Super-Vixens: Marianne Rodgers

I once read this joke book full of rude but hilarious sayings, and one line that I distinctly remember said, “Cute, but psycho…things balance out!” And if there was any Marvel character that deserved this title, it’s the scrumptious but flaky Marianne Rodgers, fledging precognitive and one time fiance to Tony Stark.

Marianne was introduced in Iron Man #40, a gorgeous looking girl who harbored a secret power- the ability to see into the future! This was all good and Marianne & Tony found themselves about to tie the knot… until Marianne saw a premonition that she’d be responsible for Tony Stark’s death. She absolutely has her panties in a bunch worrying about this, and proceeds to become an emotional wreck because of it.

Enter The Super-Adaptoid. Iron Man has a fierce battle with the old Avengers foe, battling him to the extent of his energies. Tony does manage to defeat the Super-Adaptoid, but barely has enough reserve energy to crawl home. It is a life-or-death situation, because if he doesn’t recharge his suit, in time, his heart will fail as well.

Suddenly Marianne shows up, and he asks her to help him recharge his armor… She doesn’t want to be responsible for his death, so she does what comes naturally, mainly getting her ass out of there as fast as she can, leaving Tony dying on the ground.

I’m sure every reader was like me, going “WTF?!”, but Tony was able to recharge himself in time, and rewarded the readers by dumping Marianne’s butt out the door.

In later issues, poor Marianne’s situation only got worse, and she was sadly later committed! Too bad, she sure was a purty little filly!

Marianne Rodgers

First Appearance: Iron Man #40 by George Tuska

Super-Vixens: Black Widow

The first time I ever laid eyes on Ms. Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow, was in the first issue of DAREDEVIL that I ever bought, Issue #161, against Bullseye. All I could make out at the time was that this girl was somehow linked with DD, perhaps even romantically, but she never stood out for me in any way.

Later I was to collect the back issues of Daredevil, and I was to find out she was a major character, in the pages of Daredevil (at one point the comic was even called Daredevil and Black Widow) and other group mags. One thing though, was that she never struck me as a “looker” in those Gil Kane / Gene Colan / Frank Miller issues, although I DO recall thinking she looked nice in some Colan or Miller issue where she’s wearing this pretty green dress in this one splash page …(I strangely recall that at the time she was wiping blood off her mouth!)..but that was about it.

Anyway, it wasn’t until I read the AMAZING ADVENTURES series that I saw her in a different light. I was so used to seeing her as Matt’s partner in DAREDEVIL or nagging Hercules in The CHAMPIONS and AVENGERS, that it was quite a surprise to finally see her as the sleek siren she was supposed to be!

And although all of John Romita’s gals tend to resemble Mary Jane Watson*, when I finally got around to purchasing a copy of legendary Amazing Spider-Man issue #86, that is where I found THE artist for depicting the Black Widow. John Romita’s take of Natasha just had the look that really (to me) defined what she was all about, tough, mysterious, and alluring.

•There was even this Not Brand Ecch gag where they colored the hair of Romita’s girls all different colors; red, blonde, green, blue, etc, and said: Fun Page: which is Mary Jane Watson and which Is Gwen Stacy?! Hahaha…!

Black Widow

First Appearance: Tales Of Suspense #57

First Appearance (New costume) : Amazing Spider-Man #60 by Stan Lee and John Romita

Favorite Artists:

John Romita (Amazing Spider-Man #86 )

John Buscema ( Amazing Adventures #1-8)