When Captain America was a mutant: The curious case of Sam Wilson

The X-Men and the Avengers have had a long and complicated relationship with one another, dating to their shared birthday on July 2, 1963, and continuing through a series of meet-ups, miniseries and misunderstanding-based fights. From their first encounter in X-Men #9 to the time the love-child of Professor Xavier’s suppressed rage and Magneto’s 
…

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Your guide to the weirdest, wackiest, wrongest What Ifs: A ComicsXF Primer

What if Roy Thomas, who had recently stepped down from being editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics in the mid-1970s, was like, “Well, I want to keep writing, but I don’t want to deal with continuity?” Marvel has answered that question a bunch of different ways over the years, from Thomas’ own Invaders series, written during the…

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Kurt Wagner, Nightcrawler

GOLD SILVER BRONZE Kurt Wagner is many things. He’s a mutant born in Bavaria with unique physical features: blue fur, a prehensile tail, pointed ears, fangs, and three-fingered hands and feet. He’s a teleporter and a trapeze artist. He’s the adopted son of a Romani sorceress and the biological son of a shapeshifter and a…

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Kate Bishop, Hawkeye

GOLD SILVER BRONZE Kate Bishop– the younger of two heroes code-named Hawkeye– emerged when the older one, Clint Barton, had temporarily retired. A hero by choice, she took up his color scheme (purple on purple on purple), his bow-and-arrow theme, and his acrobatics-and-bruises fighting style, first with his resistance, then with his blessing, and then…

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Doom Patrol

GOLD SILVER BRONZE Cliff Steele is a race car driver. Larry Trainor is a test pilot. Rita Farr is an actress. They have little in common. Cliff’s car goes up in flames. Larry’s plane is hit by radiation. Rita’s exposed to strange gasses in a shoot. They now have something in common. Tragedy has taken…

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Chris Bachalo

GOLD SILVER BRONZE The Canadian-born, California-bred cartoonist Chris Bachalo (buh-CHA-lo) is one of the most visually energetic and inventive cartoonists working, infusing every project with an overabundance of detail and passion. A breakout star of the 90s, Bachalo successfully transplanted his Vertigo aesthetic to Marvel comics. His style is constantly evolving, becoming more exaggerated and…

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