Smasher, in The Avengers (Jonathan Hickman). When initially drawn by Adam Kubert, she was depicted as pretty tanned, as would be expected from someone who grew up on a farm in Iowa. She also had very dark brown hair. However, Leinil Francis Yu drew her as having very pale skin and very light brown hair. Then Nick Bradshaw draws her with black hair. Then, Stefano Caselli draws her with very brown hair that's seemingly black, except in the right light, and brown eyes. This was all across a run by the same writer, who created her. You'd think he would've stepped in at some point.
There's an odd case regarding the hair of Maria Hill. While it's all over the place usually, with the one consistent thing being that it's short.
Captain America's Marvel NOW! redesign has been laughably inconsistent. It was introduced in The Avengers, but looks quite different in Uncanny Avengers and Cap's own solo book. Some artists add in the old head wings (which were not present in the initial redesign), change the boot shapes, and make various other alterations to it.
Captain America's unmasked face is one of the most inconsistent designs◊ in all comics as artists try their damndest to make him◊ unique◊ (compared to other generic blonde heroes like Johnny Storm, Herny Pym and Clint Barton) and rarely succeed. Most artists tend to fall back on stereotypical handsomeness and leave it at that.
Cap's foe Black Racer is sometimes depicted as African-American (as her name would imply), and other times she's a white woman.
Red Skull's namesake skull head changes depending on the artist. In some comics it looks a Halloween mask, while other comics it's muchmore◊ terrifying as it actually conforms the shape of Shmidt's head. Also does Red Skull have pupils? Or has he got creepy featureless white eyes?
The Deviant Kro, recurring antivillain of the Eternals books, seems to vary from a brutish, red-skinned muscular humanoid - who looks a bit like a demonic Orc - to a slightly pink human with a slim build. And has covered most points in between, too. Which would be understandable with some other Deviants, as “the Changing People” do sometimes shift over time - but Kro’s genetics are supposed to be unusually stable.
Quicksilver is an extremely egregious case of this. Marvel artists really cannot make up their minds over whether he’s a◊ PrettyBoy or a middle-agedlookingcreep. He’s supposed to be younger than his sister Wanda who’s pretty much always drawn to be beautiful and young looking — making the artistic choice to have him look older particularly odd. One possible explanation for this inconsistency is that a lot artists try to invokeStrong Family Resemblance between him and Magneto (who has a older looking face) but due to the retcon that Magneto is no longer his father, this should no longer apply but even then artists still have Pietro appear similar to Mags anyway.
His costume fluctuates between blue and green all the time, it was green originally but changed to blue which stuck for decades barring a few artists that gave him the green look again. Nowadays Pietro has a purple costume that he alternates to when not wearing his blue suit.
Scarlet Witch herself has a varied appearance, the only real consistency being her headpiece. Whether she has her Leotard of Power, whether she’s wearing red and pink or just red, whether she has a cape or not, whether her eyes are brown or green and whether she’s a brunette or redheaded. She’s also been drawn to resembleElizabeth Olsen in some modern comics but not so in others. How Stripperiffic Wanda is often up to who’s drawing her especially since she’s gotten Tamer and Chaster outfits in more recent years.
The new Captain Marvel's hairstyle varies between series, said series being The Avengers, Avengers Assemble, All-New X-Men, and her self-titled series, and ranges from her new mohawk with long hair, to a short boyish mohawk, and to just her previous long locks as Ms. Marvel.
The skin color and musculature of recurring Daredevil enemy Turk varies wildly. This necessitated the eventual Hand Wave that he has vitiligo and gets prescribed steroids to keep it in check.
Underneath his mask, Deadpool has been drawn with various skin colors— gray, brown, red, flesh— and with various skin textures— looking like gravel, like a burn victim, like a fairly normal person covered in tumors, like he's been sculpted out of pudding— and his ugliness is majorly played up on his date with Big Bertha for the sake of a gag. It's been handwaved that his cancer and healing factor fight it out, thus his appearance is always in flux.
Deadpool's costume details change with the artist, such as the size and shape of the black patches over his eyes, whether his mask is completely fitted or has a little tuft/flap/thingy on the back, having Painted-On Pants or more plausible materials, the kind of gloves and boots he has, and the number and specific types of weapons he carries.
Deadpool's eyes when he's unmasked can also fall under this, being either normal or blank orbs.
Also Deadpool's pal Weasel, who might be broad, square-jawed and big-nosed in one book and scrawny, pointy-chinned and narrow-nosed in another. He also appears to have quite a collection of glasses.
Deadpool's daughter, Ellie, is another extreme example. Her appearance is drastically different every time she's shown. She's bi-racial, but sometimes will be drawn as more African American. Her mom, Carmelita was a Latina -which contains white, black, and mixed racial origins. Anyhow, Ellie undergoes a good few changes in look.◊ Her maternal grandmother, Ms. Camacho, also gets whitewashed◊. As we see, she's introduced as a brown-skinned Latina woman. But she didn't stay that way.
Nocturne of the Exiles is the alternate-reality daughter of Nightcrawler and the Scarlet Witch, and there's a surprising lack of agreement on how much of her father's physical quirks she inherited. Sometimes she has five fingers per hand, sometimes three. Sometimes she has normal feet, sometimes not. Artists can't even agree on whether or not she has a tail and really, at that point the editors should be stepping in (or at least giving them an official character model to work with). About the only thing they can agree on is that she's blue.
Nightcrawler himself suffers from a bit of this. Sometimes he has pupils, but usually his eyes are solid yellow; sometimes his eyes are always in shadow, other times his forehead is lit naturally; at least one artist for some reason decided his hair should stick up like Count Chocula's. The most frequent point of dissention is his feet: they always have two oversized toes in front, and should have a third in back to let his feet grasp like a bird's talon but many artists draw him with normal heels, and some have shown him wearing normal shoes when going in public in a Conspicuous Trenchcoat, which should be impossible.
They actually decided that Nocturne's tail was actually retractable, complete with one of her teammates commenting on how freaky that was after watching her retract it.
He was also orange instead of green once, but that was really the Midgard Serpent in disguise.
The Incredible Hulk: Of all the Marvel characters, the Hulk has probably the greatest variety of appearances. He started out looking like an 8-foot beefed up version of Frankenstein's monster (probably not accidentally, as Universal's Frankenstein film was one of the inspirations for the character), but now varies tremendously from artist to artist: facial features resembling anything from a human brute through to a full-on caveman, how muscular he is, how big he is, his hairstyle, the amount of veins visible,the length of his limbs in relation to each other, the length and color of his shredded pants, etc. And that's just the Savage (green) Hulk, never mind his other personas...
What's more, the Hulk's appearance will vary with the same artist. Each artist will usually keep the face consistant, but his overall size and proportions will vary from panel to panel.
Other variables; Hulk's eyes. Green or red? Blood; green or red? His third wife Caiera and their son Skaar also have variable eye colors, from blue to green.
Of course, since the Peter David years, it's been established that the Hulk's appearance and personality are a direct reflection of Banner's subconscious mental state, so many of the artists' different approaches to him could probably be put down to Banner's frequently-shifting psychological troubles.
In the early Silver Age, the Hulk didn't even need different artists to get inconsistent. Jack Kirby was particularly variable on how many toes the Hulk had, drawing him with three, four, or five toes per foot virtually at random. Contemporary artists use this as a Shout-Out opportunity, and flashbacks to the early Silver Age (like Hulk's brief tenure on the Avengers) often show him with three toes.
There’s also Bruce Banner himself as artists make him a beanpole nerd so that the Hulking Out is more visually effective. While other artists give Bruce a rugged look which is fitting given his drifter-like lifestyle.
Iron Man's situation is complicated in that all his different armors tend to look sort of alike, and the devil is in the details. It wasn't always like this, though, back in the days of the classic red-and-gold suit (Models 2-4 inclusive), where changes to the armor clearly happened within the story, and due to relatively long-running creative teams and limited appearances outside his own book and The Avengers, continuity wasn't much of an issue. Even the Silver Centurion (Model 8) armor, despite being a radical departure for its time, was fairly consistently portrayed, with the biggest difference being artists other than the team of Mark Bright and Bob Layton, who introduced the Model 8, adding extra panel lines to the shoulder armor.
Then came the Neo-Classic (Model 9) armor at the end of the Armor Wars. The original Mark Bright-Bob Layton design was changed slightly when Jackson Guice took over on pencils, and this version with flared shoulders became the default style for most other artists. But then Layton took over on pencils for Guice, and moved back toward the original rounded shoulder caps. Then John Byrne made his own tweaks over on West Coast Avengers, and finally, there's the John Romita, Jr. "moon boot" version, which incorporated elements from both Layton's and Byrne's versions. Paul Ryan did depict the Guice-Layton version alongside the JRJR version in Iron Man issue #268, with the older version being stored alongside the older models in the Hall of Armors, but this is quite possibly the only time those two design variations have ever been explicitly shown as separate armors.
A painful example is the 'Extremis'-armor: it does look different from the one immediately preceding it, and it is pretty important to remember this, because the in-story differences are pretty radical. And yet, many artists just kept drawing him with the Model XXIX while he had switched to the Model XXX long since! And this is not even taking unto account the many, many instances where artists just drew whatever they felt.
This is still alive and well in the 21st century. Artist David Marquez created an amazing suit of fractal armor for Invincible Iron Man (2015) that has the ability to morph into any of his previous suits; this has never been shown consistently by any of the other artists portraying it.
Not to mention Tony Stark’s unarmored appearance, which varies greatly. The only real consistent is that he’s got a moustache, someartists make him look middle aged, others make him a ridiculouslyhandsome stud. How physically fit Tony is also changes all the time, in some comics he has an average build fitting his scientist nature, while in other comics he’s got a Heroic Build so attractive it actually had to be censored for the cover of Invincible Iron Man #14.
Teen Tony's Hologram Armor got hit with this real bad, its appearance fluxated during its brief time in use. Officially, it's supposed to look like this, but often, many artists ended up drawing it as a riff of either the classic Mark 4 armor or the armor the adult Tony himself wore during The Crossing.
Iron Man's enemy Madame Masque has a golden mask that is inconsistently handled by artists. Some artists depict it as having sculpted features, while others portray it as tight and malleable enough to show Masque's facial features and allow her to eat.
Jarvis, Tony Stark's and the Avengers' butler, is always depicted as a tall lean man. Except when drawn by John Byrne, in which case he will be short and pudgy.
Black Widow has had dozens of different looks, even her original design looks nothing like how she does now. In some comics her hair is a medium to short bob, in others she’s got long wavy hair. Sometimes she’s a dead ringer for Mary Jane Watson, at others she’s uniquely different. Natasha’s Widow’s Bite gauntlets also vary from silver to gold along with her belt.
The Mighty Thor: Thor's appearance has fluctuated across the years, so much so that he doesn't have a consistent design. Even his classic attire with the six buttons on his chest, some artists make them look metalic, other artists just have them be coloured circles. In later comics Thor has scaled armour on his arms and chest while in other comics he bares his arms unprotected. Then there's his helmet (if he's wearing it), are the helmet wings wavy? Or short like Cap's wings?.
Thor’s facial hair changes all the time. Originally (and most recently) he’s clean shaven while in other comics he’s got a full Van Dyke beard and at other times it’s just some blonde stubble, also whether or not he has blonde eyebrows or plain old black depends on the artist too. Thor’s face can either be quite brutish and caveman-like or ruggedly handsome to justify why the likes of Amora the Enchantress would drool over him.
Mjölnir also changed appearance over the years. Originally Jack Kirby drew it like a small grey brick on a wrapped stick, and by the 70s Mjölnir was a massive rectangular beveled block, that either looks like cut stone or actual metal. The handle changes length as well, sometimes it’s long enough to almost be a war hammer.
Loki seems to have a new look every time he shows up. The basics stay the same, but lots of other things change. Not surprising, considering the main thing that Loki is known for is illusions and shape-shifting:
He always has a head piece with horns. Whether it's a helmet or a headband, or how curved/long the horns are is DOTA.
The only really consistent thing is that his eyes are almost always a bright green. Everything else is up for debate.
And with Kid!Loki the artists couldn't seem to decide on his physical age. His main book (Journey Into Mystery) drew him around 10 years old, the other Thor book put him closer to 12, and the Fear Itself tie-ins where he featured had him look more like a young teenager.
One memorable cover with him, Hercules, and Juggernaut had him look 16-17 and fairly ripped.
Not as much since the movie's out now, but some more casual readers used to think Loki was blond, since his traditional costume (until he took Sif's body in 2005) had a blond ponytail hanging off his helmet... even when it wasn't a helmet but a cloth head-covering (it was however just an ornamental attachment). In his last adult-male drawings, the blond hair was changed to gold ribbons, presumably to avoid this. He was just so rarely seen without something covering his hair that some people didn't even know (much like the symbol on the back of Superman's cape). One rare time when he had his helmet off in a crossover with the X-Men, his hair was black.
The Punisher's skull symbol is always different between artists. His clothing also varies from being a full body costume to just being a shirt with a skull on it. Another thing that varies is if his outfit is all black, or if he has white gloves and boots as he did when he was first introduced. Frank’s face changes all the time too, sometimes he’s a rugged Bruce Wayne-type while at other times he looks like Blobfish with hair and stubble. His super Darker and EdgierAnti-Hero status means Frank isn’t expected to look pretty so artists tend to go buck wild.
Runaways has this. The more recent comics have a very different looking Chase, for instance, due to a change in artist.
Runaways in general features some running variables:
She-Hulk herself varies in appearance from merely lean and athletic to being almost as musclebound as her cousin. Even when Jen controversially stayed massive for The Avengers (Jason Aaron) artists still bounced back and forth between “ogress” and “beautiful Hulk”.
Southpaw's supertech gauntlet is incredibly large (with any given finger being wider than her head) with one artist and looks like a relatively normal glove with another.
In fact, this strikes a lot of that series' supporting cast. Particularly, Stu Cicero goes from chubby to scrawny depending on which artist is drawing him (and the series regularly, sometimes several times in one issue, switched between two artists for effect, making this especially noticeable.) Similarly, Anthony Pugliese is bulky, brawny, and broad-shouldered with one artist and almost entirely generic with the other.
Lyra - the daughter of the Hulk and Thundra from a possible future - was drawn (and written) as very clearly an adult (She-Hulk with red hair) when she appeared in her own limited series. When she joined Jennifer Walters for the She-Hulks series, she inexplicably became noticeably younger and entered high school in her human form (the age shift was more a writer decision than an artist one, but there's no reason she couldn't have changed between a high-school aged human and the adult-looking She-Hulk appearance she'd previously had). The fact that this made her limited series - in which she'd come to the present to get pregnant with Norman Osborn's DNA - ridiculously creepy was entirely ignored.
Betty Ross’s appearance in both her normal human form and as Red She-Hulk varies as much as Jennifer and Lyra’s does. Not many artists can decide on whether Betty has got brown hair or dark hair, and it’s length goes from a short bob (as it was in the 60s) to wavy and long. Other artists make Betty an Unkempt Beauty. When Hulked-up like Jen, she’s either lean or as monstrously musclebound as her husband Bruce when she’s angry.
Like the Hulk, Thanos' size and proportions tend to vary wildly depending on who is drawing him. Thanos’ face also changes from artist to artist. Jim Starlin is the one who gave Thanos his iconic look i.e the Slasher Smile and shadowed eyes with Glowing Eyes of Doom, but since then more than a few artists have given Thanos actual pupils. There’s also question of whether Thanos has a cloth look to his outfit or an armoured one.
In the Golden Age, Namor the Sub-Mariner's head was darned near triangular. Most modern artists just translate this into him having a pointed chin and a distinctive hairstyle, but it varies all over the place. Namor was also kinda ugly in the Golden and Silver Ages but in modern comics some artists have made him look like an oceanic Edward Cullen though other artists bring him back to his traditional brutish look.
Jack Kirby himself changed his mind about Uatu the Watcher. When he first introduced Uatu, he was a classic My Brain Is Big (or at least My Head Is Big) alien with a skinny body, but Kirby later redesigned him as a chubby guy with a normal-sized bald head. Later artists seem to be able to freely choose which design they like better, but most lean toward the giant-headed version. Ditto for the rest of Uatu's race.
Similarly, when Kirby introduced the Skrulls, they were a race of skinny little short guys with bug eyes, but he later started drawing them as tall muscular types. As with Uatu, mentioned above, modern artists may choose either extreme or anywhere in between. Of course, as a race of shape-shifters, this is probably completely justified.(Hm, how tall and buggy-eyed do I feel like being this morning?).
The Unbelievable Gwenpool: Gurihiru, the comic's most common artists, draw Gwen as a very petite teenage girl with an undeveloped, boyish figure. Other artists tend to make her noticeably curvier, though not usually to Most Common Superpower dimensions.
Werewolf by Night: While Jack Russell's werewolf form changed over the years, it was done consistently: first a typical Wolf Man à la Lon Chaney Jr., later more lupine (and with an added explanation to go with it). As of the late 2000s/early 2010s the depiction of his wolf self has become completely erratic: one artist draws him 'old style', the next very lupine, another somewhere between the two; sometimes he has a tail and sometimes he doesn't; sometimes his eyes are red, sometimes yellow. As a human, Jack has had every eye color and hair color imaginable. Officially he's a blue-eyed redhead, but works where he's depicted as such are rare.
Reed and Sue's ages vary greatly Depending on the Writer, and, as result, artists tend to draw them looking anywhere from young adults to middle-aged. The only thing that seems to be agreed upon is that Reed is older, and generally looks it, while Sue can get away with looking like an adolescent at most. Things become even more difficult when you take into account Sue and Johnny's age gap, though this tends to be handwaved for the sake of keeping Johnny The Baby of the Bunch.
◊ in all comics as artists try their damndest to make him
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