Thanks to Cowboy BeBop at His Computer, it's only a matter of time before the news informs us that the X-Men are 24th in a line of alphabet-themed superhero teams.
- A British newspaper once featured a picture of Captain America, captioned as Captain Planet, apparently failing to spot the colossal A on his helmet and American flag shield
. - The media brouhaha surrounding the fact that in-real-life beleaguered Prime Minister Gordon Brown appeared in the Marvel Comic Captain Britain and MI:13 had several papers calling him SuperGordon and/or saying he " leads a counterattack" on the invading Skrulls, making him sound like Prime Minister Action. In the comic itself, he shows competence and resolve, but doesn't do much; he does give commands, but seems to be a little bit out of the loop when it comes to the world of magic and superheroics.
- Special Fail in the Daily Mail article linked to above: they refer to "an unseen character called Alistaire" yet the pictures they include alongside the article clearly depict the character in question!
- An Australian newspaper condemned the depiction of women in comic books. They cited one of the earliest examples of poor treatment being Spider-Man's girlfriend Gwen Stacy. So far, correct. Then they wrote about her terrible demise by being killed and stuffed in Spider-Man's fridge, mixing up the memorable moment from Spider-Man with one from Green Lantern.
- Any time Marvel or DC introduce a new property or Legacy Character with the aim of being socially progressive, expect the media to mess up the details while covering it.
- After her debut, a number of news sources erroneously claimed that Batwoman was the first openly gay superhero, despite there having been LGBT superheroes dating back to at least the 1980s.
- Almost any gay superhero is declared "the first", including Northstar, Apollo and/or Midnighter, and on and on.
- In an article about a local black comic book artist/writer, a paper claimed that there were only five black superheroes, which the article proceeded to list. Aside from the fact that there are far more than five black superheroes, the list didn't mention Storm (who, due to the at-the-time fairly recent first X-Men movie, was arguably the best-known black superhero in America) but did include Iron Fist. Who is white.
- After an article by USA Today about the new Ultimate Spider-Man featured the quote "Maybe sooner or later a black or gay — or both — hero will be considered something absolutely normal," several news organizations such as the Daily Mail and the Drudge Report automatically assumed that Miles Morales "could be gay".
- Also a lot of news outlets neglected to mention that Ultimate Spider-Man is an Alternate Universe character, which led a lot of laymen think that Marvel was replacing "classic"/616 Spider-Man, Peter Parker, not his Ultimate Marvel counterpart.
- Jon Stewart showed off some serious nerd cred by clearing up this misconception on an episode of The Daily Show.
- After Marvel announced that they were introducing a Pakistani-American teenager as the new Ms Marvel, a number of outlets cited her as the first Muslim superhero. This is despite the fact that, at Marvel alone, Ms. Marvel is predated by Dust, Josiah X, and Faiza Hussain, and made even more ridiculous by the fact that DC got mainstream coverage only a year prior for introducing a Muslim Green Lantern.
- The media's habit of referring to the new Ms. Marvel as a "reboot" of the original also led some people to believe Kamala was a Younger and Hipper Race Lift of Carol Danvers, the original Ms. Marvel.
- When it came out that The Falcon would be introduced in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, several mainstream sites either referred to him as Marvel's earliest black superhero or the first black member of The Avengers. In both of those roles, he's predated by the Black Panther. (Although there is some room for confusion, as he was Marvel's first African-American hero)
- And when Sam Wilson was revealed to become the new Captain America, the Italian newssite TGCom 24 thought that they were referring to the movies rather than the comics.
- Several online news outlets failed to mention that Sam Wilson was a longtime associate of Captain America and natural successor to the title, and in some cases neglected to mention that he had a prior heroic alter-ego at all. This created the assumption that either Steve Rogers was getting a Race Lift or that the editors were shoe-horning in an unheard-of black guy solely for PC purposes.
- When Silk first launched, MSNBC ran a report that cited the character as Marvel's first Asian-American superhero. Keith Chow corrected them by pointing out that characters like Kamala Khan predated Silk, and that DC's Cassandra Cain was technically the first Asian-American superhero to have her own series. And if we expand the umbrella to cover Asian superheroes rather than specifically Asian-American ones, Marvel's Shang-Chi predates both Silk and Cassandra Cain by a great deal, having debuted in 1973 before receiving his own solo series the following year.
- On an interview on the Larry King Show, legendary Marvel Comics writer Stan Lee was discussing the merits of comics. He said that, besides great art, a lot of them have good dialogue. King scoffed "Good dialogue? What, like 'Zap!' 'Pow!' That's good dialogue?" Stan corrected him that those were sound effects. Lee was nice about it and playfully calling him a "Silly person"...
- An article about upcoming summer movies in Time magazine talked of Green Lantern (2011) and his magic ring. In fairness, there is a Green Lantern with a magic ring, just not the one the movie was about. Also, Clark's Third Law—the Guardians are little men in long robes who point their fingers at things and make stuff happen, and they give rings that let special mortals do the same.
- A Swedish TV guide showed a picture of a person they called Magneto. "Magneto" had adamantium claws and freaky hair.
- And actually you can include any mainstream news pieces which focused on the deaths of beloved superhero staples like Superman back in the 90s, and Captain America and Batman in the 00s. They rarely mentioned that superhero deaths are a cyclical process and that their resurrections were inevitable the moment they were killed off (or, in the case of Batman, not pointing out that he was shown to actually not be dead at the end of the very story where he was presumed to have been killed). These news pieces were usually substantiated by the publicity and hype machine departments of Marvel/DC who also avoided downplaying the overall significance of those deaths lest they damper the sudden interest they were receiving.
- An issue of Latina had immigrant workers (showing that they were true heroes, performing thankless tasks) dressed in various costumes. Two were dressed as the Fantastic Four, according to the caption. They were really dressed as the Wonder Twins.
- Newspaper reviews of the autobiography/history of comics Supergods by Grant Morrison were particularly bad. The Irish Times, in a caption to a picture of the Justice League of America, referred to The Flash as Flash Gordon, while the Sunday Times used a piece of Watchmen fan art rather than the real deal and captioned it "Alan Moore's Watchman".
- In this article about the movie theater shootings in Colorado at the premiere of The Dark Knight Rises, the writer mentions an incident in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns in which a similar shooting occurred at a "Batman-inspired porn theater." The comic actually says it was a "Batman-inspired porn theater shootout" as in the ''shooting'' was inspired by Batman, not the porn theater. (And even then, the gunman's internal monologue has nothing to do with Batman. The "Batman-inspired" line comes from a journalist seeing patterns that aren't there.)
- Somehow, a lot of news sources reported that Fish Police was British in origin when the cartoon adaptation came out. Creator Steve Moncuse is very much American; he grew up in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and published the first few issues out of his own house in California.
- The Judge Dredd story Closet got a lot of attention from the British tabloids. Most of them did not do the research, believing it to be a story about Dredd being gay (in reality, he's a Celibate Hero), as opposed to what homosexuality in the 22nd century means for ordinary citizens of Mega City One.
- A 1968 California newspaper article featured Jack Kirby in an article about the complaints concerning the motorcycle noise in a canyon very close to his home at the time. This canyon was a popular place for young bikers to congregate. The article featured a picture of Kirby standing in front of the valley. But the article had the caption "Even Superman can't get rid of them." This indicates that the reporters at least knew that Jack Kirby was a comic book artist. They just didn't bother to inquire as to what characters he created or worked on. Kirby's wife, Roz, took it in stride, explaining, in an interview, that "they called him Superman because they call all the heroes Superman when they talk about comics." Kirby didn't work on any Superman family titles until he took over "Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen" in 1970.
- A review of My Little Pony Friendship is Magic #3 is full of errors. This is because the "review" is actually just a thinly-veiled rant against bronies and the author obviously didn't even read the comic, only speaking about it in extremely vague terms and even making up lame excuses for why he "won't go into particulars about the plot in issue three." Of course, the fact that he only "reviewed" issue 3 is already the first hint. He obviously thought that it was a stand-alone story rather than part of a four-issue story arc. This is further confirmed by his claim that "each issue is indistinguishable from the last. Suffice it to say that in the end, everyone learns a valuable moral lesson about how friendship is indeed magic, and goes home happy." The ponies don't go home at all, happy or otherwise, until issue 4 — which wasn't out yet when the review was written — and issue 2 ends with the ponies falling out with each other, so not a single word of that statement is true. He also calls it a "simple, colorful, harmless story", which means he didn't even bother to take a look at the preview images on iTunes.
- It also says "It's almost exactly like the Bible, but with less farce." Either this is is satire or he doesn't know anything about the Bible either.
- The Castle episode "Heroes & Villains" has a wall of heroes, including Deadpool, and says they're all motivated by the murder of a parent. Except Deadpool is an insane mercenary with severe cancer who's kept alive by an implanted healing factor who isn't at all motivated by a parent's murder.
- Microsoft posted this photo of Spider-Man in his black suit posing in front of an Xbox One poster at Comic-Con. The message accompanying the photo?Only at Comic-Con would we catch Spawn checking out the new Xbox One.
- You can't count the number of times Asterix, a Gaul (a Celtic race who lived in what is now modern France) has been called a Viking!
- The protagonist of Sunnyville Stories is named Rusty; he is called Rusty throughout the comics by both other characters and even himself. Yet a review at No Flying No Tights refers to him as "Max"!
- German Web site Gamezone has a review note of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows whose writer has supposedly been a fan of the franchise since their beginning back in 1984, and goes on to mention that the continuity the game is based on turned Baxter Stockman into an African-American. He has always been one, the only exception being his In Name Only version in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987) and its offshoots.
- Many news outlits were screaming "Archie Comics killed Archie Andrews off!" and this ticked off many people who don't even read the comics. What these people failed to discuss properly was they killed off the Life With Archie: The Married Life character, not the main continuity teenager. Life With Archie was a spinoff series meant to allow the children to finally become adults and live their lives. The proper timeline Archie is perfectly fine and alive, and Archie isn't canceling the series. In fact Archie is more popular than it's been in years and Archie even rebooted it.
- Rush Limbaugh stated the villain Bane in The Dark Knight Rises was an obvious reference to Bain Capital (and thus an attack on 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney) and then made some other claims, but news outlets were quick to point out Bane was from The '90s, before Bain Capital had existed.
- Usagi Yojimbo is often taken to be the main character's name, including at least one crossover with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. His name's actually Miyamoto Usagi, "Yojimbo" (bodyguard) is his job.
- At least one news outlet has referred to La Borinqueña as the "first latina/latino superhero". Referring to characters as "the first [x]" is a commonly spouted error that is rarely true, with this comic being such an example. She's not the first latino superhero. She's not even the first Puerto Rican superhero, with characters like Miles Morales' Spider-Man, White Tiger, Araña, and Vibe beating her by several years. La Borinqueña was created because of a lack of latino characters (and specifically Puerto Rican ones) in comics, but not a total lack of them.
- The description for the 2016 trade paperback for Batman: Shadow of the Bat describes Jeremiah Arkham as the son of Arkham Asylum founder Amadeus Arkham. Except it's established very early on that Jeremiah is Amadeus's nephew (at least in the pre-New 52 continuity), not that would make sense timeline-wise anyway.
- The Cracked article "5 Real Problems That Accidentally Created Pop-Culture Icons" claims that the first team-up story involving Superman and Batman happened in World's Finest Comics #71. In actuality, the first team-up story occurred in Superman #76 (which was recapped in WF #71). It is true, however, that World's Finest was revamped into a Team-Up Series to conserve page count.
- It is very common when discussing the Kate Kane incarnation of Batwoman for articles to mention she was in the Marines and was dishonorably discharged under DADT. She was actually in the Army, and while she was discharged under DADT, it was almost certainly not dishonorable, since her conduct was not severe enough to warrant that and there's no evidence she was court-martialed.
- Don Markstein's Toonopedia claims that one of the heroes in the first issue of Smash Comics called himself "Hooded Justice", then, upon acquiring an Invisibility Cloak in the second issue, changed his pseudonym to "The Invisible Hood". The article also suggests that he was also called "Invisible Justice" at times. He actually called himself "the Invisible Hood" from the very beginning, even before becoming literally invisible. "Hooded Justice"/"Invisible Justice" was just the title of his feature.
- According to this article talking about why Lois left Jor-El and Jon's cosmic odyssey in Superman (Brian Michael Bendis), "Jor-El gave her a special Superman suit to wear while they were in outer space." Actually, Lois was wearing Superman's DC Rebirth suit. Man of Steel (2018) explicitly shows Clark lending it to her as she prepares to leave.
- CBR's "8 Of The Funniest Superheroes In Comics" claimed Squirrel Girl's real name is Maureen Green, which is the name of the character's mother (her actual name is Doreen).
- Wolverine has been misnamed Wolf-Man by some media on several occasions. Possibly because real-life wolverines aren't that well known compared to wolves, leading people to assume that Wolverine was named after the latter animals.
- Batman: Detractors of Bruce Wayne often claim he has a ton of money but doesn't spend any of it on prevention of crime, despite wanting to fight crime. This is completely false: he has the Wayne Foundation, which he started for this very purpose.
- More of a deliberate lie of omission than a mistake, but some people describe Batman as some kind of fascist because "he beats up criminals". While this is true, they make it sound like he's beating up shoplifters or pot smokers or people who commit some other minor crime, as opposed to supervillains, serial killers, evil robots etc. Not to mention almost all superheroes "beat up criminals" at some point (indeed, it seems customary to have a superhero who just got his powers encounter a robber or similar bad guy as a Starter Villain.)
- This article designed to be informative about Marvel Future Avengers ends by saying, "hopefully, Hurricane, Charade and Codec show up in the comics soon." Little did the author know that it already happened — they debuted in the Future Fight Firsts miniseries, and even before that, Codec made a guest appearance in the War of the Realms: New Agents of Atlas miniseries.
- This summary of Marvel: The Lost Generation claims the Yankee Clipper reemerged from a time warp just before the First Line's fated mission to stop a Skrull invasion. What actually happened is that he returned after the First Line stopped the invasion at the cost of most of their lives.
- The ScreenRant article "Why Sonic's Official Canon Is Better Than The Gaming Continuity" makes several mistakes regarding the various Sonic the Hedgehog comics:
- It refers to Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) throughout the article, including in the title, as "the official canon". Given that the comics are an adaptation, with the video games being the source material, it's the video games that are the official canon, not the comics.
- It repeatedly refers to Sally Acorn as a faun. She's actually a ground squirrel (specifically half-squirrel on her father's side and half-chipmunk on her mother's side).
- The article claims that the IDW comics' canon only starts with Dr. Eggman's takeover in Sonic Forces, despite the fact that the comic has drawn influence from and referenced events from games that were released before/take place prior to Forces as early as the first issue.
- On the Mostly Nitpicking podcast episode on the 2020 film adaptation of New Mutants, both the comic and film versions of Scottish Presbyterian mutant Rahne Sinclair are referred to by the hosts as an Irish Catholic.
- When the Werner Race between the comic's creator Brösel and his manager Holgi was announced for 1988, the BILD had to write an article about it. That was when the newspaper still only had grayscale photographs. One of them shows Brösel's bike, a custom-made, four-engined Horex dragster named "Red Porsche Killer" which had appeared in a comic about the same race before. Its designer and builder Ölfuß is standing next it, and the life-sized Werner figure that had been made for a book fair is sitting on it. In the caption below, there are four mistakes: One, the "Red Porsche Killer" is described as only a quarter as expensive as it actually was. Two, it's also described as red. It's actually metallic pink; the "Red" refers to Holgi's Porsche that it was designed to beat. Three, Brösel's real name is misspelled. Four, it's allegedly Brösel himself with a Werner mask who is sitting on the bike. It should be obvious from the Four-Fingered Hands and the shape and size of the head that this is not a human.
Brösel dedicated the entire first chapter of the documentary book The Race to this newspaper article and especially the caption. Not only did he liken the photographer to a mole for being so blind, but he re-wrote the entire newspaper article—with even more mistakes, throwing names, places, jobs, vehicle brands, numbers and single digits about until nothing made a sense anymore and including all-new misspellings. - Many YouTubers and even politicians trashed Jon Kent's coming out story in Superman: Son of Kal-El before it even came out without even reading headlines, frothing at the mouth too hard to realize that it was Clark Kent's son Jon coming out as bisexual, not Clark himself coming out as gay. This effect peaked with Arizona state senator Wendy Rogers bemoaning that "Hollywood is trying to make Superman gay" and stating that Superman's real love is "Louis Lane".
- Inverted when the school board in McMinn County, Tennessee voted to ban the Maus graphic novels from its middle school library. One of the reasons cited was nudity. Since the book is about the Holocaust and portrays Jews as mice, this led to people on social media (including George Takei) mocking the board for being offended at "naked cartoon mice." But anyone who has actually read the books will know that Maus Vol. 1 includes the 1972 short comic strip "Prisoner on Hell Planet," which is about cartoonist Art Spiegelman's mother committing suicide. Her very-human body is shown in a bathtub after slitting her wrists, and her nipples are plainly visible. The fact that the school board's reaction to that scene was to focus on her breasts is a problem by itself, but that was the nudity they were referring to, not the mice.
- an article about drawing body proportions in comics states that the average body is 6 and half heads stalls for males and females, the average adult body is from 7 heads to 7 and half heads for men and women, pre-teens are 6.5 heads tall depending on how they grow and they are petite adults that have the 1:6 1/2 head to body ratio as well.
