So, apparently some of you aren't aware???
Wildbow comics is fucking old, but i might as well start easy and tell you the lore of pre Apollyon Wars Taylor.
(Actual first appareance of Taylor Hebert and the homage i did for badly drawn worm)
Around the 60s Wildbow comics finally won a whole shitshow of a lawsuit against DC comics, that at the time was suing whatever superman shaped characters they could find, and Wildbow had several superman ripoffs, so, in the meantime they tried to create new more original characters, one of them was Aegis, the human shield.
He was hip teenager that had to deal with both teenager problems and superhero problems yadda yadda, and one of those troubles was falling in love with the creepy supervillain.
Taylor Hebert was created as both a supervillain and a love interest of Aegis, as well as a clear parody of spiderman, having a similar background as bullied teens that got bug powers, but while Peter got bitten by a radioactive spider, Taylor got cursed by the Skittering Scarab medallion (wich was a blue beetle rip off instead).
This silver age Taylor didn't go by skitter (and she wouldn't be called that until the Apollyon Wars reboot) but instead she was bug girl, and she had more vaguely insect powers (stenght, agility, endurance etc)
The thing that made her different from others was that she was a sympathetic villain that never went to far. She was esentially a teenager lashing out, just in the more augmented reality of comics. And that made it very interesting to flirt with redemption, but there was one thing that prevented that from happening...
(Screenshot of 'Unbeatable Aegis' episode 8 season 2 'The Undersiders Unite')
The undersiders, led by the mysterious Coil was a group of supervillains Aegis had previously beaten, now joined together to finish him, and commits many crimes along the way. They were also surprisingly great friends.
Don't get me wrong, they betrayed each other a lot, but they always ended up forgiving each other, because they were the only people that truly got what was to be a supervillain with a gimmich that everybody laughed at. Specially Bug Girl, who finally got friends that accepted her in this sort of toxic found family.
It was a clear contrast with Charlie's (yeah, he became Carlos after the first reboot) own lonelyness, he constantly ruined relationships to keep his secret and it really made tempting for him to just... change sides.
It was the easy road that Taylor took, and that he was still happy about. And thats honestly quite facinating, because it then makes you think. What would happen if you take that away?
(Aegis the human shield issue 123, the night tattletale died)
There is a reason the night tattletale died is considered one of the two things that ended the WB silver age (The other being Vikare's death), because the wiplash is fucking real.
You just had a whole arc of Aegis beating coil, about Sarah (i still find very funny how Worm made it her real name instead of the post apollyon one) trying to get out of the whole criminal lifestyle and wanting to run away with Taylor (With all the Sapphic vibes that had), so having Coil's fuckass son come back and fuck it all up is so heartbreaking man.
Because it was all so preventable. If Taylor had trusted Charlie to help her, if Leroy (Silver age Hellhound) hadn't accidentaly ratted out Tattletale, if Sarah hadn't decided to trust herself and not her powers as a show of trust... she would be alive.
Still salty they used it to springboard Taylor's and Charlie's relationship and rush her redemption arc. But beyond that, it's very fucking good. So sad this is the last good Bug girl story before Worm tho.
(The iconic Giant-Size Wards #1 with Chariot, Flechette, Weld, Aegis, Weaver and Tecton)
You know when a story is good but your fave gets dragged through the mud in it? Because like, the All New All Different Wards are great, when it came out it was a great step forward in representation and Tecton is just so fucking cool (The Irregular Cinematic Universe shouldn't have focused on him tho).
But Taylor doesn't do anything besides being Aegis' girlfriend in it? Like, you can't tell they didn't know what to do with her, hell Peter Ness didn't bother to make her gay (and he did make everyone he could very fucking gay).
You could make a good arc out of how she doesn't really fit in the group compared with the undersiders, but whem they meet it's like they don't know each other, it's so fucking infuriating.
Are you telling me there is no angst because she switched sides? Thats some bullshit. The only good thing that came out of Taylor has weaver was the name and the suit. Nothing more. Except one single story.
(The both famous and infamous conclusion to the Deluge event)
So, at one point they introduce the travellers as this foil villain group. And one of them, echidna, makes a clone of tattletale to fuck with Taylor. And holy shit, that was so good, you finally adresses the elephant in the room, i wonder what developement will it lead-
She fucking dies in the next arc. Because Aegis has to suffer. Leviathan fucking kills her with no fanfare. Yeah, that leviathan (not really, it was like a dude, more like the villain from the protectorate movies).
You know that she was one of the reason's Gail Simone made the women in refrigerators blog right? It was that bad. Jean grey, Gwen Stacy, Barbara Gordon, Kyle's girlfriend and Taylor Hebert.
And in less than a year, Charlie started dating Shadow stalker because he is a SLUT and i hate him. And the worst part was that Taylor was so unpopular that she didn't get love from the writer's like for example Barbara becoming oracle.
No, instead she got...
(Taylor Hebert comes back as Kephri, Wards #411)
Most people already know it, but this whole thing was just the result of one editor insisting really hard into making an event that nobody wanted to do that pretty much ruined the Wildbow comics lore.
So, the magical amulet? Actually an artifact created by the Skittering Entity or some shit. Because actually all capes get their powers from the entities, isn't that neat? Isn't that cool? Scion is now even specialler now.
And you know, even with that, even with fucking soace magic alien resurecting Taylor... it could have been good man. You could have Taylor changed by the experience, trying to come with terms with her own death and place in the world, confront Aegis for moving on so fast... but instead we got a Madellyn Pryor level character assasination.
The omnicidal jealous ex, thats the bedt they could come up with, holy shit.
This whole retcon fucked up the lore so bad they rebooted the whole universe to run away from it.
So you could say Taylor Heber is the indirect cause of Apollyon wars.
(Fellow Fridged woman Glory Girl in Apollyon Wars #6)
So, even with the end of the world editorial needs to give Taylor Hebert one last fuck you. Do you know the amount of hatedom born from Taylor killing Glory girl? Do you know how many people, to this day, still refuse to read worm because she killed their blorbo in 1988???
And you know why? To make Scion sad, to show he had humanity unlike Apollyon and the other entities. People fucking clapped when Scion killed Taylor, nobody gave a fuck, or stopped to say "damn, so sad Taylor got possesed after death".
FLECHETTE, FUCKING FLECHETTE SAID "Take that you worm!" When i red it i was so fucking angry man. That book was just hype moments and aura wirh a side of mysoginy.
But in a cosmic sense I find hilarious that Gold morning and Worm is just reverse Apollyon Wars. You can tell McCrae also fucking hated it.
So yeah, thats how the story of Pre-Apollyon wars Taylor ends, dying alone how she was scared to.
Please tell me if you want me to get into some other WB comics characters or if to make a summary of Post Apollyon Wars Taylor (and i sure do have opinions about her).
