147 Fun Facts About Comic Books

Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's Superman first appeared in which comic, cover-dated June 1938?

Action Comics #1 cost ten cents; a copy sold for $6 million in 2024, and its June 1938 cover date is the usual starting point of the Golden Age of comics.

Which artist, alongside writer Stan Lee, co-created Spider-Man in Amazing Fantasy #15?

Steve Ditko defined the look and co-plotted the early stories, then quit Marvel in 1966 and stayed famously reclusive for the rest of his life.

Which anthology comic introduced Wonder Woman in October 1941?

All Star Comics #8 tucked her eight-page debut in beside the Justice Society to test whether readers wanted her; they did, and by 1942 she led Sensation Comics and had a title of her own.

Which Marvel Comics title introduced Iron Man, cover-dated March 1963?

Tales of Suspense #39 had Tony Stark captured in Vietnam and ordered to build a weapon; he built a suit of armour for himself instead and escaped, and only got his own title in 1968.

In which issue did the Justice League of America first assemble?

The Brave and the Bold #28 was a tryout that brought the superhero team back for the Silver Age; the League only got its own title after it sold.

Wolverine's very first appearance was a one-panel teaser at the end of which 1974 Marvel issue?

The Incredible Hulk #180 hid him in its final panel; he fought the Hulk properly in #181 and only joined the X-Men in Giant-Size X-Men #1 the next year.

Which writer and artist introduced Deadpool as a villain in The New Mutants #98?

Fabian Nicieza and Rob Liefeld's mercenary reminded Nicieza of DC's Deathstroke, Slade Wilson, so by his account he named him Wade Wilson as an in-joke.

Which independent comic book publisher releases the space-opera series 'Saga'?

Image Comics lets creators keep their properties, so Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples own Saga outright. Image was founded in 1992 by artists who walked out of Marvel.

Which writer created the Vertigo series Preacher with artist Steve Dillon?

Garth Ennis, a writer from Northern Ireland, built the series on a blunt premise: a disillusioned Texas preacher crosses America to literally find God.

Lois Lane and Clark Kent report for which newspaper in Superman comics?

The Daily Planet began as the Daily Star, named after the Toronto paper Joe Shuster sold as a newsboy; it was renamed once the strip ran in real newspapers that shared the name.

The Silver Age of Comics is generally said to start with the 1956 revival of which hero in Showcase #4?

The Flash's 1956 revival in Showcase #4 introduced Barry Allen in place of Golden Age speedster Jay Garrick; DC soon revived Green Lantern, the Atom and Hawkman the same way.

Which 1890s New York cartoon character, a bald boy in a nightshirt, is said to have given sensationalist journalism its name?

The Yellow Kid was such a draw that Hearst poached his artist from Pulitzer; both papers then ran rival versions and were mocked together as the 'yellow kid papers'.

How much were Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster paid for the first Superman story in 1938?

$130 was $10 a page for 13 pages, and the release the pair signed that March also handed the publisher all rights to Superman; their 1947 suit to win him back failed.

Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster met at Glenville High School in which city?

Cleveland's Glenville High School is where the two met as teenagers in the early 1930s; they bonded over pulp fiction and spent years trying to sell Superman before DC bought it.

In the 1992 comic Superman #75, which villain beats Superman to death?

Doomsday and Superman beat each other to death in Superman #75, released in November 1992 in a polybagged black edition that sold millions of copies; Superman was back within a year.

Which cartoonist created the self-published fantasy series Bone, launched in 1991?

Jeff Smith self-published Bone through his own Cartoon Books from 1991 to 2004, 55 issues in all; Scholastic's colour reprints later made it a children's bestseller.

A year before Pearl Harbor, the cover of Captain America Comics #1 showed the hero doing what?

Punching Hitler while the US was still neutral sold close to a million copies and drew so many threats that police were posted to guard the publisher's offices.

Captain America was revived from decades frozen in ice in which 1964 comic?

The Avengers #4 (March 1964) had the team find Captain America frozen in a block of ice; in the retconned origin he had fallen into icy Atlantic waters in the last days of World War II.

Which 1954 body banned the words 'horror' and 'terror' from US comic-book titles?

The Comics Code Authority, set up by publishers in 1954 after Senate hearings on juvenile delinquency, barred 'horror' and 'terror' from titles, and its seal governed newsstand comics for decades.

Which Belgian cartoonist created the Smurfs in 1958?

Peyo, born Pierre Culliford, introduced the Smurfs as side characters in his Johan and Peewit strip in the Belgian magazine Spirou in October 1958.

Which two publishers were the last to drop the comics industry's 1954 self-censorship seal, in January 2011?

DC and Archie were the only publishers still printing the seal by 2011, so when both quit that January it simply ceased to exist, a decade after Marvel had left for its own ratings.

What was Stan Lee's birth name?

Stanley Martin Lieber, born in Manhattan in 1922, used 'Stan Lee' as a pen name to save his real name for serious novels, then adopted it legally.

With what one-word motto did Stan Lee sign off his columns and promotional copy?

Excelsior! is Latin for 'ever upward' and the motto of New York State; Lee closed his Stan's Soapbox columns with it for decades.

Jack Kirby, known as 'The King' of comics, was born under what name?

Jacob Kurtzberg signed early work as Jack Curtiss and Lance Kirby before settling on Jack Kirby, a name he reportedly liked because it sounded like James Cagney.

After leaving Marvel for DC in 1970, Jack Kirby created which multi-title saga?

The Fourth World was planned as one finite epic told across New Gods, Forever People and Mister Miracle, but DC cancelled two of the three in 1972 before Kirby could finish it.

Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider where?

At a science exhibit, the bite gave Peter Parker powers he first used to make money; he turned hero only after a burglar he had let run past went on to kill his Uncle Ben.

Which newspaper publisher spends his days slandering Spider-Man?

J. Jonah Jameson publishes the Daily Bugle, where Peter Parker sells photos of himself; Jameson debuted in The Amazing Spider-Man #1 in 1963.

Which character took over as Spider-Man in the Ultimate universe after Peter Parker's apparent death?

Miles Morales owes his look to a sitcom gag: writer Brian Michael Bendis says he saw Donald Glover in Spider-Man pyjamas on Community and thought he would like to read that comic.

Which 1980 X-Men storyline by Chris Claremont and John Byrne ends with Jean Grey's death?

The Dark Phoenix Saga was drawn with Jean surviving, but editor-in-chief Jim Shooter ruled that a heroine who had wiped out an inhabited star system could not walk away, so the final pages were redone.

In Marvel Comics, mutants are born with which genetic trait that gives them their powers?

The X-gene puts a name to Stan Lee's shortcut: weary of inventing a new origin for every hero, he decided the X-Men were simply born with their powers.

Which Archie Comics character is a teenage witch from the town of Greendale?

Sabrina Spellman was meant as a one-off: writer George Gladir said he and artist Dan DeCarlo were flabbergasted when readers asked for more and she ended up with her own TV cartoon.

In Todd McFarlane's Spawn, which demon returns the dead soldier Al Simmons to Earth?

Malebolgia cheated him: Simmons sold his soul to see his wife again, but was sent back five years late, to find she had remarried.

Which graphic novel became the first to win a Pulitzer Prize, in 1992?

Maus first appeared on the New York Times bestseller list as fiction; Art Spiegelman protested that his father's Holocaust story was no invention, and the paper moved it to nonfiction.

Who wrote 'Watchmen', the 1986-87 DC series drawn by Dave Gibbons?

Alan Moore's Watchmen is the only graphic novel on Time's list of the 100 best novels since 1923, yet Moore wants no credit: he has asked for his name to be taken off it and refuses any credit on the film versions.

'Watchmen' won which science-fiction prize in 1988, in a special 'Other Forms' category?

The Hugo Award's one-off 'Other Forms' category was created in 1988 and went to Watchmen, the only graphic novel honoured that way before a Best Graphic Story Hugo arrived in 2009.

Marjane Satrapi's graphic memoir 'Persepolis' is set during the revolution in which country?

Iran's revolution and the war that followed made Satrapi's parents fear for their outspoken daughter, so at 14 they sent her alone to school in Vienna.

Robert Kirkman ended which long-running comic without warning in 2019, after advertising issues that never existed?

The Walking Dead stopped at issue #193 with no notice: Kirkman had fake covers drawn for later issues to protect the surprise, and said he feared stretching the story too thin.

The space-opera series 'Saga', drawn by Fiona Staples, is narrated by which character?

Hazel is born in the first chapter to Alana and Marko, lovers from the two sides of a galactic war, and narrates their flight from both armies as an unseen adult.

Mike Mignola's Hellboy works for which agency?

The B.P.R.D., the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, was set up by the professor who adopted Hellboy: Nazi occultists summoned the infant demon in 1944, but he was raised to fight monsters.

Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird named their four turtles after artists of which period?

The Italian Renaissance was the fallback: Eastman and Laird wanted Japanese names but could not think of convincing ones, then printed issue one with a tax refund and a loan from Eastman's uncle.

Which Archie Comics character wears a crown-shaped cap and is famous for devouring hamburgers?

Jughead Jones's 'crown' was a real fad of the 1930s and 40s: boys cut the brim of an old felt fedora into points and turned it up to make a whoopee cap.

Which fictional hometown of Archie Andrews, Betty and Veronica gave its name to a 2017 CW series?

Riverdale has two claimed models: publisher John Goldwater cited the Kansas town where he had worked as a young reporter, while artist Bob Montana pointed to his own high school in Haverhill, Massachusetts.

The Eisner Awards, comics' equivalent of the Oscars, have been presented since 1991 at which event?

San Diego Comic-Con has hosted the Eisners since 1991; they are named for Will Eisner, creator of The Spirit, who attended the ceremony until his death in 2005.

Wonder Woman's hidden island home, long called Paradise Island, has gone by which name since her 1987 relaunch?

Themyscira replaced Paradise Island when George Pérez rebuilt the series around Greek myth in 1987: Themiscyra was the legendary capital of the Amazons.

Tintin first appeared in 1929 in Le Petit Vingtième, a youth supplement to a newspaper in which country?

Belgium's Catholic daily Le Vingtième Siècle ran the supplement, and its priest-editor ordered Hergé to send Tintin to the Soviet Union first, as anti-communist propaganda for children.

Hergé's clean, flat drawing style, which shaped generations of European cartoonists, is called what?

Ligne claire, 'clear line', was named decades after Hergé perfected it: Dutch cartoonist Joost Swarte coined the term in the 1970s for a look once known as the Brussels school.

Why does Obelix never need the druid's magic potion?

Obelix fell into the cauldron as a baby, so the potion never wore off, which is why Getafix refuses to let him have even a single drop more.

Asterix was written by René Goscinny and drawn by which artist, who continued alone after 1977?

Albert Uderzo carried on alone after Goscinny died in 1977, writing the scripts himself and publishing the albums through a house of his own, Éditions Albert René.

Which manga holds the Guinness record for most copies published of a comic series by one author?

One Piece was meant to last five years when Eiichiro Oda began it in 1997; he found he liked the story too much to stop, and Guinness certified it at over 500 million copies in 2022.

In Peanuts, what is the name of Snoopy's small yellow bird friend?

Woodstock fluttered around Snoopy's doghouse for three years without a name, until Schulz christened him in June 1970 after the previous summer's rock festival.

Before it was renamed Peanuts, Schulz's strip ran in a Minnesota newspaper under what title?

Li'l Folks ran weekly in the St. Paul Pioneer Press from 1947 to 1950; the syndicate then insisted on the name Peanuts, which Schulz said he hated all his life for having no dignity.

Jim Davis named Garfield after whom?

His grandfather, James A. Garfield Davis, supplied the name; the species was a business call, because Davis saw comics pages full of dogs and no star cat.

Which comic strip, launched in 1985, did Bill Watterson end after a decade while refusing to license any merchandise?

Calvin and Hobbes could have been a toy-shop empire, but Watterson fought his own syndicate to block all licensing, so no official plush Hobbes was ever sold.

Which single-panel comic by Gary Larson ran in newspapers from 1980 to 1995?

The Far Side once had a caveman lecturer name a stegosaurus's tail spikes the 'thagomizer'; it was a joke, but paleontologists liked the word and adopted it.

In Marvel's 1961 debut of the Fantastic Four, what bombarded the team's spacecraft and gave the four their powers?

Cosmic rays on a rushed, unshielded space flight gave the four their powers in Fantastic Four #1 (November 1961); Bruce Banner's gamma rays followed in The Incredible Hulk #1 in May 1962.

Which Marvel artist co-created Daredevil with Stan Lee in 1964?

Bill Everett, who had created the Sub-Mariner back in 1939, reportedly delivered the first issue so late that Marvel's production staff had to pitch in on the inking to get it printed.

In Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, Dream, Death and Desire are siblings in which family of immortals?

The Endless turned the Grim Reaper on his head: across the 75-issue series, Gaiman's Death is a kind, perky young goth, and she became one of its best-loved characters.

Wonder Woman's creator William Moulton Marston also devised an early version of what device?

The lie detector grew out of a blood-pressure test Marston developed with his wife Elizabeth, who had noticed her own pressure climbed whenever she got angry or excited.

Black Panther's nation of Wakanda is sustained by deposits of which fictional metal?

Vibranium, mined only in Wakanda, soaks up kinetic energy; when T'Challa debuted in 1966, Kirby's first cover showed his face, but the printed version hid it behind a full mask.

What colour was the Hulk in his 1962 debut issue?

Gray was the Hulk's colour in his first issue, but Marvel's printer could not hold the shade consistently, so he turned green from the second.

Which test pilot became the Silver Age Green Lantern in 1959 when a dying alien passed him a power ring?

Hal Jordan was a science-fiction rethink of the 1940s original, and artist Gil Kane gave him a film star's face, modelling the hero on Paul Newman.

Which artist drew the 1988 one-shot 'Batman: The Killing Joke'?

Brian Bolland regretted that the deadline stopped him colouring the book himself, so for the 2008 anniversary edition he recoloured every page the way he had first intended.

Which 1986 Frank Miller miniseries stars a 55-year-old Bruce Wayne in a grim future Gotham?

The Dark Knight Returns finds Wayne ten years out of the cape and drinking, until a gang called the Mutants pulls him back in and sets him on course for a showdown with Superman.

Harley Quinn was created not for comics but for which 1992 cartoon?

Batman: The Animated Series introduced her in the 1992 episode 'Joker's Favor'; Paul Dini and Bruce Timm meant her as a one-episode henchwoman, and she did not enter main comics continuity until 1999.

Hank Pym, the future Ant-Man, first appeared in which 1962 Marvel anthology?

Tales to Astonish #27 (January 1962) cast Hank Pym in a one-off shrinking story, 'The Man in the Ant Hill'; he returned as the costumed Ant-Man in issue #35 that September.

Before it became Marvel, Martin Goodman's publishing company was first known as what?

Timely Comics is the name that stuck to Goodman's 1939 line, yet its very first comic was titled Marvel Comics #1, a name the company took for good only in the early 1960s.

Dick Grayson, the original Robin, gave up the role in the 1980s to fight crime under which new name?

Nightwing was Superman's alias first: from 1963 he fought crime under it in the bottled Kryptonian city of Kandor, two decades before Grayson retired his Robin costume and took the name for himself.

Jim Starlin named Thanos after Thanatos, the 'death drive' in the theories of which thinker?

Sigmund Freud's ideas reached Starlin in a college psychology class he took after military service; by his account he walked out with two characters, Thanos and Drax the Destroyer.

Which disgraced journalist became the first Venom when an alien symbiote bonded with him in 1988?

Eddie Brock blamed Spider-Man for wrecking his career, which made him the perfect match for a symbiote that Peter Parker had just rejected after wearing it as his black costume.

Which 1985–86 DC crossover killed off the original Supergirl and merged the publisher's parallel worlds into one timeline?

Crisis on Infinite Earths was Marv Wolfman's cure for what he called a nightmare: decades of parallel worlds had left DC's history too tangled for new readers to follow.

Which creator of Astro Boy is known in Japan as 'the god of manga'?

Osamu Tezuka qualified as a doctor but took his mother's advice to do what he liked most and chose comics; the training resurfaced in his surgeon series Black Jack.

Which cyberpunk manga by Katsuhiro Otomo, serialised from 1982, follows teenage bikers and a psychic awakening in a rebuilt Tokyo?

Akira was planned as about ten chapters for Young Magazine; it ran for eight years, and Otomo directed the 1988 film two years before he had finished the story.

The manga 'Dragon Ball' was loosely modelled on which classic Chinese novel?

Journey to the West supplied Son Goku, named for the Monkey King Sun Wukong; Dragon Ball's 519 chapters helped push Weekly Shōnen Jump to its 1995 peak of 6.53 million copies a week.

Quino's six-year-old comic-strip heroine Mafalda comes from which country?

Argentina's Quino first drew Mafalda for a hidden advertising campaign for Mansfield appliances, which is why her name starts with M; the ads never ran, but the girl got her own strip.

Judge Dredd is judge, jury and executioner in which dystopian future metropolis?

Mega-City One was meant to be a near-future New York until artist Carlos Ezquerra drew towers so futuristic that his editor pushed the whole strip further into the future.

Dennis the Menace and Gnasher are the mascots of which long-running British comic?

The Beano put its Dennis the Menace on sale on 12 March 1951, the very day an unrelated American Dennis the Menace began in US newspapers; neither creator knew of the other.

Which comic, first serialised in Britain's Warrior magazine from 1982, gave protest movements their Guy Fawkes mask?

V for Vendetta was left hanging when Warrior folded and was only finished at DC years later; David Lloyd's smiling mask then became the face of Anonymous and street protests worldwide.

In Bryan Lee O'Malley's Toronto-set comics, who must defeat Ramona Flowers's seven evil exes to date her?

Scott Pilgrim's fights fill six digest-sized volumes, and O'Malley stopped there on purpose, saying he would be 'dead inside' if he were still drawing the series ten years on.

Which 2006 graphic memoir became a Broadway show that won the 2015 Tony for Best Musical?

Fun Home was the family's nickname for the funeral home her closeted father ran; Bechdel spent years on the book, photographing herself in the pose of every figure she drew.

Whose everyday life in Ohio was the subject of the autobiographical comic 'American Splendor'?

Harvey Pekar, a hospital file clerk, showed his story ideas to his friend Robert Crumb in 1972; Crumb liked them enough to draw some himself and to pass others on to fellow artists.

John Constantine's look was modelled on which musician?

Sting was the model: artists Stephen Bissette and John Totleben, fans of The Police, asked to draw someone who looked like the singer, so their writer built a new character around the idea.

Marvel's Sorcerer Supreme debuted in issue #110 of which anthology in 1963?

Strange Tales gave Doctor Strange more than a home: his artist said the filler character was named after the comic, and by 1968 the book had become Doctor Strange outright.

After DC sued claiming he copied Superman, which Fawcett hero, who shouts 'Shazam!', vanished from comics in 1953?

Captain Marvel had been outselling Superman himself; when DC revived him in the 1970s, Marvel owned the trademark on his name, so the comic had to be titled Shazam!

Which editor founded Mad in 1952 together with publisher William Gaines?

Harvey Kurtzman mattered so much that Gaines turned Mad from a comic book into a magazine in 1955 to stop him leaving; he walked out a year later anyway, in a row over control.

Will Eisner popularised the term 'graphic novel' with which 1978 book?

A Contract with God made the label stick, but Eisner did not invent it: a fan historian had coined 'graphic novel' in a 1964 fanzine, fourteen years before the book put it on shop shelves.

Batman #1, published in April 1940, introduced which two enduring villains?

The Joker and Catwoman both debuted there, and the Joker was meant to die in the same issue: an editor overruled the writer and had a panel hastily added to show he had survived.

In 'Krazy Kat', what does Ignatz the mouse repeatedly hurl at Krazy's head?

A brick, which Krazy takes as a love token, flies from Ignatz in nearly every strip; George Herriman set it in a dreamlike Coconino County, Arizona, and Hearst's papers ran it from 1913 to 1944.

Which 1936 newspaper hero was the first to wear the skintight costume now standard for superheroes?

The Phantom seems to be immortal, the 'Ghost Who Walks', but the secret is a family business: he is the 21st in a line of heirs who have worn the same costume for 400 years.

Which strip became the first daily comic to win a Pulitzer Prize, in 1975?

Doonesbury's win reportedly led the editorial cartoonists' society to pass a resolution condemning the Pulitzer committee; Trudeau, once assured he could keep the prize, backed it.

Which Italian creator introduced the enigmatic sailor Corto Maltese in 1967?

Hugo Pratt gave his sailor a telling childhood: finding no fate line on his palm, the boy Corto carved one with his father's razor, deciding his destiny was his own to choose.

French artist Jean Giraud drew his surreal science-fiction comics under which pen name?

Moebius drew some 3,000 storyboard panels for Jodorowsky's Dune, a film that was never made; the team it gathered went on to Alien, and he later designed for Tron and The Fifth Element.

Free Comic Book Day, launched in 2002, is usually held on the first Saturday of which month?

May was picked so the first event, on May 4, 2002, would land the day after the first Spider-Man film opened; the giveaway itself was the idea of California retailer Joe Field.

Kamala Khan, the teenage Marvel superhero who got her own series in 2014, comes from which city?

Jersey City got its hero after Marvel editor Sana Amanat told a colleague an anecdote from her childhood as a Muslim American; by her account he found it hilarious, and the character grew out of that talk.

Kryptonite was introduced in 1943 not in the comics but in which medium?

Radio's The Adventures of Superman introduced kryptonite in a June 1943 storyline; it did not reach the comics until Superman #61 in 1949, though Siegel had drafted an unpublished 'K-Metal' story in 1940.

Which Bill Willingham Vertigo series exiled Snow White and other fairy-tale characters to Manhattan?

Fables hides its exiles in a secret New York neighbourhood called Fabletown because a conqueror known only as the Adversary has overrun their storybook homelands.

Which E.C. Segar comic strip introduced Popeye in 1929?

Thimble Theatre had run since 1919 when Popeye walked on in January 1929 as a one-off sailor hired for a voyage; he took over the strip, which later carried his name.

In the Franco-Belgian western comic Lucky Luke, what is the name of his horse, billed as the smartest in the world?

Jolly Jumper began as an ordinary white horse; once René Goscinny took over the scripts he became a chess-playing wit who comments drily on his cowboy's every move.

Which Will Smith blockbuster was loosely based on a little-known 1990 Aircel comic by Lowell Cunningham?

Men in Black began as a three-issue Aircel series in 1990. Marvel later bought the comic's parent publisher, Malibu, and printed Men in Black one-shots of its own.

Which gun-toting Guardians of the Galaxy member was named in a nod to a 1968 Beatles song?

Rocket Raccoon is a nod to 'Rocky Raccoon' on the White Album. A 1982 Hulk story stretched the joke: its villain is after a book called Gideon's Bible, as in the lyrics.

The smiling mask in 'V for Vendetta', since adopted by protesters worldwide, depicts which historical figure?

Guy Fawkes, the best-known member of the 1605 plot to blow up the House of Lords, got his stylised face from artist David Lloyd. The mask spread through street protests after the 2006 film.

Which famously wealthy character did Carl Barks create for the 1947 comic-book story 'Christmas on Bear Mountain'?

Scrooge McDuck was created as a rich old uncle to pit against Donald Duck. Readers took to the skinflint, and by 1952 he was starring in a comic-book series of his own.

Which sidekick of Batman did DC readers vote to kill in a 1988 telephone poll decided by just 72 votes?

Jason Todd lost by 5,343 votes to 5,271 after readers rang two 1-900 numbers printed in the comic. He stayed dead until a 2005 story brought him back as the villainous Red Hood.

Which pop artist enlarged a panel from a 1962 war comic to make the painting 'Whaam!'?

Roy Lichtenstein took the exploding jet from a panel by comics artist Irv Novick and painted it across two canvases. London's Tate Gallery bought the diptych in 1966.

Which Peanuts character's constant companion put the phrase 'security blanket' into everyday English?

Linus first clutched his blanket in 1954, an idea Charles Schulz took from watching his own children carry theirs around. Schulz was proud that the phrase made it into the dictionary.

Which Marvel character's 1986 film, backed by George Lucas, was the publisher's first in cinemas since 1944?

Howard the Duck was Marvel's first theatrical release since a Captain America serial. After it failed at the box office, its two writers left for Hawaii and refused to read any reviews.

Which entertainment giant bought Marvel in 2009 in a deal worth about $4 billion?

Disney announced the purchase on August 31, 2009. Just over two weeks later the heirs of artist Jack Kirby served notice that they wanted the rights to his 1960s Marvel characters back.

Which fictional metal, introduced by Marvel in 1969, is bonded to Wolverine's skeleton and claws?

Adamantium first appeared as the outer shell of the robot villain Ultron, years before Wolverine existed. Its name builds on 'adamant', an old word for an unbreakably hard substance.

Which manga about an executioner turned assassin inspired the graphic novel 'Road to Perdition'?

Lone Wolf and Cub follows the shogun's executioner, disgraced by a rival clan's false accusations. Writer Max Allan Collins called his gangster tale 'an unabashed homage' to the series.

Which skull-chested Marvel vigilante first appeared in 1974 as an adversary of Spider-Man?

Punisher was introduced as a minor antagonist meant to make the web-slinger's life difficult. Readers took to him so strongly that by the early 1990s he carried four monthly series at once.

Which sidekick of Captain America, long believed dead, returned in 2005 as the assassin the Winter Soldier?

Bucky Barnes had been so reliably dead that fans coined the 'Bucky Clause' for the few comics characters who never come back. Writer Ed Brubaker broke it, and Barnes later served as Captain America himself.

Which villain, born inside a Caribbean island prison, breaks Batman's back in the 1993 storyline 'Knightfall'?

Bane was created especially for the Knightfall storyline. The super-steroid Venom, first tested on him behind bars, lifts his strength to superhuman levels.

Which hidden island of Amazons, called Paradise Island until a 1987 relaunch, is Wonder Woman's homeland?

Themyscira takes its name from the capital of the Amazons in Greek mythology. The 1970s television series starring Lynda Carter placed the island in the Bermuda Triangle.

Batman's Arkham Asylum takes its name from a fictional Massachusetts town invented by which horror writer?

H. P. Lovecraft invented Arkham, Massachusetts as a setting for his horror fiction. Writer Dennis O'Neil borrowed the name when he and artist Irv Novick introduced the asylum in 1974.

Which ukiyo-e master, famed for 'The Great Wave', published sketchbooks titled 'Manga' from 1814?

Hokusai's Manga ran to fifteen volumes holding thousands of sketches of landscapes, animals, everyday life and the supernatural. The word joins characters meaning 'whimsical or impromptu' and 'pictures'.

Which Wire Fox Terrier, named Milou in the original French, joins the reporter Tintin on his adventures?

Snowy is Milou in French, a name Hergé borrowed from the nickname of his first girlfriend, Marie-Louise Van Cutsem. The dog was modelled in part on a terrier at a café Hergé used to visit.

Which future arch-enemy of Daredevil debuted in 1967 as a villain in The Amazing Spider-Man?

Kingpin spent his first years tormenting a different hero. He became Daredevil's main adversary only in 1981 and is counted among that character's two archenemies, beside the assassin Bullseye.

Which Watchmen vigilante investigates the Comedian's murder and mails his journal to a newspaper?

Rorschach was modelled on the Question, a crime-fighter from the publisher Charlton. The morphing blots on his mask match the black-and-white way he sees right and wrong.

Which writer-artist created the crime series Sin City and the Spartan war epic 300, both later filmed?

Frank Miller said he started Sin City because American comics felt too wordy and Japanese ones too sparse. He later shared directing duties on its film with Robert Rodriguez.

In Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, Dream, Desire and Delirium belong to which family of ageless siblings?

The Endless all have names beginning with D: Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Desire, Despair and Delirium, who was formerly called Delight.

Which girlfriend of Peter Parker dies in a 1973 story widely said to have ended the Silver Age of comics?

Gwen Stacy is caught by a web-line as she falls from a bridge, and a small 'snap' sound effect beside her head left readers arguing over whether the rescue itself killed her.

Which Air Force officer, long known as Ms. Marvel, took on the name Captain Marvel in a 2012 series?

Carol Danvers debuted in 1968 as the security chief of a military base, with no powers at all. Writer Kelly Sue DeConnick summed up her 2012 pitch as 'Carol Danvers as Chuck Yeager'.

Which Harlem 'hero for hire' became Marvel's first African-American superhero to headline his own series in 1972?

Luke Cage got his unbreakable skin from an experiment in prison, where he was held on a false charge. He then did what few superheroes do and went into business, charging for his help.

Which world-devouring being, introduced in Fantastic Four in 1966, has a herald called the Silver Surfer?

Galactus was Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's way to top themselves: after a long line of super-villains, they wanted a foe with almost godlike powers who was beyond good and evil.

Which hero identity did Dick Grayson adopt in 1984 after retiring as Batman's original Boy Wonder?

Nightwing let Dick Grayson assert his independence as a young adult. The name was borrowed from a legendary vigilante of Krypton who had also been cast out yet kept helping others.

What kind of animal is Cerebus, the barbarian turned pope in Dave Sim's self-published 300-issue comic?

An aardvark, Cerebus starts out as a barbarian and goes on to serve as prime minister and pope. Marvel once threatened legal action over the comic's parody of Wolverine.

Deadpool's civilian name, Wade Wilson, is an inside joke on Slade Wilson, alter ego of which DC mercenary?

Deathstroke first appeared in The New Teen Titans in 1980, a decade before Deadpool. The soundalike name came from a writer's comparisons between the two masked mercenaries.

Which term do cartoonists use for the space between panels, where readers mentally join one moment to the next?

The gutter is where a reader performs what theorists call closure, combining panels mentally into events. Artists sometimes draw vertical gutters thinner so each row reads as a group.

In Spider-Man's 1962 debut story, where did the line about great power and great responsibility first appear?

A narration caption in the last panel delivers the line, and no character speaks it. Uncle Ben had only two lines in the whole story; later flashbacks turned the phrase into his advice.

Marvel paid a reader from Illinois just $220 in 1982 for the idea behind which Spider-Man outfit?

The black costume reached the page in 1984 and was soon revealed to be a living alien creature. Cast off by its wearer, the suit went on to become the villain Venom.

What did winners of Marvel's 'No-Prize', a joke award for eagle-eyed readers, begin receiving in the mail in 1967?

An empty envelope arrived, pre-printed with congratulations on winning 'a genuine Marvel Comics No-Prize'. Some puzzled fans wrote back to suggest their prize had fallen out.

Which figure's wisdom supplies the 'S' in Shazam, the magic word that transforms young Billy Batson?

Solomon lends his wisdom, and the other five letters add the strength of Hercules, the stamina of Atlas, the power of Zeus, the courage of Achilles and the speed of Mercury.

Gerard Way, co-creator of the comic 'The Umbrella Academy', found fame as the lead vocalist of which rock band?

My Chemical Romance singer Way created the series with artist Gabriel Bá. Its first story, Apocalypse Suite, won an Eisner Award and was adapted for Netflix in 2019.

Which cartoonist spent years resisting pressure to put Calvin and Hobbes on mugs, stickers and T-shirts?

Bill Watterson argued that selling his characters on merchandise would devalue them and their personalities. He ended the strip on the last day of 1995 and withdrew into private life.

Which underground cartoonist created Fritz the Cat and Mr. Natural and helped found Zap Comix in the 1960s?

Robert Crumb drew on psychedelics and on cartoons from the 1920s and 1930s for his 1960s characters. He contributed to all 16 issues of Zap Comix.

Which manga anthology serialised Dragon Ball, Naruto and Slam Dunk and has sold over 7.5 billion copies since 1968?

Weekly Shōnen Jump peaked with its New Year's issue of 1995, at 6.53 million copies. Sales slid after two of its biggest serials ended, falling to 4.15 million by 1998.

Which Korean word for comics names the style behind vertically scrolling webtoons, as distinct from Japan's manga?

Manhwa, manga and China's manhua are cognates that all simply mean comics. Korean webtoons are built for scrolling, where a manga is meant to be read page by page.

Which artist drew 1991's X-Men #1, certified by Guinness as the best-selling comic book of all time?

Jim Lee's issue sold over 8.1 million copies, helped by five variant covers that retailers ordered in bulk. A year later he and six other artists broke away from Marvel to publish their own titles.

Which word did Beetle Bailey creator Mort Walker popularise for the string of symbols that stands in for a swear word?

Grawlix caught on after a satirical 1964 article Walker wrote for fellow cartoonists. His lexicon of comics symbols also lists plewds, the sweat droplets that fly from a stressed character's head.

Which newspaper strip, launched in 1918, pioneered real-time aging after its hero Walt found a baby on his doorstep?

Gasoline Alley let the foundling, nicknamed Skeezix, grow up as the years passed, and its cast has gone on aging over generations. Its creator based Skeezix on his own son.

Which 1970s manga did Keiji Nakazawa base on his own survival of the Hiroshima atomic bombing as a child?

Barefoot Gen followed a shorter eyewitness account, 'I Saw It', that Nakazawa drew in 1972. He had long hesitated to publish an autobiographical story about the bombing.

Which Canadian superhero team's comic made headlines in 1992 when its member Northstar declared 'I am gay'?

Alpha Flight #106 sold out within a week, the first time a Marvel character had come out. The series then made almost no further mention of the subject before it ended in 1994.

Which French town launched a comics festival in 1974 that later handed its winners wildcat statuettes called Fauves?

Angoulême's Grand Prix was created to honour a living creator's lifetime achievement, with the winner presiding over the next festival. Cartoonist Lewis Trondheim drew its wildcat mascot in 2007.

The Bechdel test for women in film first appeared in 1985 in which long-running comic strip?

Dykes to Watch Out For ran a 1985 strip titled 'The Rule', in which a woman says she only sees a film if two women in it talk to each other about something other than a man.

Which cartoonist's 1993 book 'Understanding Comics' explains how the medium works, itself told in comics form?

Scott McCloud followed it with Reinventing Comics in 2000 and Making Comics in 2006. His arguments about how readers fill the gaps in a story became common reference points for the medium.

Which comic, self-published by the Hernandez brothers in 1981, later gave an English rock band its name?

Love and Rockets was first put out by Gilbert, Jaime and Mario Hernandez themselves. Several bands used the name for a time, a muddle Gilbert later referred to in the pages of the comic.

Which Winsor McCay newspaper strip, begun in 1905, ends each fantastic dream with its young hero waking up?

Little Nemo in Slumberland is considered McCay's masterpiece for its experiments with colour, perspective and the size and shape of its panels. It spun out of his earlier Dream of the Rarebit Fiend.

Which enchanted hammer, crafted from the fictional metal uru, can be lifted in Marvel stories only by the worthy?

Mjolnir is not Thor's alone: the alien Beta Ray Bill proved worthy to lift it, fought Thor for it, and was given a war hammer of his own called Stormbreaker.