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    Gender Change

    Concept » Gender Change appears in 228 issues.

    A look at the other side of the street.

    Short summary describing this concept.

    Gender Change last edited by KillerZ on 11/21/23 11:53AM View full history

    Overview

    A situation where, though cross-dressing, magic, mind-swapping, a trip to a parallel world or some scientific method a character either seems to be the opposite of their natural gender or are turned physically into that gender.

    In the golden age this seldom showed up save for three exceptions.

    1. Madam Fatal: A minor character in Crack Comics who fought disguised as a little old lady.
    2. Ma Hunkel: A working mother who donned a makeshift costume In All-American Comics #20 to fight crime as the Red Tornado whom everyone thought was male.
    3. The Ultra-Humanite: Superman’s first arch enemy, who after seemingly being killed returned having had his brain placed in the body of starlet Dolores Winter.

    After that the theme disappeared until it was used several times in the EC horror and science fiction titles of the early 50’s.

    Mostly unused after that it returned briefly at DC in the early 60’s in a story in Superboy #78 in which Superboy was made to think he had been turned into a girl, and a number of cross-dressing adventures of Jimmy Olsen.

    Unused for the rest of the 60’s it appeared only sporadically throughout that decade and the next, in the 80’s however it begin to show up more often, perhaps due to the growing influence of Japanese Manga, where the theme is not only more common, but a major one.

    As things stand today there are many examples of gender change in the comics such as the female clone of Peter Parker in Marvel’s Ultimate Universe, or Earth-11 at DC which is a whole world comprised of the characters found in the main DC Universe changed to the opposite sex.

    There was a whole story arc in Image comics called Babewatch, where most of menfolk were turned into women by Diabolique's Magic.

    It is also often common to re-imagine a character in a female gender. an example of this would be the Grimm Fairy Tales version of Mowgli from the Jungle Book.

    List of characters who have gone through a gender change:

    • Arcee - experimented on by Jhiaxus.
    • In Archie Comics #636 every character in Riverdale (except Sabrina) undergoes a gender change.
    • Aptak - A male Skrull trapped in a female alien body.
    • Badrock - Temporarily turned female by Diabolique's magic.
    • Battlestone - Temporarily turned female by Diabolique's magic.
    • Birdy the Mighty - Male and female inhabit one body, shifting from one form to another.
    • Brahma - Temporarily turned female by Diabolique's magic.
    • Byrd - Temporarily turned female by Diabolique's magic.
    • Captain Power - Female can turn into super-powered male.
    • Chapel - Temporarily turned female by Diabolique's magic.
    • Charade (as Exit) - Temporarily turned female by Diabolique's magic.
    • Chelsea Nirvana - Turned her body into male when fused with Johnny Redbeard's essence. Her and her father swapped bodies later.
    • Comet - Man and a woman merged into one being.
    • Cougar - Temporarily turned female by Diabolique's magic.
    • Courier - Male shape shifter trapped in a female form by Mr. Sinister.
    • Desire of the Endless - She can be both female and male, depending on the viewer.
    • Diehard - Temporarily turned female by Diabolique's magic.
    • Dr. Fate - For a period two people merged to form the hero, occasionally the female side would be dominant.
    • Dr. Nirvana - Swapped bodies with his daughter Chelsea.
    • Firestorm - One version of the character involved a male and female combining to form the hero.
    • Fishnet Angel - Male turned into a super-powered female.
    • Fusion - Temporarily turned female by Diabolique's magic.
    • Guy Gardner - Turned female by Dementor.
    • Iron Man - Ultron reshaped his armor into the image of Janet van Dyne.
    • Keever - Temporarily turned female by Diabolique's magic.
    • Kid Supreme - Temporarily turned Female by Diabolique's magic.
    • Knight Sabre - Temporarily turned female by Diabolique's magic.
    • Kodiak - Temporarily turned female by Diabolique's magic.
    • Lady Merlyn - Old mage Merlin's life-force materialized in the form of a small girl.
    • Le Chevalier d'Eon - A man who occasionally is taken over by his sister's ghost.
    • Loki - Shapeshifts into a female.
    • Mantra - Temporarily turned female by Diabolique's magic.
    • Mighty Man - A magical force that transforms any user to Super-powered male, even if the user is female.
    • Mr. Sinister / Miss Sinister - Male cloned into a female.
    • Necromantra - A man's spirit took over the unborn child and accelerated her growth.
    • Orlando - An immortal, Orlando has involuntary changed sex throughout the centuries. Caused by a curse that was passed on from his/her father.
    • Ozma - Turned into a male by Mombi.
    • Pilot - Temporarily turned female by Diabolique's magic.
    • Psi-Fire - Used his telepathy to move his consciousness over to woman's body.
    • Prophet - Temporarily turned female by Diabolique's magic.
    • Reign - Temporarily turned female by Diabolique's magic.
    • Roman - Temporarily turned female by Diabolique's magic.
    • Sanctuary - Was born different because he was still in uterus when the alien energy arrived to earth.
    • Sasquatch - Walter took over Snowbird's resurrected body.
    • Sentinel - Temporarily turned female by Diabolique's magic.
    • Shade - His second host body during his adventures in Peter Milligan's series was that of a woman.
    • Shaft - Temporarily turned female by Diabolique's magic.
    • Shocking Suzi - Male turned female by H-Dial, and was trapped like it forever, because she couldn't find the device anymore to turn it off.
    • Shvaughn Erin - He took gender-changing pills in his teens that made her a woman, later when she was no longer able to get those pills, she reverted back to male.
    • Sir Tristan - Male reincarnated as female.
    • Spider-Man / Spider-Woman (Earth-1610) - Male cloned into female.
    • Superman - Turned female by Shar-La's ring.
    • Superpatriot - Temporarily turned female by Diabolique's magic.
    • Task - Temporarily turned female by Diabolique's magic. Second time he was turned into female by a dream master who made dreams come true.
    • Tim Hunter - With a glamor stone he takes on the physical attributes of his mother and also takes her name, Mary.
    • Troll - Temporarily turned female by Diabolique's magic.
    • Vamp - A woman who can turn into a male monster.
    • Vandal - Temporarily turned female by Diabolique's magic.
    • Vanguard - Temporarily turned Female by Diabolique's magic.
    • Wolverine / X-23 - Male cloned into female.
    • Xavin - Although shapeshifter, Xavin is not sure what is the base form male or female.
    • Yoruichi Shihouin - Can shapeshift to male cat (no other forms).
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    An alternate version of a gender change character is the unexplained introduction of a character which is the opposite of the traditional characters gender, primarily with the interest of eliciting interest from the reader. An example of this is Black Panther #1 in 2009, where a female Black Panther is shown without any context as to who it is. As the story progresses it is slowly revealed, but from the inception of the new series it is unclear if it is the regular character that has been swapped or a new character altogether.

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