Digital Comic Museum
General Category => Comic Related Discussion => Topic started by: profpike on September 30, 2013, 04:37:54 AM
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even though I'm sure you all know these...
http://www.cracked.com/article_20026_5-iconic-characters-you-didnt-know-were-ripoffs.html
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There's actually a much more interesting story behind Spider-Man. I think it was in Joe Simon's book. Simon Jack Olek created the Silver Spider for Harvey, but it was not used. He then, along with Jack Kirby, changed this to The Fly which Archie published. Jack has said that it was he who originally proposed Spider-Man to Lee, but Lee didn't like his take and developed it with Ditko instead.
I'm sure if you search "Silver Spider Simon Kirby" you'll get all kinds of hits for more info.
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Wow, thanks! I like that website a lot and used to read the magazine when it was in-print. Somehow that article got by without my noticing. 8)
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I think ripoff is a little over the top for some of those.
Did Joe Simon even know of the Shield when he had and sketched up his idea for Captain America?
How long had it been since the Comet & Spider Queen had been in print when Cyclops & Spider-Man were created? Similar certainly, ripoff a lot harder to prove.
The funniest one of them all though was claiming Aquaman was based on The Shark.
1. Did Mort Weisenger even know Centaur Comics existed?
2. The Sub-Mariner was way more well known than the Shark.
3. Aquaman is actually a ripoff of Tarzan. Think about it: Tarzan is Lord of the Jungle, Aquaman is King of the Sea. Both talk to animals in their domain. Aquaman is actually the most clever Tarzan knock-off ever.
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Ditto.
The thing to keep in mind is - it's "Cracked", as in the web version of the old comedy magazine.
I think ripoff is a little over the top for some of those.
Did Joe Simon even know of the Shield when he had and sketched up his idea for Captain America?
How long had it been since the Comet & Spider Queen had been in print when Cyclops & Spider-Man were created? Similar certainly, ripoff a lot harder to prove.
The funniest one of them all though was claiming Aquaman was based on The Shark.
1. Did Mort Weisenger even know Centaur Comics existed?
2. The Sub-Mariner was way more well known than the Shark.
3. Aquaman is actually a ripoff of Tarzan. Think about it: Tarzan is Lord of the Jungle, Aquaman is King of the Sea. Both talk to animals in their domain. Aquaman is actually the most clever Tarzan knock-off ever.
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It's also maybe worth considering that a lot of people don't seem to necessarily want to imply theft when they say "ripoff." They seem to want to say something more along the lines of of "there's an earlier property that bears some similarity."
For Aquaman, I always thought of him more as a cowboy character than anything else. He comes from "civilization" to bring good old American values to a lawless wasteland populated by exploiters (pirates) and weird natives. If anything, I'd say that the various aquatic heroes converged over time, rather than any one in the Golden Age copying traits from another.
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I think the "clearest" cases are The Shield and Spider Queen. I guess I find it hard to believe that people in the New York-centric comics industry were ignorant of each others' work.
The Shield has the "super serum" , the star-spangled outfit, the boy sidekick and well, The Shield in common.
Also, wrist-bound web-shooters?
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Look at it from the perspective of, as everybody likes to say, these days, "framing the debate."
If someone in 1937 told you to "create something we could call a superhero," there are few, if any, limitations, and you could have created literally anything, and if it was fun, it probably would have sold. Once Superman hits the stands, though, a superhero has a definition. To this day, the overwhelming majority of characters still fit the mold of the first dozen or so major superheroes. Look at the powers, the costumes, and even the structure of their names!
Yes, details get recycled, but that's like saying that some sitcom rips off the Honeymooners because they have a wacky neighbor that barges in. It's part of the lexicon. In the context of Captain America, most Victorian-era super-powered types are drug users. The shield shape (which MLJ did get Timely to change) is on the Seal of the United States. Comics were packed with kid sidekicks.
Maybe it was an intentional combination, maybe not, but I look at it like the odds of wearing the same outfit as someone else at the office or at a party. It's extremely low probability that it happens, but when it happens, it's more likely a coincidence than something creepy.
That's also why, for many big-name characters, there's a list of creators a mile long claiming to have played some part in the creation, I think. It's the infinite monkeys who wrote almost a quarter of Julius Caesar, and can't believe that someone wrote a whole play based on the historical character...
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There was an episode of WHAT'S HAPPENING where the kids submit a script. Latter they see a program like their script and are up in arms. The executive points out there there are only seven basic premises and points out all the other shows from the past that could have been from the same plot.
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OK. Possibly Cap was derived from the Shield, to some degree. But if you're doing a patriotic superhero, he's going to wear the stars and stripes, as all of them, to some degree, do.
Aquaman was a water-based hero. Like they said, if he had to be derivative, it was probably from Subby. But let's face it: Atlantis was a late-breaking concept for him...the Forties Aquaman was given powers by his scientist dad, not the spawn of a surface-man and a water-woman...Aquaman wore more of a costume than Sub-Mariner did, and Subby had his underwater kingdom from 1939 onward, which wasn't called Atlantis till 1962, a few years after Aquaman got his undersea realm (and yes, it was called Atlantis before Namor's was).
What's left? Well, the Silver Age Green Lantern Corps pretty well ripped Doc Smith's Lensman saga...Hawkeye obviously was a takeoff on Green Arrow...speedster characters like Quicksilver and Lightning were taken from the Flash...we could keep this up all day.
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Does it? I'm not disputing it, given my lack of knowledge of the Lensmen, but if someone comes up with, what we could now call "high concept", the idea of "space policemen", doesn't it follow they have a spacey weapon, and bosses, etc.?
Silver Age Green Lantern Corps pretty well ripped Doc Smith's Lensman saga.
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Seems to me that there only "so many" different types of heroes that can be created, and whoever gets there first is able to say that their character was "the most original" and everything after that is simply a knock-off. If everybody made a patriotic hero, there are certain elements that will pop-up across the board, basing the costume on the flag being the most obvious. Same thing with aquatic heroes, or gun-toting heroes, or heroes with the word "spider" in their name. Obviously, there are a few examples of creators creating knock-offs of specific characters (Eisner's Wonder Man, Simon & Kirby's Fighting American), but generally, I believe, we're just seeing variations of a theme.
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I think that was Darkmark's point, Roy. There's a certain vague similarity in structure, but by that standard, there are only a half-dozen original characters, and none of them are from comics...
And bchat's also very right to point out that there are plenty of definite knockoffs, especially today, when someone will create a "new" character because they weren't allowed to publish a particular story with an established property or because the creator just wanted to cash in.
But, my own opinion is that you prove theft by establishing a "chain of custody," not by listing elements that may have been stolen. One problem with the "it's a small community in a limited geographical region" idea is that it also generally means that everybody's exposed to the same outside influences as well as each other.
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Well, wasn't Indiana Jones an Alan Quartermain rip-off?
I think, in this context the term 'rip-off' has too much negative connotations. Characters are definitely influenced, and in some cases rather strongly, by past characters. Doc Savage certainly influenced Tom Strong, and Zorro influenced Batman, and who is goingto say Robin Hood had no influence on Green Arrow.
But if the end product is a good story I don't mind. Alan Moore's Tom Strong was a very entertaining read, and so was Robeson's Doc Savage. I'm glad Moore was so heavily influenced by that. And without Green Arrow I would not have gotten to watch Arrow on TV. Heck, even Superman was influenced by Gladiator (by Philip Wylie). But without that influence (or rip-offed-ness) I would never have gotten to read all those great stories Grant Morrison did for the Kryptonian.
However, I find it rather hard to forgive simply retelling a story with new names. (*cough* Streak Chandler*cough*)
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That's also why, for many big-name characters, there's a list of creators a mile long claiming to have played some part in the creation, I think.
"Failure is an orphan. Success has a hundred fathers."
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CRACKED magazine was a humour magazine that used to be on the newsstands when I was a boy; I have two issues and know the magazine very well. They did movie and TV adaptations, and the first one I ever read was THE INCREDIBLE BULK, their version of THE INCREDIBLE HULK TV series. In their version, Dr. David Banner was a scientist on the run who had been exposed to gamma radiation and transformed into what was needed to resolve the situation he was in at the time. They were also the magazine the great Don Martin defected to after leaving MAD in the 90s. I doubt, however, that he was the author of a strip called "A Tribute to Don Martin," which was drawn and written in his style and is the story of a man who pays a visit to an art gallery and discovers that the exhibits are alive. When he sees a painting called "The Ol' Swimmin' Hole," he takes off his shirt and dives into the painting, only to hit his head on the canvas and be taken away to an insane asylum.