I thought it would be interesting to give a brief history of a couple of items about comics that are now having interesting happenings on the movie screens:
Women
There really were not a lot of women super-heroes in comics during the Golden Age (1938-1945) and Silver Age (1956-1975). And women were mostly called “girls” with Wonder Woman being the exception.
During the Silver Age, both at Marvel and DC most super-hero groups (both good and evil) were ALL men (even the boys were called men) and had ONE, and only ONE female member who usually had the least power.
· The Fantastic Four had The Invisible Girl
· The X-Men had Marvel Girl (Jean Grey)
· The Avengers had the Wasp and later Scarlett Witch when the Wasp resigned.
Thee Justice League, Doon Patrol, Metal Men all had just one woman. (The Legion of Super Heroes was an exception).
At Marvel, Stan Lee, nearly a decade into the Marvel Age changed that. He changed names, and powers, and often made the woman the strongest member of the team. The Invisible Girl, who originally just had the power to turn invisible, gained the new power of creating invisible force fields. And is called the Invisible Woman.
Marvel Girl’s named was dropped and she is just known as Jean Grey. Originally, she had the power of “telekinesis” the ability to move objects just by thinking about it. But she grew to have enormous powers to control everything.
The Scarlett Witch, originally had a similar power, to move objects, but gained great mystical powers. The woman beccame more powerful than the emn on their groups. Mostly.
DC didn't really change things. SSupergirl is till Supergirl, but even in teh movie she is a woman.
The Multi Verse
Often DC wanted to tell a story out of continuity. First, the characters had dreams. Later, DC had “Imaginary Stories” which told great stories, such as “The Death of Superman” but were not part of continuity.
Virtually all of DC movies are based on characters originally created from 1938-1945. Super-heroes faded out in 1950, leaving only Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. In 1956 DC decided to get back into the Superhero business and introduced totally new versions of their previous popular characters such as the Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman etc. The editors at DC thought their 1940s readers were all gone and created new characters for the Baby Boom generation. But the fans kept writing in asking “what happened to the old heroes”?
In The Flash #123 (Sept. 1961) editor Julie Schwartz presented, “The Flash of Two Worlds.” The new Flash, Barry Allen, is transported into a different Universe, one that vibrates differently that his, and meets Jay Gerrick, the ORIGINAL Flash.Of course, they would have several adventures together.
Soon a crisis occurs and the Silver Age Justice League (Now on Earth-One) would team with the other universes Gold Age Justice Society (Earth-Two) and all their “original” heroes. Then every year, in the summer, the Justice League would usually discover a new universe full of different heroes and villains and have to save it.
So now, with a multiverse, instead of having “imaginary stories” DC would have familiar characters get married, have children, die, but then you learned that it didn’t happen on “Earth One” but on some other Earth.
Marvel did NOT have dreams or imaginary stories. In 1975, 15 years after DC introduced the multiverse, Marvel introduced a comic, “What IF?” Here they played with their continuity, such as “What if Spider-Man joined the Fantastic Four?” Roy Thomas, the editor, said that these were not “imaginary stories” but took place in another universe. So now Marvel, like DC, could have MANY of the same characters doing different things at different times. I think that will be part of the next Avengers movie. It is certainly part of the new Spider-Man movie. And was part of the movie, “Marvels.”
Notes:
I should point out:
Wonder Woman had a Multiverse experience, once, in Wonder Woman #59 (June 1953) which is often ignored.
In 1986 DC “ended” their multiverse because it got so complicated. But fans wanted it back
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