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Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Miscellaneous Thought

This is probably a thought that's occurred to everyone else but I'm occasionally slow on the update so here it is...

Scott Summers has Jean Grey
Tony Stark has Pepper Potts
Peter Parker has Mary Jane

And so on and so forth.

But is it just me or does SOMEONE in the 1960s/1970s Marvel office have a thing for leggy redheads? :-)

posted by kalinara @ 12:18 AM  

18 Comments:

  • At August 05, 2008 2:35 AM, Blogger LurkerWithout said…

    There are people who DON'T have a thing for leggy red-heads?

     

  • At August 05, 2008 5:30 AM, Blogger JP said…

    Or did someone in the 1960s Marvel office read a lot of Robert A. Heinlein?

     

  • At August 05, 2008 6:00 AM, Blogger snell said…

    Well, techincally, Peter didn't "have" Mary Jane until the 70's...but Gwen Stacy was a leggy blonde. Does that count??

     

  • At August 05, 2008 7:42 AM, Blogger kalinara said…

    Duly corrected. :-) And as to whether blondes count, that's up to you. :-)

     

  • At August 05, 2008 9:48 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Someone in the *DC* offices for sure had a thing for leggy redheads. Hawkgirl was definitely inspired by a real woman. And I was just reading an interview where it was mentioned that Mrs. Julius Schwarz was a gorgeous redhead.

    (And I'm not sure we're talking about the same redhead - there might have been two. My memory, which I can't be sure of or verify, is that the direct inspiration for Shayera became Mrs. Joe Kubert.)

    On a broader level, I think there's a more prosaic explanation for the comics population of redheads being larger than that in the real world. There might not be a lot to differentiate characters besides hair color, and there were only four real options - black/blue, brunette, blonde, or redhead - allowed by the coloring at the time. And red hair stands out, so odds are that with any feature that had three female characters, one would be a redhead.

     

  • At August 05, 2008 10:14 AM, Blogger Doctor Polaris said…

    I tend to agree with LurkerWithout. Do such fools *really* exist? And if there really are people who don't have a thing for leggy redheads, why haven't we hunted them down and destroyed them?

     

  • At August 05, 2008 10:44 AM, Blogger SallyP said…

    Well...WE like Guy Gardner. He's a leggy red-head!

    So I guess I can see the appeal.

     

  • At August 05, 2008 12:23 PM, Blogger D.Bishop (aka Mr. Allison Blaire) said…

    Medusa was probably Marvel's greatest redhead in the 60's. She probably had more hair than the entire Marvel population and it was all in glorious technicolor red.

     

  • At August 05, 2008 5:17 PM, Blogger Sleestak said…

    Not only do you need to find out who liked red-heads, but query into had their heart broken once by a blond. Lotsa dead blonds in Marvel.

     

  • At August 05, 2008 11:58 PM, Blogger notintheface said…

    And let's not forget my favorite leggy DC redhead from the 70's, Dr. Jenette Klyburn. No wonder Supes hung out at S.T.A.R. Labs so much back then.

     

  • At August 06, 2008 5:10 PM, Blogger Ferrous Buller said…

    Pretty sure Stan Lee created all of those ladies. His wife Joan Clayton Boocock is / was a redhead and used to be a model. Pretty sure that's not a coincidence. :-)

     

  • At August 07, 2008 4:16 AM, Blogger Menshevik said…

    Is/was Joan Lee a redhead? Because I've heard her say (interviewed by Kevin Smith, IIRC) that she was the model for Gwen Stacy, who of course was the woman Stan himself wrote as Peter Parker's intended during his 1960s/1970s run. Also, before Peter met with Mary Jane he had been involved with a brunette (Betty) and two blondes (Liz (yellow) and Gwen (platinum)).

    One has to wonder if John Romita (who modeled MJ on Ann-Margret) had a thing for redheads though - he also changed the Black Widow's hair from black (that colour now explained as a wig or dye job) to red. (And then she became the lover of red-headed Matt Murdock for a time).

    But all in all, there weren't that many redheads among Marvel's 1960s and 1970s women. Apart from Jean Grey, Pepper Potts (who was phased out as Tony Stark's love interest soon enough) and MJ, I remember only Medusa (who did not join the FF while her strawberry blonde sister Crystal did), the Black Widow (started out raven-haired), and ... could someone help me out here? Even if you half-count strawberry blondes, the only ones I can think of are Alicia Masters (not that leggy), Crystal and Thundra.

     

  • At August 07, 2008 12:31 PM, Blogger Ferrous Buller said…

    Behold the power of Google!

    While the company grew, Stan achieved a reputation as a formidable ladies' man. Then in November 1947 he strolled up Fifth Avenue from his offices in the Empire State Building to have a look at a "gorgeous redhead" recommended as a date by his cousin Morty. When Lee opened the door to her office, he took one long look at "that face and hair" and surrendered. "I love you!" he cried. Joan Clayton Boocock, a hat model, was flattered. She was also married.

     

  • At August 07, 2008 3:43 PM, Blogger Joe said…

    "Heroes Want Redheads!"

     

  • At August 07, 2008 6:11 PM, Blogger Menshevik said…

    ferrous bueller -
    thanks!

    false prophet -
    the people who compiled that article show what a little selective memory can do, considering how few examples they actually provide for Marvel's supposed predilection for redheads. For instance in the case of Cyclops they misidentified Colleen Wing (actually brunette) as a redhead, did not mention his much more serious romance with Lee Forrester (blonde). Or that Scott cheated on his "one true love" with Emma Frost and is now living quite happily with that platinum blonde.

    While of course Spider-Man has over the decades been romantically involved with a number or ladies, but IIRC everyone but Mary Jane was either a brunette (Betty Brant, Marcy Kane) or a blonde (Liz Allan, Gwen Stacy, Debra Whitman, Felicia Hardy).

    It really is amazing how much mileage they got out of three or four females (MJ, Jean Grey, Jean's clone Madelyne Pryor and Wolverine's first love Rose).

     

  • At August 12, 2008 12:02 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    There's also Shanna The She-Devil. She was originally a leggy redhead before Marvel finally gave up on trying to claim they weren't ripping off Will Eisner's Sheena, The Jungle Queen and Shanna started getting miscolored as a blonde more and more frequently. She was even presented as a blonde during her appearance on "Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends", pre Ka-Zar marriage and in the X-Men cartoon.

    Oddly enough, she too dated Matt Murdock. In fact, her and Ka-Zar's son is named after Matt.

    And I can't believe nobody mentioned Red Sonja...

     

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