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yes more on them in a bit it's hard to imagine a world without superheroes but believe it or not
it existed there wasn't always the heaping mass of perpetually recyclable ip that we have today
in the old days people good artists came up with ideas sometimes even based on real life
10. constantine well alan moore took over the writing for swamp thing he asked the artist
what they wanted to do they were unanimous do a character that looked like sting to begin
with this tribute to the rock star was just an extra drawn in the background of a crowd late
however when john constantine was introduced they retroactively identified him as the look-alike
although initially dismissive sting came to embrace the tribute in 2018 he wrote the intro
to a 30th anniversary collection and in a short video promo advertising the book he dressed in
the character's trench coat more interesting than constantly being based on a real person however
are the sightings of real persons based on him eerily shortly after creating the character moore
claimed to have seen him in the flesh sitting in a sandwich bar he saw an uncanny lookalike
come up the stairs wearing the trench coat a shortcut he looked at me stared me straight
in the eyes smiled nodded almost conspiratorially and then just walked off around the corner writer
jamie delano also claims to have seen a real john constantine outside the british museum
i didn't realize i'd walked past him until i'd gone 50 yards down the road and he was
just vanishing around the corner it should be noted that constantine was set in the real world
1980s england complete with thatcher and current events also that more like constantine isn't magic
9. green lantern the first green lantern alan scott was inspired by a railroad engineer to fans
of the comic that will come as no surprise the character had the same job creator martin nodor
came up with the idea after seeing a subway worker with a green lantern clear an obstacle from the
line in all american comics number 16 from july 1940 scott was saved from a train wreck himself by
a magic green lantern from which he forged his ring the green lantern was eventually canceled
but returned eight years later reinvented and again based on a real living person in
designing hal jordan co-creator gil kane used his next-door neighbor as a model who just
happened to be the now legendary actor paul newman interestingly years later newman developed an
interest in motorsports and became a racing car driver calling to mind his test pilot lookalike
8. wonder woman wonder woman the third longest running superhero in comics was co-created by
a man with two wives far from being at odds with wonder woman's ethos of female empowerment however
it was their strength that inspired the character in fact charles malton's first wife betty
insisted he make her a woman she also outed him professionally at least in determination this may
be why she lived to a hundred at a time when a few women got higher degrees betty elizabeth marston
earned three and since her father wouldn't help her with fees telling her as long as i have
money to keep you in aprons you can stay home with your mother she paid her own way selling
cookbooks after molten's death in 1947 betty and the other wife dotsy olive byrne whose
bracelets inspired wonder womans continued their cohabitation raising four children together
betty worked to put them through college while dotsy was the stay-at-home mom although some
think the lasso of truth wielded by wonder woman inspired the threesome's alleged love of bondage
there's not much evidence to support this nor is there any reason to believe betty and datsy
were lovers i guess it's just fun to speculate though chief among wonder woman's weaknesses was
having her bracelets of submission bound together by a man 7. batman the name bruce wayne comes from
two real people scottish king robert the bruce and civil war general mad anthony wayne the former
fought for scottish independence while the latter conquered detroit what they both had in common was
defeating the english but the prince of gotham isn't just based on his namesakes he's descended
from them in batman and me co-creator bob kane said he and bill finger chose the name bruce
so the billionaire was descended from nobility robert the bruce was a corruption of the king's
anglo-norman surname debruce meanwhile batman's biological relation to anthony wayne is explicitly
made very clear in the comics in fact wayne manor itself once belonged to the general built on land
he received from george washington number 6. iron man if mcu's tony stark reminds you of a
cool version of elon musk it's no coincidence robert downey jr based his portrayal of stark
on the tesla spacex billionaire but the original character from 1963 was actually based on howard
hughes by the time stanley it all came up with the idea hughes had fallen from grace
once revered as a billionaire investor aviation pioneer defense contractor film producer and so on
hughes was now seen as a madman a codeine adult germaphobic obsessive compulsive recluse
he was an unlikely model for a superhero and that was precisely the point marvel was in the business
of heroes with problems stark's dependence on tick just to stay alive wasn't all he had on his plate
he was also an alcoholic and hughes was a hero of sorts despite his problems just like iron
man he tried to use his money for good worried about nuclear testing for instance he offered
millions of dollars in bribes to presidents johnson and nixon to stop ironically the arms
manufacturer later capitalized on iron man's 2008 big screen debut alright we'll get back to today's
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plus that extra free gift or follow the link below and now back to today's video 5. superman
as far as real-life inspiration goes superman is a frankenstein's monster according to film
critic mark mode the caped crusader's chiseled features were based on the actor who played tarzan
johnny weissmuller while clark kent was based on the perspective silent film star harold lloyd
meanwhile the iconic superman pose chest out hands on hips comes from the actor douglas fairbanks
superman was in other words recycled from hollywood heroes but there may be more to it
than that there are for example clear parallels between superman and moses both were sent away
as babies to protect them from imminent danger moses's mother floated him down the nile in a
basket while superman's parents launched him into space toward earth both were later discovered and
adopted growing up to defend the meek against evil interestingly al in carlisle superman's real name
is hebrew for god in fact the more you look at it the more jewish superman seems in his book his
superman circumcised roy schwartz sees in him not only moses but samson and jesus as well he also
points out similarities to the jewish folkloric golem a powerful creature made of clay to serve
the jewish community many also see in superman an allegory for jewish immigrants to america
specifically he abandons his ethnic name kal-el becomes clark kent tucks his talent down his
suit and goes around the world like a gentile like many early comic writers superman's creators jerry
siegel and joe schuster were themselves descended from jewish immigrants all considered it's hardly
surprising that the nazis saw superman as a threat 4. spawn spawn creator todd mcfarlane was open
about his real-life inspiration at least in the early days al simmons the fictional revenant from
hell was based on al simmons a former employee the latter signed a waiver when the comic came
out but he didn't have he was flattered he became a regular fixture at the image comics booth that
comic-con dressed as his namesake in striking black and red the royal simmons even wrote a
book the art of being spawn however was a step too far in 2012 after the book came out mcfarland
sued simmons for capitalizing on his intellectual property he also took to the internet to remove
all past acknowledgements that simmons inspired the character to be fair it may have been no
more than a name mcfarlane also named spawn's wife and best friend after his own wife wanda
and best friend terry 3. hulk you might imagine the idea for hulk was based on doping in sports
after all the decade before his 1962 debuts saw the first such use of anabolic steroids by
russian olympic weightlifters however the hulk's inspiration was far more unlikely
in fact he was based on a woman in an interview with comic journal in 2011 creator jack kirby
recalled seeing a toddler crawling around in a gutter playing under a car struggling to crawl
onto the sidewalk the child needed some help the distraught mother kirby said looked as though she
would scream but she didn't instead she ran over and very determined she lifted up the entire rear
of the car to let the toddler out it reminded kirby of what we're all capable of in heightened
states of emotion be it rage or desperation we can knock down walls we can go berserk he said
you can tear down a house whatever the hulk was at the beginning i got from that incident
2. professor x it's long been assumed that the x-men's patriarch was based on martin luther
king jr not only was the comic released at the height of the civil rights movement in america
it's an obvious allegorical stand-in charles xavier dreams of peace between mutants and
humans the sentinels uniform mutant-hunting robots were introduced amid racist police brutality on tv
and creator stan lee was clearly engaged with the movement introducing the first black superhero
three years after the x-men surprisingly however professor x was instead based on the founding
prime minister of israel david ben-gurion at least from 1975 this is when chris claremont took over
following the cancellation of lee's x-men in 1970 in 2016 claremont explained that for him as an
english-worn white man any connection to mlk would have felt incredibly presumptuous ben-gurion who
created a welcoming home for the jewish diaspora after world war ii seemed more suitable template
number 1. doctor strange not long after vincent price played the role of the sorcerer dr erasmus
craven in the raven in 1963 doctor strange made his debut in strange tales number 110.
the inspiration was obvious but it was more price himself than the characters he played not that
there was ever a difference doctor strange's full name actually pays homage to the actor stephen
vincent strange price himself was aware of the tribute later voicing a doctor strange rip-off
in an episode of scooby-doo there's probably more to the character's inspiration than vincent price
though it's strange tales 115 the sorcerer's supreme backstory was revealed and it's
suspiciously similar to that of lobsang ramper a best-selling autobiographer and spiritual guru
famous in the late 1950s both strange and rambo were gifted surgeons both of them studied in tibet
strange under the ancient one rampa under the dalai lama and both learned astral projection even
describing it in similar ways as well as how to open the third eye also they both wore a circular
amulet and both had a mystical orb furthermore though strange was more upfront about it they were
both entirely fictitious having sold millions of copies of his books rampa was exposed as a fraud
the real author's name was cyril hoskins a clerk from rural england who'd never even been to tibet