Comic Book Storylines and Characters That Should Never Get Adapted

Usually, comic book deep dives make for fun movies and tv shows. But these stories and characters should never make the leap off the page.

Nov 26, 2024

For some comic book fans, the most shocking part of Eternals wasn’t the face of pop star Harry Styles. Rather, it was the character he was portraying: Starfox aka Eros.

It’s not that Eros is the deepest cut the MCU has ever pulled. As a brother to Thanos and a longtime member of the Avengers, Eros is actually a higher profile character than most of the actual Eternals in the film. Rather, it's the fact that Marvel included Eros despite his problematic history in the comics.

You see, befitting his name, Eros has the ability to control pheromones and control people’s feelings. That often includes making women find him attractive... which at one point led to She-Hulk story in which he’s sued for harassment. Of course, the tepid response to Eternals has made it very unlikely we'll ever see Eros on screen again, which means the MCU will never have to really face the challenge of adapting such a difficult character.

Then again, both Marvel and DC have finessed controversial characters in the past, either by ignoring their misdeeds from the comics (looking at you, wife-beater Hank Pym) or by shuffling them off to more irreverent entries---one will only find white supremacist White Dragon on Peacemaker or cocaine-fueled baddie Snowflame on Harley Quinn.

But those tricks won’t work for some of the most troubled (and offensive) characters who ever appeared in mainline comics from DC or Marvel.

Steamboat

Superhero comics grew out from pulp novels, which loved tales of square-jawed white guys with connections to non-white cultures. In comics, this often resulted in racist caricatures for sidekicks, such as the Green Lantern Hal Jordan’s Inuit pal Tom “Pieface” Kalmaku or the Spirit’s Black driver Ebony White.

Modern versions have tried to soften the edges of these characters, dropping the nickname when Taika Waititi played Kalmaku in 2011’s Green Lantern or Darwyn Cooke making Ebony a cool, less stereotypical character for his reboot of The Spirit.

But there’s nothing to be done about Captain Marvel's (oh, I'm sorry, Shazam's) sidekick Steamboat. Captain Marvel creator C. C. Beck debuted Steamboat in America’s Greatest Comics #2 as a kid who drove around both Billy Batson and his adult superhero alter ego. But Beck pushed the stereotypes further than most, representing Steamboat’s speech in thick dialect and making him a lazy coward.

According to most accounts, Beck hoped that Steamboat would win the book a young Black readership. But to the surprise of no one else, Black readers took offense at the hateful character and petitioned Fawcett Comics to drop the character. To their credit, Steamboat disappeared in 1945, never to be seen again, not even in the many reboots of Captain Marvel that DC has done since purchasing Fawcett in the 1970s.

Snap Wilson

“Wait a minute,” you might say. Sam Wilson is in the movies! He’s played by Anthony Mackie and is the current Captain America!”

True as that observation is, it doesn’t capture Sam’s whole story. Stan Lee and Gene Colan added Wilson to the Captain America mythos in 1969’s Captain America #117, where he was a Harlem-based social worker with a trained falcon called Redwing. After helping Cap fight off some Nazis, Sam took on the moniker Falcon and soon became co-headliner in the book, retitled Captain America and the Falcon.

That’s the character who Mackie plays in the MCU, but Marvel briefly introduced a very different version in 1975’s Captain America and the Falcon #186. Written by Steve Englehart and John Warner and penciled by Frank Robbins, the issue reveals that the Red Skull created Sam’s goodhearted identity with the Cosmic Cube. Before that, Sam was a violent pimp called “Snap” Wilson, who terrorized his Harlem neighborhood. The Red Skull recruited him as a representative of the worst of America and remade him as a sleeper agent to undermine Cap’s hope for his country.

Most writers who followed that story immediately forgot about Snap Wilson and just moved on as if the storyline never happened. However, in 2015’s All-New Captain America #3, writer Rick Remender and penciler Stuart Immonen ended the Snap storyline forever, revealing that the entire persona was a scheme by Red Skull to make Sam doubt himself.

Sam proved his heroism by rejecting the lies, and we should all do the same.

Mandrill

On one hand, Mandrill is part of the long, proud tradition of simian characters in comic books. But unlike Superman baddie Titano or even the ape army of Fantastic Four villain the Red Ghost, Mandrill drips with racism.

Mandrill first appeared in the adventure comic Shanna, The She-Devil #4 (1973), written by Carole Seuling and Steve Gerber and penciled by Ross Andru. Mandrill is, as his name suggests, a humanoid mandrill, who possess powerful pheromones that make women sexually desire him. That’s… not great, but it also kind of fits for a villain in a ‘70s comic about a jungle woman in a tiny bikini.

It gets really bad when we get into Mandrill’s origin. Born Jerome Beechman, he was the son of a white woman and a scientist at Los Alamos National Lab, also white. As a result of exposure to radiation, Jerome was born Black and with excessive hair.

Jerome’s parents abandoned him in the desert, where he met all-white Nekra, the daughter of two Black people exposed to the same radiation. The two form a bond, but become the target of a lynch mob. The mob attack triggered the duo’s powers, mutating Jerome into Mandrill and activating his pheromones.

So, yeah. Mandrill is basically every racist stereotype in one character. The adult animated series M.O.D.O.K. did include Mandrill in one episode and tried to acknowledge his racist origins by exaggerating them, which went about as well as you’d expect.

Captain America… But a Nazi

The best Captain America moment of all time occurred in Daredevil #223, by Frank Miller of all people. When Captain America refuses an order by the government, a general questions the loyalty of Steve Rogers. “I’m loyal to nothing, General,” he answers, “except the dream.”

So even though Steve Rogers is a blond-haired, blue-eyed white guy who got muscles from drugs and wears the American flag, he fights for a democratic ideal that his country has never realized.

And that’s why the 2017 crossover event Secret Empire was so wrong-headed. Spearheaded by Nick Spencer, the event began with the reveal that Captain America had been, from the beginning, an agent of Hydra, Hitler’s science division. The storyline finds Cap finally making his move, turning on his friends to bring the country under Hydra control.

On one hand, these sorts of shock reveals are nothing new. Remember in the 1990s when we learned that Tony Stark was always working for Kang the Conquerer? Of course not, but it happened. And by the end of Secret Empire, the “real” Steve Rogers was restored and his Nazi self was the result of Cosmic Cube shenanigans.

But Nazi Cap gets at a truth about the country he represents that’s too close for comfort. Not only does it speak to the many real-life Americans who openly embrace fascism, but it also misses the way that Hitler and his like were inspired by the United States’s treatment of Black people and the Indigenous population.

Captain America works best as a fantasy pointing to the dream. Nazi Cap wakes us up and takes us to the frightening reality.

Rookie Lantern Arisia

Arisia Rrab is one of the more recognizable Green Lanterns. Although she started out in a version of the green and black togs that Gil Kane designed for Hal Jordan’s first appearance in Showcase Comics #22 (1959), Arisia switched to a backless white top, a green miniskirt, and a GL-logo choker. That look fits the character’s more free-spirited personality, a sexual openness that drew the attention of many, including teammate Hal Jordan who dated Arisia for a while.

Another key element of Arisia’s first appearance: she is 13 years old. And, yes, Hal knew that.

The relationship between Hal and Arisia is one of the most common “can-you-believe-this?” moments in comic history. Throughout the character’s first appearance in 1981’s Tales of the Green Lantern Corps #1, written by Mike W. Barr and Len Wein and penciled by Joe Staton, characters make reference to Arisia’s young age. The story even ends with Hal giving her a celebratory, non-icky hug and calling her “little sister.”

Arisia’s crush on Hal was a big part of her early appearances, which fits her young adolescent characterization. Things get weird when Arisia uses her ring to age herself up, turning her into a sexy adult and Hal starts returning her affection. In fact, the two stayed together even after most of the GL rings were destroyed and the two relocated to Chicago. Eventually, they break up, but it doesn’t get better, as the loss of her ring causes Arisia’s mind to revert to its 13-year-old state, while keeping her adult body.

Retcons and reboots have covered over this storyline, and DC has brought Arisia to video games and cartoons, even having Elisabeth Moss voice her in 2011’s Green Lantern: Emerald Knights. But given how often the relationship with Hal comes up among fans, it’s unlikely that DC will try to adapt Arisia again.