The Marvel Universe is replete with well-known and popular superheroes and villains alike, but not all Marvel characters are household names. When most people are asked to name Marvel characters off the top of their head, names like Spider-Man, Wolverine the X-Men, the Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America, and the Avengers are among the first to spring to mind. To be sure, these and other Marvel superheroes are among the core pillars of Marvel Comics, and have also been among the Marvel characters to be featured most prominently in other media like movies, TV shows, video games, animation, and realized as action figures.
However, even the most devoted of superhero lovers isn’t a scholar on every comic book character in existence. In the case of Marvel Comics, a number of very strong characters have never gotten as much recognition as the more popular ones, either by not gaining as much exposure outside of the comics or simply running into bad luck that prevented them from gaining traction. Here are 5 great Marvel characters you probably haven’t heard of.
For most people, hearing the name Demolition Man first and most immediately brings to mind the 1993 Sylvester Stallone-Wesley Snipes action-comedy of the same name, but the Demolition Man of Marvel Comics precedes that movie by almost a decade. First appearing in The Thing #28, Dennis Dunphy a.k.a. Demolition Man wields such powers as superhuman strength and heightened endurance, but despite his comparatively low profile, he he’s jumped into the spotlight in his team-ups with Captain America. D-Man, as he’s also nicknamed, finally made his big-screen debut in Captain America: Brave New World with William McCullough in the role, so he could finally gain more mainstream attention as a result.
While Rick Jones might not be one of the most readily known Marvel characters in the mainstream, he’s the virtual lynchpin of Dr. Bruce Banner’s origin as the Incredible Hulk. During the Gamma bomb experiment of The Incredible Hulk #1, Bruce ran to rescue the unaware Rick Jones from the impending blast, only to be soaked with Gamma rays himself and be afflicted with the Hulk emerging from Bruce’s bouts with anger. Rick later underwent his own monstrous transformation as the character A-Bomb before having his mutation reversed. Rick Jones hasn’t really made any live-action appearances as opposed to his extensive comic book history and the odd role in an animated Marvel show, which is probably why even many devoted Marvel fans don’t immediately connect him to the Hulk mythos despite his significant role in its beginning.
Aaron Stack a.k.a. Machine Man is a Marvel character combining two cornerstones of sci-fi, namely comic book legend Jack Kirby and 2001: A Space Odyssey, with Aaron first debuting under the name Mr. Machine in issue #8 of Marvel’s comic book adaptation of Stanley Kubrick’s eponymous film. Jack Kirby later built the Machine Man mythos into the mainline Marvel Universe, with the part-man part-machine Aaron wielding a highly technological power set. For all of Jack Kirby’s great contributions to comic book lore, Machine Man sadly isn’t one of the characters under his penmanship to gain a huge amount of attention.
Three individual characters in Marvel Comics have gone by the moniker of Red Raven, including the first Red Raven only known as such, the second Red Raven Dania, and the third from the Old West, Redford Raven. In all three cases, Red Raven is an airborne superhero taking to the skies either by way of synthetic wings in the case of the first and third versions or being a human-avian hybrid in Dania’s case. Red Raven as a character might be best known to modern comic book aficionados through the late Morgan Spurlock’s documentary Comic-Con: Episode IV – A Fan’s Hope, in which Mile High Comics’ owner Chuck Rozanski tries to sell a copy of Red Raven #1 at 2010’s San Diego Comic Con. For those who haven’t seen the film, Red Raven as a trio of Marvel superheroes that have likely slipped through the cracks.
One of the most overlooked Marvel superheroes, John Aman, didn’t actually begin in Marvel Comics at all, but instead originated as the hero Amazing Man in Centaur Publications in the 1930’s. In his origin story, John Aman studies at a Tibetan Monastery under group of monks known as the Council of Seven, who help train John to rise to new heights of physical and mental strength, with John subsequently becoming a superhero tasked with defeating his arch-nemesis The Great Question, a renegade member of the monastery. With Amazing Man eventually lapsing into public domain, he’s been featured in comics published by Malibu, DC, and Marvel, and for the latter, he was a major influence on the creation of Danny Ran a.k.a. Iron Fist. That eventually led to John himself being integrated into Marvel Comics during The Immortal Iron Fist run, with John being re-imagined as Prince of Orphans, one of the seven Immortal Weapons of the Seven Cities of Heaven. John’s role in The Immortal Iron Fist might not have launched him to the public spotlight, but it nonetheless cemented his legacy as a Marvel superhero.
The Marvel Universe is replete with well-known and popular superheroes and villains alike, but not all Marvel characters are household names. When most people are asked to name Marvel characters off the top of their head, names like Spider-Man, Wolverine the X-Men, the Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America, and the Avengers are among the first Read More