Line #39 Fanon/ComicBooks


1	Due to the fact that many people only know of comic book characters in passing or through movies, there are many fanon claims that are taken as canon for various comic book franchises.
2	!!!The following have their own pages:
3	* ''Fanon/TeenTitans''
4	----
5	* Franchise/{{Batman}}:
6	** The most prominent example would be the belief that the Joker killed Franchise/{{Batman}}'s parents, which stemmed from [[Film/Batman1989 the 1989 movie]]. In comic book canon, Batman's parents were either killed by Joe Chill, or an unnamed mugger (depending on the era), not the Joker, who is apparently around the same age as Batman anyway.
7	** In addition, there is, from the same movie, the Joker's name Jack Napier, which is taken as canon for many fans, though he has no confirmed name in the comics (though many homages to that name have been made). "Napier" is actually something of a joke, appropriately enough: "Jack Napier" is intentionally reminiscent of "jackanape", which is to say, a joker; in this it is something of a [[PropheticNames Prophetic Name]]. The name is also an homage to Alan Napier, who played Alfred on the '60s TV show and died shortly before the 1989 movie was made.
8	*** They toy around with this a lot in the DCAU. In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' one of the psychiatrists at Arkham Asylum describes several Bat-villains by their first names, calling the Joker "Jack Napier". In a couple of other episodes they use it as his name, but in a couple they state it's one of his aliases, so they don't really give any confirmation on whether it's canon in that universe or not.
9	*** One comic (of uncertain canonicity) features a cousin of the Joker called "Melvin [[SdrawkcabName Reipan]]". Whether this is actually his name or an alias (or if Joker would even share it, being a cousin) is unknown. He also addresses Joker as "Cousin Ja-" before getting cut off.
10	*** ''Film/TheDarkKnight'' averts this by specifically declaring the Joker has no known real name or any sort of identification.
11	*** In ''ComicBook/TheKillingJoke'', he was called Jack (though that story is of course the TropeNamer for MultipleChoicePast).
12	*** In "[[http://www.dccomics.com/dcu/heroes_and_villains/?hv=origin_stories/joker&p=1 The Origin of the Joker]]" in ''Countdown'' issue 31, one of Joker's possible identities is "a mob killer named Napier".
13	** A particularly odd example is the belief that in ''ComicBook/TheKillingJoke'', Barbara Gordon was shot in the vagina. Despite the art clearly showing her being shot in the stomach, and the fact that being shot any lower than that wouldn't have caused her the spinal damage that resulted from the attack. One result of Babs's disability, is that she could not have children anymore; perhaps that had something to do with it? It probably doesn't help that the whole attack is presented much like rape.
14	*** Despite WordOfGod insisting otherwise, Barbara being raped in ''The Killing Joke'' is a common fanon.
15	*** Batman killed the Joker at the end of ''The Killing Joke''. This is an explanation for the odd ending where the two are laughing together. Supporter believe Batman strangled him in rage. Originally the comic was an out-of-continuity comic but it was made canon, and obviously the Joker didn't die, so the theory isn't canon but it still pops up frequently.
16	** ''WebVideo/TheJokerBlogs'' seems to be heading into the realm of fanon, even though it is made by fans.
17	** Due to his Romani heritage, [[ComicBook/{{Nightwing}} Dick Grayson]] is often thought of as bilingual. Frequently, English is his second language. In canon, however, the story arc in ''Batman: Gotham Knights'' that introduced his Romani heritage showed clearly that Dick doesn't speak Romani and knows very little about Romani culture.
18	** Tim Drake being addicted to coffee. There was a recurring plot point in ''ComicBook/Robin1993'' that he never gets enough sleep thanks to his night-time superheroics, so the idea arose among fandom that he must be permanently dosed up to his eyeballs on [[MustHaveCaffeine caffeine]]. In the comics themselves, Tim's favorite caffeinated drink is [[BlandNameProduct Zesti cola]] and he drinks tea more often than coffee.
19	** In fanon, [[ComicBook/RedHood Jason Todd]] is a violent rebel that hates Bruce, and cursing swear words every five seconds when agitated, even as a kid. In canon, he's actually a cheerful child(Pre-crisis and early post-crisis) and his rebellious streak is considered to be uncharacteristic of him that only became pronounced in his later years as Robin and after he became the Red Hood. While they do have a rocky relationship, he never hated Bruce and even defends him at times. Finally, he never curses but does sadistic [[YouFightLikeACow snarky dialogue]] that rivals Dick Grayson while peppering it with literature references.
20	*** Then there is the belief that his eyes changing color, him becoming more violent because of the Lazarus Pits. Canon never shows the former (or its only a coloring issue) and while he did CameBackWrong, his attitude is under the belief that Bruce's moral code doesn't work on the costumed psychotics, and his psychotic breakdowns are caused by his WellDoneSonGuy attitude and DependingOnTheWriter scenarios than crazy inducing green water.
21	*** There's also his FanNickname Jaybird, Jay-Lad, and Little Wing. Dick and Bruce did use the nicknames in canon, but they stopped using it after his death and it's never referenced again. Whereas in fanon, Dick loves to use Little Wing to refer to Jason and Jay-Lad for Bruce in every second sentence. Meanwhile, Jaybird ''did'' become AscendedFanon but it became Roy's nickname for Jason instead.
22	*** The white streak/white tuft in his otherwise black hair after death. The ''only'' time Jason has appeared with this is in the Hush comics or pages referencing back to Hush, and pretty much disappeared after that, but it still makes a frequent appearance in fanart and fanfiction to this day despite it ''very'' rarely appearing in canon, if much at all. Some people theorize that the white streak is a leftover from the head trauma the Joker gave him, and that it doesn't show up anymore because he's dying it.
23	** Damian's love for animals went from Fanon to AscendedFanon after Batman#666, where he kept a cat named Alfred. Ever since then, he is having an incredible soft spot for animals of all shapes and sizes, and becoming a vegetarian. Canon even has him adopting a cat, dog, cow, dragon-bat, and a full-size Japanese dragon over time.
24	** Poison Ivy doesn't need to eat due to being a plant hybrid nature. This is mistaken for canon but hasn't appeared in anything official. Many derivatives imply she's either vegetarian or that she ''really'' likes meat.
25	* ''Comicbook/XMen''
26	** In the same vein of people's only knowledge of characters coming from movies, there's the idea that Wolverine and Sabretooth of the X-Men mythos are half-brothers, which, while used in the ''[[Film/XMenOriginsWolverine X-Men Origins]]'' movie, does not actually apply anywhere else. Though, of course, with [[MultipleChoicePast Wolverine's]] [[ExpansionPackPast past]], who can tell?
27	*** There was a long-standing rumor that the two were actually father and son, and Sabretooth did in fact refer to Wolverine as "Son of mine" in one comic. We now know this is not true, but there are many casual fans who still believe it.
28	*** There's also the widely-held belief that Dog Logan from the limited series ''Origin'' (who was heavily implied to be Wolverine's half-brother, and was used as the basis for the films' portrayal of a young Sabretooth) was actually Sabretooth, even though the author of said comic [[WordOfGod went on record saying that he never intended this]]. This is exacerbated by the videogame adaptation of ''[[Film/XMenOriginsWolverine X-Men Origins]]'', since one of its load screen "facts" actually claims that Dog and Sabretooth are one and the same. [[note]]Not to mention the rather explicit in-universe evidence to the contrary: Dog's last appearance in the comic has him with three permanent scars on his face from Wolvie's claws (even though Wolvie himself has long since discovered his healing factor by this point) seeming to indicate that he doesn't have Sabretooth's healing powers.[[/note]]
29	*** Speaking of Wolverine, there is a popular theory going around that Rachel Summers, a member of the X-Men from a parallel reality, is actually the daughter of Wolverine and X-Man Jean Grey, despite the fact that the comics clearly state that Rachel is the child of her reality's Cyclops and Jean Grey. Despite any evidence to the contrary, this theory is stated as fact by several fans.
30	*** There were some hints, at least, that Scott might not be Rachel's father. There's absolutely no evidence, at all, anywhere, that Wolverine is her father. Claremont's original plan, supposedly, was to have Rachel be the daughter of Jean and the Phoenix Force.
31	** It's incredibly popular fanon that Sarah Kinney used her own genetic material to stabilize the samples used to create Comicbook/{{X 23}}, thus making her ''biologically'' Sarah's daughter, mainly from a line of narration in Liu's ''X-23'' ongoing series. However WordOfGod confirms this not to be the case, nor is it ever actually stated in the books themselves.
32	*** One piece of fanon that causes no end of trouble for collectors is an insistence that X-23's ''actual'' first appearance was not in ''Comicbook/{{NYX}}'', but in ''Wolverine'' #80, based on a single test tube of Logan's genetic material labeled with both a letter "X" and a number "23" (though not actually together). Even though the issue in question was published a full 10 years before her appearance in ''WesternAnimation/XMenEvolution''. Unfortunately, this means speculators — whether intentionally or not — mislead poorly-informed prospective buyers, since first appearances tend to be the most desirable comics.
33	* Pre-Crisis, Creator/ENelsonBridwell placed [[Franchise/{{Batman}} Gotham City]] in New Jersey and [[Franchise/{{Superman}} Metropolis]] in Delaware (directly opposite each other across Delaware Bay). A TabletopGames tie-in for Franchise/TheDCU claimed this remained the case in the post-Crisis universe, but these details are never mentioned in any post-Crisis comic books despite numerous fans accepting it as fact. Metropolis has also been described (if only in our world) as New York in the day and Gotham City as New York at night, but that's for poetic reasons; New York exists as a separate entity.
34	** While Metropolis's location still hasn't been given a canonical placement, there are at least two canon references to Gotham being in New Jersey -- ''ComicBook/LegionOfSuperHeroes,'' pre-Zero Hour, made reference to the Bat-Cave being located (by archaeologists) in the Jersey sector of Metropolis, and an issue of ''Shadow of the Bat'' showed a character's driver's license, giving him an address in "Gotham City, NJ".
35	** The "Countdown to Final Crisis" special showed a computer display which listed biographical information about several DC super heroes. "Gotham, NJ" and "Metropolis, DE" were pretty clearly visible on Batman and Superman's files.
36	** Arkham Asylum is only one indicator that Gotham is in ''Massachusetts'', its relationship to ''Boston'' analogous to that of ''Metropolis'' to ''Manhattan''.
37	*** The placement of Arkham Asylum in Massachusetts must be a reference to Creator/HPLovecraft. The name "Arkham" comes from a fictional town in Massachusetts where some of his stories are set. That's unfortunate; there must have been ''some'' way to make the ShoutOut that didn't require moving Gotham to yet another state...
38	*** Interestingly enough, Arkham Asylum's (or Arkham "Hospital's") debut in ''Batman'' #258 (1974) explicitly places it in New England... but does nothing to confirm that it's in or even near Gotham. By the time Arkham ''was'' confirmed to be in Gotham in ''Batman'' #326 (1980), the New England angle was largely forgotten.
39	** [[ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths Pre-Crisis]], Metropolis was sometimes stated to be on the East Coast, sometimes in the Midwest, and sometimes even on the West Coast.
40	*** Then you have Smallville. Originally, its location was usually unstated (though one comic put it on the Atlantic Seaboard). It wasn't until the Christopher Reeves film that it was placed in Kansas. Which becomes canon in ''ComicBook/TheManOfSteel'' since.
41	*** The show ''Series/{{Smallville}}'' threw a wrench in the works by placing Metropolis within sight of Smallville, both of which are stated to be in Kansas. However, ''Smallville'' is clearly an adaptation and routinely deviates from other Superman media. Pre-Crisis Superman comics place Metropolis pretty darn close to Smallville, however.
42	* Much like River from ''{{Series/Firefly}}'', Gambit often refers to himself in the [[ThirdPersonPerson third person]] in fanfiction. This happened rarely if at all in the comics. This might, however, have stemmed from the ''WesternAnimation/XMenTheAnimatedSeries'' cartoon of the '90s, in which Gambit did this quite often.
43	** Strange things happen to Gambit in Russian fandom. 1) He is called Creole nearly all the time (he's Cajun in canon). 2) He's always viewed as an extremely Casanova-type character (which he is not in canon or at least not more than other characters in canon; example -- Wolverine). 3) He's bisexual. This has been so ingrained in the fandom that most people seriously believe he is bisexual in canon (!) or at least intended to be. 4) Terrence Dash. Just Terrence Dash. Don't ask... this purely fan-made character (Gambit's gay pairing) is treated almost as if he was canon in the first place.
44	*** The first two things can be explained by the fact that most of Russian fans of X-Men first got acquainted with them via ''WesternAnimation/XMenTheAnimatedSeries'', where in dub Gambit indeed was called Creole quite often and constantly tried to charm some casual girls. ComicBook/{{Wolverine}}'s not getting the same treatment may be connected to the fact that his [[GirlOfTheWeek Girls Of The Week]] usually played a significant part in the episode's plot and he didn't play up his "ladies' man" image. Two latter seem to be a result of the huge influence of the first generation fans.
45	* People have noted that ComicBook/SquirrelGirl's [[LethalJokeCharacter victories against villains]] [[DidYouJustFlipOffCthulhu far stronger]] [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu than her]] is due to her PlotArmor only working in proportion in how strong her foes are, thus she'd lose if she met regular mooks. However, if you'd ask the Bug-Eyed Voice and examined [[GroinAttack the nuts]] of one of the mooks which were defeated by her in GLA Issue #2 you'd notice that she is still overpowered against normal mooks who run screaming from "the bringer of Anti-Life!".
46	* Many recent revivals of [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden Age]] public domain comic book superheroes wind up incorporating [[AscendedFanon fanon into canon]] because, well, Golden Age comic books are hard to find, leaving writers no choice but to rely on character profiles found throughout the Internet. Many of those profiles have at least some fanon. In fairness, [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden Age]] comics were never big on continuity, so lots of this fanon comes from attempts to reconcile contradictory details and justify things that just plain didn't make sense.
47	* Female characters that were savagely beaten and hurt in canon will have been raped according to fanon. Perhaps this is because RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil or people do not understand why a hero being hurt is such a big deal. Some examples of this include Rogue when she was depowered in Genosha, ComicBook/{{Batgirl}} (Barbara Gordon) when she was attacked and crippled by the Joker in ''ComicBook/TheKillingJoke'', and ComicBook/BlackCanary being beaten by a gang in ''The Longbow Hunters'' (this is often due to fans being confused why she ended up infertile). Word of God has confirmed none of them were raped.
48	** Based on the art (and/or tone) of the first two, they have either a subtext or implication of rape. In ''Uncanny X-Men'' #236, Rogue is in a Genoshan Cell, depowered and crying, where the guard explains to her superior "I'm afraid some of my officers took a few... liberties when she was being processed. What they thought was fun, she evidently felt was something else. Those responsible have been disciplined. It won't happen again." It is very heavily implied to have been some form of sexual assault, and while the rape implication is unclear, it is not outside the textual basis. Likewise, while The Killing Joke's textual implications of rape are not as overt, the tone of the writing and art are very evocative of how rape is often portrayed in media. So while it is clearer from the text that she was probably not raped, the tone of her appearance in the story was very much one of rape. While WordOfGod confirms that they were not raped, there is still textual evidence to support that theory, with the possible explanation that the ambiguity made it easier for the writers to turn the implication of rape into something else (though sexual assault and/or traumatic violence is still implied or overt).
49	* Gwen Stacy is an interesting example because canon-wise she was a short-tempered {{Tsundere}} that ReallyGetsAround and was continually trying to seduce Peter because he was not interested in her, despite the fact that during that time she was dating Flash Thompson and later Harry Osborn. After she began dating Peter she developed into a truly caring girlfriend. After she was killed by the Green Goblin Fanon disregarded her history and turned her into a PuritySue Virgin and claimed that it was impossible that she would ever sleep with a man despite the fact she had early on claimed to have slept with every man she knew.
50	* The only thing known for sure about the person who killed (or was otherwise responsible for the death of) the first Despair in ''ComicBook/TheSandman'' is that he "will take the rest of eternity to die. Only then will his pain cease." A very popular fan theory is that his fate was to ''become'' the second Despair.
51	* ''ComicBook/ArchieComics'':
52	** Jughead is either gay (and possibly in love with Archie) or UsefulNotes/{{asexual}}. The latter is AscendedFanon as of ''ComicBook/ArchieComics2015''.
53	** Fans lean heavily towards Betty/Archie being the OfficialCouple. Veronica is rarely treated as too seriously a love interest.
54	* When Mercy Graves became a CanonImmigrant to ''Comicbook/{{Superman}}'' comics (along with new character Hope), they were shown as being able to go up against Superman in a fight, and he speculated they might be Amazons. In the absence of any other explanation, fans have latched onto this one, but it was never confirmed in the comics, and is arguably contradicted in ''Superman's Metropolis Secret Files and Origins'' (which reveals that Mercy has an Aunt Bo, and Hope had a grandmother who died in Metropolis General Hospital at the age of ninety-three). But this doesn't rule out the possibility that they have Amazon ancestry.

Context Fanon / ComicBooks