Comic Book Characters Turning 50 In 2023

The 1970s were a big boom for comics. As readers of superhero titles from the '60s got older, the stories got more intense and began drawing on darker themes. The decade also saw a few big trends sweeping the stands, most famously via a rise in horror stories: vampires, werewolves, zombies, and other creatures of the supernatural. But the decade also saw a rise in cosmic heroes and villains as superhero stories didn't just take brief jaunts into outer space, but focused entirely on characters from across the galaxy.

The '70s not only saw the advent of Jack Kirby's "Fourth World" titles, but also planted the seeds for some of the genre's biggest interstellar heroes. This included the debuts of a number of characters you might recognize from some of today's biggest movies and TV shows, including "The Guardians of the Galaxy" and "The Eternals."

Audiences today might be surprised to learn just how old some of these characters are, debuting all the way back in 1973. But readers may also raise an eyebrow at just how different they originally were. From space-based tyrants to sorcerers and demons, let's explore some of the biggest comic book characters celebrating their 50th birthdays in 2023.

Making a more notable first appearance than Starfox in "The Invincible Iron Man" #55 is the green-skinned Drax the Destroyer. Fans today know him from the "Guardians of the Galaxy" films, in which he's played by Dave Bautista. However, the character was very different in his debut. Clad in a purple leotard with a long flowing cape and cowl, he's barely recognizable as the same character.

Unlike his movie counterpart, this Drax is not an alien from outer space, but an artificial construct with the soul of a human named Arthur Douglas who was killed by Thanos. His spirit was grafted onto a new body by Titans who designed him as the perfect weapon to destroy Thanos. Not quite a hero, but not quite a villain, Drax later battled Captain Marvel and the Avengers but also sided with the good guys on various occasions. After Earth's assembled team of heroes defeats Thanos and Adam Warlock takes his Infinity Gauntlet, Drax is actually given possession of the Power Gem for a time as a member of the Infinity Watch. 

Before being revamped as a tattooed alien killer in the 2000s, leading to his role in "Guardians of the Galaxy," Drax actually made his first on-screen appearance in the 1990s "Silver Surfer" animated series.

In the 1960s, the anthology series "Strange Tales" featured the debuts of a number of Marvel mainstays, including Doctor Strange. That trend continued into the 1970s. Starting with 1973's "Strange Tales" #169, after Doctor Strange stopped being the central focus of the series, the next five issues were led by an all-new supernatural hero named Brother Voodoo. Created by Gene Colan and Len Wein, Voodoo was revealed to be Jericho Drumm, who returned to his native Haiti to find his brother Daniel dying, and took up the art of voodoo to battle evil forces.

Eventually, under the persona of Brother Voodoo, Drumm became a powerful sorcerer himself. He faced off against a number of mighty Marvel villains, including the evil organization A.I.M. Brother Voodoo also allied himself with the likes of Spider-Man, the Black Panther, and the Werewolf by Night. 

In the decades since, Drumm has gained further notoriety by taking up the mantle of Sorcerer Supreme from Doctor Strange. After sacrificing himself in a battle with the powerful entity called Agamotto, Doctor Doom helped bring him back to the land of the living. Subsequently, Drumm saved the Avengers and X-Men from the wrath of the power-mad Scarlet Witch, and later joined the Avengers full-time.

The 1970s was an era marked by a rise in monster comics and the supernatural, largely thanks to the loosening of the Comics Code in 1971. Finally, stories about witches, vampires, werewolves, and the occult were no longer off limits, and Marvel took the opportunity to flood the stands with books about dark magic and hellish demons. Two major characters arrived in 1973, and though they're related, they debuted in different titles. 

Daimon Hellstrom, the son of Satan, first appears in "Ghost Rider" #1. He's quite literally the spawn of the devil himself, but Hellstrom isn't quite a villain like you might expect. He actually helps Ghost Rider fight off a villain said to be possessed by his father in the comic. Later, he joins the ranks of the Defenders, and in more recent years he's even been an agent of SHIELD. 

Over in the pages of "Vampire Tales" #2 – also from 1973 — came Satana, Daimon's sister. She went on to join the super-team called the Thunderbolts — later the Dark Avengers — but it was her 1970s incarnation that's perhaps most famous. Both Daimon and Satana were adapted into live-action in 2020 in the short-lived horror series "Helstrom" on Hulu, played by Tom Austen and Sydney Lemmon.

From cosmic heroes back to horror and the supernatural we find Blade, the most famous vampire killer in comics. But that fame largely comes from the 1998 film adaptation starring Wesley Snipes, a film that helped kick-start the comic book movie boom. If you were to see the character in his first appearances in 1973, you'd hardly recognize him as the leather-clad, kung fu fighting killer Snipes portrayed.

Instead, back in the 1970s, Blade appears as a British soldier-of-fortune, wearing yellow goggles and a green trench coat with a bandolier loaded with wooden knives. As odd as he may look to us today, this Blade was no less deadly as a hunter of un-living bloodsuckers. His first appearance comes in "The Tomb of Dracula" #10, which sees him going right up against the Lord of the Vampires himself. But while Dracula survives the encounter (it is his book, after all), Blade would go on to become an iconic horror hero, eventually joining the darker side of the Marvel universe as the re-designed, black-clad hero we know today.

In addition to the Snipes films, Blade also received his own short-lived live-action TV spin-off and is being rebooted into the MCU with Mahershala Ali. He's also made animated appearances over the years in shows like "Spider-Man: The Animated Series," "Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H," and "Ultimate Spider-Man."

T'Challa the Black Panther may have been Marvel's first Black superhero, making his own debut in 1968 on the pages of "The Fantastic Four." However, he didn't actually receive his own comic book title until 1977. As a result, most of his biggest enemies made their first appearances in comics like "Jungle Action," the anthology in which Black Panther had most of his solo tales told. In "Jungle Action" Vol. 2 #6, from writer Don McGregor and artist Rich Buckler, the Panther's newest enemy arrives in the form of Erik Killmonger.

In the issue, Kilmonger is looking to take down Wakanda's king and steal the nation's vibranium. In his confrontation with the Black Panther, T'Challa is defeated and thrown over a waterfall — a moment adapted in the 2018 feature film "The Black Panther." Beyond his first appearance, Killmonger goes on to become one of T'Challa's biggest returning foes, making repeated attempts to usurp control of the African nation. In the MCU, he's played by Michael B. Jordan, and he was more recently re-envisioned in the Marvel comics to match the look of his on-screen counterpart.

Cosmic comics and monster stories weren't the only trends in the 1970s, as movies and TV held influence over the industry too. As a result, the popularity of Bruce Lee and martial arts movies came to the page, leading to characters like Iron Fist in 1974. A year before that, "Marvel Special Edition" #15 saw the introduction of another hero known as Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu. Created by Steve Englehart and Jim Starlin, he went on to star in his own title.

Over the ensuing decades, Shang-Chi was mostly a minor player in the Marvel comics, popping up from time to time as an ally of other martial arts mainstays like Iron Fist, Misty Knight, and White Tiger. He received a few of his own short-lived titles in the 1990s and 2000s, later joining the "Heroes for Hire" series. 

But while Iron Fist was arguably the most popular martial arts hero in the Marvel universe for decades, that has begun to shift in recent years. Thanks to the poor reception to Netflix's "Iron Fist" series and the critical acclaim of the MCU's "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings," the Master of Kung Fu is finally getting the respect he deserves. In 2022, he received a new ongoing series, "Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings."

"The Invincible Iron Man" #55 features a bevy of first appearances, from major future players like Drax and Starfox to lesser-knowns like Kronos and Mentor. But without a doubt, the issue's biggest debut was Thanos, the Mad Titan who would ultimately become one of the biggest villains in the Marvel universe. At the time, he was portrayed as a powerful demi-god of sorts, but not nearly the despotic, nihilistic tyrant he is today. 

Not long after his first introduction, Thanos became the nemesis of Captain Marvel and acquired the Cosmic Cube in a quest for galactic domination. He soon became a perennial foe of the Silver Surfer, while his next quest for cosmic control saw him assemble the Infinity Gems. That story culminated in the 1991 mini-series "The Infinity Gauntlet," which firmly established him as Marvel's most dangerous cosmic threat. 

Since then, Thanos has had countless encounters with the Avengers, the X-Men, and the Guardians of the Galaxy, assembling his own group of minions called The Black Order in his showdowns with them. Of course, he also came to mainstream prominence when he was teased in the 2012 blockbuster "The Avengers," before taking the central villain role in two of the biggest movies of all time – "Avengers: Infinity War" and "Avengers: Endgame" — played by Josh Brolin. But Thanos' legacy started back in 1973, in a humble issue of "The Invincible Iron Man," changing both the comic book and movie industries forever.