This is the latest in a feature where I just share some bit of comic book history that interests me. Here is a collection of all of the installments in the feature so far.

The other day, I had a TV Legends Revealed about a remarkable composer who transitioned during the early 1970s and continued her successful career doing music for television. Coupled with the news about Caitlyn Jenner, I thought it'd be interesting to look at how trans characters have been handled by DC and Marvel over the years. I chose "The Big Two," specifically, because while there have certainly been a number of excellent independent comic works featuring trans characters over the years (Alison Bechdel, in particular, did some groundbreaking work with trans characters in Dykes to Watch Out For), I am a bit more interested in seeing how "mainstream" comics have handled trans characters over the years.

I'm going to avoid accidental gender-switched characters or body sharing stuff. No offense to fans of Wanda Langowski, but I'd like to keep this to characters who were assigned the wrong gender at birth and then chose to live their life as their true self, not people who were accidentally switched genders as part of a spell or whatever (now if they were switched in a spell that they themselves intentionally cast, that'd be a different thing, we are talking comics here, after all, a certain amount of fantasy is to be expected!).

I am fairly confident that William Marston did not have any trans ideas in mind when he invented the Wonder Woman villain Hypnota (in Wonder Woman #11, with artist HG Peter), but he also never specifically said anything to the contrary, so I guess it is worth mentioning them.









Note that there were two other Wonder Woman villains named Doctor Poison and Blue Snowmen who were women dressed up as men, but those two were a good deal clearer that it was just a disguise and nothing more (Doctor Poison was revealed to be Princess Maru and Princess Maru attacked AS Princess Maru later on before later using the Doctor Poison identity, as well, so I think it was so well established that it was just a woman using a disguise - same with Blue Snowman). But I thought it was worth mentioning them in case people were curious.

There were a few other woman disguised as men and the occasional man disguised as women characters, but I don't think any of them gave the indication that they were anything other than utilitarian disguises (Madam Fatal and Red Tornado being the most prominent examples of this motif).

In the pages of the Defenders in 1984-85, Peter Gillis was doing some interesting work with the character of Cloud...

It began with Defenders #132, where Iceman flirts with his new teammate, Cloud...





In #134, Cloud, though, shows an interest in her female teammate, Moondragon...



She struggles with her feelings the following issue...



In #136, she solves her problems by turning into a man....





Iceman doesn't handle it particularly well...





Cloud changes back and forth and Bobby has a particularly hard time when he's consoling Cloud on her bed when she changes into a man. Bobby freaks out, and tells Cloud that he wants to help, he just can't.

But eventually he remains friends with Cloud...



And as they come closer to learning Cloud's origins later on and whether she actually DID "turn" into a guy or if she is perhaps two person merged into one...





Then, of course, her origins were revealed to be something COMPLETELY different as the series abruptly ended. In the end, I don't really think Cloud counts as a trans character, but for a while there, it DID seem so, but it was sort of walked back. Either way, it was a fascinating angle for a mid-1980s Marvel superhero book, that is for sure.

Go to the next page as we get to the end of the 1980s...

Another tricky situation came up with the opening arc of Manhunter. The first arc is about Manhunter being hunted down by the shapeshifting assassin-for-hire, Dumas, who is working for the mysterious Olivia Vancroft. In Manhunter #4 (by John Ostrander, Kim Yale, Doug Rice and Kelley Jones) they are ultimately revealed to be one and the same!



See, I would normally just write that off as similar to shared body characters like Aleta/Starhawk from the Guardians of the Galaxy or what Cloud was eventually revealed to be, and I don't think those shared body characters really count. However, there is an interesting degree of intent here that makes it a bit more complicated, so while ultimately I figure it probably doesn't count, like Hypnota, I think Dumas is worth pointing out.

In 1991, we finally got a honest-to-goodness trans character in the pages of a DC Comic, the rather impressive Wanda Mann in the pages of Sandman, specifically the A Game of You storyline from Sandman #32-37. Now obviously, I think even Neil Gaiman would concede that he didn't absolutely nail it with Wanda Mann (even her last name was an odd choice) but he came pretty damn close, and within the context of its time, Wanda was extraordinary.

Here she was in her introduction in Sandman #32 by Neil Gaiman and Shawn McManus...











And here's Gaiman's excellent (especially for the time) handling of the whole name issue...



I've come across two notable critiques about Wanda's depiction in the story. The first is a critique over Wanda being excluded from the trip to rescue her friend Barbie from the evil Cuckoo in the Dreaming (as seen in this snippet from Sandman #34, art by Colleen Doran and George Pratt) because she's not a woman...







While it is certainly reasonable to object to that, Neil Gaiman has noted that the point IS to be upset over her exclusion. As he later explained, Thessaily (and the Fates) ARE jerks - she was being a jerk to exclude Wanda from the rescue mission. Later, when Wanda is tragically killed while protecting Barbie in the real world, we see her with Death and in the afterlife, she is a woman, so Thessaily was wrong. I think it's probably fair, though, to say that Gaiman was perhaps not clear enough in the story that Thessaily was supposed to be wrong.

The second notable critique is that Wanda, in the afterlife, has more noticeably feminine features, bringing in the idea of "So what, her real appearance wasn't good enough?" That, too, is a fair enough point, but at the same time, I think there is simply a biological limitation to just HOW feminine a woman can become when born biologically a man, so I think it is likely fair enough to note that her "true self" is even more feminine...



And come on, Barbie crossing out the name on Wanda's tombstone as a big eff you to Wanda's jerk parents?



That was amazing. I think Wanda was a great job by Gaiman, particularly in a comic written TWENTY-FOUR years ago!

Another complicated situation was the Shvaughn/Sean Erin reveal in Legion of Super-Heroes #31 in 1992. For years, a vocal segment of Legion of Super-Heroes fans believed that Element Lad was gay. Paul Levitz, though, gave him a female love interest, the Science Police officer Shvaughn Erin. In Legion of Super-Heroes #31 (art by Colleen Doran and Al Gordon), however, writers Keith Giffen and Tom and Mary Bierbaum revealed that Shvaughn Erin was actually Sean Erin, who was taking effectively the future version of hormone therapy to become a female to appeal to the supposedly straight Element Lad. Element Lad lets Sean know that he loved him in SPITE of his gender, not because of it.





So what do you do with that? In a lot of ways, it is a great example of a trans person today, with the future version of hormone therapy, but it is not a case of Sean being a woman, he just physically became one because that's what he felt Element Lad wanted. He was fine being Sean in the end...



So I dunno...it's extremely close to counting, but maybe not?

Go to the next page for two Vertigo characters from the early 1990s...

1993 gave us Coagula in Doom Patrol #70 (by Rachel Pollack, Scot Eaton and Tom Sutton)...









I liked Coagula a lot, but it's funny, while Pollack was clearly trying to write a great trans character, and really DID succeed, Coagula is also a sex worker, which really became a bit of a stereotype when it came to the depiction of trans characters, including the next notable character on the list, the shaman Lord Fanny from Grant Morrison's The Invisibles.

Here's Fanny's origin from The Invisibles #13 (by Morrison and Jill Thompson)...













and here is when she becomes a member of the Invisibles (from Invisibles #15 by Morrison and Thompson)...





It's just interesting how writers can go in with the most wonderful of intentions and still fall prey to the little traps, like making them sex workers. But in general, I think Lord Fanny was a positive character, as was Coagula.

In 1995, J.M. DeMatteis and Ron Wagner were a bit less successful with their Sir character in the pages of Daredevil. Sir was a murderous psychopathic muscle-bound loon who revealed a significant secret when Daredevil stopped him in Daredevil #348...













DeMatteis was soon off the book, so I don't know if he had some other plans for the character that he never got to.

Ann Nocenti, Steve Lightle and Fred Harper did a two-part storyline in Marvel Comics Presents #150-151 (while it was in the midst of a sort of format flux) where a young girl who is a mutant empath is taken in by a group designed to take advantage of young powered kids. Wolverine decides to rescue her and the only person he can think of to help him (for some bizarre reason) is Typhoid Mary (say wha?!?)







Seriously, how messed up is Wolverine's plan here? "Sorry, poor innocent Mary, I need your evil split personality for a mission for some unexplained reason, so I'm going to need you to sacrifice your sanity to help me out. Or I could, you know, ask a dozen different X-Men. Hmmm...nah, I'm sticking with this plan."

So Mary finds the girl, named Jessie, but freaks out when she discovers that Jessie is, according to the facility, a BOY!!



Later, Jessie uses her powers to contact Mary and explain that nope, she IS a girl...



So Mary frees her and they walk into the sunset together...



It's a weird story and not a particularly GOOD one, but you have to give Nocenti and Lightle (who co-plotted the story) credit for having a key character be a positive depiction of a trans character. That was definitely very unique for a superhero comic book back in 1994.

Go to the next page for a pair of Milestone Comics characters...

Ivan Velez Jr. did really wonderful work with Masquerade, the shapeshifting member of the Blood Syndicate, who debuted in 1993's Blood Syndicate #1 (by Dwayne McDuffie, Velez and artists Trevor Von Eeden and Andrew Pepoy)...



Here he is in action...



So in Blood Syndicate #10 (by Ivan Velez Jr., ChrisCross and a couple of inkers), the team has just gotten its collective ass kicked, and in the aftermath, everyone is shaken up. Fade goes to check on Masquerade and discovers his secret...





The next issue, Velez Jr. has an excellent scene where Masquerade lashes out at Fade over the secret...





He got increasingly paranoid over the rest of the team finding out, so he eventually left the team and returned as their "resurrected" original leader, Tech-9.

Eventually, the ruse was revealed in the final issue of the series (co-written by McDuffie and Velez Jr. and drawn by Wilfred) and Masquerade quit the team...



Damn, Blood Syndicate sure could be harsh at times. Great book, though.

In 1994, Milestone gave us an even more prominent trans character in Marissa Rahm (and her girlfriend, Dini) as the lead in the mini-series Deathwish (Rahm is the cop who is on the hunt for the Punisher-esque Deathwish). The series was written by the late Maddie Blaustein and drawn by a very young JH Williams (with inks by Jimmy Palmiotti)...















A whole mini-series pretty much starring a trans lead was pretty damn impressive for 1994. Milestone was a great place for diversity (and good comics).

Go to the next page for the last batch of characters...

In 1999-2000, Alan Moore, J.H. Williams and Mick Gray introduced a couple of interesting new additions in the pages of Promethea.

First up is Bill, who became Promethea himself...



As he explains in Promethea #7, he didn't really see himself as a woman, so I guess he doesn't really count, but it is close...





Also close is Roger, of the Five Swell Guys. Roger debuted in Promethea #1...



we learn that Roger wasn't always a woman in Promethea #7...



Reader Rene argued in the comments that Roger is just another gender-swapped character and wouldn't count as trans. He could be right. I'll leave it as undetermined for now!

In their excellent 2004 prison drama Hard Time, Steve Gerber and Brian Hurtt had a character named Cindy who was a good supporting cast member.





In 2005's Runaways #8, Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona (although the first appearance was drawn by Takeshi Miyazawa) introduced the Skrull Xavin, who was the intended for Karolina Dean of the group. Karolina, however, was a lesbian, so she was not about marrying some guy, but Xavin had other thoughts...



I think that this really more a case of gender fluidity, which would also apply to a couple of other characters like Comet and Loki, but again, I figured I should include Xavin here just in case people were curious.

Reader ZZZ thought it worth mentioning Erik, a member of Infinity Inc., (he was initially the Fury, but now he was seemingly powerless like his other former teammates, but they banded together and slowly but surely got new powers) who developed a stutter and a constant dream of castration. He then transforms into Erika, a confident young woman...





Erik and Erika switch back and forth, though (as Erika she's "Amazing Woman"), and it is not necessarily clear that Erik identifies as a woman. He definitely has some gender stuff going on, and don't get me wrong, it's PRETTY darn close to seeming like it is just a case of Erik identifying as Erika, but it's not definitive and the book was canceled before the boo's writer, Peter Milligan, got a chance to clarify it either way (the book ended up on a CLIFFHANGER, as the entire team was kidnapped for the Terror Titans crossover, then the team broke up - Erik/Erika died in a Jimmy Olsen Special, of all places).

In 2011's Batgirl #1 (by Gail Simone, Adrian Syaf and Vicente Cifuentes), Barbara Gordon gets a new roommate, Alysia...





In Batgirl #19 (by Simone, Daniel Sampere and Jonathan Glapion), Barbara and Alysia each reveal a secret to each other...







Also, for whatever it is worth, the villain Suzie Su in Red Hood and the Outlaws #2 (by Scott Lobdell and Kenneth Rocafort) is a trans woman...





In 2013, in Matt Fraction's awesome run on FF with Mike and Laura Allred, he revealed that one of the Moloid children living with the Future Foundation (which is a group of genius children working together to help the world under the guidance of Reed Richards originally, but in FF, Scott Lang was now their guardian) was trans...



Holy crap, was that handled beautifully.

Last year, in Astro City #16, Kurt Busiek and Brent Anderson did a story that was a bit of a riff on the whole Superboy/Lex Luthor rivalry during their youth, with genius "villain" Simon Says constantly clashing with the noble, goodhearted hero Starbright. When Starbright is killed, though, he discovers that Starbright was not who he thought he was, which inspires a change in his former rival's life...











It's an excellent story.

Finally, in last year's Angela, Asgard's Assasin #1 (by Kieron Gillen, Phil Jimenez and Tom Palmer), we meet Angela's good friend (and possibly more?), Sera...









In this year's Angela, Asgard's Assassin #3 (by Gillen, Marguerite Bennett and Stephanie Hans), we learn that Sera was born as one of the very few biological male angels...







That pretty much takes us up to the present.

Feel free to write in with any examples that I missed!