Hello and welcome to Comic Drake, where I talk about comic books and my name is Drake!
Superman basically kicked off the entire genre of superhero comics and of course, a character
that’s this popular is sure to pick up some imitators along the way, some a little bit
more blatant than others.
That’s why today, I want to take a look at some knockoff Superman-esque characters
in comics, but what exactly does that mean?
Well generally these characters have the same superhero cocktail that Superman first made
popular.
You know, super strength, super speed, flight, durability, etc. but, in my opinion, they
also share a similar physical build to Superman, in both the actual physical stature and in
costume, most notably the lack of a mask and usually a cape.
Now I need to clarify that knockoff does not necessarily mean bad.
In fact, I’m a big fan of a lot of the characters on this list and I’m especially a big fan
of how a lot of them have differentiated themselves from the last son of Krypton.
I also want to clarify that NOT every single Superman pastiche is going to be on this list,
because there are way too many to name and also, one last stipulation: these are characters
that are not owned by DC Comics, at least not at the time of their creation.
So with all of that out of the way, that entire giant preface, let’s begin!
Let’s start off with the original!
Captain Marvel (also known as Shazam) was created by Fawcett Comics and for a while
was outselling Superman!
This really sucked, especially considering that Captain Marvel’s creators were SPECIFICALLY
told to create their own Superman-esque character!
These days, I’m sure that Shazzy would be considered pretty different from the Man of
Steel since he has a VERY unique mythology based origin and the amazing alter ego of
a young boy, but back then, DC (known as National Comics at the time) was suing the creators
of Superman copycats left and right and of course, Fawcett Comics was also hit with a
lawsuit over Captain Marvel.
There is a lot that I could say about the lawsuit, but that would require an entire
video in and of itself, but at the end of the day, DC won.
With their flagship property barred from continuing, Fawcett was eventually purchased by DC Comics
themselves and Captain Marvel was brought into the DC universe proper.
Damn!
This wouldn’t be the last time that DC would acquire other comic publishers along with
their versions of Superman though.
In fact, this was just the beginning.
Enter Milestone, a comic book publisher created in 1993 to help serve a severely underrepresented
market in mainstream comics, African Americans.
This by the way is where we got the legendary Static Shock, but back on subject however,
this is ALSO where we got Agustus Freeman, better known as Icon!
Much like Superman, Icon was an alien who crash landed on Earth, but in a twist, this
was in 1839 and his ship modified his body to resemble a baby of the closest sentient
life-form.
In this case, it was a slave woman that would take in the baby alien as her own.
Augustus’ body aged MUCH slower than normal humans so over the years, he kept adopting
the civilian identity of his supposed son every generation and eventually became the
superhero, Icon.
With the exception of utilizing positron energy, Icon has more or less the same powerset of
Superman and yes, I know that I said that in order to be a knockoff, their costume would
need to not have a mask, but I feel that Icon can be an exception because of just how similar
his origin story is to Superman’s.
Now while Milestone was an independent studio that owned all of their own characters, their
comics were exclusively published and distributed by DC and were considered an alternate universe.
However Milestone and their characters were brought fully into the main DC universe proper
in 2008.
Also rounding out this section of video is Wildstorm, an indie comic publisher created
by comic book legend Jim Lee in 1992.
Like basically every single comic universe, it has its own stand in for Superman.
Just look at Apollo.
Tight costume, similar looking triangle crest, the usual set of abilities, and he’s powered
by the sun?
Yep, it all checks out.
However, most Superman pastiches have at least one major trait that separates them from the
Big Blue Boy Scout and Apollo’s is that he’s in a relationship with Wildstorm’s
Batman, The Midnighter.
So for all of you guys that ship Superman and Batman, this is probably as close as you’re
likely going to get.
But, as interesting as Apollo is, Wildstorm decided to double down on the inspiration
and actually had ANOTHER Superman-esque dude that’s worth talking about in the form of
Mr. Majestic.
Lord Majestros of Khera was stranded on Earth a long time ago, is a flying brick because
of his alien DNA, flies around in a caped costume, is generally considered to be one
of the most powerful beings in his universe, is known to go hang out in the arctic for
solitude, and has been the leader of a superteam called the WildC.A.T.S.
Outside of his VERY egotistical personality, yeah he totally fits the bill.
Seven years after its creation, Wildstorm was purchased by DC Comics and it continued
on in the multiverse as Earth-50, but following the multiverse-wide reboot post-Flashpoint,
Wildstorm was integrated into the main DC universe much like Milestone.
Honestly though, most of the Wildstorm characters tend to stick around in their own little section
of books, none of which performed super well even as a part of the main DC canon.
As a quick side note before we move on, all of these previously mentioned Superman allegories
were actually banded together in the Final Crisis storyline by the Captain Marvel of
Earth-5 and officially recognized as the Supermen of the Multiverse alongside other alternate
universes of the literal Superman.
I personally think that’s a great badge of honor for these characters and an amazing
way for DC to lampshade now owning several big characters that were inspired by Clark
Kent.
However, DC doesn’t own every single knockoff Superman.
Hell, their biggest competitor, Marvel Comics, might actually have more!
Virtue might not seem like a Superman-style character, what being a member of Marvel’s
common shapeshifting alien threat, the Skrulls, but trust me when I say that he’s a straight
up parody!
When Galactus was going to destroy their planet, a Skrull scientist gave his infant son super
powers beyond even those of a Super Skrull and sent him to Earth.
Upon landing, this baby shapeshifted into one of the locals, was taken in by a farm
couple in Hicksville, Iowa, and was raised as Ethan Edwards.
His powers developed as he grew, but thankfully his parents taught the young Ethan about power
and responsibility.
When he grew up, Ethan moved to New York City in order to work for the Daily Bugle as a
reporter where his secret identity is a really buff dude who wears suits and glasses.
When he’s not reporting however, he saves the day as the caped hero, Virtue.
They even play with the Clark Kent glasses trope where after being caught on camera,
EVERYBODY instantly saw through his alter ego and completely recognized Ethan as Virtue.
It’s too bad that he didn’t watch the video that we did on the other stuff that
Clark does to maintain his secret identity since I’m sure that would have helped.
Anyway, Virtue more or less only appeared in the Marvel Knights: Spider-Man series so
if you want to know more, I’d recommend just reading that.
While Virtue is pretty cut and dry, the Sentry is a bit harder to explain.
He’s a Marvel character from the year 2000 that was retconned into having been one of
their first heroes.
In order to help seal away a dark and sinister version of his own psyche called The Void,
the entire universe got a mind wipe to forget that he ever existed.
The constant back and forth of not knowing what is and isn’t real in his past is one
of the most compelling things about the character which admittedly makes him a little hard to
explain in a short synopsis like this.
Yet despite all of this complexity, the Sentry is frequently referred to as “Marvel’s
Superman,” and I mean yeah, it’s not hard to see why.
He’s got a plethora of powers, he is INSANELY strong, and he has a pretty similar costume
to Supes right down to having his own freaking S symbol.
Also much like Superman, Sentry is such a powerful force that he actively has to hold
back, frequently limiting himself subconsciously.
The Void on the other hand has no such restrictions.
It’s simply an unstoppable manifestation of chaos and destruction.
This balance between The Sentry and The Void is one of the most interesting aspects of
the character, which helps further diversify him from Superman.
Before the Sentry though, there was Hyperion.
In my opinion, this dude is truly Marvel’s Superman since he, along with his alternate
universe superteam known as the Squadron Supreme, were literally meant to be stand-ins for the
Justice League.
However, much like the Sentry, the Squadron Supreme as a whole is also a bit hard to summarize,
but in this case it’s because there have been SO MANY notable versions throughout the
Marvel multiverse and to make things harder, there have been even MORE versions of Hyperion
then the Squadron Supreme.
In most cases, Hyperion is one of the last survivors of an alien race that was raised
by humans and given an alliterative name, usually Mark or Marcus Milton.
He also tends to have a lot of the same Superman powers including a form of heat vision.
Along with that, some versions are weak to a specific radiation and some are vulnerable
to magic, both of which are traits of Superman.
Now, Marvel did bring a Hyperion into their main universe and he seems to be sticking
around, but since he’s not the original and since his other universe doppelgangers
tend to have a sizable following, talking about Hyperion tends get challenging.
Let’s just accept the Superman-isms and move on.
I won’t spend too long on Gladiator since he’s more of an homage than a straight rip
off, but he is worth mentioning, even if only to cut off a bunch of armchair comic experts
who are ready to fire off their “UM ACTUALLY!”s in the comments.
Gladiator is the Majestor of the Shi'ar Empire and although I can’t find a confirmed source,
his real name, Kallark, is widely accepted to be a combination of both of Superman’s
alter egos, Kal-El and Clark Kent.
However, some people think that he’s an homage to Mon-El since his team, the Imperial
Guard, was meant to be a stand in for DC’s Legion of Superheroes.
I mean I can totally see that, but since Gladiator once donned a Clark Kent style disguise, that
puts one more tally into the Superman column for me, personally.
Yet there’s little doubt that Gladiator’s race, the Strontians are allegories for DC’s
Kryptonians though.
After all, they pretty much have the same powers including heat vision and super breath,
are extinct save for a few survivors, and are named after real world elements.
In this case, it’s Strontium, an element that’s just a couple spaces away from krypton.
To end things off, let’s move over with a couple of definitely indie characters.
Supreme was a character created by Rob Liefeld for his Youngblood series that started over
at Image Comics and he’s basically just a douchebag version of Superman.
Some of the inspiration was incredibly blatant with covers paying direct homage and hell,
his supporting cast even includes a freaking super powered dog akin to Krypto!
Later on, Supreme was taken over by Alan Moore and completely reworked from the ground up
since Moore honestly didn’t think that the original books were any good.
Moore threw out pretty much everything done with Supreme prior in order to write what
is generally considered by fans to be a MUCH better story.
It dove into more meta plots and subtext as a bit of an apology for the cynical deconstructions
of super heroes that made Moore a famous writer in the first place.
Because of this, Supreme is a pretty inconsistent character that is definitely worth looking
into if you get the chance and would also make for a pretty interesting video.
But, I want end thing off with one of my personal favorites, Omni-Man.
Okay so as many of you already know, Invincible is one of my all time favorite comic book
series and it has plenty of allusions to popular mainstream comic characters.
In fact, essentially every member of their main superteam, the Guardians of the Globe,
is a parallel to a member of the Justice League.
Omni-Man (who was originally going to be a lot more on the nose and called Supra-Man)
is their Superman stand in as well as the father of the main character of the series,
Invincible.
Now, as much as I love this comic and want to gush about it even more, my biggest issue
about talking about the series is that it doesn’t kick off in earnest until a central
plot point at the beginning of the series.
So in order to keep that reading experience fresh, I won’t be going into much detail,
but let me just say that despite resembling Superman, Omni-Man’s race, the Viltrumites,
have a lot more in common with the Saiyans of the Dragon Ball series than Kryptonians.
If you have yet to read Invincible, I can not recommend it enough.
There’s a reason why I get a tweet like every other day from fans that fell in love
with the series after listening to me gush on and on and on about it here on the channel,
but I’ll leave it at that.
Go pick it up if you want to.
Again, this is not every single Superman pastiche out there, so I am sure to leave some off
that you guys would consider a Superman rip-off and vice-versa.
So some of the ones that I might not have mentioned, go ahead and leave you favorites
down there in the comments below.
So obviously this is a little bit different of a video than I normally do on the channel,
so let me know what you guys think.
And if you did like this format and the topic that I’m covering here, then let me know
if there are other big superhero characters in American comics that you want me to talk
about the stand-ins, knock-offs, rip-offs, pastiches of down there in the comics below,
as well.
But if you liked this video, then why not consider subscribing or even watching another
one?
And the video that I referenced earlier on in this one is my theory that Clark Kent’s
glasses are actually brilliant.
So if that interests you, maybe go give that a look.
Anyway, I hope you learned at least a little something new and maybe I’ll see you next
time.