When Stan Lee first brought him back in 1963's "Avengers" #4, he wasn't superhuman at all. Jessica Jones and Luke Cage's marriage has also lasted a long time, since 2006's "New Avengers Annual" #1, but many fans worry it's only a matter of time before a creative team decides to tell a separation story - if an when that happens, it would be interesting to see whether their marriage has similarly become a "status quo" identifier to which the characters would eventually revert.Ĭaptain America is an easy example. One of the only true exceptions to this rule has been Reed Richards and Sue Storm from the Fantastic Four - but that's because for the majority of their existence, they have been a married couple, and it has become a core identifier to the characters as such, it is an element whenever they return to their status quo. Similarly, Black Panther's marriage to Storm (from the X-Men") was annulled by Wakandan Priests after she chose to side with mutants (not Wakanda) during " Avengers vs X-Men" in 2012. They have become the essential truths of superhero storytelling, and they are key reasons fans love these characters so much.īecause of this, fans get stories like " One More Day," where Mary Jane and Peter Parker make a literal deal with the devil to save Aunt May's life, at the cost of their decades-long marriage. Then there's the matter of authorship: in the '60s and '70s, it was nearly impossible to find a popular Marvel character not bearing the signatures of some combination of Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, or Steve Ditko in the decades since, you'd have an equally unlikely chance of finding a creator who didn't grow up worshipping that trio - and is likely to follow certain elements of a time-tested, beloved blueprint.īelow is a breakdown of the things every Marvel character has in common, with rare exceptions.
Some rules have changed over time Stan Lee's insistence that the company's characters not have sidekicks, for instance, was eventually dropped. Whether it's a story trope that's been repeated over time, or some rule of the industry that has stuck around long enough to impact multiple characters in the same way, many of Marvel's superheroes have aspects in common.
But when a company's characters have been in constant publication for decades, such never-ending storytelling will inevitably result in a few common threads from time to time.
One of the greatest strengths of the Marvel Universe is how unique many of their heroes are.