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Post by Mister Spaceman on Mar 12, 2019 9:07:52 GMT -5
I've always felt that adults who aren't/weren't active comic fans would be hard pressed to name a dozen superhero characters without some prompting. Also that most that they name would have been created before 1968. And it would be more like oh that guy that catches on fire and stretchy guy, the guy made of rocks, Superman, Batman, and... -M Exactly! And I used to routinely hear generic references to "Superwoman" to mean basically any female superhero. |
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Post by beccabear67 on Mar 12, 2019 14:51:37 GMT -5
I agree that even at her height of 'fame' Spider-Woman would probably be unknown to 98% of the populace. A parent might run into some bit of merchandise or an ad during that two or three years, or see the cartoon that one year while flipping channels. Invisible Girl was seemingly designed to be unmemorable. I kind of like the idea of someone thinking of them as Rocks Guy, Rubberband Man, Ghost Girl and Flame Kid. :^)
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Post by tarkintino on Mar 12, 2019 16:55:48 GMT -5
I agree that even at her height of 'fame' Spider-Woman would probably be unknown to 98% of the populace. A parent might run into some bit of merchandise or an ad during that two or three years, or see the cartoon that one year while flipping channels. Invisible Girl was seemingly designed to be unmemorable. I kind of like the idea of someone thinking of them as Rocks Guy, Rubberband Man, Ghost Girl and Flame Kid. :^) I think Invisible Girl was meant for more in terms of fame, but it never worked out. She was--as expected--part of the 1967 Fantastic Four cartoon, on or a part of a good number of items produced for general retail in the late 60s. Jumping ahead to the 70s, she was on everything from the popular 7-Eleven Slurpee cups, Topps' line of Marvel Super Heroes trading cards/stickers, a View-Master reel packet, and probably the character's most prominent piece of merchandising--the Mego World's Greatest Super-Heroes 8-inch action figure, as seen below--  --that, and the horrible 1978 NBC Fantastic Four cartoon had the character ironically enough--very visible in the 70s, so its fairly safe to say she was meant to be a bigger character. It just did not work out that way. |
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Post by zaku on Mar 12, 2019 18:26:07 GMT -5
I'm, uh, drawing a blank: who is considered the first Marvel female solo superhero (i.e. that wasn't created as a part of a group)?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 12, 2019 18:36:40 GMT -5
I'm, uh, drawing a blank: who is considered the first Marvel female solo superhero (i.e. that wasn't created as a part of a group)? Well, I believe Black Widow was the first to have a solo feature, in the pages of Amazing Adventures (August 1970 cover date), though she was created as a villain/femme fatale and served as part of the Avengers before getting her own feature. Shanna (Dec 1972 cover date) and The Cat (Nov 1972 cover date) were the first to have their own title series, but I am not sure if Shanna appeared elsewhere first. Patsy Walker became a super-hero later (Avengers 144) but was created long before the Marvel heroes debuted. -M edit to add-I am not counting golden age heroines by Timely/Atlas like Miss America, Venus, Namora, etc. |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 12, 2019 18:42:26 GMT -5
And then there was Wasp as a sidekick in TTA 44 (June '63), and she had her own short lived back up feature at some point in the ages of TTA as well.
-M
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Post by Rob Allen on Mar 12, 2019 19:01:41 GMT -5
And then there was Wasp as a sidekick in TTA 44 (June '63), and she had her own short lived back up feature at some point in the ages of TTA as well. True, but her backup feature wasn't about her superhero activities; she was used as a framing device for sf/fantasy stories, similar to the "Tales of the Watcher" feature in TOS and later in Silver Surfer. |
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Post by Icctrombone on Mar 12, 2019 19:13:00 GMT -5
Heroes will only be known because of Motion Pictures , these days. Not many people knew Iron Man before 2008, but now he's right there with Superman and Batman. Ms. Marvel shot to the top because she's part of that Marvel Movies machine.
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Post by Farrar on Mar 12, 2019 19:33:34 GMT -5
Actually regarding the Wasp series, the stories in TtA #57 and #58 were solo Wasp adventures. Allow me to quote myself  from a post I made recently in in the "Short Series" thread: -The Wasp as narrator "The Wasp Tells a Tale" in Tales to Astonish #51-56; solo Wasp adventures in Tales to Astonish #57-58The solo Wasp stories appeared in 1964. classiccomics.org/post/303317/thread |
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Post by Rob Allen on Mar 12, 2019 20:58:10 GMT -5
Actually regarding the Wasp series, the stories in TtA #57 and #58 were solo Wasp adventures. Allow me to quote myself from a post I made recently in in the "Short Series" thread: -The Wasp as narrator "The Wasp Tells a Tale" in Tales to Astonish #51-56; solo Wasp adventures in Tales to Astonish #57-58The solo Wasp stories appeared in 1964. classiccomics.org/post/303317/threadThanks for the correction! I read that thread but had forgotten that detail. It sounds like those Wasp stories are the first solo superheroine stories of the Marvel Age. There was a Marvel Girl backup story in X-Men a few years later; I think that was the next one. Then Black Widow finally gets on a cover in 1970. |
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Post by beccabear67 on Mar 12, 2019 22:56:54 GMT -5
Wonder Woman had a long head start on any of the '60s Marvel heroines. What would've been her Golden Age Marvel equivalent though? Miss America? Miss Fury?   |
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Post by Rob Allen on Mar 13, 2019 0:35:55 GMT -5
Wonder Woman had a long head start on any of the '60s Marvel heroines. What would've been her Golden Age Marvel equivalent though? Miss America? Miss Fury? Miss America is probably the most prominent. Besides Miss Fury they also had Blonde Phantom and Sub-Mariner's cousin Namora in their own books in the late 40s. |
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Post by EdoBosnar on Mar 13, 2019 4:07:53 GMT -5
Miss Fury was apparently immensely popular in the 1940s - her image was even painted on the nose of a few US war planes - but then fell into obscurity once her creator, Tarpe (real name June) Mills, stopped doing the strip. Too bad - it would have been cool if she had attained the same sustained prominence and recognizability that Wonder Woman has.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Mar 13, 2019 7:45:32 GMT -5
I'm, uh, drawing a blank: who is considered the first Marvel female solo superhero (i.e. that wasn't created as a part of a group)? Well, I believe Black Widow was the first to have a solo feature, in the pages of Amazing Adventures (August 1970 cover date), though she was created as a villain/femme fatale and served as part of the Avengers before getting her own feature. Shanna (Dec 1972 cover date) and The Cat (Nov 1972 cover date) were the first to have their own title series, but I am not sure if Shanna appeared elsewhere first. Patsy Walker became a super-hero later (Avengers 144) but was created long before the Marvel heroes debuted. -M edit to add-I am not counting golden age heroines by Timely/Atlas like Miss America, Venus, Namora, etc. I think the Black Widow is still the correct answer. Just a different Black Widow. |
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Mar 13, 2019 7:48:09 GMT -5
Oh yeah, forgot about the Wasp solo stories. I was gonna say Medusa was the first Marvel Age female headliner. ( Of one issue of "Marvel Super-heroes".)
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from a post I made recently in in the "Short Series" thread: 