1965

As we tackle 1965 please feel free to listen to this content on the Lady Comic Book History Podcast.

Donna Troy was one of the many results from the publication of Seduction of the Innocent. DC comics as trying to find a way to portray Wonder Woman but in a way that was acceptable to parents, one of the ways this was a achieved was by have the Amazonian Princess appear side by side with younger versions of herself creating a wonder family, by issue #123 of Wonder Woman in July of 1961 the label Impossible Tale was not included in most of these stories in spite of that being the series title. In this particular issue the character of Wonder Girl is referred to as if she is an entity entirely different from Diana, as if she is her own character. Wonder Woman’s younger sister Wonder Girl made her first appearance outside the Wonder Woman book in the Brave and the Bold issue #60 in July of 1965 as a member of the Junior Justice League called the Teen Titans. Writer Marv Wolfman and artist Gil Kane created an origin for Wonder Girl in Teen Titans issue #22 in July and August of 1969, this story established Wonder Girl’s origins as an orphan who was rescued by Wonder Woman from an apartment building fire. In 1969 she dons a new costume and adopts the secret identity Donna Troy. Wolfman paired up with George Perez to revive the series in 1980 as The New Teen Titans and in January of 1984 Donna Troy got an expansion on her origin story titled “Who is Donna Troy”. We find out about her parents and more about the fire she was rescued from, Donna gets married to Terry Long in Tales of the Teen Titans issue #50 in February of 1985. Crisis of course rewrote the history of nearly every major DC character entirely unnecessarily. And Donna’s origin was retconned to fit the new continuity by severing her ties with the amazons. She did get a new storyline to rediscover her origins, god I hate DC sometimes, titled Who is Wonder Girl? Featured in the pages of The New Titans issues #50-54 in December of 1988 to March of 1989. Donna Troy was also involved in one of the world’s dumbest and most ridiculous storylines and I am not sorry at all about introducing this like that, Titans Hunt appeared in the New Titans Annual #7 in 1991 where Donna discovers that she is pregnant, a group called the Team Titans appear intent on killing her as they are from the future, Donna’s son is born, instantly ages himself, kills his mother, and becomes a dictator known as Lord Chaos...which is why the Team Titans are there to kill Donna before he is born. Donna ends up giving birth and naming him Robert and to prevent him from becoming Lord Chaos she sacrifices her powers and becomes a normal human. Her origin was of course retconned again in the late 90s where she was originally created by an Amazon sorceress as a magical duplicate of young Princess Diana, she was kidnapped by the Dark Angel Dark Angel cursed Donna to live endless lives that were characterized by suffering, her life would restart and her past was erased from the world’s memory when she was at her lowest (Quite similar to the curse placed upon Hawkman and Hawkgirl) She was of course saved from this eternal fate by her friends and after that she returned to Themyscira and was coronated as the second princess of paradise island.

Next up we’ve got Medusa who made her first appearance in Fantastic Four issue #36 in 1965 and was of course created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. She appears in flashback and then in costume as a part of the Frightful Four she goes on to appear in issues #38, 41-48 and in carious subplot glimpses in issues #49-62. She was granted her first new adventure in Fantastic Four Annual #5 and a solo series in the split book Amazing Adventures volumes 2 issues 1-10. She also featured prominently in the 12 part series The Inhumans by Jaye Lee in the 1990s, FF by Matt Fraction and Mike Allred which debuted in 2012, in 2015 she Joined A-Force as one of the all female Avengers main characters, in 2017 she appears in an early adventure with the Frightful Four published as Avengers 1.1-5.5 a five issue min-series positioned between Avengers volume 1 issues #16 and #17. Medusa is a part of the race of Inhumans for those of you who don’t know the Inhumans are a species of prehistoric earthlings mutated by the Terrigan Mists produced under Attilan located in the Blue Area of the Moon.

Medusa’s primary role in the Inhumans is as interpreter for her husband Black Bolt, she has a strong sense of morality and fairness this role lead her to be featured in the 6 issue series Beyond! She was kidnapped along with other superhumans, she saves the team during the sudden crash landing of their space vessel. Medusa acts as the team's primary short range offense, she has been featured in various mini-series and one shots. Her next major storyline is Realm of Kings where she ends up taking control of the Inhumans after the death of Black Bolt. Medusa’s power lies in her hair, she possesses the psychokinetic ability to animate hair allowing her to elongate it to twice it's normal length, it stands at 6 feet normally and lifts and moves heavy weight up to 1 and a half tons. Other versions of her character exist in Earth X, Heroes Reborn, Marvel 1602, Mutant X, Marvel Zombies, and Ultimate Marvel.

She is one of the very few female heroes that doesn't have giant gaping chasms of sexist behaviors, storylines, arcs, and pitfalls. Of course she is never really named or seen without her husband but she is definitely her own person and her own hero. She is loyal and strong and definitely a leader.

Next up we have Crystal who first appeared in Fantastic Four #45 in December of 1965 written of course by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. In her first appearances she and Johnny Storm fell in love allowing for her furthered presence among the team. She became the first outside the original members to join the team but was written out in Fantastic Four issue #105,which was the first story arc after the departure of Jack Kirby. Another one of Crystal’s main storylines was her relationship with Pietro Maximoff, also known as Quicksilver, she was featured mostly by his side in her 1973-1990 appearances in the Inhumans, Vision and the Scarlet Witch as well as returning for guest appearances in the Fantastic Four. Her relationship with Quicksilver resulted in marriage and the birth of Luna, their daughter. Crystal and Pietro fall victim to mind control by Maximus causing Pietro to be less than loving and Crystal to have an affair with Vision. The 90s marked Crystals run with the Avengers she appeared in the team title as a leading character as well as making guest appearances in solo titles such as Captain America, Invincible Iron Man, and the Vision. Crystal’s powers are elemental in nature, having the ability to psionically control the four elements, as an Inhuman she also has increased physical strength, durability, speed, endurance, and reflexes. The only real ;thing I have to comment on about Crystal’s existence and all of her appearances is that they all seem to be tied to a relationship. That's how she was created and that's been her norm ever since her first appearance, she doesn’t have any extended period of time where she’s single and when she is she stops being relevant to the story. She doesn’t have any independent storylines, they are pretty much always intertwined and hinged upon the man that she's in a relationship with at the time.