In the early Timely (Marvel) comics, in the very first Captain America story, the Human Torch is mentioned as being "a hero from the comic books." About a year later, Cap and the Torch met in a crossover story. note Later works seemed to explain this by having the Marvel Comics company exist in-universe, so superheroes can read their own comics.
The Fantastic Four wore civilian garb in their first two issues and operated out of the fictional Central City.
The rest of the team also called him 'Thing' all the time instead of Ben... which is pretty dickish and insensitive in hindsight. The Thing also had a crush on Sue in the early issues, a subplot that was eventually dropped and has rarely been revisited since.
The origin story of the group has Reed Richards make a rather rash decision to go into space without proper knowledge of the effects of cosmic rays, despite Ben warning him about it. This seems odd considering modern-day Reed would never go into any situation unprepared unless he had no choice, though some writers state this higher degree of carefulness is a lesson he learned from that accident.
Doctor Doom acquired the ability to switch minds with whomever he had eye contact with. This is an ability that he occasionally uses even in the newer comics, but it was an odd concept for the time. A later Retcon stated that only his infamous vanity keeps him from using the ability more often.
Furthermore, in Doom's first appearance, he didn't have the grudge with Reed Richards that has come to define his character—they just happened to be former classmates. His plot was a little less world-shattering as well—kidnapping the Fantastic Four to STEAL BLACKBEARD'S TREASURE (which contained some magical artifacts, but still). And he didn't have a cape. It was also implied that Ben wasn't familiar with Doom, while later stories would establish that he too had known Doom back in college.
Latveria, the Ruritania from which Doom hails and rules, did not exist until 1964. Prior to that point, Doom was a lone actor whose only subjects were robots, temporary allies, and the occasional henchmen. This is especially obvious in #17, which is about Doom declaring war on the United States and demanding a government post; the President claims at one point that Doom is just one man and has no national backing.
When The Inhumans were first introduced, Black Bolt did not use his trademark Sonic Scream, with more emphasis placed on his Flying Brick status and his ability to gather electrons with his antenna. Furthermore, his inability to speak was explained to be due to an injury that had been "accidentally" caused by his brother Maximus, rather than a voluntary vow of silence.
Ultimate Marvel Team-Up was done very early in the life of the Ultimate universe. As a result, a lot of characters like Hulk and Iron Man appeared before they were given headlining roles in The Ultimates and are noticeably different from what would come.
Early issues of The Ultimates, Ultimate Spider-Man and the aforementioned Ultimate Marvel Team-Up seemed to imply that the Fantastic Four were already around and well-established as heroes before the Ultimates were even formed. Ultimate Fantastic Four contradicted this by showing that the team's origin took place long after the formation of the Ultimates, with the Four themselves reimagined as a group of inexperienced teenagers. This and the depiction of Iron Man resulted in Marvel declaring certain issues of Ultimate Marvel Team-Up non-canon.
Nick Fury was originally depicted as a snappy-dressing S.H.I.E.L.D. field agent with an arsenal of elaborate gadgets (not unlike his depiction in the old Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. comic book series) rather than as the Bald of Authority of The Ultimates. He also lacked his trademark resemblance to actor Samuel L. Jackson.
In the first arc of Ultimate Spider-Man, when Peter first changes into Spider-Man for a superhero fight, he hides among the bushes and thinks "this can't be how Captain America does it!". The Ultimate Marvel universe was still in its early stages, and Captain America had not been acknowledged yet. He was first used in The Ultimates: he was a war hero from World War II, the first superhuman ever, who fell to the ocean and was presumed dead after stopping a nazi rocket. He was retrieved in the present day of that miniseries, but this story was not there yet. So, for all that Peter knows at that point, Captain America had only been a superhero during WWII, and probably did not even have to bother about concealing a secret identity.
In the mainstream continuity, Magneto is an Holocaust survivor. He mentions it in the first arc of Ultimate X Men as well: he said that all his family was killed during one of humanity's periodic genocides, with a background image of the Holocaust. This aspect of the character was abandoned later and never mentioned or suggested again, as he was turned into a complete villain with no redeeming qualities. By the time of Ultimate Origins, he is shown to have been a teen during The '80s (making him far too young to have lived through the Holocaust), while his parents turn out to be the scientists who experimented on Wolverine to create mutants in the first place. He also ends up murdering them himself, further conflicting with the account of them having died in a genocide.
The day-one Hulk wasn't just different from the Savage Hulk, he wasn't even much like the Gray Hulk is portrayed these days. He was Banner by day and Hulk by night regardless of his anger level - no Hulking Out at noon no matter how angry, no staying himself past dusk no matter how calm. As the Hulk he was similar to Frankenstein's Monster, whom he more closely resembled in the old days — he could be outright malevolent, though you could see how he was driven to it. He once nearly deployed a doomsday device he invented just because he'd had it with puny humans. (Yes, invented, as Hulk. Loss of intelligence meant things got harder, but he was still brilliant. With this Hulk's misanthropy, that's very bad.) Thankfully, Rick Jones, being close to the site of the disaster, gained a mental link with Banner that allows him to influence the Hulk. The world would literally have ended by issue three at Hulk's hands otherwise. He was less the hero and more Banner's Enemy Within, with tremendous (but not at current levels) strength, most of his intelligence, and a belief that those rotten humans did not deserve to exist. It was all Rick Jones could do to keep him aimed at the people chasing Banner, and bad guys they encountered, instead of... everyone. It takes them awhile before the character is associated with anger, around his first visit with The Inhumans where they establish that his strength increases with his rage.
The situation with the Hulk's intelligence was lampshaded in an issue of Mark Waid's The Avengers run, where the Silver Age Hulk doesn't understand why the present-day Spider-Man keeps trying to use Hulk Speak to communicate with him.
The Hulk was also originally gray, which would eventually be retconned to be one of the Hulk's alternate forms.
The jump to Tales to Astonish changed the transformation trigger to extreme stress or elevated heartrate, not specifically anger. Also different early on was the trigger worked both ways. Hulk getting too emotionally worked-up would make him transform back into Banner.
The later Immortal Hulk series intentionally went back to the character's roots, with the Hulk depicted as a far more intelligent and overtly malicious figure than most fans were generally used to. The series also revives some of the Hulk's original mechanics, with "the night is his time" being a repeated theme-phrase. The way the "Immortal" part works is that if Bruce Banner is killed, the Hulk will rise as soon as night falls on his corpse.
Originally, the Hulk could also fly, but this ability was quickly dropped (retconned into super jumps that could be mistaken for flight by witnesses).
The Hulk being a founding member of The Avengers. It didn't take Stan Lee long to figure out that the Hulk wasn't exactly a team player, such that he quit on the second issue, and by the third issue of the series he's actually fighting against the others in full-on supervillain mode. Later comics have dealt with his on-again, off-again membership in all manner of ways as his intelligence has fluctuated.
The Avengers did not have their trademark Cool Plane, the Quinjet, until Avengers #61, a short while after Black Panther joined the team. Prior to this, the Avengers used a few less memorable transports, and on at least one occasion left to fight Kang the Conqueror in a chartered jet at J.F.K. International Airport.
Cap had a very different shield and costume in his first issue with it being triangular rather than circular and his costume has a bare neck.
His trademark Vibranium/Steel shield was not originally indestructible. When Cap was first reintroduced in The Avengers during the 60's, Stan Lee tried to make him a little more "super" by having Iron Man outfit the shield with magnets and transistors so that it could be remote controlled. Lee abandoned this idea after a few issues, and instead decided that from then on, the shield would now be impervious to most forms of damage.
The idea that the shield was partially composed of Vibranium is itself a retcon, as Captain America was created decades before that fictional metal was introduced in the Marvel Universe. Exactly what the shield was made of wasn't established until many years after Cap's Silver Age revival.
In the old WWII stories, Steve Rogers was a smoker. The 1941 story "Captain America and the Riddle of the Red Skull" shows him smoking a cigarette in the middle of the story and a pipe at the end.
Along with smoking WWII era Cap was putting it bluntly quite the asshole. For example there’s a Running Gag of him as Steve Rogers pranking and humiliating his superior Sergant Duffy, simply for the fun of it, resulting in Steve getting locked in the guardhouse as punishment. This is so at odds with the incorruptibly pureNice Guy Cap that most people know that Marvel would had to retcon this juvenile dickery as an act Steve and Duffy would stage to benefit Cap’s Secret Identity.
Steve in these early days is also shown to be quite racist towards the Japanese, Chinese and Germans which while the understandable for the time period he was written in is still obviously quite painful for those used to Cap being an example of Values Resonance and completely respectful of all cultures. The fact that The Ultimates would indulge in some Revisiting the Roots and actually bring back this non-PC side to Cap didn’t exactly help either.
The original Red Skull wasn't the Nazi we all know and hate; instead, he was an unrelated person simply wearing a Red Skull mask.
Cap's partner, The Falcon, started off as a Badass Normal with a green costume and no powers or gadgets outside of a grappling hook. His trademark wing suit and red color scheme weren't introduced until a few years after his creation. Likewise, his past anf origin was frequently retconned, so that modern day readers might be surprised to learn that Sam Wilson was either a social worker or a pimp working asThe Mole for Red Skull when he first met Cap.
When Black Panther first appeared in Fantastic Four, there was no indication that T'Challa wasn't the first person to use the identity, and his origin in general was closer to that of Batman (with T'Challa seemingly creating a costumed identity to avenge his murdered father). It was only years later that it was established that the Black Panther was a Legacy mantle, and that T'Challa's father had been a previous holder of the identity.
Wakanda had a much more tribal and less developed look in the early stories, with a lot of people still living in huts and wearing loincloths. It was also stated that T'Challa was responsible for most of the country's modernization, in contrast to later depictions, where it is made clear Wakanda has been incredibly advanced for a great many years. There were also no Dora Milaje, with the group itself not appearing until the 90's.
The Black Panther suit wasn't originally bulletproof and didn't have any vibranium in it. In fact, it was torn up and damaged rather frequently.
Bobbi Morse didn't become Mockingbird until about 9 years after she was created. When she first appeared, she was actually a scientist who usually showed up in stories featuring characters like Ka-Zar and Man-Thing. This is lampshaded in the first issue of The Unstoppable Wasp, where Bobbi says that nobody ever remembers all the stuff she did before she became a costumed superhero.
Moonstone from the Thunderbolts originally appeared in Captain America as a gun-toting henchwoman for Doctor Faustus. She didn't have any powers, nor were her trademark scheming and manipulative tendencies apparent.
Tony Stark's suit requires an incredible source of energy for its size. Modern stories explain the arc reactor as generating it, while early issues explain the suit's energy as being amplified by the suit's transistorsnote Real transistors allow a small amount of current to control the flow of a larger amount of current, but that larger amount still has to come from somewhere; the transistor doesn't just make it out of nothing. Maybe Stark designed super transistors.
After his first appearance in Tales of Suspense #39, Iron Man spent the next few issues traveling back in time to visit Cleopatra, fighting a robot caveman built by aliens, preventing a race of people who lived inside the Earth from invading the surface world, and having several other wacky adventures. It wasn't until Tales of Suspense #45 (the first appearance of Virginia "Pepper" Potts, Harold "Happy" Hogan, and supervillain Blizzard) that he started to edge more towards superhero territory.
Tony’s status as a chronic Really Gets Around womaniser is so ubiquitous that it will come as a great shock to see him being a Chaste Hero in his early comics as Iron Man and keeping his emotions in check in regard to his love interests. As explained by Stark himself in his thought boxes with the shrapnel embedded in his chest he believed he could die at any time and actually feared forming any relationship because of it. It was only after Tony got the shrapnel removed did his man-whore behaviour with numerous women become pronounced.
Thanks to the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe it may be surprising for a lot of comics driven to the comics that for a long time (up to the early 2000s), Iron Man actually had a Secret Identity and was posing as Stark's bodyguard in the public.
Both Iron Man and several Marvel villains used Hypno Ray technology consisting of swirling spiral patterns and some vaguely defined energy to automatically hypnotize the target.
Magnetism was the force used by Iron Man's repulsor technology, being just as powerful and versatile as Magneto, lifting others by their blood's iron content and juggling cars.
James Rhodes is nowadays best known as buddy of Tony Stark and one of the most iconic members of Iron Man's supporting cast nowadays. He didn't debut before the 70's and was more portrayed as an "Angry Black Man" Stereotype than anything else. Also, he actually became Iron Man as his first superhero identity before finally took on the identity of Military SuperheroWar Machine, the superhero persona he is mostly associated with.
Radiation is ubiquitous when it comes to gaining new super powers, treated as a mysterious magical energy when battling the likes of Radioactive Man, with no indication of radiation's adverse effects. The X-Men hint the origin of their mutations are tied to the nuclear bomb tests of the nuclear age, a detail ignored in most modern stories aside from the phrase "Children of the Atom".
Black Widow, when she was first introduced in the pages of Iron Man wasn’t the spandex catsuit wearing, super athletic Action Girl that most people are familiar with, in fact Natasha didn’t do any fighting at all — relying on her schemes, seduction and KJB teammates. In her early appearances Nat was more an evil Bond Girl type trying to outwit Iron Man but was continuously foiled. It wasn’t until Hawkeye was introduced and triggered her eventual Heel–Face Turn that Widow would get more of the gadgets and skills she’s known for and wouldn’t be till even later that her retroactive background established that she’s always been a prestigious fighter and killer.
Doctor Strange was dubbed the "Master of Black Magic" in his earliest appearances. Nowadays this seems like a strange title to give the character, as later stories have established that a) Black Magic is only a specific type of magic, and Strange is master of all of them, and b) Strange only uses black magic in times of great need.
In her earliest appearances, Carol Danvers was not a superhero, but rather an unpowered military officer and Captain Marvel's love interest. Later, when she became Ms. Marvel, she could initially only fly thanks to special mechanisms in her Kree uniform, rather than flight being part of her powerset. Ms. Marvel was also originally Carol's Superpowered Alter Ego (á la the Hulk), with neither personality being aware of the other.
In Kamala Khan's Early-Bird Cameo in Captain Marvel #17, her powers are depicted more along the lines of Hulking Out rather than making her a Rubber Girl. According to G. Willow Wilson, this is because the more surreal and cartoonish depiction of Kamala's powers wouldn't be nailed down until Adrian Alphona came aboard to draw her solo book.
Thanos initially had a different backstory, with him being the grandson of the Titan Kronos from Greek mythology. Subsequent Retcons would instead have Kronos be an Eternal, removing Thanos' connection to the Greek pantheon. These early appearances also portrayed Thanos as more of a generic galactic conqueror, which today would seem at odds with his more ponderous and complex characterization.
Speaking of The Eternals, Jack Kirby's run on the series was very heavily implied to take place in the "real world" rather than the Marvel Universe. The Eternals were treated as though they were the first superpowered beings to become known to the public, while the Celestials were very clearly supposed to be the first cosmic entities the people of Earth had ever come into contact with. Obviously, this does not make sense in a continuity that already includes superpowered races like Mutants and Inhumans, or on a planet that has already been visited by Galactus and the Silver Surfer multiple times. While an android copy of the Hulk did appear in issue #14, the dialogue seemed to suggest that the Hulk was a fictional character in this universe, not a real life superhero. Even more, humanity was revealed not to be the result of evolution, but of the Celestials experimenting with the ancient big apes. The characters were incorporated into the Marvel Universe in the What If? series (which, contrary to the title, was not exploring What If? scenarios in those stories, but the new canon history). This series revealed that the Titans were former Eternals, that the Kree learned about them and made their own experiments on the first humans (thus creating The Inhumans), and that a long time later the Eternals helped the Inhumans to relocate Attilan in the Himalayas. And the change to the origin of the human race was removed: the experiments of the Celestials created the Eternals and the Deviants, but the apes were then released, and evolved into humans at their own pace. Roy Thomas then used them in his Thor run as the focus of his "Eternals Saga" storyline, the first one in a major Marvel comic. This may come as a surprise to certain readers, especially given the way the Celestials have been incorporated into the wider Marvel canon since then, with characters such as the X-Men's Apocalypse and the Fantastic Four's Franklin Richards having connections to them.
The Infinity Gems were originally called the Soul Gems when they first appeared. They also weren't nearly as powerful, and were only used to power a weapon Thanos had built to destroy all the stars in the universe. The idea that a person with all six Infinity Gems essentially became God wasn't established until The Infinity Gauntlet.
In early issues of Marvel's Micronauts series, Commander Arcturus Rann seemed to be a less refined individual. He used slang, mild swear words, and occasionally uttered sexist comments toward Marionette. In this, he was much like Han Solo from Star Wars. This was toned down immediately after the first three issues, and he started acting like a strait-laced hero.
In his early appearances, Ghost Rider actually got his powers from Satan himself, rather than Mephisto.
In the first few stories, he wasn't treated as the actual Thor from the myths. While Donald Blake did physically transform into Thor, the mind was still Blake's. For example, when he first meets Loki, Thor/Blake thinks about the things he knows from the myths, and not of the things he, being Loki's brother, should know. The comic in general also lacks the Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe Shakespearean dialog during its early days that Asgardians would routinely employ later on in the comic. Also, rather than being a fantasy epic, Thor's very first adventure was a pretty run of the mill superhero story, with Thor saving the Earth from a group of invading aliens called the Kronans.
In fact, for the first few years of his existence, Thor was more of a standard superhero. While he did face Asgardian villains like Loki and The Enchantress, he spent a lot of time on Earth, and frequently battled non-Asgardian threats like Mister Hyde, Radioactive Man, the Wrecker, Grey Gargoyle and Absorbing Man, as well as villains from other titles like the Super-Skrull and Magneto. It was not until The Mighty Thor #159 that readers learned his true origin, and that Donald Blake was simply a false guise created by Odin to teach Thor humility.
When Valkyrie first appeared in The Avengers, she was actually a Straw Feminist and a villain, and turned out to merely be a disguise used by Amora the Enchantress. The persona was then attached to multiple human women (most notably Barbara Norris), producing lots of alter ego/amnesia drama. It wouldn't be until a few years later in an issue of The Defenders that Valkyrie was established as an actual Asgardian hero.
Nova's 1970s series didn't have Worldmind established as a core concept of the Nova Corps, although the computers of Xandar were mentioned quite a few times. Nova was more of a Flying Brick - his powers consisted of flight, super strength, and invulnerability, rather than the gravimetric abilities he is portrayed with in modern times.
In his first appearance, Moon Knight had a different costume and was actually a villain working for the Secret Empire. After he unexpectedly became popular, later issues retconned this by saying that he had always been a hero, but at the time of his first appearance was infiltrating the Secret Empire. He was also more of a standard Batman clone in these early appearances, lacking the mental illness or connection to Khonshu, the Egyptian moon god, that would later come to define the character. In fact, prior to the Khonshu retcon, Moon Knight's enhanced strength at night was said to merely be the byproduct of having been bitten by Werewolf by Night.
Avengers: The Initiative: Young Avengers Wiccan and Hulkling are seen in early issues as part of the Initiative. Later issues in other titles would quite emphatically state that they were not, and never were, part of the Initiative, and they quickly disappeared from the title. A rather tongue-in-cheek issue of She-Hulk tried to establish that the Wiccan and Hulkling in Avengers Initiative were actually inter-dimensional tourists out for a lark.
Before Young Avengers made her a star, Miss America Chavez debuted in an obscure mini-series called Vengeance. She was originally only 15-years-old and didn't have the power to create portals, and there was no indication that she was from another dimension. She also wore a proper superhero costume despite Young Avengers later establishing that she thinks such outfits are stupid.
The Marvel comic The Nam was originally set in its own universe that was much like ours, with it being repeatedly made clear that superhumans and the like were wholly fictional; one issue even has a character daydream about what it would be like if the Avengers were real and could help win the war. Flagging sales eventually led to the comic being awkwardly integrated into the greater Marvel Universe by having a pre-Punisher Frank Castle make a few guest appearances, which were followed by a character who originated from The 'Nam appearing in arcs of both the The Punisher War Journal and The Punisher War Zone.
Groot was actually a villain in his first appearance, and spoke in complete sentences instead of Pokémon Speak. Just how you get GOTG's Groot out of the one that originally came to scoop a town off of Earth with a dense web of trees to take them back to Planet X is something that not every retelling of his origin agrees on.
The Punisher was all but stated to be a mercenary (albeit one who would Never Hurt an Innocent) in his first appearance, depicted as having been hired by The Jackal to kill Spider-Man. His straight up Vigilante Man persona came later, and that was subject to this as well: there was a period in his early days where he actually went about killing people for simple crimes such as littering and running a red light. (Why did they run the red light? Because a madman was shooting at litterers!) When it was decided that he'd work as a gritty protagonist, those incidents were retconned into him being drugged. Not to mention with modern (hyper paranoid) Frank’s “shoot villains on sight” behaviour, it’s pretty ridiculous in hindsight to see him in his first appearance be so easily duped by the Obviously Evil Jackal like an idiot.
How many Marvel Comics fans remember that Dr. Hank Pym's first appearance was in a one-off horror story about a scientist who accidentally shrinks himself and gets trapped in an anthill? In the story, called "The Man in the Ant Hill", Pym shrinks himself using an experimental "reducing serum" rather than with a suit, he doesn't call himself "Ant-Man", he doesn't wear a costume, he can't control ants, and—most jarringly—he pours his shrinking concoction down the drain at the end of the story, concluding that it's far too dangerous to let other people use it. Reading it today, it's almost hard to believe that the hapless scientist in the story would later become a founding member of The Avengers. Even after Pym became Ant-Man, his early adventures required him to take special pills to change size, a somewhat cumbersome idea that would eventually be done away with.
The Wasp's trademark "stings" were originally blasts of compressed air fired from a special gadget worn on her right wrist, rather than bioelectric shocks generated from within her own body that could be fired from both hands. In addition to her wings, Jan would also sprout antennae when she shrunk, something that was dropped by later writers. She was also written as a rather flighty character who often seemed like she didn't take her duties as a superhero very seriously, in contrast to her later role as one of the longest-serving and most dedicated members of the Avengers. Also, due to the Values Dissonance of The '60s, Janet's early relationship with Hank would seem pretty unhealthy to modern readers. She was often depicted as a nagging girlfriend who would get on Hank's nerves by complaining about how often he neglected her in favor of science or superheroics, with Hank usually responding by belittling or outright insulting her.
Whirlwind was originally called "The Human Top" in his earliest appearances.
His initial Golden Age adventures were Darker and Edgier, with the character essentially being a Villain Protagonist who had legitimate beefs with humanity but still murdered humans with little hesitation. He mellowed out considerably after the first year or so and became more heroic, but never quite lost his edge. As time went on, his famous Heel–Face Revolving Door tendencies were introduced, and he began to bounce back and forth between being a menace to humanity and a misunderstood Anti-Hero depending on the issue. The 2008 mini-series Sub-Mariner: The Depths was a Psychological Thriller that went back to the character's roots, with Namor depicted as a cold, inhuman killing machine who had more in common with the shark from Jaws than he did with Aquaman.
While Namor was always from an undersea kingdom, it wasn't originally called Atlantis. Writer Bill Everett deliberately avoided calling the kingdom Atlantis in the original stories (as he firmly believed Atlantis was a real place that had simply yet to be found), and it was only named as such in 1949, in a story Everett was not involved with.
As our page on Bloodstone has to thoroughly mention, that series introduces Elsa Bloodstone, a chipper blonde starting on her monster-hunting ways. Four years later, Next Wave had Elsa as a Fiery Redhead who knows basically everything to slaughter beasts, and that characterization stuck to make the original Broad Strokes at best.
Daredevil's original costume was yellow with some red highlights. He sports that costume until it was changed in issue 7 of his original series to the more iconic red, truly devilish costume that Daredevil usually is associated with.
Frank Miller's run on the character introduces a lot of elements that Daredevil is known for today. Many may be surprised that Daredevil's original run misses iconic supporting characters like his mentor Stick and his love interest Elektra as well as the Hand as Daredevil's main antagonists.
The Kingpin is generally seen as Daredevil's Arch-Enemy in both the comics and various other media adaptations. However, he started out as a Spider-Man villain before Miller brought him over to Daredevil much later after both characters' introduction.
Ka-Zar: The Ka-Zar presented in the early stories is not the same Ka-Zar that would appear in later Marvel stories, and they are set in a separate continuity from the Marvel universe.
certain issues of Ultimate Marvel Team-Up non-canon.
