Top 5 Superhero Weddings

Welcome back to our sporadic look at comic book weddings. Previously we gazed in slack jawed wonder at a gallery of some of the weirdest wedding covers ever. Today we're going to turn to a staple of the industry: superhero weddings. And, naturally, our list of the top 5 weddings consists entirely of Marvel events.

Now, I know what you're thinking: man, that FFF thing really went to your head. Well, no. I mean yes, but not in this case. Rather, this is simple acknowledgment that the superhero wedding as we know it was invented by Marvel and pretty much every superhero wedding of the last fifty years is a copy of Marvel's inimitable style. So though there are many high profile and no doubt interesting superhero weddings over at DC and Image and wherever else, we're going to keep it real by looking solely at Marvel, a decision helped by the fact that the top four superhero weddings of all time are undoubtedly from Marvel anyway, meaning we're really just debating the number five spot. So stop whining.

And where does that leave number five? Well, it was a bit of a toss-up between a number of other worthy events (including, for instance, the wedding of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson in Amazing Spider-man Annual #21 and the union of Scott Summers and Jean Grey in X-Men #30) but after careful consideration I decided instead to go with a bit of a dark horse candidate (though not from Dark Horse Comics, of course)...



5) Hellcat and Son of Satan

Coming at you straight form the pages of New Defenders #125, it's the wedding all of the underworld has been waiting for, Hellcat and Son of Satan. This rather bizarre issue gets the nod for a couple reasons. Firstly, it contains the pre-requisite attack by supervillains, in this case the uber lame Mutant Force (which at least also included Hellcat's ex-husband Mad Dog). But it also signaled the end of the original Defenders team and concept thanks to the dues ex machina device of some cosmic dudes telling them they had to disband forever or else the world would be destroyed. Being the heroes they are, they were like, "sounds reasonable," and all quit (later to find out, of course, that this was just a really obvious trick). And as a result, the "New" Defenders formed, which were just like the old defenders only with more X-Men involved. All of this taking place in the middle of a supernatural wedding being narrated by a pink leprechaun for essentially no reason. New Defenders, same as the old Defenders.



4) Quicksilver and Crystal

Let's face it: nobody in comics does weddings quite like the Avengers and the Fantastic Four. So it's only fitting that we highlight the wedding of Crystal and Quicksilver, which took place in a crossover between Avengers #127 and Fantastic Four #150. Of course, the proceedings were interrupted by a giant-sized Ultron-7, inhabiting the body of the Inhumans android Omega. And with a union blessed by an inhuman killing machine, it's no surprise that the two later divorced after Crystal had an affair with a New Jersey real estate agent. Yes, Pietro was just that boring.










3) Vision and Scarlet Witch

Perhaps the weirdest wedding ceremony of all time (no pun intended) took place in Giant-Size Avengers #4 when the synthezoid Vision was married to the mutant Scarlet Witch by the ageless lord of limbo, the time traveler Immortus. And they weren't even the weird part. That goes to the fact that this was a double wedding, with Mantis (aka the Celestial Madonna) tying the knot with a sentient tree that had been animated with the soul of her dead lover Swordsman. We're guessing the reception was a real party.










2) Hank and Jan Pym

Maybe the greatest superhero wedding cover of all time, Avengers #60 features the union between Wasp and Hank Pym, who was at this point in his Yellowjacket identity. That's because he had suffered a complete nervous breakdown that led to the formation of a split personality; recognizing her boyfriend Hank Pym under the new mask, the Wasp seized her chance and finally wrung a wedding proposal out of her deranged lover. By the time he returned to his senses, it was too late: the Avengers had already defeated the marauding Circus of Crime at the reception and he was a married man. Epilogue: marrying someone when they are temporarily insane is not the foundation of a successful marriage.








1) Mr. Fantastic and The Invisible Girl

Could there ever be any doubt what the top pick would be? Unquestionably the most important wedding in comics history, the ceremony between Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Girl in Fantastic Four Annual #3 set the standard for all superhero weddings that would follow. Not only was it a landmark event in Marvel history, it also established the trope of villains attacking superhero weddings, in this case resulting in one of the great battle sequences in comics history as an entire army of supervillains assaults the wedding, only to be fought off by the combined might of every Marvel superhero in existence, all of whom had gathered to celebrate the wedding. Add in a cameo from Stan and Jack themselves and you have an all-time classic -- and our number one superhero wedding of all time.

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March Answers From the Vault

Welcome back to another round of Answers From the Vault. Earlier this week I threw open the gates of inquiry and you, my loyal readers, flooded through, cramming my inbox with literally trillions of questions. Most of these I will answer in full through private correspondence, so keep sending me questions, but a select few I have decided to post here for the wider internet world to see so that all mankind may benefit from this exchange of knowledge. As always, previous questions and answers can be found here, here and here.

And now, on with the answerings.


So I just learned that the Haunted Tank's nemesis was Attila the Hun. What's up with that? -- Pat B.

Thanks for the question, Pat, it's a good one. For those of you at home who may not be familiar with the comic in question, the Haunted Tank was a feature that ran in DC's classic war anthology G. I. Combat from 1961 until the series was canceled in 1987. It followed the crew of a World War II tank which was haunted by the ghost of Confederate general J. E. B. Stuart, who stood watch over his namesake tank commander by issuing vague and mostly useless platitudes and cryptic prophecies.

But while the Haunted Tank was usually dealing with regular ol Nazis and whatnot, Pat is spot on, as their arch-enemy was none other than Attila the Hun. The reason is fairly simple as these things go: during World War I and to a lesser extend World War II, Germans were referred to as Huns in Allied slang. This was in (very small) part because of the historical link between the Germans and the tribes of the Hun, who way back in the day of Attila did speak some Germanic, but was mostly due to the Hun-like appearance of the German spiked helmets during WWI and Kaiser Wilhelm II's Boxer Rebellion speech comparing his army to the Huns while exhorting them to show no mercy in their dealings with the Chinese. From these things, Allied speakers, including most notably Winston Churchill, often called the German army "the Hun".

So if our boys could have a ghostly protector, then wouldn't it make sense for the Nazis to have their own ghostly avatar? And who better to watch over "the Hun" than the original Hun himself, Attila?

I'm guessing the logic was more apparent to audiences in the early 1960's than it is to today's readers.



Why were the Defenders the greatest super hero team of all time? -- Rob L.

Thanks for the insightful question, Rob. I should start by saying that I don't really agree with your central premise here, as I have to admit I've never been a fan of the Defenders. And I say this as someone who has probably read over a hundred issues of the original series, so I'm not just blowing smoke out my Hellstrom. The series just always seemed flat and uncompelling to me.

However, there are certainly a lot of people who have a soft spot for Defenders and who probably agree with you, so I'll answer the question from the assumption that you're correct.

The main reason the Defenders were the best super hero team ever was their basic premise: the non-team. This, of course, was dictated by the fact that the original members (Namor, Hulk, Silver Surfer and Dr. Strange) were all loners. There wasn't really any logical reason they should want to be in a team or work well in a team, so Marvel just said: okay, it's not a team. It's just a group of heroes that happens to help each other out on a monthly basis.

This flexibility was a perfect fit for the 70's and let the book really flow, as characters would leave, or join or not or whatever with basically no rhyme or reaspn to it. In other words, it was a writers playground, where you could pretty much just go nuts without having to fit your ideas into the more logical structures that titles like Avengers or Fantastic Four demanded. This allowed people like Steve Gerber and Doug Moench (who, as Pat B. correctly points out, didn't technically write Defenders even though the series has his stink all over it) to go crazy with weird ideas (Elf with a Gun, anyone?) crossovers (Guardians of the Galaxy?) and events (such as "Defender for a day," when over twenty Marvel heroes showed up to help on one case and ended up creating some of the most unlikely and chaotic team-ups ever).

Personally, I think this lack of structure played a little too much into the tendency of the time towards self-indulgent navel gazing and that a little more editorial structure could have made for better stories (plus the rotating cast too often was stuck with second stringers and obscure pet characters). But if there's any reason why Defenders can stake a claim to the title of best super hero team ever, this is it.



In your opinion, who are the three most powerful earth-born characters in comic book history? -- Rob L.

This is a classic fanboy type of question, Rob, which I heartily approve of. After all, if we can't debate whether Superman or Thor would win in a fight, what's the fun of comics? Although in that case there's not really any debate as the answer is obviously Thor.

Your question is a little trickier, though, mainly because of the Earth-born clause. That, of course, eliminates Superman and other cosmic powers such as Silver Surfer, but it also puts a few favorites on iffy ground. Thor, for example, was probably born on Earth since his mother is actually Gaea herself. Wonder Woman, on the other hand, wasn't born at all but was formed out of clay that the gods then animated, meaning she is made of Earth but not born on it.

Just to make things plain, then, I'm going to disqualify anybody who has questionable backgrounds like Thor and Wonder Woman. I'm also going to DQ people like Phoenix, since the Phoenix-force wasn't born on Earth even though her host form was; and pet character wankfests like the Sentry, who has been inflated to godlike powers as an on-page manifestation of Bendis's ego.

So who does that leave? Well, for my first choice I'm going to go with the original Captain Marvel from the folks at Fawcett, who was given the abilities of the pantheon but who isn't actually a god himself. Secondly, I'll give a shout out to the nerdy FF villain Molecule Man, whose powers were enough to rival The Beyonder at times.

The third one, though, is a bit of a puzzler. The most obvious choice would probably be Hulk, but he has certain weaknesses that I think render him a little too one-dimensional in terms of his powers, which makes sense considering he's the most one-dimensional comic character of all time. Likewise, Dr. Strange is usually overpowered, but is he more powerful than, say, Dr. Fate?

Anyway, at the risk of parsing continuity and going against my own self-imposed rules, I've decided to go ahead and give slot number three to the Silver Age Spectre. I have to specify Silver Age because DC's continuity is so messed up at this point that there's really no telling what version is appearing these days -- the Golden Age, the Silver Age, the post-CoIE, the Hal Jordan, the post-Infinite Crisis version... whatever, guys. Honestly. But while some of the newer versions have added layers of goofiness to the backstory that would otherwise disqualify Spectre from the competition (i.e. he's actually an angel cast out of Heaven or some other Evanescence-level goth nonsense), the traditional version was both born on and died on Earth.

So there's the answer: Captain Marvel, Molecule Man and Spectre. Three guys you probably don't want to mess with.

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Answers From the Vault

Sharp eyed readers may recall that last week we introduced one of our new features, "Ask the Vault", where you, the general public, have a rare chance to get answers to whatever existential dilemmas currently face you in your daily lives. Well, the wait is over: today, we're proud to present our first batch of answers. And just like that, the veil of mystery that has shrouded this world since time immemorial is lifted, if only for one brief and shining moment.

Onward!


Who was that elf in the Steve Gerber Defenders? -- Jim

Thanks for the question, Jim. First, for those of you who may not have read Defenders during the mid-70's (which means... just about everyone alive), Jim is referring to one of the most inexplicable episodes in Marvel history: the Elf with a Gun. First appearing in Defenders #25, the Elf with a Gun is, well, exactly that; during interludes that didn't appear to have anything whatsoever to do with the Defenders or the current story, Gerber would show some random, average person who would then be confronted -- and murdered -- by an elf with a gun. This went on for nearly two full years, with readers desperately wondering just what this had to do with the Defenders and when it would tie into the story. The answer: nothing and never, because in Defenders #46, during one of these interludes (after Gerber left the title, for what it's worth), the Elf with a Gun was run over by a truck and killed.

Needless to say, this drove a lot of people totally crazy wondering WTF had just happened. And the answer depends on who you talk to. Among those who weren't satisfied with the story was (apparently) J. M. DeMatteis, because when he took over Defenders years later, he wrote a long storyline introducing a new Elf with a Gun and explaining that these elves were time traveling agents from the future who had come back in time to prevent some calamity that would destroy Earth -- a calamity caused by the Defenders themselves. Later, however, Gerber got a hold of the character again briefly and revealed that that whole story was just a hoax played on the team for unknown reasons, effectively restoring the mystery. So just what was that original Elf supposed to be doing?

The answer -- based on comments Gerber made over the years -- seems to be that he was just Gerber's way of showing how random the universe is, and how you can work and plan and without warning something can happen that you never could have planned on that destroys everything. Of course, some could argue that Gerber's entire body of work represents this randomness, making the Elf a bit redundant. But for good or ill, there's the answer: the Elf is just Gerber's idea of a cosmic joke.


Which is more egregious: Marvel stealing the Captain Marvel name, or DC making The Black Mask look exactly like The Red Skull? -- James

Good question, James. Good, but for me, very easy to answer. Without question, DC making the Black Mask look exactly like the Red Skull is more egregious. I say this because I don't, in fact, have any problem at all with Marvel stealing the Captain Marvel name; on the contrary, I fully endorse it.

For those who may not be familiar with what James is talking about, back in the 1940's, the most popular superhero in the world -- bigger even than Superman -- was Captain Marvel. Eventually, however, Fawcett, the company that published Captain Marvel, went under and the trademark lapsed. So while Marvel couldn't actually use the character, the name was there and they grabbed it, creating their own Captain Marvel. And since then, they have made sure to at least occasionally publish a new Captain Marvel issue here or there in order to maintain their trademark and prevent the current owners of the actual Captain Marvel from putting out a comic with that title.

So why am I siding with Marvel here? Because Fawcett never would have gone out of business in the first place if DC hadn't sued them into oblivion. DC claimed that Captain Marvel was too similar to Superman, which is in my opinion outright bullcrap considering how many bazillions of comic characters are just as similar or more similar to Superman than Captain Marvel. The difference, of course, is that Captain Marvel was the only one actually more popular. So DC used their massive financial might to tie up Fawcett in litigation that dragged on for a decade or more and eventually caused the company to go bankrupt. And what did they do at the end? After strongarming Fawcett and Captain Marvel's creators out of the industry, they metaphorically pissed on the corpse by then buying the rights to Captain Marvel from them after the fact.

So from my point of view, anything Marvel can do with their own Captain Marvel is more than fair game; it's karmic retribution. Granted, all this stuff happened over 40 years ago at this point, so the people actually involved are almost all dead, but it still was a dirty, underhanded thing DC did and if Stan the Man can get even a soupcon of revenge out of it, good for him.

The Black Mask/Red skull thing, on the other hand, just seems like a lack of creativity. Dudes with skull faces aren't unique, though this is taking it a bit far in terms of how the artists actually depict him. But overall, while I don't think it's a big deal, by default it has to be the more egregious of the two. Advantage: Marvel Comics.





What did you think of Zombieland? -- Chesley

Hey, thanks for the question, Chesley. Zombieland is, of course, a current popular film about a bunch of post-apocalyptic survivors who congregate in an amusement park to escape zombies. My personal reaction to it is, I think, probably specific only to me. As you probably all know, I am currently working on busting into the comic industry and as part of that effort I am trying to develop stories in a wide variety of genres. Now, I don't really care for horror in general or zombies in particular, but I figured I might as well give it a crack, and after some effort I came up with a zombie story I liked okay and that I decided to title "Zombieland". Now, the story itself bears no resemblance to the movie, but I was still a bit irritated when I found out about the movie since I don't have another good title for it.

Of course, I don't think that's what you were asking. As I mentioned, though, I don't really care for zombies, so I haven't seen the movie. But on the third hand, we just discovered yesterday that you don't need to actually see a movie in order to review it, so since I have seen the trailer for Zombieland I will give my opinion: it looks funny enough, I guess, though I have a feeling it doesn't really live up to whatever potential this high concept might actually have. Because of that, the best I can give this trailer is a C+.



Have there ever been any comics about cheerleaders? -- Pat

Wow, that's a good question, Pat. I have to admit, I couldn't think of any off the top of my head even though it seems like there must be cheerleader comics somewhere in the world. Of course, Archie's best gal pal Betty Cooper is a cheerleader (as is Veronica, to a lesser extent), so that probably is the most obvious example of a cheerleading comic character, but I'm not sure that's quite what you meant. While there are issues of Archie that deal specifically with her cheerleading, they aren't really "cheerleader comics" per se.

There have been surprisingly few actual cheerleader comics as far as I can tell. However, my search has been somewhat hindered by what happens if you try searching for cheerleader comics. Let's just say, I don't recommend it. There are some weird people out there. I did find a comic called Cheerleaders From Hell put out about 20 years ago by Caliber Comics, but other than that I suspect that most cheerleader themed comics were "good girl", Archie style teen comedy/romances back in the late 40's and 50's. And I'd back that up with evidence if I weren't afraid of contracting a virus by looking for proof.




Okay, that's all the questions I have so far. Thanks to everyone who wrote in, and as soon as I've gathered enough brain teasers for another go-round, we'll bring you the next batch of... Answers From the Vault!

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