timber Wolf, he even had a similar hairstyle. Finally we have Ripclaw of Image Comics, who was himself, a copy of Wolverine (who has been a bona fide A-list hero for a couple decades now), debuted in Cyber Force Preview Ashcan Edition #1 (August 1992). Part of the reason why Ripclaw never took off (despite the fact that Wolverine was quite popular at the time) was because he is basically Wolverine, stripped of anything resembling character depth (such as a mysterious past that haunts him, love, relationships, and self struggle). Ripclaw is basically a human cyborg with claws and a murderous attitude.

The most successful of these 3 is, hands down, Wolverine. Not only has he been a major part of several teams (like X-Men, X-Force, Avengers, SHIELD, among others), he has had several successful solo-runs, team-up’s, tons of cameo’s, and has been a major factor in some cartoon runs, a regular appearance in other cartoons, and a major factor in the live action X-Men movies (even earning his own solo-trilogy of movies).  Timber Wolf and Ripclaw both lack everything there.

In order, Timber Wolf, Wolverine, and Ripclaw

 

Quicksilver (Marvel) / The Flash (DC):
The battle of the speedsters. The original in this case was Flash from DC Comics. Appearing in Flash Comics #1 in January 1940, the original speedster has been a staple of DC comics since. Quicksilver was actually the second Marvel copy cat of The Flash (the first was a general failure in “the Whizzer” who debuted in USA Comics #1, and occasionally featured in The Invaders), the Quicksilver debut was in The X-Men #4 in March 1964. In a fun twist, while The Flash is a DC character, it was originally from All-American Publishing (which ended up merging with 2 other companies to form DC Comics), so he technically pre-dates the company that created him (with 104 issues before the formation of DC comics).

As far as success goes, both have been incredibly successful. Quicksilver has been a villain and a hero. Member of the X-Men, Avengers, and Inhumans, as well as the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. He appears as a major character in several cartoons, and in both the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Fox X-Men movies in live action. He has also had some short-lived solo comic runs. The Flash on the other hand, has also been a staple in multiple cartoons, several comic series with other teams, and an incredibly long-lasting solo series. He also has a successful live action TV series, and recently even appeared in the DC Extended Universe (their live-action movie universe). While both have name recognition, and have been very successful, The Flash is the more successful of the two.

In order, Flash and Quicksilver

 

Darkseid (DC) / Thanos (Marvel) / Apocalypse (Marvel):
The classic villain matchup. Darkseid  debuted in Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #134 in November 1970. Darkseid is the ruler of Apokolips, and has the rather grandiose goal of conquering the universe and eliminating free will. While featured prominently as a Superman villain, he is often seen as an arch-enemy of the Justice League, and is one of the strongest beings in the DC Universe. Thanos debuted in The Invincible Iron Man #55 in February 1973. Thanos was not originally a Darkseid copy. But in fact a Metron copy. When Jim Starlin handed it in, he was told to “beef up the character. If you’re going to rip off one of DC’s god’s, rip off Darkseid, the really good one.” And thus, Thanos, as we know him, was born. Apocalypse (Marvel) gets a mention here, because while character complexity is completely different from Thanos and Darkseid, he was a character who physically, was an almost complete copy of Darkseid, as well as his name being an homage to Darkseid’s planet (Apokolips). Apocalypse debuted in X-Factor #5 in June 1986.

As far as the most success, while all three have seen some level of success, Thanos is the one that really pulls ahead. Darkseid has seen some success in animated cartoons, animated movies, and comics, but has yet to translate beyond a mention (with no appearance) in live action. Apocalypse has had a few major runs, had a dominant role in the X-Men cartoon series, and played a role in one of the X-Men live action movies, but is overall less important than Darkseid. Thanos on the other hand, has been a significant part of many universe effecting series, and has had a couple solo comic runs (which actually spawned a spin-off series of it’s own), has played a major role in some cartoon series, and has been the major big-bad in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with 6 years of build-up. Thanos is instantly recognizable amongst all comic fans, in comics and in live action, which is something I feel is lacking with the other two. So here, I have to say, Thanos has been the most successful, of three successful characters.

In order, Darkseid, Thanos, and Apocalypse

Legendary Weapons: Stark and Doom Armours

Now, I’m going to do a legendary weapons series. And one I wanted to do, was two of the most iconic armours in Marvel, Tony Stark (aka. Iron Man) and his armours, and his only REAL counterpart in the high-tech adaptable armour suit department, Victor von Doom (Dr. Doom/Iron Man). The reason I am doing the two of these together, is solely because of how many similarities there are. I could just go over Stark Armour in one and Doom in another, but so much of that would be the same stuff, so you guys get a 2 for 1 special here instead. So let’s get started.

Starktech Iron Man Armour
The classic playboy Tony Stark and his Iron Man armour first debuted in Tales of Suspense issue 39 (March 1963). This armour has gone through several iterations, and various versions of it that are suited to different tasks. Not all of them are getting covered, but we are going to get a few of them so let’s get started.

The Mark 1 Armour:
The most basic of Iron Man’s armours, it was a prototype made to prevent shrapnel in his chest from reaching his heart. This one was made from your basic Iron and powered by DC Motors (rechargeable via electrical outlets). The suit could not fly, but had pressure jets that allowed limited hovering, or some pretty incredible jumps. It also provided limited protection from physical attacks, small arms fire, and certain form of energy. The suit also included a chest mounted monobeam (though the range was a couple yards at best), a hacksaw, magnetic insulators (to repel or attract metal objects, as the situation required), and suction cups allowing him to cling to walls and ceilings.  Unlike many of his later models, this version was a monocolour grey and not the hotrod red and gold that we’ve become accustomed to.

The Hulkbuster Armour:
The Hulkbuster Armour was actually a subtype of his Modular Armour (the MK XI armour, heavily shown in the Iron Man animated TV series and in Marvel vs Capcom videogame), that was designed to be adapted to any situation at hand. Though it often looked similar to a few of his previous armours, the Hulkbuster modular addon to his armour looked distinctly different. This is because it was designed to tackle heavy threats (namely Hulk) in hand-to-hand. The armour is successful in the sense that Stark CAN hold his own against Hulk wearing this, the problem is, he can’t sustain it (as the armour throughout it’s iterations can’t handle Hulk at his higher power levels). Then there was also the Hulkbuster Armour MK II, which was used during the Civil War event. Once again, it was initially able to hold it’s own against Hulk, and had several advantages over the initial variant (such as rocket boosted gauntlets that could knock Hulk back several miles, adamantium tipped injector needles, and releasable nanobots). A third black-and-gold version of the Hulkbuster appeared during the Original Sin story line Hulk vs Iron Man. This variant included upgrades such as Gamma blades, and a massive “shock and awe” arsenal using a series of repulsors and ultrasonic weapons. The strongest version of the armour, it was laid to waste as Tony was fighting an incredibly enhanced version of Hulk (with an Extremis upgrade that allowed him to maintain Banners intelligence while the Hulk was in control).

Model-Prime Armour:
The Model-Prime armour is the final version of the Iron Man armour we are throwing in here. It is his current armour in comics, and would appear to be the basis of Starks latest armour in the MCU (Avengers: Infinity War). It is a streamlined and less complex version of his previous armours, using his traditional red and gold colours (several of his more recent armours were chrome, or black and gold). It can change shape depending on what Tony Stark needs at the time, can form blades, or blasters, or anything else he needs. It can also morph into more elaborate looking armours, such as a Hulkbuster armour, or even a Samurai style armour. It is an enhanced AI that is directly connected to Tony’s brain synapses so is the most responsive armour he has yet, being shown to automatically protect him from sonic attacks before realizing he was under attack. It is also capable of projecting holograms, and entering stealth mode as needed. When not being used, it is confined to a bracer Stark wears at all times.

Doctor Victor von Doom’s Armour:
Victor von Doom, classic Fantastic Four villain, leader of Latveria (at various times), possible descendent/ancestor of Kang the Conqueror (don’t get me started here), and current Hero. Victor von Doom is a complex character, and his armour reflects that. Both a master of magical abilities, and of technological/scientific feats, he is always prepared.

The Classic Doom Armour:
The classic Doctor Doom armour uses a titanium base, and is nuclear-powered, with advanced AI. It was also forged using magic in a Tibetan monastery (with which Doom killed all but one of the monks after, to ensure no one else could learn all the secrets of his armour). It is capable of superhuman strength, durability, and flight. It has a wrist mounted video communicator. He has atomic powered blasters in his fingertips. The outer surface is capable of generating up to 100,000 Megavolts (100 Gigavolts) of energy (roughly the energy of 1000 lightning strikes simultaneously). He also has concussive blasts that can launch from his gloves or his mask. His gauntlets light up with electrical energy if he gets into melee combat. He has a 2 way forcefield capable of blocking anything from getting in or out. That force-field has the drawback of Doom having to lower it if he wants to attack. It has infrared vision scanners, a completely self-supporting recycling system capable of indefinite food, water, and oxygen generation and storage. He also has splinters of the True Cross of Christ throughout and within the armour (to provide some level of holy and supernatural protection, including immunity to the undead such as rival world leader Dracula). Most importantly, it has an immunity to all other Doomtech, making it impossible to harm him via hijacking his other systems and/or Doombots.

The Hazareth Three Armour:
The Hazareth Three armour was a mystical leather armour obtained through a deal with the Hazareth Three (three powerful demons). In order to gain the armour, he had to sacrifice something that could never be replaced, which ended up being the soul of the only woman he ever loved, Valeria. Her skin was used for the leather in this armour. The full capabilities were never shown of this armour, but it was quite enhanced and the Fantastic Four required the aid of Doctor Strange to defeat him in this armour.

Infamous Iron Man Armour:
In the latest Iron Man run (and Infamous Iron Man), Doctor Doom became a hero, sacrificing everything to protect Tony’s legacy, and later, Tony himself. This armour had some distinct touches of Doom in it (such as green lighting and highlights), but otherwise, looked like a silver variation of on Iron Man armour. This armour basically combined the best of Doom’s classic armour, and the various Iron Man armours.