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As anyone who has looked at a Marvel Comics cover these past few months know, the Marvel Universe turns 70 years old this year. So over the next 10 months I'm going to be doing some top seven lists covering various topics. This month in honor of April Fool's Day: Marvel's 7 biggest bloopers.
- "Err, What's your name again?" Back in the Silver Age many background characters had the spelling of their names mixed up because writers (including Stan Lee) forgot what names were used and didn't have copies of their issues handy. The most notable of these is Liz Allen, Peter Parker's first crush who occasionally got called Liz Allan or Liz Alan depending on Stan the Man's memory. What most people don't know is that for a few panels of some issues of some back ups in Amazing Spider-Man, Stan manages to forget Peter Parker's last name. He ends up being Peter Palmer for a page or two but back to Parker in the same story.
- "No really, what's your name?" Another name mix up occurs in one of Roy Thomas's Uncanny X-Men. When Warren, Jean and Bobby go into the caverns to chase after Mole Man, both Jean and Bobby repeatedly call Angel by Scott's name.
- "I've forgotten if they're green or if they're blue" Artists occasionally get colors wrong. Jean Grey has been shown with both green or blue eyes. Kitty Pryde's have gone from brown to blue and back in same issue. However the funniest of these errors was when the Marvel Handbooks inverted the image of Nick Fury so that the patch was over the wrong eye.
- "You're Her Only hope..." in the same issue of Amazing Spider-Man that introduces the Lizard, Flash Thompson calls Peter a coward for refusing to give a blood sample for a transfusion Aunt May needs. He says he may be Aunt May's last hope. Now, since May and Peter share the same last name that means that they have no genetic relationship. Flash is a moron and wouldn't know that meant that his own blood had (statistically speaking) just as much a chance of being May's match as Peter's did, but May's doctor should have. Only he too urges Peter to give up some of his blood, which he ultimately does.
- "Those numbers don't add up" If one is to believe the comics code of the 1960's, there was no premarital sex in the Marvel Universe. So explain why Sue announces she's pregnant shortly after her wedding then gives birth twelve issues later? Throughout that year, Ben and Johnny keep complaining about how Reed has gotten since he got married "a couple of weeks ago." In story time, no more than four months could have passed. Shouldn't Reed have been more worried about Franklin's health for reason other than excess cosmic radiation in his blood? Maybe he should have worried that Sue had secretly married and divorced Namor sometime about five months prior? (Or worse yet, Ben or Doom?)
- "Kitty's Cheeseburger" Religion is a touchy subject in most mainstream comics though in Kitty's case, her Jewish heritage was firmly established. While in some areas she's not so strict (she dated Colossus after all) but she stuck very closely to dietary laws out of respect for her late grandmother. So why, in an otherwise fantastic issue of New Mutants, did Kitty's tray clearly have a cheeseburger on it? Other issues have shown Kitty eating pepperoni pizza. I'm not going to go near the reappearing/disappearing tattoos either..
- "Christmas comes but Twice a Year" One thing Chris Claremont is noted for is long story arcs. Sometimes really, really long arcs that take place over a brief period of time. A few months before the Brood War they did a Christmas story. Then immediately after the Brood story they did another one. Both taking place on or around Christmas Day. The thing is, that while the Brood Invasion/Brood Space War takes up a quarter of one volume of Essentials and big chunk of the one following it, the story itself takes place over roughly a four to five week period of time.
Be here next time for 7 Great Marvel Stories.
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