Marvel Characters inspired from Real People
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Superheroes have been inspiring people since a very long time, and this is not something new. Every major Superhero’s first appearance in the comic books signifies a major ongoing event in the World at that time, and that particular superhero was created in order to motivate people to tackle such situation. For example, Black Panther appeared in the comics during the time when racism was rapidly increasing in America, and black people were treated as lower class people. At that time Black Panther acted as an inspiration for the black people and a lesson for the white people that a black people can be the richest comic book character to ever exist. But, if we keep this aside, then it is very rarely observed that a Superhero is inspired from a real life character. So today we will discuss about some such Marvel characters who are inspired from real world characters.
Real World Superheroes
Before going to the post, please keep in mind that we believe that every person is a Superhero in his/her own life, and hence we hope that you get inspired from this post to do something good for yourself as well as for the society. With that being informed, let’s start our post with Captain America’s pal Bucky Barnes.
4) Bucky Barnes
The character of Bucky Barnes is inspired from Bucky Pierson.
In the auto-biography of Joe Simon, the creator of Bucky Barnes, he has stated that ‘The boy companion was simply named Bucky, after my friend Bucky Pierson, a star on our high school basketball team’. So this implies that there was a Bucky in Joe’s life, who was a star of his school basketball team and today one of Captain America’s most trusted ally, Bucky Barnes is based on him.
See, inspiration can be taken from any person or anything. But what matters most is what you do with that inspiration. Joe used his inspiration to create a comic book character, and today that character has become a legend.
3) Magneto & Professor X
If you are thinking that Magneto is inspired from some guy with magnetic body who roams around the house sticking utensils on his head, then my friend you are wrong.
Magneto is rather inspired from a man named Malcolm X, who was an American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a very popular figure during the Civil Rights movement. Now, if there is politics, then there will exist some controversy. So, when the comic writers portrayed Professor X and Magneto in the comics, then they decided to take inspiration from Malcolm X for Magneto, while the inspiration for Charles Xavier was Martin Luther King Jr.
As we have seen in the comics that both Xavier and Magneto want to create a new and better world for the mutants, similarly in the real world Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. fought for the human rights but with their different ideologies, just like Xavier and Magneto.
Now this as a heck of an inspiration right? Now let’s move towards our next character, who himself is an X-Man too.
2) Wolverine
Today Wolverine is one of the most popular superheroes of Marvel, all thanks to Hugh Jackman. But do you know that our very own Weapon X Wolverine is a character who is inspired from another fictional character, rather than any real world person.
Now if we talk about the person from whom he is inspired, then the name comes out to be Doctor Hook, a character from the 1977 movie ‘Snap Shot’. This information is confirmed by none other than one of the creators of Wolverine John Bryne. The interesting fact here is that Doctor Hook just appeared in the movie for less than five minutes. But what attracted the creator of Wolverine towards him is that Doctor Hook was a very aggressive, bold and X-rated character.
They’ve also confirmed it in the comics ‘Back Issue #4’, where John Byrne said that Wolverine is based on such a character who just appeared for less than five minutes in Paul Newman’s hockey movie Snap Shot. This information was enough to find out the character behind Wolverine. Now let’s move towards our final character from Marvel who is inspired from not one, but two real life characters.
1) Iron Man
If anyone tells you to guess about a personality similar to that of Tony Stark, then the first name that will come to our mind is Mr. Elon Musk. Elon Musk’s personality and character resembles very close to that of Tony Stark at the present day, like both are billionaires, scientists, futurists and yeah, ladies men too. Over the years, Elon Musk has established himself as the only possible man on this planet who is closest to what Tony Stark actually is.
But, the story changes here. No matter how many similarities are there between Elon Musk and Tony Stark, but at the time when Tony Stark first appeared in the comics, he was not inspired from Elon Musk. Rather he was inspired from a guy named Howard Hughes. Infact Tony Stark’s father’s name is also based on the name of this personality.
Howard Hughes was an unconventional billionaire of his era. He was a business magnet, but alongside that, he was an engineer, film director and a record setting pilot too. He was also a ladies man, who was always surrounded by the finest beauties of the world at that time. A notable fact about this man is that he had been ‘officially’ married to two women. Now if we talk about him being Tony Stark’s inspiration, then in the vintage years of Tony Stark, Howard was the main inspiration of creating this character. Even if you read the old Iron man comics then you will find that both their looks and outfit were also similar to each other.
Hence, we can say that Iron man’s former inspiration was Howard Hughes, but at present day Elon Musk holds the title. Let’s see what happens in the future. May be you will become the next inspiration for Tony Stark, who knows what might happen in future.
So this was our list of some fictional comic book characters who are inspired from real life characters. If you liked it then do let us know in the comments below. Also, we hope you got some inspiration from this post and if it is so, then please share this post with friends and help us grow.
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