Varga (comics) - Origin

Origin

Mars Ravelo (1916-1988) was one of the most successful Filipino comics artists. He was the creator of the famous superheroine 'Darna', and the highest paid comics artist of his time. It can also be noted that Varga was a character archived twice. First, Varga began as a superheroine concept before World War II/late 1939. Ravelo, a then young pioneering illustrator from Tanza, Cavite, thought of creating a female counterpart for Superman because he believed in the concept that the US is “male” and the Philippines is “female.” He didn’t want to use the term “Superwoman” so as not to plagiarize the Siegel and Shuster creation. So instead as inspired by Superman, Mars Ravelo originally referred to his superheroine as "Kamangha-manghang dilag" (The Amazing Warrior Maiden) and combined the superhuman qualities of Superman with his own real life hero--his mother. Mars, a young and struggling cartoonist then, brought his superheroine idea as the Philippines’ answer to Superman to various publications both in the Philippines and in the United States but was rejected because publishers kept telling him "female superheroes will not sell". So Ravelo shelved his concept for the duration of the war. Years after the war, Ravelo realized the Filipinos were in need of a superhero so he again shopped his superheroine concept to publishers until one of them, Bulaklak Komiks ("Flower Comics") agreed to publish Ravelo's heroine that he now called "Varga" in 1947 (inspired by the Varga Girls series of illustrations) and the strip took off. VARGA made her debut in Bulaklak Magazine, Vol. 4, #17 on July 23, 1947 which Mars both wrote and drew himself. Second, when the name Varga became the ownership of Bulaklak magazine (during those times, intellectual property right is not yet in effect) and when Ravelo left the publication in 1949 after a falling out with its editor, Varga stayed behind. So, upon joining Pilipino Komiks in 1949, he rebuilt 'Varga' to 'Darna'. The character soon appeared in Kenkoy, Liwayway and Kampeon Comics and eventually got her own title as well as a series of movie and TV adaptations. It was under the name "DARNA" that this Ravelo creation would become famous for.

Varga is another casing point of Ravelo’s early style of drawing. True to his accounts, Varga’s illustration is a cross between Irish cartoonist George McManus (1884-1954) and Jewish-American animator Max Fleischer (1883-1972). And based on his story, the timeline of Varga should be put around 1939 and not 1947. In an interview, Ravelo revealed that he offered his creation first to Liwayway Magazine and then to other publications but was rejected several times. And had not Liwayway magazine turned him down on his Varga (Darna’s predecessor character), history would have put Darna’s origin inside Liwayway’s pages instead of Bulaklak, and she would have been the Philippines’ first komiks superhero (Yes, at least one-a-half years ahead of Wonder Woman's first comics appearance!).

The concept and image of Varga (who could be the first female superhero in the Philippines) was based on the illustrations of Superman appearing on comic books brought by soldiers from the United States to the Philippines. It was the story of a mortal girl named Narda (named after one of Ravelo's childhood playmates), her brother Ding and their grandmother, lola Asay who lived in the town of Masambong when a falling star revealed itself to be a magic amulet that turns the little girl named Narda into the superheroine VARGA.

For more than six decades the character Varga was lost, never again to be seen until ABS-CBN Channel 2 made it into a TV series which started on August 2, 2008. The character portrayed by Mariel Rodriguez, however, was very different from the original creation of Ravelo. The superheroine’s costume was change, as well as her origin and beginning. The name of her alter ego was also change – from Narda to Olga.