509: The Romita Glow-Up

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes! It may not feel like it, but often the most iconic characters don’t arrive fully formed. Sometimes there are some changes, retcons if you will, that not only stick but become fundamental to the character in a way you can’t imagine them being any different. Like the days when Superman could only leap over tall buildings but not fly, when Magneto was a campy and unsympathetic villain before being reimagined as a Holocaust survivor, when Alfred didn’t even have a moustache! Sometimes a supervillain is given more depth and skills, like Doctor Doom! Sometimes a manga hero goes from a li’l monkey-king boy to a long-lost member of an alien battle race, like Goku! Sometimes Peter Parker is a real asshole until he goes to college, but then we kinda forget he was such an asshole! Remember when the Summers family tree was actually comprehensible, or when Sabrina’s cat Salem was orange and a regular cat, or when Doug Ramsey was just a nerd who read a lot of books? Because we sure do! We dig into tons of examples, discuss the constant of change in comics and what makes these revamps work!

But first, a fun and loose quiz that asks: did this character first appear in the comics or elsewhere? Perry White, Batgirl, Firestar, Renee Montoya, Abraham Whistler, and more — are they comics originals, did they first pop up on television or the radio, or maybe a video game? (Spoilers: it won’t be a video game.)

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