Salutations, traveler of The Internets! Welcome to William's Bloody Hell, so named after our founder, Sir Bloody William.
He is seen in the likeness above in a rare, 19th century woodcut. This
image was rumoured to have been
commissioned after a bout of unpleasantness
in the White Chapel district of London. Do enjoy your stay and peruse our many, varied offerings, much of which cannot be found elsewhere!
::Today's soundtrack: Joan Jett and the Blackhearts "Bad Reputation" ::
So, I've spent some time over the last few weeks watching episodes of X-men: Evolution on the YouTubes on account of 1: it's free and 2: for some reason season 4 never came out on DVDs. I enjoyed the series and it felt like just as it was getting really good, they stopped producing it. Isn't that always the way? ANYWAY. X-men: Evolution is where the character X23, a young, female clone of Wolverine first appeared, and she later transitioned into Marvel comics and the Marvel Universe proper (or the 616 universe, for those who use the lingo. Yes, I am a nerd.). This got me to thinking about comic book characters that got their start NOT in comics. Let's discuss.
X23. So named because she is the twenty-third attempt at a clone of Wolverine. They realized that their genetic sample has a flaw on the Y chromosome, so a female one was made. She was bred to be the perfect killing machine. To me, she just seems like another way to try to exploit the coolness factor that is Wolverine. She was only in two episodes of the television series that created her, but they did make quick use of her in the comics. She could possibly grow into something cool if only the writers would allow her to depart from the clichéd Wolverine mold. Rating: 3 out of 5 stars.
Firestar. She was a girl with microwave-based heat powers that was borne from the 1980s cartoon series Spider-man and His Amazing Friends. I had always found Firestar to be fairly lame, as she hadn't developed any real personality, but just seemed to be an "average" type of girl. Nothing against "average" per se, I'm just saying she didn't seem to have any hobbies or interests outside of superheroing on the show or in her early adventures in comic books (keeping in mind that what I know of her from comics is her origin miniseries and what appearances she made in The New Mutants, and NONE of her New Warriors or Avengers stuff), so she came off as really plain, boring and unimaginative. Rating: D+
The Wonder Twins. Ah, Zan and Jayna from The Super Friends cartoon. Who HASN'T bumped fists with someone else and declared, "Wonder Twin Powers: Activate!" Zan and Jayna are aliens who came to Earth and joined the Justice League, at least on the cartoon; DC comic books just can't seem to decide WHAT to do with them and they continue to just pop up here and there in various titles. No matter their incarnation, though the super powers never seem to change, with them fist bumping and then Zan transforming into something water-based and Jayna into some type of animal. Rating: 85%; reduce to 70% if Gleek is around
Harley Quinn. She was meant to appear in just one episode of Batman: The Animated Series, but this was one character who just came to life as the on again/off again sidekick and girlfriend to the notorious villain The Joker. Harley quickly became a regular character on the series, befriending villainess Poison Ivy and working hard for the affection of the Joker. She was so popular that it wasn't long before she was integrated into the comic book Batman continuity. She was a strong, well rounded character with personality to spare in the cartoons, but her comic book appearances have been rather flat, including her self-titled solo book (at least during the initial Dodson run, after the "new" management took over it was better but then cancelled). Rating: cartoon: Totally awesome; comic books: Almost awesome.
Well, that's my two cents on that. Bonus points to you if you can translate my rating system. What's the conversion of stars to percentage? About the same as Shrutebucks to Stanleynickels.
William the Bloody (character analyst)
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