Because of my rabid obsession with
Guardians of the Galaxy, both the comic book and the upcoming movie,
I've decided to do a post about the newest addition to the Guardians
current comic book run; Angela. As you may or may not know, Angela
wasn't originally a Marvel comics character. Knowing this or not, the
sudden appearance of a character like Angela may confuse anyone not
familiar with her, whether you read Marvel or not. She's not your
stereotypical Marvel Comics character; Angela has a bit of an edge to
her, even being written by Marvel. She just seems
other-dimension-y. Click the jump for more!
That's because she is
other-dimension-y. (I'm loving this word. Sue me.) Angela started out
in another comic series, from another comic book company, created by
entirely different people, in a style and setting decidedly NOT
Marvel-like. While, in my not-so-humble opinion, Angela is an awesome
addition to Marvel's cosmic comic line-up, the decision to use her
may be leaving some readers a bit discombobulated. So I'll give a
brief run-down of the character's beginnings, publication history and
how she ended up in the velvety hands of Marvel Comics.
Angela was first conceived by Neil
Gaiman and Todd McFarlane for McFarlane's Spawn comic series over at
Image comics, way back in 1993. Her first appearance was in Spawn #9.
She was designed to be Spawn's equal and opposite; a bounty hunter of
Heaven, trained and equipped to kill Hellspawn. She became a
recurring character, villain and eventual romantic interest for
Spawn, until her death in issue #100. Afterward, she had several
cross overs through-out the mid 90s, including Glory, YoungBlood,
Team YoungBlood, and Aria. But Angela kind of disappeared once the
year 2000 hit.
Where did Angela spend the first 10
years of the new millennium? Court. According to Wikipedia, McFarlane
stopped paying Gaiman for use of characters Angela, Cogliostro and
Medieval Spawn, which Gaiman and McFarlane created together for the
Spawn series. McFarlane republished and kept in print the volume
containing these characters, but cited Gaiman's involvement as
work-for-hire, and claimed that he owned all of Gaiman's co-creations
entirely, pointing to the legal indicia in Spawn #9 and the lack of
legal contract stating otherwise. Gaiman disagreed. In 2002 he took
McFarlane and Image Comics to court for rights due. During the court
dispute, all three characters were co-owned by both parties, 50/50.
In 2012, McFarlane and Gaiman finally settled and Gaiman was given
full ownership of Angela. Which he then turned around and sold said
rights to Marvel.
Okay, it wasn't quite that quickly.
About a year later, March 21st, 2013, to be exact. CBR
announced that Angela would be introduced into the MCU as a major
character later in the year to coincide with Gaiman's return to the
company. It was later confirmed that Marvel Comics had completely
bought the rights to Angela from Gaiman. And now we're caught up to
present day. Of course, we now know that Neil was supposed to
co-write Guardians of the Galaxy #5, which featured Angela. He got
bumped down to “consultant” which left Brian Michael Bendis sole
writer. This was a great disappointment to fans of Gaiman and
probably to retailers who ordered #5 based on the information that it
would be co-written by Gaiman.
Marvel's Google+ page recently asked
about Angela: "Where
would you like to see her show up after Guardians of the Galaxy?" which, in turn begs the question, how long will Angela be visiting
our Guardians? How big of an impact will she leave on the story and
the characters themselves, or is she just passing through? Where is
Angela headed next? In any case, decades-long fans of Angela are
happy to see her not only under Gaiman's guidance, but back on the
pages of our favorite comics. Here's to hoping that Marvel keeps her
around and a current-events player for a long time to come.
Leave a comment and tells us where you think Angela could be going or where she might find a permanent home.
Leave a comment and tells us where you think Angela could be going or where she might find a permanent home.
Angela and Deadpool would definitely make an intersting pair. That's what I'd like to see for her character.
ReplyDeleteHow about Angela takes on the X-men, mistaking them for demons.
ReplyDeleteI would love to see Gaiman write at least one issue of something with Angela in it again. I wonder what he'd choose to do with her all of these years later?
ReplyDeleteThat would be cool, although I've never read an issue of Spawn in my life.
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