Curated playlist

Marvel Comics mutates

Doctor OctopusDoctor Octopus, the Marvel Comics villain known as Doc Ock, began as a name before he was anything else. Stan Lee, who created him with the artist Steve Ditko, later described how the idea arrived. "For some reason, I thought of an…
Captain AmericaCaptain America Comics #1 reached newsstands on the 20th of December 1940, carrying a cover date of March 1941. Its cover showed the hero punching Adolf Hitler. That hero, Captain America, was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby for Timely…
Spider-ManMarvel's publisher told Stan Lee that Spider-Man would never work. The comic was being canceled anyway.
Wonder ManWonder Man, whose real name is Simon Williams, died in the very comic book that introduced him. That issue was The Avengers #9, cover-dated October 1964 and published by Marvel Comics. Writer Stan Lee created him with artists Don Heck and…
Ben ReillyBen Reilly first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #149, published in October 1975, and he was seemingly killed in that very same issue. He had no name yet. He was a nameless clone of Peter Parker, the man behind Spider-Man, grown by a…
HulkThe Hulk is a Marvel Comics superhero who lives as two people in one body, and the two typically resent each other. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created him, and he first appeared in the debut issue of The Incredible Hulk in May 1962. One half…
Daredevil (Marvel Comics character)Daredevil is a Marvel Comics hero who first appeared in an issue with an April 1964 cover date. He is a blind lawyer by day and a costumed fighter by night, dressed in a devil-like outfit. His series sold modestly for years, and it came…
Kraven the HunterKraven the Hunter, born Sergei Nikolaevich Kravinoff, greeted Spider-Man with a borrowed phrase. In The Amazing Spider-Man issue 15, published in August 1964, he called the hero "the most dangerous game." The line comes from a short story…
Black Panther (character)Black Panther, the Marvel Comics hero known as T'Challa, made his debut in Fantastic Four #52, published in July 1966. He did not arrive as a sidekick or a soldier. T'Challa was a king, the ruler of Wakanda, a fictional African nation made…
Polaris (Marvel Comics)Lorna Dane, the Marvel Comics mutant known as Polaris, first appeared in The X-Men #49 in October 1968. Readers then waited decades to learn who her father was. She controls magnetism, much as the X-Men's early enemy Magneto does, and fans…
Miles MoralesMiles Morales makes his first public appearance as Spider-Man by stopping an assault by a villain called Kangaroo. The bystanders are not impressed. They tell him his Spider-Man costume is in bad taste, and he considers changing it. That…
Jessica JonesJessica Jones is a Marvel Comics superhero who spends much of her story trying not to be one. She runs a detective agency called Alias Private Investigations, and she is usually its only employee. Yet Marvel eventually placed her in a high…
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…
Scarlet WitchJack Kirby considered at least five names before the Scarlet Witch became the Scarlet Witch. Jinx, Witch Woman, The Sorceress, Evil Eye and Miss Witch are all listed on the back of a splash page in The X-Men issue 4. Writer Stan Lee and…
Silk (character)Silk, the Marvel Comics superhero whose civilian name is Cindy Moon, first appeared in April 2014 without a face. She showed up as a faceless cameo in The Amazing Spider-Man #1, created by writer Dan Slott and artist Humberto Ramos.…
Quicksilver (Marvel Comics)Quicksilver, the Marvel Comics speedster whose real name is Pietro Django Maximoff, first appeared in The X-Men #4, dated March 1964. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created him. He can move and think at extreme speeds, and that second half of the…
DeadpoolDeadpool, the masked mercenary of Marvel Comics, once ended a storyline by breaking out of his own book and into the real world. There he confronted the writers and artists who were making the comic, and he turned to the reader with a…
Bucky BarnesBucky Barnes is a Marvel Comics hero whose fans once turned his death into a rule of the genre. The saying went that in comics, "No one stays dead except Bucky, Jason Todd and Uncle Ben." For many years, Bucky was the first name on that…
Sentry (Robert Reynolds)Robert Reynolds, a middle-aged man better known to Marvel Comics readers as the Sentry, carries the power of one million exploding suns, and almost nobody on Earth remembers him. Reynolds knows his enemy, the Void, is coming back. He also…
Spider-Man NoirSpider-Man Noir is a version of Peter Parker who has never seen a color. In the film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, his home universe is entirely black and white, so ordinary hues leave him baffled when he travels elsewhere. That…
Tombstone (character)Tombstone is a Marvel Comics crime boss whose face was built to resemble the grave marker he is named after. Writer Gerry Conway chose the name first. He then gave the character albinism and squared-off features so the finished drawing…
Black Cat (Marvel Comics)Black Cat, the thief whose real name is Felicia Hardy, first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #194 in July 1979, yet she was never meant for that comic. Her creators had a different hero's book in mind when they dreamed her up. She…