Marvel Universe
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Avengers
- The Avengers are commonly thought to have always been the most feared and respected superhero team in the Marvel Universe, and the Alternate Company Equivalent of DC's Justice League. The latter point is true to an extent, as both teams consisted of heroes who already appeared as solo characters. They've also had Earth's Mightiest Heroes as a tagline since issue 103 of Vol 1 (Release Date June 13 1972, Cover Date September 1972).
- The idea of them being the most feared and respected superhero team in-universe dates back to The Oughties but it wasn't the case for most of the team's history. It's actually the Fantastic Four who have historically been portrayed in-universe as the Marvel Universe's greatest superhero team, and (according to Word of God) they were conceived as a direct answer to the Justice League (see below). Out-of-universe, the X-Men were consistently Marvel's most popular team from the early-'80s all the way until the '00s, and Marvel even wanted them to be the backbone of the entire universe. In comparison, the Avengers never really became a flagship title until shortly before the movies made it big. However, they have always been an Alternate Company Equivalent of DC's Justice League in another sense, being (mostly) made-up of heroes from pre-existing titles rather than an all-new team book.
- Stan Lee and Jack Kirby originally envisioned The Avengers as a showcase for lesser-known Marvel Comics characters who weren't popular enough to have their own series, which is why the original team was mostly made up of superheroes who debuted in Marvel's various anthology books.note This remained the case when Stan Lee's successor Roy Thomas took over the series, and it stayed true for around four decades; Marvel's editorial staff even expressly forbade Thomas from using characters who had their own solo series, which is why Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, and the Hulk were eventually replaced by then-obscure characters like the Vision, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Hercules, Black Knight, and Black Panther (some of whom were original characters created for the Avengers). Rather than being made up exclusively of the greatest superheroes in the world, many of the Avengers' longtime members have actually been former supervillains who joined the team seeking redemption for their past misdeeds, leading to the common observation that the team often serves as something of a "halfway house" for criminals seeking a second chance at life.
- This is the reason why Mark Millar's reimagined Alternate Continuity version of the team was called The Ultimates: The Avengers was considered a relatively obscure comic book in the early 2000s, and Marvel's editorial staff didn't think its title had enough brand recognition to be marketable.note In the mainline comics, three events gave The Avengers a bigger push. All these storylines happened in The Oughties.
- House of M, which ended with the mutant population reduced to low numbers and concomitantly had the X-Men and the mutants shuffled out of the spotlight.
- New Avengers, which had the Avengers based in Stark Tower, a detail carried over for the first two films, and which had Wolverine and Spider-Man join the group, to give it the star power it had lacked until then. That last part became especially ironic after the franchise blew up, since most people nowadays would consider many of the classic Avengers (who, as mentioned, were largely considered B-list at best prior to this) such as Iron Man, Cap, Thor, Hulk, Black Panther, and Carol Danvers to have sufficient star power on their own.
- Civil War, which totally changed the status-quo of the entire universe and placed the Avengers and its mythos at the heart of the Marvel Universe.
- If you ask someone who the quintessential Avengers are, Hulk will probably be on the list. Hulk, however, was on the team for just two issues, fought against the team for a couple other issues, and that was it. Except for some cameo at some special issue every now and then, Hulk had never been a recurring member of the team. The idea was explored first in The Ultimates, then Marvel Adventures, The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes animated series and the film; and only then would Hulk rejoin the team in the mainline comics.
- Hawkeye is often held as that one guy with no powers who's largely useless, and is only kept out of tradition (with the joke often being "they're so sure they got it covered, they even let Hawkeye tag along!"). Not so. Many don't know that Hawkeye is a skilled leader, tactician, martial artist, acrobat, master of multiple weapons besides his signature bow, has access to a variety of gadgets including Trick Arrows and his own Flying Car (the Sky-Cycle) that help leverage his own lack of powers. There was a reason he's led multiple teams, most famously the West Coast Avengers and the Thunderbolts. "Having no powers" doesn't equate to "being utterly useless", as Hawkeye often proved. Much of this perception came from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, where not only is Hawkeye Out of Focus compared to the over Avengers, but his skills don't get nearly as emphasized as much when he is onscreen and he flat-out lacks much of his gadgets, other weapons, and Sky-Cycle; thus many just know him as the "arrow guy".
- Iron Man:
- His best friend is James Rhodes, and his love interest is Pepper Potts, right? Sort of true. When Iron Man first got a supporting cast (Tales of Suspense #45), Pepper was his love interest, whilst his best friend was his chauffeur/bodyguard, Happy Hogan. There was a love triangle between the three for years before Happy and Pepper eventually got married and moved away. By the time Rhodey entered the scene, Tony had dated many other women, notably Madame Masque and Bethany Cabe. Whilst Happy died during Civil War, and it is certainly true that Rhodey and Pepper are Tony's two most prominent supporting characters, Pepper still hasn't been a romantic interest of Tony's for years - in fact, a plot point in Kieron Gillen's run hinged on the fact that she got engaged. Like many examples here, this perception is largely due to the movies, which had Pepper as the primary love interest and Rhodey as Tony's best friend from the beginning, with Happy taking on a much smaller role.
- Iron Man is also known as the celebrity superhero, one without a Secret Identity and who is basically a rockstar who both fights bad guys and is renowned by the public. While that's true now, for most of his history, it wasn't. Iron Man's identity was as closely guarded as Spider-Man's. Notably, he founded the Avengers without any of the other heroes knowing who he is (Hank Pym wasn't pleased to learn he wasn't the lone super-genius of the founders, either). Many of his allies didn't know he was Iron Man, and Stark constructed a backstory that Iron Man was his personal bodyguard with many stories hinging on no one knowing that Tony Stark is Iron Man. Rhodes (aka War Machine) didn't know he was Iron Man until much later on. As for when he became public, that wasn't until 2002, where he revealed himself as Iron Man for the purpose of saving a dog when one was in danger of an incoming car, and he couldn't avoid it. Even then, he was actually able to back out and be secretive a while longer. It wasn't until the Civil War arc in 2006 where Tony Stark completely announced to the world he was Iron Man as a gesture of support for the Pro-Reg side he was leading, and has remained that way ever since. As such, the idea of him being public is Newer Than They Think. This perception is fueled by the MCU's portrayal, with the iconic "I am Iron Man" scene setting the stage for the rest of the franchise. It should be noted that they intended him to have a secret identity there as well, but as the movie was largely improvised, Robert Downey Jr. came up with that on the spot, they went with it, and the rest is history.
- Captain America:
- Ultimate Marvel Captain America is often thought of as a racist. While this version of Cap is written as a product of his time in many ways, he wasn't actually racist per se. The scene that gets cited as proof was when Cap woke up in S.H.I.E.L.D. custody, and couldn't believe that Nick Fury was a Colonel, and thought it was a German setup before forcing his way out to learn of the world he now lives in. That wasn't because he was racist though, but because he couldn't wrap his head around the idea that America wasn't racist — as in the '40s, the highest ranked black man in the U.S. Army was a Captain (and Captain America knew him personally, having grown up with him). The breaking point for him wasn't that Nick Fury was black, but because he was told that he had been out for 60 years.
- A very frequent misconception is that Captain America's trademark shield is a mixture of vibranium and adamantium, and that the movies had to change it to pure vibranium due to adamantium being associated with the X-Men, who as mentioned above, had their film rights controlled by Fox when the MCU first began. Not only does the shield not contain adamantium, it actually predates the invention of that metal both within Marvel continuity and in real life by decades (admittedly, the shield also predates vibranium in real life by decades as well; the metal wasn't first mentioned until the 60s). In the comics, a scientist named Myron Maclain created Cap's shield after accidentally bonding a new steel alloy to a sample of Wakandan vibranium, and was never able to duplicate the procedure. Though unable to replicate that experiment, Maclain created a similarly durable metal called adamantium years later, which Weapon X later used to create Wolverine's unbreakable skeleton. Part of the confusion seems to stem from the fact that while adamantium was never part of Cap's shield (and thus did not need to be omitted in the movies), adamantium did compose Ultron's body in the comics, which is why his final form had to instead be made of vibranium in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Note that this misconception is common enough that even Mark Gruenwald, Cap's longest-running writer and a notorious continuity nut, erroneously identified the shield as being composed of adamantium during a crossover with Wolverine back in The '80s.
- Most comic fans will know Bucky, and now that The Falcon is in the MCU and even getting his own show, they will probably know him as well, but Bucky is generally considered Cap's one and only sidekick and Falcon is seen as more of a secondary character who works closely with Cap but isn't really a "sidekick", per se. However, not only was he Cap's de facto sidekick for decades (The book even getting renamed to "Captain America and the Falcon"), but Cap has had loads of other sidekicks over the years, including D-Man, Jack Flag, and Nomad. Not only that, but Bucky isn't even the only character to go by that name - Some of them were retcons, but there have been as many Buckies as there have been Robins at this point.
- Black Widow:
- She is seen nowadays as the quintessential female Avenger, thanks to the Marvel Cinematic Universe promoting her greatly in status. In actuality, she has had a long association with the Avengers, but wasn't a big name player for them in the same way she is in the movies and of the MCU's founding six was easily the least prominent among them beforehand. For many years there were multiple heroines more associated such as The Waspnote , Scarlet Witchnote , Carol Danversnote , and even Mockingbirdnote . Much of her fame is Newer Than They Think, with a lot of it from the MCU promoting her to A-list status when beforehand she was firmly a C-lister (or at best, B-lister) on the fringe rather than a headliner.
- She is not a Badass Normal. In the comics, Black Widow has vastly slowed aging and an enhanced immune system that enables her to survive conditions that would kill normal people. She also has peak human attributes in all categories similar to Captain America — the Red Room giving her a version of the serum. About the slowed aging part? She was born in 1928. This misconception is derived entirely from the MCU, which made her into a Badass Normal without the slowed aging, enhanced immune system, or the serum, and since that was the first exposure to the character many had, that's the version that stuck in the public consciousness.
Other
- The first appearances of some comic characters can count as this. For example, ask a Venom fan what comic he first fully appeared in and they'll say "Amazing Spider-Man #300." Which is false. He actually fully appeared on the last page of #299 note . Likewise, all X-Men fans know Gambit first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #266. Although chronologically this is correct, his true first appearance actually was in "Uncanny X-Men Annual 14," which, though taking place after the story from #266, was also released a month before said comic came out.
- Everybody "knows" that the Hulk is a childish green-skinned ragehead who wears ripped shorts and has a three-year-old's grasp of English. While not wrong, this is actually just one of the Hulk's many incarnations (Savage Hulk). Depending on the occasion, he's also a scheming grey-skinned mobster who wears fine suits (his "Joe Fixit" persona), a brilliant scientist in a full-body spandex suit (his merged form, or "Professor Hulk"), a cunning Barbarian Hero who wears armor into battle (his "Green Scar" persona), or a smirking monster who rises from the grave to torment the wicked (Immortal/"Devil" Hulk). One of his earlier incarnations was dumb, but not child-like, nor monosyllabic (and didn't even refer to himself in the third person), but was about on-par, intelligence-wise, as a drunk, angry stevedore. As Bruce Banner has Multiple Personality Disordernote , there is no singular "The Hulk"—they're all just aspects of his personality.
- Also it's commonly said that The Hulk was originally gray, but a printing error made him be green in his first issue. While it's true that he was intended to be gray, and that there were printing issues, they didn't make him appear green. They actually made him appear wildly varying shades of gray due to it being a difficult color to print at the time, resulting in the Hulk being a different color in every panel. Stan Lee eventually decided on green for The Incredible Hulk #2 which was easier to print consistently. note
- Like much of Silver Age Marvel, the original Stan Lee/Jack Kirby Hulk stories had a lot of Early-Installment Weirdness. As mentioned above, the Hulk originally had gray skin instead of green, was smaller, and was noticeably smarter and more articulate, even speaking in complete sentences instead of Hulk Speak. Banner also changed when the sun went down instead of whenever he got angry. Most of these elements were glossed over or outright ignored for years (with certain reprints of the Hulk's debut even changing his skin from gray to green for consistency), before finally coming back in the late 80s/early 90s. While Peter David is the one credited with bringing back the Gray Hulk and acknowledging those early inconsistencies via the whole multiple personality angle, the Gray Hulk's return actually occurred during Al Milgrom's run, which happened right before David took over the series. David definitely explored the idea in much greater detail, but the seeds had already been planted by the time he began writing the series.
- A general misconception by the public is that any comic with a #1 on the cover is worth a lot of money. Whilst it's true for some issues - Action Comics #1, Fantastic Four #1 - the more important thing to collectors is which character(s) debuted in that issue, leading to things like Detective Comics #27 and Amazing Fantasy #15 being amongst some of the most valuable comics. This was a belief encouraged by comic companies in the 90's, where some comic collectors were making big money on classic issues. This resulted in everything having a "special limited edition"
◊ with Feelies thrown in or having various #1 issues◊ proclaim them a "collector's item" to drive up demand (and thus the price) to a gullible public who believed that comics were the next gold rush. note Most of them aren't even worth the cover price today.- One thing that is true about #1s is that they tend to be the highest-selling issue of a comic. Part of it is the above belief, while the other part is the simple idea that a #1 is where a new reader can get started. Because of this, stores tend to order the #1 issues the most, since any reader looking to pick up a run of comics or find a new series is obviously going to value the first issue over the twentieth. (Publishers have been known to try to exploit this by relaunching a book to give it more #1s - Captain Marvel received a total of four #1s over the course of about five years.)
- It also helps that the most valuable #1 issues, such as Action Comics #1, were published at a time when comics were disposable and not collector's items (and were published in modest numbers as nobody suspected they'd be massive hits), meaning that there are just plain few of them in any sort of condition to go around.
- The Runaways are commonly thought to be Marvel's premier young superhero team (alongside the Young Avengers, who fit the bill much more closely). In reality, they're not superheroes. At least they don't think of themselves nor are they treated this way. They're literally a group of teenage runaways who left once they learned their parents were an evil organization known as the Pride. Sure, they have unique powers, tech, and they fight crime, but they also eschew the tropes normally associated with superheroes. They don't have costumes, they don't use codenames (they did attempt to adopt them, but it didn't stick), they aren't considered a true superhero team by other characters in the Marvel Universe (in fact, the Runaways were actually neutral during the Civil War event despite the Young Avengers attempting to recruit them to the Anti-Reg side), and they fully mock the idea of being a superhero team. The closest any member had gotten to being a traditional superhero was Nico Minoru, who served in the (short-lived) Amazon Brigade Avengers sub-division A-Force when the team was disbanded for a time. Finally, they do not call themselves "the Runaways", and originally that wasn't their name at all (they had no name), but the name of the story. It eventually became their official team name, but they never actually call themselves that. It wasn't until the 2019 storyline "Doc Justice & The J-Team"◊ where the characters would finally dabble in being a traditional superhero team, adopting new aliases and costumes. Marvel even hyped up the arc, joking that they would join the ranks of their other preeminent superhero teams like The Avengers and The Defenders.
- It's commonly assumed by the general non-comic audiences that anyone who has superpowers will become a superhero/villain in a superhero world. The reality is that we mostly see the ones who do, but there are plenty of superpowered characters in Marvel/DC who simply live normal lives, much like how not everyone in the real world becomes a cop or a soldier. An example of this that was explored was in Marvel's Civil War Crisis Crossover, where Congress passes a Super Registration Act that causes the titular event, and part of that act involves drafting superhumans to the government to become a civil servant, regardless if they want to or not. A specific example of this shown was when a mutate named Abigail Boylen, or Cloud 9, who has the ability to fly but had no desire to be a hero, was stopped by War Machine for not registering (although she later became a superhero during Avengers: The Initiative, after Iron Man won the civil war). Another example is that the vast majority of mutants at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters don't become X-Men, they just go there to be in a safe place away from persecution.
- The Civil War event is often believed to be about the titular war over the Super Registration Act forcing superheroes to reveal their secret identities to all the public. Unfortunately, this isn't quite true. The titular war was actually about the act forcing superheroes and superhumans, whether they want to or not, to be agents of the government. It essentially meant conscripting superhumans with no desire to put their lives at risk, including teenagers, to be soldiers, which was seen by Captain America and his companions as unconstitutional and was likened to slavery. The act also turned people who risked their lives on a regular basis into criminals just because they didn't want to subject themselves to a government official's agenda. The part about revealing their identities wasn't to the public, but to the government, and there was no obligation for them to be publicly known. The confusion likely stems from Spider-Man publicly revealing his identity to the world in this event (which spread all over the Internet like wildfire at the time), but that wasn't because of the law; rather it was a gesture of support to Tony Stark (i.e. a publicity stunt).
- Red Skull:
- Johann Schmidt was not the original Red Skull—just the best-known. He was the second one; the original was a man named John Maxon, who barely anyone remembers. Even though the Red Skull is the archetypal Nazi supervillain, Maxon was—ironically enough—an evil American businessman with Nazi sympathies.
- Even though he's always been Captain America's arch-nemesis, Johann Schmidt wasn't the one responsible for shooting Cap down over the Arctic Ocean and leaving him a Human Popsicle; that was Baron Zemo, who isn't quite as iconicnote . Because of this, many adaptations simply have Red Skull be responsible for Cap being frozen instead.
- Finally, Red Skull was not the founder of HYDRA. That was Baron Strucker, who likewise is far more obscure than Schmidt. Because of this, Schmidt is portrayed as the founder in the Marvel Cinematic Universe for simplicity's sake.
- In relation to the above: Baron Wolfgang von Strucker was a highly ranked Nazi officer answerable only to Adolf Hitler himself and the Skull, Hitler's right hand man. The Skull, fearing that WWII would not end with a Nazi victory, dispatched Strucker to the Far East to establish a power base there. That power base eventually became HYDRA, which is why it can be argued that Red Skull was indeed the original "founder" of HYDRA.
- Thanos is often described as an Expy/Captain Ersatz of Darkseid. This is only sort of true at best; Jim Starlin took some inspiration from Jack Kirby's design for Darkseid while designing Thanos’s look (at the suggestion of an editor no less), and they're both incredibly powerful characters who come from space, but that’s pretty much the extent of any similarities. They appeared in more or less the same timeframe (Darkseid in 1971, Thanos in 1973) and they’ve never really had much in common; their motives, personalities, and general roles are all wildly different. Even weirder are those who believe the inverse, that Darkseid is an Expy of Thanos, which is just bizarre given that Darkseid came first. Thanos was actually an Expy primarily of Metron in his early days (their outfits are a bit similar, they're Wild Cards, they're The Chessmaster, and they both fly around space in a techno-throne), which was exactly why said editor made the recommendation of "If you're going to rip off New Gods, at least rip off the really cool one." Part of the problem is that when they're suffering from Flanderization or Villain Decay, a lot of their differences tend to be scrubbed off, due to writers treating them as generic super-strong heavies—the Thanos who appears in the 2012 Avengers Assemble and the Darkseid who appears in the 2011 Justice League reboot, for instance, end up being basically identical.
- On a similar note, Nova is often thought of as an Expy to Green Lantern. In reality, the only thing the two have in common is that they're both part of a Space Police organization, but otherwise their backstories, personalities, and powers are completely different; Green Lantern being an adult Ace Pilot who uses a special ring to construct whatever he needs, while Nova joined as an inexperienced teenager with a Flying Brick power set. In fact, Nova for a long time was a Butt-Monkey and used as the poster boy for brash, naive rookies trying to get in with the big leagues but often getting in the way and it wasn't until the Annihilation event in the '00s where he Took a Level in Badass, which is a far cry from Green Lantern's portrayal as a hotshot who nonetheless had the skill to justify his behavior.
- It's commonly thought that America Chavez's Catchphrase is "Holy menstruation!". Cringeworthy as it is, America only ever said the phrase once, in the first issue of her widely-panned solo series that did a number on her character, making it a massive case of Never Live It Down. Though saying a phrase like that is certainly an example of bad writing, it was from a writer who had no prior experience with comics, and her only saying it once and never again doesn't exactly make it her catchphrase by any stretch.
- Loki is not a Squishy Wizard as he's often thought to be. While he does prefer deception and magic over direct combat, he is very much capable of fighting when needed. He's a Frost Giant, a Deity, who on top of his magical abilities can bench press at least 50 tons. He just seems this way, considering his adoptive brother is The Mighty Thor, but to a normal human, he's a Kung-Fu Wizard.
- Doctor Doom: Thanks to Adaptation Decay, with the Four never properly being adapted in the first place, Doctor Doom in the movies is presented as someone who has superpowers, originating from the same accident that powered his nemesis team, the Fantastic Four, for the sake of Adaptation Distillation and simplifying the story (following on from Ultimate Fantastic Four which was a movie-friendly distillation to start with). In actual fact, Doom's origins have little to do with the team — he did attend college with Reed Richards before his rise to dictator of Latveria, and that's where his hatred of Reed began, but much of Doom's story happened separately before menacing the family. Doom was born as an oppressed Romani peasant in the fictional Latveria, before toppling a corrupt dictator and becoming a dictator himself, albeit not a personally corrupt one but still quite tyrannical and authoritarian. As for his powers, Dr. Doom is not personally superhuman. He is primarily a brilliant scientist and genius, who is also a political, legal, military and criminal mastermind, a powerful sorcerer who blends magic with science through the use of Magitek, wearing armor that can stand up to Physical Gods and wielding enough power to take out some of Marvel's biggest heavy-hitters.
- Black Panther: Shuri is almost always imagined as being a Gadgeteer Genius who invents her brother's tech, thanks to the massively successful Black Panther movie portraying it this way. In the comics, it's a bit different. T'Challa is The Chessmaster, and the Gadgeteer Genius himself, being a master inventor who creates his own gadgets, considered one of the eight smartest people in the world (the others being Reed Richards, Bruce Banner, Tony Stark, Hank Pym, Victor Von Doom, Hank McCoy and Amadeus Cho). He's essentially the smartest guy in the room in most cases, but isn't typically imagined that way by non-comic audiences. The movies made him into an Adaptational Dumbass, losing his inventor status while giving it to Shuri, and instead focusing on his political aspects, done to make the cast more well-rounded. Shuri in the comics is a genius, but is more into sorcery than technology. Because the heavy magic might've seemed a little too much to introduce in an already jam-packed movie, it was downplayed in favor of this. Also, Shuri as a whole is Newer Than They Think, as she didn't debut until 2005, a full 39 years after her brother. This makes what a lot of people imagine what they like about Shuri and Black Panther as being more a product of the movie, rather than the actual comics.
- Similar to the Avengers example, many people are surprised to learn that the Guardians of the Galaxy weren't really a big deal in the Marvel Universe until relatively recently, or that the specific iteration of the team the films are based on didn't come into existence until 2008, a mere six years before the first movie was released. Even then, the Guardians certainly weren't a major part of the Marvel Universe the way they currently are, and mostly stuck to their own little corner without too much interaction with Earth. That really only changed once Brian Bendis relaunched the series in 2013, specifically to raise the team's profile ahead of the then-upcoming film. It was under Bendis that the Guardians became more integrated into the Marvel Universe, with additionalnote Earth-based heroes like Iron Man, Captain Marvel and even Agent Venom joining the team, and the characters getting involved in the major crossovers of the day like Infinity and Civil War II. If you want a snapshot of just how much the team's popularity has skyrocketed since the movie, take a look at recent video games that prominently feature the Guardians like Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite or Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3, and then check out older installments from those same series. You likely won't find a single Guardian as a playable character in just about any Marvel video game made prior to 2013 or so, with the one major exception being Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, which featured Rocket Raccoon to help build up the character's profile in advance of the movie.
- Everyone knows Power Pack is a kid-friendly, wacky and lighthearted series starring Kid Heroes who go on fun hijinx and like many superhero stories starring kids were basically harmless, as part of Marvel's attempt to appeal to the young demographic as they would with comics like Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur and Champions many years later... except, that's not true at all. While the heroes were kids, the comic played its superhero premise entirely straight, and included as many dark themes as fellow heroes Spider-Man, X-Men and Daredevil. They took part in crossovers like Secret Wars II, Fall of the Mutants, Inferno (1988) and the aforementioned Mutant Massacre, and none of them were kid-friendly. With such kiddie themes like child abuse, guns in school, bullying, and genocide, it was major Audience-Alienating Premise despite being well-received by just about all those who did read it, amounting to it being a Cult Classic to this day. Still, because it stars four children as protagonists, it's assumed it must be for kids, hence it's often suggested by those unfamiliar with it for Disney to adapt it into an animated series or movie similar to Big Hero 6 to appease young audiences as if it were the kid-friendly fare it gets mistaken for.
- A large part of the blame for this might be owed to the team's multiple Marvel Adventures miniseries. The subline was specifically based around providing Lighter and Softer fare, but while it also included versions of much more popular characters and teams, the Power Pack was the only one to suffer Adaptation Displacement as a result, perhaps because it was the Adventures title with the most obscure source material.
- The Defenders is often thought to be an alliance between the Hulk, Doctor Strange, Silver Surfer and Namor the Sub-Mariner, and anyone's image of that team will be these four (at least, when it's not the In Name Only Netflix series). While not technically wrong, this iteration is actually much Briefer Than They Think. As in, every iteration featuring this lineup only lasts a few issues. For the most part, the two most consistent members are Strange and Hulk, while the team itself is more of a loose alliance of individuals fighting otherworldly threats, who more often can't stand each other and are only working together out of necessity. Also, the team has had a High Turnover Rate to rival The Avengers, with just about every hero and even some villains having held "membership" at some point.
- It's often stated that Shang-Chi is Marvel Universe's answer to Bruce Lee, but that's not completely true. While Shang-Chi was created during the dawn of the 1970s martial arts craze popularized by Lee, his creators Jim Starlin and Steve Englehart loosely based him off Kwai-Chang Caine from the TV series Kung Fu (1972), after failing to obtain the rights to adapt the television show as a comic book series. It wasn't until Paul Gulacy joined as an illustrator several issues into Master of Kung Fu and long after Starlin and Englehart left the series that Shang-Chi was redrawn to resemble Lee. Gulacy himself was a noted film buff and many of his characters including Shang-Chi were modeled off film stars during his tenure. Since then, Depending on the Writer and Artist, Shang-Chi has been drawn to resemble Lee or at least paid homage to him.
