Let’s suppose you hear from a Very Reliable Source that a new miniseries is scheduled; it will be a joint effort from Marvel and DC. It will feature the following characters, all of whom have previously appeared in other comic books over the last umpteen years, using the same colorful aliases they will be using in this special crossover event. You are even told that these key characters will be split up into two groups, which we shall call "Blue Team" and "Gold Team" for the sake of argument.

Blue Team
Ant-Man, Aurora, Black Widow, Blink, Diablo, Electro, Gladiator, Jolt, Karma, Legion, Lionheart, The Lizard, Professor X, The Puppet Master, Magneto, Mockingbird, The Masked Marauder, Mysterio, The Vulture, The Wasp, Yellowjacket.

Gold Team
Bane, The Bat, The Creeper, Doctor Destiny, El Diablo, Huntress, Ice, Impulse, Jade, Manhunter, Obsidian, Oracle, Rainmaker, Raven, Ravager, Robotman, Spoiler, Titano, Voodoo, Witchfire, Zealot.

Given all of the above, are you safe in assuming that the Marvel contingent will be the Blue Team, and the characters representing DC will be clumped together on the Gold Team?

No!

It could just as easily be the other way around! Or each team could comprise a mixture of Marvel and DC character concepts! Just because a comic book has "Professor X" in it doesn't mean the user of that name has anything to do with the X-Men, and just because a villain calls himself "Bane" doesn't mean he once broke Batman's back!

A year ago I saw someone on DC’s own discussion forums asking for advice. He wanted to write and post a fanfic featuring what I gathered was an original character, although the story would be set in the DCU, but the heroic alias he had in mind was one which he realized DC has already used from time to time (not for anyone who ever had his own title, though). The fan wanted advice on whether he’d get in trouble for copyright infringement if he stuck with the name he wanted to use.

I figured he didn’t really need to worry. First, because nobody can copyright a name all by itself; second, because DC doesn’t even visibly object to the existence of thousands of online fanfics that obviously are using their distinctive characters (instead of just recycling the occasional name for a new user); and third, because if frequently swiping colorful names for their new characters from old characters at Marvel is good enough for DC (and vice versa), then swiping names from both companies for our new characters certainly ought to be good enough for us common folk!

When I was a kid, I used to wonder how the various writers at DC and Marvel managed to keep coming up with nifty new "superhero names" or "supervillain names" that nobody had ever thought to use before. Now I know better. They don’t necessarily sweat blood in the effort to come up with new aliases in the superhero genre! Often, they just dust off and recycle old names, from their own company’s past continuity or a rival’s, if they figure they can get away with it!

When I started soliciting suggestions for the first draft of this list in early 2007, I could think of a few names offhand ("Captain Marvel" was an easy one), and I figured there were more duplications I had seen over the years but wasn't immediately remembering, and probably several others involving characters I’d never heard of. I estimated I might end up with 30 "shared aliases" after my fellow fans had weighed in.

Live and learn! A week later, thanks to the help I received, my First Draft actually listed 166 names. Several months later, incorporating new suggestions from my fellow fans along with others I had dug up on my own, I had 303 in the Second Draft. A year after that, I figured I had 416 in the Third Draft. Now, almost a year later, I figure I'm up to 653 "aliases" which both Marvel and DC have used for characters (or someone else used them at another company, and then Marvel or DC later added those characters to their collections, somehow).

I dare to hope that I finally have most instances of "duplication" covered here. At any rate, I'll probably want the tally to get up to at least 750 before I bother releasing another draft. How long will that take? Beats me!

Over the years I've had to hammer out some rules of thumb regarding what counts and what doesn't for the purpose of this list. Let's run through those now, to save you the trouble of asking why I completely skipped over certain names.

Ground Rules

1. I’m not interested in characters who have been around so long that they are in the "public domain." For instance, DC and Marvel have both put their own spins on various characters from Norse Mythology, Graeco-Roman Mythology, Egyptian Mythology, etc. And they’ve both done stories featuring names from Arthurian Legend. But if they didn’t "create" those characters, then I’m not interesting in calling those cases of "duplication." (On the other hand, I made a possible exception for personifications of the concept of "Death" at both companies. I don’t see that the Marvel version or the Neil Gaiman version from "Sandman" were simply swiped from any single preexisting mythology.)

2. On the other hand, I am willing to list any names which both companies have swiped from mythological sources and then recycled for "new" character concepts who definitely are not "the original Andromeda of Greek Myth" (or whatever). Both DC and Marvel have, in fact, used the name "Andromeda" for female heroes.

3. I also ignore any cases where both companies have handled the same "licensed" characters at different times. Both DC and Marvel have published comic books set in the world of "Star Trek," for instance, but they didn't claim to have created the characters of the original TV series.

4. "Group names" don’t count unless individual members also demonstrate the habit of using that name or an obvious variation for themselves personally (as when a new member of the Green Lantern Corps starts calling himself "Green Lantern" as his heroic alias). Examples of what I don’t count: DC has had evil organizations with the names "Cyclops" and "Colossus," but I don’t count those as "duplicates" of the names of famous X-Men. Likewise, Marvel and DC each own characters who have used the name "Thunderbolt," but my entry for that alias does not mention Marvel’s team concept known as "the Thunderbolts," because each member of the team has used some other colorful alias for himself or herself.

5. After looking at the examples of "Dr. Doome" and "Dr. Doom," I decided that "pronunciation trumps spelling." If two names are obviously meant to be pronounced exactly the same way by English-speaking readers, then I’ll count them as "duplicate aliases" even if there are differences in how they are usually spelled and punctuated.

6. It appears that at least a few dozen members of Marvel’s group "The Elements of Doom" have been mentioned by name in the group’s published appearances. I believe it’s also been stated in dialogue that they include members named after the full periodic table; not just those members whose names have been mentioned in dialogue. So I’m assuming that any DC character named after a real chemical element has a namesake at Marvel. In cases where it doesn’t appear that such a character was ever mentioned by name, but implicitly is part of the group, I say "presumably one of the Elements of Doom" in the listing.

7. To keep the project down to a manageable size, I’m only counting characters who effectively are controlled by Marvel or DC; either because they were created at those companies or because they were created at some other company whose "character stable" later ended up under the thumb of Marvel or DC (whether by purchase or by some long-term licensing deal which is currently in force). Any other, completely independent company gets ignored. For instance: Marvel and DC have both used the alias "the Ghost" for one supervillain apiece. I list those villains below, but I don’t include any mention of Dark Horse’s vigilante heroine "Ghost," because neither DC nor Marvel has any control over her. Similarly, I ignored the Milestone and Impact characters in 2007, but I changed my mind for the Third Draft after I heard DC had acquired permission to integrate both sets into its standard continuity and see what happens. And I’ve decided to include a couple of cases of costumed characters from Alan Moore’s "Watchmen" who shared aliases with Marvel characters, although I’ve read that Alan Moore will regain full control of those characters if and when DC lets the trade paperback collection go out of print. (Hey, it could happen! It’s only been a couple of decades, after all!)

8. I ignore any characters who have only appeared in other media, such as TV shows, movies, regular novels, or games which adapted character concepts now controlled by DC or Marvel. However: If such characters debuted elsewhere and later appeared in comic books, that makes them fair game!

9. Defining the meaning of "alias" in this context has led me to some tricky decisions. I’m not interested in finding cases where both Marvel and DC have used such bland names as "John Smith" or "Mary Jones," regardless of whether those were the "real names" or "aliases" of the characters using them. On the other hand, I tend to include the more colorful names of Inhumans, Deviants, New Gods, and Metal Men (among others), even in cases where we are either told or led to believe that the exotic names being used may be the only names those characters have ever had. I suppose in some cases I’m settling for names that "look like a carefully chosen alias" even if they might not be. However, I’ve decided I’m not interested in such things as multiple uses of the names "Arak" and "Arion," because those just look too much like "real names" to me, even though I can't remember the last time I met anyone who had been named "Arak" or "Arion" by his parents.

10. Here are a few things I deliberately exclude from my list: "Atari Force" characters, because I don’t think DC owns them, and (as far as I know) they were never really integrated into the DCU. "Masters of the Universe" characters, for much the same reasons, although I know Superman did travel to Eternia and meet He-Man at least twice in the early 1980s. Amalgam characters, because they were not just "Marvel" or "DC," but deliberately swiping and merging elements of various characters owned by both companies.

11. If one character has normally called himself "Blade" and another frequently introduces himself as "The Blade" (insert any other word or phrase for "Blade" in that example), then I treat those as variants of the same alias, but I try to distinguish between those different usages in my listing for "Blade/The Blade." I'm sure I fail to make the correct distinctions on many occasions, partially because the online databases which I use for my research generally don't bother to mention whether each user of a certain name is or isn't in the habit of pronouncing the direct article ("The") when introducing himself by his colorful alias.

12. Some Doubtful Cases: I am currently working on the theory that the characters known as "Comet the Super-Horse" (Silver Age Superman continuity), "Neon the Unknown" (Golden Age hero), "Omega the Unknown" (1970s hero), and "Deathstroke the Terminator" (Slade Wilson) all used those complete strings as their preferred aliases; not just the first words of each string. Thus, none of those guys are mentioned below in listings for "Comet," "Neon," etc. I don’t list Tryco Slatterus under "Champion," either, because I believe that for millennia his full preferred alias was "Champion of the Universe."

Now, on to the main event!

THE MASTER LIST

Be warned: I don’t make any claim to tell you everything you could possibly need to know about any of these characters. Most of the time, I won’t even mention what their superpowers are (if any). Nor will I usually tell you which issue showed a certain character using a certain alias for the first time. And I usually don’t bother mentioning which company used a certain alias first. I always mention DC characters first, but only because "DC" precedes "Marvel" alphabetically! I provide as much data as I happen to feel the need to provide in any given case, and you’re welcome to do further research on your own time!

Acrobat/Acro-Bat
DC: Two users of "Acrobat"; both villains. One was a WWII-era villain who fought Judomaster and Tiger in the Charlton comics. One was a member of Amos Fortune's "Luck League" in one JLA story. "Acro-Bat" was the heroic alias used by a member of the Justice Experience until he and most of his team were killed back in the 1970s (according to a retcon in the 1990s); his daughter, Chase Cameron, grew up to be an agent of the DEO and had her own solo series "Chase" for a little while.
MARVEL: At least three users of "Acrobat" (one lived in the 19th Century and fought the Rawhide Kid).

Agent Axis
DC: Golden Age Nazi villain who fought the Boy Commandos; later reappeared in "modern times."
MARVEL: A WWII-era villain, retconned in during the 70s, who was somehow a merger of three Axis spies (one German, one Italian, one Japanese) into a single entity with the strength of three men.

Agent Orange
DC: Four users; one of them is a Wildstorm character.
MARVEL: Two users; one was Anjelica Jones in a "What If?" timeline.

Ajax
DC: The name Superman gave to one of his robot doubles in a Silver Age story because it was stronger than the rest of its kind; that robot's mind subsequently was transferred into a different body (called "Wonder-Man") by aliens; but soon died.
MARVEL: Several users.

Alchemist/The Alchemist
DC: At least two users of "The Alchemist" -- one of them was also known as Professor Zodiac (a Golden Age villain).
MARVEL: Two mutants have each used "Alchemist."

Alpha
DC: A former terrorist who appeared a few times in Cassandra Cain’s regular "Batgirl" title. In the title’s final story arc, Alpha seemed to have become very loyal to Cassandra -- but he hasn’t been heard from since that time, so don’t ask me if he’s currently "good" or "bad" or "dead" or what!
MARVEL: Several users.

Aluminum
DC: One of the second (and evil) team of Metal Men. Destroyed.
MARVEL: Presumably one of the Elements of Doom.

The Anarchist
DC: Simon Ellis, villain who fought the JLA in the 1970s. (Just once, apparently?)
MARVEL: Tike Alicar, hero, member of X-Statix; dead.

Anarchy/Anarky
DC: "Anarky" is Lonnie Machin, an anarchist vigilante who thinks he's a hero, but Batman and other superheroes generally disagree with him.
MARVEL: "Anarchy" is a villain; a redheaded woman who worked for Flag-Smasher's ULTIMATUM outfit during the "Acts of Vengeance" event in 1989 (and hasn't been heard from since).

Andromeda
DC: In the Post-COIE era, and again after the Post-Zero Hour Legion Reboot, she was Laurel Gand, a retconned substitute for the role previously filled by the Pre-Crisis Supergirl in the continuity of the "Legion of Super-Heroes." She was erased by the 2004 Reboot of Legion continuity.
MARVEL: An Atlantean superheroine.

Anomaly
DC: Super-powered clone of Floyd Barstow; villain, but with some signs of scruples.
MARVEL: At least two entities have used this.

The Answer
DC: Mike Patten, villain.
MARVEL: Two users, both villains.

Ant-Man
DC: Jumbo Carson, villain (initially masquerading as a hero), who appeared in a single Batman story.
MARVEL: Hank Pym's first heroic costumed identity.

Antaeus
DC: Two users. One was a member of the New Olympians in the 1980s. One was Mark Antaeus, a metahuman who joined the JLA, assassinated a mass-murdering dictator in the Middle East, discovered he had thereby triggered a very messy civil war, and then committed suicide; all this happening in the graphic novel "JLA: Superpower."
MARVEL: A member of the superpowered race called "the Neo."

Ape/The Ape
DC: "The Ape" was a villain who fought Batman in the mid-90s; died.
MARVEL: One of the Morlocks.

Archer/The Archer
DC: "The Archer" was a Golden Age villain who fought Superman.
MARVEL: "Archer" is a member of the XSE in Bishop’s future timeline; he traveled back to "modern times" and ended up inhabiting the body of a recently deceased criminal named Jude Black.

Arclight
DC: Noah Pasternetti, villain.
MARVEL: Phillippa Sontag, villain; one of the Marauders who performed the Morlock Massacre.

Argent2
DC: Toni Moretti, heroine; one of the new batch of "Teen Titans" who debuted in the mid-90s.
MARVEL: Samantha Hassard, a member of Clan Destine.

Argon
DC: One of Mr. Element's henchmen used this alias in a single story. Later, there was an extraterrestrial villain called "Argon" who fought Superman in the 1970s, died, and hasn't been heard from since.
MARVEL: Presumably one of the Elements of Doom.

Argus
DC: Two users. One was an obscure villain; one is Nick Kelly, hero.
MARVEL: Villain who cut off Leiko Wu’s hand.

Ariel
DC: Temporary "Dial H for Hero" identity of Vicky Grant.
MARVEL: Several users, including Kitty Pryde at one point.

Arsenal
DC: Three users. The first two were villains. The third was Roy Harper, hero; formerly "Speedy" and later known as "Red Arrow."
MARVEL: An android long since destroyed. Also: a villain who fought Moon Knight.

Astra
DC: Hero; member of the Xenobrood.
MARVEL: Several, including a member of the Shi’ar Imperial Guard and another who claimed to be a former member of Magneto’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.

Astro
DC: Bruce Mills became a superhero under this name in the Iron Curtain nation of Dolomain a long time ago -- and may not have been heard from since his debut.
MARVEL: Apparently this was the name used by a Golden Age character in one of the stories in "Marvel Mystery Comics #35." I know nothing more about him, her, or it (as the case may be). I have not found any reference to the character ever reappearing.

Atlas
DC: An action hero of ancient times.
MARVEL: Steve Rand, villain. Later: Erik Josten, who’s tried to be a hero as a Thunderbolt (after being a villain under other names).

Atom Smasher/Atom-Smasher
DC: "Atom Smasher," alias once used by Manfred Mota, Golden Age villain. "Atom-Smasher," alias used by Albert Rothstein (formerly "Nuklon" of Infinity Inc.)
MARVEL: Two villains, brothers; Ronald English (dead) and then Michael English. They both used the hyphen.

Aura
DC: Heroine; one of the Ravers.
MARVEL: Annie Herd, bounty hunter. Apparently last seen hospitalized with severe injuries.

Aurora
DC: One of the Recombatants who once fought the Titans; dead.
MARVEL: Jeanne-Marie Beaubier, heroine; founding member of Alpha Flight.

Avatar/Avatarr
DC: "Avatar" was a temporary "Dial H for Hero" identity of Chris King. The same spelling was later used by the man who had been "Tiger," WWII-era sidekick to Judomaster, after "Tiger" grew up to be an insane villain.
MARVEL: At least two users of "Avatar"; one is an adult version of Franklin Richards. Also, there was an "Avatarr" (now dead) in the 2099 timeline.

Azrael
DC: Several users; one was a winged alien who worked with the Titans for awhile; another was Jean Paul Valley, a brainwashed assassin for the Order of St. Dumas. (When Jean Paul debuted, he was replacing his father as Azrael, and we were told that their ancestors had been Azraels for a long, long time before Batman ever heard of them.)
MARVEL: At least two users besides the legendary one.

Ballistic/Ballistik
DC: "Ballistic" was Kelvin Mao, hero; member of Blood Pack; dead.
MARVEL: "Ballistik" is a Marvel UK character; member of something called "the Zoo."

Bane
DC: Villain who broke Batman’s back in "Knightfall." (I hear he has joined the current "Secret Six.")
MARVEL: An enemy of the Knights of Pendragon.

Banshee
DC: Max Bine, a villain who fought the Question (Vic Sage) when he was still a Charlton character.
MARVEL: Sean Cassidy, hero.

Barium
DC: Robot; member of an evil "Metal Men" team. Destroyed.
MARVEL: One of the Elements of Doom.

Barker/The Barker
DC: "The Barker" was another name for Carnie Callahan, a Golden Age character in Quality’s comics.
MARVEL: "Barker" is a villain; one of the three brothers known as "The Howlers," who served as part of "The Gladiators."

Barracuda
DC: At least two.
MARVEL: At least three.

Barrage
DC: Karnowsky, a Superman villain.
MARVEL: One of the "Riders of the Storm" who worked for Apocalypse.

Basilisk
DC: Irish Autumns, hero. (A shameless parody of Scott Summers -- Cyclops of the X-Men -- in an old Inferior Five story.)
MARVEL: Villain, dead.

The Bat
DC: At least two users, one in regular continuity and one way outside of it. First: Helena Bertinelli -- while wearing a dark, pointy-eared costume in the "No Man’s Land" event in a valiant effort to keep the Bat-legend alive in Gotham while Bruce Wayne was far away, indulging in a months-long childish sulk -- introduced herself as "I’m The Bat" on at least one occasion and probably a lot more (even if we didn’t see them all). Having people call her "Batgirl" came later. Second: In the alternate timeline featured in the Elseworlds stories "JSA: The Liberty Files" and "JSA: The Unholy Three," both set in the 1940s, the local analog of what we would normally call "Batman" is consistently called "The Bat" instead.
MARVEL: Villain in the nineteenth century who fought The Rawhide Kid and died.

Battering Ram
DC: A villain who fought Chris King and Vicky Grant in their "Dial H for Hero" days.
MARVEL: An X-Force member who died in battle.

Battleax/Battleaxe
DC: "Battleax" is an alias for Princess Norka of Nekrome.
MARVEL: "Battleaxe" has been used by several people.

Beautiful Dreamer
DC: One of the Forever People.
MARVEL: One of the Morlocks.

Bedlam
DC: Two of them. One was a villain who gave Young Justice a hard time.
MARVEL: Four of them, apparently.

Bella Donna/Belladonna
DC: "Bella Donna" has been used twice. Once an obscure villainess; once a Yuppie Demon (whatever that is).
MARVEL: "Belladonna" is Narda Ravonna, villainess. (I don't count Gambit's ex-wife because "Bella Donna" really was part of the name on her birth certificate; not an alias -- although I had to check it just now to make sure.)

Big Ben
DC: Villain; member of "the Big Gang" which fought Atom (Ray Palmer).
MARVEL: Villain who fought Spider-Girl in the MC2 timeline. There was also a "Big Ben" who fought "Miracleman" (or "Marvelman"; take your pick) in stories written by Alan Moore in the 1980s; it is possible that this character now belongs to Marvel Comics, or some portion of him does, or whatever.

Big Bertha
DC: Villain; member of "the Big Gang" which fought Atom (Ray Palmer).
MARVEL: Heroine; member of the Great Lakes Avengers.

Black Cat/The Black Cat
DC: Steve Robinson, an African-American soldier in World War II who was often called by the codenames "Black Cat" or "Chat Noir" -- apparently depending upon the nationality of the speaker -- during his work with a Resistance group in occupied France.
MARVEL: "The Black Cat" is Felicia Hardy, a former cat burglar who is supposedly reformed.

Black Death
DC: Villain who fought the JLA a few years ago.
MARVEL: Two users; both villains.

Black Hand/The Black Hand
DC: "Black Hand" is William Hand, villain.
MARVEL: "The Black Hand" was a Golden Age villain who fought Captain America.

Black Hawk/Blackhawk
DC: "Blackhawk" was the alias used by the leader of the WWII fighter squadron collectively known as "The Blackhawks." He was a Quality character in the Golden Age; later ended up at DC. His real name was originally "Bart Hawk," but later was retconned as "Janos Prohaska."
MARVEL: In "Mystic Comics #2," in a story set in the year 2300, there was a villain who used this alias, either with or without a space in the middle. (At least one online resource indicates it may have been lettered both ways in different word balloons in the same Golden Age story, but I don’t know that for sure.)

The Black Knight
DC: Alias used by a Nazi villain (apparently surnamed "Von Stauffen") who fought the Unknown Soldier.
MARVEL: Many users; probably the most famous is Dane Whitman, hero.

Black Jack/Blackjack
DC: "Black Jack" was a pirate captain who fought the Golden Age Aquaman. Later, "Blackjack" was a villain who clashed with Chris King and Vicky Grant in their "Dial H for Hero" days.
MARVEL: At least four users, three of whom spell it as one word.

Black Racer
DC: Supernatural entity who skis around collecting souls of dying people.
MARVEL: Villain; member of the Serpent Society.

Black Thorn/Blackthorn
DC: "Black Thorn" is Elizabeth Thorn, a vigilante in New York City who was later recruited into the Checkmate program.
MARVEL: "Blackthorn" was Aline Pagrovna, member of Strikeforce: Morituri; dead.

Black Widow
DC: A woman named Princess Hellene, listed in online resources as "Black Widow," once fought the Golden Age Flash and then died.
MARVEL: At least three; the best-known (although not the first) is Natasha Romanoff.

The Black Witch
DC: A Fawcett villain who fought Ibis the Invincible in at least one Golden Age story.
MARVEL: Alias used by a lawyer named Feritt who fought Captain America in one Golden Age story and died at the end of it.

Blacksmith/Blaquesmith
DC: "Blacksmith" is Amunet Black, a Flash villain.
MARVEL: "Blaquesmith" was one of Cable’s mentors in the alternate future timeline where he grew up. A second character later impersonated the first "Blaquesmith."

Blackwing
DC: Charlie Bullock, rookie superhero in the Gotham City of the Pre-COIE Earth-2; a shameless imitator of the Golden Age Batman.
MARVEL: Two users; both villains.

Blade/The Blade
DC: "The Blade" was a clone-slave of a villain known as "The Master."
MARVEL: A few users of "Blade" -- the most famous is a hero named Eric Brooks; the African-American daywalker who spends most of his time killing evil vampires.

Blaze
DC: At least two users; the more famous is a demonic villainess who has given Superman some very bad times; she was eventually revealed to be "the half-demon daughter of the wizard Shazam."
MARVEL: The name has been used at least two or three times; one "Blaze" was an "imaginary villain" created by three people trying to prove they were clever enough to fool Spider-Man, but then Spidey persuaded Johnny Storm to pose as "the real Blaze" in order to turn the joke around.

Blindside
DC: Two users; one is a member of Relative Heroes.
MARVEL: At least three users, all pretty obscure. (In addition: A note at marvunapp.com suggests that this name may have been used occasionally by a New Universe character also known as "Blindspot" -- but I don’t know the details; perhaps there was a one-time typographical error which meant nothing?)

Blindspot
DC: Mercenary whose suit lets him turn invisible.
MARVEL: At least two.

Blink
DC: Temporary "Dial H for Hero" identity of Craig.
MARVEL: Clarice Ferguson of the Exiles.

Bliss
DC: Nicole Callahan, member of Wildstorm’s DV8.
MARVEL: At least three users; one is a 2099 character.

Blizzard
DC: Temporary villainous "Dial H for Hero" identity of Lisa Davis, but only in Pre-Crisis continuity.
MARVEL: Several, usually villains. The second, Donny Gill, has recently tried to turn over a new leaf with the Thunderbolts.

Blockbuster
DC: Mark Desmond, now dead. Then his brother Roland, a Nightwing villain for a long time, now also dead.
MARVEL: At least three. The third was one of the Marauders; he participated in the Mutant Massacre and was killed by Thor.

Bloc/Blok
DC: "Blok," member of the Pre-Zero Hour Legion of Super-Heroes.
MARVEL: "Bloc" -- a mercenary. "Blok" -- a villain working for Mister X.

Bloodhound
DC: At least two.
MARVEL: At least two.

Bloody Mary
DC: Villain; member of the Female Furies. Also: A Milestone character.
MARVEL: Two of them; one is evidently the alias of one of the personalities inside Typhoid Mary’s head.

Blowhard
DC: Codename or nickname used by a soldier who was part of the "original" Suicide Squad program of the WWII era (according to a retcon in the late 80s).
MARVEL: A mutant member of the Morlocks; dead.

Blue Streak
DC: One of the previous aliases of the speedster hero now known as "Max Mercury."
MARVEL: Four users; one is a member of the A-Next team of the MC2 timeline.

Blur/The Blur
DC: "The Blur" was a temporary "Dial H for Hero" identity of Jerry Feldon.
MARVEL: At least two. "Blur" was a member of DP7 in the New Universe (until he died). "The Blur" is Stanley Stewart, African-American speedster in the world of J. Michael Straczynski’s "Supreme Power" (Stanley is basically that timeline’s local equivalent of The Whizzer from other versions of "Squadron Supreme" continuity).

Bolt
DC: Larry Bolatinsky, assassin.
MARVEL: Chris Bradley, hero; dead.

Bombshell
DC: Amy Allen, villain; recently infiltrated the Teen Titans on behalf of Deathstroke the Terminator.
MARVEL: Wendy Conrad, villain; used to be one of the Death-Throws. "Bombshell" was also the alias of a heroine in the alternate timeline of "The Last Avengers Story."

Bouncer
DC: At least four users.
MARVEL: "Bouncer" is a villain; one of the three brothers known as "the Howlers," who served as part of "Gladiators."

Bounty
DC: At least three. One was an evil entity who took control of Dawnstar in "Legion of Super-Heroes" continuity in the early 90s (this character was presumably erased from existence by the Post-Zero Hour Reboot of Legion continuity). One was a mercenary who fought Damage. The latest one was a character in the "Emperor Joker" story arc.
MARVEL: Female mercenary who dated Ben Grimm for a bit in Chris Claremont’s run on the FF.

Bounty Hunter/The Bounty Hunter
DC: At least two users; apparently both used "the" at the start.
MARVEL: At least three users; I’m not sure about the use of "the" in their cases.

Bowman/The Bowman
DC: At least three users. One is a former superhero who is the father of White Feather, the archer member of the Inferior Five. The second was a member of the Justifiers in the alternate timeline which the Extremists came from (after they had slaughtered all the other inhabitants, including Bowman). The third was a member of the Maximums in a "Superboy/Batman" story arc; he was already dead before we met him; he was basically a thinly veiled knockoff of Marvel’s Hawkeye.
MARVEL: At least two. One was apparently a reincarnation of Sir Lancelot; the other is a member of the HYDRA Super-Agents.

Brain/The Brain
DC: "The Brain" is a villain; leader of the Brotherhood of Evil.
MARVEL: Several users.

Brainstorm
DC: Several users.
MARVEL: Insane villain who was manipulated into thinking he was just venting some frustration while dreaming.

Brass
DC: A member of "Metallik," which was the group name for one of the other "Team Titans" teams from the alternate future timeline in which Lord Chaos (Donna Troy’s son) was the evil ruler of the world.
MARVEL: Three users.

Brother Power
DC: I’m told that the title character (an animated mannequin) of the old series "Brother Power, the Geek" strongly preferred to just call himself "Brother Power" and resented it when other people kept calling him "the Geek."
MARVEL: Achmed Korba, villain; fought Spider-Man in one story arc in the 70s; possibly died at the end of it.

Brute
DC: Several users; all pretty obscure, it seems.
MARVEL: Several, including an evil analog of Reed Richards from a place called "The High Evolutionary’s Counter-Earth."

Bug/Bugg
DC: One user of each version. "Bug" was a member of the Maximums in a "Superman/Batman" story arc; he was a thinly veiled Spider-Man knockoff.
MARVEL: "Bug" is a nonhuman hero who debuted as a member of the Micronauts in the Marvel comic books based on a line of action figures; however, this character was created by Marvel and they have continued to use him in new stories after their license for the Micronauts ended. (I am told that he is now referred to as one of that heroic group known as "the Microns.")

Bull’s-Eye/Bulls-Eye/Bullseye
DC: "Bull’s-Eye" was a villain who fought the Golden Age Green Arrow in the old Pre-COIE continuity.
MARVEL: "Bulls-Eye" was a Hydra assassin who had a single appearance in 1969; he killed Nick Fury (or seemed to) in "Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD #15" -- and then got killed himself by the end of that story. Later, the assasin "Bullseye" became a notorious Daredevil villain.

Note on the above: Two years ago, right after I posted my Second Draft, there was some disagreement regarding just how the Hydra assassin wrote his name. ("Bull’s Eye? Bull’s-Eye? Something else?") A couple of sources have assured me he used "Bulls-Eye" as his alias throughout that story, so that’s what I’m going with until further notice. Near as I can tell, however, that issue has never been reprinted as part of any TPB, and I don’t feel like coughing up the money to buy a 40-year-old comic book just to check on some punctuation in the dialogue, so it’s awfully hard to be sure. Some online resources have that alias punctuated in other ways -- and in 2007, when I was researching the point, I found multiple instances online where people were offering copies of that Hydra assassin’s only appearance for sale on their websites with such commentary as "The First Appearance of Bullseye the Assassin!" or words to that effect. Clearly they either mistakenly believed, or else desperately hoped their unsuspecting customers would mistakenly believe, that the assasin on the cover of that comic is the same guy (in a different costume) as the "Bullseye" who has killed two of Daredevil’s old girlfriends: Elektra Natchios and Karen Page.

Bulldozer
DC: At least three. Most famously, this was the military nickname of Horace Eustace Canfield Nichols, who served with Sergeant Rock in Easy Company during WWII.
MARVEL: At least two; the more famous one is a villain, a regular member of the Wrecking Crew.

Bulletproof
DC: A Milestone character.
MARVEL: A codename used by the late Nathaniel Briggs when he was acting as a member of "Sentinel Squad O*N*E."

Burnout
DC: Robert "Bobby" Lane of Wildstorm’s original Gen13 lineup.
MARVEL: Alias for two members of the Mutant Liberation Front in succession; both dead.

Burst
DC: One of the greatest heroes of the planet Thordia.
MARVEL: Genoshan mutate who died in the service of Exodus.

Bushmaster
DC: Bernal Rojas, hero, member of the Global Guardians; dead.
MARVEL: Two brothers, both villains. John McIver (dead), followed by Quincy McIver (longtime member of the Serpent Society).

Buzz
DC: Marcus Gaius, of the old Roman Empire, eventually sold his soul and became a demon known as "Buzz" for the next couple of millennia, until Supergirl (Post-COIE Linda Danvers) started having a redeeming influence on him.
MARVEL: "The Buzz" is a teenage superhero of the MC2 timeline.

Cadaver/Kadaver
DC: "Kadaver" was a villain who fought Batman.
MARVEL: At least three characters have used "Cadaver."

Cain/Cane/Kaine
DC: "Cain" is the working name of David Cain, high-priced assassin.
MARVEL: "Kaine" is an evil Spider-Man clone. "Cane" was an assassin who once fought The Punisher -- it will probably shock you speechless to hear that Cane is no longer among the living.

Calcium
DC: One of the second (and evil) team of Metal Men. Destroyed.
MARVEL: Presumably one of the Elements of Doom.

Calculator/The Calculator
DC: "The Calculator" is Noah Kuttler, villain.
MARVEL: "Calculator" was Kwong Dae, a character in "NFL Superpro,"

Caliber
DC: Villain; member of Team Turmoil.
MARVEL: Villain who fought Alpha Flight.

Cannonball
DC: Military nickname of Horace Calhoon, who was second-in-command of Tomahawk’s Rangers during the Revolutionary War.
MARVEL: Sam Guthrie, hero.

Capricorn
DC: Villain who fought Superman and Batman in a single story in the 1970s. He died at the end of that story, but the heroes didn't realize that.
MARVEL: Several villainous Capricorns have served with some version of the "Zodiac" team at different times.

Captain Marvel
DC: Billy Batson (usually). The name was also used by Freddy Freeman as a grown man in the alternate future timeline of the "Titans Tomorrow" stories.
MARVEL: Several users; the first was Mar-Vell of the Kree (now dead), and both a son and a daughter of Mar-Vell have subsequently used the name (as have a few others).

Captain Strong
DC: Horatio Strong, a Silver Age knockoff of the "Popeye the Sailor Man" concept.
MARVEL: Not a masked crimefighter; but he was a Golden Age action hero who got exactly one appearance in "Daring Mystery Comics #3" in 1940. Hasn’t been heard from since.

Captain Tiger/Captain Tyger
DC: "Captain Tiger" was a pirate-themed villain who fought the original Teen Titans.
MARVEL: "Captain Tyger" was a French nobleman in the 17th Century who had a career as a pirate for awhile.

Cardinal
DC: One of the temporary aliases of Vicky Grant in her "Dial H for Hero" days.
MARVEL: Member of I.C.O.N., an evil conspiracy which once clashed with the Frankenstein Monster; this man apparently died in an explosion (but I gather this was never confirmed).

Carnivore
DC: Evil entity who fought the "Supergirl" who was actually a merger of "Matrix" and the Post-COIE "Linda Danvers."
MARVEL: Two users. One was Dick Chalker, villain; one is Count Andreas Zorba, of the Examplars.

Cat/The Cat
DC: "The Cat" was the first alias used by Selina Kyle (better known as Catwoman); at least in the Golden Age continuity.
MARVEL: "The Cat" was a costumed identity for Greer Grant before her physical transformation into "Tigra." "Cat" or "The Cat" have also been used by several other beings, including Shen Kuei, a martial artist whose abilities rival those of Shang-Chi.

Catalyst
DC: Villain; last seen working as an assassin for Vandal Savage.
MARVEL: Villain; used to work for HYDRA.

Catapult
DC: Member of the demon-hunting group known as the Hell-Enders.
MARVEL: Hero; member of the original "Exiles" team of the Ultraverse; died soon after he debuted.

Cathode
DC: Villainess; member of a group called "the Network" which fought Superman and Batman in "World’s Finest Comics" in the early 80s; they may not exist in Post-COIE continuity.
MARVEL: Villainess with a long-distance teleporting ray who once used it to steal the Statue of Liberty and thus ended up fighting Silver Sable, her Wild Pack, and their temporary ally Deathlok. She hasn’t been heard from since. (Except in a fanfic I keep writing.)

Catman/Cat-Man
DC: "Catman" is Tom Blake, a longtime Batman villain, supposedly trying to redeem himself nowadays. I believe that he -- or his Golden Age version, anyway -- originally used the hyphen in the middle, but he’s long since abandoned that.
MARVEL: At least two villains using the name "Cat-Man" have served with versions of the Ani-Men. They both died.

Catseye
DC: Japanese villain who fought the Suicide Squad.
MARVEL: One of Emma Frost’s Hellions; dead.

Catspaw/Cat’s Paw
DC: "Catspaw" is April Dumaka, heroine in the far future in at least two versions of "Legion of Super-Heroes" continuity.
MARVEL: "Cat’s Paw" was the alias of a foreign spy who fought the Golden Age hero known as "The Angel."

Catwoman/Cat Woman
DC: "Catwoman" is Selina Kyle, sometimes a hero, sometimes a villain.
MARVEL: "Cat Woman" was a Golden Age villain, leader of a gang of thieves, who fought Captain America and then died at the end of her first appearance.

Cauldron
DC: Two or three of them. One is an obscure Golden Age villain, possibly demonic, who fought Plastic Man a few times. The more recent user of the alias is a robot, originally designed at Project Cadmus, which was forced to fight Superman a couple of times in the 1990s. (I'm not clear on whether Superman's second fight with "Cauldron" was with the same robot after it was rebuilt, or with a new robot built from much the same design as the first.)
MARVEL: A villain.

Centurion
DC: One of the Dogs of War who fought the Doom Patrol.
MARVEL: Villain who fought Ms. Marvel. There are also suggestions that this word alone may have been used as a codename for some members of the Nova Corps, but I’m not sure of the details.

Chain Lightning
DC: Apparently this name has been used by both the Pre-COIE and Post-COIE versions of a female character with multiple personality disorder who sometimes fights Captain Marvel Jr.
MARVEL: Two users, both obscure.

Chairman
DC: The masked leader of an evil organization known as "the Council" which clashed with Supergirl -- meaning Kara Zor-El, the Pre-COIE version -- in the early 80s. I have no idea whether Chairman, and/or the Council, are still around in modern continuity.
MARVEL: There was a Chairman who was a villain in an old Hostess Twinkies ad in the comic books. (It occurs to me that I have no idea whether those old Hostess ads are presumed to be "in continuity" or not.) There was also a Chairman in the 2099 timeline; a villain who was in command of the Ratpack.

Chameleon
DC: The alias used by the Post-Zero Hour rebooted version of the "Legion of Super-Heroes" character originally known as "Chameleon Boy."
MARVEL: The first supervillain Spider-Man ever fought.

Champion
DC: There have been at least four users. First: the wizard Shazam. Second: a guy who initally posed as a superhero in the mid-80s but turned out to be a villain; ended up fighting the partnership of Green Arrow (Ollie) and Black Canary (the second one). Third: M'onel. Fourth: Herakles when he was masquerading as a run-of-the-mill modern superhero (I choose to mention Herakles to be complete; since he's a mythological figure in the public domain, I could just ignore him).
MARVEL: Another alias used by a Wolverine villain also known as "Mister X."

Changeling
DC: At least five users, beginning with a Golden Age Villain who fought the original Flash, and ending with Garfield Logan (who has since reverted back to his earlier alias of "Beast Boy").
MARVEL: The former villain who died while impersonating Professor X (at the Prof’s request).

Cheetah
DC: At least three; I think they’ve all been Wonder Woman villains.
MARVEL: Esteban Carracus, villain; dead.

Chimera
DC: Several users.
MARVEL: Several users. One was a Deviant Skrull who died in the "MARVEL: The Lost Generation" mini.

Chunk
DC: Chester P. Runk, brilliant physicist who fought Flash (Wally West) but later became one of his closest friends.
MARVEL: Villain; one of the Outriders.

Claw/Klaw
DC: Several users of "Claw."
MARVEL: "Klaw" (Ulysses Klaw) is a villain.

Cloud
DC: "The Cloud" was a temporary "Dial H for Hero" identity of Mark.
MARVEL: "Cloud" was a Defender in the mid-1980s.

The Clown
DC: Lyle Corley, a Flash villain; dead.
MARVEL: One of these has served in the Ringmaster's Circus of Crime. Another was a member of the Crazy Gang in the 1980s (and maybe he still is, for all I know).

Cobalt/Kobalt
DC: "Cobalt" was a robot, a member of the third "Metal Men" team; eventually went rogue and was destroyed. "Kobalt" is a Milestone character.
MARVEL: "Cobalt" is one of the Elements of Doom

Cobra/Kobra
DC: For many years, "Kobra" was Jeffrey Franklin Burr, villain; he is now dead. Recently, his brother Jason Burr has been setting himself up as the new "Kobra."
MARVEL: Previous alias of Klaus Voorhees, a villain who later called himself "King Cobra."

Cobweb
DC: Heroine created by Alan Moore as part of his "America’s Best Comics" line; now part of the ABC imprint at DC.
MARVEL: Two users; one was an enemy of Sleepwalker.

Coil
DC: Milestone character who fought Static in the 1990s.
MARVEL: Villain; one of the Twisted Sisters in Shadow City.

The Collector
DC: Silver Age villain who fought a Batman/Hawkman teamup and hasn't been heard from since. I am told that years later, there was another villain using the same name in a Superman story in the late 70s; I gather he hasn't reappeared either!
MARVEL: One of the Elders of the Universe. I'm told there was also a human thief who used this alias when he appeared in "Wolverine/Doop #1" (which I'd never even heard of).

Comet/The Comet
DC: "Comet" was an "Earth-Born Angel of Love" in Peter David’s "Supergirl" title. I’ve also been told that the Silver Age hero previously known as "Captain Comet" later started using just plain "Comet" as an alias. And Rob Connors, "The Comet," was an Archie character who apparently will soon be integrated into the DCU if he hasn’t been already (I haven’t been paying attention).
MARVEL: "The Comet" was Harris Moore, created in the 1970s as a superhero with a retconned career from the 1950s; now dead.

Note on the above: I am aware that Peter David’s version of "Comet" was a takeoff from the Silver Age character who was called "Comet the Super-Horse." However, I am working on the theory that in the Silver Age guy’s case, his full heroic alias was "Comet the Super-Horse," so I don’t count him as being another duplication of the name "Comet."

Computo
DC: A villainous artificial intelligence who fought the Legion of Super-Heroes in their original continuity. Also: Danielle Foccart, a heroine, later swiped the name for herself (still in the original continuity before the Post-Zero Hour Reboot).
MARVEL: An artificial intelligence created by Quasimodo.

Confessor/The Confessor
DC: There was a Confessor who worked for Brother Blood in the 1980s; also, "The Confessor" has been used successively by two heroes in "Kurt Busiek's Astro City."
MARVEL: Russian mercenary who fought Maverick.

Controller
DC: Villain who fought Adrian Chase when he was The Vigilante with his own title in the mid-1980s.
MARVEL: Basil Sandhurst, villain.

Copperhead
DC: Villain; real name unknown.
MARVEL: At least three villains.

Copycat
DC: Gem Antonelli; member of Wildstorm’s DV8.
MARVEL: Vanessa Carlysle, villain, dead.

Cossack
DC: At least two. One was a Russian robot who fought the Doom Patrol. The second is an alternate alias of the first "Dark Rider" of the DCU.
MARVEL: Russian terrorist who once fought Daredevil.

Crackerjack
DC: A hero in "Kurt Busiek's Astro City."
MARVEL: A villain who appeared in the "Ghost Rider 2099" series.

Creeper/The Creeper
DC: Jack Ryder, hero, has intermittently appeared in stories as "The Creeper," going back about 40 years now. I am told that a Vertigo miniseries a few years seemed to retcon in a "previous" Creeper, a woman named Madeline Benoir, active in the 1920s. There was also a Creeper in the "DC One Million" event, living in the year 85,271.
MARVEL: "The Creeper" was an alias used by Ambassador Lissom, a funny-animal villain (I’m told -- but I haven’t seen any images) who appeared and died in a single Golden Age story. "Creeper" was the alias used by a kid living in New York City a century ago; a super-powered member of a group known as the Street Arabs. He was killed in the same "Runaways" story arc in which he debuted.

Crime-Buster/Crimebuster
DC: "Crimebuster" was a Fawcett hero in the Golden Age. I don’t know that anyone has ever revived the character (or any "successor" to the original user of the name) in anything published by DC in recent decades.
MARVEL: Three users. The first was Frank Moore, son of a hero called The Comet; Frank is now dead and at least two other guys have tried to continue the role. (As near as I can tell from Wikipedia, two of the Marvel guys have spelled the name without a hyphen.)

Crimson
DC: Jodi Slayton, heroine, daughter of Backlash. She worked with Wildstorm’s Wildcore team for awhile, and later changed her alias to "Jet."
MARVEL: Villainess; member of a quasi-vampiric group called the Ravens; died fighting X-Factor.

The Crooked Man
DC: "The Crooked Man" was J.J. Crook, a crimelord who appeared in the "Chain Gang War" series and apparently died at the end of it (but I hear the body was never found after the big explosion).
MARVEL: "The Crooked Man" was a crimelord who fought The Shroud.

Crossbones
DC: Nicholas Jones, member of Wildstorm’s Wetworks, dead.
MARVEL: Brock Lumlow, villain.

Crusader
DC: Two, both heroes. First: Don Powers, hero, apparently appeared in a single issue of "Aquaman" in the 1970s. Second: Derek Bradbourne, who appeared in one story in the early 90s and also seems to have faded into obscurity.
MARVEL: Several users.

Crusher
DC: A villain who was once defeated by Bobo Bennetti.
MARVEL: Several users.

Cyclone/Psi-Clone/Psyclone
DC: At least four users of "Cyclone." One was originally a Quality hero in the Golden Age. One was briefly a villain, fighting the JLA in a single story in the 1970s. One was a temporary "Dial H for Hero" villainous identity of Nylor Truggs -- retcon-erased by COIE. One is Maxine Hunkel, heroine; a granddaughter of Ma Hunkel, the Golden Age "Red Tornado." Also: "Psi-Clone" was a temporary "Dial H for Hero" alias of Vicky Grant.
MARVEL: There have been at least three users of "Cyclone," all villains; the first is dead. There is also a "Psyclone" in the 2099 timeline.

Cypher
DC: Three users; including Cameron Begay, formerly "Cypher" of the DEO and now better known as "Omni" of the "Relative Heroes."
MARVEL: Doug Ramsey of the New Mutants, long dead.

Dagger/The Dagger
DC: "The Dagger" was a villain who fought Batman a couple of times.
MARVEL: At least two users; the famous one is Tandy Bowen, heroine; partner of Cloak.

Dark Angel
DC: A Wonder Woman villain.
MARVEL: Several users.

Dark Rider
DC: Two of them, both villains; the second claims to have killed the first.
MARVEL: Several of them; one was an evil Reed Richards of an alternate timeline.

Darkling
DC: Dora Keane, an Earth-S villainess who fought the Marvel Family in the early 80s.
MARVEL: Henrique Manuel Gallante, member of Psionex.

Darkstar
DC: Any member of the Darkstars, an intergalactic outfit that tried to replace the (then-defunct) Green Lantern Corps at one point.
MARVEL: Laynia Petrovna, currently dead.

Darwin
DC: A Tarzan parody who worked with the Inferior Five.
MARVEL: A long-lost former X-Man.

Dazzler/The Dazzler
DC: Two users. "The Dazzler" was Daniel Domino, a villain who fought The Fly (the Archie hero) in a story in 1960. Another "The Dazzler" was Ken Baldwin, a character who fought Hal Jordan in a story in 1966. (Neither of those Dazzlers has ever been heard from again.)
MARVEL: "Dazzler" is Alison Blaire, heroine.

Deadeye/Dead-Eye
DC: "Deadeye" is the alias or nickname of a criminal who once fought The Creeper. "Dead-Eye" is the alias or nickname of a criminal who fought Batman and Robin in the Silver Age.
MARVEL: At least four users of "Deadeye"; one was an Ultraverse character.

Deadline
DC: Mercenary villain.
MARVEL: Kishi Oramosha, villain.

Deadman
DC: Boston Brand, ghostly hero.
MARVEL: "The Deadman" is apparently another alias used by a magical entity who appeared in "Wolverine: Evilution" and who also likes to modestly call himself "The Saviour."

Deadzone
DC: Jay Daniels, member of the S.T.A.R. Corps.
MARVEL: John DeZoan, vigilante who killed members of organized crime outfits.

Death
DC: One of the Endless.
MARVEL: the sister of Eternity; the entity whom Thanos is traditionally so obsessed with. Also the alias of various Horsemen of Apocalypse (including Archangel and Wolverine at different times).

Deathwish
DC: A Milestone character.
MARVEL: An Ultraverse villain.

The Demon
DC: Etrigan is frequently just called "The Demon."
MARVEL: Several users; first one was a human magic-user, real name unknown, who fought Thor in the mid-60s.

Destiny
DC: One of the Endless.
MARVEL: Paul Destine, villain, dead. Irene Adler, villain and later part of Freedom Force (if there’s a difference?), dead.

Diablo
DC: In the Silver Age, there was a man called "Diablo" who worked as a henchman for the evil Dr. Dome (I don’t know if "Diablo" was part of the henchman’s real name, or nickname, or alias to conceal his real name, or what).
MARVEL: Evil alchemist who has fought the Fantastic Four on various occasions. The name has also been used by a couple of smoke-monsters.

Note: I am ignoring any users of "El Diablo" in this listing, on the theory that "El" is different from "The" for my purposes. However, if you scroll down you will see that both Marvel and DC have used that alias, as well!

Dinah Soar/Dyna-Soar
DC: "Dyna-Soar" was a temporary "Dial H for Hero" identity of Lori Morning in post-Zero Hour "Legion of Super-Heroes" continuity.
MARVEL: "Dinah Soar" was a founding member of the Great Lakes Avengers; now dead.

Disruptor/The Disruptor
DC: Two of them; the first one preferred "The Disruptor"; I’m not sure about the second. First: Michael Beldon, villain; son of "Brains" Beldon, criminal mastermind. Second: Angelica, a teenage villain (member of the Terror Titans) who was recently established as Michael’s daughter. (I really didn’t think he was old enough to have a teenage daughter, but what do I know?)
MARVEL: At least two "Disruptors"; both villains; one of them is dead.

The Djinn/Jinn
DC: "The Djinn" is a villain; a member of the terrorist group called the Jihad which fought the Suicide Squad.
MARVEL: "Jinn" was the chief assassin working for Anton Lone (evil mastermind and father of the hero Solitaire) in the Ultraverse continuity; now dead.

Doctor Death
DC: Dr. Karl Hellfern, a Batman villain.
MARVEL: Thomas Bradley, became a villain serving the Axis in the WWII era; apparently this alias and bad behavior was a retcon imposed in modern times upon a Golden Age crimefighting character previously known as "Doctor Nemesis."

Doctor Destiny
DC: John Dee, one of the earliest supervillains to fight the original JLA.
MARVEL: Two users; the first was a Golden Age villain who fought Captain America.

Doctor Doom/Doctor Doome
DC: "Dr. Doome" was an adversary of the original Seven Soldiers of Victory in the Golden Age.
MARVEL: "Doctor Doom" (Victor Von Doom) is a villain.

Dog/Dogg
DC: "Dogg" is a Milestone character.
MARVEL: At least two characters have used "Dog" as an alias.

Dollar Bill
DC: A hero in the 1940s in the world of "Watchmen"; he died in the line of duty.
MARVEL: Name commonly used by a young moviemaker who was frequently hanging out with the Defenders back around the 1970s. (As near as I can tell from my own reading and some online research, the character was never caught onstage using any name except "Dollar Bill." Since I’m reasonably sure his parents were not "Mr. and Mrs. Bill," and didn’t name their baby boy "Dollar," I’m working on the theory that this constituted the continuous use of an alias.)

Dominus
DC: Villain who’s given Superman some bad times.
MARVEL: Alien computer that became a supervillain.

Double-Header
DC: Two-headed hero who failed of admission to the Legion of Super-Heroes; he ended up with the Legion of Substitute Heroes in the Pre-Zero Hour era.
MARVEL: Two-headed mutant in the "Earth X" timeline.

Dragon Fly/Dragonfly
DC: "Dragonfly" was a temporary "Dial H for Hero" identity of Chris King. DC also has at least two users of "Dragon Fly." One was a criminal, leader of a gang which fought the Blackhawks in a single story. The other was a villainess who fought Batman in the Silver Age and recently made a comeback.
MARVEL: Several users of "Dragonfly."

Dreadnaught/Dreadnought
DC: "Dreadnaught" was a member of the genetically-engineered group known as the RECOMbatants; he (like his teammates) died at the end of his first appearance. The second "Dreadnaught" was constructed by extraterrestrials; along with partner Psi-Phon, he fought the Post-COIE Superman and other heroes, and was defeated. Then he exploded now that the test of Earth's inhabitants was over.
MARVEL: "Dreadnaught" was Paul Turner of the Marvel UK Super Soldiers; now deceased. "Dreadnought" can refer to any one of many powerful robots which have been manufactured by Hydra and sold to various customers.

Dummy/The Dummy
DC: At least two users of "The Dummy," both villains; both were little men who used the schtick of pretending to be a ventriloquist’s dummy. The first was an adversary of the Golden Age Vigilante. The second fought Batman in the Silver Age. (Neither of those villains has any apparent connection to Batman’s later foes, The Ventriloquist and Scarface -- I just thought you might be wondering.) Beyond that, a very doubtful case -- might qualify as a "character," might not! -- was an actual ventriloquist’s dummy who appeared in a two-part "Sergeant Rock" story in the early 1980s. On the surface, the little figure (called "The Dummy" in the story title, and by members of Easy Company) was simply a lifeless object which other people had to carry around, but for awhile Rock thought he could hear the Dummy arguing with him inside Rock’s head, as if The Dummy were telepathic/haunted/whatever. The Dummy was lost underwater at the end of the story -- so there was never a chance for any of the DCU’s experts on mystical matters to take a long, close look and offer an opinion on whether or not any sort of "life" or "consciousness" was present, as opposed to Rock’s imagination getting carried away after a few years of the stresses of combat. (But if I didn’t mention this particular Dummy, someone would have accused me of overlooking him!)
MARVEL: Two users. One was a small criminal who posed as a ventriloquist’s dummy in a single Silver Age story; one was a student with a gaseous body who attended Xavier’s school.

Dynamite/Dyna-Mite
DC: Apparently the word "Dynamite" alone has sometimes been used as an alias by the Golden Age crimefighter originally known as "Dan the Dyna-Mite."
MARVEL: "Dynamite" is Michael Crawley, a member of Psi-Force in the New Universe. "Dyna-Mite" was a British WWII-era crimefighter, member of a group called the Crusaders, according to a retcon in Marvel’s "Invaders" series in the 1970s.

Echo
DC: Several users; one of them is the partner of Query; those two have served as the Riddler’s henchwomen on various occasions.
MARVEL: Maya Lopez; served as "Ronin" in the "New Avengers" team for awhile.

The Eel
DC: Mort Coolidge, villain.
MARVEL: At least three of them.

El Diablo
DC: Four users; the first was a villain in a serial in 1938 and 1938 in "Adventure Comics"; the other three have all been heroes.
MARVEL: Villain who fought Sub-Mariner in a story published in 1955.

Electro
DC: A "light ray creature" who was actually a hoax contrived by the Silver Age Lex Luthor.
MARVEL: Several users; most famous is Maxwell Dillon, one of the earliest Spider-Man villains.

The Enchantress
DC: Member of the Shadowpact.
MARVEL: Amora of Asgard, usually a Thor villain.

Enforcer/The N-Forcer
DC: Two different "Enforcers" fought Firestorm in the 1980s. Also: "The N-Forcer" is a hero in the Honor Guard in the universe of "Kurt Busiek’s Astro City." (I’m not clear on the details, but some think there have actually been several different people inside the armored suits over the decades.)
MARVEL: "The Enforcer" was a villain who was killed by one of the "Scourge of the Underworld" operatives.

Everyman
DC: Hannibal Bates, shapechanging villain.
MARVEL: Larry Eckler, villain; dead.

Fade
DC: A Milestone character.
MARVEL: A mercenary in the timeline of Marvel's "2099" books.

Falcon
DC: Villain who fought the Silver Age Hawkman.
MARVEL: Two users. Carl Burgess, Golden Age hero. Sam Wilson, hero; Captain America's co-star for several years in the 1970s.

Fang
DC: Jake Ketchum, werewolf and superhero; member of the band "Scare Tactics."
MARVEL: Several users; at least two have been members of the Shi’ar Imperial Guard.

Fast Forward/Fastforward
DC: "Fast Forward" is Ted Bruder, hero; served as a member of the Doom Patrol.
MARVEL: "Fastforward" was the alias eventually adopted by an amnesiac blond guy who was a mysterious speedster from some extradimensional reality; he had initially said he thought his name was "Buried Alien" or something similar (a thinly disguised reference to DC’s own Barry Allen, who had died in "Crisis on Infinite Earths" a few years before "Buried" appeared out of nowhere, wearing red shorts and yellow boots and not much else).

Fastball
DC: Obscure villain.
MARVEL: Timothy Ferris; hero in the New Universe.

Fever
DC: Shyleen Lao, heroine; member of a previous version of the Doom Patrol.
MARVEL: A cyberspace character in the 2099 timeline.

Firebird
DC: Serafina Arkadin, Russian superhero.
MARVEL: Bonita Juarez, hero.

Firebrand
DC: At least four users. Most recently: Andre Twist, introduced in "Crisis Aftermath: The Battle for Blüdhaven #1."
MARVEL: Gary Gilbert, villain; dead.

Firebug
DC: Two villains.
MARVEL: A villain who fought Beta Flight once and apparently died.

Firefist
DC: Lyle Byrnes, villain. This alias was also used by a Khund who briefly served with the "Legion of Super-Heroes," shortly before their Post-Zero Hour Reboot.
MARVEL: An alias of Rusty Collins. Also: a serial killer who fought Spider-Man once, using a flamethrower glove.

Firefly
DC: Two, both of them Batman villains at different times.
MARVEL: Very short-lived villain; fought the Shroud and died.

Flashback
DC: A Milestone character; she was a member of the Blood Syndicate. Before that, there was a French villain by that name who fought Batman and the Pre-COIE Wonder Woman in a single issue of "Brave and the Bold" and never appeared again.
MARVEL: Gardner Monroe, who has been part of Gamma Flight, Beta Flight, and Omega Flight at various times.

Flashpoint
DC: Wildstorm hero; used to be part of Stormwatch.
MARVEL: Travis Slaine, a character who fought Nightwatch and then disappeared by being compressed to a sub-molecular reality; hasn’t been heard from since.

Flex
DC: One of several aliases used by Sturgis Butterfield, a member of the Hero Hotline group.
MARVEL: Hero who served with Alpha Flight and Beta Flight, but lost his powers on M-Day.

The Fly
DC: An Archie hero.
MARVEL: A Spider-Man villain.

Fog/Fogg
DC: "Fog" was a member of a "Night and Fog" duo which operated for the Axis in WWII (according to a retcon in "All-Star Squadron").
MARVEL: "Fogg" was an assassin; part of the "Knight and Fogg" duo which fought Spider-Man.

Frag
DC: One of the Blasters.
MARVEL: One of the Inhumans.

Freak
DC: Heroine; served as a member of the Doom Patrol.
MARVEL: At least four users.

Freefall
DC: Roxy Spaulding, hero; founding member of Wildstorm’s first Gen13 team.
MARVEL: At least two; one is a villain in the MC2 timeline.

Frog Man/Frog-Man
DC: "Frog Man" is a villain who fought the Inferior Five.
MARVEL: At least two "Frog-Man" characters. One was Francois Le Blanc, a member of the Ani-Men, now dead. The other was Eugene Patilio, who wore his father’s old costume in a heroic role a few times in "Marvel Team-Up" in the 1980s. (He was the son of the original Leap Frog, an old Daredevil villain.)

Frostbite
DC: Two users: A member of Wildstorm’s DV8, and a member of the Young Heroes.
MARVEL: Sloan Alden, a villain. Also used by an obscure mutant in a group called "the Chosen" who fought the X-Men 2099 group.

Fury
DC: At least three users. The first two were mother and daughter. The daughter, Lyta Trevor, was a founding member of Infinity Inc. (Pre-COIE, Lyta was the daughter of the Earth-2, Golden Age Wonder Woman. But Post-COIE, the "previous" Fury, Helena Kosmatos, was created out of thin air and retconned in as a 1940s heroine who had later become Lyta’s biological mother.) The latest user was Erik Storn, who received powers from Lex Luthor, served with Infinity Inc., and then died.
MARVEL: "The Fury" is an almost unstoppable artificially created entity who specializes in killing superhumans.

Fusion
DC: At least three users. One was a Soviet operative who fought the Outsiders and died in the late 80s. One was a temporary "Dial H for Hero" identity of Jay. One was a member of the "Metallik" group of the Team Titans program.
MARVEL: Two Spider-Man villains have used the name.

Gallium
DC: Robot member of the third "Metal Men" team; eventually went rogue and was destroyed.
MARVEL: Presumably one of the Elements of Doom.

The Gamesman
DC: Villain who fought Aquaman in the 90s.
MARVEL: Two villains used this alias in quick succession when fighting Jessica Drew, the original Spider-Woman, in her solo title. Apparently they've never been heard from since.

Gargantus
DC: Villain; one of the Ani-Men who fought the JLA in the 1980s.
MARVEL: A few users, including one robot.

Gargoyle
DC: Bromwell Stikk, an old Titans foe.
MARVEL: Most notably: Isaac Christians, who served as a Defender. Previously, there was another "Gargoyle," a Soviet scientist who died in his first appearance.

Geist
DC: Member of the Blood Pack; hero. Also a Geist in Wilstorm’s Wildcore team.
MARVEL: A villain; a diehard Nazi who finally got killed by Magneto.

Genesis
DC: Temporary heroic alias of Vicky Grant in her "Dial H for Hero" days. Also, the name was later used for a powerful entity, the hybrid product of a love affair between an angel and a demon, which possesses Jesse Custer in the "Preacher" series from Vertigo.
MARVEL: Tyler Dayspring (or Tyler Summers), villain, an adopted son of Cable (according to one source; but there seems to be considerable doubt on the details of their family ties); killed by Wolverine.

The Ghost
DC: "The Ghost" is Alec Rois, villain.
MARVEL: "The Ghost" is a villain who fought Iron Man; real name unknown. Also: "Ghost" was used by a member of Death Force: Morituri.

Giz
DC: Mercenary who works with Mouse.
MARVEL: Character in the Ultraverse who provides tech support for Warstrike.

Gladiator
DC: Temporary "Dial H for Hero" identity of Chris King.
MARVEL: Several users, including Kallark, leader of the Shi’ar Imperial Guard.

Gog
DC: Superman villain.
MARVEL: Several of them.

Gold
DC: One of the original Metal Men.
MARVEL: One of the Elements of Doom.

Gorgon
DC: Two of them (not counting any mythological Gorgons in the DCU, such as the original Medusa). One was a villain, one of the Extremists -- though it eventually turned out that the only one who appeared onstage while fighting the Justice League was actually a robot duplicate of the "original" Gorgon. The other Gorgon was one of "the Hybrid" who once fought the Titans; apparently died later in Roulette’s fight club.
MARVEL: One of the Inhumans. Also: Tomi Shishido, villain who fought Wolverine and died.

Grace
DC: Grace Choi; created by Judd Winick for his recent version of the Outsiders team.
MARVEL: Several users.

Grandmaster
DC: Leader of the evil robotic Manhunters.
MARVEL: The Elder of the Universe who is obsessed with playing games.

Grasshopper
DC: Temporary heroic alias of Vicky Grant in her "Dial H for Hero" days.
MARVEL: Three users; apparently all wanted to be superheroes and all died pretty quickly after they got started.

Graybeard/Greybeard
DC: "Greybeard" was the oldest living active criminal in the world of Captain Marvel’s Pre-COIE stories, both in the Golden Age comics from Fawcett and in the Earth-S era.
MARVEL: The Grand Vizier of Polemachus is listed at marvunapp.com as both "Graybeard" and "Greybeard."

The Griffin/Gryphon
DC: "Griffin" was Griffin Grey, developed superspeed and superstrength, said he wanted to be a hero but often acted like a villain; now dead.
MARVEL: "The Griffin" is Johnny Horton, villain. "Gryphon" is Ekatarina Gryaznova, who fought X-Force.

Grunt
DC: Hero who served with the Doom Patrol (in John Byrne’s reboot version of the DP).
MARVEL: At least two users.

Guardian
DC: Jim Harper, Golden Age hero, and later his modern-day clone.
MARVEL: James MacDonald Hudson of Alpha Flight.

Gunhawk
DC: A Batman villain.
MARVEL: At least one, maybe two "Wild West" characters from the 19th Century.

Gunshot
DC: Villain; served as a member of "the New Extremists" and later in the Overmaster’s second Cadre.
MARVEL: A Genoshan Magistrate.

Hafnium
DC: Villain who fought Metamorpho and was destroyed
MARVEL: One of the Elements of Doom.

Half-Life/Halflife
DC: "Half-Life" was Byron Stark, member of the Ravers; now dead.
MARVEL: "Halflife" is an extraterrestrial villain. "Half-Life" was Anthony Masterson, a villain who fought the Hulk a few times -- and may or may not have committed suicide; online resources contradict one another on the subject of whether he was "dead" or merely in a "coma" when last seen.

Hammer
DC: Member of the Russian superhero team "the People’s Heroes."
MARVEL: Several users.

The Hang Man/The Hangman
DC: "The Hang Man" was the name applied to a mysterious cop-killer during a year-long killing spree depicted in the graphic novel "Batman: Dark Victory." (Since that story is more of a whodunit than most Batman stories, I prefer not to ruin the surprise right here for anyone who hasn’t read it.)
MARVEL: Three users, all villains; the first and second users are dead.

Harbinger
DC: Lyla (no last name known?), who was the Monitor’s assistant before and during Crisis on Infinite Earths.
MARVEL: At least two. One was a servant of Apocalypse; now dead.

Hard Drive/Hardrive
DC: "Hard Drive" was the first team leader of the Young Heroes.
MARVEL: "Hardrive" was a villain; a cyborg member of the Dark Riders.

Harpy
DC: Temporary villainous "Dial H for Hero" identity of Vicky Grant.
MARVEL: At least two have used this alias, including Betty Ross (later married Bruce Banner) when she was briefly mutated into a villainous creature.

Harvest
DC: Supernatural vigilante villain who recently fought the Birds of Prey.
MARVEL: Several users, including Chi Lo, one of the Young Gods.

Haven
DC: The name, apparently an alias, used by a kind-hearted hermit whom Batman met just once, in "Detective Comics #514." (Died at the end of the story.)
MARVEL: Radha Dastoor, apparently a powerful mutant, now dead.

Hawk
DC: Hank Hall, Sasha Martens, and Holly Granger have all served as the "Hawk" half of one "Hawk & Dove" heroic duo or another.
MARVEL: Several users, including one of Killraven’s Freemen.

Hazard
DC: Two, both villains; no apparent connection between them. One is Rebecca Sharpe, former member of the Injustice Society. One is Manuel Cabral, a criminal mastermind who used to give Steel (John Henry Irons) a bad time.
MARVEL: Two users. One is a character in the 2099 timeline; one is Carter Ryking, mutant villain; lost his powers on M-Day.

Headhunter
DC: Villain who fought Batman in the early 90s.
MARVEL: At least three users (no known connections among them).

Heat Wave/Heatwave
DC: Mick Rory, an old Flash villain (from the Barry Allen era) who sometimes reforms and then goes bad again.
MARVEL: One of the Spaceknights; went rogue and died.

Helium
DC: Villain; one of the Gas Gang. Also, one of Mr. Element's henchmen in his first appearance must have been using the alias Helium (since Mr. Element claimed all six noble gasses were represented).
MARVEL: One of the Elements of Doom.

Hercules
DC: At least four users of the name definitely were not "the original Hercules of Greek myth" -- or so I am told. As an example: One of them was a Golden Age hero who was published by Quality; he was born and raised in the USA in the early 20th century; his real name was Joe Hercules and he had superhuman strength (which apparently was never explained, but just at a wild guess, perhaps readers were meant to assume he was a distant descendant of his namesake?).
MARVEL: Several users -- and, as with DC’s uses of the name, I’m not even counting the variations of "the mythological Hercules" which have existed in one timeline or another.

Hero
DC: Hero Cruz, has an H-Dial which he uses; has served with the Ravers and the Titans (apparently very briefly in the latter case).
MARVEL: At least two users; in one case it was a temporary alias of the Forgotten One.

High-Tech/Hi-Tek/Hi-Tech
DC: "Hi-Tek" was a teenage computer hacker who once fought Green Arrow in the early 1980s before reforming. "Hi-Tech" is a villainess who has fought Superman several times.
MARVEL: "High-Tech" is now the preferred alias of Curtis Carr, the reformed ex-villain who invented the role of "Chemistro."

Hitman
DC: Hired killer Tommy Monaghan; possibly dead at the end of his series (I’m told it’s rather unclear).
MARVEL: Burt Kenyon; assassin who fought Spider-Man and the Punisher.

Holocaust
DC: Name used by a Milestone character who later switched to "Pyre" for awhile.
MARVEL: Villain; son of Apocalypse from the "Age of Apocalypse" timeline.

Hood
DC: George Cross, costumed hero in England; met Batman during "Knightquest"; may not have appeared again?
MARVEL: Several users.

Hornet
DC: Maxmiums Wasp knockoff called Jaime
MARVEL: Three users; one was Spider-Man.

Hotshot
DC: Billy Lefferts, member of the "Hero Hotline" service.
MARVEL: At least three users.

The Human Cannonball
DC: Ryan Chase, fledgling hero in a few Lois Lane stories in the Pre-COIE continuity.
MARVEL: Member of the Circus of Crime.

The Hunchback
DC: Two users: A Golden Age hero from Fawcett, and a villain who fought Barbara Gordon in her Batgirl days.
MARVEL: Apparently this was an alias used by the character "Half-Mad" in "Werewolf by Night" in the 1970s?

Hunter
DC: Several, including Rip Hunter who sometimes just uses this name.
MARVEL: Several.

Huntress
DC: Paula Brooks, Golden Age villain. Then Helena Wayne, Pre-Crisis Earth-2 hero. And now it’s Helena Bertinelli, who’s kinda-sorta a hero, on a good day.
MARVEL: A codename used by Bobbi Morse before she became Mockingbird.

Hyena
DC: Two villains.
MARVEL: Henry Mortonson, Golden Age villain who fought the original Human Torch.

Ice
DC: Heroic alias adopted by Tora Olafsdotter after she stopped being the second "Ice Maiden" of the Global Guardians.
MARVEL: Several users.

The Ice Man/Iceman
DC: "The Ice Man" was a villain hired to fight the L.E.G.I.O.N.
MARVEL: "Iceman" is Bobby Drake, founding member of the X-Men.

Icon
DC: A Milestone hero.
MARVEL: A Wakandan villain. Also the name of a computer program modeled on one version of "Heather Hudson" in the "Exiles" title.

Impulse
DC: Two users. Best known as a former alias of Bart Allen, hero who later served as "Kid Flash" and then "Flash"; then died; I hear he is now back in harness as "Kid Flash" once again. Also: Richard Kent Shakespeare, who served with the Legion of Super-Heroes before the Post-Zero Hour Reboot.
MARVEL: Two users. First, a member of the Imperial Guard of the Shi’ar; now dead. Second: Dwight Hubbard, member of Psioniex

Indigo
DC: Two users. A female hero; a member of Sovereign Seven. Later: an feminine android who seemed to be a villain; then was allegedly reprogrammed and seemed to be a hero while serving with the Outsiders; then turned out to be a villain after all; Brainiac 8, in fact; the character is now dead.
MARVEL: Patient in the Clinic in "D.P.7" (a New Universe title); dead.

Inertia
DC: Thaddeus Thawne, a clone of Bart Allen and a villain; recently became a member of the new "Titans East."
MARVEL: A female character in the Squadron Supreme timeline who infiltrated that group on behalf of Kyle Richmond’s "Redeemers" resistance group.

Inferno
DC: Used at least twice, in different versions of Legion of Super-Heroes continuity. Once as a new alias for Dirk Morgna (Sun Boy), Pre-Zero Hour. Once as the alias of a female character, real name unknown, in Post-Zero Hour continuity.
MARVEL: Several of them.

Ion
DC: Alias used, off and on, by Kyle Rayner, hero. (I’m told that a recent retcon has said that "Ion" is actually a separate entity that’s bonded, off and on, with Kyle Rayner.)
MARVEL: Violetta Todd, villain.

Iridium
DC: Robot member of the third "Metal Men" team; eventually went rogue and was destroyed.
MARVEL: One of the Elements of Doom.

Iron
DC: One of the original Metal Men.
MARVEL: One of the Elements of Doom.

Iron Butterfly
DC: A Milestone character.
MARVEL: Two users; women who were analogs from different timelines.

Jack Frost
DC: Two users. Zan of the Wonder Twins reportedly turned himself into an icy form which he called "Jack Frost" on one occasion in the old "Super Friends" comic book. Later, this same alias was used by Dane McGowan of the Vertigo series "The Invisibles."
MARVEL: Two users. One was a Golden Age superhero who, in the 1970s, was retconned to have been a member in good standing of a WWII-era group called the Liberty Legion; at some point, it was also established that he remembered nothing of his own origins. In the early 90s, Thor speculated that this Jack Frost might be a person he had once heard of (but never met) who was exiled from the Frost Giants for being such a runt by their standards, but that theory has never been proved or disproved. The second user of this name was a villain who debuted in the Silver Age and later renamed himself "Blizzard" (Marvel’s first user of that alias).

Jack O’Lantern
DC: At least three. The latest one is Liam McHugh.
MARVEL: At least four, all of them villains.

The Jackal
DC: The crook who ordered Joseph Wilson’s (the future Jericho’s) throat to be cut -- right before Deathstroke the Terminator killed the Jackal and his stooges. Joseph just barely survived his injury. Later, there was a terrorist called The Jackal who fought Superman.
MARVEL: Miles Warren, villain.

Jackhammer
DC: Two villains have used this name. One fought the Pre-COIE Superman (so he may not exist in continuity now). The other was a member of the Demolition Team.
MARVEL: Villain.

Jade
DC: Jennie-Lynn Hayden, heroine; daughter of Alan Scott, the Golden Age Green Lantern.
MARVEL: At least three users.

Jaguar
DC: An Archie heroine.
MARVEL: An obscure villain who was killed by a "Scourge" in the 1980s.

Javelin/Javelynne
DC: "Javelin" was a former Olympic athlete from Germany who became a villain; currently dead.
MARVEL: Several users of "Javelin." There was also one "Javelynne" who fought Hawkeye.

Jester
DC: Chuck Lane, originally a Golden Age Quality hero. Later: Cord Dexter Lemoyne, member of Wildstorm’s Wetworks.
MARVEL: Jonathan Powers, villain.

Jinx
DC: East Indian sorceress, villain.
MARVEL: Several users.

Jolly Roger
DC: Character in the timeline of "The Invisibles."
MARVEL: At least three users; one is an Ultraverse character and another lives in the 2099 timeline.

Jolt
DC: Carlotta Rivera, hero. One of the "Blasters" until she, like most of that group, went "missing in action" and (I gather) simply hasn’t been heard from in a long time.
MARVEL: Hallie Takahama, hero; the first honest person to join the original Thunderbolts in the 1990s (of course, at the time she assumed they were honest superheroes too).

Karma
DC: Wayne Hawkins, served with the Doom Patrol, later died.
MARVEL: Xi’an Coy Manh, founding member of the original New Mutants.

Key/The Key
DC: Two villains; one apparently died in the early 50s. The second has fought the Justice League on various occasions.
MARVEL: "Key" was an Australian mutant who assisted Cable.

Killshot
DC: Russian cyborg villain; he was part of the group of professional asssassins called "the Hangmen," all of whom are now dead.
MARVEL: Assassin who fought Spider-Man.

King/The King
DC: "King" Standish was a Golden Age masked crimefighter called "The King" (and later an agent of the OSS during WWII).
MARVEL: Several users.

Kismet
DC: A cosmic entity; their equivalent of Marvel’s "Eternity."
MARVEL: An alias taken by the character previously known as "Her."

Knight/Night
DC: At least two "Knights." First: Percival Sheldrake, Earl of Wordenshire, the "Knight" of the first "Knight and Squire" duo that consciously imitated the Batman/Robin duo in a story published in 1950. Second: Cyril Sheldrake, son and successor of the first Knight (having previously served as his father’s "Squire").
MARVEL: One "Knight" was an assassin who was part of the "Knight and Fogg" partnership that fought Spider-Man. At least two other "Knights" have also existed (with no connection to "Knight and Fogg"). Marvel has also had at least two or three minor characters who sometimes used the name "Night."

Knockout
DC: Kay, villainess, former member of the Female Furies of Apokolips.
MARVEL: Elizabeth Rawson, villainess, member of the Femme Fatales and the Femizons.

Krypton
DC: One of Mr. Element's henchmen used this alias in a single story.
MARVEL: Presumably one of the Elements of Doom.

Lamprey
DC: Tayla Scott was a student at the Legion Academy, a thousand years in the future, in the Pre-Zero Hour version of "Legion of Super-Heroes" continuity.
MARVEL: Villain in Mark Gruenwald’s "Squadron Supreme"

Landslide
DC: Temporary villainous "Dial H for Hero" alias of Nylor Truggs
MARVEL: Two users.

Lead
DC: One of the original Metal Men.
MARVEL: One of the Elements of Doom.

Legion
DC: Villain who only appeared in the "Green Lantern: Emerald Dawn" mini.
MARVEL: Two users (not counting groups). One is Professor X’s son, who suffers from Multiple Personality Disorder. The other is or was a member of the Special Executive. Since the second guy’s power was to create duplicates of himself, similar to what Madrox does, except that they were all himself pulled back from times in the future, and since one of his "duplicates from the future" got killed in the 1980s, it’s quite possible he’s dropped dead by now. (I don't think that was ever confirmed, though.)

Leviathan
DC: Heroic alias used by the version of Gim Allon who existed in the continuity of the Post-Zero Hour Rebooted Legion of Super-Heroes.
MARVEL: Many users.

Libra
DC: Villain who fought the JLA once in the 70s and then disappeared until the time of "Final Crisis."
MARVEL: Several users, usually connected with one incarnation or another of the evil organization called Zodiac.

Lightmaster
DC: Temporary "Dial H for Hero" identity of Chris King.
MARVEL: Edward Lansky, villain.

Lightning Lord
DC: Mekt Ranzz, villain; brother of Lightning Lad and Lightning Lass of the Legion of Super-Heroes.
MARVEL: At least two users; one was also known as "the Lord of Living Lightning."

Lilith
DC: Heroine, occasional Titan, eventually started calling herself "Omen." She’s currently dead (I think).
MARVEL: Daughter of Count Dracula; villain.

Lionheart
DC: Richard Plante, a distant descendant of the old Plantagenet dynasty, who became a hero working for the British government during the "Bloodlines event" (and may not have been heard from since that time?).
MARVEL: Two or three users.

Lion-Mane/Lionmane
DC: At least 2 users of "Lion-Mane" -- one was a man who fought Silver Age Hawkman; one was a woman who fought Hawkman, post-Zero Hour. Also, there was a "Lionmane" villain who fought the Earth-2 Huntress, Pre-COIE.
MARVEL: "Lionmane" has been used as an alias by Lo Chien, an evil warlord.

Livewire/Live Wire
DC: "Live Wire" was the heroic alias used by Garth Ranzz in the Post-Zero Hour rebooted version of "Legion of Super-Heroes" continuity (Pre-Zero Hour, he was known as "Lightning Lad"). "Livewire" is Leslie Willis, a Superman villain.
MARVEL: Villain; member of the Circus of Crime.

The Lizard
DC: Gang leader who fought the Metal Men once and hasn’t been heard from since.
MARVEL: Alter-ego of Curt Connors, a Spider-Man villain (although usually a nice guy when in his standard human form).

Lockup/Lock-Up
DC: "Lock-Up" is Lyle Bolton, villain.
MARVEL: "Lockup" was a Brood Mutant who died fighting the X-Men.

Lodestone
DC: Rhea Jones, heroine; served with the Doom Patrol.
MARVEL: Villainess who fought Darkhawk.

Looter/The Looter
DC: "Looter" was a villain who fought Kamandi; died.
MARVEL: Three users of "The Looter." One was a Golden Age villain who fought Captain America; one was a Wild West villain who fought the Two-Gun Kid; one is a Spider-Man villain who later changed his alias to "Meteor Man."

Lord Chaos
DC: Son of Donna Troy and Terry Long in an alternate future timeline where he grew up to be a world-conquering tyrant.
MARVEL: A cosmic entity.

Lucifer
DC: A few people have used this at different times. For instance, one villain called "Lucifer" fought Blue Devil in the 1980s and then died.
MARVEL: An alien who crippled Charles Xavier way back when.

Lynx
DC: Teenage villain who formerly worked for King Snake and often fought Robin. (She’s already died, come back from the dead, and died again -- I think she’s still dead at the moment.)
MARVEL: At least three.

Mad Dog
DC: Villain who fought Cassandra Cain in the final issues of her "Batgirl" series.
MARVEL: Several users; best-known is probably Buzz Baxter, the ex-husband of Patsy Walker (Hellcat)

The Mad Hatter
DC: Two users. The original Mad Hatter is Jervis Tetch, a Batman villain, who first appeared in the Golden Age. According to a retcon in the early 1980s, "The Mad Hatter" who had fought Batman a few times in previous Silver Age/Bronze Age stories had actually been an impostor; not Jervis himself.
MARVEL: An actor hired by the villainess "The White Rabbit" to pose as a supervillain ally of hers.

Maestro/The Maestro
DC: I'm not sure of these details, but I've been told that at least four different villains with musical themes have called themselves "Maestro" or "The Maestro" at some point; two of those also were called "The Mad Maestro."
MARVEL: An evil future version of the Hulk. The name was also used by "modern Hulk" when an evil personality took over his body at one point.

Magneto
DC: Two users. One was a temporary "Dial H for Hero" identity of Robby Reed. One is a villain; a member of "the Awesome Threesome" group which fought Aquaman in the Silver Age.
MARVEL: The first villain the X-Men ever fought.

Magog
DC: Ruthless vigilante introduced in the possible future of "Kingdom Come."
MARVEL: At least two. One was a demon who fought the Hulk once. One apparently lives in the Mojoverse.

Magpie
DC: Margaret Pye, villain; now dead.
MARVEL: Two users.

Malice
DC: Villainess; daughter of Vermin Vunderbarr of Apokolips.
MARVEL: Six users.

Mammoth
DC: Baran Flinders, villain.
MARVEL: At least four users.

Manhunter
DC: Lots and lots and lots of them.
MARVEL: Bounty hunter who went after Kid Colt in the 19th Century.

The Manikin/The Mannikin/Mannequin
DC: "The Manikin," first name Miranda, was a Batman villain in a two-part story in 1981. Hasn’t been heard from since? "The Mannikin" was a wooden creature which fought The Demon (Etrigan) in the 1970s and was soon destroyed; never reappeared.
MARVEL: "Manikin" has been used twice. Most notably by Whitman Knapp, hero, trained in Canada’s Beta Flight program; became a regular face in the original "Alpha Flight" series in the late 80s and 90s. "Mannequin" has also been used at least twice; once by an Ultraverse character which was apparently the composite of three people and a couple of other things.

Manta
DC: Villain; one of the Dogs of War who fought the Doom Patrol.
MARVEL: Member of the Shi’ar Imperial Guard.

Manticore
DC: Four users.
MARVEL: Villain who has worked for the Brand Corporation.

Mantis
DC: A New God from Apokolips.
MARVEL: The Celestial Madonna.

Manx
DC: Hero; member of the Justice Experience team back around the 1970s (according to retcons in the 90s); died in the line of duty.
MARVEL: A savage, feral creature bred from Hellbent stock; apparently killed by Slaine.

Marauder/The Marauder
DC: "The Marauder" was a villain who fought the Earth-1 Superman a few times.
MARVEL: At least two users; one was the character who was the combined essences of "Team America" (or "The Thunderriders"); that combined entity was also known as "Dark Rider."

Marionette (Dial H)
DC: Temporary "Dial H for Hero" alias of Barry Allen.
MARVEL: A heroine who debuted as a member of the Micronauts in the Marvel comic books based on a line of action figures; however, this character was created and owned by Marvel and they have continued to use her in new stories after their license for the Micronauts ended. (I am told that her group of fellow adventurers is now referred to as "the Microns" if it is mentioned at all.)

Marvel Man/Marvelman
DC: "Marvel Man" was a Superman-analog on a distant world strongly resembling Earth (it was creatively called "Terra") in the same universe as Earth-1 of the Pre-COIE DCU. I say "analog" because he had much the same face and power set, but his origin story was different; no Kryptonian blood in him, nor in his cousin, Marvel Maid (a Supergirl analog, except that she was the mentor-figure who was much more experienced in the heroic use of her powers than her cousin). Marvel Man, also known as "Ken Clark," appeared in a two-part story in the Silver Age and has never been heard from since.
MARVEL: Apparently "Marvel Man" has been used by Wendell Vaughn and by Vance Astrovik at different times. Also, Marvel has recently bought at least some of the rights (I’m not prepared to say "all the rights, beyond a shadow of a doubt!") to a character who debuted in the UK in the 1950s as "Marvelman" but who, in American publications of much later stories written by Alan Moore and others, was renamed "Miracleman." If and when Marvel actually starts reprinting any of that fellow’s old stories, and/or publishing new ones, I don’t know which version of his name they will use.

The Mask/Masque
DC: "The Mask" was a villain who fought Fawcett’s Spy Smasher in the Golden Age. I have also run across a reference to a character in "Superboy #36" (this issue was published in 1954) who wore a lead mask and called himself "The Mask" while using his knowledge of Clark Kent’s secret identity to compel Superboy to do certain tasks for him. This mysterious figure turned out to be Pa Kent, as part of the set-up for a surprise birthday party, and that’s all I know about the logic of it.
MARVEL: Two users of "Masque." The more famous was a villainous Morlock who had the ability to do the equivalent of advanced plastic surgery by just running his hands over your flesh and reshaping your body to his own specifications; he is now dead. The other "Masque" was a "bioduplicate" of Madame Masque. Also, it appears that Emalia, wife of the villain Boneyard in the Ultraverse, sometimes called herself "Mask"; she is now dead.

The Masked Marauder
DC: Villain who fought Ted Kord in a Charlton story in the 1960s.
MARVEL: Frank Farnum, villain.

Masquerade
DC: A Milestone character.
MARVEL: Member of Elektra's Order who quickly got himself killed after he debuted.

Master Man
DC: Two of them. First: A Golden Age hero they acquired from Fawcett and allegedly have never used at all since they got him! Second: A Golden Age Quality character who was basically the evil equivalent of the hero Kid Eternity.
MARVEL: A diehard Nazi villain.

Mastermind/The Mastermind
DC: "The Mastermind" is a villain who fought Green Arrow in one Silver Age story. "Mastermind" (I think he didn’t use "The") is a villain who appeared in some comic books set in the world of the DCAU; he usually was working with (or competing with?) Mister Nice and The Perfesser.
MARVEL: At least five users; apparently most or all of them don’t habitually use the definite article. Probably the most famous is Jason Wyngarde, villain; he was a founding member of the original Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and later played a key role in the legendary Dark Phoenix Saga. (Two other users of the alias are Jason's daughters, by the way.)

Match
DC: A clone of the modern Superboy.
MARVEL: Ben Hammil, a student at the Xavier Institute.

Maverick
DC: Callsign of a U.S. Air Force pilot who first appeared in "Captain Atom #1" in 1987.
MARVEL: Two users. The first was Christoph Nord, apparently a hero; the second was a mutant villain who impersonated the first and then was killed.

Megaton
DC: Temporary "Dial H for Hero" identity of the Pre-Crisis version of Pete Ross.
MARVEL: Jules Carter, villain, dead.

Mentor
DC: Robot villain who fought Blue Beetle (Ted Kord) in a Charlton story in the 1960s.
MARVEL: Looks like three users; one is A’lars, leader of the Eternals of Titan.

Mercury
DC: One of the original Metal Men.
MARVEL: Numerous users. One of the Elements of Doom. Also a superheroic alias used by Makkari the Eternal in the 1930s/1940s. And there were other users.

Merlin/Merlyn
DC: "Merlyn" is an archer villain who has tangled with Green Arrow. He was also on Zandia's Olympic Archery Team in the 2000 Summer Olympics. In addition, "Merlin" is a name Baron Winters uses for his leopard when conversing with it -- we never understand the leopard's responses, but Winters apparently does.
MARVEL: Several characters have reportedly used the name "Merlin" at one time or another; whichever Merlin was actually King Arthur’s court magician would be disqualified under my rules (public domain and all that), but the various imitators who are just "original Marvel characters swiping the name of a legendary figure" are each qualified for this list.

Metalhead/Metal Head
DC: "Metalhead" was a villain who fought Batman in the early 90s.
MARVEL: "Metalhead" is a hero; member of the X-Men 2099. "Metal Head" is a villain.

Metalo/Metallo
DC: "Metalo" was a Golden Age villain in an armored suit who fought the Earth-2 Superman. "Metallo," both Pre- and Post-COIE, has been a villain whose brain was transplanted into an artificial body powered by Kryptonite; he also fights Superman.
MARVEL: "Metallo" is Mike Fallon, a criminal.

Midnight
DC: Dave Clark, a Golden Age Quality Comics hero later acquired by DC.
MARVEL: Several users.

Mikado/The Mikado
DC: "The Mikado" is a villain who once fought the original Question.
MARVEL: "Mikado" is a Japanese woman who has helped Blade hunt vampires.

Mirage
DC: An obscure Batman villain. Later: Miriam Delgado, heroine.
MARVEL: At least two. Desmond Charne, villain, dead. Also an alias of Danielle Moonstar, heroine.

Misfit
DC: Charlotte Gage-Radcliffe, hero; initially called herself "Batgirl" before settling for this name instead.
MARVEL: Villain. A client of the Power Broker who ended up superhumanly strong but also looked deformed; became a member of the Night Shift.

Miss America
DC: A Golden Age heroine they acquired from Quality; Joan Dale, who later married Derek Trevor according to Post-COIE continuity.
MARVEL: A Golden Age heroine named Madeline Joyce; later married the Golden Age Whizzer (Robert Frank). Now dead.

Mist/Myst
DC: A Golden Age Starman villain and his daughter Nash have both used the alias "The Mist" (or perhaps sometimes just "Mist.") There was also a "Myst" who was a member of the demon-hunting group called the Hell-Enders.
MARVEL: Either the real name or the alias of a Valkyrie who is part-Faerie on her mother’s side.

Mister Big
DC: Villain in the alternate future timeline of the original OMAC stories by Jack Kirby.
MARVEL: Two; one was a bad guy in the 1930s; one was Frederick Foswell in his "Ultimate Universe" version (in the original Silver Age Spider-Man continuity, Frederick Foswell was once the crimelord known as "the Big Man").

Mister E.
DC: A blind man with various mystic abilities and unpredictable changes of personality.
MARVEL: A native of the Shadow Realm who fought Captain Universe (Steve Coffin at the time) and apparently died as a result.

Mister Menace
DC: An alias used in at least one story by the villain who previously had been the Golden Age villain known as Sportsmaster.
MARVEL: A character whom Franklin Richards briefly brought to life from a "Protectors of Peace" comic book.

Mister Mind
DC: Originally a Fawcett character; a telepathic green worm who fights Captain Marvel.
MARVEL: Mercenary who fought Team America once.

Mister Muscle
DC: One of several aliases used by Sturgis Butterfield, a member of the Hero Hotline group.
MARVEL: Villain who was working for the Mayhem Organization when he fought Team America (apparently his only appearance).

Mister Nice
DC: Very soft-hearted villain who apparently only appeared in comic books set in the continuity of the TV shows of the DCAU (but never in the TV shows themselves!).
MARVEL: A villain who worked for Arcade at least once; his power is to induce fear, I gather.

Mister Nobody
DC: Villain who has fought the Doom Patrol.
MARVEL: Criminal in the MC2 timeline.

Mister X
DC: Golden Age villain who fought the JSA.
MARVEL: At least two users; one was a professional wrestler.

Mockingbird
DC: This alias has been used by what appear to be at least four different people (including Lex Luthor a few years ago) when each of them was directing the activities of one "Secret Six" roster or another.
MARVEL: Bobbi Morse, heroine, who married Hawkeye and later died.

Molecule Man
DC: Temporary "Dial H for Hero" identity of Chris King.
MARVEL: Owen Reece, who started as a villain but improved himself. I’m not sure what he’s up to now.

Moloch
DC: Character in the "Watchmen" timeline who was a villain for many years, but had left all that behind by 1985 (when the main action of the story was set).
MARVEL: Name used by one or two demons, and also by a mind-controlling, tentacled creature in the Ultraverse.

Monocle/The Monocle
DC: "The Monocle" is a villain who debuted in the Golden Age.
MARVEL: Two users.

Monster
DC: A small girl known as "Becky" is capable of transforming into a huge, strong, dumb monster known as "Monster" in the timeline of the Maximums. (A thinly veiled knockoff of the Incredible Hulk.)
MARVEL: Several users.

Mortician/The Mortician
DC: "The Mortician" was making zombies in attempt to find the way to restore his own parents to life. But he gave it up after Batman explained that one of his zombies had been used for murder by someone else.
MARVEL: "Mortician" was a voodoo leader who debuted and died in "Punisher: Die Hard in the Big Easy."

The Moth
DC: Temporary "Dial H for Hero" alias of Chris King.
MARVEL: Mercenary villain who once fought the Human Torch and then was killed by his own criminal employers.

Mouse
DC: Mercenary computer-hacking woman who dresses like a mouse; Giz is her partner.
MARVEL: Looks like at least five users.

Murmur
DC: Two. One a demon; one a Flash villain.
MARVEL: Three users.

Muse/The Muse
DC: "The Muse" fought Blue Beetle (Ted Kord) in the 1980s. Another "The Muse" was a villain fighting Batman and Robin in a Hostess cupcake ad in some comic books in the 1970s.
MARVEL: At least four users; I’m not clear on how many of them used "The Muse" as opposed to just "Muse."

Mysterio
DC: Alias briefly used by a Silver Age Superboy Robot disguised in bandages.
MARVEL: Quentin Beck invented the role as a Spider-Man villain. At least two other villains have copied him.

Naiad
DC: Two users.
MARVEL: Ultraverse villainess; member of TNTNT.

The Needle
DC: Golden Age villain who fought the original Seven Soldiers of Victory.
MARVEL: Two users; both villains; one male, one female.

Nemesis
DC: Several users.
MARVEL: Three users. The latest was Amelia Witherspoon, who served with Alpha Flight.

Nemo
DC: One of the heroes of Wonderworld; killed by Mageddon.
MARVEL: Leader of a motorcycle gang called "The Blood Brothers" in the "X-51" series.

Neon
DC: Temporary "Dial H for Hero" identity of Chris King. Also: Celeste McCauley (aka Celeste Rockfish), who served with the Legion of Super-Heroes before the Post-Zero Hour Reboot. Also, one of Mr. Element’s henchmen in a single Silver Age story must have been using this alias (since Mr. Element claimed all six noble gasses were represented on his payroll, although "Neon" was not mentioned by name).
MARVEL: One of the Elements of Doom

Neptunium
DC: Apparently a robot connected with the Metal Men, who was seen in at least one panel in "Metal Men #8" in the 1960s. (I’ve seen an online scan of that one panel, with the robot’s name printed across the back of its shoulders -- beyond that, I know nothing for certain!)
MARVEL: One of the Elements of Doom.

Network
DC: Several users; one was Taryn Haldane, member of Sovereign Seven; hero.
MARVEL: Several users.

Neutron
DC: Nat Tryon, villain.
MARVEL: Apparently the alias which is preferred by the character who is usually called "Munchkin" by his teammates in "New Genix."

The Night Man/Nightman
DC: "Nightman" appeared as a mysterious new costumed crimefighter in a single Silver Age story. Batman investigated, and finally discovered that he himself was Nightman -- thanks to his buddy Superman having hypnotized him into being a new hero part of the time, and not remembering it the rest of the time. The purpose of the exercise was to create a true challenge for Batman’s detective skills.
MARVEL: Johnny Domino is "The Night Man," an Ultraverse hero. (Incidentally, his costume bore a strong resemblance to the traditional Batman look -- but I don’t know if the creative team also deliberately adapted a name which had previously been a Batman alias in one obscure old story; that part could have been an in-joke or it could have been sheer coincidence!)

Nightfire
DC: Name used by a character in the old series "Arion, Lord of Atlantis."
MARVEL: Two users.

Nighthawk
DC: A 19th Century Old West hero.
MARVEL: Kyle Richmond; at least two analogs of him have played significant roles in Marvel continuity. One joined the Squadron Supreme in their timeline; one was a longtime member of the old Defenders in the main 616 timeline, after briefly serving with the Squadron Sinister and then reforming.

Nightmare
DC: One of the heroes of Wonderworld; killed by Mageddon.
MARVEL: Two users; the more famous is a demon lord who has fought Dr. Strange and other heroes on many occasions.

Nightrider/Night Rider
DC: "Nightrider" was named David, also known as Dagon, a vampiric member of "Team Titans" (apparently erased from history during Zero Hour).
MARVEL: "Night Rider" was one of the aliases used by the 19th Century Wild West vigilante also known as Ghost Rider and Phantom Rider. Several other characters in the Old West may have also used this alias, as well as "Phantom Rider," at one time or another; the online resources I consulted aren't entirely clear.

Nightshade
DC: First: A Golden Age villain who was later (according to a retcon in the 1980s) known as "Ramulus." Second: Eve Eden, a superheroine they acquired from Charlton.
MARVEL: Tilda Johnson, villain.

Nightwind
DC: Berta Skye Haris was a student at the Legion Academy, and later a member of the Legion, in the Pre-Zero Hour version of "Legion of Super-Heroes" continuity
MARVEL: Female ninja villain, member of "Rising Sons" -- lost her powers on M-Day.

Nimrod
DC: Villain who fought Batman.
MARVEL: Several users.

Nocturn/Nocturne
DC: "Nocturn" was an alien hero who fought alongside Guy Gardner. Now dead.
MARVEL: Several users of the name "Nocturne." Best-known is probably T.J. Wagner, one of the six original members of the Exiles team which was organized by the Timebroker; T.J. is the daughter of an alternate timeline’s versions of Nightcrawler and the Scarlet Witch.

North Wind/Northwind
DC: Norda Cantrell, hero; a founding member of "Infinity Inc."
MARVEL: Two villains have successively served as "North Wind" of the group the Four Winds; the first user of that alias was killed by Elektra, thus creating a vacancy for the next guy to fill.

Nova
DC: An alias used by a depowered version of Clark Kent when he set up a new costumed identity in an Imaginary Story (or "alternate timeline") of the Silver Age. (Note: The character got a cameo in the "Infinite Crisis" miniseries.)
MARVEL: Richard Rider, off and on, and the name may also have been used by an unknown number of other members of the Nova Corps at one time or another. Also: Frankie Raye, a Herald of Galactus.

Null
DC: Thief; partner of Void; fought Batman and Superman in the Pre-COIE continuity.
MARVEL: Giant android designed to oppose Galactus.

Oblivion
DC: At least two; one was the dark side of Kyle Rayner, more or less.
MARVEL: Cosmic entity.

Obsidian/Obsydian
DC: "Obsidian" is the son of Alan Scott, the Golden Age Green Lantern.
MARVEL: "Obsidian" is the second-in-command of the terrorist outfit known as the Undertow. "Obsydian" is a character native to the timeline sometimes called "Earth-Cable."

Ogre/The Ogre
DC: "The Ogre" fought Batman in the mid-90s and then vanished into comic book limbo after his buddy "The Ape" was shot dead.
MARVEL: At least three users (one was Techno impersonating the original user of the alias).

Omega
DC: A robot created by Brainiac 5 while he was secretly controlled by Pulsar Stargrave. The robot fought the Legion of Super-Heroes (in their original continuity) and was soon destroyed.
MARVEL: Several users.

Onyx/Onyxx
DC: "Onyx" is a female ex-member of the League of Assassins; now reformed to be a non-murderous vigilante crimefighter who has gained Batman’s approval.
MARVEL: One user of each spelling.

Oracle
DC: At least two. The first was a cosmic entity who gave the JLA and JSA some guidance in rescuing the original Seven Soldiers of Victory in a 1972 story. The second is Barbara Gordon, formerly Batgirl I.
MARVEL: Several users; I think the best-known is a female member of the Shi’ar Imperial Guard.

Orca/Orka
DC: Orca was Grace Balin, a Batman villain; now dead.
MARVEL: Orka is a villain; a mutated renegade Atlantean.

Osmium
DC: Robot member of the third "Metal Men" team; eventually went rogue and was destroyed. Also a villain who fought Metamorpho and was destroyed.
MARVEL: Presumably one of the Elements of Doom.

Outlaw2
DC: Two. One was Rick Wilson, Old West character, star of a series of "Outlaw" stories in the 1970s.
MARVEL: At least three; one was a British vigilante who deliberately mimicked the Punisher.

Overmind
DC: An alias once used by Professor Emil Hamilton.
MARVEL: Grom, last survivor of the planet Eyung.

Override
DC: Villain; leader of a group called the Mainframe.
MARVEL: Greg Herd, villain.

The Owl
DC: Codename used by the analog of the Golden Age Doctor Mid-Nite who lives in the timeline where the Elseworlds stories "JSA: The Liberty Files" and "JSA: The Unholy Three" are set.
MARVEL: At least three users. One is Leland Owlsey, one of the earliest foes of Daredevil.

Ox
DC: A trained assassin who was eager to follow Cassandra Cain’s lead in the final issues of Cass’s regular "Batgirl" series -- until he died.
MARVEL: Several users; two of them (twin brothers) have each served with the group of Spider-Man foes known as "the Enforcers" at different times.

Oxygen
DC: Villain; one of the Gas Gang.
MARVEL: Presumably one of the Elements of Doom.

Ozone
DC: Villain who fought Green Arrow in the 1980s.
MARVEL: Character who wanted to be a hero but was rejected for membership in a group called O-Force in the "X-Statix" title. Hasn't been heard from since?

Ozymandias
DC: Adrian Veidt, mass-murderer; a former superhero in the "Watchmen" graphic novel (he'd retired from that about a decade before the main action of the story).
MARVEL: A servant of Apocalypse.

Paragon
DC: Villain who once fought the JLA.
MARVEL: At least four users; one was the character later known as "Her" and then "Kismet."

Parasite
DC: Maxwell Jensen was the Pre-COIE Parasite; Rudy Jenkins became the Post-COIE Parasite; both of them habitually fight Superman. Alex and Alexandra Allston later became "Parasites" simultaneously; Alex is now dead.
MARVEL: One of the Lilin; infected Martine Bancroft; now dead.

Patriot/The Patriot
DC: Member of the Freedom Brigade, now retired from superheroing; father of Myron Victor (Myron grew up to be "Merryman," the leader of the Inferior Five).
MARVEL: At least two heroes have used the name "Patriot." First: Jeff Mace, Golden Age hero who (according to retcons in the 1970s) also filled in as Captain America for awhile, around the late 1940s. Second: Elijah Bradley, member of the Young Avengers. (Note: I get the impression that Jeff Mace called himself "The Patriot" but Elijah just goes with "Patriot.")

Payback
DC: A Milestone character. Also the name used by one of the greatest heroes of the planet Thordia.
MARVEL: A Punisher imitator in the 1990s.

Persuader
DC: At least three; the most famous was a regular villain in at least two versions of "Legion of Super-Heroes" continuity; a member of the Fearsome Five.
MARVEL: A Spider-Man villain who died in his first appearance.

Phade
DC: A villainess working for Onimar Synn.
MARVEL: Ultraverse heroine.

Phantasm
DC: Several, including Danny Chase (a deceased Titan) and the villain mentioned in the title of the comic book adaptation of the animated film "Batman: Mask of the Phantasm."
MARVEL: Villain who once fought Paladin (and lost); apparently hasn’t been heard from since?

The Phantom
DC: This alias was used during a single robbery by one of the villains also known as "The Mad Maestro."
MARVEL: At least two users of "Phantom" or "The Phantom."

Note: Both companies have also had characters who called themselves "The Phantom of (Whatever)" or "The Phantom of the (Whatever)," but in each of those cases I feel the "full alias" was different from that of anybody at the other company.

Phobia
DC: Angela Hawkins III, villain; has served with the Brotherhood of Evil.
MARVEL: Two. One is a demoness; one is an Inhuman in the era of the Guardians of the Galaxy.

Phoenix
DC: Codename of an agent of the OSS in WWII, as established in "G.I. Combat" in the 1980s.
MARVEL: Several; the most famous is Jean Grey (and/or the Phoenix Force that sometimes impersonates her and sometimes merges with her).

Photon
DC: Temporary "Dial H for Hero" identity of Galen.
MARVEL: Jason Dean, villain. Later: Monica Rambeau, heroine, now called "Pulsar." Also: Genis-Vell, now dead (I think).

Pilgrim/The Pilgrim
DC: "Pilgrim" was Maritza Blackbird, member of Wildstorm’s Wetworks.
MARVEL: "The Pilgrim" was Bob Hardin, villain; he had also been the hero "Atom Bob," a founding member of the Ultraverse team "the Strangers," before he went bad.

Piper/The Piper
DC: At least two. One was a former villain who died as soon as he appeared, in "Aztek #1." It also seems to be the alias now preferred by Hartley Rathaway, a reformed villain who used to fight Barry Allen as "the Pied Piper."
MARVEL: At least two. One of the Morlocks (believed dead), and one of the Savage Land Mutates.

Pix/Pixx
DC: "Pix" is Ariadne Pixnit, a villainess who fought Batman.
MARVEL: "Pixx" was a teen heroine in the Ultraverse; a founding member of the Ultraforce, she died in the line of duty.

Pixie
DC: Temporary "Dial H for Hero" identity of Vicky Grant.
MARVEL: Several users.

Plasma
DC: Temporary "Dial H for Hero" identity of Lori Morning in post-Zero Hour "Legion of Super-Heroes" continuity.
MARVEL: Leila O’Toole, villain.

Platinum
DC: One of the original Metal Men.
MARVEL: One of the Elements of Doom.

Plutonium
DC: One of the second (and evil) team of Metal Men. Destroyed.
MARVEL: One of the Elements of Doom.

Poet
DC: Name used by a man who was a member of a group of homeless people who appeared in some Batman and Batgirl stories in the Pre-COIE days.
MARVEL: 2099 character who died.

Poltergeist
DC: Temporary "Dial H for Hero" identity of Oliver Queen.
MARVEL: Mickey Silk, mutant with unpredictable telekinetic powers.

Powderkeg
DC: Villain who fought the JLA at least once? I know very little about him.
MARVEL: Villain.

Power Broker
DC: A Pre-Crisis villain who supplied weapons to other villains.
MARVEL: A villain who used to make a living by selling other people super-strength.

Power Fist/Powerfist
DC: "Powerfist" is a Milestone character who fought Static.
MARVEL: "Power Fist" is the analog, in another timeline, of the character known as "Luke Cage" and "Power Man" in the main timeline of the regular continuity.

Power Man/Power-Man
DC: I’ve run across a reference to the idea that a "Power-Man" also known as "King of Outer Space" once proposed marriage to the Silver Age Lois Lane, but I’m not clear on the details. Silver Age Lois also had a dream sequence in which she was the super-powered "Power Girl" and Clark Kent was the equally super-powered, but wimpy and ineffectual, "Power-Man." There was also a Silver Age story with a mysterious new hero named "Power Man" who turned out to be a Superman Robot in disguise. This was reflected in "Kingdom Come" with a "Power Man" character who was a Superman Robot with a new paint job; I’m not sure if the Silver Age story was still supposed to have "really happened" in the past of the "Kingdom Come" timeline or not, though; so that "Power Man" may or may not have been a different robotic character than the one from the Silver Age.
MARVEL: At least two users of "Power Man." One was Erik Josten, using it as his original villainous alias, long before he became Atlas of the Thunderbolts. The second was Luke Cage, hero.

Powerhaus/Powerhouse
DC: "Powerhouse" was a temporary "Dial H for Hero" identity of Jerry Feldon. Another "Powerhouse" was a villain who fought the Inferior Five. Also, "Powerhaus" was a member of Wildstorm’s "DV8."
MARVEL: At least three users of "Powerhouse." One was Alex Power, one of the Power Pack; just one of several aliases he’s used over the years.

Primus
DC: Original leader of the Omega Men.
MARVEL: Artificial lifeform created by Arnim Zola.

Prism/Prysm
DC: "Prism," a temporary "Dial H for Hero" identity of Chris King. "Prysm" is Audrey Spears, heroine, one of a new group of "Teen Titans" introduced in the mid-90s.
MARVEL: "Prism" was one of the Marauders; died in the Mutant Massacre.

Professor X
DC: Mad scientist who fought Plastic Man in "Plastic Man #1" (that’s the series that came out in the 1960s).
MARVEL: Charles Xavier, founder of the X-Men.

Proletariat
DC: According to a retcon when he was introduced in the early 1990s, Proletariat had been a superpowered operative of the Soviet Union since the WWII era, but went rogue after he became disgusted with Gorbachev’s ideas about glasnost.
MARVEL: Villain who fought Speedball.

Prometheus
DC: Apparently two or three; the latest one is a villain who gave the JLA some bad times.
MARVEL: Member of the Pantheon.

Protector/The Protector
DC: At least two users of "The Protector." One is a villain who fought Superman in a couple of issues in the 1970s and then seems to have been forgotten. The other is Jason Hart, who first appeared as a young hero in the 1983 comic book "New Teen Titans Drug Awareness Giveaway #1."
MARVEL: At least four users.

Proteus
DC: At least two, both villains.
MARVEL: Kevin MacTaggart, villain, son of Moira MacTaggart. Reality-warping mutant, now dead.

Psimon
DC: Villain who has often worked with the Fearsome Five.
MARVEL: Hero; worked with Warlock (the former New Mutant guy) in a "Warlock" series several years ago.

Psyche
DC: Heroine; member of the Wanderers, a team existing in the same era as the Legion of Super-Heroes.
MARVEL: Three users. Most notably, this was the first heroic alias used by Danielle Moonstar as a founding member of the New Mutants.

Puma
DC: Jackson Jones, villain; dead.
MARVEL: Thomas Fireheart, sometimes portrayed as a villain.

The Puppet Master
DC: At least two. First, a Golden Age Batman villain. Second, Jordan Weir, who later became known as "the Puppeteer."
MARVEL: Phillip Masters, villain; stepfather of Alicia Masters.

Puppeteer
DC: Jordan Weir, villain; previously known as "Puppet Master."
MARVEL: At least two users; one was the entity which became better known as "Necromantra" in the Ultraverse.

Pyra
DC: Two users. One was a character in the old "Kamandi" stories. One was a female arsonist who fought the original Black Canary -- according to a retcon in the 1980s.
MARVEL: Sorceress who has appeared in some "Death’s Head" stories.

Pyre/The Pyre
DC: "The Pyre" is apparently a character who appeared in "Martian Manhunter #1,000,000." There is also a Milestone character who prefers the name "Holocaust," but used "Pyre" for awhile.
MARVEL: Several users.

Quake
DC: Villain, member of a Black Ops team which used to fight Steel (John Henry Irons, that is).
MARVEL: Two users. One villainous; one heroic.

The Queen of Hearts
DC: A temporary "Dial H for Hero" alias of Vicky Grant.
MARVEL: An alternate alias for the member of the Crazy Gang who apparently is more frequently called "The Red Queen."

Quicksilver
DC: A Golden Age hero, originally belonging to Quality Comics, and now better known as "Max Mercury."
MARVEL: Pietro Maximoff, hero.

Radion
DC: First user: A villain who fought Superman once in the 1970s and hasn’t been heard from since. Second: A Legion of Super-Heroes reject during their Post-Zero Hour era.
MARVEL: Henri Sorel, villain (later known as Ravager).

Radon
DC: One of Mr. Element's henchmen used this alias in a single story.
MARVEL: Presumably one of the Elements of Doom.

Rainmaker
DC: Sarah Rainmaker, hero; founding member of Wildstorm’s first Gen13 team.
MARVEL: Villain in the 2099 timeline; member of a group called the Free Radicals.

Rampage
DC: Kitty Faulkner, sometimes a hero, depending upon her ability to control her temper when in her super-strong form.
MARVEL: Stuart Clarke, villain.

Ranger/The Ranger
DC: "The Ranger" was an Australian hero who debuted in the 1950s. In modern times, he changed his alias to "Dark Ranger" and then got himself killed.
MARVEL: At least three users; one was an Ultraverse hero.

Ravager
DC: Several users, including two of Deathstroke the Terminator’s kids at different times.
MARVEL: Henri Sorel, villain.

Raven
DC: Heroine (usually); brought together the other members of "The New Teen Titans" when that title began in 1980.
MARVEL: Several users; all seem pretty obscure.

Reaper
DC: Three Batman villains, at least two of whom are no longer in continuity.
MARVEL: A character who was a villain when he worked with the Mutant Liberation Front, but later became a hero in the Ultraverse.

Red Dragon
DC: At least four users.
MARVEL: At least three users.

Red Eye
DC: Red Eye was apparently a villain in "Blue Devil #19" in the 1980s. May never have appeared again?
MARVEL: Alias of a Cyclops-analog in the mini "Avataars: Champions of the Realm."

Red Fox
DC: Apparently "The Red Fox" was the original alias for the French superheroine (secretly two sisters taking turns in that role) who later preferred to use the alias "The Crimson Fox." Both sisters are now dead.
MARVEL: A Chinese guerrilla fighter in the WWII era who worked with Captain Savage and his Leatherneck Raiders, and died in action.

The Red Queen
DC: Villainess in the continuity of Kurt Busiek’s Astro City.
MARVEL: Several users; some of them live in alternate timelines. It is also another alias for the member of the Crazy Gang also known as "The Queen of Hearts."

Red Raven
DC: This alias was used by a criminal in a single story; he lived in a parallel world where Superman was secretly Bruce Wayne, and the boss at the Daily Planet was James Gordon. More recently, this became the current alias of the character formerly known as "Little Raven"; a sidekick to his occasionally-crimefighting father, the Native American known as Man-of-Bats; the two of them are (or were) part of "the Club of Heroes.".
MARVEL: At least three users. A Golden Age hero used this name, and I am told that one story mentioned that he had a daughter who eventually continued the family tradition of superheroing, complete with dusting off her daddy’s costumed alias. There have also been a few stories with a "Red Raven" who was a flying villain in the Old West.

Redwing
DC: Carrie Levine, heroine; member of the "Team Titans" until she (and most of her team) got erased from history by Zero Hour.
MARVEL: Alias for Sam Wilson’s pet falcon; the name has also been used by a couple of characters in alternate timelines.

Reflex
DC: Two users. Walter Thorsson, hero; member of Sovereign Seven. Devlin O’Ryan, hero; served with the Legion of Super-Heroes before the Post-Zero Hour Reboot.
MARVEL: Hero; member of the First Line in "MARVEL: The Lost Generation."

Requiem
DC: A name sometimes used by Artemis of the Bana-Mighdall Amazons.
MARVEL: Villain; member of the Neo.

Ricochet
DC: Speedster villain who fought the third Hawkman.
MARVEL: At least three. Alias used by Spider-Man; this role (name and costume) was later revived by Johnny Gallo of the Slingers. There was also an agent of Mister Sinister who used the name; he’s dead now.

Ringmaster
DC: Villain who once fought a Flash.
MARVEL: Villain with a hypnotic hat; used to lead the Circus of Crime.

Riot
DC: Two users.
MARVEL: Three users.

Risk/Risque
DC: "Risk" was one of the first members of the new "Teen Titans" team that debuted in the mid-90s.
MARVEL: "Risque" fought X-Force, but later became an ally; is now dead.

Rite/Right
DC: "Rite" was a woman who had joined the group (called the Changers) who were following The High in his attempt to reshape the world (the Earth of Wildstorm) in a Stormwatch story arc.
MARVEL: "Right" is one of the Soldiers of Misfortune.

Robotman
DC: Four users. First: Robert Crane, Golden Age hero. Second: Cliff Steele, founding member of the Doom Patrol. Both men were kept alive after terrible injuries by having their brains implanted in robot bodies. (In Crane’s case, his brain was eventually transferred back into another human body so he could retire from superheroing and marry his longtime sweetheart.) The third user was a robot body meant for Cliff which developed free will and turned nasty. The fourth user initially seemed to be Cliff (and believed himself to be), but had been subconsciously created out of thin air by Dorothy Spinner; after Robotman IV realized what he really was, he conveniently evaporated into thin air.
MARVEL: A size-changing robot which appeared in "Fantastic Four/Iron Man: Big in Japan #2."

Robot-Master/The Robotmaster
DC: "The Robotmaster" was another alias used by a Silver Age villain who was also known as "Professor Menace."
MARVEL: "Robot-Master" is a robot built by Mendel Stromm.

Rock
DC: Two users. One was a temporary "Dial H for Hero" identity of Vicky Grant. One is Micah Flint, a Superman villain.
MARVEL: At least two villains.

Rocket
DC: Two female Milestone characters consecutively used this identity when functioning as Icon's sidekicks.
MARVEL: Ultraverse character, partner of Blast.

The Roman
DC: Nickname of Carmine Falcone, a mob boss in Gotham City; apparently dead (if we pretend "The Long Halloween" was meant to be firmly in continuity -- rumors say it was never meant that way when first published).
MARVEL: A mob boss who gave Wolverine some trouble.

Roulette
DC: Two villains. The first was a woman who fought the original Mister Terrific way back when (according to modern retcons). The second Roulette is the granddaughter of the first (and apparently believes the first Mister Terrific was her grandfather, but she may be wrong?).
MARVEL: Two of them. One was Jennifer Stavos, one of Emma Frost’s original Hellions; dead.

Saber/Sabre
DC: "Saber" was an assassin who fought Adrian Chase when he was the Vigilante. "Sabre" was John Zero, a villain who fought the Swamp Thing.
MARVEL: Several users of "Sabre."

Sabre-Tooth/Sabretooth
DC: "Sabre-Tooth" was the alias used by two villains, one male and one female, who each fought Barry Allen at different times and each died in action.
MARVEL: Sabretooth is Victor Creed, villain; apparently dead?

Samson
DC: In the Silver Age, DC published several stories about a "Samson" who was not the Biblical figure of that name, but may have been a descendant or other relative continuing a family tradition. This Samson was incredibly strong, called himself "Mighty Youth" for awhile but then gave that up, and lived about 3,000 years ago, mostly operating in Ancient Greece.
MARVEL: At least three users, including The Forgotten One when he once posed as the Biblical Samson.

Samurai
DC: Toshio Eto, hero.
MARVEL: Member of the Mutant Liberation Front

Sandman
DC: Several characters, beginning with Wesley Dodds in the Golden Age.
MARVEL: Flint Marko, one of the earliest Spider-Man villains.

Sapphire
DC: Candace Jean Gennaro, hero, an "associate" in the Power Company.
MARVEL: A Marvel UK character; one of the trio known as the Wyrd Sisters.

Satan
I’m going to make some general comments here. Apparently many evil entities in both DC’s and Marvel’s publications have been known to use this name at least part of the time, presumably hoping to be extra-terrifying to the mortals with whom they are dealing. I gather that most of the users have eventually been either stated or implied (if not in dialogue, then in editorial comments long after the fact) to be poseurs rather than "the real Satan"; thus, those users qualify as "original characters" in their respective universes, even if some of them were initially intended by the writers to really be the Biblical Satan, plain and simple, before that was retconned. (Any use of the Biblical Satan, of course, is not eligible for this list.) I’m not sure any of the DC impostors are "famous" under any other names; however, you have probably heard of some of the Marvel users; they are better known as "Mephisto," "Satannish," and "Chthon."

Satana/Satanna
DC: "Satana" is Sara Descarl, a villainess who debuted in the Golden Age as a Hawkman foe.
MARVEL: "Satanna" is Satanna Hellstrom, sister of Daimon Hellstrom; she has sometimes been very nasty and sometimes not.

Savior/Saviour
DC: "Saviour" is Ramsey Murdoch, a Superman villain.
MARVEL: Several characters have used one spelling or the other.

Scalphunter
DC: Brian Savage, a 19th Century hero.
MARVEL: John Greycrow, villain, one of the Marauders who performed the Morlock Massacre.

Scanner
DC: Female alien hero in the Vanguard.
MARVEL: Several users.

Scar
DC: Milestone character.
MARVEL: Ultraverse villain.

Scarecrow
DC: Jonathan Crane, a Batman villain.
MARVEL: Ebenezer Laughton, villain. Also: a mystical hero who later took the name of "The Straw Man" to avoid being confused with Ebenezer.

Scatter
DC: One of the great heroes of the planet Thordia.
MARVEL: Villain; one of the Lilin.

Scavenger
DC: At least two users.
MARVEL: At least three users.

Scorpio/Skorpio
DC: "Skorpio" is Dennis Samuel Ellis, villain.
MARVEL: Numerous villains have used the name "Scorpio."

Scout/The Scout
DC: "The Scout" is the former sidekick of "Dark Ranger" (formerly "The Ranger"); after his partner died, he took over the "Dark Ranger" role.
MARVEL: At least three users.

Selenium
DC: Villain who fought Metamorpho and was destroyed
MARVEL: One of the Elements of Doom.

Sentinel
DC: Alan Scott for awhile, when he was not using the name Green Lantern.
MARVEL: Any one of a zillion mutant-hunting robots that have been built over the years.

Seraph
DC: Chaim Lavon, Israeli hero; served with the Global Guardians.
MARVEL: New Universe character also known as "Guardian Angel."

Shade/The Shade
DC: "The Shade" is a Golden Age villain who was somewhat reformed, the last I heard.
MARVEL: Two users; both seem to be obscure villains.

Shamrock
DC: Name, evidently an alias/nickname, used by a man who was a member of a group of homeless people who appeared in some Batman and Batgirl stories in the Pre-COIE days.
MARVEL: Three users; best-known is Molly Fitzgerald, Irish heroine.

Shard/The Shard
DC: "The Shard" was a superhero during part of WWII, according to a retcon in 2001. He was a member of the group known as the Seven Shadows -- he and five of his friends all died in the same event in 1944. This character was also known as The Luminary, for some reason.
MARVEL: Two users of "Shard"; one of them is Bishop’s sister, a hero.

Shark
DC: Three of them; the one with the most staying power is a mutated tiger shark who’s fought Green Lantern and other heroes on various occasions.
MARVEL: Two of them; one was a Golden Age villain.

Shift
DC: Hero, one of the Outsiders; initially thought to be the veteran hero Metamorpho; actually began as just a piece of him that developed independent sentience and all that jazz, with altered powers. I am told that Post-OYL, Shift finally asked to be merged back into Metamorpho, and was. (Long before he came along, in the Post-Zero Hour version of Legion of Super-Heroes continuity, there was also a "Shift" who was a hero in Wildfire’s Legion in the 75th Century.)
MARVEL: Clifton Joseph, hero; member of "Genetix."

Shifter
DC: Temporary "Dial H for Hero" identity of Nick Stevens.
MARVEL: One of the aliases used by the member of the Shi’ar Imperial Guard also known as "Shapeshifter" and "Hobgoblin."

Shockwave
DC: Arnold Pruett, mercenary villain.
MARVEL: Two users. Lancaster Sneed, villain. Kathy Ling, member of Psi-Force in the New Universe.

Shrike
DC: At least four users.
MARVEL: At least three users.

Sidewinder
DC: A member of "Task Force X II"; now dead.
MARVEL: Three users. The first and best-known is Seth Voelker, a villain with teleport capability built into his costume; he was the first leader of the Serpent Society. Two other people have, at different times, each "leased" the costume from Voelker and tried to be Sidewinder themselves. (One of those guys promptly got himself killed.)

Silencer/The Silencer
DC: The Silencer was a freelance assassin who fought Batman and Robin in a single Silver Age story.
MARVEL: At least five users, including one who was a female member of Strikeforce: Morituri and died.

Silhouette
DC: Obscure villain. Also: a deceased heroine who was part of the backstory in "Watchmen."
MARVEL: At least three; one is a heroine who has served with the New Warriors.

Silver
DC: Robot member of the third "Metal Men" team; eventually went rogue and was destroyed.
MARVEL: One of the Elements of Doom. Also: A Chinese mutant who ended up in the Alpha Flight training program.

Silver Dragon
DC: Mercenary villain who fought Primal Force.
MARVEL: Alias used by Heather Rand (after she had already died) when she was magically forced to fight her son Daniel (Iron Fist).

The Sin Eater/Sin-Eater
DC: "The Sin Eater" is another name for Onimar Synn, who claims to be one of the Seven Devils of Thanagarian mythology.
MARVEL: Several villains have used "Sin-Eater" at one time or another. (I’m not clear on whether all of them used the hyphen; I believe Stan Carter, a cop gone psycho, did.)

Siphon/Syphon/Psi-Phon
DC: "Siphon" is a villain; a member of the Freak Show. There was also a "Psi-Phon" who was the partner of a "Dreadnaught"; the two of them were artificial lifeforms created by an alien race to test the inhabitants of Earth, which in practice meant fighting Superman and some other superheroes. After Earth had passed the test, Psi-Phon and Dreadnaught self-destructed.
MARVEL: Two users of "Syphon." One is Thomas Boyd, a Psi-Force character in the New Universe. One was a Warpy who met the Excalibur team at least once.

Siren/Psiren
DC: "Siren" is a water-breathing ecoterrorist villain.
MARVEL: Several "Sirens," including Jennifer Pearson from the Ultraverse. Marvel also has a woman called "Psiren," a Psi-Cop who ended up assisting Warlock (the former New Mutant Warlock, that is) in a series he had several years ago.

Note: On each of the three previous drafts of this project, I have conscientiously not mentioned "Siryn" (Theresa Cassidy, daughter of Banshee of the X-Men) on this list; and each time, someone has suggested I must have overlooked her existence. I’ve finally broken down and decided to explain my reasons in advance. To my eyes, "Siren" looks to be pronounced "sigh-ren." "Siryn" looks as if it should be pronounced "sigh-rin." The sound of a "short E" in one; the sound of a "short I" in the other. (I have previously admitted that in practice, many speakers of English may just pronounce both names as "sigh-run," more or less; but they shouldn’t.)

Sizzler
DC: Robot villainess who fought the Metal Men; finally destroyed.
MARVEL: "Sizzler" was a villain whose body was magically animated bacon; one of the "Eggsmen" who worked for Pro Rata in his first clash with Howard the Duck.

Slag/Slagg
DC: "Slag" is a Milestone character.
MARVEL: One user of "Slagg" and several of "Slag."

Slash
DC: Two villains, each of whom may have gotten just one appearance.
MARVEL: Two users, apparently both villains.

Slasher
DC: Several; including a hired assassin who fought the Titans in the early 80s and promptly got killed by Adrian Chase, who’d just become the new Vigilante.
MARVEL: Several users.

Sledge
DC: Powerful but dumb character who died heroically.
MARVEL: Two users.

Slipstream
DC: Temporary "Dial H for Hero" identity of Lori Morning in post-Zero Hour "Legion of Super-Heroes" continuity
MARVEL: Cameron Davis, who served with the X-Treme X-Men for a bit.

Slither
DC: Jimmy Tilton, hero; member of the "Scare Tactics" band; dead.
MARVEL: Aaron Solomon, villain.

Smasher/The Smasher
DC: "The Smasher" was a horribly mutated man who fought Hercules in the post-nuclear-war setting of a 1970s comic book series, "Hercules Unbound." The Smasher died.
MARVEL: At least six users (but I'm not sure whether any of them normally used the definite article).

Smoke (one of the High's people)
DC: A vigilante who was one of a group working with The High to change the world (Wildstorm version of Earth); Smoke died in the same arc in which he debuted.
MARVEL: Villain; partner of Succubus; the two of them are agents of Coach.

Snapdragon
DC: Internet alias used by Lex Luthor on at least one occasion when he emailed info to Superboy (Kon-El) regarding Superboy's genetic heritage.
MARVEL: Three users, all female. One was a member of Strikeforce: Morituri until she died.

Sniper/The Sniper
DC: "The Sniper" was a Golden Age hero. Apparently his name was never revealed, but he wore a green costume, carried a sniper rifle, and did his best to make things difficult for Axis soldiers in Occupied Europe and the South Pacific in Quality stories published during WWII. I am told he has never been heard from since, so it is not even known if he survived the war.
MARVEL: Two users; both villains. One of them was killed by The Punisher.

Snowman
DC: A Batman villain; the half-breed offspring of a male Yeti and a human woman.
MARVEL: A character who met the "Ultimate X-Men" -- I don’t know if he’s good, bad, or what.

Sodium
DC: One of the second team of Metal Men (all evil).
MARVEL: One of the Elements of Doom.

Solaar/Solarr
DC: "Solaar" is a member of the space-traveling team known as the Vanguard.
MARVEL: "Solarr" was Silas King, villain; dead.

Song Bird/Songbird
DC: "Song Bird" was a heroine; a member of the Justice Experience team, back around the 1970s (according to retcons in the 90s); died in the line of duty.
MARVEL: "Songbird" is the alias which Melisssa Gold, formerly "Screaming Mimi," took when she and some other villains were founding the Thunderbolts (and she kept the alias after she switched from being a phony superhero to the real thing).

Sorcerer/Sorceror
DC: "Sorceror" was apparently the codename of a member of the OSS in one or more stories told in "G.I. Combat." "Sorcerer" was an alias used by a character who was a member of "the National Interest"; he apparently sacrificed himself by allowing his body to be used as a vessel for "the Spirit of America" plus the souls of several other people; this new conglomeration thereby becoming a brand new hero called "The Patriot" and later becoming the latest user of the alias "Uncle Sam."
MARVEL: Several characters have apparently used that word (usually spelling it "Sorcerer," I gather) as a working name.

Spark
DC: Alias used by Alya Ranzz in the Post-Zero Hour Reboot Version of the Legion of Super-Heroes. (Pre-Zero Hour, she had used the names "Lightning Lass" and "Light Lass" at different times.)
MARVEL: Villain; member of the Avant Guard.

Sparks/Sparx
DC: "Sparx" is a hero; served as a member of the Ravers.
MARVEL: "Sparks" is a villain killed and resurrected by the Hand.

Sparrow
DC: Codename of an Allied spy who died during WWII; also apparently the army nickname of a soldier in Sergeant Rock’s Easy Company during that war.
MARVEL: Apparently at least three.

Spear
DC: Mercenary who fought the Titans in the early 1980s.
MARVEL: Two; both villains.

Specter/The Spectre
DC: "The Spectre" has been Jim Corrigan, Hal Jordan, and Crispus Allen.
MARVEL: "Specter" was Dallas Gibson, a teenage mutant student in the second "New Mutants" series, who was depowered on M-Day.

Spectra
DC: Heroine; apparently a name used by the former "Halo" in some old "Outsiders" comics (which I own but haven’t read yet).
MARVEL: Selena Slate, who used to fight Sleepwalker but apparently wasn’t such a bad person? (I’m going on hearsay.)

Speed Demon
DC: Two users. First: a villain who fought the Inferior Five. Second: Jerry McGee, a Flash villain who later reformed.
MARVEL: At least two villains.

Spellbinder
DC: At least three; all fairly obscure.
MARVEL: Erica Fortune, star of the "Spellbound" miniseries in the late 1980s; apparently languishing in obscurity since then.

The Sphinx
DC: Villain who fought Plastic Man in the 1960s.
MARVEL: The name has been used by both Anath-Na Mut and Meryet Karim, husband and wife, both incredibly powerful. When last seen, they had merged together and traveled back in time a few thousand years to try to get things right the second time around.

Spider/The Spider
DC: Two users of "The Spider," both expert archers. The first was a Golden Age hero who was much later retconned to have been working on building his own criminal empire all along, and to have betrayed the original Seven Soldiers of Victory to The Nebula Man.
MARVEL: Several characters have used "Spider" or "The Spider," including at least two alternate-timeline analogs of our beloved Peter Parker, and also an alternate-timeline analog of Flash Thompson.

Spider Girl/Spider-Girl
DC: "Spider Girl" was a supporting character in "Legion of Super-Heroes"-related comics both before and after the Zero Hour Reboot.
MARVEL: "Spider-Girl" is May "Mayday" Parker, teenage daughter of Peter and Mary Jane, in the alternate future timeline of "MC2."

Spider Queen
DC: A villainess of the Golden Age. Also: an evil spirit that fought Animal Man.
MARVEL: Sharon Kane (or Shannon Kane), who began as a Fox Features Syndicate heroine in the Golden Age; but was retconned into becoming an Axis agent for awhile during WWII, according to scripts by Roy Thomas in an "Invaders" miniseries in 1993.

Spinner
DC: Villain who apparently fought Batman and Robin just once in the Silver Age.
MARVEL: At least two. An extraterrestrial; apparently a hero and a member of the "Galactic Alliance of Spider-Man" (whatever that means). Also: A new character who joined Freedom Force as part of "the Initiative" program.

Spiral
DC: A member of the demon-hunting group known as the Hell-Enders.
MARVEL: At least two; the more famous one is a six-armed woman who often works for Mojo.

Spirit
DC: A "Spirit" was a supporting character in the 1970s "Kamandi" stories.
MARVEL: A Marvel UK character who was wiped out by the Annihilation Wave.

Spitfire
DC: At least two. First: Nickname of Tex Adams, a fighter pilot with the "Eagle Squadron" during WWII. Second: Joshua Terrill, first-born child and onetime sidekick of the Golden Age Ray, still about ten years old (when last seen?) because of time in suspended animation.
MARVEL: Jacqueline Crichton, later Lady Falsworth, who was retconned into Marvel’s Golden Age continuity in the "Invaders" title in the 1970s. Later, another Spitfire was a heroine in the New Universe.

Spoiler
DC: Stephanie Brown, who also served as the fourth Robin before dying in "War Games" -- or so we thought at the time. (Now she's Batgirl IV.)
MARVEL: Mercenary who fought Spider-Man. Also: A villain from "Spidey Super Stories."

Sponge/The Sponge
DC: Miklos, a character who appeared in one or more old "Challengers of the Unknown" stories, was apparently known as "Sponge-Man" and also as "The Sponge"; he died bravely. Later, a Milestone character used the name.
MARVEL: "Sponge" was one of the Warpies; a mutated child who appeared in "Excalibur" way back when. I know almost nothing about her. There was also a "Sponge" in DP7 of the New Universe.

Spook/The Spook
DC: At least two. The first "The Spook" was Val Kaliban, a Batman villain without true powers, but a master of using special effects to create the impression he's a ghost or other supernatural being; most of his appearances happened in the Pre-COIE era. Also: Another villain in a "Legends of the Dark Knight" story arc who also fought Batman; he may have been intended as a "Post-Crisis Reboot" of the same concept, but the original Spook (Kaliban) has since been worked into Grant Morrison's run on the Batman title (and Kaliban apparently died in the same story in which he appeared there, but if he "comes back from the dead" it won’t be the first time!).
MARVEL: At least three users.

Spore
DC: Constance Hollis, a Plant Elemental villain.
MARVEL: A Deviant mutate who liked to absorb Eternals and -- apparently -- make himself immortal thereby.

Squid/The Squid
DC: "The Squid" was a Batman villain who was killed by Killer Croc way back in 1983.
MARVEL: "The Squid" is Donny Callahan, a Spider-Man villain. There is also an Atlantean character who has called himself "Squid."

Squire
DC: Three people have been "Squire" at different times. The first and second (father and son) each later became "Knight."
MARVEL: Superhero who died in the "MARVEL: The Lost Generation" mini.

Stalker
DC: Fantasy character who briefly had his own series in the 70s; was later revealed in a retcon to have died in WWII.
MARVEL: Several users.

Starburst
DC: Temporary "Dial H for Hero" identity of Vicky Grant.
MARVEL: Linda Warren, Ultraverse heroine; she had already been comatose for a few years before we ever heard about her.

Starlight
DC: At least two. The first is a Milestone character. The second is Natasha Irons, formerly the fourth hero to be known as Steel.
MARVEL: Tania Belinsky, formerly a Red Guardian (she served as a Defender for awhile).

Starshine
DC: Presumably an alias; this was the only name used by a hippy character in a two-part Superman story (Pre-COIE) who was temporarily gifted with the power to make people do whatever he said, even if it required "miracles" to make that happen.
MARVEL: This name has been used by three different Spaceknights, including Brandy Clark.

Static
DC: Virgil Ovid Hawkins, a Milestone hero.
MARVEL: At least three users.

Stealth
DC: Heroine; member of L.E.G.I.O.N.
MARVEL: At least three.

Steamroller
DC: Villain.
MARVEL: Member of the Unlimited Class Wrestling Federation. (That’s all I know.)

Steel Hawk/Steelhawk
DC: "Steelhawk" is a superpowered mercenary.
MARVEL: "Steel Hawk" is Arun Bakhti, a terrorist/mercenary/assassin.

Sting/The Sting
DC: Three users. "Sting" was a temporary "Dial H for Hero" identity of Chris King. "The Sting" was a villain who fought Ray Palmer, but later reformed and allowed Ray Palmer himself (supposedly dead at the time) to infiltrate the villainous group known as the Micro Squad by posing as "The Sting."
MARVEL: Apparently "Sting" was the name used by a member of the "Outcasts of New Mexico" who had begun life as a simple scorpion.

Stinger
DC: Two villains.
MARVEL: Several different users.

The Stranger
DC: Martian villain who fought Batman in 1953.
MARVEL: The most famous user is an enigmatic white-haired alien of incredible power; a couple of other people have also used this name at times.

Stranglehold
DC: Female assassin who fought the Titans.
MARVEL: Deviant; member of a group called "the Sword" that worked for the Damocles Foundation; fought X-Force; last seen being turned into a lizard?

Stretch
DC: Two users. One was an Earth-S villain who fought the Marvel Family in the Pre-COIE era. The other is Tom Longacre, retconned into the "Golden Age" continuity in the late 80s as a superheroic, Gingold-drinking predecessor of the Elongated Man. Ended up with "Hero Hotline."
MARVEL: Member of the second Pride in "Runaways."

Strobe
DC: Villain who fought Ray Palmer.
MARVEL: Villain; member of the Mutant Liberation Front

Strong Man/Strongman
DC: "Strongman" was a villain who fought the Justice League in the late 70s, as part of the evil "Luck League."
MARVEL: At least two users of "Strong Man" and two users of "Strongman."

Strontium
DC: Villain who fought Metamorpho and was destroyed
MARVEL: Presumably one of the Elements of Doom.

Stuntmaster
DC: Temporary "Dial H for Hero" identity of Chris King.
MARVEL: George Smith, who’s been a villain, a hero, and a TV actor.

Sublime
DC: Rachel Goldman, member of Wildstorm’s DV8.
MARVEL: Sentient bacteria; villain.

Sumo
DC: At least three. Two were villains; the other was a Japanese super-powered soldier who fought the All-Star Squadron in WWII.
MARVEL: Several users.

Sun Girl
DC: Villain in the current "Titans East" group.
MARVEL: Mary Mitchell, superheroine in the Golden Age. Had her own title for three issues; then served as a new sidekick to the original Human Torch.

Sunshine
DC: Name, presumably an alias, of a gang leader in Gotham who appeared in a single story in 1981.
MARVEL: Autumn MacRae, heroine; depicted in "MARVEL: The Lost Generation." Also: an "Inquisitor" who met Mantra in the Ultraverse.

Sunspot
DC: Temporary "Dial H for Hero" identity of Vicky Grant.
MARVEL: Roberto DaCosta, founding member of the original New Mutants.

Supernova
DC: Alias used by Booster Gold in the "52" series.
MARVEL: Apparently another alias of Nova Omega (Garthan Saal), who is now dead.

Supreme One
DC: Villain who used to fight Aquaman.
MARVEL: Leader of the Quists; boss of the alien known as Lucifer who originally crippled Professor X.

Sureshot
DC: Member of the demon-hunting group called the Hell-Enders.
MARVEL: Two users. One is a female villain. One was an agent of the XSE in Bishop’s native future timeline; that character died in action.

The Swami
DC: Johnny Witts, a Batman villain, used the alias "The Swami" in one story.
MARVEL: "Swami" was Hamilton Hart, a member of the Paranormal Platoon in the New Universe; he died when Pittsburgh was destroyed.

Swarm/The Swarm
DC: "The Swarm" is a Milestone villain.
MARVEL: "Swarm" is Fritz von Meyer, diehard Nazi. His "body" is just a skeleton surrounded by zillions of mentally controlled bees; hence the name.

Swashbuckler
DC: Michael Carter, hero, based in Houston, Texas. Nephew of Greg Saunders, the cowboy-themed "Vigilante" who was a member of the original Seven Soldiers of Victory. Swashbuckler teamed up with Batman once in 1980, and has never been heard from since.
MARVEL: An ally of Deathlok’s in his native timeline.

Swift
DC: Winged vigilante who became a member of the Authority; she probably thought she was a hero.
MARVEL: At least three users.

Taboo/Tabu
DC: "Taboo" is Amanda Reed, Wildstorm heroine. There was also a "Tabu" who was a female mercenary; she fought Animal Man and later died.
MARVEL: "Taboo" is a villain; stepfather of Topaz the sorceress.

Talon
DC: The trained falcon used by Bird (one of Bane’s henchmen) before he died. More recently: A new hero who became a Teen Titan during the "one year gap" after Infinite Crisis.
MARVEL: A former codename for "X-23."

Tantalum
DC: Villain who fought Metamorpho and was destroyed
MARVEL: Presumably one of the Elements of Doom.

Tarantula
DC: Two of them. Jonathan Law, Golden Age hero. Catalina Flores, using the name more recently, much less heroic.
MARVEL: Several characters. The newest one is Maria Vasquez.

Tattoo
DC: At least two. One was Black Mask's second-in-command in the early 90s; one was a terrorist who fought Aztek.
MARVEL: Several users.

Tech/Tekk
DC: "Tekk" is a villain who fought Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt.
MARVEL: Two users of "Tech." One was a villain who once fought the Fantastic Four. One is Lela Cho, leader of the Solution in the Ultraverse.

Technocrat
DC: Geoffrey Brown, hero; served with the Outsiders in the 1990s.
MARVEL: Two users.

Tempest
DC: At least three: Temporary "Dial H for Hero" identity of Vicky Grant. Joshua Clay, Doom Patrol member, dead. Later the new alias of Garth (formerly "Aqualad").
MARVEL: The alias previously used by the Shi’ar Imperial Guardsman later known as Flashfire. More recently, the name used by Nicolette Giroux of the Exemplars.

Templar
DC: Colin Brandywine, telekinetic British hero; used to lead the Conglomerate.
MARVEL: Hero in the First Line; died fighting Skrulls.

Terror
DC: At least two; both villains. One of them is an evil child of the wizard Shazam. (If I’ve got this right, Shazam has at least four evil children in modern continuity, which says marvelous things about his parenting skills.)
MARVEL: Laslo Pevely, Golden Age hero; apparently he also has used "Captain Terror."

Thallium
DC: Villain who fought Metamorpho and was destroyed.
MARVEL: One of the Elements of Doom.

The Thinker
DC: At least four of them.
MARVEL: The preferred alias of the brilliant villain whom others usually call "The Mad Thinker."

Thorn/Thornn
DC: At least two "Thorns." First: Rose Canton, the Golden Age version of the "Rose and Thorn" concept, and the mother of Jade and Obsidian. Second: Rose Forrest, the more modern version of the "Rose and Thorn" concept.
MARVEL: Multiple users; looks like at least two for each spelling variation; one "Thornn" was the sister of Feral of X-Force in the 1990s.

Thumbelina
DC: A temporary "Dial H for Hero" alias of Vicky Grant.
MARVEL: Kristina Suggs, member of the Mutant Liberation Front.

Thunderbolt
DC: Peter Cannon, who started as a Charlton character. Also, I believe the Golden Age Johnny Thunder’s magical helper was frequently just called "Thunderbolt" and/or "T-Bolt." And in the 1980s Jonni Thunder was also called "Thunderbolt."
MARVEL: William Carver, African-American speedster hero, now dead. Marvel also has another "Thunderbolt" speedster who got one appearance in an old Hulk story; real name unknown.

Thunderer/The Thunderer
DC: At least three users.
MARVEL: One "The Thunderer" was a Golden Age hero named Jerry Carstairs who, in his final Golden Age appearance, renamed himself "The Black Avenger" (don’t ask me why). It appears a couple of other characters have also used "Thunderer" or "The Thunderer" as an alias or as part of a longer name.

Thunderhead
DC: At least two users; both heroes. One is (or was?) part of Hero Hotline. One served with the Young Heroes.
MARVEL: At least two users; one was a New Universe character.

Tiger
DC: Heroic alias used by a Japanese orphan who was the first Judomaster's sidekick during and after WWII; he later became an insane villain known as Avatar.
MARVEL: Several users.

Tiger-Man
DC: Two brothers, Dean and Desmond Farr, have successively used the heroic alias "Tiger-Man." Dean, who used it first, is dead.
MARVEL: There were Golden Age characters called "Armless Tiger-Man" and "Trojak the Tiger-Man." Listings for this alias on marvunapp.com imply that that both of those guys may have sometimes settled for just being called "Tiger-Man," but I am not in a position to swear to the details of how they habitually introduced themselves in their stories, since I've never read any of those stories!

Tiger Shark
DC: "Tiger Shark" was apparently the nickname and/or official codename of a U.S. Navy officer who commanded a vessel known as "The Phantom Clipper" in WWII. (One online resource gives me the impression that "Shark" may have been the officer's real surname, but don't hold me to that!)
MARVEL: Todd Arliss, villain.

Tigra
DC: Darkseid’s ex-wife; mother of Orion.
MARVEL: Greer Grant, heroine.

The Tigress
DC: Three villainesses have used this name; the third is the daughter of the second.
MARVEL: "Tigress" was another name for Chia, a woman who existed in Conan the Barbarian’s lifetime. (Conan is no longer published by Marvel, but I gather that Chia/Tigress was and still is their property? I may be dead wrong about this; Conan lore is not my strong suit.)

The Timekeeper
DC: Villain who fought the Zoo Crew in the early 1980s.
MARVEL: Scientist who worked for AIM.

Tin
DC: One of the original Metal Men.
MARVEL: Presumably one of the Elements of Doom.

Tiny
DC: At least two users; the first was a midget member of a crimefighting group called the Purple Trio in some of Quality’s Golden Age stories.
MARVEL: At least three people have apparently used this as a nickname, including one of Sergeant Fury’s Howling Commandos.

Titania
DC: At least two. One was a villain in pre-Zero Hour "Legion of Super-Heroes" continuity. The other is the Faerie Queen who appeared in the "Books of Magic" stories and probably falls into the "public domain" exemption I listed above, but I’ll mention her anyway.
MARVEL: At least two. Davida DeVito, villain, dead. Mary "Skeeter" MacPherran, villain.

Titano
DC: Both Pre-COIE and Post-COIE, Superman has fought giant apes called "Titano."
MARVEL: "Titano" was the name given to a gigantic rampaging crustacean which appeared in a single story in 1960; it was last seen trapped in a glacier.

TNT
DC: Golden age hero, partner of Dan the Dyna-Mite; died in action during WWII, according to a retcon in the 1980s.
MARVEL: The military nickname and/or callsign of General Harry Kenkoy.

Topaz
DC: One of the Recombatants who fought the Titans and then died.
MARVEL: Young sorceress heroine. Also: a Queen of Gwendor, member of Ultraforce, heroine, in the Ultraverse.

Torpedo
DC: . Villain; leader of "the Awesome Threesome" group which fought Aquaman in the Silver Age.
MARVEL: At least three users.

Torque
DC: Dudley Soames, villain; dead.
MARVEL: Several users; one is a villain, one of the Twisted Sisters in Shadow City.

Toxin/Toxyn
DC: "Toxin" was Isaac Fisher, a villain who died fighting Aquaman and Swamp Thing.
MARVEL: At least two users of "Toxin"; one is a former cop who somehow got bonded with a symbiote spawned from Carnage and has tried to act heroically since then. Also, "Toxyn" was a member of Strikeforce: Morituri; dead.

Trapper
DC: A villain who appeared in at least one story in the 1950s; his real name was "Jason Bard" (not the same guy as the private investigator in Gotham who debuted much later; it seems to be sheer coincidence).
MARVEL: One of the Spaceknights; died in the line of duty.

Trauma
DC: Member of the S.T.A.R. Corps.
MARVEL: At least three users; one was an Ultraverse character.

The Traveler/Traveller
DC: "Traveller" is a bearded mystic who works for the Parliament of Stones.
MARVEL: "The Traveler" was an alias used by Cable in his younger days, apparently when he was doing some time-traveling before finally ending up in the "modern era" of the Marvel Universe as a regular thing.

The Trickster
DC: Two villains have used this name; the first (known as James Jesse, although his real name is supposedly "Giovanni Giuseppe") has apparently reformed.
MARVEL: At least four users; the first was a Golden Age villain who fought Captain America.

Trog/Trogg
DC: "Trogg" was one of Bane's henchmen in the "Knightfall" days.
MARVEL: "Trog" was a name used by an entity created by the villain Father Darklyte. That "Trog" appeared to be a big ugly caveman with superhuman strength and a club; was destroyed by Son of Satan in the same story; never appeared again. "Trogg" is an Asgardian rock troll.

Turtle Man/Turtle-Man
DC: A character sometimes known as "Turtle Man" and sometimes as "The Turtle" was the first supervillain to ever fight the Silver Age Flash (Barry Allen) in Barry’s debut story.
MARVEL: "Turtle-Man" was a Golden Age villain who fought Captain America.

Twilight
DC: A few users; one is a Milestone character.
MARVEL: At least two. One is a mutant in the "X-Nation 2099" series. Another Twilight was a member of the New Universe's DP7 group; apparently died in a battle with the Famileech.

Typhoon
DC: Two users; both villains.
MARVEL: Two users; one is a villain; one is a detective who works as the partner of someone called "Cutlass."

Ultra Girl/Ultra-Girl/Ultragirl
DC: "Ultra Girl" was a temporary "Dial H for Hero" alias of Vicky Grant.
MARVEL: A heroine who debuted in the 1990s and served with the New Warriors for awhile allegedly has sometimes used "Ultra Girl" and sometimes "Ultra-Girl." Also: The Ultraverse character eventually known as "Phade" was sponsored by a program within the U.S. government, and its leaders apparently considered calling her "Ultragirl," and then settled on "Ultrawoman" -- but that plan was derailed when she took matters into her own hands at a press conference by unexpectedly introducing herself as "Phade." I’m not clear on whether "Phade" was stated or implied to have ever previously called herself "Ultragirl" (or "Ultrawoman") at least once or twice before choosing something entirely different, but thought I’d mention it to be on the safe side.

Unicorn/The Unicorn
DC: "The Unicorn" was a temporary "Dial H for Hero" alias of Vicky Grant.
MARVEL: At least three users.

Uranium
DC: Evil robot created by Doc Magnus before he created the Metal Men.
MARVEL: One of the Elements of Doom.

Vagabond
DC: Golden Age hero in at least one story from Quality.
MARVEL: Priscilla Lyons was a flag-suited heroine when using that name, although she later moved away from that and spent time working in the "Scourge of the Underworld" organization.

Valor/Val-Or
DC: "Valor" is a heroic alias sometimes used by the character also known as Mon-El, Lar Gand, and M'Onel. (I have long since lost track of his more recent continuity, but I believe "Valor" was the alias he used when he had his own series in the early 90s -- I think that would be just before the Zero Hour reboot of everything relating to the Legion of Super-Heroes?)
MARVEL: "Val-Or" is a mutant Moloid with telepathic abilities.

Vapor
DC: Carrie Donahue, hero. (www.dcuguide.com also has a vague mention of a second "Vapor," without providing any useful details.)
MARVEL: Ann Darnell, villain; member of the U-Foes.

Venom/Venomm
DC: "Venom" was a villain who once fought the first Firestorm.
MARVEL: Several users of "Venom" -- the best-known is Eddie Brock when merged with an alien symbiote; he is (or they are) usually a villain. "Venomm" was Horatio Walters, who fought Black Panther and later switched sides.

Viking/Vyking
DC: "Viking" was a member of the Maximums; allegedly of Norse Frost Giant ancestry (in other words, a rough analog of Thor of Marvel’s Avengers).
MARVEL: "Vyking" was a member of Strikeforce: Morituri; dead.

Virago
DC: Pre-COIE, this was an Earth-S villainess created by Mr. Mind. More recently, the name was used by a superheroine in Philadelphia who was introduced to us so she could promptly be killed by the assassin known as Onomatopeia.
MARVEL: Two users.

Vixen
DC: Mari Jiwe McCabe, heroine.
MARVEL: At least three users (and that’s not counting the ant whom Ant-Man I apparently named after one of Santa’s reindeer?).

Void/The Void
DC: "Void," one of the original WildC.A.T.S. who came to DC when ABC/Wildstorm merged into them. Before that, there was a "Void" who was a thief, partnered with "Null," who fought Superman and Batman in the Pre-COIE era, and may not exist in modern continuity.
MARVEL: "The Void" is the arch-enemy of the Sentry.

Volcana
DC: Apparently an inhabitant of Kandor in the 1990s who originally hailed from Apokolips.
MARVEL: Marsha Rosenberg, Molecule Man’s girlfriend for awhile in the 1980s.

Voodoo
DC: Priscilla Kitaen, one of the original WildC.A.T.S.
MARVEL: Donny (last name unknown), a mutant member of a group called "the Children of Heaven"; he appeared in a single X-Factor story in the late 80s and hasn’t been heard from since.

Vortex/"VOR/TEX"
DC: "Vortex" is a hero who served with the Doom Patrol immediately after its "temporary reboot" by John Byrne.
MARVEL: At least three users of "Vortex." Furthermore, one Artificial Intelligence has called itself "VOR/TEX" as an acronym for "Virtual Organism/Turing Experiment."

Vox
DC: Two villains.
MARVEL: Two users; one is a member of the Action Pack; the other is part of the 2099 timeline.

Vulcan/Vulcann
DC: "Vulcan" was a villain who fought the JSA in the 1970s.
MARVEL: "Vulcan" is Gabriel Summers, villain; the recently-revealed long-lost "third Summers brother"; Cyclops and Havok being his siblings. Before we ever heard of him, the "X-Men 2099" series showed the heroes fighting a villain called "Vulcann."

Vulture
DC: Two, both villains.
MARVEL: Many users; the most notorious is Adrian Toomes, one of the earliest villains to clash with Spider-Man.

Warbird/The War Bird
DC: "The War Bird" was Tom Sharp, heroic American aviator in WWII.
MARVEL: "Warbird" is one of several aliases used by Carol Danvers over the years. There is also a "Warbird" in the 2099 timeline.

The Wasp
DC: 1940s villain who once fought the Golden Age, Quality Comics hero then known as "Quicksilver" (and now known as "Max Mercury").
MARVEL: Janet Van Dyne, heroine.

Weasel
DC: Villain who fought Firestorm
MARVEL: Several users.

White Dragon
DC: William Heller, villain.
MARVEL: At least three users.

Whirlwind
DC: Villain who apparently got just one appearance and may have died at the end of it.
MARVEL: David Cannon, villain.

Wild Card/Wildcard
DC: When Hector Hammond organized the second Royal Flush Gang to fight the JLA, he used the alias "Wild Card." When Amos Fortune organized the fourth Royal Flush Gang, he also dubbed himself "Wild Card."
MARVEL: "Wildcard" was a member of Strikeforce: Morituri; died.

The Wild Man/Wildman
DC: Two users of "Wildman." In the first case, it was the military nickname of Harold Shapiro, a member of Sergeant Frank Rock’s legendary Easy Company during WWII. The second user is a villain who fought the Justice League Task Force.
MARVEL: At least one "The Wild Man" and one "Wildman."

Wild Thing
DC: An Earth Elemental, created partially from the delirious mind of recently deceased ecoterrorist Alan Bolland; eventually destroyed by Swamp Thing.
MARVEL: At least three users. An alias used by a character in DP7 in the New Universe. Later, a "Marvel UK" heroine in a short-lived series in the early 90s. Also: the daughter of Wolverine and Elektra in the alternate future timeline of MC2.

Wildcat
DC: At least four; all heroes. Ted Grant, Golden Age hero, started the tradition and still uses the name sometimes; the latest user is his long-lost son; the other two Wildcats are dead.
MARVEL: Codename or alias used by a guy who was a teammate of Logan's (Wolverine’s) on "Team X" at some point many years in the past, before Logan got all that adamantium added to his skeleton.

Wildfire
DC: Carol Vance Martin, a Golden Age heroine from Quality Comics. Later: Drake Burroughs, hero, in at least two different versions of "Legion of Super-Heroes" continuity, Pre- and Post-Zero Hour.
MARVEL: Harold Paprika, racist villain with a blowtorch.

Wildside
DC: Villain; member of Team Turmoil.
MARVEL: Villain; member of the Mutant Liberation Front.

Willow
DC: A green-skinned, green-haired woman who appeared in Steve Englehart’s JLA run in the 70s; her speech patterns and other details made her a thinly disguised version of the "Mantis" character whom Englehart had previously created at Marvel during his Avengers run.
MARVEL: A character in the 2099 timeline.

Wind Rider/Windrider
DC: "Wind Rider" was a temporary "Dial H for Hero" alias of Chris King.
MARVEL: "Windrider" was the name of a fictional genie modeled on Storm of the X-Men, as described in a fairy tale which Kitty Pryde once spent an issue of "Uncanny X-Men" telling to Illyana Rasputin.

Windshear
DC: A Milestone character
MARVEL: Colin Hume, hero; served with Alpha Flight; was depowered on M-Day.

Wing
DC: Sidekick of The Crimson Avenger in the Golden Age.
MARVEL: Two users. One was a ninja member of the Chaste (now dead). One was a mutant named Eddie who studied at the Xavier Institute until his powers were neutralized by Ord; then he apparently committed suicide.

Winter/Wynter
DC: "Winter" is a Wildstorm hero who has served with Stormwatch.
MARVEL: "Wynter" was a robot secretly controlled by Dark Beast. "Winter" was a 2099 character.

Wipeout
DC: Wipeout is a villain; leader of the Run Riot Boys.
MARVEL: Two users. One was a New Universe character. One was a Genoshan who could remove a mutant’s powers; he died.

Witch/Wytch
DC: "Wytch" was a Milestone character
MARVEL: A few characters have gone by "Witch" or "The Witch" on occasion.

Witchfire
DC: Heroine; partner in the Power Company. (Initially thought she was Rebecca Carstairs, but was actually some sort of mystical duplicate of the "real" Rebecca.)
MARVEL: A member of the Alpha/Beta/Gamma Flight programs in Canada.

The Wizard
DC: At least two. William I. Zard, Golden Age villain, who was recently absorbed into Ragman’s rags. Also, a temporary villainous "Dial H for Hero" identity of Robby Reed.
MARVEL: Bentley Whitman, villain.

Wolfen
DC: One of the Maximums (a bunch of knockoffs of Marvel heroes) in their own timeline; seemed to combine aspects of Wolverine and Beast.
MARVEL: A cyborg assassin; he worked for Hydra in the only storyline in which he appeared.

Wonder Man/Wonder-Man
DC: "Wonder-Man" was a superhero in a single Silver Age story; it turned out his personality came from the mind of a Superman Robot (previously nicknamed "Ajax") after it had been transferred into a similarly strong, but more truly "living," android body; hence his new face was quite different from Superman’s; sadly, he died at the end of the story.
MARVEL: "Wonder Man" is Simon Williams, hero.

Wrangler
DC: Temporary "Dial H for Hero" identity of Chris King.
MARVEL: An obscure villainess who goes for the cowgirl look, complete with lariat.

The Wrecker
DC: A Silver Age Batman villain. Also, a temporary "Dial H for Hero" identity of Jerry Feldon.
MARVEL: Several of them; the most famous was Dirk Garthwaite, leader of the villainous Wrecking Gang.

Xenon
DC: One of Mr. Element's henchmen used this alias in a single story.
MARVEL: Presumably one of the Elements of Doom.

Yellowjacket
DC: Reed Victor, former superhero, father of The Patriot, and thus grandfather of Merryman (of the Inferior Five)
MARVEL: One of several aliases Hank Pym has used. Later: Rita DeMara, a female Yellowjacket who was a villain and then a hero; now dead.

Zealot
DC: Zannah of Khera, one of the first WildC.A.T.S.
MARVEL: Thomas Moreau, a Genoshan mutate.

Zinc
DC: Robot member of the third "Metal Men" team; eventually went rogue and was destroyed.
MARVEL: Presumably one of the Elements of Doom.

Zirconium
DC: One of the second (and evil) team of Metal Men. Destroyed.
MARVEL: One of the Elements of Doom.

Zombie/The Zombie/Xombi
DC: "Zombie" was one of Bane’s henchmen in "Knightfall." Also: It’s been suggested that the Milestone character "Xombi" probably pronounced his alias exactly the same way as "Zombie," but wanted to have a more distinctive spelling; I don’t know for sure if the X was meant to be pronounced as a Z.
MARVEL: "The Zombie" was Simon William Garth, who was "undead" for awhile and is now just plain dead.

Closing Words

If you want to know more about any of the multiple users of a particular name in the Master List, good places to start looking are:

http://www.marvunapp.com/
and
http://www.dcuguide.com/

If the character appeared in one of DC's Silver Age or Bronze Age comic books, in a story set before the shift to Post-COIE continuity, then he may well be listed in one of the indexes at
http://darkmark6.tripod.com/indexintro.html
-- although DarkMark doesn't bother to maintain an alphabetical listing of all the characters mentioned anywhere in his indexes, so you'd have to use Google to search for what you want at that site!

Beyond that, sometimes Wikipedia or other online resources will have useful data (although I believe many of the characters on this list are so obscure that Wikipedia is unlikely to have any pages about them).

And, of course, if you see anything I got wrong, or know of any examples of "shared aliases" which I am still missing, be sure to set me straight! That word "Draft" in the title is my way of acknowledging that anything this ambitious is always a work in progress, since I can’t possibly know and remember everything about every DC or Marvel character who’s ever been published! There’s always more to learn! (It doesn't help that those companies keep cranking out new stories with new characters in them, and bringing old characters back from the dead, and so forth!) Why, would you believe that I had nearly called it quits on my research for this year’s Draft before I stumbled across a reference to a "Doctor Destiny" who fought Captain America in the Golden Age, a couple of decades before the JLA ever learned to be wary of that name? There's no telling what other examples of duplication are still beneath my radar!

42 Comments

• At September 30, 2009, Bill Reed wrote:

  Wow.

• At September 30, 2009, Jim wrote:

  I agree - wow

• At September 30, 2009, Blackjak wrote:

  Here are a few things I deliberately exclude from my list: "Atari Force" characters, because I don’t think DC owns ...

• At September 30, 2009, Blackjak wrote:

  For "Sparks/Sparx", does "Jenny Sparks" of The Authority count?

• At September 30, 2009, Scott Harris wrote:

  When I got to Blackjack I also immediately thought of Atari Force. That was a great comic.

• At September 30, 2009, Dave wrote:

  Hank Pym is also calling himself the Wasp these days.

• At September 30, 2009, Mea wrote:

  Does this count?

  Under "the Ape" (and "Angel" for that matter, even though there isn't one yet) there was "Angel & ...

• At September 30, 2009, blackcondorlives wrote:

  Awesome list, I will spend a lot of time looking at it - entertaining.

• At September 30, 2009, Jonny K wrote:

  Re: Big Ben

  Marvel bought only the rights to Miracleman/Marvelman, the 'original' hero. They've no rights to the stories by Alan ...

• At September 30, 2009, chris wrote:

  If you're not doing mythology, you need to take Ajax off the list.

• At September 30, 2009, chris wrote:

  o.O missed #2, sorry.

• At September 30, 2009, Mary Warner wrote:

  Marvel also had a Cardinal who fought the New Warriors.

• At September 30, 2009, Andy wrote:

  Oooh, also, Abyss/The Abyss. One was a Dial H for Hero Villian in the Grant/King series, the other is ...

• At September 30, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Blackjak -- as far as I can recall, Jenny Sparks was never in the habit of introducing herself as just ...

• At September 30, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Jonny K -- by the time I wrote the listings relevant to "Big Ben" and "Marvel Man/Marvelman," after I had ...

• At September 30, 2009, Andy wrote:

  Also, Gamesmaster (Grant/King "Hero" villain, X-book villain w/ the upstarts), Piledriver (Grant/King villain, member of the Wrecking Crew), Scylla (Grant ...

• At September 30, 2009, Mary Warner wrote:

  Regarding Andy's suggestion of 'Abyss', Marvel also had a 'Count Abyss' who fought the Infinity Watch.

• At September 30, 2009, Sijo wrote:

  Great list, will be very useful the next time I write Marvel/DC crossover fanfiction (Yes, really. ;) ) so thanks. ...

• At September 30, 2009, Andrew-TLA wrote:

  The alternate Reed Richards--I assume we're talking about the one who dressed like the Invincible Man and travelled the multiverse ...

• At September 30, 2009, Daniel O' Dreams wrote:

  Didn't Paste Pot Pete rename himself "The Trapper" or was that like the Trapster or something it's late and I'm ...

• At September 30, 2009, Daniel O' Dreams wrote:

  Trapster it is nevermind.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trapster

• At September 30, 2009, Peregrin wrote:

  I just finished a Marvel trade called Avengers: The Initiative. The name Arsenal is used by a young ...

• At September 30, 2009, Andy wrote:

  Finally, The General (Justice League villain, Punisher villain, as well as a couple more uses in both universes) and Zig-Zag ...

• At September 30, 2009, Andy wrote:

  Okay, I lied.

  Wanderer (Justice League ally, X-men foe), The Zapper/Zapper (Justice league villain, Cloak and Dagger reformed villain.), Wild ...

• At September 30, 2009, Mary Warner wrote:

  Zapper was also the name of Jennifer Walters' friend in the original She-Hulk series. I only read a few ...

• At September 30, 2009, Mary Warner wrote:

  I'm not adding much with these suggestions am I?

• At October 1, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  [b]Andy[/b] said (after listing several more characters who might belong on the next draft): "Hope this doesn't come off as ...

• At October 1, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Mary Warner -- if the character normally called himself "Count Abyss," then I wouldn't count him as another user of ...

• At October 1, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Sijo -- a little quick research confirms you're right about Robby's time as "The Wizard." I wrote that entry a ...

• At October 1, 2009, Sijo wrote:

  Lorendiac: sounds like a story idea that would be hard to explain, but would still be fun-sorta like the Amalgam ...

• At October 1, 2009, Bill wrote:

  fun!

  few add-ons:

  Cypher: In addition to Doug Ramsey, there was a new mutant going by Cypher - an african-american girl - ...

• At October 1, 2009, Andy wrote:

  Well, that's good to hear! I find these sorts of tasks oddly theraputic from time to time, so if ...

• At October 1, 2009, Bill wrote:

  Omen was also a villain character in Legion lore during the Great Darkness Saga

• At October 1, 2009, Sijo wrote:

  Oh yeah, The Omega from Legion of Superheroes wasn't a robot, it was the physical embodiment of all the hate ...

• At October 1, 2009, Andy wrote:

  Geez, you'd think a guy named Braniac would have thought to account for that. His attack strategy was right ...

• At October 2, 2009, KAM wrote:

  Actually Brainiac 5 probably did account for it. Since it was he who had Matter-Eater Lad eat the Miracle Machine.

  Yeah ...

• At October 2, 2009, Jon wrote:

  How about these Kirby characters:

  Mokkari/Makkari, the New Gods villain and the Eternal. I think both names are meant to be ...

• At October 2, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Andrew-TLA -- as it happens, the other day I was saying to myself, "I really ought to reread the Tom ...

• At October 2, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Bill -- it so happens that within the last month or so I've re-watched the DCAU Superman episode in which ...

• At October 2, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Jon -- I always assumed the first syllable of "Makkari" was pronounced "Mac." Can you remember a specific source for ...

• At October 2, 2009, Basara wrote:

  Considering that both Atari & DC were Warner companies at the time of the Atari Force comics, is there any ...

• At October 3, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Basara -- I had no idea that Atari was actually "a Warner company" at the time of "Atari Force."

  As to ...

Over the last few years, I've occasionally stated in online discussions that Hugo Strange got the reboot treatment after COIE -- "reboot" meaning that all of his previous appearances were flushed down the toilet and forgotten by him, by Batman, and by any other characters who had participated in any of those old stories. Some of my fellow fans have disagreed with that assessment. Eventually I decided the matter deserved a really comprehensive explanation. I have been working on this timeline, off and on, for quite some time, with a lot of rereading of various stories along the way, in an attempt to explain just how I found myself forced to conclude, years ago, that Post-COIE Hugo Strange was a rebooted character who remembered none of the events from his Pre-COIE appearances!

Now I'm unleashing the results upon the world (long after I had previously estimated I would do so, but who's counting?). Be warned that most of this is summaries, with bits of commentary from yours truly, of many published stories, from 1940 on, which included Hugo Strange in a prominent role. If this subject doesn't sound absolutely fascinating to you, then your chances of being entertained as you read the rest of this piece are dubious. But don't say I didn't warn you right up front!

TIMELINE: THE SHIFTING CONTINUITY OF HUGO STRANGE

[Note: All dates are taken from whatever was printed on the cover of the comic book in question. That means that many of these stories were published a few months earlier than what I list.]

February, 1940. Detective Comics #36. Written by Bill Finger.

Batman has his first clash with the sinister criminal mastermind known as Professor Hugo Strange. Near as I can tell, in those days we were never told what subject Hugo had once taught as a professor. I've read this story, and the Professor comes across as a "Professor Moriarty type." His genius apparently lies in organizing and directing criminal activities. The most distinctive thing about this story is that the Professor is somehow generating incredibly thick fog to blanket the city and make it impossible for the cops to chase fleeing criminals after they have committed robberies. However, we discover by the end of the tale that the fog generator was built by a captive electrical engineer, so its use does not prove that the Professor himself is a brilliant engineer or chemist or any other type of scientist, for that matter!

Spring, 1940. Batman #1. Written by Bill Finger.

Hugo Strange demonstrates that he has found a way to turn men into gigantic monsters who will do his bidding. (To me, that sounds like biochemistry.) His master plan in this one is simply to have his monster men start terrifying people, making themselves loud and obvious menaces to draw the attention of the police, while Hugo and his more normal employees are quietly robbing banks the old-fashioned way!

December, 1940. Detective Comics #46. Written by Bill Finger.

The third and final "Golden Age appearance" of Professor Hugo Strange. In this one, his ambitions have grown considerably from the old goal of just taking over the Gotham rackets. Now he has invented a "fear dust" which does just what you'd expect something with that name to do. He's currently equipping hoodlums with spray guns so they can terrify cops and others during their robberies, but this is just the first step. At one point in the story, Hugo speaks of spraying his fear dust all over the country and then stepping into a new role as Dictator of America after none of the existing authorities retain the courage to resist him. It should come as no surprise to you to learn that Batman trounces the scoundrel long before he can put any such grandiose plan into effect. In fact, in another reminder of the old Holmes/Moriarty relationship, the two men finally clash on the edge of a cliff, and the Professor ends up taking the fall. Batman apparently believes the Professor is bound to have died from this fall, but I gather that no one in the Golden Age (neither in this story nor any other) ever claimed to have retrieved and identified the body!

(Note: This story was published several months before the debut of the Golden Age version of Jonathan Crane, the Scarecrow, who made fear-inducing chemicals his own specialty. I mention this in case you were wondering if Hugo had stolen the idea from Crane -- it is likelier to have happened the other way around, or else it was purely coincidental!)

The three stories I have just summarized were definitely "Golden Age," and thus presumably happened on Earth-2 of the old DC multiverse (even though it would be over 20 years after "Detective Comics #46" before anyone mentioned the names of "Earth-1" and "Earth-2"). At any rate, over a third of a century will pass before the name of Hugo Strange comes up again in a new story, but when it does, that story will be happening to the Bronze Age Batman of Earth-1, and thus it appears that these stories I've just listed are among the many Batman-related stories which happened much the same way at least twice to analogs of the same character concepts, first on Earth-2 and years later on Earth-1. You'll see what I mean in a moment!

August, 1977. Detective Comics #471. Written by Steve Englehart.

Bruce Wayne discovers he needs expert medical treatment for radioactive wounds suffered in a previous adventure, so he checks into an expensive, very discreet private clinic called Graytowers. Unfortunately, it turns out the so-called physician running the place is actually Hugo Strange (heavily disguised at first). After Bruce has changed into Batman and then has discovered the true identity of the mastermind, subsequent dialogue between the two men (along with attached footnotes) informs us that this Batman (the Earth-1 version, natch!) vividly remembers the events of those Golden Age stories in which he clashed with Hugo Strange. He even remembers Hugo's charming habit of turning men into gigantic, monstrous slaves (and as you might guess, Hugo is using that schtick all over again now).

As I said, it appears that the early Hugo Strange stories presumably happened in much the same way (but presumably a few decades apart) in both Earth-1 and Earth-2's history. (The same concept of "duplicated origins and past clashes" was already understood to apply to the origin stories of Joker, Two-Face, and various other people in Bat-continuity, by the way.)

On the final page of this story, Batman is rendered unconscious by a snakebite and then awakens to discover that, during his nap, Hugo Strange has yanked off the cowl to discover that Batman is actually Bruce Wayne, whom he now has at his mercy!

September, 1977. Detective Comics #472. Written by Steve Englehart.

Keeping Bruce confined and heavily sedated, Hugo Strange amuses himself by wearing a mask and changing his voice to create what is evidently a brilliant impersonation of Bruce Wayne. He shows up at Bruce's office each day and begins looting the Wayne financial empire. Then he decides to sell Batman's secret identity to the highest bidder -- but please don't ask me why he needs to bother when he already has all of Bruce Wayne's material assets at his fingertips! At any rate, Hugo puts out feelers through an underworld grapevine to get well-heeled interested parties to show up at a certain time and place to discuss an auction.

The three invitees who attend the first late-night meeting are Boss Thorne, The Penguin, and The Joker. Hugo announces the rules of the game -- chiefly, that he expects each serious bidder to pay ten thousand dollars in cold cash right now in order to stay in the running (and they all comply!) -- then he assures them the serious bidding for Batman's secret identity will start tomorrow at midnight.

Hugo's faith in three cold-blooded villains' willingness to slavishly abide by his rules and patiently wait until tomorrow night for an "honest" auction is truly remarkable. (You also might call it "breathtakingly naive," but that still qualifies as "truly remarkable!") After this meeting breaks up, we learn that Boss Thorne has men waiting nearby and they ambush Hugo on the street outside, shooting down his gigantic bodyguards with trank darts and then dragging Hugo Strange off to a nice quiet basement where they pound on him, over and over, trying to persuade him to share Batman's secret with Boss Thorne for free. Hugo stubbornly refuses to talk, and finally the thugs announce he's died under their fists.

(Note: At the start of the next issue, they have already stuffed his body into a weighted barrel and they toss it into the river as we watch. I won't bother giving that its own listing, though. Mainly because we didn't even see the body; we were merely told it was inside the barrel!)

March-April, 1978. Detective Comics #476. Written by Steve Englehart.

In the last few issues, since that barrel got tossed into the river, Boss Thorne has occasionally thought he saw and heard the ghostly figure of Hugo Strange menacing him. On at least one such occasion, there were a couple of other people in the vicinity who didn't seem to see or hear anything out of the ordinary!

Now Thorne is driving down a highway alone when he suddenly thinks he sees Hugo's ghost out in front of the car, and then it seems to come through the windshield at Thorne (without actually damaging the windshield, you understand) and grabs him by the throat. This scene ends at that point, but later on we see Batman get the news that Boss Thorne has been found, apparently gone loony, raving about how he killed Hugo Strange and then the ghost came back to persecute him, et cetera.

So "Detective Comics #472" was the last we saw of Hugo alive, and #476 is the last we see of Hugo as a ghost, at least for the next four years or so. (This long gap may have something to do with the fact that Steve Englehart's run on 'Tec ended with this story. If he had stuck around for a few more years, who knows what sort of follow-up he might have provided?)

January, 1982. The Brave and the Bold #182. Written by Alan Brennert.

We get some follow-up information on the Earth-2 Hugo Strange, whose only previous appearances had been the first three stories summarized on this timeline. Basically: He somehow survived the fall at the end of his last appearance, but was crippled and deformed by the massive damage his body suffered. For the next 40 years or so, the Batman and Robin of Earth-2 (along with anyone else who cared) had heard nothing more from Hugo and assumed he was long dead. At the end of this story, he dies for real -- by his own hand, having decided he has nothing left to live for. That makes just four stories, to the best of my knowledge, which ever featured the "original" version of Hugo Strange. Remember, though, that his three "Golden Age" stories apparently had also happened, in much the same way, to the Earth-1 versions of Batman and Hugo Strange, many years later -- but without the Earth-1 Hugo having suffered any lasting injuries from a nasty fall. (Note: The Earth-1 Batman is involved in this tale, and mentions in passing that the Hugo Strange of his Earth has been dead for over a year.)

April, 1982. Detective Comics #513. Written by Gerry Conway.

Boss Thorne seems to be sitting on top of the world. He has already been back in the center of Gotham politics (unbeknownst to the public) for awhile at this point. After being released from a sanitarium, he started working behind the scenes as a puppet master, and used some dirty tricks to get a man named Hamilton Hill elected as Gotham's new mayor. Thorne basically owns Hill, body and soul; he is obviously confident that Mayor Hill will do anything Thorne pleases. (One example is firing Commissioner Gordon and replacing him with a man named Pauling who just happens to be another of Thorne's stooges.) For our purposes, the most important thing about this issue is that Thorne suddenly looks at a drinking glass in his hand and thinks he sees a miniature image of Hugo Strange's face staring back at him and saying some mocking words.

This sort of thing will happen again and again to Thorne over the next several months as a running subplot. (Well, "several months" from the viewpoint of anyone in the real world who was buying the issues as they came out. It probably happened faster from Rupert Thorne's point of view.)

December, 1982. Batman #354. Written by Gerry Conway.

In a previous issue of "Detective Comics," Boss Thorne made an astute decision. He hired Terrence Thirteen (also known as "Doctor Thirteen, the ghostbreaker") to investigate the way Thorne's been haunted recently by visions of Hugo Strange. Now Thirteen is ready to deliver a report. Just before this issue began, he examined Graytowers (reportedly abandoned and uninhabited since the days of the Englehart stories) and found sophisticated machinery set up to project a ghostly hologram of Hugo Strange, while simultaneously activating a tape player with a spooky, threatening message which mentions Thorne by name. If you open the door to a certain lab inside the building, and step inside, the ghostly manifestation begins fifteen seconds later. Whoever set this up was obviously "playing the odds" by assuming the most likely person to come poking around in Graytowers in the near future would be Boss Thorne, if he ever worked up the nerve.

While explaining all this to Thorne, Doctor Thirteen conjectures (correctly, I'm sure) that a thorough examination of Thorne's office and townhouse would turn up other such devices concealed in useful places; all part of an elaborate special-effects campaign geared to drive Thorne out of his mind (or convince him he had gone out of his mind, which would amount to much the same thing?).

However, Doctor Thirteen has not found evidence pointing at any particular person as the unseen mastermind for this scheme, so naturally he asks if Thorne has any enemies who'd like to see him sent back to a sanitarium. Thorne leaps to the conclusion that Hill and Pauling (his pet mayor and his pet police commissioner, remember?) must be getting too big for their britches. Tired of being his minions; anxious to shake him off and then run the city as they see fit. Later in this story Thorne confronts those two, gun in hand, ranting about what he thinks they've been doing to double-cross him. Both men seem very confused by his accusations. Eventually Thorne shoots Pauling dead at the same time that a cop shoots Thorne. Boss Thorne's injury is nonfatal, as it turns out -- presumably he'll end up in a sanitarium all over again, but I don't think he ever gets any further appearances in the Pre-COIE, Earth-1 continuity, so who knows? Hamilton Hill, however, panics and drops to the floor just in time to dodge the gunfire; he will continue running things at City Hall for many, many issues after this -- no longer under the thumb of Boss Thorne or anyone else, but still corrupt!

On the final page of this story, we see a limo parked not far from the scene of the shooting. Then we find that sitting in the back seat, looking very much alive, is . . . Professor Hugo Strange, laughing his head off! Evidently he has now managed to drive Boss Thorne into a mental breakdown, twice in a row! (Hugo is obviously one of those sadistic villains who really know how to hold a grudge. Not for him anything so quick and merciful as simply shooting Thorne dead and calling it square.)

Note: At this moment, Batman and his friends still have no idea of what's really been going on where Boss Thorne's latest mental breakdown is concerned. They are aware that Thorne has been babbling something about the ghost of Hugo Strange, and about Pauling and Hill secretly being out to get him, and so forth -- standard paranoid stuff, you know? -- but they seem to think it only proves that Rupert Thorne was just plain nuts.

February, 1983. Batman #356. Written by Gerry Conway.

In a variation of what he's already done to Thorne, Hugo Strange spends most of this issue trying to break Batman down psychologically before confronting him physically. (The reader knows all along what's happening.) Hugo gets off to a good strong start, with Bruce Wayne coming home to the Manor (actually an exact replica of the real house -- long story!) and then being repeatedly attacked by two of the people he trusts most (Alfred and Dick). Each time he wins a battle and then looks away, their unconscious bodies seem to vanish into thin air before he looks back in that direction again. Then Bruce will see Alfred or Dick approaching him from another direction, seeming quite friendly and looking none the worse for wear. It's surreal enough to make him wonder if he's hallucinating because of all the stress he's been under lately.

After Bruce finally realizes he is just encountering a series of robot doubles of his butler and protege, he figures out exactly what's happening and heads down to the (ersatz) Batcave where Hugo is waiting, already dressed as Batman -- having recently removed his glasses and shaved off his beard so he'll look the part! -- and they fight. Hugo's avowed purpose is to replace Batman in Gotham -- he claims Bruce is "too soft" to deserve the job -- and it appears that Hugo would have moved into the real Wayne Manor to become "Bruce Wayne" as well, after the real Bruce was dead. We later learn Alfred was also scheduled to die that night, but Hugo's original plan for dealing with Dick Grayson is less clear. He may have thought a quick murder and then a robot double would work there too. (How Hugo expected to successfully deceive Superman the next time he dropped by for a chat with his buddy Bruce, or to deceive all the other heroes of the JLA and the Teen Titans for that matter, is never explained. But since things never go that far, it's an academic point.)

On the other hand -- just in case you were wondering -- I'll mention that Hugo does take a minute to explain how he cheated death the last time around. It was his mastery of yoga that saved him. (I very much doubt his "mastery of yoga" had ever been mentioned before, but why split hairs?) When he found himself hopelessly outnumbered by Thorne's henchmen, Hugo slowed his heart to the point where the thugs who were pounding on him thought he had already died from the cumulative trauma of their blows. After they stuffed him in a barrel and tossed it in a river, he woke up and easily burst out of the wooden barrel; then began plotting his revenge on Boss Thorne (twice!), along with taking plenty of time to set up this new campaign against Bruce in order to replace him as Batman.

To do him justice, Hugo actually appears to be winning his hand-to-hand fight with Batman at first, until Robin (Dick Grayson) makes a late arrival, having followed the electronic signal of a device Bruce was carrying. Hugo tries to persuade Dick that he is the real Batman, and fails miserably. Finally, with blood running down his face after Batman and Robin have each punched him around a bit, Hugo seizes a convenient lever and makes a furious speech which ends with the announcement that if he can't be Batman, nobody can! Then he yanks the lever and the whole place blows up. Fortunately, Batman and Robin saw where this was going as he reached for the lever. Instead of just standing there waiting for him to finish his diatribe, they made it out of the ersatz Batcave in the nick of time. As the story ends, Batman's explanation of recent events (delivered to Alfred) gives us the distinct impression that Bruce and Dick are both convinced that Hugo blew himself up in a bitter rage and has surely been killed by his own blast -- either by the explosives or by the resulting collapse of tons of earth and other debris from the ersatz Manor, I suppose.

However, there is no immediate follow-up, in this issue or anything published in the next couple of years, to confirm that Hugo is really dead this time! (You might think that after all those years of superheroics, Bruce and Dick would be a tad skeptical about any "death" which didn't leave behind a corpse to be positively identified . . . but apparently not!)

Note: As far as I know, this story was the first time Hugo Strange demonstrated the apparent capability to build and program very convincing robot doubles of real people. However, the writers at DC apparently still had not committed themselves on just what discipline Hugo had once taught as a professor. Although his high-tech stunts in Conway's stories would seem to suggest he knew a fair amount of electrical and/or mechanical engineering. (But that's just a guess.)

1986. Batman Annual #10. Written by Doug Moench.

Someone is trying to ruin Bruce Wayne, psychologically and financially, it appears. Terror tactics are used on various shareholders to make them sell big blocks of stock to a mysterious buyer who uses his newfound leverage to take control of the Wayne Foundation, while causing its stock to plummet, and doing other nasty things which somehow create a situation where Bruce Wayne's liabilities suddenly exceed his assets and he finds himself going broke, while a probably-illegal (but superficially correct) court order evicts him from his own house, which is promptly put up for auction and bought by some mysterious person. (I have serious trouble with the idea that it would be so easy to achieve this complete stripping of Bruce's personal assets from him, even if you had zillions of dollars to throw around to get the ball rolling and also started out with at least one or two corrupt judges in your pocket, but let's roll with it.)

Meanwhile, a person dressed as Batman is occasionally reported to have committed various robberies around Gotham. Someone's trying to smear the image of Bruce's alter-ego as well as impoverishing him!

Eventually Batman learns that the mysterious buyer of his house, the same guy who is behind a "consortium" which has been buying up all that stock in the Wayne Foundation, is a man using the name of "Steven Strangways." Astute detective that he is, our hero notices that "Strangways" bears a striking resemblance to the real name of one of the few bad guys to ever discover Batman's secret identity. Of course the bad guy in question is supposed to be dead, but that never stopped him before!

When Batman and Robin (the Pre-COIE Jason Todd this time, in his first encounter with this particular villain) penetrate the Batcave's defenses and find the mastermind in his new lair, they are treated to a rant from Hugo Strange. Oddly enough, it appears that he has finally abandoned any hope of "replacing" Bruce as the "real Batman" of Gotham City. Instead, he was prepared to settle for bankrupting Bruce, smearing Batman's image, and finally inviting the television cameras to come through Wayne Manor and down into the Batcave to expose all Bruce's secrets to the world. (That last part was only a plan for the future which never materialized, however.)

Naturally, by the end of this story, Hugo has been captured alive by Batman -- for what was probably just the second time in Hugo's entire career; the first time being his Golden Age debut story! Incidentally, Hugo claims that the guy with his face who blew himself up in that last tussle with Batman was just another of Hugo's "mandroids," which (he says) explains why subsequent examination of the scene turned up the smashed remains of several mandroids, but no flesh-and-blood corpse.

That part seems plausible. What's a bit less plausible is that Bruce seems astounded by this revelation, as if his keen detective mind had never suspected anything along those lines after Hugo's human remains had stubbornly failed to turn up in the careful excavation of the former ersatz Batcave which we are retroactively being assured did take place!

Be that as it may, a hasty happy ending is thrown at us in the final pages. Bruce Wayne is evidently going to get most of his fortune back, but Hugo is unfazed by the notion of landing behind bars. Because, after all, he still has his trump card -- knowledge of Batman's secret identity -- so if all else has failed, he can still spill the beans to anyone who cares to listen! He has claimed, during this latest fight, that Batman won't dare turn Hugo over to the authorities for his various crimes, because of the stories Hugo can tell them! Batman seems surprisingly calm in the face of this threat. He eventually delivers an unconscious Hugo to the GCPD.

Accordingly: When Hugo Strange awakes behind the bars of a jail cell, he boasts that he is ready to destroy Batman's privacy. Sergeant Harvey Bullock, greatly amused, explains what Batman has already told Commissioner Gordon (between the pages). According to Batman: Hugo really did learn Batman's secret identity somehow . . . but once Batman had captured Hugo, he decided that before handing the guy over to the police, he would take drastic measures in the name of security. Specifically, Batman (allegedly) used hypnotism to mess around in Hugo's mind and replace the real memory of Batman's secret with a ridiculous substitution meant to cause a maximum of confusion inside Hugo's head. Ergo, Hugo Strange now has a deep-rooted conviction that Batman is "really" the millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne. (Although Bullock doesn't put it in these words, his attitude seems to be that "no one in his right mind would ever take that one seriously!")

Hugo starts muttering things to himself. It appears that now he may be the one teetering on the brink of a nervous breakdown as he begins to question how much -- if any? -- of his own memory of recent events, and why he did whatever he did to Batman and/or Bruce Wayne, can actually be trusted. The reader, of course, is meant to infer that no hypnotism took place at all -- Batman is simply running a colossal bluff!

That scene is the last we ever see of Professor Hugo Strange in the "Pre-Crisis" continuity. (I figure that "Batman #400," the final issue of Doug Moench's first long run as a Batman writer, marked the last hurrah of the "old" Bat-continuity before it started getting heavily modified -- although not truly rebooted -- to conform to what other people had in mind for the "new and improved" Post-Crisis version, such as the changes made in Frank Miller's "Year One" a few months later.)

Thus far we've had a pretty clear sequence of events. The story by Brennert was set exclusively in Earth-2, but other than that, each new writer who worked on Hugo Strange in the 70s and 80s did his level best to "respect all that had gone before" as part of the same continuity for the character. This story by Moench clearly built upon the relevant stories by Conway, which had repeatedly referrred to the events of the Englehart stories, which in turn had included dialogue and footnotes specifically acknowledging the Golden Age appearances of Professor Hugo Strange (all three of which were scripted by Bill Finger, according to online databases). But watch out -- now things are going to get complicated!

"Batman Annual #10" was evidently set in the final days of Batman's Pre-COIE continuity. (I figure "Batman #400," the end of Moench's first long run as a Batman scripter, was the final installment of the Pre-COIE version of Batman's adventures.) Unlike Superman and Wonder Woman, Batman did not get the Reboot Treatment in the late 80s, which would have meant all or nearly all of his previous stories being erased from history. However, it soon became clear that COIE would be used as an excuse to reboot or heavily revise at least some of the supporting characters associated with Bat-continuity. For instance, Jason Todd's previous origin story, for instance, went up in smoke (it had been a near-copy of Dick Grayson's origin story, the first time around), and he now had a different color of hair, a different family background, and first met Batman when the Caped Crusader caught him trying to steal the Batmobile's tires. Hugo Strange was not used, nor even mentioned as far as I know, for about four years after the transition to Post-COIE continuity, so the question of how much of his previous continuity was still valid remained very much up in the air! Until his first Post-COIE story finally materialized . . . and oddly enough, it was scripted by the same guy who had handled Hugo's final Pre-COIE appearance!

September, 1990. Legends of the Dark Knight #11. Written by Doug Moench. Part 1 of "Prey" (a five-part story arc).

This story seems to be set shortly after Frank Miller's "Year One." Jim Gordon is a police captain; his hair is still red; and Batman is still officially a criminal wanted by the police (although Gordon's own feelings toward him are much more tolerant than they used to be). This story also presents a new take on the "first encounter" of Batman and Hugo Strange; wildly different from their only previous "first encounter" in the Hugo Strange debut story which was published way back in 1939!

Our first glimpse of Hugo in this story comes when he appears on a local TV talk show (along with Captain Gordon and the mayor of Gotham) to discuss the mysterious vigilante called "Batman." Hugo offers an elaborate description of what he thinks is going on inside Batman's head. Some of the more interesting elements of his opinion are that The Batman does what he does because his mind was traumatized by the violent death of a loved one, which probably occurred at the hands of a criminal acting in darkness; hence Batman's obsession with going out on the streets at night and beating up hoodlums, over and over, although he's never truly satisfied by the experience. (Sounds like a half-baked piece of guesswork to me -- what do you think?)

Obviously impressed by this spur-of-the-moment analysis of a man whom Hugo has never met, the mayor suddenly announces on the air that he is putting Gordon in charge of a new task force to hunt down the vigilante known as Batman, and then he asks Strange if he'd consider helping out as a consultant. Although the mayor doesn't specify what that would entail, it seems probable that Hugo's major contribution will involve constructing a more detailed psychological profile and comparing it to available data about any likely suspects to see how far they can narrow the field. Speaking of which: As we first see him, Hugo is being introduced by the host of the talk show as "prominent psychiatrist Dr. Hugo Strange." As near as I can tell, this is the first time Hugo has been labelled a psychiatrist in any comic book. (Previously he had usually been called "Professor" in dialogue, but I don't think anyone had ever accused him of having a medical degree or any advanced training in psychological matters.)

December, 1990. Legends of the Dark Knight #14. Written by Doug Moench. Part 4 of "Prey."

Hugo Strange exposes Batman to a gaseous mind-altering drug which stirs up bad memories for him. Batman still manages to escape, but not before he has cried out in horror, "Mother! Father!"

At this point Hugo suddenly decides, in the best Freudian tradition, that Batman's abnormal behavior as a grown man could be the end result of deep-rooted childhood trauma involving his parents. Suppose they both were killed at the same time, for instance? (Until now, Hugo has been going through police files about Gotham City homicides from the last five years or so; trying to identify relatives, lovers, etc., of the murder victims and sift through them to see if anyone looks like Batman material. Evidently he had badly underestimated how long Batman might have obsessively trained for his intended role as an elite crimefighter before putting theory into practice.)

With this new lead to follow, Hugo starts digging for any double homicide involving someone's mother and father within the past twenty years, and becomes fascinated by the police file on the deaths of Thomas and Martha Wayne, killed in the presence of their son Bruce. (Hugo has previously deduced that Batman must be wealthy.) For awhile, he is convinced that he now "knows" the secret identity of the Batman. He eventually plants some mannequins and tape recordings in Wayne Manor to send Bruce on a guilt trip as it appears, at first, that his parents are speaking to him. However, it is clear that Hugo doesn't yet have any hard evidence of Batman's identity that would stand up in court. (Not that he really cares about helping the cops build an airtight case at this point -- I've been skipping over various details of this arc's plot, but by this time Hugo has already kidnapped the mayor's daughter, framed Batman for it, and hypnotically brainwashed a previously honest tough cop into becoming a killer vigilante.)

January, 1991. Legends of the Dark Knight #15. Written by Doug Moench. Part 5 of "Prey."

During this issue, Hugo Strange is exposed as the kidnapper of the mayor's daughter and then, as he tries to run away (while wearing an imitation Batman costume -- he's also shown other signs of having an unhealthy fascination with what he imagines Batman's lifestyle and mindset to be), he is shot by cops and falls into the river. There is no mention of the body being found before the end of this issue. So we may reasonably conclude that, in perfect keeping with the traditions of his Pre-COIE stories, Hugo is in the category of "Missing in Action, Presumed Dead" as the story arc draws to a close.

On the other hand: Since he never saw Batman without the cowl, and never got him to admit anything, Hugo (when last seen in this arc) doesn't "know" that Batman is Bruce Wayne; he merely has a strong opinion on the subject. This is in sharp contrast to how he was written in the 70s and 80s, where he had never even suspected Bruce was Batman until he had a lucky break and was able to rip off Batman's mask and find out for certain. If you take this story arc "at face value," the implication is that the Post-COIE Hugo Strange is being "Rebooted," even though most of Batman's traditional adversaries (Joker, Two-Face, Riddler, etc.) did not have all of their appearances from the Earth-1 continuity tossed out the window in the Post-COIE era!

But "face value" is a tricky thing to determine sometimes. Remember, this arc was published in "Legends of the Dark Knight," and that meant the rules were different than they would be if, like "Year One" and "Year Two" and "Year Three," this had been published as a "flashback arc" in the "Batman" or "Detective Comics" titles. In those latter titles, virtually everything published is meant to be taken as canonical unless someone specifically states otherwise. But as early as "Legends of the Dark Knight #5," an editor wrote the following in the letter column in response to a question about possible continuity glitches in the title's first story arc:

We have no equivalent of a “no-prize.” LEGENDS stories will not necessarily fit in any continuity.

Similar sentiments would be expressed in later letter columns . . . but not as a boilerplate warning in every issue. Apparently most of the LOTDK stories were presumed, by default, to fall into a status I've seen described as "fuzzy continuity." Maybe a certain story arc in that title had "really happened, once upon a time" to the same Batman who inhabited the regular DCU timeline . . . and maybe it hadn't. There was usually no knowing and no telling; the typical issue of LOTDK did not offer any "guarantees" as to whether or not what you had just read would ever be "respected" and "referred to" in other stories about Batman and his friends and enemies!

In recent years, I've gained the strong impression in various online forums that many modern readers of Batman comics don't realize that such an easygoing editorial policy of "maybe this one's in continuity; maybe it isn't; feel free to believe whatever makes you happy!" was standard for most of the things published in LOTDK during its long run (about 18 years of monthly issues, plus annuals and specials). Of course that policy was occasionally waived. For instance, in 1994 several issues of LOTDK were clearly labelled on their covers as containing chapters of the "Knightquest" and "Knightsend" events which were occurring in several Batman-related titles at once, as part of his ongoing continuity. But having a few stories be "definitely canonical" was the exception rather than the rule for that title!

The best way to determine whether or not the "apparently rebooted" Hugo Strange of "Prey" was still in continuity was to observe how he was portrayed in subsequent stories, in more canonical titles, in years to come. Unfortunately, any Hugo Strange fan who was eagerly looking forward to seeing the villain used again was facing an amazingly long wait -- a quick decade rolled past without further use of Hugo Strange in any new Batman stories, which did nothing to "clarify" things regarding the contradictions between his Pre-COIE continuity and the different version introduced in "Prey."

Then another writer finally picked up the reins and further explored the long-neglected questions: Whatever happened to Hugo Strange, and how is he remembered by Batman and other residents of Gotham?

October, 2000. Gotham Knights #8. Written by Devin Grayson. Part 1 of "Transference." ("Transference" was a 4-part story arc. Oddly enough, no one bothered to mention the arc's title on the covers of the relevant issues.)

In the opening pages of this arc, at a time labeled "Six Months Ago" in a caption, the real Catwoman bumps into someone who's impersonating her while pulling a jewel theft. Then a couple of cops (or alleged cops -- wearing the uniforms, anyway) show up and try to shoot the real Catwoman; then Batman shows up . . . or at least Catwoman initially takes him at face value as Batman. She seems touched when he makes it clear that he can tell the difference between her and a phony at a glance (after she tries to lie to him about who the real Catwoman is), and she's also touched that he still believes her when she says the other woman was the one who was causing all the real trouble tonight. Then Catwoman is completely surprised when he suddenly presses something over her mouth (presumably soaked in chloroform or some other knockout drug) to subdue her. As he does so, he says: "Catwoman -- there's something I have to tell you . . . I'm not Batman . . . not yet . . ."

When she comes to, she's tied in a chair and the Ersatz Batman makes it clear he wants to interrogate her about the current Batman for any useful secrets she knows. Ersatz Batman does not identify himself, however, and Selina doesn't seem to figure out his real name at the time. She eventually gets out of the ropes and escapes before she can be injected with sodium pentothal as her captor had intended. She also gives Ersatz Batman a bloody nose along the way, but his face is kept in shadow so that we don't "know for sure" who this man in the Batman suit really is -- and she apparently doesn't bother to even mention this incident to the real Batman any time in the next six months (don't ask me why not).

In the part of this issue set "now," we see Tim Drake and Dick Grayson having a friendly conversation. Dick offers a quick list of bad guys who have previously discovered Batman's secret identity. Hugo Strange is on the list. Dick's comment on why Hugo's knowledge is not a big threat nowadays is simple: "Strange is dead."

(Take a wild guess: Which villain with medical training will come face-to-face with Bruce Wayne on the final page of this same issue? Go on, guess! What? No, not The Crime Doctor. No, it isn't Harley Quinn, either. And I'm not sure Doctor Death was actually an M.D. Try again!)

Yes, it's Hugo Strange. It is worth noting that when Hugo was last seen in the Earth-1, Pre-COIE continuity, he was very much alive inside a jail cell. Dick's comment thus implies that the story in question ("Batman Annual #10") never happened; and it certainly could not be the most recent time when Batman had encountered Hugo before today. At the time Dick made this remark, Hugo had only been featured in one other story in all the years between "Batman Annual #10" and this issue of "Gotham Knights" -- the "Prey" story arc in LOTDK, which ended with him falling into a river, shot and presumed dead.

Of course, there were various other times, before 1986, when Hugo was "believed dead" as a story ended, and in theory Dick might be referring to one of those previous stories instead of the events of "Prey." Thus, the matter is still up in the air as we move on to . . .

November, 2000. Gotham Knights #9. Written by Devin Grayson. Part 2 of "Transference."

Here we finally get some specific information about Hugo Strange's previous criminal record in the "modern continuity" (as it stood around the year 2000, anyway).

After Bruce Wayne has managed to break away from Hugo Strange long enough to switch to his Batman role (Hugo is certain that the abrupt disappearance of Wayne, followed by the abrupt appearance of Batman, is no coincidence!), Batman says: "You're a wanted criminal, Strange. Last time anyone saw you alive, you were the known kidnapper of the former mayor's daughter."

Strange ripostes: "Last time anyone saw me alive, I was tormenting Bruce Wayne in the privacy of his own home."

Both men are referring to events which occurred in the pages of the "Prey" story arc mentioned above. (I infer that Bruce Wayne never bothered to file a formal complaint with the GCPD about Hugo's attempts to play mind games with him in Wayne Manor; thus that part of the story never became a matter of public record; thus Batman carefully doesn't admit knowing anything about it, even after all these years.) And unlike LOTDK, stories published in "Gotham Knights" (while it lasted) were presumed to be set in the "regular continuity." Since this story features Dick (aka Nightwing) and Tim (aka Robin), and is clearly happening in the "modern continuity" of the year 2000, there are some plain implications regarding previously published stories:

1. Moench's "Prey" is now being retconned into "canonical" status in the modern DCU, after having spent ten years in limbo, with none of Batman's faithful readers knowing whether "regular continuity Batman" remembered those events or not!

2. These references to "Prey" as the last time Hugo is known to have done anything at all make it clear that it was, in fact, the first and only time that Batman and Hugo Strange ever clashed in "modern continuity" -- until right now, of course!

3. That wipes out all Pre-COIE Hugo Strange appearances in one clean sweep! Apparently all of that stuff -- the Finger stories, the Englehart stories, the Conway stories, the Moench story from "Batman Annual #10" -- never happened in the Post-COIE DCU!

4. Therefore, Dick Grayson (per this revised continuity) has never actually met Hugo Strange before, since "Prey" was clearly set before Dick ever moved into Wayne Manor. In the previous issue, when Dick told Tim that Hugo was among those who had learned Bruce's secret, and then nonchalantly explained that in Hugo's case it didn't matter now because he was dead, Dick was only repeating what Bruce must have once told him about an old case that ended with Hugo Strange getting shot and becoming "Missing in Action, Presumed Dead." Dick probably figures that a wacko with a strong Batman fixation would have popped up again, seeking a rematch, long before this if he were capable of it.

(Incidentally, we never do find out why Hugo Strange waited for what must have been at least a decade from his point of view before his big comeback!)

January, 2001. Gotham Knights #11. Written by Devin Grayson. Part 4 of "Transference."

Hugo Strange has captured Bruce (as himself), Dick (dressed as Nightwing), and Tim (dressed as Robin), and is trying to stage situations which will force them to react in ways consistent with how Batman would react and how he would expect his apprentices to react, thereby "proving" that Hugo has been right all along about who's who. (For some reason, Hugo doesn't bother stripping off the masks of Nightwing and Robin for corroborating evidence, nor taking fingerprints or using any other means of identification. His obsessive focus is on getting "Bruce Wayne" to break out of character and reveal his true colors.) However, Bruce doesn't act the way he's "supposed to" when the time comes, and neither do Dick and Tim (according to Hugo's hypotheses and psychological profiles regarding who Batman is and what the top priorities of his apprentices are supposed to be in certain worst-case scenarios). This drives Hugo (who has been wearing a Batman costume himself for much of this arc) into a mental collapse. He actually escapes from our heroes at the time; but that isn't a major concern because . . .

As the story ends, Hugo (still in his Batman outfit!) has voluntarily turned himself in at Arkham Asylum, and is saying such things as: "Take the mask! Take it away from me! I beg you!"

Followed, a few seconds later, by: "You won't make me leave, though? I am Batman. I killed Batman. You won't make me leave?"

A doctor says reassuringly, "Oh, don't worry about that, Mr. Strange. You won't be leaving for a long, long time . . ."

End of the story. So, in "Prey" and now again in "Transference," the Post-COIE version of Hugo's continuity is that he doesn't absolutely, positively know Batman's secret identity. He has never captured Batman and then ripped off the mask to see the face beneath. He has captured Bruce, but it didn't do him a lick of good. He often has a very strong opinion on the subject of Batman's identity! But any time he tries to play mind games with Bruce and/or Batman in an attempt to prove the point, Hugo conspicuously fails to achieve the victory he seeks!

And now to close with one odd reference from a later story which was presumably in continuity too (although Hugo did not appear onstage in this one):

June, 2007. Batman #665. Written by Grant Morrison.

Batman makes it back to his penthouse, badly hurt in a recent fight (in the previous issue) with a giant of a man. When describing the guy to Alfred and Tim, he offers the following words (although I believe he's speculating rather than knowing these details for certain): "He dosed himself with Hugo Strange's Monster Serum and daily Venom shots." But then he starts muttering about three ghosts in a dream, and Tim suspects Bruce of lapsing into delirium from the morphine he's received as a painkiller.

The reason this is significant is that near as we can tell, Hugo hadn't actually pulled the monster-men schtick in any canonical story published after the Englehart run in the 70s, and Hugo's appearances there seemed to have long since vanished from history after "Prey" suggested and "Transference" confirmed that his Pre-COIE continuity had been thrown out the window. So this passing reference in dialogue suggests that at least one of the old stories about Hugo injecting people with chemicals to turn them into giants has now been dragged, kicking and screaming, back into continuity -- at least as far as Grant Morrison is concerned! (I blame it all on Superboy-Prime's Retcon Punch.) However, Hugo did not actually appear in this story and we were not given any juicy details of exactly when and how he had used a Monster Serum, so it's beautifully unclear just which story or stories are being dragged back into canonical status. Possibly none of them! We must not neglect the possibility that Morrison was implying that some story we've never actually seen in print has now happened "behind the scenes," somewhere along the line, in which Batman discovered Hugo's nasty tendency to create monster-men in his spare time!

Anyway, even if Morrison was restoring one or more of Hugo Strange's Pre-COIE appearances into the latest version of "modern continuity," that wouldn't change the fact that "Gotham Knights #9," when it came out several years earlier, made it clear that Hugo had been rebooted and his only previous clash with Batman had occurred in the "Prey" story arc.

All this researching and typing began because I wanted to lay out my reasons for believing that Hugo Strange was "rebooted" after COIE had come and gone, and I hope I have now achieved that goal. However, as a bonus, I will throw in a few comments on two other Hugo Strange story arcs, both published within the last decade, which didn't seem to qualify as "canonical" in the first place, and thus were not summarized in the chronological entries on the above Timeline.

APPENDIX: Two Hugo Strange Arcs Which Seemed Out-of-Continuity

First Reject: "Terror." Legends of the Dark Knight, #'s 137-141. The first issue was cover-dated January, 2001.

Coincidentally, while "Transference" was still coming out, a new five-part arc written by Doug Moench began coming out in the notoriously-not-glued-to-continuity LOTDK title. That arc was called "Terror." It was clearly meant as a sequel to Moench's "Prey" of a decade earlier (and appeared to be set just months later, at a time when Jim Gordon was still a police captain). Hugo Strange, now revealed to have survived the ending of "Prey," played a role in it and once again vanished under mysterious circumstances (possibly about to die from fresh injuries) at the end! However, the events of "Terror" were never acknowledged in "Transference" when Batman and Hugo compared notes on when Hugo had last been seen in Gotham -- presumably because Devin Grayson and Doug Moench were writing their different versions of "the return of Hugo Strange after he went missing in 'Prey'" simultaneously, quite possibly unaware of one another's efforts! -- and so I conclude that "Terror" only happened in its own little alternate timeline, as did so many LOTDK story arcs. I decided not to bother giving more detailed summaries of any issues of "Terror" than what you find in this quick note, but I didn't want anyone to think I had completely failed to notice that story arc in the first place!

Second Reject: Batman and the Monster Men. A 6-part miniseries written by Matt Wagner. The first issue was cover-dated January, 2006.

This story appears to be selling us yet another version of how Batman and Hugo Strange "first met." It's clearly set early on, in the pre-Robin days when Bruce is still learning the ropes via lots of trial-and-error in his superhero activities.

Hugo Strange is the main villain in this six-part story. This version of Hugo still has the usual beard, bald scalp, and big glasses. So the general appearance of his head is the same as it has been since the Golden Age. However, this version of the character is also quickly established to be short and bow-legged. Those last items are wildly different from the way Hugo has previously been portrayed (at least since the 1970s -- I'm not sure how tall he would have been in his Golden Age appearances). Various stories, both before and after COIE, have rested upon the assumption that Hugo must possess approximately the same height and build as Batman, since he has repeatedly managed to make people think that he could be Batman, as long as he is clean-shaven and is dressed for the part.

Thus, I see "Batman and the Monster Men" as the functional equivalent of an LOTDK story arc, where the writer figures he isn't even expected to worry about respecting all the nitpicking details of what was previously established about the "canonical version" of any given character -- such as whether or not a villain is tall enough to stand eye-to-eye with Batman instead of needing to look way up at him! As you could guess from the title, this version of Hugo Strange is using his old schtick of turning ordinary people into gigantic, mentally stunted monsters who will do his bidding (stealing large quantities of cash and killing anyone who gets in the way, for instance). Incidentally, Hugo is not arrested in this story (most of the potential evidence against him goes up in flames by the end) and Wagner throws in a quick nod to "Prey" by having the tale end in a very similar fashion to how "Prey" began -- with Hugo Strange, apparently a well-known genetic researcher in Wagner's vision rather than a well-established psychiatrist, appearing on a local talk show and describing how ruthless and insane the Batman must be.

CLOSING NOTE: I have not read any of Hugo's other appearances of the last few years. For instance, I know he participated in "Salvation Run," but I haven't even glanced at it. As far as I am aware, none of his recent appearances have added anything new and exciting to our understanding of which of his older stories are still "in continuity" after all these years, but I am perfectly willing to accept constructive criticism if I missed something highly relevant! As always when I write something so long and ambitious, I take it for granted that there's bound to be room for improvement somewhere, and furthermore I am constantly aware that a new story could come out next week which would invalidate some of my previous work as regards what's "canonical" and what isn't!

24 Comments

• At August 15, 2009, Omar Karindu, with the power of SUPER-hypocrisy! wrote:

  Batman #400 is officially the last Pre-Crisis issue of the comic entitled "Batman," as confirmed by several things:

  1) Batman #401 ...

• At August 15, 2009, FunkyGreenJerusalem wrote:

  I think Batman and The Monster Men probably counts more than you seem to think it does - it's set ...

• At August 15, 2009, Sijo wrote:

  I don't mind out-of-continuity stories -seriously, I don't- but I HATE "fuzzy" continuity. Either a story is part of the ...

• At August 15, 2009, Eric Gimlin wrote:

  If I recall correctly, the rough continuity rule on LOTDK was: If Denny O'neil writes it, it's in continuity ...

• At August 16, 2009, Superboy-Prime wrote:

  'Killing Joke' was never supposed to be in continuity either...

• At August 16, 2009, DanLarkin wrote:

  After a while, darwinism starts to apply to continuity. The strongest, most memorable stories are the ones that ressonate with ...

• At August 16, 2009, Jeff R. wrote:

  I'd tend to view Morrison's monster-man reference as canonizing Wager's version, myself.

  The odd thing about Strange is that there were, ...

• At August 16, 2009, Amit wrote:

  Don't have much to add except that this was a fun, interesting read. :)

• At August 16, 2009, Anonymous wrote:

  I've heard many times online that "The Killing Joke" was meant to be out of continuity originally, but that doesn't ...

• At August 16, 2009, FunkyGreenJerusalem wrote:

  Either a story is part of the continuity or it isn’t.

  It really bothers you?

  Can't the adventure stand on it's ...

• At August 17, 2009, Brian Cronin wrote:

  Whether Killing Joke was supposed to be in continuity or not is something I address in my book, Was Superman ...

• At August 17, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  FunkyGreenJerusalem -- your opinion is that "Batman and the Monster Men" was intended as the "new official first meeting," automatically ...

• At August 17, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Sijo -- I sympathize with much of what you say. I loved several of the Elseworlds stories of the 90s ...

• At August 17, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Erik Gimlin -- I don't remember ever hearing anyone put it that way before. I admit that someone may have ...

• At August 18, 2009, FunkyGreenJerusalem wrote:

  Whether Killing Joke was supposed to be in continuity or not is something I address in my book, Was Superman ...

• At August 18, 2009, Ricardo Lima wrote:

  Well, I read on a comics site that Morrison intended to make all past Batman stories canonical, so I believe ...

• At August 19, 2009, Jared wrote:

  Strange is referred to as a "former head of psychiatry at G.S.U." by the interviewer at the end of Monster ...

• At August 19, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Dan Larkin -- I don't really think of the fluctuations of continuity as "Darwinism," but I think I know what ...

• At August 19, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Ricardo Lima said:

  Well, I read on a comics site that Morrison intended to make all past Batman stories canonical, ...

• At August 21, 2009, Carl wrote:

  It's kind interesting that villain who has actually had relatively few appearances and fallen off the map for entires decades ...

• At August 22, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Carl -- a long time ago, I read that somewhere around the late 1980s, there was a period when it ...

• At August 22, 2009, Lynxara wrote:

  The synopsis of the Englehart Hugo Strange stories is interesting. I believe this story was adapted into a Batman: the ...

• At August 27, 2009, FunkyGreenJerusalem wrote:

  I remember hearing that Morrison had said something along those lines, but if I ever saw any more "in-depth explanation" ...

• At September 30, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  FunkyGreenJerusalem -- to answer your explanation, albeit very late -- I really don't see the idea of "a lot of ...

In June of 2007, on various forums, I requested help from my fellow fans in compiling a list of “Flagsuit Characters”; those who like to dress and act in a way which will presumably make people see them as Particularly Patriotic American Heroes. I thought it would be appropriate to post the full list on the Fourth of July of that year, and I did. The First Draft had 155 entries. Then more suggestions came in from various readers, and a year later I posted a Second Draft with 205 entries. Now it’s time for the Third Draft, with 237 entries. (It has actually gained a bit more than 32 new listings, because I saw fit to delete a few of the previous ones.)

Here were my original guidelines:

To make it onto my final list, a character has to meet a few basic criteria:

3. He (or she) must have appeared in at least one published comic book story. (I don't want costumed characters who only existed in movies, TV shows, videogames or other media.

I then offered examples of what I didn’t want—Superman was disqualified by both Rule #1 and Rule #2, as I saw it; Spider-Man was also disqualified by Rule #2.

Those rules still apply, if you're thinking of mentioning someone I've still managed to overlook!

I try to keep the listings as short and sweet as possible; I'm not writing an entire book here. I don’t usually mention what a hero’s secret identity was, nor what powers he had (if any), nor (in most cases) in which title he first appeared. I do mention who first published his adventures, though.

In cases where I personally have not been able to double-check such details as the exact physical appearance of the character (did the costume include red, white, and blue, all three colors at once, in a way which resembled the U.S. flag?) I have typed Unconfirmed at the end of the listing.

And I only list each “character concept” or “role” once, even if the same alias and costume have been used by multiple characters all belonging to the same company. There is only one listing for “Captain America,” for instance. I figure Steve Rogers was the original; so and any other “Captain America” published by Marvel has just been a shameless knockoff of the basic concept!

On the other hand: There are four listings which each begin with the name “American Eagle,” because four different companies have each created at least one character apiece who wore a flagsuit while using that patriotic alias!

There’s always room for improvement, but this is the best I’ve got at the moment. Happy Fourth of July!

(Someday I may do a more elaborate version of this list – perhaps with each character’s name linking to an image of him or her, and some details on secret identities and first appearances and whatnot; perhaps even turning it into a webpage with dozens of scanned images embedded in it. I don’t know. But don't hold your breath!)

THE MASTER LIST OF U.S. FLAGSUIT CHARACTERS (THIRD DRAFT)

Aerobica (Catfish Comics) [Unconfirmed]

Agent Liberty (DC)

All-American (Homage. Astro City?) [Unconfirmed]

All-American (Marvel, New Universe timeline)

Amazon (Amalgam, a combo of Wonder Woman and Storm)

Amber Waves (Appears in the miniseries “The American Way” from DC’s Wildstorm)

America Man (Cyclone Comics. He debuted in a black-and-white story, but his costume was obviously based on the U.S. flag)

The American (Dark Horse)

American Ace (Valiant)

American Beauty (Briefly appeared in Alan Moore's "1963" miniseries. Member of the Victory Vanguard in the WWII era) (Image)

American Champion (from the "Capes" series from Image) [Unconfirmed]

The American Crusader (Thrilling Publications)

American Dream (Marvel, the MC2 timeline)

American Eagle (DC. Anthropomorphic eagle who joined the Zoo Crew)

American Eagle (Henchman Publishing; the character is a student in the “P.S. 238” series)

American Eagle (Marvel)

American Eagle (Nedor)

American Icon (Image. Appeared in a “Wildguard” miniseries)

American Knight (appeared in a comic called ActionFolksinger) [Unconfirmed]

American Liberty (from “The Moth” miniseries by Steve Rude, published by Dark Horse)

American Maid (Tick) [details unclear – may have been in comics, may only have been in illustrated books of some other type?]

The American Powerhouse (Malibu’s Bravura imprint, the “Power & Glory” miniseries)

American Star (Superdupeheroes or Superduperheroes) [Unconfirmed]

American Woman (Antarctic Press)

The Americano (Cyclone Comics. She debuted in a black-and-white story, but her costume was obviously based on the U.S. flag)

The Americommando (DC)

Archie the Gruesome (Timely)

Banner (DC. Fought Batman while wrapped up in a U.S. flag)

Battlestar (Marvel)

Battlin' American (Fantagraphics, a regular in the series "The Astonishing Lloyd Llewellyn") [Unconfirmed]

Billy Yank (DC) (Civil War era) [Unconfirmed]

Bloodtype (also known as Mister America II) (DC) [Unconfirmed]

Blue Eagle (Marvel, Squadron Supreme universe)

Bobby Bell (Archie. Only existed in a few Public Service Announcements in their comics)

Bravado (Acclaim)

The Buckies, or Bold Urban Commandos (Marvel) [unconfirmed]

Buckley [Former partner of First American, ABC/Wildstorm] [Unconfirmed]

Buckskin Blake, Defender of America's Liberty (Periodical House) [Unconfirmed]

Buddy (Fox. Juvenile sidekick to Fox's "The Eagle")

Captain America Jr. of the X-League II (merger of Captain America plus Captain Marvel Jr.) (Amalgam)

Captain America (Timely, later Marvel)

Captain Americana (He wore a standard business suit, but also carried a shield which resembled Captain America's original, non-circular model. He only appeared in one black-and-white story; I’ve seen scans of a few panels. Given the name “Captain Americana” and his reportedly excessive patriotic fervor, it seems a safe bet that his shield was red-white-and-blue!) (Marvel)

Captain Americat (the funny-animal version of Captain America in the same timeline as Peter Porker, Spider-Ham) (Marvel)

Captain Battle (Lev Gleason)

Captain Commando (MLJ)

Captain Constitution the Premier Patriot (Ace) [Unconfirmed]

Captain Courageous (Ace)

Captain Curtis (Full Bleed Studios) [Unconfirmed]

Captain Dash (Made a single Golden Age appearance which established that he lived in the 31st Century) (Timely) [Unconfirmed]

Captain Fight (Fiction House)

Captain Flag (MLJ)

Captain Freedom (Harvey)

Captain From Texas (Marvel—apparently a wild-west version of their Captain America concept)

Captain Glory (Harry A. Chesler) [Unconfirmed]

Captain Guts (The Print Mint)

Captain Red Blazer (Apparently he should not be confused with the Golden Age character “Red Blazer”) (Harvey)

Captain Star (Superheroes/Ace Books) [Unconfirmed]

Captain Terror (Timely)

Captain V (Published by either Fox Features or William H. Wise. Different online resources list one or the other as the publisher of the Captain's first appearance in "All Top Comics #1." Apparently this was a later alias of a Golden Age character who originally called himself The Puppeteer)

Captain USA (Hero who appeared in at least one Charlton comic in the late 60s, long before DC acquired the rights to their characters)

Captain USA (Ultraverse character; probably just appeared once)(Marvel)

Captain Victory (Ace) [Unconfirmed]

Captain Wonder (DC character who fought the Earth-1 Wonder Woman; probably out of continuity now)

Casey Jones from “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” has reportedly worn a red-white-and-blue mask at times (I am not an expert on TMNT continuity so I don’t know if he was trying to pass himself off as a “very patriotic hero” at the time, or what?)[Unconfirmed, with the character’s patriotic fervor quite dubious]

Caspar Weinberger (When handled satirically in "Reagan's Raiders") (Solson)

Celeste (Superpowered character in the world of "Marshall Law"; wore red-white-and-blue costume. Marvel's Epic line) [Unconfirmed]

Citizen Steel (DC)

Citizen V (Marvel – the original Golden Age character apparently didn’t wear red and white and blue in his costume, but various “successors” using the same name in modern continuity have definitely done so)

Civilian Justice (BeyondComics)

Colonel America (Marvel Zombieverse) [Unconfirmed]

The Comedian (DC, the “Watchmen” timeline)

The Commander (Appears in the "I Hate Gallant Girl" miniseries) (Image)

Commander America of the Cosmic Avengers (Marvel) [Unconfirmed]

Commander Capitalism (Image)

Commander Liberty (Quantum Comics) [Unconfirmed]

Commander Steel (DC)

Commando Yank (Fawcett)

Commie Smasher (Appeared in the "Danger Unlimited" mini, published by Dark Horse, but probably owned by John Byrne)

The Conqueror (Hillman)

Cowboy (Marvel, part of “Team America”)

Dandy (Harry A. Chesler. Juvenile sidekick to Yankee Doodle Jones)

Deathlok (Marvel)

The Defender (Timely)

Dicky (Ace Periodicals. Golden Age hero; he was the kid sidekick of The Lone Warrior)

Diehard (A Liefeld-owned character who debuted at Image as part of "Youngblood")

Doctor Tomorrow (Acclaim)

Dollar Bill (DC, the "Watchmen" timeline)

Doodle (Prize Publications. He and his twin brother were the Golden Age duo called "Yank and Doodle")

Dr. Justice (from the "Capes series from Image) [Unconfirmed]

Dr. Stellar (Image, their “Big Bang” stories)

Dynaman (DC. He only existed as “Dynaman” in an Elseworlds timeline in the 4-part miniseries “The Golden Age”)

The Eagle (Fox Features Syndicate)

The Eagle (Wildstorm, a “Red Menace” miniseries]

Eaglet (Sidekick of Nedor’s American Eagle)

Enemy (created by Steven Grant; published by Dark Horse)

Father Patriot (A Golden Age character who claimed to be a spirit born in 1776. Fat, white-bearded, wore a flagsuit. I gather that his major accomplishment—possibly his only recorded deed!—was to be part of the Golden Age Major Victory's origin story, by bringing an ordinary American soldier back from the dead and providing him with a flagsuit costume (different from the design Father Patriot already wore!) and a nifty alias.) (Harry A. Chesler)

The Fighting American (published by various companies)

The Fighting Yank (Nedor)

First American (ABC/Wildstorm, which later became part of DC)

The Flag (Ace Periodicals)

Flag Boy (Superheroes/Ace Books) [Unconfirmed]

Flagg (“Rising Stars” universe, published by Image) (This character also known as “Patriot”)

Flagman, or possibly Flag-Man, or even Flag Man—online sources differ on how it was written, and it may have varied (Holyoke, later revived by AC)

Fortress America (Lone Star Press, the "Pantheon" series)

Freckled American (ABC/Wildstorm) [unconfirmed]

Free Spirit (Marvel)

Furious American (Chaos!) [Unconfirmed]

General Glory (DC)

George Bush (The one who was Reagan’s Vice President for 8 years and then was elected President in 1988—a fictional version of him wore a flagsuit when handled satirically in "Reagan's Raiders") (Solson)

George P. Schultz (when handled satirically in "Reagan's Raiders") (Solson)

The Ghost of Flanders (Quality. Apparently later bought by DC, but never used by them)

Glitter (Marvel, New Universe)

The Great Defender (Quality, presumably now belongs to DC)

Hale Battle (The first sidekick of Captain Battle; apparently wore a flagsuit modeled on his mentor’s)

Homelander (from “The Boys” series, published by ABC/Wildstorm and then by Dynamite Entertainment) [Unconfirmed]

Honcho (Marvel, part of “Team America”)

Jack Flag (Marvel)

Joe Public (DC)

Justice (Image)

Justice (Marvel, First Line, previously “Kid Justice”) [Unconfirmed]

Kid America (sidekick to The American) (Dark Horse)

Kid Justice (Marvel, First Line, later “Justice”) [Unconfirmed]

Kid Quick (Nedor, later used by AC) [Unconfirmed]

The Last American (Marvel, published by Epic)

Left-Winger (Marvel)

The Liberator (Nedor)

Liberty (Image)

Liberty Belle (Charlton character originally; later acquired by DC; this one's name was "Caroline Dean," with no connection to DC’s Liberty Belle from the Golden Age who eventually married Johnny Quick)

Liberty Girl (Existed in Marvel's past in Byrne's "Lost Generation" mini)

Liberty Girl (Heroic Publishing)

Liberty Lad (Image, their “Freedom Force” comic book based on the video game)

Lightning (Image, a name used by Rapture during her time in red-white-and-blue as part of the Special Operations Strikeforce)

Lodestar (DC) [Unconfirmed]

The Lone Warrior (Ace Periodicals)

Maiden USA (Image, the “Chix” comics)

Major Battle (Image) [Unconfirmed]

Major Liberty (Marvel)

Major Victory (DC)

Major Victory (Harry A. Chesler)

Man of War (Centaur published him in the Golden Age. Malibu later revived the concept after it was apparently in the public domain)

Minute Maid (ABC/Wildstorm) [mother of First American, colors Unconfirmed]

Minute Man (DC, Revolutionary War) [Unconfirmed]

Minute Man (Image, their “Freedom Force” comic book based on the video game)

Minute-Man (Fawcett, later bought by DC)

Miss America (Quality Comics, later acquired by DC)

Miss America (Timely, later Marvel)

Miss Liberty (DC, Revolutionary War era)

Miss Patriot (Timely. Sidekick to The Patriot (Jeff Mace) in one Golden Age story)

Miss Victory (Holyoke. Later published by AC Comics)

Mister America (Endeavor Comics)

Mister U.S. (Image, the “Big Bang” stories)

Mr. America (DC)

Ms. Liberty (granddaughter of Statesman in the City of Heroes universe, in comics published by Top Cow)

Ms. Victory (AC Comics)

The New American (Appears in the world of the miniseries “The American Way” from DC’s Wildstorm)

NFL Superpro (Marvel)

Nuke (Marvel)

The Old Soldier (Part of the universe of “Kurt Busiek’s Astro City”—published by ABC/Wildstorm, which is now under DC’s umbrella)

Pandemic (Image) [Flag tattoo on back—don’t know what he said he was doing – Unconfirmed]

Pat Patriot (Lev Gleason)

The Patriot (Two users, no connection between them. DC)

Patriot and The Patriot (Marvel has used both versions of that name for characters)

Patriot (“Rising Stars” universe, published by Image. This character also was known as Flagg)

Pistolfist, Revolutionary Warrior (Alias)

Princess Power (Basically a Wonder Woman parody; the mother of Dumb Bunny of the Inferior Five at DC)

Private Strong (Archie)

Public Spirit (Owned by creators Pat Mills and Kevin O'Neill, in the comic book "Marshal Law" which was first published through Marvel's Epic imprint)

The Puppeteer (Fox Features. Character was also known as Captain V)

R.U. Reddy (Marvel, part of “Team America”)

Rad (Femforce, AC)

Radio Girl (Dark Horse; Torch of Liberty’s 1950s sidekick)

Real American of the Phantom Empire (DC) [Unconfirmed]

Right-Winger (Marvel)

Rock (Image. This character wore a red-white-and-blue combo while serving with the Special Operations Strikeforce in “Savage Dragon” continuity)

Ronald Reagan (when handled satirically in "Reagan's Raiders") (Solson)

Roughneck (Image, villain) [Unconfirmed – I need to find out if he made any effort to pass himself off as patriotic]

Rusty Ryan (Quality)

Rusty (Holyoke. Juvenile sidekick to the hero whose name was either Flagman or Flag Man or Flag-Man—I've never read any of those stories, but I gather Rusty did in fact wear a "flagsuit," as did his mentor)

Rusty (Timely. Golden Age juvenile sidekick to The Defender)

S.P.I.C.E. (Image)

S.T.R.I.P.E. (DC. The same guy formerly known as Stripesy)

Savage Dragon (Image. This character wore a red-white-and-blue combo while serving with the Special Operations Strikeforce in “Savage Dragon” continuity)

Secret Stamp (Timely) [Unconfirmed]

Sergeant States (from the “Jack Staff” comics from Dancing Elephant Press. The art is black-and-white, but it sure looks like he’s wearing a variation of the American Flag design]

The Shield (MJL, later Archie Comics)

Skyman (DC)

Skyrocket (DC)

Slugger (ABC/Wildstorm, “Kurt Busiek’s Astro City”) [Unconfirmed]

Smasher (Image)

Soldier American (In the world of the "End League" title from Dark Horse)

Sons of Liberty (A group who fought “The Authority” of ABC/Wildstorm) [Unconfirmed – I know nothing about their names and costumes at this moment]

Sparky—sometimes known as "Spark," I'm told (Harvey. He was the sidekick to Red Blazer)

Speedboy the Wonder Kid (Crestwood, and possible other publishers later—sidekick to the original Fighting American)

Spirit of '76 (Harvey. A Golden Age character with no connection to the Marvel character created by Roy Thomas in the 70s)

The Spirit of ’76 (Marvel)

Star Spangled Adventurer (Superheroes/Ace Books) [Unconfirmed]

Star-Spangled Lass (Temporary "Dial H for Hero" identity) (DC) [Unconfirmed]

The Star-Spangled Kid (DC)

Stargirl (DC)

The Stars and Stripes (A trio of escapees from a German concentration camp who, I am told, decided to spend the rest of the war wearing red-white-and-blue outfits in honor of the American flag while collectively calling themselves "the Stars & Stripes" as they fought the Nazis)

Statesman (“City of Heroes” universe; comics published by Image)

Steel (DC) (not John Henry Irons, but a previous hero (the grandson of Commander Steel) who served in the JLA in their mid-80s Detroit Era)

Stripesy (DC)

Super-American (Fiction House)

Superpatriot (Image)

Super-Patriot (Marvel)

Super-Soldier (sometimes written Supersoldier or Super Soldier, Wikipedia says—a merger of Superman and Captain America, from Amalgam)

The Symbol ("Test Drive #1" from M.A.I.N. has a flagsuit guy on the cover who is allegedly “The Symbol” according to a single comment I received from a reader of a previous draft of this list) [Unconfirmed, just barely—I have seen a scan of the cover, and that’s definitely a flagsuit he’s wearing, but I don't know for sure that the guy is called The Symbol]

The Torch of Liberty (Dark Horse, the “Danger Unlimited” continuity)

U.S. Jones (Fox Features)

U.S.A. (Image, the 1963 universe created by Alan Moore)

Uncle Sam (Quality Comics, later DC)

Uncle Slam (Action Planet)

Union Maid (Served as the official “National Hero” of the USA in the universe of “Captain Confederacy” – she first appeared in a miniseries published in Marvel’s Epic line)

USA Patriot (Henchman Publishing; the character is a student in the “P.S. 238” series)

USA, the Spirit of Old Glory (Quality, later bought by DC)

USAgent (Marvel)

USAngel (ABC/Wildstorm)

Vagabond (Marvel)

Venus (Image, the Big Bang universe)

V-Man (Fox Features. At least one online source claims this was the same guy as the Fox hero variously known as The Puppeteer and Captain V; at least one other source claims that V-Man merely bore a noteworthy resemblance to that other guy; I am not in a position to say who's right and who's wrong) [Unconfirmed]

War Eagle (Lev Gleason)

War Nurse (Harvey)

Wolf (Marvel, part of “Team America”)

Wonder Wabbit (DC, the pre-COIE “Earth-C-Minus” timeline)

Wonder Woman (National Periodical Publications, later DC. See Comment below)

Wrench (Marvel, part of “Team America”)

Yank (Prize Publications. He and his twin brother were the Golden Age duo called "Yank and Doodle")

Yankee Boy (Harry A. Chesler)

Yankee Clipper (Marvel)

Yankee Doodle Dandy (Marvel) [Possibly an alternate alias for Captain America, 1776 version, story by Roger Stern? Need to confirm]

Yankee Doodle Jones (Harry A. Chesler)

Yankee Doodle Kid (Temporary "Dial H for Hero" identity at DC)

Yankee Girl (Harry A. Chesler. Revived by AC)

Yankee Poodle (DC, the Earth-C universe)

Yeoman America of the Sons of Liberty (alternate-reality version of Captain America) (Marvel)

That’s the end of the main list. Now for a few words of explanation on various matters!

Comments on Wonder Woman's qualifications:

I am told that the Golden Age Wonder Woman explicitly stated that her costume was meant to honor the American flag and show solidarity with the USA’s part in World War II. This has been heavily retconned in the Post-COIE era so that the modern WW’s costume was not specifically intended to show solidarity with the U.S. flag at all. But the way I figure it, belated retcons in the 1980s don’t change the fact that the character concept was originally meant to be a “Flagsuit Character” within the scope of my definition!

Incidentally, I’m still not clear on whether or not the Pre-COIE, Earth-1 version of Diana was specifically thinking “I want to show special respect for the USA’s best traditions” when she first put on a Wonder Woman costume. I’m told that the details of her origin story, including such points as when and by whom the costume was designed, seemed to fluctuate over the years. However, last year someone reminded me that Wonder Wabbit, the funny-animal analog of Earth-1’s Wonder Woman in the early 1980s, was explicitly praised by Yankee Poodle on the patriotic nature of her costume, and didn’t disagree with that interpretation! Whether or not the attitude of Earth-C-Minus’s Wonder Wabbit can be taken as strong evidence of the attitude of her Earth-1 counterpart is an open question.

Comments on a few who didn't make it:

The American Avenger was on the first draft of this list. He was cut from the second draft because someone called my attention to the fact that his red-white-and-blue outfit was actually supposed to modeled on that of a previous hero in Argentina (El Gaucho), rather than being intended in dialogue as a tribute to the United States flag.

Captain Battle Jr. was previously on this list, but I’ve been persuaded that this name was only used by Captain Battle’s son William, who did not wear a copy of his daddy’s flagsuit when operating as Captain Battle Jr. However, Nathan Hale (known as Hale Battle, I gather, when he was serving in combat) did wear such a suit, so I have added a listing for him and removed the listing for Captain Battle Jr.

Number Nine, a genetically-modified girl who appeared in the “Daredevil” title during Ann Nocenti’s run, was listed in a previous draft after someone pointed out to me that she wore a flagsuit design for awhile.

However, in researching this new draft I finally took the trouble to reexamine the relevant issues. (I had read Nocenti’s full run on Daredevil once before, but it had been so long that I remembered almost nothing about Number Nine’s behavior.) After refreshing my memory, I note that Number Nine wore a flagsuit for awhile, but never offered any reason for doing so! It is not even clear how she acquired those clothes in the first place. Her memories of her past life as a normal girl had been nearly erased when a secret lab modified her genes and her looks and her personality and gave her a healing factor which apparently worked even faster than Wolverine’s. She never said anything to suggest that she even realized she wearing a “flagsuit,” nor do I see that she mentioned the “United States of America” in any context, good or bad. So I’ve deleted her from this list, since all the evidence suggests she had no interest in making any sort of “statement” with her colorful outfit.

DC’s Golden Age heroine Liberty Belle was on this list previously, but I finally removed her from it. Her costume included red, blue, and a little bit of white, and her choice of alias showed she wanted to be viewed as a patriotic American hero, so she seemed to meet the demands of Rules 1 and 2 as I had phrased them. However, given that the actual design of her costume is not likely to remind anyone of the U.S. flag, I finally decided to erase her from the list.

Marvel's Shooting Star has been nominated, but I strongly suspect her costume is actually meant to reflect the state flag of Texas, which is also red, white, and blue. If anyone can show me that she's ever stated for the record that her costume is deliberately a tribute to the USA's flag, I'll add her to the list.

Howard Chaykin's character Reuben Flagg (protagonist of the old comic book series "American Flagg") was nominated for this list by various people in 2007. On the other hand, FanboyStranger on the CBR forums, who evidently has a much broader knowledge of “American Flagg” lore than I do (I never read more than the first issue), has assured me that, in the future timeline Reuben Flagg lived in, there was no longer any such thing as the “United States of America,” although his trademark apparel just happened to show strong influences from both the flag of that former nation and the flag of the equally defunct Soviet Union. He also states that Flagg was never in the habit of identifying himself as an American (despite the title of the series, I gather). Thus, I conclude that Chaykin’s character does not qualify under my Rule #2, quoted earlier in this post!

On a similar note: In 2008, the name Judge Dredd was suggested, but I rejected it. I have read very few of Dredd’s stories, but I am told that he lives in a future where there is no longer any such political entity as “the United States of America.” Therefore, his usual wardrobe presumably was not intended as a statement of patriotic loyalty such as would belong on this list. (If anyone knows of a story in which Dredd said he was trying to demonstrate patriotic loyalty to the USA, despite the awkward fact that the USA per se no long existed, then please let me know.)

33 Comments

• At July 4, 2009, Callen wrote:

  I'm surprised wolverine didn't weasel his way on this list

• At July 4, 2009, Jake wrote:

  What about the Iron Patriort himself, Norman Osborn. Is he on there or did I miss him?

• At July 4, 2009, Joe wrote:

  Jake's right with Iron Patriot. Also, Norman's son Harry is in Stars and Stripes inspired costume for two issues as ...

• At July 5, 2009, Tornado Ninja Fan wrote:

  American Maid was in the Tick cartoon.

• At July 5, 2009, Nick Eden wrote:

  I think you're wrong on Ruben Flagg. While the political entity known as the USA has collapsed, Ruben is deeply ...

• At July 5, 2009, Nick Eden wrote:

  PS: how about the Silver Agent from Astro City.

  While his costume had no colours, it features stars and stripes. Indeed, ...

• At July 5, 2009, Jeff Ramirez wrote:

  Spartan from WildC.A.T.s (Wildstorm)

• At July 5, 2009, John Chidley-Hill wrote:

  Bless my ignorance, but why are some of the entries listed as "unconfirmed"?

  Because I can definitely tell you that All-American ...

• At July 5, 2009, Chris Tolworthy wrote:

  Judge Dredd is a fascinating case. The United States may no longer exist in name, but to all intents and ...

• At July 5, 2009, brian wrote:

  I loved Doctor Tomorrow, and really wish it as a property could have gone further.

  Steel, or at least the first ...

• At July 5, 2009, Tim B. wrote:

  Howabout Crashman from Gødland? his costume is red white & blue, although I can't see any stars in the desing ...

• At July 5, 2009, Tilt Araiza wrote:

  Chris Tolworthy's looked at the in-story explanations for Judge Dredd's uniform, but it's worth noting that in the real world, ...

• At July 5, 2009, Sijo wrote:

  There was an "All-American" is All-Star Squadron but that one was a *villain* based on the Ku Klux Klan.

  Wasn't ...

• At July 5, 2009, Daniel O' Dreams wrote:

  That was "Real American of the Phantom Empire" listed above. His costume definately was modeled on the flag despite being ...

• At July 5, 2009, Daniel O' Dreams wrote:

  Also on Wonder Woman post-COIE; was it ever confirmed that her costume (specifically the shorts) was modeled on the American ...

• At July 5, 2009, Anonymous wrote:

  Dunno if this counts, but in the Vertigo comics run of Shade the Changing Man, there was a demonic entity ...

• At July 5, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Jake -- I knew nothing about "Iron Patriot" until you mentioned the name!

  Here's how it went, a few years ...

• At July 5, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Nick Eden -- sometime around the mid-90s, I bought a copy of "American Flagg #1" at a sale. I read ...

• At July 5, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Tornado Ninja Fan said: "American Maid was in the Tick cartoon."

  So I've heard -- but by itself, that doesn't tell ...

• At July 5, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Jeff Ramirez --

  As far as I can remember -- and I've got a full run of the first WildC.A.T.S. ...

• At July 5, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  John Chidley-Hill:

  The note [Unconfirmed] basically means: "This character may well have existed, but I haven't seen a picture of his ...

• At July 6, 2009, Timo R. wrote:

  The All-American and Slugger the Junior Dynamo also got a page in Astro City A Visitor's Guide (2004).

• At July 6, 2009, Carl wrote:

  Daniel O' Dreams:

  The post-crisis origin of WW's costume was definitely portrayed in the comics. Essentially, George Perez wanted to ...

• At July 6, 2009, Matthew Johnson wrote:

  Cynicalman's superhero costume (the one he wears to work) has US flag-themed colours and patterns.

  Also, don't forget Major Victory (I) ...

• At July 6, 2009, Timo R. wrote:

  Gary Concord the Ultra-Man in Legionnaires annual 3 (1996) didn't wear red-white-blue.

  (But yes he was a Captain America analogue.)

• At July 6, 2009, Anonymous wrote:

  Tim B -- I know nothing about Crashman of Godland, but I'll look into it.

  Chris Tolworthy -- hasn't Cap ...

• At July 6, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  And once again, I've forgotten that I was on a PC which wouldn't automatically populate the fields for my name ...

• At July 6, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Matthew Johnson -- I know almost nothing about Cynicalman, but I'll look into it.

  I believe I have a very ...

• At July 6, 2009, Sijo wrote:

  The "American Scream" monster also showed up at the end of The Spectre's "American Gothic" arc. It did indeed look ...

• At July 6, 2009, Capt USA wrote:

  to Anonymous, Cap since his defrosting, doesn't officially work for the U.S. government, he's more or less an honorary SHIELD ...

• At July 7, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Capt USA -- the "Anonymous" guy you responded to was me, as I said in a follow-up post after I ...

• At July 16, 2009, Timo R. wrote:

  Some of us have a looong memory. It's a good thing to remember. Pun intended.

• At July 18, 2009, Awesome Halloween Superhero Costumes | Clothing Shopping wrote:

  [...] Lorendiac’s Lists: The Master List of Flagsuit Characters (Third Draft) (goodcomics.comicbookresources.com) [...]

Author's Note: This list is not a hoax. However, in keeping with the humorously disrespectful spirit of this special day, it does break away from my usual approach for these lists. Instead of talking about strange things which frequently happen inside the comic books, or the reasons the writers and editors may have for making those strange things happen, I just talk about some of the peculiarities of the people who love to talk about those comic books in online forums. I wanted to post something along these lines years ago; but I figured I had better spend enough time on various comic book forums to build up “credibility,” so that people reading this list would recognize “Lorendiac” as a fellow fan and thus know I was laughing “with” them instead of “at” them. I’m not some anthropologist who just wandered in off the street a few days ago and started analyzing comic book fans as an outlandish subculture—although that premise might make a good comedy movie someday . . .

The 10 Types of Comic Book Forum Weirdos

01. The Takes-Everything-Personally Crybaby
02. The Broken Record
03. The Amateur Psychoanalyst
04. The Rumor-Believer
05. The Cultist
06. The Spoilermeister
07. The Vague Recollector
08. The Self-Appointed Rulemaker
09. The Ten Percenter
10. The Listmaker

One quick note of reassurance before we move on: If you're worried about what I might say about you specifically, don't be! In the interests of diplomacy, I don't "name names" in any examples I provide!

01. The Takes-Everything-Personally Crybaby

You say just one critical thing about his or her favorite character, team, title, writer, or whatever – and the Crybaby reacts as if you just called him or her all sorts of dirty names.

Sample conversation:

You say, “I hate the way they killed off Ronnie Raymond just so they could replace him with Jason Rusch as the ‘new Firestorm.’”

The Crybaby responds, “You racist! What have you got against black people?”

By the same token: If you say something against one female character who strikes you as being incredibly obnoxious as her most distinguishing character trait, the Crybaby will accuse you of being frightened by strong-minded, independent women in general.

And if you say something against one writer on the grounds that he sometimes gets ridiculously heavy-handed in shoving his left-wing politics into his stories, then the Crybaby will accuse you of being a right-wing Neanderthal who hates to see an opposing point of view get aired by anybody. (Feel free to switch the tags “left-wing” and “right-wing” around in that previous sentence if it makes you feel better; I’m not trying to pick on just one extreme of the political spectrum here!)

02. The Broken Record

This guy has one pet peeve weighing heavily upon his mind, and by golly, he’s gonna share it with you. And share it . . . and share it . . . and share it! Whatever the topic, he’ll find a way to repeat the same old broken record before he’s through!

As examples:

“DC brings people back from the dead way too easily, as witness the pointless return of Jason Todd a few years ago.”

“The major problem with Superboy-Prime’s Retcon Punch in Infinite Crisis was that it was used as an excuse for bringing back Jason Todd from a well-deserved grave.”

“This recent nonsense in an X-Men title at Marvel shows the same lack of planning that was apparent in the way DC has wandered all over the map in its characterization of Jason Todd since they stupidly brought him back from the dead a few years ago.”

And if he gets involved in a political discussion thread, he’ll probably blame the return of Jason Todd (and how he’s been handled since his return) on the corrosive influence of either the Republican or the Democratic party in modern American life, depending upon the Broken Record’s personal biases.

(Of course Jason Todd is just one example; the Broken Record could be obsessed with any other subject under the sun.)

03. The Amateur Psychoanalyst

The Amateur Psychoanalyst holds fast to his core values. They may be summarized as follows:

1. “I know more about what is going on inside your head than you do!”

2. “Specifically, I know what sort of emotional problems made you express such a bizarre opinion earlier in this thread! And I’m going to share my insights with the entire world!”

3. “However, you don’t know more about what is going on inside my head than I do! How could you possibly? Don’t be so presumptuous!”

In case you missed the point, a “bizarre” opinion in this situation is any opinion with which the Amateur Psychoanalyst vehemently disagrees. Rather than argue against it logically—you know, bothering to mention “evidence” that would appear to contradict your thesis, for instance?—he concentrates on telling you just how messed up your miserable, scarred psyche must be, if you really believe what you just said!

(This is a classic example of something logicians call the “ad hominem fallacy,” but the Amateur Psychoanalyst probably never heard of the “ad hominem fallacy” in his life, so what does he care?)

Looking back on it, the key difference between the Amateur Psychoanalyst and the Crybaby is that the Crybaby is much more likely to “sound” hysterically outraged in his responses as he calls you ugly names; the Amateur Psychoanalyst is likely to “stay calm” and radiate the impression that he is “correcting” you “more in sorrow than in anger” as he goes into greater detail on just why he thinks you’re so mentally messed up that it isn’t really your fault that you’re crazy enough to disagree with him!

04. The Rumor-Believer

This guy seems to believe everything he hears. As an example, he might say—in all sincerity, as far as anyone could tell from his post—“Whoa! I just heard that Stan Lee has been hired to write the next blockbuster Superman movie, with Samuel L. Jackson as the leading man and Lucy Liu as ‘Lexy Luthor,’ the bald mad scientist! They’ll get Elijah Wood to guest-star as Spider-Man! I heard it from someone who heard it from a very reliable inside source in Hollywood!”

‘Nuff said!

05. The Cultist

Everybody has his personal favorites—certain writers, artists, characters, genres, whatever. If we didn’t feel strongly about these things, and didn’t disagree about their respective merits, then discussion forums wouldn’t be nearly as much fun, would they?

But some take it to fanatical extremes. They don’t just say that their favorite creator is “very good at what he does, and I’ve collected all his published works.” Instead, they seem to believe that anything and everything their favorite creator does is, by definition, Perfect. Or so close to perfect as makes no difference. If you try to suggest that even a great writer can have some bad days, they react as if you’re committing blasphemy!

As in: “Anything Jeph Loeb writes is brilliant, and if you read a piece of his storytelling and can’t enjoy the sheer artistry of it, that just proves how stunted your ability to appreciate literature must be!”

(I’m not trying to pick on Loeb and his most fervent fans more than anyone else—please feel free to substitute “Grant Morrison,” “Frank Miller,” “Alan Moore,” “Brian Michael Bendis,” “Warren Ellis,” or any other creator’s name in that example! I don’t care who we’re talking about; anyone who tries to tell me that a certain writer Always Gets It Right In Every Page Of Every Story is going to bring out my skeptical streak.)

06. The Spoilermeister

He either doesn’t pay any attention to the local forum’s “house rules” about putting SPOILER warnings in the title if you want to discuss plot details of a just-released issue in the text of a new thread, or else he goes even further and puts the spoiler material in the title!

For instance, if web-based forums had been such a big deal back in 1985, then the Spoilermeister might have bought “Crisis on Infinite Earths #8” and then posted a thread with the following title a day later:

“COIE #8: The Death of Supergirl: Good or Bad?”

At best, he might have added the term “[SPOILERS]” at the end of that title, and perhaps felt he had done his duty by warning you the text would contain all the messy details of how this death had happened!

07. The Vague Recollector

This guy does not have a perfect memory for every little detail. That is not a crime, but the problem arises when he thinks his memory and understanding of a certain aspect of someone’s continuity is much better than it actually is! Then he makes provocative statements which he (presumably) believes are the simple truth, and this can cause a great deal of confusion in the minds of impressionable newbies who assume the guy actually knows what he’s talking about!

A couple of years ago I saw one fan on a discussion forum make the following assertion (paraphrased in my own words): “Slam Bradley, the tough old private eye, recently was retconned as Selina Kyle’s biological father. Meanwhile, Sam Bradley Jr., Slam’s son, has now been revealed as the father of Selina’s baby. Therefore, little Helena Kyle is the product of an incestuous affair between half-siblings.”

I was not buying the Catwoman title at the time, but I had already heard about the part regarding Sam Jr. as the father of Selina’s baby (who was born just as the Catwoman title jumped forward into “One Year Later” mode in early 2006). However, I was astounded by the allegation that Slam himself was Selina’s long-lost daddy. Since I hadn’t been reading that title lately, I couldn’t immediately swear that this guy was dead wrong about that part . . . but it sounded very fishy to me.

Naturally I asked this fan to please tell me exactly when and where we had been told that Selina was Slam’s daughter. I also pointed out that it was very peculiar that I hadn’t yet noticed hundreds of other Catwoman fans screaming in outrage about the recent insertion of an incestuous pregnancy into Selina’s life.

In response, the guy simply repeated his conviction that it had all been spelled out in the Catwoman title . . . somewhere along the line . . . but beyond saying that in vague terms, somehow he never managed to find the time to point me to any specific issue (of “Catwoman” or any title) which I could buy and read to confirm that he was right about this new twist in Selina’s family tree! Nor did he offer any explanation for why he seemed to be the only Catwoman fan on that forum (or any other forum, near as I could tell) who had even noticed a whiff of incest in the circumstances of Baby Helena’s conception. (Other fans participating in that thread, who apparently were reading the series regularly, tended to share my skepticism; they didn’t recall any recent retcons about Slam being Selina’s long-lost father!)

Giving this guy the full benefit of the doubt regarding the “sincerity” of his original comment, I assume that one of two things had been happening:

1. He hadn’t been reading all the recent issues of “Catwoman” himself, but he did make a habit of reading online commentaries by other fans as a way to “keep in touch” with recent events, and somehow he became very, very, very confused about the significance of other fans’ passing references to the web of various “relationships” (romantic, biological, or whatever) which now connected Slam, Sam, Selina, and Helena.

Or:

2. He had read all the “Catwoman” issues which had been released in the last year or more, but his memory was lousy and he now had a garbled idea of just how many members of the Bradley family had recently been revealed to be the fathers of illegitimate daughters! And since he was sure he “remembered” that Slam had been revealed as Selina’s father, he felt no need to dig any issues of “Catwoman” out of his collection and double-check that point before posting his observations about the shockingly incestuous love life of Selina Kyle!

08. The Self-Appointed Rulemaker

This guy tries to tell the rest of us what we are or aren’t allowed to say and do on the local forums. The really strange thing about is that he has no authority to tell us this! He isn’t one of the people who runs the site and moderates the forums, and he doesn’t claim to simply be quoting from the rules previously laid down by those people! (If he does claim it, he’s lying through his teeth!) Nevertheless, he gives the strong impression that he is explaining ironclad rules: “Thou shalt not do this, that, or the other thing!”

One case sticks in my mind. Without naming names, here’s approximately what happened. (But that thread appears to have been deleted from the website in question. So I’m working from memory here!)

There was a thread going about some harmless superhero-related subject. Poster A offered an opinion. Poster B, who obviously disagreed, responded to that opinion in a way which was clearly meant as sarcasm. His remarks were not phrased as a scathing flame meant to insult Poster A; just gently making fun of some aspect of whatever the guy’s opinion had been.

All of which struck me as part of “just another normal day” on a comic book forum!

But then Poster C came along and sharply criticized Poster B for using sarcasm in his reply. Poster C went to the remarkable lengths of saying something along these general lines (roughly paraphrased from my imperfect memory): “It is terribly inappropriate to use such sarcasm in a reply on these forums.”

Please note: Poster C’s objection was not phrased along such lines as “I think your sarcasm was overdone in this case” or “I hope you didn’t hurt the other guy’s feelings” or “I always hate to see sarcasm on this forum because it’s likely to confuse somebody who takes it literally” or anything remotely similar. Any such phrasing clearly would have been a simple statement of personal opinions, which he was certainly entitled to hold and to express, but that wasn’t the way he approached the subject.

Instead, he’d made a much more sweeping and dogmatic statement, as if he actually had authority to “lay down the law” and tell the rest of us what forms of humorous speech we shouldn’t use under any circumstances on that site’s forums! However, it was obvious from his profile information that Poster C had no authority to set new rules on that site, and no one had ever seen any actual “house rule” which prohibited the use of sarcasm in a freewheeling discussion. (How on earth would you go about enforcing such a rule?)

Accordingly, Poster C quickly found himself receiving critical feedback from Poster B and other people, some of which contained (wait for it) . . . obvious sarcasm directed at his bizarre attempt to create an Anti-Sarcasm Rule of Conduct out of thin air! (Under the circumstances, I felt that reaction to his previous post was downright inevitable.)

09. The Ten Percenter

So you wrote a lengthy comic book review, or some other type of opinion piece suitable for a comics forum, and you started out with a provocative title and opening paragraph which set forth your (possibly controversial) stand on the matter at hand.

Along comes the Ten Percenter. He exerts himself to read your attention-grabbing title and your first paragraph! Somewhere in those first few sentences, he finds something which he vehemently disagrees with. Thus, having managed to gulp down no more than ten percent of what you had to say and how you justified it, he immediately skips ahead to the “Reply” option so he can post a fiery rebuttal of why you are “dead wrong” in your evaluation of whatever all the fuss is about. Usually he ends up harping on some point which you know you already anticipated, addressed, and (you hoped), rigorously disposed of, down around Paragraph 6. Your earnest attempt to point this out to him in a reply is often useless—having done his best to “set you straight” by pointing out some vital detail which you “forgot to mention” (in your first paragraph, anyway!), the Ten Percenter is not likely to waste any time coming back later to see if your dull mind actually recognized the justice of his trenchant criticisms of your folly.

10. The Listmaker

A particularly sad case, the Listmaker apparently has nothing better to do than sit around making numbered lists of all sorts of odd things and typing out long-winded descriptions of each item. He tends to use unimaginative titles such as “Ten Types of This,” “Ten Ways to Do That,” and so forth. Pathetic, isn’t it?

The resultant list often stops at ten, perhaps because he has trouble counting to anything higher than the number of his fingers? He’s usually harmless, though. Just pat him on the shoulder and keep a straight face as you gently assure him that his latest ramblings were “fascinating,” and he’ll be quite happy! No need to break his heart by telling him you fell asleep around the time you reached #5 on his list, and that you really don’t care about his half-baked observations on the human condition!

That's it for this year! I don't know what I'll do a year from now. Perhaps a sequel listing another 10 types, or something entirely different?

But while I'm pondering that, here are some links to many previous pieces I've perpetrated over the last few years, comprising what I have come to think of as my Numbered List series. Every once in a while it amuses me to think about some odd aspect of the superhero genre, and to try to list and explain all the different approaches I can remember for that sort of thing, or all the different reasons that ridiculous things keep happening.

12 Motives for Killing a Comic Book Character
17 Excuses for Bringing Back a Dead Character
16 Types of Retcons
19 Ways to End a Superhero's Romance
22 Ways to Show a Superhero Killing Someone
9 Categories of Continuity
5 Types of Superhero Team Members
Secret Identities: 10 Ways to Unspill the Beans
Superhero Finances: 10 Situations
13 Reasons to Use a Deathtrap
14 Functions for a Superhero Costume
10 Types of Superhero Successors
14 Ways to Rehabilitate a Disgraced Hero
14 Motives for Becoming a Superhero
12 Tricks for Keeping Superheroes Young
13 Reasons to Quit the Superhero Racket
12 Rationales for a Hero-Versus-Hero Slugfest on the Cover
What To Do With a Supervillain After You Catch Him: 12 Options
14 Motives for Becoming a Supervillain

14 Answers to “Why So Many Retcons?”

38 Comments

• At April 1, 2009, Patrick Joseph wrote:

  The Cultist just made me think of a possible eleventh. The anti-Cultist, which, I suppose is a blend of the ...

• At April 1, 2009, John wrote:

  That list just confirms that Brian Cronin has no problem with the posters who need to express themselves sexually in ...

• At April 1, 2009, BANNING - You think it's so easy? - STATUE M A R V E L S wrote:

  [...] the spirit of this conversation, this article is funny: Comics Should Be Good! @ Comic Book Resources ? ...

• At April 1, 2009, BANNING - You think it's so easy? - STATUE M A R V E L S wrote:

  [...] the spirit of this conversation, this article is funny: Comics Should Be Good! @ Comic Book Resources ? ...

• At April 1, 2009, Brian wrote:

  O, can I be the nit-picker and point out the error on COIE #8? You know, where it was ...

• At April 1, 2009, Bill Reed wrote:

  Hahaha. Oh... so true... Shame, really.

• At April 1, 2009, Apodaca wrote:

  You left out my (least) favorite of all. The Internet Tough Guy.

  He loves to talk about all the weapons he ...

• At April 1, 2009, Mike wrote:

  How about "The Sophisticate?" This could be the Indie gadfly who constantly decries mainstream comics, or events and crossovers. ...

• At April 1, 2009, T. wrote:

  This was a good list. I like Apodaca's example of the Internet tough guy. I know I'm a ...

• At April 1, 2009, The Dude wrote:

  Very funny list.

  I own to the fact that I've been the crybaby and ten percenter many times (most of them ...

• At April 1, 2009, Lupin Yonsei wrote:

  Everytime I read one of your lists, I think of you as the long-lost evil twin of the Lorax. Do ...

• At April 1, 2009, karl wrote:

  you forgot the people who make lists of things implying the lists are much longer, when in face they contain ...

• At April 1, 2009, karl wrote:

  just thought of another one:

  the poster who somehow is able to relate every single topic to something about his ...

• At April 1, 2009, Chill Bill wrote:

  so when is Stan's superman movie coming out I cant wait

• At April 1, 2009, Coffee wrote:

  Funny list.

  Possible 11: The Bitter Purist

  If a character, style of art, method of storytelling in a given comic does ...

• At April 1, 2009, Daniel Graves wrote:

  pat pat pat

  Nice list

• At April 1, 2009, Sam wrote:

  I think Alan Moore may be the only major writer who DOESN'T have cultist fans. Most people just seem ...

• At April 1, 2009, Omar Karindu, with the power of SUPER-hypocrisy! wrote:

  The only reason Lorendiac posted this stuff -- as supported by his self-described "disrespectful spirit" -- is because he's a ...

• At April 1, 2009, Bob wrote:

  This list was way more thought out than DCs stupid decision to bring Jason Todd back from the dead...

• At April 1, 2009, Rene wrote:

  Sam, I've met PLENTY of Alan Moore cultists. I'm sorta one of them, myself.

  Anyway, here are a few obvious ...

• At April 1, 2009, Rene wrote:

  That was brilliant, Omar!

• At April 1, 2009, McK wrote:

  The political ones could use mini-categories, such as "Over-reactive Gays in Comics Supporter" ("Chuck Dixon once said gay characters shouldn't ...

• At April 1, 2009, Mike Blake wrote:

  Rene, your "Contrarian" is, I think, synonymous with a type identified on the net for many years: the Troll. Also ...

• At April 1, 2009, Sijo wrote:

  Another very interesting article by Lorendiac. Particularly the self-effacing ending. Congratulations. :)

  Does any of those types apply to me? Hmm... ...

• At April 1, 2009, Alan Coil wrote:

  The Listmaker--the vilest, slimiest, scum on the internet, and I've got a list of them I'll share with the world ...

• At April 1, 2009, Rene wrote:

  Okay, here are some other types I've found a lot on forums (and since I'm liberal and gay and even ...

• At April 1, 2009, Mike Blake wrote:

  Alan Coil opined:

  "The Listmaker–the vilest, slimiest, scum on the internet,

  and I’ve got a list of them I’ll share ...

• At April 1, 2009, jazzbo wrote:

  Well, I've definitely been #s 2, 3 and 7 at times. Maybe at all times, who knows. Internet Tough Guy ...

• At April 2, 2009, DanCJ wrote:

  Hmmm... I'm probably a bit guilty of 2 and 9.

  We've had a definite 2 (broken record) over on the Vertigo ...

• At April 2, 2009, Jack Norris wrote:

  There's a relative of the 10 Percenter, who, while he might read the article, will hit the reply button without ...

• At April 3, 2009, Edo Bosnar wrote:

  Hmmm, I was waiting around for someone else to mention this, but with regard to no. 5, "The Cultist", the ...

• At April 3, 2009, Brian Cronin wrote:

  Edo, your sarcasm detector needs some work.

• At April 3, 2009, Carl wrote:

  I'd add in "The English Teacher". This is the person who feels obligated to correct every misspelling and grammatical ...

• At April 3, 2009, Omar Karindu, with the power of SUPER-hypocrisy! wrote:

  Carl, in American English we usually put punctuation like periods or commas inside the quotation marks. Did you know ...

• At April 4, 2009, Anonymous wrote:

  Carl, in American English we usually put punctuation like periods or commas inside the quotation marks.

  You're supposed to do that ...

• At April 4, 2009, DanCJ wrote:

  That Anonymous was me.

  Oh calling quotes "inverted commas" seems to be dying out with my parents' generation. Anyone I ...

• At June 15, 2009, Hychocrippito wrote:

  hi,

  i was wondering where can i watch or download full metal alchemist the 2nd episode 11 been searching for it...

  no ...

• At September 20, 2009, hypnoticgenius wrote:

  Hi all,

  New to the forum, just thought I'd introduce myself :-)

Three years ago I requested help from my fellow fans in compiling a list of all the reboots DC had done of characters or entire teams in the years since COIE. Recently I repeated that request on a few forums, asking for help in listing anyone who had received the Reboot Treatment within these past three years. Here's how I think it stands at the moment, for anyone who was wondering.

Before I offer my current list of DC Reboots, I want to talk a bit about what I mean and what I don't mean when I use that word "Reboot." This has caused a bit of confusion in the past. Different fans had different definitions in their heads when they saw and used that same word in their responses. Let's see if I can explain myself clearly this time, using what I honestly believe to be the same definition commonly used by a majority of those fans who really worry about "reboots" and what does or doesn't qualify..

What is a Reboot?

Reboot = Everything from before gets thrown away!

All—or very nearly all—of a character's previously published stories, that had him at the center of the action, get erased from continuity, leaving a clean slate for a fresh start. In the new continuity, they never happened and the other superheroes in that same comics universe don't remember anything about them. Now a writer is "starting all over from scratch" with the essential character concept. That is a reboot.

If some bits and pieces of a character's history get changed on the spur of the moment, that is a retcon. But if a lot of his old adventures are still supposed to be valid, allowing for some changes to various details, then he has not been rebooted.

Things that Aren't Reboots

1. The character's origin story gets retold with some new twists, but all of his subsequent adventures are still supposed to have happened, just about the way his veteran fans remember them.

For instance, Frank Miller's "Year One," published as four issues of the "Batman" title shortly after COIE, was a retelling, with new details and a grittier tone than usual, of Batman's "origin story" and his first several months on the job as a costumed crimefighter in Gotham City. However, most of the old Earth-1 continuity from the Silver and Bronze Ages (lots of previous clashes with Joker, Two-Face, Riddler, etc.) still appeared to be canonical in the Post-COIE era, so Batman and all the associated characters (such as Jim Gordon, Dick Grayson, Alfred Pennyworth, etc.) hadn't been utterly rebooted.

2. The old character dies or retires and someone else puts on a costume and starts calling himself the successor with the same name.

For instance, Barry Allen (the Silver Age Flash) died in COIE. Wally West took over the role of being the Flash. That was a big change, but not a reboot, because most of Barry's old Pre-Crisis stories were still in continuity. People in the DCU still remembered that those things had happened.

3. A new writer comes along and makes some changes, giving the hero a new supporting cast, giving him a different attitude, telling his stories with a whole different style, but we are expected to assume that most or all of the previous stories still happened before this.

This happens all the time in the comic book industry. It isn't a reboot; it just means different writers will have different stories they want to tell.

4. The hero's old series got cancelled; he gets a new series with a new #1.

That isn't a reboot unlessall the hero's past adventures from the old series have just been erased from continuity, the way Wonder Woman's were twenty years ago when her old series got cancelled and then a new one started up later. Most of the time, this is simply a Relaunch.

5. Changing the exact roster of the "Founding Members" of a team, but saying that the team actually still had most of the same adventures from its old series, is not a reboot.

For instance, in the Post-Crisis continuity regarding the original JLA, the official version said that Superman and Batman and Wonder Woman had not been Founding Members of the League. The second Black Canary had been, however, "replacing" Wonder Woman. Superman and Batman were apparently admitted to have lent a helping hand to the old JLA on various occasions if opportunity permitted. That was a major retcon to JLA continuity, but we weren't being told that all those stories from the JLA title of the 60s, 70s, and early-to-mid 80s had "never happened at all." They had just happened with a somewhat different set of members than we previously thought. That was not the same thing as tossing out the old JLA series and saying, "All that stuff never happened at all!" (It was a rather obnoxious thing to do to veteran JLA fans, however.)

The DC Reboots Since COIE

Superman. Rebooted in 1986 after COIE. All previous Superman-centric stories (Earth-2, Earth-1, or any other version) effectively got thrown away and forgotten. Although, because that same treatment was not being given to most of the other heroes who were formerly of "Earth-1," it was kept in continuity that he had been a superhero for a few years already as "Superman #1" (vol. 2) opened up, and that he had already become well-known to other heroes, and generally respected by them. (For instance, when Post-COIE Superman teamed up with Cyborg in an issue of "Action Comics," it was clear that they knew each other from past experience, although I don't believe we were given any details on just what that past experience had been!)

Wonder Woman. Rebooted at about the same time as Superman, around early 1987, shortly after COIE. Unlike Superman, she was rebooted as "I am just now appearing in public for the first time in the modern DCU, where the Justice League and the Teen Titans and others have already been household names for years before anyone heard of me!"

Note: Last year I saw a fascinating online rumor that when George Perez started plotting the initial story arc for the Post-COIE "Wonder Woman" title, he thought it would be the functional equivalent of Byrne's "Man of Steel" mini or Miller's "Batman: Year One" story, a retelling of her origin story which was mostly happening as a "flashback to several years ago" when Diana was just making her debut in the public eye, and then the title would subsequently "fast-forward" to "here and now," with Diana already a well-established heroine with years of seasoning in the later stories in that series. However, the person mentioning this rumor didn't cite any sources I could check. At any rate, some of what was done to Wonder Woman at that time has now been undone by her recent restoration (post-Infinite Crisis) to her old role as a Founding Member of the original Justice League, meaning she once again has about as many years of experience in superheroics as do Superman, Batman, and various other DC heroes.

The Legion of Super-Heroes. Rebooted in 1994 after Zero Hour. Rebooted again in 2004.

Note: I have not read the miniseries "Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds," but I am told that the general effect of it seems to be to shunt the two "rebooted Legions" aside into other timelines and "restore" the version of Legion continuity which had previously been featured in DC publications from 1958 to about 1985 (the time of Crisis on Infinite Earths). If I've got this right, however, the subsequent 9 years or so of "original Legion continuity" (published from COIE to Zero Hour) does not apply to this "un-rebooted" Legion (or whatever it should be called).

The Doom Patrol. Rebooted in 2004. One rumor says that John Byrne did not "ask for permission" to reboot the Doom Patrol from scratch, but, on the contrary, was told that rebooting was the way DC had already decided it wanted the DP handled by anyone who did a new series about the "Doom Patrol" concept. Take it or leave it. I'm also told that within

On the other hand, I'm told that the reboot was thoroughly un-rebooted within two years or so of the reboot, with the events of Infinite Crisis serving as a convenient excuse, and I also hear that Dan DiDio has allegedly said that this was the Master Plan for the Doom Patrol all along.

Starro the Conqueror was apparently rebooted by Grant Morrison in 1997 in "JLA: Secret Files and Origins #1," clearly set around the time of the early pages of "JLA #1" (the first issue of the series which began around that same time). There's this giant alien organism resembling a starfish, which uses miniature versions of itself to cling to people's faces and place them under its mental control. It's referred to in dialogue as "the Star Conqueror." Various superheroes in this story (including Wally West and Wonder Woman) say things which make it clear they feel no sense of recognition at what they are seeing, despite the fact that Starro the Conqueror had used the same schtick in several previous stories (usually against one incarnation or another of the "Justice League," beginning in the original team's first published adventure). If they did remember meeting Starro or hearing about Starro from other heroes, then it would have been more logical for someone to say: "This sounds like Starro or one of his relatives. Refresh my memory: How have various incarnations of the League overcome Starro all those other times?"

Note: I just now checked, and saw that the Wikipedia entry on Starro simply asserts that Morrison's "Star Conqueror" villain in "JLA: Secret Files and Origins #1" was simply a different member (a green one) of the same species as Starro (usually purple). However, that interpretation of events does not fit with the way the heroes fighting "the Star Conqueror" are obviously drawing a complete blank as far as "recognition" is concerned. On the other hand, reading the Wikipedia entry gives me the impression (possibly inaccurate) that other writers working for DC in the past 12 years have not felt the obligation to write about Starro and/or "Star Conqueror" as if all the Starro stories from before 1997 had never happened. Perhaps this qualifies as a case where Grant Morrison tried to do a subtle reboot, but everyone else at DC just ignored the implications?

The Warlord. Rebooted in 2006. His previous regular series had lasted 132 issues back in the 1970s and 80s (and I have all those stories in my collection), plus a bunch of annuals, a six-issue miniseries, and all sorts of guest appearances in other people's titles over the years. All of that is now gone with the wind.

At least some of the Charlton Comics characters were "rebooted" when they were integrated into the post-Crisis DCU.

For instance, Captain Atom started over from scratch in a series written by Cary Bates, in which he was becoming the superhero Captain Atom "for the very first time" and none of his old Charlton adventures had ever happened. I believe the same thing happened to Peacemaker.

I am told, on the other hand, that the Blue Beetle and the Question kept a fair piece of their pre-DC continuity (allowing for the fact that it had now happened to them as part of their retconned participation in the mainstream DCU instead of some other parallel world).

I believe that all of DC's Impact line in the early 90s constituted "Reboots" of characters owned by Archie, since these heroes were generally being presented as people just now getting their special powers, etc., instead of seasoned veterans who had survived the events of all the stories previously published about them by another company or companies. That would include the following characters: The Shield, The Fly, The Comet, The Black Hood, The Jaguar, The Web.

I have heard that DC has once again acquired permission to publish stories about the Archie-owned stable of superheroes, but I haven't seen any of those stories yet and I don't know if any further rebooting is contemplated. (Likewise, I hear that the old Milestone characters are scheduled to be integrated into DCU continuity, but I have the impression that all of their old published stories will not simply be thrown out the window; ask me again in a year or two and I may know more about it by then.)

Captain Marvel—meaning the guy in the red bodysuit with a big yellow thunderbolt on his chest who keeps yelling Shazam!; not any of the heroes Marvel Comics has published using that same alias—got rebooted in the miniseries Shazam! A New Beginning in 1987 (written by Roy Thomas). Six years later, in 1993, Captain Marvel got his Second Post-Crisis Reboot in the graphic novel The Power of Shazam! by Jerry Ordway.

Note: Since I first wrote that entry, the idea that Ordway's graphic novel (and the subsequent monthly title "The Power of Shazam") qualified as a Second Reboot has been seriously questioned. For instance, someone pointed out to me that in the late 80s Captain Marvel spent some time working with the Justice League International in the early days of the Giffen/DeMatteis run, and he assured me that this was still supposed to be "in continuity" as something that had previously happened to Captain Marvel after the events of Ordway's graphic novel and before the events chronicled in the later monthly title "The Power of Shazam." The first issue of the monthly title plainly stated it had been four years since Billy Batson first gained the ability to transform by saying his magic word, and apparently Captain Marvel's brief stint as a Justice Leaguer had occurred during that four-year gap. The person telling me this did concede, though, that just about anything and everything in the four-part mini by Roy Thomas got flushed down the toilet as "never happened; never could have happened" in Ordway's retelling of Billy Batson's origin story. I don't think I had realized (or much cared) that it was still in continuity that Billy Batson had been part of the JLI back around the late 1980s. Although I now doubt that Ordway’s work qualified as a "full reboot, " I decided to leave this listing in here (with this lengthy note) to explain what happened, rather than simply omitting any mention of Ordway’s work and then having other fans yell at me for "completely forgetting” about the putative Second Reboot of Captain Marvel.

Rip Hunter, Time Master got a big Post-Crisis reboot in the 8-part Time Masters miniseries published around 1990. I have heard that the rebooted version has been retconned and replaced by a different version, but I could have some of this wrong. Aside from reading that miniseries, I am no great expert on Rip Hunter's continuity—and time travelers in general are prone to run into alternate versions of themselves, etc. (Think of Marvel's "Kang," for instance.)

Hugo Strange is a Batman villain who got rebooted, even though Batman himself didn't. As near as I can tell, none of the story arcs that ever featured him as a villain in the Earth-1 Batman's continuity have survived as solid historical facts in the Batman continuity of the Post-Crisis DCU. They have been replaced by various Post-Crisis story arcs. (Note: since I wrote those previous lines 3 years ago, I have seen some contention over this point in online discussions, and I have almost finished another post which attempts to outline my reasons for believing that the Post-COIE version of Hugo was a full reboot. The picture is complicated by the fact that his first Post-COIE appearance was one of the early arcs in the "Legends of the Dark Knight" title, and those arcs were notoriously "not necessarily in continuity," so at the time the arc was first published, it was not at all clear if Hugo Strange's Earth-1 continuity was "really" being changed or not!)

The Crime Syndicate of America (Superwoman, Ultraman, Owlman, Power Ring, and Johnny Quick, characters from Earth-3 in the pre-Crisis Multiverse) first got heavily retconned, and then later got completely rebooted in Grant Morrison's graphic novel JLA: Earth-2 in 1999. The earlier retcon had said that the oldtime JLA had still fought a Crime Syndicate of America, but they weren't from a parallel Earth; they were from Qward. In Morrison's graphic novel, however, the JLA met his version of the CSA for the first time without anyone ever saying, "Gosh, don't these people remind you of that time when some of us fought five bad guys with the same codenames back in the early days of the JLA?" Thus we can deduce this was a reboot and the older Post-Crisis version no longer existed in continuity.

Supergirl is a very difficult case to analyze. By my count, there have been 16 Supergirl characters in stories that were "in continuity" in either the Pre-Crisis or Post-Crisis DCU. For the moment, let's just recognize that the "classic" Silver Age, Earth-1 Supergirl—Kara Zor-El—died in COIE and then was retroactively erased from continuity, adding insult to injury. The Kara Zor-El Supergirl who popped up a couple of years ago in the Superman/Batman title was Jeph Loeb's "Total Reboot" of the old Kara Zor-El character concept. We'll just ignore all the other Supergirls for the time being. If anyone really is dying to know about the other 14 Supergirls on my list, just follow this link! (Bearing in mind that someday, after certain mysteries are resolved in the current comics, I'll be updating that list yet again! I imagine I'll post the Fifth Draft right here on CSBG when the time comes!)

I am told that Grant Morrison has effectively rebooted Klarion the Witch Boy in his "Seven Soldiers of Victory" stories published in 2005. Word has it that Klarion's previous appearances, particularly the "Sins of Youth" crossover event from several years ago, simply never happened. Note: I wrote the previous lines of this entry three years ago. I hear that since that time, the new version of Klarion has met Robin in the latter's series, and that Robin (Tim Drake) was written as obviously having no recollection of any previous encounters with anyone called "Klarion the Witch Boy." This strongly supports what I had heard before, re: the "erasure" of the "Sins of Youth" event from the modern continuity of the DCU.

Hawkman. Initially the Silver Age Hawkman, Katar Hol of Thanagar, was believed to have survived COIE without any noteworthy changes to his continuity. Ditto for his loving wife, Hawkgirl (who had changed her preferred alias to Hawkwoman in the early 1980s). I've seen them in a John Byrne Post-Crisis Superman story when they used their starship to help him go get a close look at the remnants of his native world of Krypton, and I remember seeing them get some appearances in the earlier issues of the Giffen/DeMatteis era of the JLI, wherein Katar would complain about how the clowns now calling themselves the Justice League couldn't hold a candle to the old-school JLA of the good old days. But then, in 1989, Tim Truman started doing Hawkworld. I think it was first a three-part mini, then an ongoing series, and the general idea (for awhile) seemed to be that all the old Silver Age/Bronze Age appearances of Katar Hol were now being tossed out the window.

I have never been a regular collector of any of the various series about Hawkman, Hawkworld, etc., so I'm going to leave it at that and hope my second-hand understanding is "correct" as far as it goes. I have no intention of delving into subsequent Hawkman-related retcons right now! (Do I look like a masochist? You don't have to answer that question, actually.)

The situation of Jason Todd (Robin II) is ambiguous. He definitely received a brand new (and bad) origin story after COIE, but my definition of a reboot requires more than just "one origin story got replaced with another one." I realized a couple of years ago that there is not a general consensus among Batman fans regarding how much (if anything) of his Pre-Crisis adventures as Robin (and of Doug Moench's entire first run as a Batman writer in the mid-80s) managed to carry over into the Post-Crisis Bat-continuity as having presumably "still happened" to him at some point. I am inclined to believe that the Post-COIE Jason Todd, the guy who died pretty soon in "A Death in the Family," was a rebooted version with none or almost none of his Pre-COIE adventures (as written by Gerry Conway and Doug Moench) having any validity in the DCU of the late 1980s, but I'm not sure if any of the Batman editors of the late 80s and 90s ever explicitly addressed that point.

The Creeper got the reboot treatment in 2006 with a miniseries in which Jack Ryder became The Creeper "for the very first time, right here and now, in the modern continuity." Thereby erasing all previous stories of Jack Ryder being the superhero known as The Creeper and occasionally teaming up with other heroes.

The Yellow Peri had a total of 4 appearances in Pre-COIE continuity in the 1980s, meeting Superboy and later Superman (the same character in those days, remember; at different times in his life). Then she went for a little over 20 years without being seen or heard from. Since she basically had "only existed" in the Pre-COIE continuity of Clark Kent, it was a very safe guess that she had been erased from existence at the same time Superman was rebooted in the Post-COIE era. However, she has recently been rebooted in the DCU—as far as I know, her new stories have not referred to any of her appearances from the Pre-COIE era as still being in continuity.

I am told that, within the last few years, there was a story in the "Superman/Batman" title in which Doc Magnus and his Metal Men guest-starred, and Batman claimed to have never met these people before. This would imply a recent reboot, since Batman had previously met the Metal Men (and their creator, Will Magnus) on various occasions in the older continuity; and the Post-COIE Superman has also bumped into them before. On the other hand: When I was asking for feedback about recent reboots, at least one other fan argued that other comic books' portrayals of Magnus and his Metal Men in the last couple of years have not been consistent with that "Superman/Batman" story's implication that all of their previous adventures never happened. I haven't been reading any of their recent appearances, so I can't swear from personal observation which interpretation is more likely to be correct—"they got rebooted recently," or "someone may have tried to reboot them by having Batman not recognize them, but the attempted reboot isn't really sticking"?

Isis. I still haven't bothered to read "52," but I am told that it introduced a new girlfriend for Black Adam; a woman named Adrianna Tomaz who has gained supernatural powers and calls herself Isis. She was effectively a reboot of the heroine called Isis (Andrea Thomas) who had a TV show in the 1970s, and—more importantly for our purposes—a DC series which lasted 8 issues. Apparently the 1970s version never happened in modern continuity.

General Zod. I've heard that in the wake of "Infinite Crisis," the editors of the Superman books announced that Superman had never met anybody named "Zod" in his revised history, and thus would be taken off guard by the events of the "Last Son" story arc. In one fell swoop, that declaration erased several stories about four different Zods from the Superman continuity which had developed in the two decades between COIE and Infinite Crisis, with the newest Zod effectively being a reboot of the basic character concept!

Final Thoughts

It's been suggested to me that some of the "new Earths" in the Multiverse created at the end of the "52" series could qualify as cases of certain character concepts getting "rebooted" in their own timelines. However, since I have not yet bothered to read "52" (nor its sequel series "Countdown"), I'm not prepared to commit myself on any of that at the moment. Especially since, by and large, I've been paying more attention to characters whose rebooted versions are still supposed to be part of the main DCU timeline. (Likewise, I ignore any "Elseworlds" takes on old familiar faces when I'm thinking about "Reboots.")

Whew! When I look back at this haphazard "reboot some of this and then reboot some of that" approach to rebooting bits and pieces of the DCU, I find myself with a renewed sympathy for those fans who have argued that DC should have just bitten the bullet and rebooted everything at once in the wake of Crisis on Infinite Earths, and then perhaps should have set a policy of doing the same thing all over again every 10 or 15 years, to keep the continuity from getting too cluttered or otherwise incomprehensible. Certainly I can see potential problems with that suggested approach, but I sure can't say that it would have turned out any worse than the way DC has actually been attacking these things on a piecemeal basis for over 20 years now!

As usual, I welcome constructive criticism if I made any mistakes or completely skipped anyone who belongs on this list. Bear in mind, though, that I took it for granted that if I listed a certain hero as getting rebooted at a certain time, I took it for granted that this implicitly included any of the lesser characters in his "supporting cast" who clearly got rebooted around the same time. For instance, the Superman reboot of the late 1980s includes what was done with Lex Luthor, Lana Lang, Brainiac, Metallo, and all the rest. Likewise, I didn't feel the need to list every single member of the Legion of Super-Heroes when mentioning each of their reboots!

63 Comments

• At March 16, 2009, Wraith wrote:

  Holy crap in a hat.

  Compared to this vortex of madness, the implications of Marvel's "One More Day/Brand New Day" seem ...

• At March 16, 2009, Will wrote:

  That's a really fascinating list, and I applaud your effort. But if there's a hell, I think people will ...

• At March 16, 2009, Adam wrote:

  See, this is why I can't be bothered with DC (except maybe Batman) anymore. I, for one, LOVED "Sins ...

• At March 16, 2009, Graeme White wrote:

  The Hawkworld miniseries was originally just supposed to be a retelling of the Thangarian Hawks' origins, but editors didn't include ...

• At March 16, 2009, Ethan Shuster wrote:

  Hawkman is MUCH more convoluted than that.

  Here's my understanding. Anyone can correct me. Silver Age Hawkman and Hawkgirl were originally ...

• At March 16, 2009, Tom Fitzpatrick wrote:

  Now, let's talk about "retcon".

  ;-)

• At March 16, 2009, Wesley wrote:

  Truly interesting. However, I think you can add Zod to the list of characters with MULTIPLE reboots. There were several ...

• At March 16, 2009, Ethan Shuster wrote:

  Maybe we should just subtitle this "The Gift and the Curse of a Shared Universe".

• At March 16, 2009, Justin Hilyard wrote:

  What about Ragman? His reboot was after COIE, I believe, and I'm pretty sure his change to a more ...

• At March 16, 2009, Dean wrote:

  Note: Last year I saw a fascinating online rumor that when George Perez started plotting the initial story arc for ...

• At March 16, 2009, Michael Grabois wrote:

  Re: The Legion - you're essentially correct. The post-Zero Hour and the post-Infinite Crisis versions have been shown (in Legion ...

• At March 16, 2009, Carl wrote:

  Richard Dragon was rebooted a few years back. He was apparently debooted in 52.

  I fall on the reboot ...

• At March 16, 2009, Eric P. wrote:

  A sentence for the Doom Patrol seems to be cut off.

• At March 16, 2009, JEM wrote:

  Yeah, that's all a LOT easier to follow than the old Earth-1/Earth-2 stuff. Thank god COIE cleared all that ...

• At March 16, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Wraith -- I've never been a big Challengers fan, so I'm probably lagging waaaay behind on whatever has been said ...

• At March 16, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Will -- if the people end up in hell in the first place, then it serves them right! I mean, ...

• At March 16, 2009, Tally wrote:

  Sadly, COIE wasn't really needed. As long as the writer slapped a caption reading "Earth-whatever" if it wasn't Earth-1 or ...

• At March 16, 2009, John Trumbull wrote:

  Considering how different in style it was from what came before, I would say that the Howard Chaykin Blackhawks should ...

• At March 16, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Adam -- I vaguely seem to recall that back around the time I first took an interest in this (3 ...

• At March 16, 2009, John Trumbull wrote:

  Oh, and Frank MIller made a few changes to Batman continuity, some subtle and some not so subtle. Among ...

• At March 16, 2009, Stephen wrote:

  "I, for one, LOVED “Sins of Youth.” Pfft–never happened."

  See, that's the thing - what makes that "never happened" is such ...

• At March 16, 2009, Stephen wrote:

  Oh, and I think a big reason that people obsess so much about reboots is that, for whatever reason, the ...

• At March 16, 2009, Matt Bird wrote:

  There are many others who were re-booted into the Vertigo universe (Shade the Changing Man, Human Target, many others), but ...

• At March 16, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Graeme White -- last year I heard that said about Hawkworld, i.e. that the original 3-part mini was supposedly set ...

• At March 16, 2009, Wraith wrote:

  Lorendiac -- Yes, the Grant/Kaminski Challengers series. I don't know that it's any sort of official position, just something I ...

• At March 16, 2009, Adam wrote:

  Lorendiac--

  Y'know what? CBR's front page reminded me that Marvel does have a few reboots; namely, the 2099 imprint is ...

• At March 16, 2009, Kelson wrote:

  I'd have to dig it out and check to be sure, but I think Grant Morrison's "Star Conqueror" story did ...

• At March 16, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Kelson -- Let me save you a little time. I very recently read that "Secret Files and Origins" story after ...

• At March 16, 2009, Jeff R. wrote:

  Marvel Rebooted the Hulk with Byrne's "Year One" shortly after PAD left the title. The reboot failed to take, ...

• At March 16, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Wesley -- actually I think it was around the early 2000s that all of a sudden Superman was tripping over ...

• At March 16, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Justin Hilyard -- frankly, I know precious little about Ragman. I did buy the TPB of Willingham's "Day of Vengeance" ...

• At March 16, 2009, Omar Karindu, back from an Internet Thogal ritual wrote:

  Two of these are not supposed to be reboots, but rather retcons that take place before the characters' "original" original ...

• At March 16, 2009, Omar Karindu, back from an Internet Thogal ritual wrote:

  The "Chapter One" Hulk Annual story is what got Byrne off the book; editor Tom Brevoort never wanted a reboot, ...

• At March 16, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Dean said:

  This is, I think, the root problem with the DCU. Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman were the characters with ...

• At March 16, 2009, Kelson wrote:

  @Omar Karindu: Thanks, that was the scene I was thinking of.

• At March 16, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Michael Grabois -- thanks for the comments and clarifications. For years I have largely ignored Legion continuity in anything published ...

• At March 16, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Carl -- I saw some arguments about whether or not Richard Dragon had been truly rebooted, or (I think someone ...

• At March 16, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  JEM said: "Yeah, that’s all a LOT easier to follow than the old Earth-1/Earth-2 stuff. Thank god COIE cleared all ...

• At March 16, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Tally said:

  Sadly, COIE wasn’t really needed. As long as the writer slapped a caption reading “Earth-whatever” if it wasn’t Earth-1 ...

• At March 16, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  John Trumbull -- frankly, I've never been a Blackhawks fan. I've never really tried to collect the original Blackhawks titles, ...

• At March 16, 2009, Pedro Bouça wrote:

  "Marvel Rebooted the Hulk with Byrne’s “Year One” shortly after PAD left the title. The reboot failed to take, but ...

• At March 16, 2009, Dean wrote:

  Actually, it seems to me that if “making things more accessible for new readers” is going to be a priority ...

• At March 16, 2009, Sijo wrote:

  Let's face it: all these reboots are never, EVER for the sake of "making things easier for the fans". They're ...

• At March 16, 2009, John Trumbull wrote:

  When I saw Zinda pop up in Gail Simone’s “Birds of Prey” run, I couldn’t immediately identify her as anyone ...

• At March 16, 2009, John Trumbull wrote:

  And you're not alone with spotting typos too late, Lorendiac. As soon as I hit "publish", I spotted a ...

• At March 16, 2009, HCE wrote:

  I was going to post what Omar Karindu said about Klarion: I'll add that (if memory serves) in the final ...

• At March 17, 2009, LtMarvel wrote:

  Re: Captain Marvel and other Earth-S people...

  Why I agree that Cap's JL appearance remains in continuity, I would still call ...

• At March 17, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  John Trumbull--

  I knew "Year One" retconned various details, but here's a couple of quick points:

  1. I believe I've seen at ...

• At March 17, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Matt Bird -- 3 years ago I trustingly put Kid Eternity and Shade the Cnanging Man on my list of ...

• At March 17, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Addressing the subject of Marvel reboots again:

  Adam mentioned plans for their old 2099 character stable -- I hadn't really noticed ...

• At March 17, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Pedro Bouça--

  I agree with you about Byrne's efforts on Hulk. From what I've heard, he was just messing around with ...

• At March 17, 2009, sackett wrote:

  Excellent article Lorendiac. Thank you. I first learned about Earth-2 during the second incarnation of All ...

• At March 17, 2009, Carl wrote:

  I've never really believed that Marv Wolfman really intended there to be a total reboot of the DCU, because he ...

• At March 17, 2009, Sijo wrote:

  Lorendiac: According to some of the latest Marvel Universe Handbooks, the JMS Squadron Supreme series is set in a reality ...

• At March 17, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Omar Karindu -- I'll dig out whichever JLA TPB has "#23" in it to double-check, although from your description, it ...

• At March 17, 2009, MarkAndrew wrote:

  Wasn't SINS OF YOUTH (*Ptooie* *Yech* *Blargh*) a Klarion reboot as well? I'm pretty sure the (Real, superior) Kirby ...

• At March 17, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Sijo -- I'll react to bits and pieces of two of your posts at once, I think.

  I am in the ...

• At March 17, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Hmm. I'd actually meant to say more in my reply to Sijo, but posted a bit too soon. I'll carry ...

• At March 19, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  LtMarvel--

  A couple of people on other forums have also made the point about Isis as a Filmation character, but I ...

• At March 19, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Sackett--

  The origin stories of Supergirl and Hawkman were pretty clear in the Pre-COIE era, and Donna's was only slightly confused ...

• At March 19, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Carl--

  A few years ago I wrote a piece which started out by collecting various things Marv Wolfman has said about ...

• At March 24, 2009, Clem Clambake wrote:

  You really ought to mention Animal Man, who was rebooted in the first 10 or so issues of his Grant ...

• At March 25, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  As I recall: On the draft of this list which I put together 3 years ago, I included Animal Man ...

14 Answers to "Why So Many Retcons?"

Years ago I tried to classify retcons into general categories. That piece, among others, can be reached via a link at the bottom of this post. But this time I'm going to look at the problem of retconning from a different angle, by trying to answer a popular question: "Why do the creators and editors of new stories about old characters keep inflicting so many retcons upon us?"

Sometimes it seems as if every time you finally think you've perfected your mental model of what the modern Batman continuity (for instance) says about the histories and current motivations of each major figure involved, some troublemaker in the industry erases ten percent of this old story, fifty percent of that old story, and one hundred percent of another story arc you have in your collection, in the process of making room for a supposedly "new and improved version" of the relevant continuity as he imposes his own retcons upon the larger structure! You are supposed to quickly realize what has happened and make all necessary mental adjustments on your own time! Why do they keep doing this to us? Over the last few months I’ve written down another motive whenever I thought of one, and here’s my current list of the different things which might be going through someone’s head as he or she contrived yet another retcon!

The 14 Answers

01. Ignorance or Forgetfulness
02. Apathy
03. Removing an Embarrassment
04. Reboot
05. Keep Them Young
06. Shock Treatment
07. Rehabilitate the Image
08. We MUST Restore the Sacred Status Quo
09. Turn a Character Into a Sock Puppet
10. Expand a Family Tree
11. The Total Amnesia Retcon
12. The Continuity Is Already Scrambled
13. Working Out a Personal Grudge
14. Never Supposed to Be in Continuity in the First Place

01. Ignorance or Forgetfulness

"Either I never knew about that boring old story, or else it had been so long since I read it (or at least a plot summary) that my memory garbled the details when I wanted to refer to certain relevant subjects in a new story. Now we've got a Messy Inconsistency on our hands. Too bad, but that's the way the cookie crumbles!"

This is probably the most common cause for many of the inconsistencies which fans often label as "retcons."

Sometimes the "retcon" is no more than a typographical error, here today and gone tomorrow, not to be taken seriously. I am told that The Elongated Man's surname has sometimes been misspelled, as "Dibney" or "Digby" or other variations, by writers who thought they remembered it without looking it up -- but his first appearance had clearly established his name as "Ralph Dibny" and that's the way it has usually been rendered since then.

A misspelled name is trivial. But there are other times when a writer messes up on details which he never really knew, or doesn't remember as clearly as he believes he does, and then after this is called to his attention he tries hard to stick to his guns and make the new version the official version even after the inconsistency with any previously published material is pointed out to him.

For instance! Before beginning his run on the "Batman" title a few years ago, Grant Morrison let it leak out that he was planning to bring back the son of Batman and Talia, who had last been seen as a newborn baby at the very end of the old graphic novel "Batman: Son of the Demon," written by Mike Barr and published in 1987. The way Barr wrote it at the time, Batman thought Talia miscarried. The baby had never been heard from since. (In part because Denny O'Neil, during his long tenure as the editor in charge of all Batman comics, later ruled "Son of the Demon" and its sequel "Bride of the Demon" to be firmly out of continuity; the functional equivalent of Elseworlds tales).

Those fans who liked "Son of the Demon" were looking forward to seeing Morrison pick up where Barr had left off . . . but then they were disappointed to see that there were significant inconsistencies between how the child of Batman and Talia had been conceived in the graphic novel on the one hand, and how things were stated to have happened years ago according to dialogue between Batman and Talia in Morrison's material on the other hand. (For one thing, in Morrison's version Batman obviously had never known that Talia could possibly have become pregnant with his child in the first place! Things were done to his body without his consent after he had been drugged into unconsciousness, I gathered.)

Morrison has been reported as saying, in response to the criticism he started receiving from some of the fans who have that graphic novel in their own collections, that it had been so long since he had actually read Barr's graphic novel that he evidently didn't remember exactly how its plot had gone when he was trying to dust off the idea of "a child of Talia and Batman who was born several years ago" and then put his own special spin on the concept. In other words, he didn't deliberately retcon away major plot points from Barr's old story; he just forgot what those points had been and didn't take the trouble to refresh his memory by rereading the silly thing before starting to write some "follow-up" material supposedly inspired by it!

02. Apathy

"Problem? What problem? How many modern readers will really know or care if we fudge the details of this guy's backstory for our own convenience, here and now?"

In this instance, the writer and the editor are both aware of what was established in a previous story -- but they don't feel the slightest remorse about twisting it inside out on the fly for their own purposes, and they may very well be working on the assumption that most of their modern regular readers in this day and age won't lose any sleep over the drastic changes to a bunch of nitpicking details from so long ago!

In his book Man of Two Worlds, Julius Schwartz asserts that back in the 1950s, when he was involved in the "Flash Reboot" (creating Barry Allen to replace Jay Garrick, the latter not having appeared in print for five years at that point), the conventional wisdom was that the turnover rate in regular buyers of DC's comic books was virtually 100% over a four-year cycle. In other words, the readers who had apparently lost interest in Jay Garrick several years earlier were not the same potential customers who would now be exposed to the concept of "Barry Allen is the Flash, a hero who runs incredibly fast" for the first time. "Showcase #4" (Barry's debut) was successful enough to suggest that there was some truth in the assumption that no one would care if Barry was ripping off the alias and general schtick of Jay Garrick, and the comic book buyers of 1956 certainly wouldn't refuse to buy his adventures just because of unpleasant memories of having completely lost interest in Jay several years earlier.

That standard assumption about virtually all regular customers disappearing after no more than four years, steadily being replaced by a bunch of new readers who didn't remember any of the "ancient history" from several years ago, gradually faded away as the industry changed and it became clear that some diehard fans were sticking around for decades and bellyaching long and loud if they didn't like the way things got shifted around.

Despite which, some writers still embrace the "Apathy" attitude where the delicate matter of "respecting all the nitpicking details from a long time ago" is concerned. For instance, Jeph Loeb has said frankly and repeatedly:

In comics, for those of you who don't read 'em regularly, there is this thing called "Continuity." Now, mind you, I sort of believe that continuity--or the rules of storytelling in the DC Comics Universe--goes like this: "Jimmy Olsen didn't become Robin, the Boy Wonder, and everything else is up for grabs."

(This version of his philosophy on the subject is quoted from a text piece Loeb wrote for the "Challengers of the Unknown Must Die!" TPB which collected a miniseries he had scripted and Tim Sale had drawn in the early 1990s. Loeb has expressed the same sentiment at other times, with variations in the wording.)

And to do the man justice, his sales figures do tend to suggest that many of his potential readers are not automatically repelled by that attitude as it is reflected in his scripts, as long as the readers end up enjoying whatever story he's telling right here and now in the comic book they just bought, regardless of contradictions with what has gone before!

03. Removing an Embarrassment

"Man, that old story was a real stinker! I bet most of the fans who remember it will clap and cheer if we undo some of it with a retcon! They'll understand exactly why we felt the need to surgically remove that cancer from our continuity! (Newer fans, who never read that stupid story in the first place, probably won't object when we retcon it!)"

There are old stories and stray bits of continuity which the bulk of the fans presumably don't know about or else don't really care about if they do know, as I mentioned in the previous item. Then there are the bits which many of the fans hate with an undying hatred. They will definitely notice that those bits have been surgically corrected, but they are not expected to gripe about it much.

"Removing an Embarrassment" was probably a big factor in the decision at DC to let Geoff Johns do his "Green Lantern: Rebirth" miniseries in which we were told that Hal Jordan, once considered the best and the brightest of the old Green Lantern Corps, had only flipped out and become a villain for awhile in the mid-90s because he had been possessed by an ancient yellow fear demon without anyone realizing this at the time.

On a similar note: Jim Starlin once had Batman lock up a mass-murdering enemy (the KGBeast) in a compartment in the depths of the Gotham sewer system at the end of the saga "Ten Nights of the Beast" and then just walk away, obviously leaving the guy there to die from lack of air or lack of food and water; whichever happened to get him first. About a year and a half later, Marv Wolfman felt it necessary retcon this during a conversation between Nightwing and Batman, in which Nightwing said angrily that it was obvious from the circumstances that Batman had been seriously considering letting the KGBeast just die there, until a few hours later he had finally changed his mind and told the police exactly where he had left his imprisoned foe. (It also turned out -- we were then told -- that by the time the cops got down there to check, the KGBeast had somehow broken out of the trap and disappeared.)

04. Reboot

"Let's throw away just about everything that was ever done with that character, and start over with a clean slate! Make it a lot simpler for fans -- and writers, and editors, and so forth -- to keep track of just the continuity is! Meanwhile, we get to have tons of fun showing him meeting everybody and their brother 'for the very first time' all over again!"

The most famous example of this in American comics? The Post-COIE Superman Reboot. Virtually everything that had ever been printed about him before got scrubbed from history until further notice. This was supposed to allow DC to junk a lot of corny and embarrassing old ideas from his Earth-1 continuity, while making it much easier for new readers of Superman material to basically "get in on the ground floor" by finding it comparatively easy to collect everything important that would help them understand what was happening to each member of his supporting cast, what the origin stories and core motivations of his villains were, and so on and so forth, without constantly being hit over the head with editorial footnotes saying "All this was explained in such-and-such-a-story in 1965!" or whatever.

Note: I said virtually everything from Superman's Pre-COIE adventures had been erased. On the other hand: John Byrne's "Man of Steel" mini, often skipping ahead months or years at a time in order to bring us thoroughly up to speed on Superman's life up until "right now," made it clear that the "rebooted" Superman had already been a hero for some years before the "present day" adventures which would now be depicted in his Post-COIE monthly titles after the mini ended in 1986. Byrne and other writers at DC therefore tended to work on the theory that Superman had "already met" most of the other well-established heroes of the DCU at one time or another . . . but details on just when he had met each of them, per the revised continuity, were initially left very vague for the most part. (An essay published in the very belated printing of Neil Gaiman's story "Green Lantern/Superman: Legend of the Green Flame," from a script originally meant to be published in "Action Comics" in the late 1980s but then canned for a very long time, says that in those days it seemed that the Latest Official Answers to such basic questions as "Does Hal Jordan still know his buddy Superman's secret identity?" seemed to fluctuate from day to day without warning. Neil Gaiman's script was written when he believed the answer was "Yes!" and then it was rejected on a day when the answer was "No!")

05. Keep Them Young

"If all of that old stuff still happened to this hero -- such as fighting in WWII, for instance -- then he ought to be getting awfully long in the tooth by now. So I guess it's time to rewrite the chronology re: when his career started!"

I once did an entire list on ways to justify "keeping a superhero young" (or in some cases "restoring his youth" after he has visibly gotten middle-aged or elderly in previous stories). One of the ways to keep him young is to quietly sever his once-solid connections to certain historical events whose timeframes are well-known to the typical reader -- such as the Great Depression, World War II, the Vietnam War, the Reagan Presidency, et cetera.

One name for this approach is: "The Ongoing Sliding Timescale Retcon." It is basically the assumption (largely unspoken within the comic books, but it becomes evident to longtime fans as they go along) that all the stories since a certain hero's "origin story" have occurred within a certain number of years leading up to the present day, regardless of any chronological markers embedded in that hero's earlier stories.

As an example, consider the war records of two members of the original Fantastic Four!

In the 1960s, after Ben Grimm and Reed Richards had recently been created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, they'd occasionally reminisce about how both of them had seen combat in the Second World War. If they'd both been young servicemen in a war that ended in 1945, that implied that by the early-to-mid 60s they probably were around 40 years old, give or take a few, which fit well with the gray hair at Reed's temples and made him and Ben seem older than the typical superhero, without overdoing it. This all made perfect sense in the early years of the FF title, but as time rolled past in the real world, and the Fantastic Four were still going strong and not looking much older (although Johnny Storm eventually stopped being written as a teenager), it made less and less sense to think Reed and Ben had been old enough to wear service uniforms in the early 1940s.

Therefore, thanks to the largely unspoken Ongoing Sliding Timescale Retcon, the idea was just quietly dropped. As far as I can tell, from the 1970s onward the idea of Reed and Ben being WWII veterans has never again been explicitly addressed in dialogue (except when they were being "roasted" in a humorous comic Fred Hembeck did in the 1980s, but I don't think that really counts as "in continuity"). Marvel doesn't jump through hoops to offer any elaborate rationalization of how Reed could look no older than he does today, over 62 years after the end of the war in which he was once alleged to have served valiantly; Marvel simply ignores previous references to that wartime service as something that must not have happened after all!

Likewise, Tim Drake was 13 years old when he debuted in 1989, but no one expects him to celebrate his 33rd birthday by the end of 2009. He may have aged about 4 or 5 years in the past 20. Among those of us who own copies of his earliest appearances, it is tacitly assumed that, in the automatically sliding timeline of the modern DCU, it "wasn't really" 1989 when Tim was accepted as Bruce Wayne's new apprentice at the end of the story arc "A Lonely Place of Dying," even though that's when those issues were published. It was just "several years ago, not long after Jason Todd died."

06. Shake Things Up

"Let's start a firestorm of controversy and really rattle our fans by making well-known characters do shocking things no one ever thought they would do! (Maybe they already did those things years ago, when no one was looking, and the truth is just now coming to light?)"

To my mind, this almost certainly was the key reason for the story arc known as "Sins Past" which was part of J. Michael Straczynski's run on "Amazing Spider-Man."

In it, we learned that Gwen Stacy had a one-night stand with Norman Osborn way back when, even though she was never in love with him, and then, when she was temporarily estranged from her regular boyfriend Peter Parker (in what had seemed like it lasted a couple of weeks, say, in the original continuity in the early 1970s), she had actually been living in Europe for several months, long enough to carry two fast-gestating babies to term, give birth, and leave them behind in France when she flew back to the Big Apple to be reconciled with Peter without telling him anything about what she had been up to lately. After Norman either murdered or contributed to the death of Gwen some time later (there is considerable disagreement among fans and pros alike regarding exactly what killed her), he secretly took over the task of raising the babies (who were maturing at an accelerated rate) to hate the evil Spider-Man whom they were taught to blame for their mother's death. Someday they might even kill Spider-Man, if he was still alive when the kids, with their own superhuman metabolisms, were old enough to have a prayer of taking him in a fight.

Meanwhile, Mary Jane Watson-Parker had known about the babies almost from the beginning (according to the retcon), but had never dropped a hint to her husband about the terrible surprise which Norman might be planning to spring upon him at any moment.

These retcons did horrible things to the previously established characterizations of both Gwen and MJ, but evidently that was deemed unimportant next to the perceived value of really "shaking things up" and getting Spider-Man fans buzzing about such shocking and controversial developments!

(But let's be fair: There was an upside! These retcons was revealed in such an illogical story arc that I later was able to amuse myself and other fans by writing a scathing parody which poked fun at its many plot holes. I guess every cloud has a silver lining, to coin a phrase!)

07. Rehabilitate the Image

"How are we supposed to keep selling books starring this person as a sympathetic character, after the way we previously dragged her through the gutter? I reckon we'll just have to rinse off the sewage with a handy retcon and try again!"

Jean Grey, also known as Marvel Girl, Phoenix, the Black Queen, and eventually Dark Phoenix, went mad and committed genocide and then suicide in a now-classic storyline by Chris Claremont and John Byrne (which I recently have been parodying in my spare time). For about five years, the tragic combination of insanity, mass murder, and eventual suicide was Absolutely, Positively, Unquestionably the Official Continuity regarding what had happened to Jean, a founding member of the original X-Men. She was dead and gone, and given all those deaths on her conscience (five billion civilians!), it was probably just as well that she was gone. (The five billion deaths were, in fact, the major reason for Jim Shooter's insistence that the original plan of just removing her superpowers at the end of the saga and then turning her loose, saying, "At least you can't ever do it again!", was not adequate punishment. I have to agree with him there!)

Years after Jean's death, someone at Marvel -- I'm not sure whom, except I've heard it definitely was not anything Chris Claremont wanted -- decided it would be a really cool idea to start a new title called "X-Factor" and have its core membership be Professor Xavier's first five students, the original X-Men from the Silver Age, now reunited after many years. Jean had been one of those five students. There was, however, the nagging little question: "How do we portray her as a superhero in new adventures if she still murdered a few billion people in 1980?"

Obviously, you couldn't really reconcile those concepts. Obviously, then, she hadn't murdered a few billion people in 1980! Someone else must have been taking her name in vain, posing as Jean Grey so successfully that her closest friends (including Professor X, one of the most powerful telepaths in the world) never had a clue! Neither did Uatu the Watcher, but then what does he know?

(Thus was begun the most infamous of X-Men traditions. "Jean Grey just died again? Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen, on how long it will last this time! And then how long it will be before she dies again! And how long after that before she comes back to life again! And then how long that will last . . .")

08. We MUST Restore the Sacred Status Quo

"Some idiot moved the pawns around on the chessboard and ruined the way things used to be, as I fondly remember it from my younger days. It's time to push those pieces right back to where they all belong; they never should have been allowed to stray from the proper configuration in the first place!"

The Clone Saga (in the Spider-Man titles of the mid-1990s) was meant to achieve something along these lines by "revealing" that the guy who had been calling himself "Peter Parker, Spider-Man" for about 20 years (mid-70s to mid-90s) was actually a clone of the original, whereas the original had been running around other parts of the country for the last four years or so (comic book time) calling himself "Ben Reilly" and thinking he was the clone and thus had no right to interfere with the "real" Peter's life in the Big Apple.

The plan, or one of the plans (it got very complicated, and Tom DeFalco later said he had meant to have an emergency escape option to undo the whole "revelation" if that appeared necessary -- long story!) was to somehow have "Ben Reilly" (Unmarried Spidey) take Married Spidey's place as the regular star of all the Spider-Man titles henceforth, thereby getting rid of the marriage which many editors and writers then working at Marvel viewed as a colossal blunder which they had been saddled with since the late 1980s.

But as it turned out, the surgical removal of the marriage from the ongoing titles didn't really happen (at the time). A few years later Marvel tried killing off Mary Jane by exploding an airplane with her aboard, as another means to the same end of undoing the pesky marriage, and more recently they went back to taking a fresh stab at using some sort of retcon to Restore the Sacred Status Quo; this time by having Peter suddenly lose his marbles and reach the uncharacteristic conclusion that making a pact with the devil (or a devil, anyway -- Mephisto by name!) was a brilliant idea that couldn't possibly backfire! One consequence of this was to rewrite history so that now Peter and MJ have never been married at all. Thus restoring the Status Quo in which Peter was a bachelor in the 1960s, the 1970s, and much of the 1980s. (I gather that "turning back the clock" also undid the way his secret identity had been publicly revealed during the events of the Civil War, thus restoring the Status Quo in that vital area as well!)

09. Turn a Character Into a Sock Puppet to Further Your Agenda

"I've got an agenda to sell, and by golly, I'm going to mutilate the previously established histories and personalities of long-running characters in any way necessary, for the greater good!"

A few years ago I saw someone complaining about what Reginald Hudlin had recently done to Victor Von Doom in a Black Panther story.

The dialogue allegedly went as follows:

DOCTOR DOOM: I've always said the African is a superior physical specimen.

DOCTOR DOOM: Generally true, yes, but clearly the Wakandan is exceptional! Perhaps a low-grade mutant strain in your peoples' DNA.

I have not actually read that story. Although my own understanding of Doom, based on reading dozens of his other appearances in stories by many different writers over a span of decades, is that he regards himself as inherently superior to nearly every other member of the human race, no matter what they look like or where their ancestors came from. (With a handful of possible exceptions, such as Reed Richards. The alternative would be to admit that many of his brilliant schemes had been regularly foiled by a group led by a man who was his intellectual inferior, and somehow I doubt Doom would ever admit that, even if it were true.)

But apparently Hudlin was bound and determined to "make a point" about racism and use one of Marvel's longest-running villains to do it, no matter what stood in his way -- such as Doctor Doom's previously well-established conviction that he was superior to just about everybody, and had never previously felt the need to waste time on the hairsplitting distinctions which other people preferred to draw between one racial group and another?

P.S. To be fair, when I first saw a thread a few years ago in which someone was complaining about this "retcon" turning Doom into a racist (instead of his just being convinced of his own intellectual supremacy in a non-racist sort of way), I observed that he hadn't exactly made those sweeping and unkind generalizations about "the African." Storm, pretending she could read his mind, had interrupted him by trying to shove those exact words into his mouth for no clear reason (not as far as I could tell from the excerpt I read of their conversation, anyway). One could argue that Doom simply didn't bother to contradict her wild assumptions. It occurred to me that if I were a megalomaniacal villain in Doom's shoes at that moment, it might have amused me to "play along" with a self-righteous superhero's clueless attempt to psychoanalyze me on the spur of the moment.

10. Expand the Character's Family Tree

"It's about time to drag another long-lost relative onstage for some dramatic tension with the hero!"

Of course, in some cases this isn't really a retcon in the sense of "explicitly contradicting" any previous statement from older stories. We are simply led to believe that somehow the hero never got around to mentioning that particular relative before (or in some cases, the hero never knew this person existed!). For instance: back in the Silver Age, there was a story I've heard about in which Bruce Wayne was visited in Gotham City by an older relative "from the coast" (the Pacific Coast of the USA, I'm guessing?); a private investigator named Bruce N. Wayne who was a first cousin of Batman's late father Thomas. Bruce N. and Thomas must have been very close, once upon a time; I'm told that it was stated that our Bruce had actually been named in honor of the older one!

As far as I know -- but I don't know everything -- there had never been any previous Batman story in which Bruce had said tragically, "I'm the last of the Waynes -- I don't even have any cousins on my father's side of the family, or not close enough to count! There might be a few fourth cousins somewhere, I guess." So the introduction of Bruce N., first cousin of the late Thomas Wayne, probably did not "squarely contradict" any previous Batman story; it merely was "something we forgot to mention before." (And I am told that after his few minutes in the spotlight, Bruce N. Wayne has never been mentioned again in subsequent Batman continuity, so I have no idea whether or not he is "still" part of the Wayne family tree.)

On the other hand, sometimes the retconning of the family tree is done in a heavy-handed way that squarely contradicts things we were previously told. For instance! I've read that when Lightning Lad's origin was first shared with DC's readers in the Silver Age, it was made perfectly clear that he was the only person who had been exposed to some lightning beasts on the world of Korbal and somehow those beasts had charged him up with incredible electrical powers.

Later the Legion of Super-Heroes fought the Legion of Super-Villains for the first time, and readers were introduced to Garth Ranzz's older brother Mekt (Lightning Lord), retconned in out of thin air, who was now stated to have been exposed to the power of the lightning beasts at the same time as the future Lightning Lad, but Mekt chose to use his powers for evil.

A couple of years later, readers were introduced to Ayla Ranzz, Lightning Lad's twin sister, retconned in out of thin air for the occasion, who was now stated to be one of the tree siblings who had all been simultaneously changed by an encounter with some of the lightning beasts of Korbal!

Each new version of Lightning Lad's origin story was shamelessly retconning what had been revealed in previous versions, but that was deemed trivial next to the "need" to keep making things more dramatic by dragging in another electrically powered relative!

11. The Total Amnesia Retcon

"If we all agree to ignore it, maybe it will just quietly fade away and be forgotten."

In #03 on this list, I discussed "Erasure of an Embarrassment." But there I was mainly envisioning obvious retcons which squarely address a very touchy subject and "explain" why there was something going on that didn't meet the eye at the time, so it wasn't really as bad as it looked. For instance: "Yes, Hal Jordan did all the nasty stuff he was shown doing in 'Emerald Twilight' and 'Zero Hour' and a few other stories, but his mind hadn't just 'snapped under pressure' as you were led to believe at the time. An ancient yellow fear demon had previously gotten its hooks into him and was exercising more and more control, so it wasn't really his fault! The same thing could happen to anybody!"

A very different approach is to simply never speak of an awkward subject again, and hope the worst aspects of it will fade from the consciousness of your old fans while any new fans remain cheerfully oblivious regarding what once happened, years and years ago. In this approach, if you're the editor (or the writer) on the title or titles which would "logically" be expected to deal with the long-term consequences of whatever once happened, you don't explicitly say: "That awkward concept from that old story is still in continuity," and you don't explicitly say: "That awkward concept has been Officially Erased from continuity as a public service." You just try to avoid the subject entirely!

For instance: Last year I happened to learn from online discussions that there was a Silver Age story (in "Superboy #158," published in 1969) in which teenaged Kal-El discovered that his birth parents, Jor-El and Lara Lor-Van, had survived the destruction of Krypton. They were frozen in suspended animation in a spaceship which had escaped the dying world in the nick of time, but they couldn't be awakened just now or else they would slowly and painfully perish from massive radiation poisoning. So Superboy had to sadly put them back in deep space (he'd taken the ship back to Earth before he realized the part about the radiation poisoning), and leave them drifting in the middle of nowhere until such time as a cure might be found . . . someday . . . if they were lucky.

As near as I can tell from online resources, the "shocking revelation" from that story was never mentioned again.

On the one hand, I have not found any report of any Superman editor ever explicitly saying, in a lettercol or a public appearance at a convention or anywhere else in the many years between that story and the total reboot of Superman continuity in the Post-COIE era, "That was a flawed idea and as far as we're concerned, it never happened to the Earth-1 version of Clark Kent. Maybe it was all a dream sequence, or it happened to the Superboy of some other obscure corner of the Multiverse, the guy from Earth-462 or something, but it didn't happen in our mainstream Earth-1 continuity. Honest!"

On the other hand, I've read plenty of Superman stories from the 1970s and the Pre-COIE portion of the 1980s which had him refer, regretfully, to the deaths of his biological parents at the time Krypton exploded. He hoped to find a way to rescue his friend Lar Gand (or "Mon-El") from the Phantom Zone without having him die of lead poisoning, and he hoped to find a way to restore the inhabitants of the Bottled City of Kandor to their proper size, but he never said a word about hoping to someday find a way to cure the radioactive problems which prevented him from defrosting his beloved parents for a family reunion. It was obvious that he "knew" they were dead and gone, ashes to ashes and dust to dust, with nothing he could do for them now except try to live up to their presumed expectations. No hint that he had learned differently during his years as a teenaged "Superboy."

So the weight of the evidence suggests that the story from "Superboy #158" had been neatly erased by a very quiet retcon, without anyone at DC bothering to admit for the record that this had occurred.

On the other hand: One could make a fairly decent argument that since DC never said the story was erased from Earth-1's continuity, the evidence of Earth-1's grown-up Superman's consistent failure to mention that discovery as still weighing heavily upon his mind didn't prove the discovery of his parents' frozen bodies hadn't happened in his corner of the multiverse after all; it only proved he didn't remember it!

There could be various reasons for him to have lost the memory! Considering how many different excuses have been used in DC's continuity (both Pre- and Post-COIE) to remove or seriously alter the memories inside a superhero's head, there could be a huge gap between "that didn't happen" and "I don't remember anything like that."

All this serves as a perfect example of the phenomenon which I once dubbed the Total Amnesia Retcon.

By that name, I didn't mean: "Everybody who was involved in an old story Definitely Got Amnesia and doesn't remember the crucial events from that adventure any more." (Although this has been known to happen.) All I meant was: "Getting the memories scrubbed out of their heads may be exactly what happened, but nobody has said so to us. Or it may be that the story didn't happen at all, according to the latest whims of the editors and writers currently working with those characters -- but again, nobody has said so to us! All we can say for sure is that the characters never mention those events any more, even at times when it would make perfect sense for them to be vividly reminded of those events because of the obvious relevance to whatever they are talking about right now!"

So it's ambiguous -- either the characters got amnesia about certain events in a scene which we never saw, or else the entire story got erased, in a retcon which we never saw. We are left to scratch our heads and try to guess which is the case, because the publishing company has no intention of telling us!

12. The Continuity is Already Scrambled

"Story A contradicts Story B, and both contradict Story C . . . and now I'm supposed to take over the title and find a way to make everybody happy when I deal with the subject? The continuity nuts will burn me in effigy for 'shameless, self-indulgent retconning of previous plot twists' -- no matter what I do!"

Sometimes you just can't win. Stories in previous years, probably written by other people, have already blatantly contradicted one other on points which at least some of your fanbase strongly cares about. If you, as the new writer on the title, touch on a certain volatile subject at all in a new plot, then you will inevitably be "disrespecting" at least one of those older stories which dealt with the same general subject, no matter how good your intentions are! The best you probably can do is to figure out what you think "should have been" the continuity all along, and start writing as if that is, and always has been, "the way it is."

While the Golden Age was still going on, a story was published in "Superman #76" which showed us how Superman and Batman learned each other's secret identities. By sheer coincidence they were assigned to the same stateroom on a passenger liner, and when an emergency came along, both men tried to inconspicuously change into costume in the dark, but just then a light shone through the porthole and they each saw what the other guy was silently doing . . . so that was how they "first met" in their secret identities and how they each learned the other fellow's secrets.

Or how they learned these things for the first time, anyway. Over the next few decades, other stories were told which offered mutually contradictory accounts of just how and when Clark and Bruce, and/or Superman and Batman, had "first met" and/or "first learned" each other's secrets, with some of those stories being set in their teenage years, long before they used the aliases "Superman" and "Batman."

I gather that by the early 1980s it didn't matter how well you understood and loved the old continuity on the subject of "When did Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent first meet, and when did they first learn each other's secrets?", because if you were writing scripts for DC, and if you talked about any "answer" to those questions in a new story, then you would inevitably be contradicting, to some degree, some or all of the other answers which had been offered over the years! And you had to assume that some of your alert readers would promptly notice your "mistakes"!

Roy Thomas, who enjoyed tackling this sort of puzzle, finally a story published in "World's Finest Comics #271" in which he tried to acknowledge, and reconcile as best he could, all of the previous efforts which dealt with such matters. I'm told that he did a pretty good job of it, but I'm sure he had to contradict various details of this, that, and the other thing in his effort to lay down the law with one unified Official Version of how the Bruce/Clark friendship had "really" developed over the years in the Earth-1 continuity (I hear that he also worked in mention of the differences in the Earth-2 continuity on that subject, somewhere along the way).

13. Working Out a Personal Grudge

"Does that clown think he's a better writer than me? I'll show him! I'll write stories that poke holes in some of his recent stories! Serves him right!"

In an interview he did for CBR years ago, Jim Shooter talked a bit about how things stood between Chris Claremont and John Byrne back in the early 1980s, after the end of their classic collaborative run on the X-Men. Claremont stayed with the X-Men and Byrne moved on to start writing his own scripts in other titles. Apparently the parting of ways had not been entirely amicable. Shooter said:

They had a falling out. And so John Byrne goes on to do Alpha Flight and other things. Chris gets other artists and marches on with X-Men. In the various other books he was doing, FF, Alpha Flight, whatever, John would do these stories... like if Chris was using Doctor Doom in an X-Men story, then John would do a story that proved that the Doctor Doom Chris had used was a robot.

And he would have snotty comments, like you think I would have said something as stupid as what this robot said. This would happen a lot.

Then Chris would want to fire back. But Chris had better editors who were more on the ball. John, I think would seek out editors with whom he could get away with that type of stuff.

That motivation for retconning bits and pieces of someone else's scripts is just plain sad. What else can I say?

14. Never Supposed to Be in Continuity in the First Place

"Gosh, did we forget to say, within the actual comic book which contained that weird story, that it all had Absolutely Nothing to do with the 'regular continuity' of the characters in question? How silly of us! I guess now the fans are getting awfully confused about whether this new stuff was a sneaky retcon, or what! Oh well, they'll just have to get over it!"

From what I remember of letter columns in the Batman titles of the late 1980s, the editors found it necessary to say, more than once, something along the following lines (paraphrased in my own words), in response to concerned readers: "Frank Miller's 'Dark Knight Returns' is not The Absolutely Official and Unavoidable Future for Batman and Superman and any other characters who appeared in that graphic novel. It's just Miller's personal vision of one way Bruce Wayne's life might develop by the time he's 55. If you don't like to think that this is the way he'll end up, then don't worry about it!"

On a similar note: A few years after DKR was such a hit, DC started a new monthly Batman title called "Legends of the Dark Knight." At least three times in the first two years, DC's editors found it necessary to allude (in the title's letter columns) to the idea that any story arc published in LOTDK was not necessarily binding upon the regular continuity of Batman as he appeared in other monthly titles which were supposed to be integrated into the larger DCU. But, of course, there was no such warning offered as boilerplate in every single issue of LOTDK, so it's perfectly understandable that in recent years I've encountered people on one fan forum or another who are confused on the subject of whether one memorable story arc or another in LOTDK should automatically be taken at face value as something the modern Batman "must remember" from the early years of his costumed career.

And then in the mid-90s, Denny O'Neil evidently gave the green light to a massive project called "The Long Halloween," written by Jeph Loeb and published in 13 monthly installments. Various plot points in "The Long Halloween" and its sequel, "Dark Victory," contradicted things which had previously been stated about one character or another in "modern continuity" Batman stories. For instance, "Knightfall," a story arc published in 1993, contained a sequence in which Bruce and Selina were meeting face-to-face for what was evidently "the very first time" in their unmasked roles, with neither person showing any faint suspicion that the other had a costumed identity as well, nor that they had ever clashed before when both wearing masks. But just a few years later, in "The Long Halloween," it amused Jeph Loeb to have Bruce and Selina dating each other regularly in a storyline obviously set in the early years of Batman's career, before he had even met Dick Grayson.

There was an obvious contradiction here. The best explanation I've heard -- and it makes as much sense as anything, although I can't swear to its accuracy -- is that when Loeb wasn't even trying to sell this "Bruce and Selina had a romance ages ago" concept as a Great Big Retcon to Modern Batman Continuity at the time he submitted his plot ideas for "The Long Halloween," and that Denny O'Neil (the Batman group editor all through the 1990s) didn't think he was approving any such retcon to the events of "Knightfall" when he gave TLH the green light.

The story goes that Denny O'Neil regarded the 13-part "The Long Halloween" miniseries as the functional equivalent of most of the story arcs published in "Legends of the Dark Knight," which -- as I mentioned above -- were in a "fuzzy continuity" status of "Maybe something resembling this story could have happened to the regular version of Batman, once upon a time, and maybe it didn't. You get no guarantees. If you see obvious inconsistencies with the continuity set forth in other titles such as 'Batman' and 'Detective Comics,' don't sweat it!"

But of course none of this (assuming it's true) was spelled out at the time for the sake of any innocent young fan who wandered in off the street and happened to pick up an issue of TLH, nor was anything along those lines ever clarified in the reprint editions which collected the entire epic.

That's it for the 14 Motives I came up with on my own. As always, I take it for granted that my first attempt to analyze such a complicated subject is bound to have room for improvement. If you can think of any motives I completely overlooked, or you see any flaws in my explanations and examples for the answers I included, then please say so! If you want me to consider adding another possible answer to a future draft of this list, however, then it will help immensely if you mention at least one specific example of a case which illustrates your point.

Meanwhile, here are some links to many previous posts I've done over the last few years, comprising what I have come to think of as my "Numbered List" series. Every once in a while it amuses me to think about some odd aspect of the superhero genre, and to try to list and explain all the different approaches I can remember for that sort of thing, or all the different reasons that ridiculous things keep happening..

12 Motives for Killing a Comic Book Character
17 Excuses for Bringing Back a Dead Character
16 Types of Retcons
19 Ways to End a Superhero's Romance
22 Ways to Show a Superhero Killing Someone
9 Categories of Continuity
5 Types of Superhero Team Members
Secret Identities: 10 Ways to Unspill the Beans
Superhero Finances: 10 Situations
13 Reasons to Use a Deathtrap
14 Functions for a Superhero Costume
10 Types of Superhero Successors
14 Ways to Rehabilitate a Disgraced Hero
14 Motives for Becoming a Superhero
12 Tricks for Keeping Superheroes Young
13 Reasons to Quit the Superhero Racket
12 Rationales for a Hero-Versus-Hero Slugfest on the Cover
What To Do With a Supervillain After You Catch Him: 12 Options
14 Motives for Becoming a Supervillain

56 Comments

• At February 9, 2009, Marcelo Soares wrote:

  On point 1: hey, look again at the story where Damien's conception is shown. The scene shown in the flashback ...

• At February 9, 2009, Alonso wrote:

  Thanks. I love this list. I'm gonna go run it through some various comic runs now!

  On a side note ...

• At February 9, 2009, John Seavey wrote:

  I'd point out that "Green Lantern: Rebirth" is really more of a #7 (Rehabilitate the Image) than a #3 (Remove ...

• At February 9, 2009, Tom Fitzpatrick wrote:

  I seem to remember Donna Troy of The New Teen Titans (Wolfman & Perez era) where they did a "Who ...

• At February 9, 2009, Michael wrote:

  Simpler answer: "Comic book writers are nerds."

• At February 9, 2009, Manglr wrote:

  Regarding the 'ongoing sliding timescale retcon'...I also enjoy two other little varitions on that idea...

  1) The character is so tied ...

• At February 9, 2009, Beta Ray Steve wrote:

  I's add #15: Laziness. When writers have no idea what to do with a character, they go through the character's ...

• At February 9, 2009, Wesley wrote:

  RE: #7 Rehabilitate the Image

  "Years after Jean’s death, someone at Marvel — I’m not sure whom, except I’ve heard it ...

• At February 9, 2009, Wesley wrote:

  Whoops, my mistake.

  According to the X-Factor Wikipedia entry:

  "However, future Marvel writer Kurt Busiek suggested a solution to this problem, ...

• At February 9, 2009, Tekende wrote:

  Every single one of these motives contain examples that are destined to become Grant Morrison comics at some point.

• At February 9, 2009, Blackjack wrote:

  I'm glad this was posted...I've been wanting to vent. Apologies for the crankiness in advance:

  So how do we classify ...

• At February 9, 2009, Greg Hatcher wrote:

  Apparently they can only get 10 years of stories out of their characters nowadays before rebooting…

  Ten years is pretty good. ...

• At February 9, 2009, Greg Hatcher wrote:

  I don't actually disagree with Blackjack about Didio, by the way... but that's just symptomatic of what happens when you ...

• At February 9, 2009, Blackjack wrote:

  Thanks, Greg. I guess you summed up my point better than I actually went off about it. It ...

• At February 9, 2009, Lee wrote:

  I've never understood why they just never used madelyne Pryor as the fifth member of X-factor instead of having to ...

• At February 9, 2009, Anthony Cheng wrote:

  Cool list, but I think you conflate "motive" and "method" at times. Some things, like #5 Keep Them Young, are ...

• At February 9, 2009, Toby Baldwin wrote:

  Brian,

  Enjoyable and interesting entry -- thank you.

  I agree that most retcons fit into one of the items on your ...

• At February 9, 2009, doron wrote:

  is it possible to give the link for the sins past parody?

• At February 9, 2009, papabaron wrote:

  The worst retconning I can think of which probably falls under #11 is when Marvel killed off Tony Stark and ...

• At February 9, 2009, Sijo wrote:

  Another great article by Lorendiac (I really need to read the rest of his stuff.)

  I used to be one of ...

• At February 9, 2009, Jeff R wrote:

  So....which category do we file "The Anatomy Lesson" under? I can't really argue it into any of the 14, ...

• At February 9, 2009, Neal K wrote:

  Reading through this list (and it is a very good, fun list) and the comments just leads me to a ...

• At February 9, 2009, Rob Schmidt wrote:

  Speaking of Bruce N. Wayne, Batman's first cousin once removed, don't forget Batman's older brother Thomas Wayne Jr. Unless ...

• At February 9, 2009, Dean wrote:

  We don’t often see it done with that level of craft and care, though. Even before doing a Crisis became ...

• At February 9, 2009, Manglr wrote:

  Regarding continuity....I tend to agree with Neal K. I don't care that much.

  If you take the decades and decades ...

• At February 9, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  doron asked: is it possible to give the link for the sins past parody?

  In January of 2006 I posted the ...

• At February 9, 2009, Bernard the Poet wrote:

  I'd like to echo Beta Ray Steve's suggestion that laziness often plays a big part in ret-cons. It’s easier ...

• At February 9, 2009, Annoyed Grunt wrote:

  What about a retcon designed to make the source material like the new movie or tv show? For example, ...

• At February 9, 2009, Dave wrote:

  #11 seems like it might belong more on the method of implementing a retcon list than on a list of ...

• At February 9, 2009, Ted wrote:

  We'll done on an interesting article Lorendiac, but if I may take issue with number 2. While I agree with ...

• At February 9, 2009, Andy wrote:

  I think a couple of the not-fully-addressed examples mentioned here might fall under a larger category called something, like, say, ...

• At February 9, 2009, Lynxara wrote:

  Reading this list made me realize that I have no emotional investment in continuity, I get really actively annoyed by ...

• At February 9, 2009, Chris Jones wrote:

  John Byrne sounds like kind of a huge sack of crap from everything I've heard about him.

• At February 9, 2009, Dean wrote:

  For example, it seems clear to me that what makes Superman special is that he is the last son of ...

• At February 10, 2009, Chris Griswold wrote:

  Another great retcon by Moore: In WildC.A.T.s, the main characters, who have been continuing a war between alien races the ...

• At February 10, 2009, John Seavey wrote:

  @papabaron: I know that somewhere, they did a story that explained exactly what happened to Tony Stark during the "Heroes ...

• At February 10, 2009, Superman For NBA MVP? | Digg PhotoBlog wrote:

  [...] Lorendiac’s Lists: 14 Answers to “Why So Many Retcons?” Comic Book Resources ,February 09, 2009 About a year and ...

• At February 10, 2009, Ben Herman wrote:

  Facts so important that they become an integral part of a characters bible is continuity that matters. Captain America returning ...

• At February 10, 2009, dhole wrote:

  This is a fun list.

  I'd like to think I was pretty easy-going about continuity, but the "grudge" category always bothered ...

• At February 10, 2009, Bernard the Poet wrote:

  Claremont wasn't completely blameless. In X-Men issue 167, he has Lilandra call Reed out for saving Galactus's life.

• At February 10, 2009, Rene wrote:

  There is one major reason for reboots that isn't quite covered by the list: MONEY.

  I don't think the 1986's reboot ...

• At February 11, 2009, Blackjack wrote:

  On Continuity:

  I think it depends. I like continuity from the standpoint that I value characterization, and without some semblance ...

• At February 11, 2009, dhole wrote:

  "Claremont wasn’t completely blameless. In X-Men issue 167, he has Lilandra call Reed out for saving Galactus’s life."

  Actually I'd forgotten ...

• At February 11, 2009, Bernard the Poet wrote:

  One major motive for reboots has been the growing maturity of comic readers.

  Most of DC’s biggest characters were created in ...

• At February 11, 2009, Dean wrote:

  If you look at the DC characters with the most tortuous back stories, you invariably find that these are the ...

• At February 11, 2009, Dean wrote:

  One major motive for reboots has been the growing maturity of comic readers.

  I literally do not understand why DC doesn't ...

• At February 11, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Marcelo Soares said:

  On point 1: hey, look again at the story where Damien’s conception is shown. The scene shown in ...

• At February 11, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  That "Anonymous" comment immediately above was from me. I didn't realize the PC I'm currently using wouldn't automatically populate those ...

• At February 11, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Tom Fitzpatrick -- you mentioned the many origin stories of Donna Troy. I had toyed with the idea of mentioning ...

• At February 11, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Beta Ray Steve -- I think the only story I remember hearing of, offhand, which "revisited" the question of "who ...

• At February 11, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Wesley -- I remembered hearing the bit about how Kurt Busiek, before he was a big-name writer in the industry, ...

• At February 12, 2009, Bernard the Poet wrote:

  Dean - I agree that the Earth 2 Hawkman's origin stands up a bit better than the Thanagar version, but ...

• At February 12, 2009, Drancron wrote:

  A great read. How about a retcon-that-is-necessary-to-spur-a-massive-line-wide-crossover? :-) Like, if Wonder Woman had killed Maxwell Lord the cyborg, ...

• At February 13, 2009, DanCJ wrote:

  I literally do not understand why DC doesn’t have three distinct imprints that have their own “universes” targeted to different ...

• At February 18, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Blackjack -- I haven't read "Batman #684," so I haven't seen the DiDio column you mention.

  I will say that ...

• At February 18, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Greg Hatcher -- I have trouble thinking of Simone's work on "Birds of Prey" as any type of reboot, even ...

It's been over three years since Wonder Woman killed Max Lord and Superman gaped in horror at the spectacle. That's enough time for our tempers to cool enough to let us look at the context in a calm, rational fashion . . . right?

The plain implication of Superman's reaction was that he had never seen his friend Diana kill a sentient being before, he had never heard of her killing a sentient being before, and he had never believed that she might start doing such a thing in the foreseeable future, no matter how viciously dangerous a particular villain appeared to be! The entire concept came as a complete shock to him!

When considered in the context of all the other Wonder Woman stories which had been published since her Post-Crisis on Infinite Earths Reboot, did that "plain implication" actually make any sense? Let's look at the record!

Timeline of Wonder Woman's Killings, Post-Crisis (First Draft)

Note: All listings for relevant issues of "Wonder Woman" in this Timeline refer to stories from the second series to use that title; the one that began shortly after "Crisis on Infinite Earths" and ended during "Infinite Crisis." Most of the time I refer to her as "Diana" for the sake of simplicity, since she hasn't always used the name "Wonder Woman." For instance, she didn't introduce herself to people that way during the first few issues of her Post-COIE series; but someone in the media finally invented it as a good superhero name for her and it stuck! Several years later, Artemis of the Bana-Mighdall Amazons was the official "Wonder Woman" for a while.

1987. Wonder Woman #4. Written by Greg Potter. George Perez is listed as the co-plotter.

Diana fights Decay (a daughter of Medusa, we are told), who has been ravaging the city of Boston and causing some deaths. Diana kills Decay, thus ending that reign of terror. She makes no attempt to keep the details secret-in fact, she couldn't even if she wanted to, because the entire thing is captured on film by various journalists, with at least one TV cameraman assuring her she's on "national television" when they attempt to interview her right after Decay explodes. (Since Diana does not yet speak fluent English at this point, the attempt to interview her doesn't get very far.)

1987. Wonder Woman #5. Written by Len Wein. Plotted by George Perez.

Diana finds it necessary to kill Deimos, one of the sons of Ares, in the course of preventing nuclear holocaust. No news crews are on the scene this time, but Steve Trevor, Matthew Michaelis, Etta Candy, and Julia Kapatelis are all witnesses. In the next few issues of this series, we will be assured that Diana and the other survivors (Col. Michaelis died in battle) do their level best to spread the full story of what had really been going on during the first five issues of this series. There's no indication that they tried to withhold any details about the fate of Deimos.

1987. Wonder Woman #10. Written by Len Wein. Plotted by George Perez.

Diana kills a dark, evil creature called Cottus with a spear through the heart. Cottus was capable of speaking coherent sentences, so it evidently was a sentient, living creature. (On the other hand, in the next issue Diana kills a Hydra, but I don't remember it saying anything, so I'm inclined to call it a "deadly animal" rather than a "person," and not give it a separate listing on this Timeline.)

1994. Wonder Woman #92. Written by William Messner-Loebs.

Diana seems to kill at least two, maybe more, of a group of "Harpies" which attacks her during a race which is part of a lengthy contest to determine who will be Wonder Woman from now on. Later in this issue, she also fights a "Medusa" (apparently not the original Gorgon of that name from the days of myth). Two other Amazons have been turned to stone by the Medusa before Diana comes along to save the day, and after the Medusa falls off a cliff those two seem to have been automatically restored to their normal flesh-and-blood conditions, so it appears that Diana killed the Medusa by making it fall, and thus broke the spell.

Note: I don't see the Harpies or the Medusa in this issue showing any language skills at all-and it was made clear to the reader that they were obstacles somehow placed along the course of the race by Diana's mother, Queen Hippolyta, who wanted to ensure that her daughter lost this contest-so it's possible that the monsters Diana fought were soulless magical constructs or some such thing, rather than "real persons." Although even if they were soulless (which isn't clear), I don't think Diana knew that at the time she was fighting them in the heat of the moment. She didn't seem too worried about it either.

1995. Wonder Woman #100. Written by William Messner-Loebs.

Diana kills Asquith Randolph, The White Magician, after he has mortally wounded Artemis (who has been the new Wonder Woman for the last several issues, ever since the end of that race I mentioned in the previous entry).

1996. Wonder Woman #112. Written by John Byrne.

Diana fights what she believes to be Doomsday, and finally decides to put on the Gauntlet of Atlas long enough to multiply her already-incredible strength by a factor of ten so she can hit Doomsday extra-hard. Doomsday shatters into dust as soon as Diana lands the first multiplied-tenfold punch on him. Superman arrives on the scene just in time to see that happen. He mentions being being impressed by the strength Diana has just exhibited, but doesn't seem upset about the killing of "Doomsday" in the interval before he realizes the dust it became isn't even organic. (It turned out the whole thing was a "virtual clone," electronically created. Long story. For my purposes, the point is that Diana had no inkling of all that when she struck "Doomsday" with her normal super-strength magnified by a factor of ten.)

2000. Wonder Woman #163. Written by Ben Raab.

Diana kills Triton, a son of Poseidon, in retribution for the deaths of a boatful of young girls called "Wonder Scouts." Triton didn't kill them directly; he hired Black Manta to do it for him. Aquaman co-stars in this story; he convinces Diana not to kill a captive Black Manta, but he doesn't seem to object when he sees her kill Triton several pages later. (Figure that out if you can!)

1999. Action Comics #761. Written by Joe Kelly.

This story is downright weird. If taken at face value, the following things occur: Wonder Woman and Superman are magically summoned to Valhalla to help the Norse Gods fight an evil demon horde collectively called the Vgrtsmyth. They fight side by side for a thousand years without any vacations. Diana kills enemies right and left. Superman steadfastly refuses to do so. (It is far from clear what happens to any demon warriors whom he knocks down without killing.) He also refuses to sleep with Diana even after a thousand years of being comrades in arms, when he figures his wife Lois is long dead anyway. After they've ended the war, Thor (who died and returned during all this) offers to grant each of them a wish in reward for their valiant service. Since the story ends with Superman back in Metropolis, kissing Lois, the implication is that he wished to be returned to the same day on Earth from which he had been yanked away (but we never actually saw how he worded his wish).

This story has always annoyed me, although I can see that Kelly was bound and determined to find a way to hit us over the head with the idea that Superman will always be faithful to his wife, no matter how long the separation or how great the temptation. I prefer to think of the Valhalla stuff as a mystical dream sequence, easily forgotten, which Kelly simply "forgot" to label as a dream sequence, rather than something which "really happened" to Superman for a full millennium "in continuity." But if we take it at face value, then Superman spent a thousand years watching Diana kill demons practically nonstop, and he learned to live with it, and there is no dialogue in the last couple of pages of the story to indicate that those events were magically scrubbed from his memory before he returned home to Lois. (On the other hand, I've never actually seen or heard of any subsequent Superman story which explicitly referenced that thousand-year-war as something which he still remembered after it was over and done with, so maybe he did ask to have all that nonsense wiped out of his memory?)

2003. Wonder Woman #192. Written by Walt Simonson.

Diana (our Wonder Woman) fights Diana, the Roman Goddess, in Olympus. At the end of the fight, Diana (ours) knocks Diana (the other one) across the room and she slams into the base of a huge statue of Zeus, which then falls on Diana (the Roman Goddess) and causes her to quickly die of her injuries. Our Diana had not necessarily intended to kill her adversary, but it happened anyway, as a result of the powerful blow she struck. Most people would call that "killing the enemy in battle."

2004. JLA #99. Written by Chris Claremont. Co-plotted by John Byrne. Concluding chapter of the six-part story arc called "The Tenth Circle."

For much of this story arc, Superman has been under the mental control of the vampire Crucifer. After the combined forces of the JLA and the Doom Patrol have fixed that problem and otherwise softened Crucifer up, Superman (back in his right mind again) kills Crucifer on the spot (using a crucifix which Batman thoughtfully provides). All the other heroes in the vicinity (including Wonder Woman) don't seem to object to Superman's method of ensuring that Crucifer's mind-control schtick will never afflict the Man of Steel again. Batman even makes a rather ghoulish joke about Crucifer's fate as the story finally ends.

2004. Wonder Woman #210. Written by Greg Rucka.

Diana fights Medousa the Gorgon (it's spelled "Medousa" in this story) in a globally televised duel to the death. After blinding herself as a defensive measure, Diana chops off Medousa's head. In Diana's defense, I might mention that, according to two estimates (Circe's and Athena's), Medousa would probably, after defeating Diana, have been ready, willing, and able to transmit her power of petrification over the airwaves via the aforementioned live TV broadcast and thus turn at least forty million mortals into stone in the blink of an eye. Incidentally, the first page of this issue includes a panel showing Superman and several other members of the JLA grimly standing by in the Watchtower; the plain implication is that they've heard exactly what's going on and feel that they "should" or "must" leave the situation completely in Diana's hands.

2005. Wonder Woman #213. Written by Greg Rucka.

Athena is challenging the authority of her father, Zeus, in Olympus; seeking to become his successor as the ruler of the Greek gods, effective immediately. They agree to settle it with a battle of champions; Zeus's champion is a giant creature called Briareos and Athena's champion is Diana (still blind after her fight with Medousa). Diana finally wins by pulling the head of Medousa out of a bag and waving it at Briareos; the head still has the ability to petrify people, even though Medousa is dead. Although Briareos follows orders from Zeus, he never demonstrates any ability to express himself coherently; just random growls such as "RRRHHAAA!" So I'm not sure whether he qualifies as "sentient," but thought I would list him here to be on the safe side.

2005. Wonder Woman #219. Written by Greg Rucka.

Max Lord has been using his telepathic gifts to mind-control Superman. Superman and Diana spend most of this issue fighting. Diana suffers a broken wrist and probably other injuries from being struck so hard, repeatedly, by the Last Son of Krypton. Finally she gets her magic lasso around Max Lord and starts interrogating him about the situation. Max asserts, "I'll never let him go," and then, in response to a question about how Diana can free Superman from his control, answers simply: "Kill me."

Diana takes Max at his word about this being the one sure way to guarantee Superman will never be driven berserk by Max's mind-control abilities again . . . and breaks his neck.

Suddenly the terrible truth dawns on Superman! His horrified reaction heavily implies that for the first time he has suddenly realized that Wonder Woman actually thinks it's morally acceptable for her to deliberately kill unrepentant, powerful, blatantly murderous enemies under certain circumstances, as a way of making sure that neither she nor any innocent civilians will be ever be butchered by those particular villains in the future!

Note: In all the relevant issues I've read which show something of Superman's dismay at the fate of Max Lord (including "Infinite Crisis #1"), Superman makes no acknowledgement of having ever seen or heard of Diana's deliberately killing any other sentient enemy in any other time and place. Likewise, neither Superman nor Wonder Woman nor anyone else seems to have pointed out the Painfully Obvious Parallels between how Superman handled the Crucifer problem (and why), and how Diana handled the Max Lord problem (and why). Even though Superman killed Crucifer with a weapon provided by Batman, while Wonder Woman was watching, after other heroes had deliberately played a part in making Crucifer more vulnerable to such an attack than he previously would have been (it's a long story).

2005. Superman #223. Written by Mark Verheiden.

Superman says to Supergirl, "I don't care if it's Max Lord or Luthor or anyone . . . life is sacred. Diana forgot that. I don't want that to happen to you."

Of course Diana couldn't "forget" anything unless she previously "knew" it. So Superman's statement just begs the question: When did Diana ever lead Superman to believe that she "knew" that the life of a cold-blooded super-powered murderer is just as sacred as the lives of any of the people he will kill in the future if he gets the opportunity?

(And if you happen to know a serious answer to that last question-for instance, if you can think of any story, in any DC comic book published after the Post-COIE Reboots and before the death of Max Lord, in which Diana did tell Superman she had a firm policy against deliberately killing her enemies, then please let me know! I'll be delighted to add a summary of that event to the next draft of my Timeline!)

How do we explain the huge disconnect between all of Post-COIE Diana's previous killings on the one hand, and Post-COIE Superman's slack-jawed astonishment at the "discovery" that she sometimes deliberately kills her enemies, on the other hand?

At first glance, the possible explanations include:

1. Bad Writing.
2. Bad Editing.
3. Implicit Spur-of-the-Moment Retconning. ("Gee, guys, I guess we completely forgot to mention to you that Superboy-Prime presumably erased all those previous killings from Wonder Woman's continuity when he was punching that wall, over and over, before Infinite Crisis got started." Or any other excuse, such as "Hypertime fluctuated again," which would amount to the same thing.)
4. All of the above!

I currently favor #4, but I'm willing to listen to other points of view! I could have overlooked another possible way to explain the apparent gap between the concepts of "Diana has killed lots of sentient beings before this, sometimes during live TV broadcasts" and "Superman had no clue that Diana was a killer until he saw what she did to Max Lord."

What are your thoughts?

72 Comments

• At November 11, 2008, Nick Marino wrote:

  great summary. i'm leaning towards #2, only because it is specifically the role of an editor to guide characters through ...

• At November 11, 2008, Jamie Tarquini wrote:

  i LOVE THIS! :)

• At November 11, 2008, Anonymous wrote:

  This list lacks human deaths, I think. We have Diana killing monsters and gods. The only exception, perhaps, ...

• At November 11, 2008, Dalarsco wrote:

  Amusing, but at the same time all of those examples were some sort of demon or other otherworldly threat. ...

• At November 11, 2008, Marcelo Soares wrote:

  Clark probably is a fan of that superhero named Captain Renault, who's shown in 1942 summer blockbuster Casablanca. His best ...

• At November 11, 2008, Anthony Cheng wrote:

  Brian, you're absolutely right. Unfortunately, if you apply this amount of analytical pressure to ANY key character moment from the ...

• At November 11, 2008, Anthony Cheng wrote:

  It occurs to me Lorendiac and Brian Cronin might not be the same person. Regardless, whoever wrote this, you're awesome.

• At November 11, 2008, Joe wrote:

  Apparently, killing an immortal being is okay while killing a mortal isn't?

  On that note, would that make it less ...

• At November 11, 2008, Blackjak wrote:

  I've always had an issue with the stance that the "hero(ine)" has vowed never to take a human life...

  Yet if ...

• At November 11, 2008, Conor E wrote:

  Wasn't that Medousa fight done solely to point out what a hypocrite Superman was later?

• At November 11, 2008, sgt pepper wrote:

  To Joe:

  If you kill an immortal, doesn't that mean the deceased was actually mortal?

• At November 11, 2008, Tom Fitzpatrick wrote:

  In comicbook land, the end justifies the means. ;-)

• At November 11, 2008, Lorendiac wrote:

  On the point about most of the other corpses on Diana's scorecard being supernatural and/or nonhuman:

  I thought about discussing that ...

• At November 11, 2008, Jordan wrote:

  I lean toward 2 and 3 (since I'm not sure who wrote the Sacrifice arc, I can't accurately speak to ...

• At November 11, 2008, Lorendiac wrote:

  Anthony Cheng -- thanks for the kind words. Yes, Brian Cronin posts these things for me in the "Lorendiac's Lists" ...

• At November 11, 2008, Teebore wrote:

  If I had to pick an answer, other than the obvious (#4), I'd have to agree with the previous comments: ...

• At November 11, 2008, Teebore wrote:

  And....it appears I should have refreshed the comments before posting...

• At November 11, 2008, Blackjak wrote:

  "If DC wanted him to say to his cousin Kara, shortly after what Diana did: “Human life is sacred, but ...

• At November 11, 2008, Lorendiac wrote:

  Let's see if I remember how to do blockquotes in here:

  Conor E asked:

  Wasn’t that Medousa fight done solely to point ...

• At November 11, 2008, Lorendiac wrote:

  The last line was supposed to say something like this: "If Rucka has said anything in interviews about exactly why ...

• At November 11, 2008, Andrew wrote:

  On the issue of Superman and Wonder Woman in Valhalla: The story is referenced again in a later issue of ...

• At November 11, 2008, Andrew wrote:

  Lorediac: Rucka spoke in my History of Superheroes class a couple of weeks ago and made it clear that in ...

• At November 11, 2008, Lorendiac wrote:

  Jordan--my attitude toward Superman's reaction to Max's fate goes something like this:

  1. It was perfectly in character for Diana to ...

• At November 11, 2008, Jordan wrote:

  I completely agree. I was just saying that it's also perfectly in character for him to act that way, if ...

• At November 11, 2008, Rob R. wrote:

  Far be it from me to try to justify the silliness that was "Sacrifice"... but it's possible that Superman made ...

• At November 11, 2008, Annoyed Grunt wrote:

  Perhaps it would have worked better had Superman's view been more like this: If WW and Superman were simply ...

• At November 11, 2008, David wrote:

  Don't get me started on this again. I ranted for a long time afterwards about how hypocritical Superman was ...

• At November 11, 2008, Not a Douche wrote:

  Notwithstanding that "Sacrifice" was just a dumb crossover no one should take seriously or still be talking about...

  #5 DC understands ...

• At November 11, 2008, Stephen wrote:

  >Seriously, though, Post-COIE, Superman has NEVER taken a sentient life? Even through all the Invasion!s, Worlds at War, Vs. Alines, ...

• At November 11, 2008, David wrote:

  One side note - while what Diana did was in character, how she did it I had problems with re: ...

• At November 11, 2008, Matt D wrote:

  I did see Rucka talk about the Superman/Wonder Woman fight in Sacrifice and just how much work went into planning ...

• At November 11, 2008, Joel wrote:

  I remember Action 761; a few months later (might've been in Loeb's book?) Superman was sitting on the porch in ...

• At November 11, 2008, Jono11 wrote:

  Sometimes you just gotta try a little harder to make things work, when writers drop the ball. Maybe Wonder ...

• At November 11, 2008, Michael wrote:

  Silly Lorendiac. Post-Crisis continuity doesn't count!

• At November 11, 2008, moon wrote:

  A lot of the commenters seem to think that drawing a distinction between supernatural beings and natural sentient humans and ...

• At November 11, 2008, Ivan Jaime wrote:

  I think #4 sums it up nicely.

  Sacrifice came at an interesting time after Identity Crisis (to sum it up: ...

• At November 11, 2008, Jeff R. wrote:

  I'm given to understand that , as of sometime between Birthright and Infinite Crisis, there was a retcon which did ...

• At November 11, 2008, Sijo wrote:

  It was #1 and #2: Bad Writing AND Editing.

  I wasn't surprised by Diana killing Max at all, since as Lorendiac ...

• At November 11, 2008, Lewis wrote:

  [quote]Of course, we got instead a series that explained every continuity error was a punch by Superboy of Earth-Prime. Had ...

• At November 11, 2008, David wrote:

  "However, the STORY itself was poorly presented- as many other people have pointed out, there were other ways of solving ...

• At November 11, 2008, Ben Herman wrote:

  The thing is, police officers and members of the US armed forces carry weapons, and they are authorized to use ...

• At November 11, 2008, jccalhoun wrote:

  It is the same as the reason for everything = Superboy Prime punched reality and changed it. Or that ...

• At November 11, 2008, Dalarsco wrote:

  I think that there is a difference between "sentient" meaning able to process information on a level required for meaningful ...

• At November 12, 2008, Blackjak wrote:

  Why do people think Max was written out of character? It didn't seem that far removed from his origins ...

• At November 12, 2008, Dunc wrote:

  Hang on - Wonder Woman by Walt Simonson?

  How did I miss that? Is it tradeified?

  I don't suppose I'd have been ...

• At November 12, 2008, Nick Evans wrote:

  How many of the above examples were killed by WW after they had been defeated? Max Lord was not ...

• At November 12, 2008, Gadget3440 wrote:

  Personally I think it's bad writing.

  I got into an discussion similar to this, and raised the question ...

• At November 12, 2008, Sijo wrote:

  > Wow, it's the call of the why ni JLI fan!

  Wow, it's the call of the pointless troll! :P

  (Sorry ...

• At November 12, 2008, Carl wrote:

  The Phantom Zone trio is not a valid argument, because Superman came to believe that he was wrong to have ...

• At November 12, 2008, HammerHeart wrote:

  Regarding this controversy, I wrote this elsewhere, back when the infamous Diana-Kills-Max story came out:

  ---------

  I think that stablishing an ironclad ...

• At November 12, 2008, David wrote:

  Carl wrote "The Phantom Zone trio is not a valid argument, because Superman came to believe that he was wrong ...

• At November 12, 2008, Stephen wrote:

  >That is baloney considering he should have understood of why she felt she had to do it - <

  That's the ...

• At November 12, 2008, Matt Ryan wrote:

  I just want to throw this out there. Max Lord used his power to command Wonder Woman to kill ...

• At November 12, 2008, Ben Herman wrote:

  I think the problem with attempting to address in-depth the real-life moral questions concerning whether or not it is wrong ...

• At November 12, 2008, Stephen wrote:

  >If the Joker had ever existed in the real world, he would have been sent to the electric chair (or ...

• At November 12, 2008, Lynxara wrote:

  I have to fall in with the "bad writing" camp, mostly because I am utterly sick and bored with stories ...

• At November 12, 2008, Rene wrote:

  It's not about sentience, it's about soul. The crux of the question is a lot more religious than most people ...

• At November 12, 2008, Rene wrote:

  Just something I forgot to add in my last post, bringing my points to this specific case.

  When Superman sees Wonder ...

• At November 13, 2008, Gadget3440 wrote:

  I've always thought the concept of the soul provides an all too convenient loophole where morality's concerned. I ...

• At November 13, 2008, Blackjak wrote:

  Rene, the only problem with your statement is that it assumes a certain level of religious belief...

  How do atheists like ...

• At November 13, 2008, Rene wrote:

  Well, if I were a superhero (considering that I'm an agnostic), I would value sentience over "soul". I suppose Mr. ...

• At November 13, 2008, Michael wrote:

  Blackjak, the problem with Max's characterization was not that he turned evil but that Infinite Crisis suggested that he never ...

• At November 13, 2008, Blackjak wrote:

  Michael,

  I know Max HAD reformed, and J'onn scanned his mind (back in JLI #10 or something??) but that implies that ...

• At November 13, 2008, Ben wrote:

  Hey all

  In reference to someone's comment above, the Supes-kills the-Phantom-Zone trio story was definitely 'in-continuity' when WW killed Max as ...

• At November 13, 2008, Lorendiac wrote:

  David--

  You mentioned how, at the very end of the Byrne run on Superman in the late 1980s, Superman was in ...

• At November 13, 2008, Lorendiac wrote:

  Stephen--

  I'd heard about the "Max Lord remarkably is no longer in a robotic body any more, et cetera," but I ...

• At November 13, 2008, Lorendiac wrote:

  Joel said:

  I remember Action 761; a few months later (might’ve been in Loeb’s book?) Superman was sitting on the porch ...

• At November 13, 2008, John Seavey wrote:

  My take on it? Everybody--Superman, Wonder Woman, Max Lord, Batman, Alexander Luthor, Superboy-Prime, Earth-2 Superman, every single member of the ...

• At November 14, 2008, Blackjak wrote:

  John Seavey:

  Thank you! You've reconciled my continuity perfectly! Now can you skip ahead a year and sort out ...

• At November 18, 2008, Jeff Ryan wrote:

  I vote for bad writing and bad editing. Really, the only thing that Identity Crisis did that tons of other ...

• At July 6, 2009, Samy wrote:

  IMO, Superman's look of shock was probably contributed to by the fact that it was *Max*.

  I mean, Wonder Woman's killed ...

• At July 14, 2009, Lorendiac wrote:

  Samy -- but what if the ex-friend had turned into a cold-blooded, murderous terrorist when you weren't looking? Which appeared ...

Ant-Man, Aurora, Black Widow, Blink, Electro, Gladiator, Jolt, Karma, Magneto, Mysterio, Professor X, Speed Demon, The Vulture, The Wasp, Yellowjacket . . . "obviously" they are all Marvel characters, right?

Argent, Blockbuster, Hitman, Huntress, Impulse, Manhunter, Psimon, Ravager, Raven, Spoiler . . . "obviously" they are all DCU characters, right?

Burnout, Freefall, Rainmaker, Voodoo, Zealot . . . "obviously" they are all Wildstorm characters who were created before Wildstorm became a division of DC, right?

Icon, Rocket, Static . . . "obviously" they are all Milestone characters, soon to be integrated into the regular continuity of the DCU, right?

Well . . . yes and no. The truth is: All of the "aliases" I just mentioned have been used on both the Marvel and the DC sides of the fence, for different characters!

Recently I saw someone on DC's own discussion forums asking for advice. He wanted to write and post a fanfic featuring what I gathered was an original character, but the heroic alias he had in mind was one which he realized DC has already used from time to time (not for anyone who ever had his own title, though). The fan wanted advice on whether he'd get in trouble for copyright infringement if he stuck with the name he wanted to use.

I figured he didn't really need to worry. First, because nobody can copyright a name all by itself; second, because DC doesn't even visibly object to the existence of thousands of online fanfics that obviously are using their distinctive characters (instead of just recycling the occasional name); and third, because if frequently swiping colorful names for their new characters from old characters at Marvel is good enough for DC (and vice versa), then swiping names from both companies certainly ought to be good enough for us common folk!

When I was a kid, I used to wonder how the various writers at DC and Marvel managed to keep coming up with nifty new "superhero names" or "supervillain names" that nobody had ever thought to use before. Now I know better. They don't necessarily sweat blood in the effort to come up with new aliases in the superhero genre! Often, they just dust off and recycle old names, from their own company's past continuity or a rival's, if they figure they can get away with it!

When I started soliciting suggestions for the first draft of this list, I could think of a few names offhand ("Captain Marvel" was an easy one), and I figured there were more I wasn't immediately remembering, and probably others used by characters I'd never heard of. I estimated I might end up with 30 "shared aliases" after my fellow fans had weighed in.

Live and learn! A week later, thanks to the help I received, my First Draft actually listed 166. Several months later, incorporating new suggestions from other people along with others I had dug up on my own, I had 303 in the Second Draft. Posting them stirred up a new wave of suggestions from alert readers, and in the year since then I've naturally made additional notes for future use whenever I stumbled across another case in my reading. Also: A few months ago the news came that the Milestone characters from the mid-90s were going to be integrated into the main DCU, and I decided that meant I could start counting Milestone characters as DC characters, regardless of what the legal technicalities of ownership may be at the moment. (Same statement applies to the Archie heroes whom DC had previously used in its Impact! Line and now has permission to integrate into regular DCU continuity.)

Also: I didn't spend much time worrying about Marvel's "New Universe" characters when I was working on the First and Second Drafts last year, but I've now corrected that, and found numerous matches to add to the list.

The upshot is that this Draft has 416 "aliases" which both Marvel and DC have used for characters (or someone else used them at another company, and then Marvel or DC later added those characters to their collections, one way or another). If I ever break the 500 mark, I'll release another Draft someday.

Ground Rules

1. I'm not interested in characters who have been around so long that they are in the "public domain." For instance, DC and Marvel have both put their own spins on various characters from Norse Mythology, Graeco-Roman Mythology, Egyptian Mythology, etc. And they've both done stories featuring names from Arthurian Legend. But they didn't "create" any of those characters, really, so I'm not interesting in calling those cases of "duplication." (On the other hand, I made a possible exception for personifications of the concept of "Death" at both companies. I don't see that the Marvel version or the Neil Gaiman version from "Sandman" were simply swiped from any single preexisting mythology.)

2. I am willing to list any character names that both companies have swiped from mythological sources and then recycled for "new" character concepts who definitely are not "the original Andromeda of Greek Myth" or whatever. (Both DC and Marvel have, in fact, used the name "Andromeda" for female heroes.)

3. I also ignore any cases where both companies have handled the same "licensed" characters at different times. Both DC and Marvel have published comics set in the "Star Trek" universe, for instance, but neither company ever claimed to have "created" the key characters.

4. "Group names" don't count unless individual members also demonstrate the habit of using that name or an obvious variation for themselves personally (as when a new member of the Green Lantern Corps starts calling himself "Green Lantern" as his heroic alias). Examples of what I don't count: DC has had evil organizations with the names "Cyclops" and "Colossus," but I don't count those as "duplicates" of the names of famous X-Men. Likewise, Marvel and DC each own characters who have used the name "Thunderbolt," but my entry for that alias does not mention Marvel's team concept known as "the Thunderbolts," because each member of the team has used some other colorful alias for himself or herself.

5. After looking at the examples of "Dr. Doome" and "Dr. Doom," I decided that "pronunciation trumps spelling." If two names are obviously meant to be pronounced exactly the same way by English-speaking readers, then I'll count them as "duplicate aliases" even if there are differences in how they are usually spelled and punctuated.

6. It appears that at least a few dozen members of Marvel's group "The Elements of Doom" have been mentioned by name in the group's published appearances. I believe it's also been stated in dialogue that they include members named after the full periodic table, not just those members whose names have been used in word balloons. So I'm assuming that any DC character named after a real chemical element has a a namesake at Marvel. In cases where it doesn't appear that such a character was ever mentioned by name at Marvel, I say "presumably one of the Elements of Doom" in the listing.

7. To keep the project down to a manageable size, I'm only counting characters who are controlled by Marvel or DC; either because they were created at those companies or because they were created at some other company whose "character stable" later ended up under the thumb of Marvel or DC. Any other, completely independent company gets ignored. For instance: Marvel and DC have both used the alias "the Ghost" for one supervillain apiece. I list those villains below, but I don't include any mention of Dark Horse's vigilante heroine "Ghost," because she is not the property of either DC or Marvel. Similarly, I ignored the Milestone and Impact characters last year, but I've changed my mind now that DC has permission to integrate both sets into its standard continuity and see what happens. And I've decided to include a couple of cases of costumed characters from Alan Moore's "Watchmen" who shared aliases with Marvel characters, although I've heard a rumor to the effect that Alan Moore will regain full control of those characters if and when DC lets the trade paperback collection go out of print. (Hey, it could happen! It's only been a couple of decades, after all!)

8. I ignore any characters who have only appeared in other media, such as TV shows, movies, regular novels, or games which adapted character concepts now controlled by DC or Marvel. However: If such characters later appeared in printed comic books, then that makes them fair game!

9. Defining the meaning of "alias" in this context has led me to some tricky decisions. I'm not interested in finding cases where both Marvel and DC have used such bland names as "John Smith" or "Mary Jones," whether those were "aliases" or "real names" of the fictional characters in question. On the other hand, I tend to include the more colorful names of Inhumans, Deviants, New Gods, and Metal Men (among others), even in cases where we are either told or led to believe that the exotic names being used may be the only names those characters have ever had. I suppose in some cases I'm settling for names that "look like a carefully chosen alias" even if they might not be.

10. Here are a few things I deliberately exclude from my list: "Atari Force" characters, because I don't think DC owns them and (as far as I know) they were never really integrated into the DCU. "Masters of the Universe" characters, for much the same reasons, although I know Superman did travel to Eternia and meet He-Man at least twice in the early 1980s. Amalgam characters, because they were not just "Marvel" or "DC," but deliberately swiping and merging elements of various characters owned by both companies.

11. Some Doubtful Cases: I am currently working on the theory that the characters known as "Comet the Super-Horse" (Silver Age Superman continuity), "Neon the Unknown" (Golden Age hero), "Omega the Unknown" (1970s hero), and "Deathstroke the Terminator" (Slade Wilson) all use those complete strings as their preferred aliases; not just the first words of each string. Thus, none of those guys are mentioned below in listings for "Comet," "Neon," etc. I don't list Tryco Slatterus under "Champion," either, because I believe that for millennia his full preferred "alias" was "Champion of the Universe."

Now, on to the main event!

THE MASTER LIST

Be warned: I don't make any claim to tell you everything you could possibly need to know about any of these characters. Most of the time, I won't even mention what their superpowers are (if any). Nor will I usually tell you exactly what issue showed a certain character using a certain alias for the first time. And I usually don't bother mentioning which company used that alias first. I always mention DC characters first, but only because "DC" precedes "Marvel" alphabetically! I provide as much data as I happen to feel the burning urge to provide in any given case, and you're welcome to do further research on your own time!

Acrobat
DC: Two users; both villains. One was a WWII-era villain who fought Judomaster and Tiger in the Charlton comics. One was a member of Amos Fortune's "Luck League" in one JLA story.
Marvel: At least three users (one lived in the 19th Century and fought the Rawhide Kid).

Agent Axis
DC: Golden Age Nazi villain who fought the Boy Commandos; later reappeared in "modern times."
Marvel: A WWII-era villain, retconned in duri