Since my post on Elf With A Gun got super-popular, here’s some more bizarre Marvel trivia for the folks who only know Marvel through the cinematic universe; or perhaps just don’t know much about comics:
Howard The Duck’s
most prominent supervillain is known as Doctor Bong, with a speciality
in making humanoid animals. He gets his name from the giant bell he
wears on his head, which he can hit to give off strange and deadly
vibrations.
Captain American was
once a werewolf for a short time in the 90s
For a while, The
Punisher worked for heaven as a literal angel of vengeance. And during
another; more recent era; he was also a Frankenstein’s monster.
There is a superhero
in the Marvel universe who is the son of Fu Manchu. His name is Shang
Chi.
There was actually a
Hostess Fruit Pies-ad-exclusive villain known as Chairman who had a
gun that turned people into chairs. This is notable because, given
how Marvel very recently introduced a different villain from those
ads to mainline continuity, Marvel also probably owns the rights to
him as well.
There was a
supervillain called Turner D. Century, whose gimmick was that he was
obsessed with the 1890s/1900s, and he had a flying tandem bicycle and
an umbrella that shot fire and tried to kill everyone under the age
of 65,
At one time,
Godzilla was around in the Marvel universe, and his existence is
still canon. The robot built to fight him, Red Ronin, still makes
appearances now and then
An atheist
horse-alien named Beta Ray Bill once yoinked Mjolnir from Thor and
was worthy enough to wield it, and was so good at it that the gods of
Asgard actually made him his own hammer.
God in the Marvel
universe looks pretty much exactly Jack Kirby
There was a
superhero called NFL Superpro who got his powers from the fumes of a
burning mountain of football memorabilia and experimental chemicals.
His writer created him to get free NFL tickets.
There is a superhero
known as 3D Man whose gimmick is that he has the strength; durability
and speed of THREE whole men!
Captain America once
fought a conspiracy whose head was strongly implied to be Richard
Nixon, who shot himself after Cap found him out.
Squirrel Girl, a
woman with the power to control squirrels, is one of the most
powerful characters in the Marvel universe, who has beaten Doctor
Doom, Galactus and even Thanos in combat.
Squirrel Girl is
also on a team called The Great Lakes Avengers, whose members powers
include the ability to teleport over to the next room, the power to
grow grotesquely fat (But also super-strong) and the ability of
immortality (But no other superpowers at all)
There was once a
whole storyline in the Thor comics where Thor was transformed into a
frog. It is considered one of the character’s most iconic stories and
one of his best.
There is a female
version of MODOK called MODAM
There was once a
team of supervillains called The Headmen, with the theme of having
fucked-up heads, most notably Ruby Thursday; who replaced her own
head with a spherical; morphing red supercomputer. They were created
by the same guy as Howard The Duck.
Thanos once rode his own helicopter. Not a super-awesome cosmic space helicopter mind you, just an ordinary yellow helicopter with his name on it.
Ghost Rider once
teamed up with a character known only as “The Friend,” who was
strongly implied to be Jesus Christ.
There is a company who specializes in cleaning up superhero battles known as Damage Control, created by the late; great Dwayne McDuffie.
There are canonical
characters known as The Bushmaster and The Whizzer.
The Marvel Comics
version of the Mandarin (Who is wildly different from the film
version) got his supertechnology from a race of alien space-dragons,
the most prominent representative of which is named Fin Fang Foom and
wears tiny purple shorts.
For a while Marvel
published an actual comic called Giant Sized Man-Thing. It was also
written by the guy who created Howard the Duck, and indeed was where
Howard got his first ongoing series.
The name of the man
who created Howard the Duck was Steve Gerber. God bless Steve Gerber.
I wanna to this
Dracula is actually a villain in this universe
Speaking of vamps two words: DISCO VAMPIRES, there is a coven in new york who spend their time in an eternal disco party led by a vampire called Sheba Sugarfangs. They use dancing as way to control their vampiric urges but sometimes they will patrol their neighbourhood in case of a threat.
Loki aparently had fucked his way around the universe. So much he has a dozen of kids in midgard over the centuries that have no idea they are related to him. This was revealed in the same issue where he teamed up with spiderman to save his own daughter
There was an entire storyline about Loki dying than coming as a kid, only this version was trying to be good. In fact lately his story arc has been about his redemption and escape from the role of a villain. Complete with time travel antics and doctor who style regenarations. It starts on the journey to mystery, then young avengers then it finally comes to a close in loki agent of asgard
One time, a U.S. Army corporal named Todd Ziller was transformed into a Godzilla-knockoff with the American flag “painted” on its chest and head, dubbed the American Kaiju. He exclusively yelled: “Yuuu! Esssss! Aayy!”
Mr. Fantastic/Reed Richards has on more than one occasion hypnotized Skrulls (shapeshifting, war-like aliens who’ve tried to conquer the Earth) into believing they were cows and just leaving them like that. Years later, some people who’d eaten the meat/drank the milk of these Skrull-cows gained shape-shifting powers.
There is a villain called Swarm, who is the consciousness of a dead Nazi scientist whose body is a made entirely of bees that he can mentally control.
A truck driver named Ulysses Solomon Archer (USA) was injured in a crash, having part of his skull replaced with an “experimental alloy” that let him pick up radio signals straight to his brain. He then tricked out his truck with weapons and gadgets and fought crime. He later outfitted his truck to go into space.
NFL Super Pro’s sidekick for a time was a guy named J Pennington Pennypacker, an accountant who attended a self-esteem camp that was a front for giving people superpowers. He gained the ability to shoot pennies out of his wrist and called himself The Almighty Dollar.
Comic books are weird.
a character named shameful william has no powers, but is incredibly rich and an omniphile, being sexually aroused by everything
one of captain america’s best friends and most trusted allies is a super-strong homeless former wrestler named d-man
there’s a mild-mannered newspaper reporter named clark kent (or possibly kent clark), who doesn’t appear to have any powers, but is a clumsy oaf and built like a brick shithouse
mantis, most famous for being one of the guardians of the galaxy, has also appeared in dc comics as willow, and in the independent comic series scorpio rose as lorelai
there was a short-lived comic entitled trouble, that was about the sex life of a 17 year old aunt may
though the events of dc vs. marvel aren’t canon, the events of jla.avengers are, though they’re very rarely mentioned
thanos once rewrote the laws of the universe so dead characters couldn’t come back to life any more. nobody took any notice of this, obviously, and it was never mentioned ever again.
The Whizzer’s power was super-speed, and he got it from having been injected with mongoose blood (this was later retconned to ““the mongoose blood triggered his latent mutant gene.”)
Mooncustafer 