50 Interesting Facts about Marvel – Part 2

When Spider-Man was framed for murder by his nemesis Norman Osborn, he had to operate as four separate superheroes to avoid capture by the police. Two were villains he used to infiltrate the villain network and clear his name. The other two were crimefighters he used to continue protecting the city.

27. Joe Simon and Jack Kirby were both second-generation Jewish immigrants and created the character Captain America to take a stand against the Nazi regime before America entered the war, receiving harsh criticism and death threats for their stance. In addition, the two served in the military and fought real Nazis when the US did join the war.

28. Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds revealed that the taxi driver character Dopinder in Deadpool was named so in the memory of his elementary school friend who was killed by lightning.

29. A deleted scene from The Amazing Spider-Man 2 revealed that although Norman Osborn had died, his head was cryogenically frozen beneath Oscorp. According to actor Chris Cooper, the character would’ve most likely been revived to serve as a larger antagonist later on in the film series.

30. According to Stan Lee, the Iron Man comic series developed Marvel’s first and largest following among female readers, stating, “of all the comic books we published at Marvel, we got more fan mail for Iron Man from women, from females than any other title… Whenever we did, the letter was usually addressed to Iron Man.”

Instead of writing a script, Marvel Comics writer Stan Lee would often sit and brainstorm story ideas with the comic book’s artist. That artist would then draw panels for the plot synopsis that they developed and Lee would go back and write dialogue over the sketches.

32. Charlie Cox revealed that before production started on Netflix’s Daredevil, he had dyed his hair red in order to appear more like his comic book counterpart. However, he admitted “It looked really weird,” and returned his hair to its natural color for the show.

33. In order to separate the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Spider-Man from previous incarnations, the character almost debuted in Captain America: Civil War while wearing the Iron Spider outfit. Marvel eventually scrapped this idea, but still allowed Tony Stark to make tech upgrades to the classic comic book suit.

34. Though Netflix’s The Defenders series features Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist, the comic-book version of the team was founded by the Hulk, Dr. Strange, and Namor the Sub-Mariner.

35. Nearly 20 years before he was cast as Bruce Banner/The Hulk in Marvel’s The Avengers, Mark Ruffalo auditioned to play Doctor Doom in the Roger Corman-directed 1994 film The Fantastic Four.

Very little details were revealed about Wolverine in his first Marvel comic book appearance, as his story was still being developed. At the time of his debut, Wolverine was being written as a teenager with special gloves that had claws attached to them, though these traits were dropped by his next appearance.

37. Arnim Zola, the Nazi biochemist who stored his consciousness in a supercomputer, nearly appeared in Ant-Man. According to concept art, the character would’ve been portrayed as a humanoid robot that would project an image of Arnim Zola from its midsection, similar to his appearance in the comics.

38. According to TIME Magazine, T’Challa’s (the Black Panther) net worth is $90.7 trillion. As King of Wakanda, he owns all of the country’s exclusive reserves of Vibranium, a material that’s worth $10,000 per gram.

39. The Bluth family stair car from Arrested Development can be seen in the background of the airport fight scene in Captain America: Civil War. The directors of the film also directed the pilot episode of the critically-acclaimed comedy series.

40. Ajax’s henchman Bob in Deadpool is a reference to Deadpool’s comic book colleague Bob, Agent of Hydra. Legally, Fox wasn’t allowed to include the character in the film, so he was stripped of any affiliation to Hydra and they used him anyway.

In order to draw attention to the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, actor Chris Hemsworth wore his previously unrevealed Thor: Ragnarok costume to the protest in order to ensure the photos would reach a wider audience.

42. The swear jar heavily featured in the early episodes of Luke Cage was written into scripts in an attempt to secure a cameo from Prince in the first season finale. Prince– a devout Jehovah’s Witness– was known to keep a swear job in his own residence and did not swear himself. He died before he could be asked to appear in the series.

43. James Gunn initially considered the original comics line-up of Yondu, Martinex T’Naga, Captain Charlie-27, and Major Vance Astro for the first Guardians of the Galaxy film. While Yondu was included as the leader of the Reavers, the others were scrapped in favor of the more recent comic book line-up.

44. Jeremy Renner became frustrated by playing what he essentially felt was “Loki’s Minion” in The Avengers, so he would occasionally fake Hawkeye’s death in certain takes, hoping the character would be killed off.

45. Dan Harmon was hired by Marvel to write additional comedic scenes for Dr. Strange. Harmon is best known for creating and co-creating Community and Rick and Morty respectively, two television shows that heavily feature storylines about alternate dimensions.

Marvel considered having Thunderbolt Ross (portrayed by William Hurt) transform into Red Hulk in Captain America: Civil War, but scrapped the idea so as “not to add another complicated super-powered character to the mix.”

47. With a body count of 83,871 (including the nearly 80,000 Nova Corps pilots who die in the climax of the film), Guardians of the Galaxy hold the record for the most on-screen fatalities of any movie.

48. Terrence Howard was paid higher salary on Iron Man than any other actor, including Robert Downey Jr.

49. Our reality, in which superheroes like Deadpool and the Avengers are fictional film and comic book characters, is designated Earth-1218 in the Marvel Universe. Our Earth was even destroyed at one point through a multiverse incursion but restored to normal by Mr. Fantastic.

50. Captain America: Civil War directors Joe and Anthony Russo revealed that the lighting in many of the film’s interior scenes was inspired by the cinematography in the music video for “Turn Down for What” by DJ Snake and Lil Jon.