Nothing like a secret to stir things up!
Especially when it comes to narrative storytelling in a long running typically episodic medium
the likes of comics.
Over the years, writers have imbued characters with major secrets that, when revealed, shook
up their respective universes, or had a major impact on public perception.
So today, we’re taking a closer look at a handful of these with our list of the top
10 superhero secrets that changed everything!
Be sure to stick around to the end of the video to let us know what you think of our
picks.
Let’s get to it!
10 Demon in a Bottle Superheroes aren’t perfect; that’s something
that has always been a philosophy of Marvel’s, whose characters Silver Age claim to fame
was their nuances and relatability.
So when it was revealed that one of their flagship heroes, Iron Man himself, was struggling
with addiction, you can imagine how big of a deal that was.
Enter Demon in a Bottle: the 1979 nine issue story arc that occurred in the first volume
of The Invincible Iron Man.
It follows Stark’s drinking problem, something he later admits to and works to fight against,
with his addiction making him his own worst enemy.
Alcoholism was the villain in this story arc, and as artist Bob Layton put it, it was one
of the many downfalls of those in the corporate world.
I quote, “Alcoholism wasn;t talked about all that much, really, to be honest with you.
Especially with kids, you know, in that particular era.
But, you know, we treated it as we intended to, as the bad guy.”
Despite being a superhero, Tony was still very human; something that this cover by Layton
illustrated perfectly.
9 Jason Todd’s Death This number is slightly different than most
of the others on our list.
Rather than focusing specifically on a superhero’s secret, we’re looking at a secret that was
eventually revealed concerning that superhero from a publishing standpoint.
We’re talking about how the phone in poll that determined whether or not Jason Todd
would live was revealed to have been rigged by one guy who had programmed his computer
to call in every 90 seconds.
So for context - when Jason Todd was introduced, he was a carbon copy of Dick Grayson.
But after Crisis on Infinite Earths, he got a new origin story that made him more of a
rebellious street kid who was difficult for Batman to handle.
He wasn’t well received, and at the time, DC wanted to try a new marketing tactic in
which fans could call in and vote on a plot point in one of their stories.
They decided to go big or go home, and made that plot point the death of Jason Todd.
Little did they know that within the 36 hour voting period, out of the 10,614 votes they
received (with a 72 vote margin determining Jason’s fate), that one fan had programmed
his computer to dial thumbs down every 90 seconds for eight hours, which made the difference
between Jason surviving or not.
8 Magneto’s Kids When Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver were first
introduced to the Marvel universe, they were villains of sorts; they had teamed up with
the Brotherhood of Mutants after Magneto saved them from an angry crowd, hunting them down
because of their powers.
Feeling they owed the master of magnetism a debt, they joined up with his team, but
later left after Magneto became indisposed and the Brotherhood went their separate ways
briefly.
They would go on to join up with the Avengers.
But it was later revealed that Magneto had an ulterior motive in saving them from that
angry crowd, or rather, he was doing it because he had a secret connection to the powerful
twins.
He was their father.
While this is something that has been retconned back and forth over time, it’s still makes
for one of the X-Men’s most enthralling secrets, and some fans to this day still refuse
to believe that he isn’t their daddy dearest.
7 The Kryptonian Coma
Yes, we’re talking about the Death of Superman at this number.
Fans of this channel will know how much I DISDAIN that story event and the repercussions
it had.
But we’re not going to talk about that today.
Instead, we’re looking at one aspect of that story line; the plot point that caused
all of the controversy surrounding that story arc - that Superman was actually alive.
Specifically, that he possessed the ability to fall into something called a Kryptonia
Coma.
Alright, for context - in 1992, DC launched the Death of Superman story arc, in which
Doomsday comes to Earth and he and Superman fight, with them essentially killing one another.
Superman appeared dead; he had no vital signs, and by human standards, had bit the dust for
good.
The DC universe went into mourning, there was a funeral, and in his absence, multiple
imposter supermen started to emerge and stir up some trouble.
But then it was revealed that Superman was actually alive all along, and that his body
had slipped into a Kryptonian coma, which was essentially a way for him to revive himself
after being severely hurt.
Considering it was no longer the silver age, let alone the bronze age, whipping out new
abilities for a character who first debuted in 1938 felt like a cheap stunt.
Which it was.
But that’s a rant for another video.
6 Guess who's possessed!
Speaking of that story event, let’s move onto a story that was a consequence of it;
we’re talking about that time that Hal Jordan went mental after Coast City was destroyed,
leading into the famous Emerald Twilight story arc.
Hal loses his crap, and uses his ring to recreate his home, and bring its residents back to
life, all seven million of them, including his father.
The Gaurdians of the Universe see this as him using his Green Lantern ring for personal
gain, and when they try to reprimand him for violating one of the principal rules of the
Green Lantern Corps, Hal gets pissed, goes on a rampage, and further syphons energy from
the Main Power Battery on the Guardian's planet in order to finish rebuilding Coast City.
The big secret though?
Hal was possessed by Parallax all along.
Parallax, the living embodiment of fear, had been imprisoned away inside the core of the
main power battery.
It had been planning to use Hal for a long time, and the destruction of Coast City was
the perfect catalyst to enact it’s agenda.
5 The Deep’s Gills (The Boys tv series) Moving off the panels and into live action
adaptations, let’s take a look at a very recent one - The Boys, the series based off
the comic of the same name.
Warning friends, if you haven’t seen the show, this number is a big spoiler concerning
the character played by Chace Crawford, The Deep, that universe’s analogue to Aquaman.
Spoilers in three, two, one.
Sexual assault and sexual violence is a big part of The Boys.
It translates differently in the series - the comic features a group rape of a new member
Starlight to the superhero team called the Seven whereas the series has the character
enduring sexual harassment at the hands of the Deep.
The Deep, in this MeToo era, is reprimanded, and after a stunt in which he tries to save
a dolphin from a Sea World equivalent (it flies through his windshield and is run over
by a truck moments after it hits on the hero, who of course, can speak to it), he’s sent
away to a small Midwest town, and basically loses all of his privileges, all thanks to
Starlight speaking out.
He then finds himself victimized by a kinky fan, who gets him to take off his shirt - something
he never does - all to reveal that under his clothes, he’s got a bunch of gills on his
chest, hence why he can breathe underwater.
It’s his big secret, and it’s obviously something he’s embarrassed by, but the kinky
fan forces herself on him, shoving her hands into his gills, causing him pain, without
his consent.
Essentially, he’s raped.
4 Alysia Yeoh Alysia Yeoh was a character introduced in
the New 52, created by Gail Simone during her run on Batgirl.
She was Barbara Gordon’s roommate who becomes her best friend, and was accepting of Babs’
secretiveness right from the get go, never pressing her about the mysteries surrounding
her crime fighting agenda.
Barbara would eventually tell her the truth about her vigilante ways when she walks in
on her standing over unconscious members of Joker’s gang.
Barbara tells her the truth, which prompts Alysia to later reveal a secret of her own
- she’s transgender.
Barbara is accepting and loving, and the two become best buds.
This was a pretty big deal - even though there have been a handful of trans character in
comics over the years, this was a character who was stated explicitly as such, and a character
who was represented in a positive light.
Eventually, DC would let Alysia get married to her partner, which was the first ever transgender
wedding in comics - something that occurred in the aftermath of the controversy surrounding
the publisher denying Batwoman that right with her girlfriend (which caused the creative
team to walk from the title, inevitably causing its cancellation shortly thereafter).
3 Damian Wayne Exists There have been plenty of Robins over the
years, and, as you can see based off of our previous number concerning Jason Todd, their
introductions into the DC universe were often a big deal.
Damian Wayne is a prime example of that.
The son of Bruce and Talia al Ghul, he debuted in Batman issue 655 in a story arc called
Batman and Son that riffed off of a previous story called Son of the Demon.
In that initial story, Ra’s Al Ghul decides he wants Batman to be his heir, and with his
daughter Talia shacking up with Bruce, it almost makes sense.
But it doesn’t happen cause, you know, the whole international terrorist thing.
Kind of a deal breaker for Batman.
Anywho, in that story, Talia tells Bruce that she’s had a miscarriage, and their marriage
is dissolved.
Batman returns to Gotham, but unbeknownst to him, Talia lied about the miscarriage,
and she has the child, a boy, who is then left with an orphange and is adopted.
Batman and Son retconned that slightly, having the boy raised by Talia and the League of
Assassins, with Talia later revealing his existence to Bruce and leaving him in the
hero’s custody.
2 Snowbirds Don’t Fly After the Golden Age, Oliver Queen aka Green
Arrow got a bit of a makeover.
Initially, he was a carbon copy of Batman’s; wealthy millionaire orphan who used technology
and strategic planning to become a vigilante.
He even had an arrow cave and an arrow car, along with a young ward named Speedy.
But when he was reinvented, he lost all of his money, became a liberal advocate, and
started going on adventures with other heroes, most famously in the Green Lantern Green Arrow
crossover series.
During that time, Speedy was neglected a whole lot, and it was revealed in a 1971 issue of
that crossover that had Ollie and Hal Jordan discover that Speedy had become the victim
of drug addiction.
He was now a junkie using heroin, and the story became a famous PSA on drug use and
addiction as an indiscriminate illness.
1 Bucky Lives You’ve surely heard the comic book saying,
“no one stays dead except Bucky, Jason Todd and Uncle Ben”; it’s something that, for
a long time, was known as the Bucky Clause.
But then, in 2005, Bucky was brought back to life.
The character, who initially had been introduced in 1941 as Captain America’s child sidekick,
had fallen into obscurity alongside Cap after World War 2 ended in the Golden Age, and was
later revealed to have died during a mission at the end of the war.
Cap was thrown into the sea and frozen alive, whereas Bucky was presumed dead.
He became a symbol of Captain America’s fallibility, which made the character more
relatable in the Silver Age when he joined up with the Avengers.
But, publishing decisions aside, as far as canon is concerned, that wasn’t actually
what happened.
Instead, Bucky didn’t die.
He was found by a Russian patrol submarine, his body cold-preserved, minus his left arm.
He was then revived in Moscow, although suffered brain damage and amnesia, was given a bionic
arm, and turned into the Winter Soldier; a sleeper assassin for the Sovier Union’s
Department X, programmed to be a ruthless and efficient killer.
Eventually, he came face to face with Cap again in 2005, and the story was explosive.
There we have it friends!
What other secrets in the world of comics, either within the stories themselves or the
publishing world that dictates them, do you think should have made our list?
Which ones shocked you the most?
And which ones made the biggest impact on you?
Give us a shout in those comments below and share your thoughts and feels!
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I’ll catch you all in the next video.