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Obscure Stan Lee Characters from A to Z: The Vibrant V’s

It’s Trivia Tuesday! Tell us, which of the below characters did Stan Lee have a hand in co-creating?

A. Varnae

B. Velocidad

C. Venus

D. Victorius

And the answer is:

C. Venus!

But before we get to that classic goddess, let’s take a quick look at the other ‘V’ characters!

Varnae

This vampire first crept his way into the pages of Marvel Comics in December 1982 in Bizarre Adventures #33. That’s an apt title for this creature to debut in! Varnae rose from the minds of two Steve’s – Steve Perry and Steve Bissette. 

Velocidad

Velocidad, aka Gabriel Cohuelo, zipped into Uncanny X-Men #527 in August 2010 courtesy of Matt Fraction and Kieron Gillen.

Victorius

There’s Victorius and Victorious in Marvel Comics – just one letter separating the two! (Sneaky, isn’t it?) In this case, we mean the former, an A.I.M. researcher also known as Victor Conrad. He first landed in Astonishing Tales #18 in June 1973 from the minds of Mike Friedrich and Dan Adkins.

And now onto Stan’s co-creation!

Venus

Stan co-created the Marvel character Venus most likely with Ken Bald and Lin Streeter. As you may have guessed, they based her upon the goddess Aphrodite from Greek and Roman mythology. (For transparency’s sake, another character who goes by the name Aphrodite was introduced in X-Men vs. Agents of Atlas #2 in November 2009 by writer Jeff Parker and artist Carlo Pagulayan.) The Stan co-created version of the character debuted in her own title, Venus #1, in August 1948. And guess what? She even lived on the planet Venus! When she journeyed to Earth, though, Venus was known as Vicki Starr, and she worked for Beauty magazine. Interestingly, Venus’ solo series began as more of a humor and romance title, but over the course of its 19 issues, it moved more into fantasy, horror and science fiction territory.  

Every couple of weeks, we’ll spotlight some of Stan’s most obscure co-creations through trivia, starting with A and ending with Z! Stay tuned for ‘W,’ coming soon!

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