5 Reasons You Should Care about … MODOK

He’s a giant head in a chair with tiny, dangly arms and legs and psychic powers, in a design that could have only been created by Jack Kirby, and he’s about to kill a lot of people.

Among this week’s new Secret Wars tie-in series is MODOK: Assassin by Chris Yost and Amilcar Pinna, in which the titular Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing will prove why he’s the top assassin in the Battleworld domain of Killville. This comes after a turn running with SHIELD agents in the most recent Secret Avengers series.

“For a guy who was designed only for killing, who has he really killed?” Yost asked CBR.

Here’s the skinny on old fathead, a Lee/Kirby joint who first appeared in 1967’s Tales of Suspense 93:

1) He was once a maaaaan. A MAAAAAN: MODOK started out as an AIM scientist named George Tarleton. The scienterrorists mutated Tarleton into a living computer so they could better understand the Cosmic Cube (or Tesseract, for those more familiar with the Marvel movies). Their Mental Organism Designed Only for Computing turns on his masters, becoming a Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing.

2) He gave the world Deathbird: During an arc in the original 1978 Ms. Marvel series, MODOK hires an assassin named Deathbird to take out Carol Danvers. Writer Chris Claremont would later port Deathbird into his most well-known title, Uncanny X-Men, making her the Shi’ar empress Lilandra’s power-mad sister. MODOK would also have a hand in the creation of the Red Hulk and Red She-Hulk, aka Gen. Thunderbolt Ross and his daughter, Betty.

3) He’s died: Dissatisfied with their homicidal supercomputer, AIM had the Serpent Society take MODOK out. A rogue AIM scientist played Weekend at Bernie’s with MODOK’s body for a time, but the body was destroyed in a fuel explosion amid a fight with Iron Man. AIM later resurrected MODOK when it needed help constructing another Cosmic Cube. And during the “World War Hulks” storyline, Amadeus Cho, given the power to warp reality within a small radius of himself, reverted MODOK back to his original, human form.

4) There are many kinds of MODOKs:

a.       For starters, there’s Ms. MODOK, a scientist MODOK turned into the female version of himself until she convinced him to transform her back.

b.      A second female MODOK was believed to be patterned after Hank Pym’s first wife and was originally named SODAM (Specialized Organism Designed for Aggressive Maneuvers) but was later renamed MODAM (Mental Organism etc.)

c.       There’s the cluster of cloned MODOK brains acting as one sentient supercomputer, one of which crowned itself MODOK Superior and surrounded himself with smaller pawn versions of himself.

d.      A Mobile Organism Designed Only for Talking appeared in a Howard the Duck series.

e.      A splinter cell of AIM created the Mobile Organism Designed Only for Genocide, which Iron Man dispatched handily during Matt Fraction’s run on the hero.

f.        For the kids, there’s the Mental Organism Designed Only for Conquest that appeared in Marvel Adventures: The Avengers.

g.       An Ultimate Universe version of MODOK lived inside the head of a cyborg version of Captain America villain Dr. Faustus.

h.      The brilliant and hysterical Warren Ellis series Nextwave: Agents of HATE features an infant MODOK that was the product of lovemaking between MODOK and MODAM, so pleasant dreams with that mental image. The series also featured four versions of MODOK patterned after Elvis Presley.

i.         The Marvel/DC mashup Amalgam Comics combined MODOK with Green Lantern villain Hector Hammond, another big-headed foe, to create HECTOR, the Highly Evolved Creature Totally Oriented on Revenge.

j.        The Mental Organism Designed Only for Roller Derby, or MODORD, appears in a Dazzler story from 2011 that is now my life’s mission to track down.

5) He’s played the good guy. MODOK has, in the past, cooperated with the government if it allowed him to retake control of AIM or get revenge on his enemies. A cluster of MODOKs also saved Ms. Marvel (Carol Danvers) from being disincorporated, and MODOK was on the team of Ales Kot and Michael Walsh’s just-wrapped arc of Secret Avengers, alongside Nick Fury Jr., Maria Hill, Phil Coulson, Black Widow, Hawkeye and Spider-Woman.

Read this: The most recent volume of Secret Avengers by Kot and Walsh (issues 1-15). For a MODOK-led heist caper, check out 2007’s five-issue Super-Villain Team-Up: MODOK’s 11, by Fred Van Lente and Francis Portella.

Watch that: Marvel’s kid-tested, father-approved Super Hero Squad show, which ran from 2009 to 2011 and featured MODOK (the K is for Kicking butt) as one of the main henchmen of Doctor Doom. Specifically, watch the episode “Mental Organism Designed Only for Kisses,” in which, through botched sorcery by the Enchantress, MODOK and Ms. Marvel (Carol Danvers) fall in love and make googly eyes at each other through a montage set to fake ’60s pop music. It’s pretty great. 

5 Reasons You Should Care about … Rip Hunter

As well it should, DC is leaning in to its TV slate this fall, debuting two new series: Supergirl on CBS and a show called Legends of Tomorrow on the CW, home to Arrow and personal favorite The Flash.

Long thought to be a showcase for Brandon Routh’s Atom character, Legends will actually have at its core Arthur Darvill (Doctor Who) as the time traveler Rip Hunter, in a cast that also includes Hawkgirl, Captain Cold, Heatwave, half of Firestorm and possibly a Black Canary.

Most of these characters were previously introduced either in Arrow or The Flash, or, in Hawkgirl’s case, a big part of the DCAU Justice League cartoons. Rip Hunter, on the other hand, will likely be brand new to almost everyone watching the show.

So who is Rip Hunter, and why he is so hard-up to hunt rips? Well, I’ll tell you.

The basics: Rip Hunter was created by Jack Miller and Ruben Moreira and first appeared in 1959’s Showcase #20.

1. That’s not his real name: Rip keeps his birth name, home address, bank PIN, and other personal information secret to keep other time travelers from killing his ancestors or otherwise making it so he’s never born. And I assume he chose Rip Hunter as a nom de time travel for the same reason Homer Simpson briefly went by Max Power: It just sounds awesome.

2. His dad’s in the Justice League: Rip’s father is none other than the 25^th century’s own Booster Gold, a fact unbeknownst to Booster for the reasons previously stated. Considering Booster’s floating robot companion, Skeets, once tried to kill a bunch of time travelers, Rip’s logic appears justifiable. To protect the timeline, Rip works behind the scenes to make his dad look like a self-absorbed screw-up.

3. He survived the first Crisis: Rip was one of the few characters to survive 1985’s Crisis on Infinite Earths with memories of the DC multiverse as it existed before. What’s more, the condensed post-Crisis universe had its own Rip, who also was a time traveler.

4. He shows up for the big stuff: Rip’s the perfect character for DC’s Crises and other major events, the kind of guy who can show up on a last-page splash backlit by a swirling vortex, looking completely different from the last time anyone saw him, yelling “STOP!” and then explaining that the major characters are about to do something that unravels the space-time continuum. Also his secret base had lots of notes lying around and a big blackboard offering clues to future storylines.

5. He’s saved the multiverse: During a series called The Kingdom, Rip breaks down the barrier to Hypertime, revealing the rest of the multiverse was there all along, contrary to what Crisis on Infinite Earths had everyone believe. He also paves the way for pre-Crisis characters Alex Luthor, Superman and Superboy-Prime to escape from an alternate dimension. Hunter later helps prevent a hyperfly that used to be Mr. Mind from devouring some of DC’s 52 universes.

Read this: For Silver Age Rip, check out Rip Hunter, Time Master, by Jack Miller, Ross Andru, Mike Esposito and others, which ran for 29 issues from 1961 to 1965. For post-Crisis Rip, there’s the eight-issue Time Masters series from 1990, by Bob Wayne and Lewis Shiner. For pre-Flashpoint Rip-Booster nonbonding, check out Booster’s 2007-11 series, written at varying points by Geoff Johns, Jeff Katz, Dan Jurgens, J.M. DeMatteis and Keith Giffen.

Watch that: Rip appears in one episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold. In “Time Out for Vengeance,” Rip helps the Justice League traverse the timestream to protect Batmen throughout history from Equinox. The JLI episodes of Brave and the Bold – featuring Aquaman, Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, Guy Gardner, Martian Manhunter, Fire and Ice – were among the best of a great series.

Dan Grote’s new novel, Magic Pier, is available however you get your books online. He has been writing for The Matt Signal since 2014. He and Matt have been friends since the days when making it to issue 25 guaranteed you a foil cover.

5 Reasons You Should Care about … Sharon Carter

It was announced last week that actress Emily Van Camp (ABC’s Revenge) would be returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Agent 13 in next year’s Captain America: Civil War, in a cast list that’s shaping up to make it Avengers 2.5.

Van Camp’s character had maybe the least to do in last year’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier, but the truth is she’s been an important part of Steve Rogers’ life for nearly 50 years now, since her first appearance in 1966’s Tales of Suspense #75. She also played a very crucial role in one of the defining moments of the Civil War comics story from which the 2016 movie takes its name.

Here’s some more fun facts about this Stan Lee/Jack Kirby creation:

1. She’s the sequel to Agent Carter: Sharon was originally the younger sister of Peggy Carter, Steve Rogers’ love interest from World War II. Rogers was thawed out in the 1960s, when Peggy and Sharon being sisters would have been plausible. Comics’ sliding timescale has since made Peggy Sharon’s aunt and later great aunt. Minor point: The issue in which Sharon first appeared also marked the first appearance of everyone’s favorite French foot fighter, Batroc the Leaper.

2. She’s been Steve’s No. 1 gal far longer than Peggy: In the comics, Steve and Sharon have been on-again, off-again lovers for the better part of five decades. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, however, they just met, and her relation to Peggy hasn't been explicitly revealed yet. Also, in what is absolutely a good problem to have, Peggy has become one of the MCU’s most beloved characters, to the point where ABC last week announced a second season of her TV series (Marvel had a busy news week last week). Perhaps, with Revenge having just been canceled, there’s room for both Agents Carter to share the spotlight, in a passing-of-the-torch story that jumps between past and present.

3. She’s died at least twice in the comics: Sharon Carter was first killed in Captain America #233, when she detonated an explosive on her person while under the control of a group called the National Force led by perennial Cap villain Dr. Faustus. She stayed dead for more than 200 issues, finally returning in issue 444, at the hand of writer Mark Waid, who’d revealed Sharon had faked her death to run a covert op for Nick Fury and later got caught up in a plot to resurrect Hitler. Much later, in 2013, Rick Remender made it look like he’d killed Sharon again during his first arc on Captain America, during a mission to save Cap from a dimension ruled by the mad biogeneticist Arnim Zola. Instead, she survived and raised Steve’s adopted son, whom he’d taken from Zola.

4. She killed Captain America: In Ed Brubaker’s brilliant 2000s run on Cap, Sharon was brainwashed once again by Dr. Faustus, this time into shooting Steve in the stomach post-Civil War as part of a long-game plan by the Red Skull. Sharon was pregnant with Steve’s child at the time, unbeknownst to her, and loses the child amid a fight with the Skull’s daughter, Sin. Faustus then makes her forget being pregnant. Steve’s death set up his original sidekick, Bucky Barnes, aka the Winter Soldier, to take his place for a time as the good captain.

5. She’s been an Avenger: Sharon was part of the cast of the 2010-13 volume of Secret Avengers, running covert missions alongside Steve, Black Widow and other heavy-hitters. Brubaker was the first among a chain of writers on this series.

Read this: Ed Brubaker’s phenomenal run on Captain America, which we've covered before and which served as the inspiration for the Winter Soldier movie. The lion’s share of it is available in three hardcover ominbi that start at the beginning of the run in 2004 and end with Steve Rogers’ resurrection in 2010.

Watch that: Watch The Winter Soldier again, because even though she’s barely in it, it’s just that damn good.

Dan Grote’s new novel, Magic Pier, is available however you get your books online. He has been writing for The Matt Signal since 2014. He and Matt have been friends since the days when making it to issue 25 guaranteed you a foil cover.

5 Reasons You Should Care About … Molecule Man

Molecule Man, Molecule Man / Doing the things a molecule can / What’s he like, it’s not important / Molecule Man

… Wait, that’s not how it goes.

Among the common threads of Marvel’s Secret Wars stories is Owen Reece, the Molecule Man, the supervillain scientist who, at times of mental clarity, would really much rather have a nice, quiet, suburban life, except the Beyonders keep mucking it up for him.

The basics: Molecule Man was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and first appeared in 1963’s Fantastic Four #20.

1. He’s a god, man: The nuclear mishap that gave MM his powers allows him to control matter at the molecular level, hence the name. It basically means he can do whatever he wants, though there was a time when he believed his powers could not affect organic matter, to the point that the Fantastic Four disguised themselves as statues to trick him into defeat. How he hadn’t destroyed the world prior to the latest Secret Wars and why he’d rather not be a supervillain with that skills set is Beyond me.

2. He and Harry Potter have a couple things in common: In addition to powers, the accident gave MM lightning bolt scars all over his face, like if Voldemort had designed Mike Tyson’s face tattoo. MM also occasionally uses a wand, which turns out to be unnecessary, because THE MAGIC WAS IN HIM ALL ALONG! Actually, for a while, MM’s consciousness resided in the wand, and he would try to possess whoever held it, from Reed Richards to a hobo to a little girl to a snake.

3. He may find himself living in a beautiful house with a beautiful wife: MM met his future wife, Volcana, during the first Secret Wars. She was an Earth woman who’d been pulled to Battleworld and, while there, was given lava powers by Dr. Doom. After the war, they found a nice little place in Denver (Both are native Coloradans). They separate for a time in the ’90s, and he attempts to win her back by carving her likeness into Mount Rushmore. Your move, Lloyd Dobler.

4. Every time he gets out, the Beyonder pulls him back in: In the gift that keeps on giving, the accident that gave MM powers also caused a dimensional rift that allowed the Beyonder to discover the 616 reality (or maybe the Beyonders caused the accident so MM could destroy reality; more on that later). MM had retired from villainy before the first Secret Wars, but he was still among the baddies pulled to Battleworld by the Beyonder. Later, in Secret Wars II, the Beyonder shows up at the Reeces’ doorstep, during his wacky quest to understand humanity, and MM ends up engaging in a fairly epic battle with the extradimensional entity, to the point where he appears to have exhausted his powers. The two characters even merged for a time in the ’90s, forming a Cosmic Cube.

5. He’s a multiversal bomb: In New Avengers #33, the last issue before Secret Wars, MM explains that he is the same in every reality, and in every reality, he is the Beyonders’ tool for the destruction of that reality. As such, Dr. Doom has been going from reality to reality killing Molecule Men with the help of the doomsday cult he built for himself. Not that it did any good.

Read this: 1985’s Secret Wars II, in which the Beyonder tries to crash on the couch of his good buddy Molecule Man, and Spider-Man teaches the Beyonder how to poop (not a joke). A Stan-and-Jack creation though he may be, Secret Wars scribe and former Marvel Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter had a big hand in crafting MM’s personality beyond that of generic purple-and-green-clad villain.

Watch that: Marvel’s kid-friendly Super Hero Squad Show, which ran from 2009-11 and is available on Netflix. Specifically watch the episodes “Villainy Redux Syndrome,” in which the retired and mistakenly summoned MM frees Dr. Doom, MODOK and the Abomination from prison, and “When Strikes the Surfer,” in which MM gives Nebula a new mouth after her old one was removed by an Infinity Gauntlet-fueled Silver Surfer. Volcana also appears in both episodes. No sign of the Beyonder, though. Comedian Fred Stoller voices MM in both episodes.

5 Reasons You Should Care About … The Masters of Evil

On last week’s Agents of SHIELD, Cal (Kyle MacLachlan), whom nerds may know better from the comics as Mr. Hyde, assembled a team of random supervillains (Angar the Screamer!) in a revenge play against Director Coulson. It reminded me of Marvel’s best-known team of random rotating supervillains, the Masters of Evil. And with Daniel Bruhl (Inglourious Basterds) believed to be cast as Baron Zemo in Captain America: Civil War, now seems like a good time to familiarize oneself with the nasty brigade.

The basics: The Masters of Evil were created by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Chic Stone and first appeared in 1964’s Avengers #6, during a time when villain teams kept some variation of evil in their name to let obtuse Silver Age readers know where they stood. See also the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants (X-Men) and DC’s Legion of Super-Villains.

1. Seemingly anyone can be a Master of Evil: Past Masters include both Barons Zemo (Heinrich and Helmut), two Black Knights, the Melter, Radioactive Man (the green Chinese scientist, not the Simpsons character), the Enchantress and her Executioner, Wonder Man, Ultron, Klaw, Whirlwind, Egghead, Moonstone, the Scorpion, Tiger Shark, the Beetle, the Shocker, the Absorbing Man, Blackout, Black Mamba, Fixer, Goliath, Grey Gargoyle, Mr. Hyde, Screaming Mimi, Titania, the Wrecking Crew, Yellowjacket, Doctor Octopus, Gargantua, Jackhammer, Powderkeg, Puff Adder, Justine Hammer, Cyclone, Flying Tiger, Man-Killer, Aqueduct, Bison, Blackwing, Boomerang, Cardinal, Constrictor, Dragonfly, Eel, Icemaster, Joystick, Lodestone, Man-Ape, Quicksand, Scorcher, Shatterfist, Shockwave, Slyde, Sunstroke, Supercharger, Gypsy Moth, Hydro-Man, Machinesmith, Max Fury, Princess Python, Vengeance, Black Talon, Brothers, Grimm, Carrion, Crossfire, Diablo, Firebrand, Griffin, Killer Shrike, Lady Stilt-Man, Pink Pearl, Squid, Taskmaster, Bi-Beast, Madcap, Ringer, Madame Masque, Daimon Hellstrom, Cullen Bloodstone and Lightmaster. Not gonna lie, I have no idea who half these people are, but I assure you they’re all evil. EVIL!

2. They once trashed Avengers Mansion: The fourth incarnation of the Masters, gathered by Helmut Zemo, was so large they managed to outnumber and overwhelm the Avengers, taking over their base of operations, torturing Jarvis the butler, beating Hercules into a coma, kidnapping Captain America and leaving Wasp the only Avenger left standing. The team inevitably crumbled due to clashing agendas and egos, especially between the younger Zemo and Moonstone.

3. They turn good guys bad: In his very first appearance in Avengers #9, Simon Williams, aka Wonder Man, was pitted against the Avengers as a pawn of Zemo. He originally died in that issue but was brought back nearly a decade later in 1972’s Avengers #102. Another Avenger who once joined the Masters was Dane Whitman, the Black Knight, who infiltrated the team to defeat them from the inside. Whitman is the nephew of the previous Black Knight, Nathan Garrett, who was one of the original Masters.

4. And bad guys good: After Onslaught, when the Fantastic Four and Avengers got sucked into a pocket dimension for a year, a new superhero team emerged called the Thunderbolts, who turned out to be the Masters of Evil in disguise. Some of the team’s members went native and ended up becoming legitimate good guys, including Songbird (formerly Screaming Mimi), and the Beetle. Beetle, aka Mach V, is used to hilarious effect as Boomerang’s parole officer in Nick Spencer and Steve Lieber’s much-missed Superior Foes of Spider-Man series. As the Thunderbolts, Zemo’s team ended up fighting a separate Masters of Evil organized by Justine Hammer, daughter of Justin Hammer, industrialist and foe of Tony Stark.

5. They made the Thunderbolts name stick: A book with the Thunderbolts title has been published fairly consistently since the original series by Kurt Busiek and Mark Bagley debuted in 1997, with slight tweaks to the concept along the way (and a rather dubious one in which the book became about an underground supervillain fight club). After Civil War, they became a team of unreformed supervillains on tight, Norman Osborn-controlled leashes. After Siege, they became Luke Cage’s team of reformed baddies. And after A vs. X, they became the Red Hulk’s team of anti-heroes.

Read this: “Avengers Under Siege” by Roger Stern and John Buscema (Avengers #270-276), the 1986 storyline in which the Masters trash Avengers Mansion. Also read Busiek and Bagley’s original run on Thunderbolts.

Watch that: Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, which adapted a number of Masters of Evil stories, including “Avengers Under Siege.”

Dan Grote’s new novel, Magic Pier, is available however you get your books online. He has been writing for The Matt Signal since 2014. He and Matt have been friends since the days when making it to issue 25 guaranteed you a foil cover.

5 Reasons You Should Care About … Gorilla Grodd

Contrary to what the show would have you believe, The Flash’s biggest long-game tease isn’t about the murder of Barry’s parents or time travel or Harrison Wells revealing himself as the Reverse Flash.

In the very first episode of the CW series, as the camera pans through the wreckage of STAR Labs after the particle accelerator explosion, we see an empty, open cage with a sign on it that says, simply, “Grodd.” That was when I knew I was going to like that show.

Since then, we’ve seen mostly brief glimpses – a hand here, a body cast in shadow there – until the most recent episode, when Wells sicced Grodd on Mr. Krabs General Eiling, revealing the 800-pound telepathic, talking gorilla in the room.

There’s a certain amount of ridiculous to the Flash’s rogues gallery. There’s nothing edgy about names like Captain Cold or Weather Wizard or Professor Zoom. The best thing to do is lean into it and accept them for what they are, little slivers of the Silver Age that, for whatever reason, stood the test of time. And it really doesn’t get more Silver Age Flash Villain than a talking gorilla who believes himself superior to man, uses a mind-control helmet and constantly tries to dominate the human race.

So here’s a love letter to comics’ greatest sinister simian.

The basics: Grodd was created by John Broome and Carmine Infantino and first appeared in The Flash #106 in 1959.

1. He’s from a city of gorillas: Gorilla Grodd is from a village in Africa called Gorilla City, which is inhabited by hyperintelligent gorillas. They got that way after a radioactive meteor alien spacecraft crash-landed into their village.

2. Did I mention he’s got mind-control powers? Though all the gorillas in Gorilla City were supersmart, only two, Grodd and Solivar, are telepathic and telekinetic. It was Solivar who alerted the Flash to Grodd’s villainy, leading to decades of speedster-on-simian matchups.

3. The Rogues are his fault: Grodd first caused some of the Flash’s other villains to team up, breaking them out of jail to distract the speedster during a story in which Grodd’s brain had been transferred to that of a zoo gorilla named Freddy.

4. “He’s made no fewer than 18 attempts to wipe humanity from the Earth.” This fact, I confess, is from Wikipedia, and could be outdated or completely made up. But I do like the idea that someone’s keeping count. Does pale in comparison to the number of times Pinky and the Brain have tried to take over the world, though.

5. He killed his father and ate his brain: According to Grodd’s New 52 origin, when Grodd came of age, he challenged his father for control of Gorilla City, impaled him on his horned helmet and celebrated by eating his brain to consume all his knowledge and memories, because, y’know, that’s how that works. He later leads an invasion of Central City and gains access to the Speed Force.

Read this: The New 52 Flash Vol. 3: Gorilla Warfare, by Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato

Watch that: It’s a tie. Justice League Unlimited sees Grodd set up the Legion of Doom as a supervillain co-op in which he gets a cut of the profits of any and all nefarious deeds and ends up fighting with Lex Luthor for control of the operation (and tacitly is sleeping with a human witch). For a more light-hearted take, check out Batman: The Brave and the Bold, which is the perfect example of a show leaning in to the ridiculousness of the Silver Age. Grodd first appears in episode 2 of the series, in which he turns Batman into a gorilla.

Dan Grote’s new novel, Magic Pier, is available however you get your books online. He has been writing for The Matt Signal since 2014. He and Matt have been friends since the days when making it to issue 25 guaranteed you a foil cover.

15 Reasons You Should Care About … POYO

SPOILER if you haven’t been keeping up with Chew!

If you have been keeping up with the Image series by John Layman and Rob Guillory, then you, like us, are likely in mourning over the apparent death of Poyo, the cyborg luchador rooster strategically employed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to kill and cluck things up as is necessary.

Poyo’s side adventures in Chew are the stuff of legend, and in fact at one point take place in a fantasy world. The double-page spreads of Poyo fighting horrific mash-up monsters are one of the best gags in a book filled with them.

So in tribute to the robot-eyed rooster, here’s every badass thing Poyo ever did.

Issue 8: First appearance. Poyo at this point is just a normal luchador rooster caged by cockfighting gangsters on the island of Yamapalu. FDA Agent Tony Chu – on the island investigating a mysterious fruit that tastes like chicken – rescues Poyo along with the island’s chief of police, who in turn steals the bird.

Issue 12: Ex-Chief Kulolo is found near-fatally beaten in an alley, Poyo stolen by a cockfight organizer named Butcher. Says perennial FDA informant D-Bear: “Listen, I seen Poyo fight. That f----- bird is a demon. A demon.” Chu frees Poyo from his cage, and the bird in turn claws and pecks out the eyes of his captors. “Told you, yo. A demon.”

Issue 18: Poyo is unleashed during a mission for the USDA, which pairs cartoonishly busty humans with cybernetically enhanced animals. Poyo stays hidden in a crate until such time as he is needed, at which point he proceeds to do what he does best – peck and claw the faces of the enemy, in this case a North Korean military analog. When a general appears to shoot him to death, Poyo gets up, leaps at him and tears out his heart with his beak. Chu describes Poyo as “Concentrated mayhem. Feathers, rage and hate.” Or, as a narration box puts it, “Poyo is just really, really badass.”

Issue 25: Poyo, the USDA’s “only agent with a 100% mission success rate,” is teamed up with Chu’s then-ex-partner John Colby, who at this point was working for the USDA while Chu had literally been busted down to meter maid.

Secret Agent Poyo one-shot: A flashback shows how the USDA gave Poyo his cybernetic bits. It also tells the story of how Poyo defeated the legions of Hell and Satan himself before being brought back to life because, as Satan puts it, “That is one badass motherf----- bird.” It is in this one-shot that the legend of Poyo starts to become a series of epic adventures against forces even stranger than those confronted by Chu and his human allies, such as the Irradiated Zookeeper’s Revenge, the Viltrumite Interstellar Mustache Wars, Ghenghis Condor and his Mutant Mongol Tyrano-Riders, and Icons Affiliated, which apparently was that time he teamed up with ’90s Image characters such as Spawn, Savage Dragon, Witchblade and Shadowhawk. The one-shot’s main story, however, is about Poyo working with the British government to take down a mad scientist who’s found a way to make it rain livestock. Poyo gets zapped by Dr. Regenbogen’s device, finds himself falling from the sky, meets a cute chicken on the way down who gets zapped by lightning, turns his cybernetic wing into rocket thrusters and sets a course right for Regenbogen’s head, which explodes upon impact. After Poyo gets up, his human British partner declares, “Yeah, f---ers, POYO!!!”

Issue 28: Bites off Chu’s sister’s index finger for getting cutesy with him. Takes out a squad of E.G.G. terrorists, rending arms, eyes, ears and jaws.

Issue 29: The first of the, “Hey, where’s Poyo?” double-page spreads: “Terror in Tokyo: Poyo vs. Mecha-Turducken!”

Issue 33: “Hey, where’s Poyo?” – “Antarctic Annihilation: Poyo vs. Pengthulu!” (Imagine a red-eyed penguin with the head and tentacles of an octopus, and its many, many children)

Issue 36: “Hey, where’s Poyo?” – “Grocery Grotesquery: Poyo vs. Mutant Corn and Superfish!” (Why, yes, it is an ear of corn with rock-hard biceps and a fish that shoots laser beams from its eyes)

Issue 41: “Hey, where’s Poyo?” – “Eve of Extinction: Poyo vs. Unisaurus Rex!” (Possibly my favorite of the double-pagers, a pink T-rex with a yellow-and-pink Mohawk, a unicorn horn and a My Little Pony tail that roars rainbows)

Issue 42: “Hey, where’s Poyo?” – “Maritime Malice: Poyo vs. the Quacken!” (Half-duck, half-squid that dresses like Donald Duck, who fights alongside his three nephews and his gold-hoarding uncle, a woo-woo!)

Warrior Chicken Poyo one-shot: Poyo is transported to a fantasy dimension to help thwart an evil wizard who can turn vegetables into monsters. In this realm, he teams up with many a knockoff of the Fellowship of the Ring and Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. Poyo defeats the wizard by jamming himself down the wizard’s throat and ripping out his skeleton from the inside. For his heroics, Poyo is made king of the land, but the rooster they see before him is only a lookalike, for the real Poyo is needed “Wherever there is evil. Or injustice. Or just some rotten sonofabitch needin’ his f----- ass beat.”

Issue 43: “Hey, where’s Poyo?” – “Parisian Peril: Poyo vs. Escargoat!” (Half-snail, half-goat. Nuff said)

Issue 44: “Hey, where’s Poyo?” – “Twin terrors: Poyo vs. Oyop!” (A metal plate on Oyop reads, “Property of Opposite World! In dog we trust!!”)

Issue 45: Colby takes Poyo out for drinks after a fight with Chu. Upon being tossed from the bar, Colby looks into Poyo’s eyes … and snaps the bird’s neck for reasons as yet revealed. Live badass, die badass.

Dan Grote’s new novel, Magic Pier, is available however you get your books online. He has been writing for The Matt Signal since 2014. He and Matt have been friends since the days when making it to issue 25 guaranteed you a foil cover.

5 Reasons You Should Care About … Daisy Johnson

Fresh off an Agent Carter-induced winter hiatus, Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD is back with new episodes tonight.

When we last left Phil Coulson’s team, Agent Skye had gone through terrigenesis and was revealed to be an Inhuman, gibing with the new Marvel philosophy in which dormant Inhumans are everywhere and just need to be woken up so the Marvel Cinematic Universe can have its own mutants.

We also learned that Skye – who as an Inhuman has earthquake powers – is the MCU version of Daisy Johnson, a character who has existed in the comics since 2004 and had key roles in several major events, including the Secret War (that’s War, singular) and Secret Invasion.

Here are some more things you may not have known about Agent Skye, if that is her real name, which it isn’t:

She’s the daughter of a supervillain: Daisy’s dad is Mr. Hyde, a superstrong, supersmart, supercrazy baddie who has bedeviled Marvel heroes from Thor to Captain America to Daredevil to Spider-Man. Hyde was created by Stan Lee and Don Heck and first appeared in 1963’s Journey Into Mystery #99, the book that would become The Mighty Thor. Hyde was played on Agents of SHIELD by Kyle MacLachlan, star of Dune, Twin Peaks, Portlandia and other things relevant to your interests. According to the comics, Hyde mucked with his genetic makeup so much that he ended up passing powers on to his daughter, whose mother was a prostitute.

She once fought on a team made up of the children of supervillains: Fury’s Team White, featured in the book Secret Warriors, consists of Johnson and the children of Ares, the god of War; Doctor Druid, a former Avenger; the Griffin; the Phantom Rider; and the Absorbing Man. A seventh member, Eden Fesi, is the protégé of Gateway, the X-Men’s teleportation buddy from their days in the Australian Outback.

She’s pretty high up on the SHIELD clearance scale: Johnson first appeared in 2004’s Secret War #2 as an agent of original-recipe Nick Fury during a covert op against the Latverian government. She has Level 10 security clearance within SHIELD, a classification only otherwise afforded to Fury himself and the Black Widow. For a time, she ends up leading the organization, between stints by Maria Hill.

She’s taken down Wolverine and Magneto: During Secret War, when a berserker Wolverine tried to attack Nick Fury, Johnson exploded his heart with a mini-earthquake. Obviously, he got better. Later, in New Avengers Vol. 1 #20, she did the same thing to Magneto’s brain, rendering him unconscious.

She’s not in the current SHIELD comic: At least not in the first three issues, anyway. Writer Mark Waid’s book straddles the worlds of the TV show and the comics, working Agents Coulson, May, Fitz and Simmons (and Fitz’s monkey OS) into monthly standalone stories featuring the other denizens of the 616. Fitting all that Daisy/Skye baggage into a book like that probably isn’t the best idea. Still a very enjoyable read, though.

Read this: Secret Warriors #1-28 by Brian Michael Bendis, Jonathan Hickman and Stefano Caselli.

Watch that: Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD, Tuesdays on ABC.

Dan Grote’s new novel, Magic Pier, is available however you get your books online. He has been writing for The Matt Signal since 2014. He and Matt have been friends since the days when making it to issue 25 guaranteed you a foil cover.

27 Reasons You Should Care About... Agent 355

As Black History Month transitions into Women's History Month, I can't think of a better character to write about than all-time badass Agent 255 from Brian K. Vaughan's most-excellent Y the Last Man. Three-Fifty served as Yorick Brown's protector and traveling companion on his journey across the globe in search of his girlfriend and a way to reverse the near-extinction of the Y chromosome. Along the way, she dropped a lot of fools. A lot. In honor of that, rather than list just five reasons why 355 is awesome, here's all of the reasons.

Issue 1: Has no problem capping mofos from the get-go, killing Jordanian terrorists in the very first issue.

Issue 3: Hijacks a trash truck, gate-crashes the White House, and defuses a gunfight between legislators holed up at the White House and the widows of Republican congressmen who demand to succeed their husbands (Vaughn's eye for sorting out the logistics of a world dominated by women is astounding).

Issue 4: Saves Yorick's life for the first time, vs the Daughters of the Amazon.

Issue 6: Beats up two boxcar butches trying to extort Yorick, 355, and Dr. Alison Mann aboard a train bound for California. Throws Mann and herself from the train after the extortionists throw Yorick.

Issue 7: Gives Mann a gun, tells Mann to leave her bleeding in a field to find Yorick.

Issue 11: Fights a Russian agent atop a moving train.

Issue 13: Shoots an Israeli solider in the head, runs through gunfire and tackles another, shoots that one point black with the soldier's own gun.

Issue 14: Arranges a deal with Alter, the Israeli military leader, for Yorick in exchange for two astronauts headed back to Earth from the International Space Station. Threatens Natalya, the Russian agent they have befriended, to make it look convincing. Claims to be in love with Yorick (Or is she really?) to sweeten her case. Never has any intentions of making the trade.

Issue 18: The issue opens in media res with 355, Yorick, and Dr. Mann riding ATVs away from shooting cowgirls. At one point, 355 threatens to rip off Yorick's penis with a claw hammer.

Issue 22: Infiltrates the Sons of Arizona militia camp to rescue Dr. Mann, sneaks up on Dr. Mann's interrogator/torturer, knocks her out with a hypodermic needle, takes out another militawoman's eye with her baton.

Issue 23: Shoots another militiawoman up the jaw, and their leader right in the forehead.

Issue 27: Lets Yorick disguise himself as a mascot and heckle a basketball game as a birthday present. Sets up two members of the Setauket Ring to get hit by a San Francisco trolley.

Issue 28: Setauket Ring leader Anna Strong, arranging a MacGuffin swap: "You know where Candlestick Park is, yes?" 355: "Yeah, it's at the croner of f*** you and go to hell."

Issue 29: Finds out the Setauket Ring killed her friend, charges them as they fire at her, positions herself so one Setauket gets shot in the face by the other’s gun, then shoots the second Setauket in the face with the dead one’s gun. Then cracks their leader’s neck with her bare hands.

Issue 31: Gets in a gun, baton and sword fight with Toyota, the ninja assassin hired by Dr. Mann’s father to steal Ampersand the monkey, on the Golden Gate Bridge. Survives getting cut by Toyota’s sword.

Issue 32: Slaps the gun out of a ship crew-woman’s hand with a crowbar, kicks her in the stomach. Also, 355 and Dr. Mann … um … exchange insurance info.

Issue 34: Picks a brig lock with knitting needles. Uses the same needle to knife the ship captain in the shoulder, then cracks her across the skull with her own rifle.

Issue 37: Beats up a bunch of Australian junkies, knocks one into a glass display case.

Issue 38: In a flashback to one of her first missions with the Culper Ring, shoots up a band of Eritrean soldiers. Plunges off the balcony of an Australian high-rise with a tabloid journalist who took photos of a naked Yorick.

Issue 39: Grabs a balcony railing on a lower floor and pulls herself and said journalist to safety. Later socks her in the jaw, grabs her by the throat and knees her in the stomach.

Issue 41: In a flashback to her adolescence as an orphan, takes a baseball bat to two white teen boys who call her a bunch of racial slurs. Later, as a young Culper Ring agent, rips out the throat of her former mentor with her bare teeth to thwart an assassination attempt on President Clinton.

Issue 43: 355: “I’ll never understand your obsession with Presley. Heartbreak Hotel? That s--- is unlistenable.” Y: “It’s not his songs, it’s his life. I just think he’s interesting.” 355: “No, the Mata Hari is interesting. Elvis is nothing but pills and co-opting black music.”

Issue 45: With an ex-Japanese cop named You, pulls a The Raid-style assault on the hotel stronghold of a former Canadian pop star turned Yakuza lord in search of Ampersand. Gets caught after her gun runs out of bullets, just as she was about to shoot an armed girl.

Issue 50: Steals an ambulance to get Dr. Mann, who is sick and bleeding, to her mother.

Issue 51: Picks herself out of handcuffs, charges Toyota through a high-rise window. The two then engage in a naginta duel on a rooftop. 355 jams the busted-off end of a naginta into the side of Toyota’s neck, killing her, but not before taking the blade end in the stomach. It doesn’t kill her, but it severs her fallopian tubes, meaning she can’t bear children if the effects of the plague are ever reversed.

Issue 55: Beats up some Russian guards assigned to Lenin’s body, which is being moved by train, after the guards search 355 and Yorick and find Yorick’s “F--- Communism” lighter.

Issue 58: Gets shot through the head by an Israeli sniper right after confessing to Yorick her real name. Live badass, die badass. 

Dan Grote’s new novel, Magic Pier, is available however you get your books online. He has been writing for The Matt Signal since 2014. He and Matt have been friends since the days when making it to issue 25 guaranteed you a foil cover.

5 Reasons You Should Care About … Mr. Terrific

One of the shows I’ve enjoyed watching with my Batman-obsessed son is Justice League Unlimited, the DC animated series in which the league opens its ranks to seemingly every hero in the universe. The show introduced me to a number of characters I’d never heard of, being a fairly staunch Marvel reader. Chief among those new characters was Mr. Terrific, who stood out to me both because of his sweet black, white and red leather jacket and the fact that he was doing Martian Manhunter’s job. This being Black History Month, Matt and I wanted to make an effort to spotlight African-American characters and creators, so I thought I’d focus on someone I wanted to know more about personally.

Michael Holt, the second Mr. Terrific, was created by John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake and first appeared in 1997’s Spectre Vol. 3, #54.

1. He’s the perfect man, literally: Michael Holt describes himself as the third smartest person in the world (after Bruce Wayne and Lex Luthor) and says he has a “natural aptitude for having natural aptitudes.” He is a hero in the Batman mold, in that he has no powers and has to rely on his mental prowess – he was a child genius and has 14 Ph.D.’s – and natural athleticism – he’s an Olympic decathlete – to foil fiendish fools. Terrific uses tech called T-spheres that can help him fly, operate as cameras, shoot lasers and do a bunch of other cool stuff. His T-shaped mask makes him invisible to technology, except – for some reason – Red Tornado. Holt once owned a tech company but sold it to Wayne.

2. He’s one of the DCU’s premier atheists: Holt’s wife and unborn child were killed in a car accident that occurred after he and his wife had gotten into an argument about the value of religion – she believed in God, he didn’t. Their deaths drove him to thoughts of suicide. Ironically, it was the spirit of God’s vengeance – the Spectre – that convinced him to become a superhero. In the "Thy Kingdom Come" story in JSA, it is revealed that the Michael Holt of pre-Crisis Earth-2 is a priest.

3. He’s the second Mr. Terrific: The Spectre inspired Holt to take up the Terrific mantle from the Golden Age Mr. Terrific, Terry Sloane, who first appeared in 1942’s Sensation Comics #1 and was created by Charles Reizenstein and Everett E. Hibbard. Like Holt, Sloane was an Olympic-level athlete and black belt, a business leader, and a genius from a young age with a photographic memory. The “Fair Play” on Holt’s jacket is inspired by Sloane’s costume, though that’s about the only similarity between the two men’s wardrobes. In fact, Sloane’s duds more closely resemble that of Thor villain the Wrecker. Holt has twice traveled back in time to fight alongside Sloane.

4. He chaired the JSA: Like his predecessor, Holt came up through the Justice Society of America. He ends up becoming its chairman after a power struggle between Hawkman and Sand. He remained chairman until the team broke up after Infinite Crisis. He also served as the White King of the Hellfire Club, er, the U.N. intelligence agency Checkmate.

5. He can fill in for Martian Manhunter in a pinch: In the final season of Justice League Unlimited, Mr. Terrific replaced J’onn J’onzz as the team’s coordinator, the one responsible for choosing which heroes face which crisis. And he did it without getting cookie crumbs all over the Watchtower’s computer consoles.

Read this: Mr. Terrific #1-8, one of the first New 52 series to be canceled, by Eric Wallace and Roger Robinson.

Watch that: Justice League Unlimited, particularly the last season.

Dan Grote’s new novel, Magic Pier, is available however you get your books online. He has been writing for The Matt Signal since 2014. He and Matt have been friends since the days when making it to issue 25 guaranteed you a foil cover.

5 Reasons You Should Care About … Monica Rambeau

When I think about Avengers who have gotten a raw deal over the years, Monica Rambeau comes to mind pretty quickly. She’s easily one of the most powerful members the team’s ever had, plus she even led them for a time. But she hasn’t appeared in any iteration of the Avengers cartoons, and there have been no reported plans to incorporate her into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Heck, she’s never even had a codename someone else hasn’t tried to steal. This February, we here at the Matt Signal think it’s time Monica got some lovin’.

The Basics:

Rambeau was created by Roger Stern and John Romita Jr. and first appeared in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #16 in 1982. Her powers – gained through exposure to extradimensional energy – allow her to convert her body into any form of energy within the electromagnetic spectrum, from electricity to gamma rays.

The Reasons:

1. She’s a better representative of New Orleans than Gambit: Rambeau grew up in N’Awlins and went on to become a member of the city police department’s Harbor Patrol, before she became a superhero. She was later a captain for a shipping company. After Hurricane Katrina, she, Blade, Black Panther, Luke Cage and Dr. Voodoo (Brother Voodoo was Sorcerer Supreme for a time) teamed up to fight vampires in her hometown.

2. She was Captain Marvel for most of the 1980s: Rambeau was the second Marvel character to take the codename of Captain Marvel (not including DC’s Billy Batson). The original captain, Mar-Vell, died of cancer in 1982. Many more Captains Marvel followed, including the original captain’s son, Genis-Vell; his sister, Phylla-Vell; a Skrull imposter; Noh-Varr, aka Marvel Boy; and the current captain, Carol Danvers.

3. She’s had a few other codenames: Rambeau ceded the Captain Marvel name once Genis-Vell began superheroing in the 1990s. She subsequently went by Photon (1996), Pulsar (2005) and Spectrum (2013), her current codename in the book Captain America and the Mighty Avengers. She changed her name from Photon to Pulsar after Genis-Vell decided to change his codename from Captain Marvel to Photon, because the son of Mar-Vell’s powers apparently included the ability to blow up Rambeau’s spot. Additionally, during a post-Heroes Return Avengers story in which the sorceress Morgan Le Fay warps reality, Rambeau ends up doing Le Fay’s bidding under the name Daystar.

4. She once led the Avengers: Rambeau appeared in the original run of Avengers between issues #222 and #347, and was the first female African-American member of the team. In issue #279, she takes over leadership of the team from the Wasp, a reign that lasts until she fries herself touching the ocean while in an electrical state. This happened during a battle with a giant sea beast called Leviathan (There’s that name again!). Monica’s memories of leading Earth’s Mightiest Heroes became a point of annoyance among her teammates in Warren Ellis’ brilliant Nextwave series.

5. She was the Miranda in a Marvel attempt at Sex and the City: Rambeau shared a four-issue Marvel Divas series with Spider-Man ally Black Cat, Golden Age romance-book character-turned-superhero Hellcat, and New Warrior Firestar. Around this time Monica was dating Brother Voodoo and was getting over a crush on Black Panther, who’d recently married the X-Men’s Storm.

Read this: Nextwave, Agents of H.A.T.E. #1-12 by Warren Ellis and Stuart Immomen, in which a group of random heroes (including Boom-Boom, Elsa Bloodstone, Machine Man and “The Captain”) are recruited for a SHIELDish agency run by a man named Dirk Anger (get it?) to stop weird weapons of mass destruction. Also Fin Fang Foom tries to stick Boom-Boom down his pants.

Watch that: Rambeau has never appeared in an animated or live-action Marvel property.


Dan Grote has been a Matt Signal contributor since 2014 and friends with Matt since there were four Supermen and two Psylockes. His two novels, My Evil Twin and I and Of Robots, God and Government, are available on Amazon.

5 Reasons You Should Care About... The Purple Man

Earlier this week, it was reported that David Tennant, the 10th Doctor himself, has been cast as Zebediah Killgrave, aka the Purple Man, in A.K.A. Jessica Jones, Marvel’s second Netflix series, after Daredevil.
The Purple Man is the perfect villain for a series starring Jessica Jones, to be played by Krysten Ritter (Breaking Bad, Veronica Mars). In Brian Michael Bendis’ Alias series (not to be confused with the 2001-06 ABC series), Killgrave tortured Jessica and used his mind-control powers to force her to live with him and do his bidding. This led to her being ordered to kill Daredevil and getting beaten up by the Avengers before they realized she was brainwashed.

Before the series is made available for streaming later this year, here’s a quick study in Purple:

1. He’s an OG Daredevil villain: The Purple Man was created by Stan Lee and Joe Orlando and first appeared in Daredevil #4, way back in 1964. And just like the Man Without Fear, Killgrave’s powers and purpleness were the result of a chemical accident.

2. He’s got beef with the whole Jones family: At the end of Bendis’ New Avengers #2, amid the breakout at the Raft supervillain prison, Killgrave tries to take control of Jones’ boyfriend/father of her child, Luke Cage (“Do me a favor. Kill all these other ‘hero’ friends of yours, and then kill yourself”). However, Purple’s caretakers put drugs in his food that negated his mind-control powers. So instead, Cage starts punching the crap out of him, stopping only because Captain America ordered him to.

3. He once helped Dr. Doom enslave the world: In the graphic novel Emporer Doom by David Michelinie and Bob Hall, Doom hooks Killgrave up to a machine that allows him to control every mind on Earth. The plan is thwarted by Wonder Man, who snaps out of it due to time spent in a sensory deprivation tank.

4. He was in one of the last episodes of the ’90s X-Men cartoon: In the Season 5 episode “No Man Is an Island,” Cyclops takes a sabbatical from the team and returns to the orphanage where he grew up, only to find it being funded by Killgrave, who hides his purpleness under the same makeup used by shows filmed in HD. Killgrave later appeared on Disney XD’s Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, voiced by Brent Spiner (Star Trek: The Next Generation).

5. His kids are every bit as messed up:  The latest volume of Daredevil reveals Killgrave has a number of Purple Children, born of different women he’d mind-controlled over the years but with the same skin color and power set. The children united against their father and used their powers to make him walk in front of a moving train, and went on to wreak havoc in DD’s new home of San Francisco, stealing a police car and taking over an arcade. They’re not all bad though: Killgrave’s daughter Kara was a member of Alpha Flight who went by the codename Persuasion.

Read this: Alias #1-28 by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Gaydos

Watch that: Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes Season 2, Episode 19: “Emperor Stark”

5 Reasons You Should Care about... Vixen

The CW recently announced it was developing an animated series about the DC superhero Vixen for its Web-content hub, CW Seed. The series would be in the same continuity as its live-action Arrow and Flash series. In related news, the CW is considering adding a third live-action DC show, possibly starring Brandon Routh (Superman Returns, Zack & Miri Make a Porno) as the Atom. Which means my hopes for an Ambush Bug show remain a dream deferred.

Anyway, in the pantheon of DC’s super friends, Vixen isn’t exactly Big 7. So here’s a few fun facts and some recommended media consumption.

She’s kinda like Shazam for animals: When Billy Batson yells Shazam, he inherits the powers of the ancient gods. When Mari Jiwe McCabe touches the Tantu totem around her neck, she channels the powers of any number of animals, from the mass of an elephant to the speed of a cheetah to the regenerative abilities of lizards and worms.

Her first appearance was shelved for three years: Vixen, created by Gerry Conway and Bob Oskner, was to be DC’s first major black female superhero and was to start off in her own series in 1978. Her title and many others fell victim to a wave of cancellations known as the DC Implosion, and that series never saw the rusty metal of a spinner rack. So her first appearance became 1981’s Action Comics #521.

She’s been a member of the Justice League: Vixen joined the league in the mid-1980s, when the team featured an obscure lineup that included Aquaman, Martian Manhunter, Zatanna, the Elongated Man, Gypsy, Vibe and Steel. Conway, Vixen’s creator, was responsible for this era. She also featured in a post-Infinite Crisis league that included Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), Black Canary, Red Arrow, Red Tornado, Hawkgirl and Black Lightning. Vixen would at one point lead the team. In the New 52, Vixen was a starter member of the since-canceled Justice League International.

She’s been a member of the Suicide Squad: Thanks to the upcoming movie no longer starring Tom Hardy, the Suicide Squad is like Hansel – so hot right now. Vixen joined the team of mostly villains during the original John Ostrander run after some of her modeling colleagues were killed by drug smugglers. She briefly dated one of the squad’s members, Bronze Tiger.

She’s dated Green Lantern: In Justice League Unlimited, Mari was involved with Green Lantern John Stewart. One of the show’s running subplots was a love triangle among Vixen, Stewart and Hawkgirl, Stewart’s previous girlfriend. That triangle became a square when Hawkman arrived on the scene.

Read this: Vixen: Return of the Lion, a five-issue 2008 miniseries written by G. Willow Wilson (Ms. Marvel).

Watch that: Justice League Unlimited. Vixen appeared in five episodes of the 2004-06 series, voiced by Gina Torres (Firefly). Episodes include “Grudge Match,” in which female superheroes including Vixen, Hawkgirl, Huntress, Black Canary and Wonder Woman are mind-controlled into doing battle for the delight of supervillains; and “Ancient History,” in which the Shadow Thief reveals Hawkman and Hawkgirl to have been lovers in a past life, only for past-Hawkgirl to have had an affair with past-Stewart.

Dan Grote has been a Matt Signal contributor since 2014 and friends with Matt since there were four Supermen and two Psylockes. His two novels, My Evil Twin and I and Of Robots, God and Government, are available on Amazon.