The Punisher

First appearance

The Punisher was created by Gerry Conway and his first appearance was illustrated by Ross Andru, at that time the regular writer and artist, respectively, for The Amazing Spider-Man. Conway states he also helped design the character's distinctive costume:

“

In the '70s, when I was writing comics at DC and Marvel, I made it a practice to sketch my own ideas for the costumes of new characters — heroes and villains — which I offered to the artists as a crude suggestion representing the image I had in mind. I had done that with the Punisher at Marvel.[3]

”

Conway had drawn a character with a small death's head skull on one breast. Then-Marvel art director John Romita, Sr. took the basic design, blew the skull up to huge size, taking up most of the character's chest, and added a cartridge bandolier that formed the skull's teeth.

Appearing in Amazing Spider-Man #129 (Feb. 1974), the Punisher was initially an antagonist of Spidey. He was a bloodthirsty vigilante who had no qualms about killing gangsters, something that most superheroes of the time refrained from doing. J. Jonah Jameson described him as "the most newsworthy thing to happen to New York since Boss Tweed". Tricked by the Jackal into attempting to kill Spider-Man,^[4] this version of the Punisher was shown as an athletic fighter and a master marksman. All that he would reveal about himself was that he was a former Marine. He had a fierce temper and was engaged in considerable soul-searching as to what was the right thing to do. Spider-Man, who was no stranger to such torment, concluded that the Punisher's problems made his own seem like a "birthday party".

The character was a hit with readers and started to appear on a regular basis, teaming up with both Spider-Man and other heroes such as Captain America and Nightcrawler throughout the 1970s and early 1980s.^{[5][6][7][8][9][10][11]} During his acclaimed run on Daredevil, Writer and artist Frank Miller made use of the character, contrasting his attitudes and version of vigilante action to that of the liberal Daredevil

Raven

Real Name: Raven
Alias: Rachel Roth
Occupation: Adventurer
Known Relatives: Angela Roth/Arella (mother, deceased), Trigon the Terrible (father, deceased?)
Group Affiliation: Titans
Past Group Affiliations: The Children of Trigon, the Church of Blood
Hair: Black
Eyes: Originally blue, now violet
First Appearance: DC Comics Presents #26 (October 1980)

A character with a morbid past and origins, Raven is the half-breed daughter of a human mother named Arella and the interdimensional demon Trigon. She grew up in an alternate dimension called Azarath, with pacifistic inhabitants whose spiritual leader was the mystic Azar. In her homeland, she was taught to "control her emotions" by Azar, in order to suppress her inherited demonic powers. Essentially, if Raven was allowed to feel any emotion, her father would recreate her in his vision.

During this time, Raven rarely saw her mother and grew detached from her. Upon Azar's death, Arella began the task of raising and teaching Raven. Around this same time, Raven's demonic heritage was revealed, as she met her father face to face for the first time. Soon after her 16th birthday, Raven learned that Trigon planned to come to her dimension, and she vowed to stop him.

Raven initially approached the Justice League, but they refused her on the advice of Zatanna, who sensed her demonic parentage. In desperation, she reformed the Titans as the New Teen Titans to fight her father. The team consisted of Robin, Wonder Girl, Kid Flash, Starfire, Cyborg, and Beast Boy.

Kid Flash only agreed to be a member after Raven used her powers to coerce him into loving her. On another meeting with the Justice League, Zatanna revealed this information, which caused the other Titans to turn away and mistrust Raven. Only much later is it revealed that she manipulated Kid Flash's emotions in order to save his life and removed his knowledge of the encounter ^[2].

This separation didn't last long when Trigon kidnapped Raven to his home dimension. The team defeated Trigon and sealed him in an interdimensional prison with the help of Arella, who stayed at the interdimensional door as Trigon's Guardian. However, Raven continued to fight her father's influence as he wasn't completely destroyed. For a period of time, Raven lost control several times in high-stress situations, but managed to regain control before Trigon could assert himself.

Popular storylines such as "The Judas Contract" took place during this period. Eventually, however, Trigon escaped his prison, came to Earth, and took control of Raven, destroying Azarath in the process. The Titans came together and were forced to kill Raven, thereby allowing the souls of Azarath to possess her and guided by the spirit of Azar, who was acting through the body of the Titans' ally Lilith, used her as a channel to kill Trigon. After this battle, Raven rose again from the ashes, purged of Trigon's evil, and vanished.

Starfire

Biography: Starfire was a “prize” that the Gordanians were to deliver to the Citadel, to live out her days as their servant. Starfire broke free from the Gordanian vessel and brought her fight to Earth. After encountering some new heroes on Earth, they eventually teamed up to repel the Gordanian threat. Starfire stayed on with this new team who later dubbed themselves the "Teen Titans."

Starfire is a powerful extraterrestrial being from the planet Tamaran and is the innocent newcomer to the group. Although she is still learning about the strange habits and foreign customs on the planet Earth, she remains a fierce fighter capable of firing extremely powerful energy blasts from her hands and flight. She is a warm-hearted, kind, and gentle friend that gets along well with all the other Teen Titans. In particular, she spends a lot of time with Robin and considers him to be her best friend. A dedicated optimist, Starfire may have powers and abilities that she's not even aware of yet.

Like her sister, Blackfire, Starfire can now shoot bolts out of her eyes--something she gained when she went through a process called "transformation", in which a Tamaranian evolves. She was one of the few who went about it by a process called "Chrysalis", where a horn sprouts from the forehead, two additional horns from the neck, longer ears become visible, and the feet swell to a larger size as well; this all leads up to forming a cocoon around herself, which lasts only a few minutes. Unfortunately, during this stage of Chrysalis, she is defenseless--and, had it not been for the other Titans, she would've been eaten by a Chrysalis Hunter, a white and red monster that goes through life waiting for a Tamaranian to go into this phase.

Starfire received a summons from Tamaran to come and wed her betrothed--a man she had never met, but was forced to marry. Though it turned out to be a giant ploy by Blackfire, Starfire almost spent her life with the snot-monster Glgrdsklechhh. After she found out about the plan, Starfire overthrew Blackfire and gave the throne to Galfore, so she could return with her friends to earth.

Invisible Girl

Real Name
Susan Storm Richards

Identity
Publicly known

Occupation
Adventurer, substitute teacher; former actor, model, student

Citizenship
U.S.A.

Place of Birth
Glenville, Long Island, New York

Known Relatives
Reed Richards (Mister Fantastic, husband), Franklin Richards (son), Valeria Richards (daughter), Johnny Storm (Human Torch, brother), Franklin Storm (father, deceased), Mary Storm (mother, deceased), Marygay Jewel Dinkins (aunt), "Bones" (cousin), Evelyn Richards (mother-in-law, deceased), Nathaniel Richards (father-in-law), Cassandra Richards (Warlord, mother-in-law, deceased), unnamed child of Nathaniel Richards (brother-in-law), Tara Richards (Huntara, sister-in-law), Kristoff Vernard (alleged brother-in-law), Lyja (sister-in-law)

Group Affiliation
Fantastic Four; formerly Secret Avengers, Avengers, Brides of Set, pawns of Death

Education
High school education, incomplete college studies

Height
5'6"

Weight
120 lbs.

Eyes
Blue

Hair
Blonde

Powers
Sue can render herself wholly or partially invisible at will. She can also render other people or objects invisible, affecting up to forty thousand cubic feet of volume. She achieves these feats by mentally bending all wavelengths of light in the vicinity around herself or the target in question, and she somehow does this without causing any visible distortion effects; she also somehow directs enough undistorted light to her eyes to retain her full range of vision while invisible. Sue can also mentally generate a psionic field of invisible force apparently drawn from hyperspace, which she manipulates for a variety of effects. Most commonly, Sue generates near-indestructible invisible force fields around herself or other targets. She can vary the texture and tensile strength of her field to some extent, rendering it highly rigid or as soft and yielding as foam; softer variations on the field enable her to cushion impacts more gently, and are less likely to result in a psionic backlash against Sue herself (in rare cases, sufficiently powerful attacks on her psionic fields can cause her mental or physical pain).

Sue can shape her psionic force fields into invisible constructs, usually simple shapes such as barriers, columns, cones, cylinders, darts, discs, domes, platforms, rams, ramps, slides and spheres. By generating additional force behind her psionic constructs, Sue can turn them into offensive weapons, ranging from massive invisible battering rams to small projectiles such as spheres and darts. She can generate solid force constructs as small as a marble or as large as 100 feet in diameter, and her hollow projections such as domes can extend up to several miles in area. By forming one of her force fields within an object and expanding the field, Sue can cause her target to explode. She can also travel atop animated constructs such as ramps, stairs, slides, columns and stepping discs, enabling her to simulate a limited approximation of levitation or flight. She is capable of generating and manipulating multiple psionic force fields simultaneously. Sue once swapped powers with her brother Johnny for a brief period, and during that time had the ability to generate and manipulate flames for various effects.

Abilities
Sue has some modest experience and ability in the field of acting, and has recently taken up teaching. She is a capable unarmed combatant. She is renowned for her changing hairstyles (once said to match the Wasp's changing costumes).

Paraphernalia
Like the rest of the FF, Sue wears a highly durable costume composed of unstable molecules that shift to accommodate the wearer's form. Short-lived variations on her standard costuming have included a mini-skirt, "4"-shaped cleavage and an exposed midriff.

First Appearance
Fantastic Four #1 (1961)