#the android human torch

[wabn]

The Ultimates (Variant Cover by InHyuk Lee) || #7 || 2024

[vertigoartgore]

2009's Human Torch Comics 70th Anniversary Special Vol.1 #1 cover by cover artist Adi Granov.

[jasposeyblog]

My acquisition of Vision sketch cover by @tytempleton

[zelly-raptor]

Date unknown - The Humanoid Torch.

Johnny Storm of the Fantastic Four may have been the Human Torch but he wasn't the first Superhero to have that Title.

The First Hero known as the Human Torch was born from Failure. Professor Phineas T. Horton was a Pioneer in the field of Artificial intelligence and built one of the worlds first Androids in 1939.

Unfortunately it burst into Flame when exposed to Oxygen.

In time the Android learned to control this Ability, took on the Identity of "Jim Hammond" and became a Crime fighter.

Later he would join the likes of Captain America, Bucky Barnes and Namor the Submariner to fight in the Second World war and after that founded the All-Winners Squad.

For our interpretation of the Human Torch, Since Jim is an Android I made him look Abit more Mechanical, more Robotic looking!

Jim Hammond/ The Human Torch is property of Marvel comics™ all rights reserved.

Text acquired from "Avengers the Ultimate Guide" written by Tom DeFalco.

[doctorslippery]

(via MWOM 30.jpg (863×1200))

[avengersmansion-official]

I have heard conflicting points about The Vision's, uhh, patrimony? He was created by Ultron, but there are reports of him also being made from the Golden Age Human Torch? Or Wonder Man? Or Edwin Jarvis? Or Kang? And is he in anyway connected to the Golden Age Heroes of the same name?

I'll handle the easy part of your question first.

The Vision, our beloved artificial Avenger, bears no connection beyond the name and a few aesthetic similarities to the Golden Age crimefighter of the same name.

(1940s-era comic panel featuring the Golden Age Vision)

The Golden Age Vision was a being known as Aarkus, who hailed from a dimension known as Smokeworld, and had powers and abilities related to smoke and gas. He's about as connected to the modern-day Vision as the Golden Age Black Widow is to the modern-day Black Widow. That is to say, very little at all.

Now, as for the Vision's parentage and provenance, that's a surprisingly complicated subject. The quick answer is: yes.

(panel from Marvel's Avengers West Coast officially licensed comic depicting the return of the original Human Torch and his meeting with the Vision)

Vision's original body can be traced back to the late 1930s, when it was originally constructed by inventor Phineas T. Horton. Horton's artificial man debuted at a press conference in November 1939, where he showed off the android's one flaw, spun into a positive: it would burst into flame upon contact with oxygen.

Horton's artifical man became known as the Human Torch and began to take a life of his own, masquerading as police officer Jim Hammond while fighting crime in New York, and eventually joining other costumed adventurers in fighting for the Allies in World War II. Famously, the Torch was witness to Adolf Hitler's final moments, killing the dictator moments before he could take his own life at the war's end.

By the end of the decade, however, the Torch was rendered inert, buried underneath a desert in Nevada that would later become an atomic testing site. It was here that things started to get confusing, and all because of our old friend Immortus, the so-called Master of Time.

For reasons unclear to our team (but likely having to do with the Scarlet Witch as part of a long game), Immortus made a duplicate of the Human Torch. (He can just... do that, I guess.) One of the two Torches ended up in the hands of roboticist and Fantastic Four foe the Mad Thinker. This Torch was buried when the Thinker no longer had use of him, and remains the Human Torch to this day, reactivated some years later.

The other Torch came into the possession of Ultron, the metal monstrosity created by Hank Pym. Ultron encoded the Human Torch's body with brain scans taken from the then-deceased Wonder Man, just as he himself was made using Pym's brain patterns. This resulting being became the Vision, and turned on his creator, joining the Avengers.

(Daily Globe photo of the Vision in action, in one of his more recent appearances)

And that's more or less the same Vision we have today. His body has been destroyed and fully rebuilt a few times over, so it's difficult to tell how much of Horton's original construction remains, if any. But if you believe in souls (and there's good reason to, especially with the recent going-ons on Krakoa (RIP)), he's the same person.

As for the other individuals listed, there's good reason to believe one of those. Because, believe it or not, there was a second Vision, active during the time in which the more well-known one was thought dead.

And guess what! It all comes back to Kang again. Or in this case, Iron Lad.

(file photo of the second Vision, known as "Jonas")

When the young Nathaniel Richards, not yet Kang the Conqueror but operating as Iron Lad, left the 21st century, he downloaded the original Vision's operating system into his armor. This OS developed sentience and became another Vision, using the civilian name of "Jonas" until his untimely destruction at the hands of a returned Iron Lad.

As for rumors about the Vision being based on Edwin Jarvis, those are entirely unsubstantiated, and possibly derived from a confluence of two factors:

Jarvis was indeed an unwilling pawn of an early version of Ultron, posing as the "Crimson Cowl."

There are other androids similar to the Vision, such as Jocasta, constructed using the brain patterns of Avengers members.

I could see how one would come to that conclusion based on a twisting of the facts, but nothing we have supports it.

[wanderingmind867]

personally, I think Ultron and Vision are slightly more compelling than Brainiac and Brainiac Five. For a very simple reason: I actually understand Ultron and Vision's backstories. Vision is Ultron's "Son", created using the remnants of the original human torch's body. So Vision is like the son of Ultron and Jim Hammond. He's also kind of like an amnesiac reincarnation of Jim Hammond, with new powers and memories (but the same soul). But since Ultron was created by Hank Pym, Vision is also like Hank Pym's grandson. Lot of family history here, but it's all understandable. As for how Jim Hammond and Vision both coexist nowadays... I don't know, modern writers have their reasons. I'm fine with them coexisting in the present day, as long as I can still say Vision is related to Jim Hammond.

But see... I understand on a deep level. I can't for the life of me figure out Brainiac. He's from the planet Colu, so I guess the Coluans invented him. Fine. But are Brainiacs 2 to 5 aliens or androids? If they're not androids, you lose me. I want this to work just like Vision and Ultron. Brainiac built Brainiac Two to be his heir and successor. Then Brainiac Two builds Brainiac Three, Brainiac Three builds Brainiac Four, and so on and so forth. Asexual reproduction. I like that idea, and that's how I always thought this worked. To learn it might not be...is incredibly disappointing.

Actually, here's how i'd do it: you know how Ultron has gone through many forms? Ultron mk. 5, Ultron mk. 7, Ultron mk. 9, etc? Do that with Brainiac. Years from now, Brainiac's mental processors will inevitably corrode and begin breaking down. It happens to everyone (even machines with twelfth level intellects). So Brainiac planned ahead. On the fateful day when his processors stop working, he has a machine rigged up to transfer all his memories and place them in the subconscious of a prepared new body. So Braniac mk. 2 is technically a new person, but the old model's memories are all lurking in the subconscious.

[memecucker]

You know, probably one of the bigger counterexamples to “resurrection cheapens death in comic books” is how people still get pretty hyped over how the original Human Torch Jim Hammond (who is actually an android) canonically burned Hitler to death in Marvel and the fact that Hitler would get resurrected multiple times doesn’t seem to really diminish that

[luimnigh]

Apparently Jim Hammond, the original Human Torch, has cells and blood.

He is an android, or as they put it, "synthezoid".

Now, his cells are called "Horton cells", after his creator Phineas T. Horton, but others have created new Human Torches with samples of his cells.

And his blood can be transfused into human beings without issue. In fact, less than issue: it gives people superpowers and de-ages them.

...given that Vision's body is, in fact, made from Jim Hammond's... yeah, I can see why people believed he was capable of having biological children now.

[blurredfloweryblood]

nOW THAT IM AWAKE, I GET TO RANT ABOUT ALIEN AGAIN! YEEEES

I was rewatching it yesterday, and I was thinking about Ash all the time. He is such a interesting character throughout the movie, but I want to talk specifically about the monologue he does when he's beheaded.

He does have a mission, which is analyze the species and bring it back. But Ash, in his speech of disdain towards humans, he becomes one as well. He doesn't have an uninterested observational point of view. Having his own opinion of what the xenophorm is, is already a level of human consciousness. Not only is he more that just an artifical intelligence, but what really makes Ash human (ironically), is his recognition of a higher power. His disdain for humanity of superiority complex mean nothing once he spews, with apparent indifference his analysis of the alien.

But Lambert sees right through him when she says: "You admire it". Admiration is beyond simple calculation. Inserting your own beliefs and emotional complexes into what you believe is better. Bigger. Ash lowers his eyes, almost ashamed that he was clocked so easily. He speaks with envy, and adoration. The human complex of loving and wanting other's capacities for yourself.

The recognizement that something out there is bigger (almost like a God, for Ash, this catholic belief that there is this superior power, that he's below some entity), unreachable, and also, so far away from what you are. In Ash's evolution towards consciousness, he arises as human in the most worsening capacities, disdain, pride, disgust, shame and envy, unconsciously circulating from his mind.

He dies without the realization that he is just like the ants he watched being killed. He is not the magnifying glass. He is just another type of insect. He dies with the smirk of the knowing that his god will eliminate them. Not knowing that once he arrived with the specimen, he probably would lose his importance.

Like the crew, Ash is expandable. A corner that can be cut clean. Nobody matters, not even him. He was torched, dismembered. Nobody cares. What is an android where they can have others? He was a defective piece of metal, good riddance, they say. Couldn't even follow his orders properly, anyway.

ALSO, the fact that the center of information and permission and processing of every action is called MOTHER is such an amazing move because of what it represents. The figure of a mother (usually a more formal way of referring to the woman who raises you), is already distancing the workers with the computer, MOTHER, in her capacity and computing abilities, ironically represents a cold and uncaring parent. Shushing the crew and not listening to Ripley. As she cries that she is such a bitch. MOTHER is more than a computer, is the place that coccons them in the worst ways. Keeps them cold and fresh for the real son. The prodigal child. The cuckoo bird that will push them off the nest.

[wabn]

“One of these days I’m going to bill you for all the windows you boys melted!”

Marvel Mystery Comics || #24 || 1941

[s10127470]

The MCU Synergy Problem

It’s been a month since X-Men ‘97 came out, and just about everyone’s has already pointed what makes it so good.

-Staying true to the spirit of the original while still striving for its own identity

-Staying true to the characterization and depiction of the characters, and in some cases, improving on their characterization such as in the case of Jean Grey and especially Morph.

-Introducing new concepts, elements and characters that haven’t been explored in other adaptations yet.

-Having so many callbacks to the original while not coming off as nostalgia pandering.

-The animation and action! MY GOD! The animation and action!

Really, the only problem people have with this show is the weird love triangle between Rogue, Gambit and Magneto.

We already had to deal with the infamous love triangle Cyclops, Jean and Wolverine in the original, we did not need this.

Not only is this just unnecessary, it’s also just weird since in the original, it was never even implied that Rogue or Magneto had any sort of history between each other at all.

But here, they met during Rogue’s days with the Brotherhood. And I think when they met, Rogue was still a teenager.

During that time, the two grew an attraction towards each other and although it’s not explicitly stated, it is implied that they did….ya know…

Man….

Although I do enjoy Magneto, unlike a lot of other people, I can acknowledge that he’s kind of an awful person.

He’s a supremacist, a terrorist, a mass murderer, a violent, abusive psychopath, and a deadbeat father (well, when he used to be a father but we’ll get to that soon).

But never though that “groomer” would be an addition to that list as well.

All I can say is that….if this show took place in the modern day, Magneto ain’t beating any allegations.

But besides all that, another major positive people have with this show is just how….comic booky it feels, which is something that’s been lacking with a lot of Marvel content for the better of a decade now.

But before we get into that, let’s take a little history lesson.

Marvel was founded all the way back in 1939 by Martin Goodman….but it wasn’t called Marvel at first, it was actually called Timely Comics. But by 1951, the name of the brand was changed to Atlas Comics. 

During this era, the comics saw the introduction of several characters include The Human Torch (the android), The Whizzer, Miss America, The Destroyer, the original Vision and The Angel. 

But the two most notable characters introduced during this time were none other than the patriotic fighter of justice Captain America and the anti-heroic aquatic incel Namor the Sub-Mariner.

But Marvel would become the comic book powerhouse we know them as today starting in April of 1961, when Altas Comics was changed to be part of the newly-named Marvel Comics brand, helmed by the legendary duo of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

And over the course of the 1960s, Marvel would not only quickly become the biggest name in the comic industry (only being rivaled by who else, but DC), but also introduce many of their most recognizable stars.

This would include the likes of The Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Ant-Man and The Wasp, Iron Man, The X-Men, Daredevil, Doctor Strange, The Inhumans, Black Panther, The Silver Surfer, Black Widow and Hawkeye, and of course, the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

And in addition to tons of, in the words of Yogurt…..

Marvel would also see plenty of entries into the wider world of television. 

From the anthology series Marvel Super Heroes, to the acclaimed five-season run of The Incredible Hulk starring the legendary bodybuilder Lou Ferrigno, to the absolute meme-fest that was the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon.

But Marvel really found their footing amongst the public consensus in the 1990s, largely thanks to their animated shows.

We had X-Men ‘92, Spider-Man, Iron Man and Fantastic Four ‘94, and The Incredible Hulk ‘96. 

What made these shows stand out from their predecessors was that they strived to actually be adaptations of their respective comics.

Yeah, prior to these shows, all of the cartoons were largely villain-of-the-week shows with little to no continuity and apart from the characters, didn’t really take a whole lot from their source material.

But these shows actually went out of their way to actually adapt storylines from the comics, had ongoing plots, and much stronger characterization than before.

And even besides that, and of course, merchandising, Marvel was making quite the name for itself in the world of video games. Most notably the ones that were made by Capcom, which included the likes of The Punisher, X-Men: Children of the Atom, Marvel Super Heroes, X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse, and most famously of all, Marvel vs. Capcom.

Their status among the public consensus became even stronger when the 21st century rolled around.

This was largely thanks to the multiple films based on Marvel Comics properties that came out during the 2000s.

This included the likes of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy, Ang Lee’s Hulk film, Tim Story’s Fantastic Four duology, Mark Steven Johnson’s Daredevil, and (Sirs whose names will not be mentioned here at all)’s X-Men series.

And apart from the merchandising (which was stronger than ever before thanks to the movies), the 2000s would also see some of the best video games based off the Marvel Comics and its IPs.

Marvel vs. Capcom 2: A New Age of Heroes, Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, X-Men Legends and its sequel Rise of Apocalypse, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, and Spidey himself had a multiple of great games from this era.

From ones based off his cinematic outings, to ones based off his alternate universe escapades (Ultimate Spider-Man), to ones that featured the characters’ worst voice actor to date and was responsible giving us that famous depressed Spidey walking meme (Web of Shadows).

But everything would change for Marvel in 2008 with the release of….

This film would not only serve as the invincible armored Avenger’s first outing on the big screen, but would also be the start of one of the most well-known and influential pieces of media in Marvel’s entire history…..

The Marvel….Cinematic….Universe….

Just about everyone knows about the MCU.

It only not made the characters of Marvel even bigger than before (along with introducing some of the more lesser-known characters to the general public), but also helped popularized the concept of the shared cinematic universe in general.

The franchise has gone on to become one of, if not, the biggest and most successful film franchise in history and has left a major impact on the world of cinema and even Marvel themselves.

And unfortunately, not really for the better…..

Everyone has already pointed how much of a negative influence the MCU has had on the media we consume.

From the multiple failed attempts from studios who desperately wanted to trend chase by making their own cinematic universe, only for these attempts to end up being massive failures, to a lot of writing in many films post-Avengers having this quippy and observational sort-of-write that while beloved at first, has gone on to become seen as annoying and tiresome…..

But I really want to focus on the effect it’s had on Marvel as a whole.

To start this off, let’s look the place where this MCU effect has been the biggest problem…..and it’s ironically enough, the comics.

Ever since MCU began, Marvel has been adapting elements from the MCU into the comics, which became especially more apparent after the first Avengers film.

And while Marvel is no stranger to adapting elements from Marvel media outside the comics, it’s never been to this extent.

This synergy has seen major changes in the appearances and characterization in many of its characters, including…..

-Iron Man being portrayed as far more snarky and quippy than he previously was. At first, people were on board with this change, not only because people liked Robert Downey Jr’s portrayal, but also because during the mid-2000s, Iron Man was not a popular character. Not in the frankly overused and tired “nobody knew who Iron Man was prior to the release of the first film” way. But more in the sense that everyone hated him during that time. This was largely thanks to the absolute clusterfuck known as Civil War, which turned Iron Man into a full-on villain. Plus he was indirectly responsible for One More Day, aka the worst Spider-Man story ever written.

-Loki became far more heroic and started looking and acting more like his MCU counterpart. Hell, the Loki we know today isn’t the same one introduced back in the 1960s. That Loki died all the way back in 2010, and the one we know today is essentially his reincarnation. And this reincarnation was not only introduced in the exact same year that the first Thor movie released, but in the exact same month as well!

-Thor started acting far more goofy and air-headed like his MCU counterpart following Thor: Raganrok.

-Hawkeye started giving off what could be best described as “uwu small bean tired dad” in the Matt Fraction run, which started just 4 months after the first Avengers film.

-Agatha Harkness having her appearance changed into that of a much younger woman following Wandavision.

-Introducing the Ten Rings following Shang-Chi, and having the titular hero being the user of them instead of just being Bruce Lee like he had been for last 50 years.

-Literally everything involving the Guardians of the Galaxy.

Its also led to tons of the characters getting somewhat phased out like….

-Iron Fist, due to the poor reception of his MCU show and complaints towards him being a “white savior”.

-Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne, aka the original Ant-Man and the Wasp, who were also two of the five founding members of the Avengers. But despite that, neither of them appeared in the first Avengers film. And although it was a loose adaptation of The Ultimates, Hank and Janet were still present in that story as founding members of the titular team. Hell, Hank definitely has this the worst as he was killed off back in 2015, and was only recently brought back from the dead…..and he’s an old man now. I wonder why?

-Valkyrie, who was not only killed off permanently after Thor Ragnarök, but replaced with not one, but two characters very similar to the Valkyrie that appears in Ragnarök.

-The Inhumans, who had a major push in relevancy in order to promote their upcoming movie and TV show. But after the former got cancelled and the latter ended up being a massive flop, they ended up being banished to the shadow realm and barely acknowledged anymore. Also, the reason for their push plays into a later point.

-Quicksilver, which also plays into that later point I just mentioned.

-Black Panther, who Marvel seems to be somewhat edging out in the comics literally because of Chadwick Boseman’s passing.

And worse of all, retcons……such as…..

-Quicksilver and The Scarlet Witch being revealed to have never been Magneto’s children nor mutants at all….shortly after the release of Age of Ultron.

-Shang Chi’s biracial heritage being rewritten to have him being fully Asian shortly after his film.

-Nebula, in addition to being made to look and act more like the movie version, also was revealed to be Thanos’ adopted daughter and Gamora’s sister….just like in the movies. 

-Ms. Marvel being revealed to have been mutant all along instead of an Inhuman…..just months before the release of The Marvels.

-Thor and the other Asgardians are not mythical beings, but actually aliens who were mistaken for gods by humanity….who just so happen to use magic (yeah this is a weird one because it constantly keeps flip-flopping between one or the other).

-Nick Fury being revealed to have had an illegitimate son who looks exactly like the MCU Nick Fury, who himself was based on the Ultimate Universe version of Nick Fury, who was African-American and modeled after Samuel L. Jackson. This is really weird because if they wanted a Samuel L. Jackson inspired Nick Fury, they could’ve easily just waited for the 2015 Secret Wars event and just had the Ultimate Nick Fury be one of the surviving inhabitants of the Ultimate Universe to be brought over to the 616 Universe along with Miles Morales, The Maker, and that son of Wolverine everyone forgot the existence of (even Marvel themselves!).

So yeah, as you can see, this is quite a problem.

Marvel has essentially been trying to make the comics resemble the movies rather than the other way around.

Which has not only gotten annoying and tiresome, but it’s also pretty disingenuous.

I mean, you’re pulling from a source material that has literal decades of content and lore to use, and now you’re actively trying change and contradict that lore just because of a series of movies adapting said source material?

This is obviously because they’re trying to appeal to new Marvel readers who came right from the movies.

But for some reason, Marvel seems to believe that general audiences have never heard the word “adaptation” before.

But this isn’t just an issue for the comics, it’s also an issue for…..pretty much every medium Marvel can be represented in.

For over a decade, Marvel has been essentially trying to push the MCU as the default everything.

Anything Marvel related: it all has to be similar to the MCU and barely anything else. And if it can, just utilize any of the comics written post 2010.

It’s pretty much the same problem that a lot of recent Spider-Man media suffers from.

When they’re adapting stuff, it’s almost always from the cartoons, Brian Michael Bendis’ Ultimate Spider-Man and Dan Slott’s run on Amazing Spider-Man.

And this has often come to the detriment of many of the non-MCU projects released during the 2010s.

Three of the best examples of this I could think of were Avengers Assemble, Square Enix’s Avengers, and Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite. 

Avengers Assemble is famous for being the Marvel cartoon that was only created just to ride on the success of the first Avengers film.

But in spite of this, it was apparent during the first two season that this show was striving to have its own identity. Specifically utilizing some of the lesser-known faces of Marvel.

But as the series went on, the MCU got bigger and bigger. And as a result, the show started to get bogged down by MCU synergy.

From having storylines that were obviously done to tie into whatever movie came out not that long ago, to even changing characters appearances in order to better reflect their MCU counterparts.

The best example of the latter was with Falcon, who was a member of the main cast.

During the first three seasons, he actually stood out from the rest of the team visually as his outfit wasn’t trying to emulate the MCU.

It wasn’t emulating the comics either because I think that outfit of his was wholly original to this show.

But during season 4, Falcon ends up going through a time warp. And when he comes out, he’s been aged up from a young college-aged man to a grown man around the Avengers’ ambiguous age range and is wearing an outfit similar to his MCU counterpart.

Now we come to Square Enix’s Avengers.

My God…..was there anything this game did remotely right?

Or at least competently?

And one of the many flaws of this game was its roster.

And this actually plays into another major point on how stifling MCU synergy is.

Ever since the first Avengers movie, whenever the titular Avengers appear in just about anything, they’re almost always shown having the same roster.

That being Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye.

Sometimes there will be other members like Falcon, Ant-Man, Wasp, Black Panther, Vision and Captain Marvel, but that’s because those guys are also major names in the MCU as well.

Like for God’s sake, switch it up a bit! 

For the next major thing the Avengers appear in, how about we have a roster based on like…..

The Heroes Return roster, or the Hickman roster, or the Englehart roster, or the New Avengers roster, or the Stern roster, or the West Coast roster, or even the Classic roster!

But back to the Avengers game, they didn’t even commit to that never-changing roster I just mentioned!

When the game released, the Avengers video game had Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk and Black Widow as the main Avengers roster until Ms. Marvel joined up.

Yeah, Hawkeye didn’t appear as a part of the roster until his own DLC with Kate Bishop!

As for the other additions to the roster, we had Spider-Man, Black Panther, The Winter Soldier and the Jane Foster Thor.

Yeah, when looking at this game as an adaptation of the comics (which it barely was), the roster is absolutely pathetic when you look at the INSANE amount of members the Avengers have had over the decades.

And when looking at this game as an adaptation of the MCU, it didn’t even commit to that!

This is even more of the case when you look at the list of characters they initially had planned, but they obviously had to drastically cut all that for the sake of time constraints.

Hell, if you want to see something really sad, just look at the villain roster.

Over the 3 years this game was around, it only gave us 4 (yes 4) villains.

M.O.D.O.K., Taskmaster, The Abomination and Klaw….

Yep! Just these four schmucks!

No Red Skull, no Mandarin, no Baron Zemo, no Leader, no Ultron, no Kang the Conqueror, no Absorbing Man, no Wrecking Crew, no Enchantress, no Whirlwind, no Crimson Dynamo, no Circus of Crime….

Hell, they don’t even have Loki, the most popular and well-known Avengers villain!

It’s even more sadder when you consider the DLCs, i.e Spider-Man, who despite having undoubtedly the most well-known rogues gallery in all of Marvel, not one of them appear at all in his DLC!

In the wise words of a young redheaded YouTuber who likes to talk about Spidey….

“How easily you got showed up by Fortnite!”

If you want more detail on the history of this game and what went wrong, I suggest watching Matt McMuscles’ What Happened video on the game, but basically the reason that the game was the way that it was due to the laziness and apathy of Square Enix, the inexperience and slight incompetence of Crystal Dynamics, having WAY too many cooks in the kitchen (i.e., they worked with five studios, all of which were located in different parts of the world), and most of all, the utter greed of Marvel.

And funnily enough, this game ties into my next talking point…

Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite! The fourth and possibly final game in the series….and is regarded by just about everyone to be the weakest game as well.

Just like Avengers, one of (if not) the biggest criticisms of this game was the roster.

Infinite had a roster of about 36 characters, having the second smallest roster in the series’ history, only surpassing Clash of Heroes’ 15.

This was quite the surprise when compared to the previous game, 3’s 48 characters and especially 2: A New Age’s 56.

As for the roster itself, it was made up of both veteran characters and new characters.

Returning from the previous game, we had Spider-Man, Captain America, Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, Doctor Strange, Dormammu, Ghost Rider, Nova and Rocket Raccoon.

Also returning were two faces that hadn’t been seen since 2: Venom and Thanos.

As for the new characters, we had Captain Marvel, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Black Panther, Gamora and Ultron.

Yeah not exactly the most interesting roster.

And I’m sure many of you noticed by now, there’s something notable characters missing from the roster.

Namely the X-Men, their villains and Doctor Doom, all of whom have been staples of the franchise since the beginning.

And there’s a reason for that….

A very, scummy reason….

I already mentioned this in my X-Men: The Next Mutation post, but it does bare repeating her.

As the MCU became more popular, Marvel became focusing on pushing the Avengers as their premiere superhero team, with the Fantastic Four and X-Men essentially being dethroned.

Along with that, their relevance in the comics notably began to degraded, and barely began making appearances in media outside the comics.

The reason for this, apart from Marvel focusing on cashing in on the Avengers, was because despite still owning the overall rights for the FF and X-Men (which, why wouldn’t they?), their film rights were still owned by 20th Century Fox.

Since Fox was pretty much a rival company to Marvel until Disney bought them out, Marvel basically saw any form of FF and X-Men representation as free-marketing for Fox.

So they decided to essentially not to allow any FF or X-Men related characters to appear in any media outside the comics and even reduced their overall presence as well.

Which is why Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch and the other non X-Men mutants were retconned into not being mutants, why Quicksilver himself has been sort of been an afterthought in recent years, why the Inhumans were pushed so hard, and why the FF and X-Men characters weren’t in this game.

Plus the justifications and excuses for this from the developers are absolutely hilarious, because you can just tell that they’re lying through their teeth while being held up at gunpoint by a bunch of Marvel executives.

Oh yeah, let’s bring up the other biggest elephant in the room and want led to Square Enix developing Avengers.

After Infinite came out and got quickly abandoned by the player-base, many people at Capcom have come out to reveal just how awful it was working with Marvel and Disney.

They weren’t just pushy with who and who couldn’t be in the roster. 

They were also pushy about how the characters that would be in the roster would be portrayed (specifically wanting them to heavily resemble their MCU iterations) and even changing their themes to be exactly like the MCU ones. 

Hell, this pushiness was so bad that for the trailers, they did not want the Marvel characters to be depicted as losing!

This was also an issue back during 3 as well, but it was essentially amplified during this game.

This really shows just how petty Marvel really is….

They’re willing to ignore and downplay the existence of two major players of their brand that people have loved for decades and were created by the two men them helped make the company they are today.

They’re unwilling to compromise and it has to be their way or the highway.

And this pettiness eventually came to bite them in the ass as Capcom’s statements about working with them eventually reached many of the other big video game developers.

And soon enough, when Marvel was trying to find someone to develop Avengers, none of the big game developers wanted anything to do with it!

Eventually, they did find a developer with Square Enix, who already had experience working with Disney via Kingdom Hearts.

It’s actually ironically hilarious that the heads at Marvel believed all three of these projects would actually be successful because of the MCU synergy, but they all ended up being flops because of said MCU synergy!

But this desire for MCU synergy has not only negatively affected non-MCU project of this time, but even ones that either came out before this desire or….never came out at all.

I’m sure many of you remember The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

This show was essentially a love letter to the Silver Age comics of Marvel  and strived to be an near-faithful adaptation of many classic and even recent Avengers storylines, while also having its own unique spin on it.

Hell, in some cases, the EMH versions of these storylines are actually better than the originals, especially in the case of Secret Invasion. 

Sadly, the show got cancelled in 2012 after 2 seasons and 52 episodes…and to this day, EMH probably has one of the dumbest and scummiest reasons for cancellation in television animation history.

The reason this show was cancelled because Marvel wanted to replace with it a show that was more in-line with the MCU, aka Avengers Assemble.

Yep! Not low ratings. Not bad critical reception. Not budgetary reasons. Hell, not even bad toy sales, which was a major reason for a lot of action cartoons around this time getting the axe!

And it doesn’t get much better from here.

During the 2010s, there were a lot of promising Marvel projects that never saw the light of the day, with two of the most notable being the animated Deadpool series and Marvel Era.

Following the success of 2016 film, FX and Marvel Television decided to collaborate to created an animated series based on the merc with the mouth, with Donald Glover (yes, that Donald Glover) being one of the main showrunners, alongside his brother Stephen.

However, the series was cancelled almost a year within its development, with the main reason being that Marvel wasn't particularly big on the vision that the Glovers had for this series.

And apart Donald speculating racism on Marvel’s part (which given that Jeph Loeb was meant to be an executive producer on this series, that possibly could be the case), another possible factor for the show’s cancellation was because of Deadpool’s connection with the X-Men, and during this show’s production, Marvel was still in their “the X-Men don’t matter anymore” phase.

And it really sucks because the pitch animation for this was really good and made this seem like it was going to be a very fun show.

New we come to Marvel Era.

Out of all the cancelled projects, this was perhaps the most interesting.

Marking a first for their animated shows, this would’ve been an anthology series released in 2014 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Marvel Comics.

It was going to be produced by Powerhouse Animation (best known for Netflix’s Castlevania series) and it was gonna have 7 stories, with each one being themed around a different decade and focusing on a different character.

There would’ve been a 40s story focusing on Captain America, a 50s story focusing on either Wolverine or Namor the Sub-Mariner, a 60s story focusing on the X-Men, a 70s story focusing on The Heroes for Hire, a 80s story focusing on The Punisher, a 90s story focusing on the aforementioned Deadpool, and a 2000s story focusing on Captain Marvel.

This honestly seemed like it was going to be a really great show, which was enhanced by the absolutely gorgeous animation of the pitch trailer.

Unfortunately, Powerhouse announced that the project was cancelled because it wasn’t what Marvel Television were focusing on.

Which is code for: Marvel didn’t want it because it wasn’t MCU adjacent….

To wrap this up, I just wanted to bring up the reason I made this in the first place.

Over the last few weeks, there was a leak for a upcoming episode of X-Men ‘97, which showed a shot of Captain America’s shield.

And this led many people to somewhat groan, believing that this was yet another case of MCU synergy. 

And although this was proven to be false, it really does speak volume with how much influence the MCU has had.

Although it has brought lot of Marvel’s star characters into the mainstream, the MCU has shaped and changed them so much, that it seems like they can no longer exist as characters who have existed for literal DECADES.

They always have to be associated with a film franchise that has existed for about 1/6 of their existence in fiction.

But I think the biggest takeaway to all this is that this constant MCU synergy kinda shows a lack of reverence for Marvel’s legacy.

Look at this merchandising from the 2010s and 2020s....

In most of this merchandise, the character roster featured is almost always the same.

The Avengers, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man and the Web Warriors, and the Guardians of the Galaxy.

The Inhumans were also apart of this roster until, as I mentioned earlier, got banished to the Shadow Realm....

Occasionally you'll get some of the other cosmic characters like Nova, She-Hulk and some of the street-level heroes like Daredevil, Elektra, Ghost Rider, and The Heroes for Hire.

But those are few and far between.

But other than that, it's largely the four I mentioned earlier.

Because they're the main faces of the MCU, and as we all know, everything has to be related to the MCU in some way....

But now let's compare that to some Marvel merchandising from the mid-to-late 2000s and early 2010s....

Upon seeing this, you can tell that there’s a far greater sense of appreciation for Marvel.

This merchandising pulls from nearly every corner of the Marvel Universe you can think off and features characters from the heavy hitters, to the borderline obscure.

Plus it still heavily features the Fantastic Four and X-Men characters, who, may I remind you, spent a good chunk of the 2010s having their presence greatly reduced and their existence constantly threatened or denied because of movie rights!

All in all, Marvel really needs to stop the MCU synergy.

In spite of what they think, it’s clearly done nothing but harm and stifle many potentially good (even great) projects.

Not only that, but it’s also gonna start harming the Marvel brand itself with how homogenized they’ve made everything and the rapidly increasing lack of interest in the MCU.

Plus its also brought out the worst in Marvel.

From cancelling projects for stupid reasons, to showing a lack of respect for the legacy they’ve build, to literally being difficult to work with because of how they want everything to be their way.

But things do seem to be looking up a bit….

There’s been the multiple of Spider-Man media of the last few years , which has been one of the few Marvel projects that aren’t bogged down by MCU synergy.

Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur also ended being shockingly really good, and although it does have some MCU synergy, it’s pretty minor.

And now we have X-Men ‘97.

It does appear that there’s some kind of movement in Marvel to actually start making projects again that aren’t being made to be a glorified MCU circle-jerks.

And hopefully, this could led to some really unique and interesting projects, specifically for this year.

Since remember, this year marks the 85th anniversary of Marvel Comics, so that’s pretty big!

But then again, their corporate overlord had an utter embarrassment of a year for their centennial….

And Marvel themselves also contributed to that as well….

[burningfudge]

Buckynat in the Ultimate Universe

The new Ultimate universe has been fantastic, and I'm thoroughly enjoying every single Ultimate comic right now, especially Ultimates and Ultimate Spider-Man, which are easily the best Marvel comics at the moment, in my opinion. But I was also thinking about how Bucky & Natasha could be introduced in this new universe.

So, for those who haven't read the original Ultimate comics, Bucky and Natasha have quite a...colorful background, especially Natasha. Bucky is an old ass man who is married to Gail Richards, Steve's former fiancée from the 40s, and had a huge family with her. Steve and Bucky were childhood friends as compared to Bucky being Steve's kid sidekick in 616. This is also where the MCU took inspiration from. Bucky was never the Winter Soldier because Ultimates released in 2002, three years before Bucky was reintroduced as the Winter Soldier in 616.

Natasha, on the other hand...god, where to begin. Much like her 616 counterpart, she was a part of the KGB and then eventually "defected" to SHIELD. However, she eventually turned out to be a traitor, helping invade America because she wanted to take down the country that "crippled and turned Mother Russia into a bankrupt nation of hookers and gangsters." Plus, she was engaged to Tony Stark, playing him the entire time. Additionally, she was also involved in murdering Hawkeye's family, causing Clint to eventually kill her in revenge for murdering his family. So...not great.

So where are Bucky and Natasha in the new Ultimate universe?

Not present.

It was revealed that Bucky is dead in Ultimate Invasion (2023), but I don't think that's true. Or maybe I'm just being delusional. But Jim Hammond, the original Human Torch, was also labeled as deceased but Steve brought him back to life. I know that's easier since Jim's an android, but still! And as shown in Ultimates #4, the rest of the FF are brutally dead, but I think Reed will bring them back, so why can't Bucky come back? And even if he does come back, I think he'll be the Winter Soldier like 616 and not a regular old man like 1610. Steve, unfortunately, has not mentioned him yet.

I believe Natasha's future will be far more optimistic, however. She was a large part of the original Ultimates team, which the MCU took inspiration from for the first Avengers movie. The OG Ultimates were Steve, Tony, Thor, Clint, Natasha, Bruce, Hank, and Janet. As of Ultimates (2024) #4, the new Ultimates team is Steve, Tony, Thor, Sif, Reed, Hank, Janet, America Chavez, and Lejori Joena Zakaria (She-Hulk), so that's pretty similar! Hawkeye will show up in the next issue, so it's only time until Black Widow shows up too.

But thematically, it's only natural for Natasha to arrive soon since much of Earth 6160 revolves around fascism, geopolitics, and the idea of reclaiming your future, which I think Natasha is perfect for because so much of her future was taken from her as a child. Plus, the Eurasian Republic (where Russia is located) is being ruled by the Rasputin siblings as part of the Maker's Council, so the irony of a Rasputin vs a Romanoff is just too funny for me to ignore, and Hickman and Camp will be aware of it as well. And since Natasha was still loyal to Russia in the OG Ultimate universe, I think it only makes sense if she wasn't in the new Ultimate universe. It's a nice contrast to Steve as well because he's Captain America, but America doesn't exist anymore. What does a soldier with no country fight for? Similarly, Russia doesn't exist either. They're both from countries that don't exist thanks to the Maker.

So much of Natasha's history has been tied to Russia and America, but now neither one of them is relevant, so where does she go from here? I'm assuming she'll still have her regular backstory with the Red Room/KGB and then defect, but I think it would be really interesting if she defects from the Eurasian Republic in this universe and eventually helps the Ultimates. The Ultimates are in sore need of a spy/agent, and Natasha's the best one.

Basically, I don't think Buckynat will be a thing in the new Ultimate universe :(

[nerds-yearbook]

The original android Human Torch returned to the pages of Marvel comics and joined the West Coast Avengers in issue 50, cover date November, 1989. ("Return of the Hero", West Coast Avengers 50#, Marvel Comic Event)

[huge-bodied-heroines]

Android Human Torch reminds me of the Iron Giant.

I like to think he discovered friendship through Toro.

[avengersmansion-official]

Okay, now that you're warmed up a bit, a slightly more complex question, or perhaps just one with a more complex answer.

So, when Captain America joined the Avengers, it was explained in the papers that he'd vanished on a mission shortly before V-E Day in World War Two. Only now that he'd revived was it learned that he and Bucky had "died" preventing a revenge rocket from Baron Zemo from striking its target, only for Cap to be frozen in ice for over a decade until the Avengers found him. (Bucky is a question for another time.)

Except that no, according to the clippings in my scrapbooks, Captain America didn't vanish before V-E Day. He was still active through V-J Day, and served with a short-lived team called the All-Winners Squad after the war ended.

There's even scattered reports of him being active until some time in the 1950s.

But now suddenly, Captain America is back, he skipped all those intervening years, and there's dead silence in the papers about all those later appearances. Quite a few readers must have thought they were suffering the Mandela Effect or something.

So, what gives with those anomalous Captain America sightings? Were those impostors of some sort? Time travel shenanigans? Something even weirder?

Okay.

breathes in

So the short answer is that they weren't imposters, but they weren't the original Captain America either. In fact, there were no fewer than three other men who operated as Captain America in the time between 1945 and the end of the 1950s.

From the 1940s until relatively recent times, the Captain America identity and iconography has been the intellectual property of the United States government - first through the Department of War, which was later combined with the Department of the Navy to become the Department of Defense, and later transferred to the Department of Homeland Security and administered by the Commission on Superhuman Activities.

Because of this, and because of Captain America's importance as a war asset and propaganda symbol during World War II and the early Cold War, the United States government made significant efforts to continue the myth of Captain America as a seemingly immortal, invincible super-soldier, even after the heroic sacrifices of the original Captain America and Bucky in April 1945.

(Marvel Comics dramatization of Steve Rogers and James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes' heroic sacrifices over the English Channel in April 1945.)

The culprit behind Rogers and Barnes's demise, Nazi operative Baron Heinrich Zemo, made sure to broadcast that information far and wide, and the story soon was picked up by American media outlets. However, President Harry S Truman soon appointed replacements, passing them off as the originals, having miraculously survived.

(file photo of William Nasland, the Spirit of '76 and Steve Rogers' successor as Captain America)

The first of these men was William Nasland, previously known as another patriotic hero active during the war, the Spirit of '76. He was joined by New York Yankees batboy Fred Davis Jr. as his Bucky.

Nasland's tenure as Captain America was tragic and all-too-brief. Though he finished out the war as Captain America, leading the Invaders' charge into Berlin that led to the Nazis' unconditional surrender and Hitler's death at the hands of the Human Torch, he'd end up dying in action less than a year later.

Nasland discovered a plot created by the evil android Adam II to replace Massachusetts congressional candidate and future President John F. Kennedy with a robot double. Nasland successfully foiled the plot, but at the cost of his life.

Just before his death, Nasland was found by the next man who would become Captain America.

(file photo of Jeffrey Mace as the Patriot)

Jeffrey Mace, yet another star-spangled Golden Age mystery man as the Patriot, discovered Nasland just before his death. Inspired by his sacrifice, Mace became the next Captain America, with Davis continuing to work alongside him as Bucky.

Mace continued to operate as Captain America until the start of the 1950s, working alongside the Invaders, now rebranded as the peacetime All-Winners Squad, and falling in love with one of their members, Betsy Ross, alias Golden Girl.

However, as the 1950s dawned and the United States geared up for war in Korea, Mace came under scrutiny from anti-Communist officials due to his Russian-Jewish heritage. After unveiling a plan by his former government handler to blackmail him into going to Korea and fighting, Mace retired. He and Ross retired to a quiet neighborhood in Queens, where they raised a family in peace.

Mace lived a long life, ultimately succumbing to cancer several years ago at the age of 85. He's survived by his wife and several children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, and had the privilege of having Steve Rogers at his bedside as he passed away.

Mace and Nasland were both true American heroes, but the same cannot be said of the third man to become Captain America following the war.

(Atlas Comics "Captain America: Commie Smasher" comic cover, featuring William Burnside as Captain America and Jack Monroe as Bucky)

William Burnside was what we, in modern parlance, would call a Captain America "stan". He was a child during World War II, and grew up idolizing Steve Rogers as Captain America, obsessively tracking his appearances and disbelieving the government narrative that both Nasland and Mace were the same individual as Rogers.

After graduating university in 1952, Burnside found a formula for the Super-Soldier Serum in West Berlin while studying the Nazi writings about Captain America there. He presented this formula to the US government, and they eagerly took his offer, wanting a new Captain America to aid in Korea.

Burnside had one condition, though: that he became the new Captain America. The government agreed, and here's where things get disturbing: Burnside legally changed his name to Steve Rogers and had plastic surgery done to resemble him in preparation for taking the role. This was only a harbinger of things to come.

Before he could suit up as Captain America, the Korean War ended and Burnside was cast aside. He became a schoolteacher in upstate New York, finding a new Bucky there in his student, Jack Monroe. He injected both himself and Monroe with the Super-Soldier Serum and donned the Captain America costume, using it to oppose communist sympathizers in the US without government sanction.

However, the version of the formula that Burnside and Monroe had put in their systems was unstable, and led to severe paranoid schizophrenia in both men. In the midst of the Red Scare, this severe mental illness led Burnside to see imagined communists where none existed, particularly within African-American communities.

In 1955, after one such racially motivated attack, the US government intervened, and Burnside and Monroe were placed on ice. Burnside later resurfaced, decades later, as the Grand Director, leader of a neo-Nazi hate group called the National Force, while Monroe became the vigilante called Nomad.

It wasn't until decades later that any of this became public knowledge, after Steve Rogers successfully gained the rights to the Captain America name and likeness from the Commission on Superhuman Activities, and with it, documents regarding his successors were declassified.

It's a real testament to the power of narrative and propaganda that even since then, the existence of Nasland, Mace, and Burnside hasn't become common knowledge. Most people aren't aware there was more than one Captain America (maybe they know about Isaiah Bradley, but even that's doubtful), but Mace and Nasland's stories, at least, deserve to be told.