The Long History of Character Swiping in Comics

If you're a comics fan, or just the big and small screen adaptations, you've likely seen the preview images for the "Black Panther" sequel, "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever," or you've seen the film. If you have, you've seen the widely discussed and semi-controversial reveal that Namor the Sub-Mariner, one of Marvel's first characters, is in the film. For some fans, this is a moment to celebrate. Wakanda is on the screen again, and Namor will be in a film for the first time. However, other fans are cringing. Why?

Because Aquaman has already appeared in "Justice League" and a solo film, with Jason Momoa starring as the character in each, and naysayers are likely say that clearly Namor is a cheap ripoff of Aquaman, and Marvel is trying to compete with a popular film, which also has an upcoming sequel.

The reality is, Namor came first.

Namor and Aquaman

Maybe you've heard the origin story before. Crown prince of the undersea kingdom of Atlantis. Son of a human father and Atlantean mother. Can breathe both underwater and on land. Extremely fast swimmer and powerfully strong. Ruler of the Seven Seas. That's Namor the Sub-Mariner, who first appeared in 1939. Aquaman debuted in 1941. Key differences between the two are Namor has dark hair, he can fly, and his skin is tough enough to be bullet-proof. Aquaman is blonde and blue-eyed and he can communicate with ocean life.

Along with Captain America and the original Human Torch, Namor was one of the three major characters to come from Marvel (at the time still called Timely Comics) in the 30s and 40s. He immediately had his own starring title, and the comic was popular with children at home in America, but also with soldiers overseas, particularly the Navy, as Namor was often seen destroying Axis ships. Aquaman didn't have his own title, serving instead as a co-star or a backup feature in other book.

What initially made the difference in popularity was in 1960, when Aquaman was reintroduced as one of the co-founders of the newly-created Justice League of America, alongside DC's other major characters. Namor was reintroduced in 1962 as a recurring character in the new, wildly popular "Fantastic Four" title, and from there, while Namor and Aquaman both had short-lived cartoons of their own, Aquaman's membership in the Justice League gave him a spot on "Super Friends", an amazingly popular cartoon that ran for well over a decade in various forms. While both characters had their own solo titles by the end of the 60s and Namor would go on to co-found The Defenders and eventually join the Avengers and even the X-Men, Aquaman's place in the Justice League and recurring role on the "Super Friends" cartoons made him so visible to casual readers and viewers that ironically, Namor seemed to be the copy.

Superman and Shazam (Captain Marvel)

Superman, debuting in Action Comics #1 in 1938, is the original super hero, whose immediate popularity launched comics as we know them today, but also a number of copycat characters, chief among them being Captain Marvel, who debuted in 1940. For the full story on Captain Marvel, look here .

Essentially, back in the days when Marvel and DC weren't the only game in town, Fawcett Comics launched their own version of Superman, initially called Captain Thunder, then Captain Marvel. He had a cool costume with a cape like Superman, he was strong, fast, mostly invulnerable, and could fly like Superman, but unlike Superman who was an adult all the time, Captain Marvel was really Billy Batson, a boy, who was transformed into the super-powerful adult Captain Marvel when he uttered the name of the wizard Shazam.

The characters were so similar that DC took legal action against Fawcett Comics, preventing them from printing any new Captain Marvel stories. Crippled by this action, Fawcett limped along for a few decades with reprints and other comics, until DC bought the rights to the character, but not the name. Marvel has the rights to the name Captain Marvel, which is why the character you see in DC comics, tv shows, and now movies, is referred to as Shazam.

Challengers of the Unknown and the Fantastic Four

You may not know that there was a time when super-hero comics had all but died. After the Golden Age of the 40s when many of the legends debuted, popularity dried up and with the exception of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman (the only three characters in comics to have their series continue from their conception until the 1960s), super-hero comics died, giving way to sci-fi, horror, Westerns, romance, and other comics. Starting in 1956, DC came up with newer versions of their classic heroes, and the Silver Age of comics began.

At this time, it was common for creators to work for Marvel, DC, and other publishers, usually under various names, to ensure they had steady work. In 1957, at DC, Jack Kirby helped create a team of four adventurers called the Challengers of the Unknown who survived a plane crash and decided that because they should have died in the crash, they were now living on borrowed time and should make the most of their lives from that point on. They didn't have powers, but they did wear matching uniforms, they had distinct personalities, and they encountered threats like big monsters.

At Marvel, in 1961, when Stan Lee decided he wanted to give superhero comics a try again, launching "The Fantastic Four" with Jack Kirby as artist, the concept started out about the same. A group of four individuals with similar personalities to the Challengers piloted a rocket of their own design which subsequently crashed. The group survived, but each had been granted unique powers they decided to use for good. In their very first adventure they fought the Mole Man and his giant monsters from beneath the earth, similar to monsters the Challengers frequently faced.

Plastic Man and Elongated Man

Plastic Man was the first stretching hero, debuting in "Police Comics #1", published by Quality Comics, in 1941. As with many other publishers, Quality Comics struggled and finally shut down in the 1950s, and their characters were acquired by DC. Originally a criminal, Plastic Man became a crime-fighter when he was injured and gained the ability to stretch to great lengths and have his body take on any shape. While some of the super-hero comics at the time had elements of humor in them, Plastic Man was more of a humor strip with some adventure in it, as Plastic Man would contort himself in wacky ways continually and take on bizarre shapes to confuse and capture criminals.

DC launched their own stretching sleuth, the Elongated Man in 1960 as a supporting character for the Flash because editor Julius Schwartz was a fan of Plastic Man and didn't realize DC owned the rights to the character and could publish new adventures with him. While Elongated Man was funny, he wasn't as funny as Plastic Man, who DC did start publishing new tales of later in the 60s, and periodically thereafter. Elongated Man was even given a uniform similar to that of Plastic Man after, after he joined the Justice League, where he became a mainstay for years, but he was never as popular. Eventually Plastic Man appeared in his own Saturday morning cartoon, and he has appeared in other cartoons since, keeping him moderately popular, or at least more popular than Elongated Man. Finally, Plastic Man himself joined the Justice League, making Elongated Man irrelevant and redundant.

Green Arrow and Hawkeye

Archer heroes are nothing new. Essentially, all the archer super-heroes are based on the popularity of Robin Hood, the English folk hero who stole from the rich to give to the poor. There have been many movie adaptations of Robin Hood, including an extremely popular one from 1938 starring swashbuckling actor Errol Flynn that undoubtedly led to the creation of DC's iconic archer Green Arrow in 1941. In fact, in most versions of Green Arrow's origin, there are various tie-ins to Oliver Queen (Green Arrow) either being inspired by, meeting, or partially trained by an Errol Flynn-like actor earlier in his life. Other lesser-known publishers also had archer heroes, but Green Arrow was the most well-known, despite not having his own title. He either shared a title or was a back-up feature in titles such as "World's Finest" off and on. However, he was popular enough to be the first recruit to join the Justice League of America in the 1960s. He became a mainstay of the team through most of the decade, eventually beginning a romance with team member Black Canary, and in 1970 he became a co-star in the iconic "Green Lantern/Green Arrow" title that helped revolutionize comics. While he didn't get his own title until the 1980s, that title, and popular appearances in "The Brave and the Bold", as well as Justice League helped keep Green Arrow popular.

On the Marvel side, Hawkeye started out as a minor Iron Man villain, teamed up with the Black Widow, who was also a villain and saboteur, before the two eventually switched sides. Already, while Hawkeye looked different from Green Arrow, their key similarity was being archers who used fantastic trick arrows such as rope arrows, glue arrows, explosive arrows, and more to help them fight more powerful foes.

Hawkeye was more a lovestruck accomplice than a wrongdoer, and Iron Man vouched for him as an Avenger, becoming a member with Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. At that time, Hawkeye's personality was essentially the anti-authoritarian, proud to be an Avenger, but wanting to be in charge, plus he was interested in Scarlet Witch. Later, as the team changed, he borrowed Hank Pym's gear and took on the identity of the super-sized Goliath before becoming Hawkeye again. It wasn't until later, when Green Arrow became more popular that Hawkeye's personality started to match Green Arrow's. They were both a bit hot-headed, but in JLA and GL/GA, Green Arrow was made even more so, to make him stand out against his best friend, Green Lantern. Green Arrow also became a ladies' man, and his relationship with Black Canary added depth. Thus increasingly over the years Hawkeye began to parallel Green Arrow, forming a relationship with Mockingbird (similar to Black Canary), then having affairs with Wasp, Spider-Woman, and others. In the 90s when Green Arrow's own title had him going dark, giving up trick arrows, and leaving the Justice League, Hawkeye did the same for a time. Two distinct characters, but very much the same as Hawkeye continued to model what was working with Green Arrow as the character grew in popularity.

Captain America and Fighting American

While Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created much of the Marvel Universe together, writer Joe Simon and artist Jack Kirby actually created Captain America months before Stan Lee ever started writing comics. Captain America was of course a huge hit, but after the 1940s, most superhero comics ended. In the 1950s, Harvey Comics, publisher of Casper the Friendly Ghost and other kid-friendly fare, tried doing their own superhero comics, reteaming Simon and Kirby on a new creation they had, The Fighting American. Clearly the idea was the same as Captain America, from his shield to his sidekick. The series did not do well, but Simon and Kirby owned the rights to the character, unlike their Marvel creation.

In the 90s, superstar X-Force artist Rob Liefeld, who co-created Deadpool and Cable, left Marvel alongside other star artists to create Image Comics. At one point, as part of the "Onslaught" story finale, Marvel stopped publishing the regular titles of Fantastic Four, Captain America, Iron Man, and the Avengers, releasing them again as "Heroes Reborn," with Liefeld and fellow Image creator Jim Lee at the helm. While Lee's run on Iron Man was fairly well received, Liefeld's run on Captain America was not. Shortly thereafter, Liefeld's own imprint, Awesome Comics, released a new series of Fighting American, with rights secured from the Kirby estate. The comics were shockingly like Liefeld's Captain America series, and it was rumored he simply took issues of Captain America he had been working on and changed the art to call it a new hero. That run quickly came to an end, and eventually Marvel secured the rights to Fighting American, publishing all previous stories in one collection and shutting down any further use of the clearly derivative character.

Justice League and the Squadron Supreme

This case isn't so much a rip-off as a clear imitation with purpose. By the 1970s, Marvel and DC were the two dominant giants in the world of comics. Some fans read just one publisher, some read just the other, but many read both, dreaming of what would happen if say, Superman fought Thor, or Batman fought Captain America, and most of all, what if The Justice League of America fought the Avengers. All of DC's best characters versus all of Marvel's in one battle. It was every fan's dream.

The two companies did discuss it, but legal issues and contracts made the idea seem hopeless. While there were eventually a few great special crossovers released, starting with Superman and Spiderman, and work did eventually start on a Avengers vs. Justice League special drawn by George Perez, it seemed the idea would never come to fruition. So, to give fans a taste of what it would be like, Marvel created the Squadron Supreme, which initially began as the Squadron Sinister. This team of super-beings had powers and sometimes even origins very similar to the JLA, but were set up as opponents of the Avengers and the Defenders, so Marvel fans could get the battles they longed for without lawyers getting in the way. In place of Superman there was Hyperion, Dr. Spectrum in lieu of Green Lantern, Cap'n Hawk as Hawkman, Whizzer as the Flash, and Nighthawk in place of Batman, as well as others. Over the years they clashed many times, and at one point Nighthawk became a hero, adopting a new costume and becoming a core member of the Defenders. Years later the Squadron even had their own series, establishing that they were on a separate world from the world of the Avengers and Defenders, not all that different from Earth-1 and Earth-2 in the DCU.

Wolverine and Lobo

While it's well-known that Wolverine first appeared as an opponent of the Hulk in "Incredible Hulk" 180 and 181 before joining the X-Men in "Giant-Size X-Men"1, fewer remember that Lobo first appeared as a villain in "Omega Men" 3 in 1983. The series wasn't well read, and the character was easily forgotten. It wasn't until Wolverine gained super-popularity, along with other dark and gritty characters such as the Punisher, that Lobo was brought back with a new look and personality as an intentional parody of Wolverine, chomping a cigar and amassing a huge body count. Parody or not, Lobo became a hit with fans, becoming one of DC's most popular characters and promoting the era of dark and gritty mayhem even further until it finally fizzled out by the end of the 90s

The two characters finally fought in the "Marvel vs. DC" mini-series of 1996, which had fans vote who would win if similar characters faced each other. The match-up has been a sticking point with fans ever since, as Wolverine didn't have adamantium claws or bones, yet somehow defeated the much more powerful Lobo. The result was so unlikely to happen and the match so lopsided that the action wasn't even depicted "on-camera."

Lobo and Lunatik

Further muddying the waters of parody vs. simple poor quality in the name of profit, Marvel tried to capitalize on the popularity of Lobo, who capitalized on the popularity of Wolverine, with adventures of their own version of Lobo, Lunatik. Both characters were alien bounty hunters with similar personalities, only their looks and names were different. Similar to the case of Captain America and the Fighting American, both Lobo and Lunatik were created by Keith Giffen. The irony was, Giffen's reimagined version of Lobo was modeled on Lunatik. Lobo simply saw print far before Lunatik did. As with Kirby creating both Captain America and the Fighting American (and arguably, the Challengers and the FF), Giffen effectively stole from himself.

Spawn and Nightwatch

Dating back again to the time when many of Marvel's top creators left to form their own company, Image Comics, Todd McFarlane left his job as one of the best Spider-Man artists in history and co-creator of Venom to start his own title, "Spawn" at Image. With a unique origin, Spawn was a character McFarlane described as being a combination of Batman and Superman. As originally envisioned, he was a resurrected mercenary who had many abilities, but only limited energy to spend using them. Thus, in some adventures he might need to use his powers, but knowing that will deplete his limited power and end his life sooner, in the next adventure he could be using only his skills with weapons and combat.

Spawn was immediately popular, resulting in a hit line of toys, an animated series, a movie, and many spin-off characters and series. Naturally, other publishers wanted to cash in on the action so Marvel quickly developed the character Nightwatch, who appeared mostly in Spider-Man comics. The character looked very much like Spawn, had a name similar to other gritty characters of the time (a running joke in the 90s was that characters had to have names involving "night, death, dark, claw, or blood"), and even included a weaponized cape among his abilities, as Spawn did. The character did not appear for very long, though it has had some circulation since the 90s, notably in She-Hulk.