WOMEN OF MARVEL (in comics and behind the scenes) Appreciation 2020

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A chat with Lenore Zann, voice actor of Rogue

from X-Men the Animated Series

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10 BEST FEMALE Superheroes Of All Time https://www.newsarama.com/28303-best...-all-time.html

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Alpha Flight #18 Jan 1985
"How Long Will a Man Lie in the Earth `Ere He Rot?"
Heather tries to re-form the team.

Northstar bluntly refuses but Puck is on her side and Aurora is already on board.
They call Shaman, but he is out with his daughter investigating a mysterious skull
that she discovered on the site of the battle between Alpha Flight and the X-Men.
The skull is infused with spiritual energies, but Shaman cannot investigate it much further for now
because there is a call from Lucas Strang's great-granddaughter about her scrambled eggs attacking her.
Shaman and his daughter teleport over to investigate and battle the "Scrambled Egg Monster".

After the battle, they run upstairs to see that Lucas has been possessed by a great evil

and he is forced to curse his great-granddaughter with the possession of the demon Ranaq.
While Shaman deals with Lucas, his daughters' latent abilities manifest like a mutant's powers,

not with years of study as with Shaman.
She is able to repel Ranaq's power and while the house is obliterated there are no casualties.

Story by John Byrne. Art by John Byrne and Bob Wiacek.

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Uncanny X-Men #189 Jan 1985
"Two Girls Out to Have Fun!" Guest-starring Magma of the New Mutants.
Rachel Summers and the New Mutant known as Magma take some time together to bond and see the sights that New York City has to offer.
As they visit that Statue of Liberty, all Rachel can recall is the apocalyptic future she comes from where mutants are hunted down
and where she spent a brief time as a "Hound", mutants forced to hunt other mutants by the repressive and anti-mutant government that runs her world.
She recalls how one time she was brought out into the bay to track down mutants who were gunned down.
When the memory makes her begin to cry, Amara asks her what's wrong and Rachel shrugs it off as being "something" in her eye.

Meanwhile, aboard the sailing ship Norway, Storm is bidding farewell to her fellow X-Men as she takes a leave of absence
to return to her native Africa to determine what to do with her life now that her powers have been taken away.

As the group enjoys champagne, they all have a tearful good-bye, Storm tells Nightcrawler to send her love to Kitty.

As Rachel and Amara continue their sight seeing, Miguel Rodriguez continues his daily labors, hauling fish on a dock.
When he walks past the changing room, he spots some of his co-workers snooping in his locker.
Miguel swats them away to see that the amulet he found earlier is still there.
When it begins talking once more, offering him untold power, he rejects it, feeling that it is evil, and slams his locker door shut.

As Rachel and Amara exit the New York Metropolitan Museum, Rachel detects Selene's thought patterns.
Rachel and Amara decide to follow her. The two track their mutual enemy to the gates of the Hellfire Club.
The two sneak in and put on some maids outfits so that they can snoop around.
As it turns out, Selene has come to the Hellfire Club to petition for membership as the new Black Queen.
Sebastian Shaw is hardly impressed, and tells her that it is a position that must be earned.
Selene gives him a show of her powers, animating the ground around him and almost crushing him.
Deciding that she will prove to him her worth, even though Shaw realizes that she would likely seize control of the Hellfire Club from him
she teleports away to bring him a present. Left alone, Tessa asks Shaw if he will admit her into the club.
Shaw tells her that, given the circumstances, he may have little choice in the matter.

Upstairs, Rachel continues to pose as a maid when she is approached by who she thinks is Selene and lashes out with a psi-blast.
It turns out to be an illusion and that she had really attacked Amara. She is then caught from behind by Selene,
who uses her powers to enslave both Rachel and Amara and bring them to Sebastian Shaw.
Upon doing so, Tessa silently remarks how Rachel has a striking resemblance to Jean Grey.

Deep inside Rachel's mind, she struggles to free herself, not wishing to become someone's slave, and manages to break Selene's hold on her.
Establishing a psi-link with Amara, she struggles with her to free her from Selene's control as well.
Forcing her to use her powers in the psychic plane that has been created causes Amara to snap free from Selene's control.
The two mutants then battle Selene. However they are easily over powered. Before things can escalate further,
Colossus, Rogue and Nightcrawler arrive. Nightcrawler teleports Selene away, and the mental projection of Professor X appears
and demands to know what's going on. When Amara insists on getting revenge on Selene, Xavier tells her to stand down.
When Shaw tells the X-Men that he has no quarrel with them and that kidnapping
Rachel and Amara was not his idea, the X-Men decide to depart without further incident.

When Rachel asks if her psychic SOS helped the X-Men locate her, Xavier points her
attention to the outside, where damage caused from Magma's powers were visibly evident.

Elsewhere, Jamie Rodriguez waits for a subway train after his busy day at work, listening to the latest news broadcast regarding
Dazzler's outing as a mutant and the continued debate over the Mutant Control Act that is working its way through Congress.
As he listens, he doesn't notice a mugger sneak up being him and stab him with a knife from behind.
As Jamie collapses to the ground, the thief grabs the amulet that has dropped out of his pockets.
Upon doing so, it releases the forces trapped inside and begins engulfing the entire subway platform with Eldridge fire, the start of a terrible transformation.

Story by Chris Claremont. Art by John Romita, Jr. and Steve Leialoha.

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The Huge Potential of WandaVision https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gCGW89Frq0

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Kitty Pryde and Wolverine #3 Jan 1985
"Death!"
Wolverine has arrived in Japan to help Kitty Pryde.
But he is suddenly besieged by a deadly ninja that wants him dead.


And this mysterious new adversary just may possess the skill to do it.

Written by Chris Claremont. Art by Al Milgrom.

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X-Factor #50 Jan 1990
Judgement War Part 7 of 7: "Judgement Day"
As the Celestials stand over the city of the Chosen as part of their final judgement of this alien world,
the combined forces of X-Factor, the Rejects and the Beginagainst battle against the soldiers of the Chosen.
As the battle rages, Lord Rask clashes with Princess Seera, who is aided by Lev.
However, the two women are blasted back and after a brief clash with Archangel, Rask blasts the winged mutant aside as well.
Rushing to Lord Palik, Palik reveals that he had figured out Rask's plot to use his winnings from the battle between Archangel
and Iceman to buy a place as one of the highest of the Chosen and reveals his part in causing this plan to come crashing down.
He then goads Rask to once more jump into the battle and fight Iceman, who easily knocks him aside.

As the battle rages on, Cyclops leads another group of Rejects and Beginagains through the city
in the hopes of finding Marvel Girl and Christopher and a means of shutting down the Chosen's power supply.
Blasting their way into a science lab, they force a science robot to tell them where they might find the two Scott is seeking.
The robot briefly reactivates the memory banks of the ruined robot Zee-Zee
to show where MG is being kept and provides them with a map of how to get there.
While back at the arena, the Reject/X-Factor/Beginagain coalition is gaining the upper hand
forcing the Chosen to order their Dueler cast to enter the arena and fight on their behalf.
At first the Duelers comply, but they are convinced by Lev to turn against those
who have treated them as secondary citizens and help fight their rebellion.
This earns the ire of Lord Palik who orders everyone in the arena to be eliminated once and for all.

Meanwhile, Scott and the others find Christopher and Marvel Girl.
Upon freeing Jean, Scott finds that her Phoenix/Madelyne Pryor personalities are dominant,
with Jean's mind being submerged following her run in with a jammer.
However, Scott's love for Jean manages to help her push her personality out of hiding

and she joins the group in finding the power supply for the Chosen's city and shut it down.
This causes the grid that keeps everyone in the arena to shut down and chaos to explode in the arena.
As the battle rages on Dykon manages to climb up into the stands
and battle Palik who uses his powers to partially blind the Beginagain.
This doesn't stop him from grabbing Palik and threatening to kill him when Seera
convinces him to spare Palik because if Palik is killed Dykon's vision can not be restored.
Dykon gives Palik a choice: restore his and Archangel's vision or die.

With his vision restored, Archangel renews his attack on Rask and in the moment of fury,
slays the would-be ruler of the Chosen with his razor sharp feathers.
Scott and the others arrive at the scene as well as Zharkah with a group of Reject warriors and Reyest with the other Beginagain Elders.
With the leaders of all three races gathered, they all begin to realize that the Celestials are beginning to make their final judgement.
With Arishem preparing to give his thumbs-up/thumbs-down judgement, Ship arrives to take X-Factor to safety.
However the group refuses to abandon this planet or its people for their
own safety and turn Christopher over to Ship to take away just in case.

Seeing that strangers from another world would be willing to sacrifice their lives to save their world,
the leaders of the Rejects, Beginagains and Chosen all agree to work together to try and stop the Celestials.
When Reyest detects a great cosmic power in Marvel Girl, she tries to use the remaining power of Phoenix Force in her to channel against the Celestials.
Afraid to unleash this power alone, MG channels it through Cyclops who fires a massive optic blast at Arishem's hand, obliterating it.
This seems to be the course of action the Celestials were hoping for, as as soon
as Arishem was made incapable of judging the planet, the Celestials flee the scene.

Marvel Girl is happy to find that the two other personalities had merged with the rest of her mind leaving her fully Jean Grey.
As the Celestials leave in their massive ship, they drop another device like X-Factor's ship to record this world's progress.

With the road to peace beginning between the three tribes of this world, X-Factor bids farewell to their leaders.
Before they leave, Archangel and Ship have a gift for Seera: Zee-Zee, repaired and restored to her former sentient glory.
X-Factor then heads off into space, glad to be heading back home.
Just before they shoot off into hyperspace, they pass the Starjammer. Not recognizing the ship, Ship speeds off,
unaware that its passengers were in close proximity with their former leader Charles Xavier on the other ship.
Despite Xavier's deathly state, he detects his original students.
However when Lilandra and Sikorsky come to his aid, they wonder if Xavier truly did connect with his
former students or if they were merely just hallucinations brought on by his continued deterioration.

Story by Louise Simonson. Art by Rich Buckler and Al Milgrom.

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X-Men The Hellfire Club #1 Jan 2000
"Witch Hunt"
Freelance journalist Irene Merryweather has decided to follow her instincts
and heads to Salem to get some background information on a story she is working on.
Meeting with a priest outside a church, she mentions that she’s after details on a Reverend Hiram Shaw, and so
the priest allows her inside to give her the scoop, on the understanding that what he tells her never leaves the church.

He recalls a tale from 1692, where Reverend Shaw had taken over as the priest in Salem, during the infamous witch hunts.

As Shaw preaches salvation to the masses, his son Obadiah’s relationship with a young woman called Abigail Harkness galls him.

He believes her to be a witch. He warns Obadiah not to see her again, but his son insists that she is innocent.
As Hiram Shaw sleeps, Dormammu brings him to his dark dimension and Shaw is revealed to be this century’s Sorcerer Supreme.
Dormammu warns Shaw that his lust for power is the spark that will condemn his decendants to damnation,
and shows him images of people, some not yet born. He asks Shaw to submit to him and he promises to lighten their load
but Shaw refuses and is cast back to his own reality where he finds his wife, Sarah, dead.

Shaw uses Harkness as a scapegoat and she is duly sentenced to death.
Obadiah decides to risk his own life and rescues her from jail,
but they are quickly pursued by the townsfolk, as they head for the harbor.

Obadiah is shocked to find that Abigail is, in fact, a witch and she uses her magic to kill many
of their pursuers, leaving only Hiram Shaw alive, unable to save them lest he reveal his alter ego.

In the present day, the priest reiterates to Irene that she must never speak of Hiram Shaw again.
He doesn’t know what became of Obadiah and Abigail, but the revelation must have been a shock to him.
Irene thanks him for the scoop and leaves but, once she is gone, the priest is shot and killed by an unseen assailant.

Writer Ben Raab. Artist Charlie Adlard.

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The comicbook character Abigail Harkness is almost certainly an ancestor of the comicbook character Agatha Harkness, long-time friend of the Fantastic Four and the Scarlet Witch.

Fantastic Four #94 Jan 1970
"The Return of the Frightful Four!" First appearance of Agatha Harkness.
Deciding to name their baby Franklin Benjamin Richards (honoring both Sue's father and Ben)
Reed informs his friends that they are going to bring baby Franklin to a child
rearing expert named Agatha Harkness, who lives in a mansion on Whisper Hill.
What the team is unaware of is that the Frightful Four has reunited and plans to attack during their visit with Agatha Harkness.


That night after introductions are made, the FF retire for the night as guests of Agatha.
When the Frightful Four break into the mansion, they incapacitate Ben and the Torch, then trap Reed and Sue in their room.
Planning to kidnap Franklin, they are first stopped by Medusa who had only joined up with the group to help protect the FF from them.
However, she is bound by the Trapster's paste, but the Frightful Four are then defeated by Agatha

and her cat Ebony, unleashing her magical might and defeating each member with ease.

When the FF free themselves, they are shocked to find all the villains defeated. They find Agatha quietly rocking Franklin to sleep.
When the Thing spies a book about the Salem witches, Agatha hints at the fact that she herself is truly a witch, which spooks Ben.

Script by Stan Lee. Pencils by Jack Kirby. Inks by Joe Sinnott.

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SPIDER-WOMAN MOVIE 2021!? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0JQOX-8YQU

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Fantastic Four #336 Jan 1990
"Dark Congress!"
Congressman James Pertierra has just accused Reed Richards of creating the device
that has caused a number of super-villains to attack the Fantastic Four during
the Senate committee to determine if the Super-Powers Registration Act
should be put into law in order to win the government to their side.
Televised on live television, the press begins a quick poll with the average American to get their opinions.
With Pertierra joining the committee, Reed is asked to answer the allegations that have been made.
Reed explains that if he had designed the device that has caused so much chaos, he would have made it completely undetectable.

Reed is given a chance to speak again and he tells the hearing that the super-hero community works for the greater good.
He also points out the danger of government regulation, referring them to moments earlier when Flying Tiger attacked the hearing.
He stated that while the congressmen were mad that Reed didn't do anything,
he pointed out how Ms. Marvel was the best suited to deal with that foe and did so accordingly.
To punctuate his point about heroes having the best skills to deal with the job than the government,
he points to how Apocalypse also flew over the Capital Building and that had he actually planned to attack,
the Fantastic Four could have formulated a plan to deal with him based on their years of experience working together.

Suddenly the hearing is interrupted when one of the guards informs the Senators that
a number of individuals in trench coats and dark glasses were seen heading towards the Capital.
Recalling how all the villains who attacked previously wore similar attire,
everyone suddenly wonders if the device Reed found has been properly deactivated or not.
Ben, Johnny and Sharon decide to deal with the matter and tell Reed and Sue to stay and continue their testimony.
Sue suddenly whispers to her husband her suspicions that the device might not just be influencing super-villains but the Senators as well.
This gets Reed thinking, and while the others deal with the villains outside, Sue address the committee with her thoughts.
She once again likens super-powers with the Constitutional right to bare arms
and that super-powers, like weapons, are a means of protecting people.
That those who would use their powers to break the law must not have advantage over those who do not.
Reed also points out how government interference impeded the work of super-heroes:
How the military has never been able to capture the Hulk, or how Henry Gyrich's
time as a government liaison to the Avengers only impeded the groups ability to function.

As Reed's argument comes to a close, the device suddenly comes to life and bombards everyone in the room.

Suddenly the spectators and the Senators become violent and try to attack Reed and Sue.

As they try to contain the mob, Reed grabs the device and resists it's electronic shocks in order to shut it down and restore order.
As the people return to normal with no memory of their attack, Ben and the others
re-enter the court room to inform Reed that the villains have all been dealt with.
Reed then ushers the Senators outside to see the effectiveness of unrestrained super-heroes
where the police are taking away the Armadillo, Stilt-Man, the Orca, the Owl, Whirlwind and the Man-Ape.
Going back into the court room, Reed makes his final statement:
comparing the Super-Powers Registration Act to the Mutant Registration Act.
Pointing out how can someone like Spider-Man be classified, is he a super-human, or a mutant?
He also asks what the definition is of someone who is extraordinary from a normal human
pointing out that anyone in the court room outside of the Fantastic Four could meet that classification.
Reed then pulls out a device to see if the Senators would register for the potential for super-powers.
Reed's device indicates that they, and the security guard on hand could all potentially have super-powers.
Finally, Reed points out that they could potentially be invading people's privacy
and limiting their freedoms based on government classifications.
With his point punctuated, Reed rests his case and the Senate decides against implementing the Super-Powers Registration Act.

As they are leaving, Ben remarks how Reed had his scanner turned up to maximum sensitivity to prove his point.
Reed quips that they can't be too careful, and laughs about the idea that members of the Senate could be super-heroes.
The Fantastic Four then allow Franklin to go to his much anticipated trip to the Smithsonian
with Ms. Marvel while the rest of the team return home to the Four Freedoms Plaza.
There, Reed examines the device and learns the origins of its components,
tracking them to a technology company that went out of business a few months earlier.
The Fantastic Four decide to go an investigate, but before they leave Ben
puts on his old Thing exoskeleton in order to be a part of any potential battles.
The group goes crashing into the abandoned warehouse where they find what appears to be their old foe Doctor Doom.
Doom explains that he is part of a cabal of super-villains who masterminded a conspiracy
to try and destroy their enemies by pitting them against foes they never faced before.
When Johnny suddenly attacks "Doom", they quickly realize that it is actually one of his Doombots instead.

With the Doombot's destruction, it releases the Super-Adaptoid, which quickly begins to adapt the Fantastic Four's powers.
However before the android can attack, the Thing manages to knock it down with a single punch.
As they are preparing to leave they are suddenly confronted by both Hydro-Man and the Water Wizard.
However instead of attacking the Fantastic Four, the two begin arguing with each other
over who has the better control over water and a fight breaks out between the two of them.
Ben remarks how this is going to be an amusing fight, but quickly slips on a puddle of water
and come crashing down, much to the amusement of his teammates.

Story by Walter Simonson. Art by Ron Lim and Mike DeCarlo.

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Uncanny X-Men #257 Jan 1990
"Lady Mandarin"
In the service of the Hand and the Mandarin, the brainwashed Psylocke establishes herself
as Lady Mandarin, re-establishing the Mandarin's control over the Hong Kong underworld.
With that accomplished, her master, Matsu'o Tsurayaba,

orders her to take care of a potential, recently-arrived enemy, Patch.
Wolverine has come to Hong Kong with Jubilee's help, although he is
still suffering both from his extensive injuries and from hallucinations.
He and Jubilee visit Rose Wu, a friend of his working for Landau, Luckman & Lake.
While shopping, Jubilee and Rose’ granddaughter are kidnapped by Psylocke.
The Ninjas later confront Wolverine. Logan has the upper hand in the battle until
he recognizes his teammate, Psylocke. She uses his confusion to take him out.
In Cairo, Illinois, Storm, changed to a prepubescent child, is on the run from both the police

and the Shadow King, not remembering her life with the X-Men.
On Muir Isle, Banshee, who feels a wrongness, asks Forge to install a backdoor into the defense
system he's installing, so that they can slip back in undetected, should something be wrong.

Polaris fears that the wrongness is her fault. Before she can act on this,
though, she is taken prisoner by the mentally instable telepath Legion.

Story by Chris Claremont. Art by Jim Lee and Joe Rubinstein.

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Jubilee

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Storm

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Rogue


Happy Valentine's Day!