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Curated playlist

Fictional characters who can stretch themselves

  • DhalsimDhalsim nearly had an elephant head in Street Fighter II. Capcom's designers modeled one draft on the Hindu god Ganesh.
  • Martian ManhunterMartian Manhunter, whose Martian name is J'onn J'onzz, first appeared in Detective Comics #225, dated November 1955. Writer Joseph Samachson and artist Joe Certa created him for DC Comics. He went on to become one of the seven founding…
  • Mister FantasticMister Fantastic, the comic book hero whose real name is Dr. Reed Richards, owes his stretching power to a borrowed idea. Stan Lee, who created him with Jack Kirby for Marvel Comics, once explained the choice in an interview. His words…
  • ClayfaceDetective Comics #40, cover-dated June 1940, introduced a murderer called Clayface, and the man under the costume was a B-list actor named Basil Karlo. Nobody could have guessed what the name would grow into. Over the following decades it…
  • Kamala KhanKamala Khan first appeared in print as a face in the background of Captain Marvel #14, published in August 2013. Writer Kelly Sue DeConnick placed her there on purpose. In that scene, Kamala watches Carol Danvers protect civilians from an…
  • Necro (Street Fighter)Street Fighter's Necro is a living bioweapon who just wanted to go home with his girlfriend.
  • Sandman (Marvel Comics)The Sandman, a Marvel Comics character who can turn his whole body into sand, lost one of his early fights to a household vacuum cleaner. His opponent was Spider-Man, the hero who would shadow his life for decades. The man inside the sand…
  • Swamp ThingSwamp Thing, the mound of living vegetation that guards nature in DC Comics, got his name because his creator never gave him one. Writer Len Wein later recalled: "I didn't have a title for it, so I kept referring to it as 'that swamp thing…
  • The Mask (comics)A bald green head, swollen far beyond human size, grins with a mouthful of enormous teeth. This is Big Head, the creature at the center of The Mask, an American comedy horror comic series published by Dark Horse Comics. The face belongs to…
  • Monkey D. LuffyMonkey D. Luffy is the rubber-bodied hero of the manga One Piece, created by Eiichiro Oda, and his story starts with a promise made by a small boy. In Windmill Village, in the Goa kingdom, young Luffy befriends a pirate called Red-Haired…
  • MetamorphoMetamorpho, the DC Comics hero, begins as a mercenary named Rex Mason who takes a job to steal an Egyptian artifact called the Orb of Ra. For a man who sells his skills to the highest bidder, it should be a routine theft. Instead it sends…

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