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Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Daydreamer of the Young Gods

Man alive...I don't know how many thousands of comics I've read over the years but damned if I knew that Marvel Comics had a team called the Young Gods, let alone that one of their members is Canadian.  From the Marvel Directory:

Daydreamer, the Young Gods' philosopher, was once Catherine Moranis, who was a 25 year-old farm woman living in 19th century Ottawa, Canada when she was contacted to become one of the Young Gods. Daydreamer can control the minds of others through verbal or mental command. She can create visions in the minds of others or dispel illusions in their minds. Daydreamer also possesses limited precognitive powers.

I'll let you read the description of the team, and their purpose in life, from the link above because I'm not sure I could summarize it.  I don't really do cosmic all that well.

Daydreamer first appeared along with the Young Gods in Thor #300 and 301 in 1980.  They weren't seen again until Spectacular Spider-Man Annual #8 about eight years later, making the announcement of their return at bottom right of that book's cover somewhat eyebrow-raising.  You have to wonder how many readers read that and wondered who the hell the Young Gods even were.

Still, it was a pretty nice bit of exposure as Daydreamer had some brief but impactful (at the time, at least) contribution to Spidey's Clone Saga.  She was responsible for making the woman who believed she was a clone of  Gwen Stacy realise that this was not the case.  The scan below is from this Comic Book Resources article about abandoned storylines (file name "sendintheclones8".  Good one!).


Apparently, Daydreamer also has the power of instant hair-styling.

As you'll see from the CBR article, that whole thing was pretty much unraveled later and Marvel showed their respect for the character, and their editorial savoir-faire, by botching her name later in Web of Spider-Man #125 in referring to her as Dreamweaver (which, in fairness, is actually a better name).  See Jean-Claude Beaubier?  It doesn't only happen to you!

The Young Gods continued their sporadic appearances, next showing up in Marvel Comics Presents issues 101 through 109 in 1992.  In fact, I believe that's our girl in the box at top left of the cover to #105 (Hmmm...Might have to track those down, since the Wolverine story makes for a fair bit of Can-con...).  The team's most recent appearance was in Eternals Annual #1 in 2008.

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