LGBTQA Week: Angela and Sera

[leahandillyana]

The two Marvel characters are my #1 comic book couple. Below, I will briefly introduce them and talk about their 616 history. Spoilers!


Angela, narratively speaking, is three different characters: the original one, a literal angel, originating from Spawn; the Angela first introduced into Marvel Universe and used mostly in Guardians of Galaxy, very close to her Spawn portrayal; and Marguerite Bennet’s Angela. In this post, I will be talking solely about Bennet’s Angela, as the story has my all-time favorite tropes that are ignored by other authors.
Angela is a bounty hunter from an otherdimensional, cruel matrialchal society – and actually Thor’s long lost older sister. That’s what all Marvel versions of Angela have in common. Bennet gives her a lover – a smart and snarky transgender woman whom Angela saved from an abusive religious order. The two continued their violent journey together until one day Sera disappeared. Angela searched for her, and upon realizing her lover is dead the stoic warrior decided to bring her soul back a’la Orpheus and Euridice – and succeeded!
I absolutely adored the storyline. Angela and Sera’s storyline is an epic love story featuring lovers who literally are willing to walk to hell and back for each other. Furthermore, Sera is the only prominent comic book character that I know of that is a transgender woman (and honestly I wouldn't call Batgirl's former room mate a prominent character). Finally, the series reintroduces my another favourite, Leah of Hel. Unfortunately, after Bennet left, Angela was soft-rebooted and nearly all elements she introduced were left forgotten or explicitly retconned, which made absolutely no sense.
I suggest the following reading order for the characters:
Thor and Loki: The Tenth Realm storyline (Original Sin #5.1-#5.5)
Angela: Asgard’s Assassin #1-#6
1602: Witch Hunter Angela #1-#4
Angela: Queen of Hel #1-#7
Currently, Sera is rumored to appear in the Loki series on Disney+, which is honestly the only thing that piques my interest of that series.

Comments

[valismedsen]

Thank you for the (very well-done) summary! I love Angela and Sera's story as well!

Where did you see that Sera might appear in Loki's series?

[shadowpsykie]

cxan you post the story arch where she searches for sera (which, might be a cute nod to Seraphim, a type of angel:)

[lilacsigil]

I read "1602: Witch Hunter Angela" first and really enjoyed that, so went back and read the rest. I'm glad I was spoiled that her quest for Sera was a success, though!

[bruinsfan]

Am I the only one who really did NOT like Angela being retconned into Thor's backstory? She appeared in the Marvel Universe when time was broken, why not keep her origin and home as is and feature her adventures as someone wholly alien to the Earth 616 metaphysical setup?