When comic book creators draw up their characters for the first time, they often use models, whether this is people on magazine covers or in the movies. This is true whether someone is creating someone famous like Batman in the original run, or side characters in smaller comics. These artists are not usually copying a person’s exact appearance and giving them a new character name, but they are using the photos as a basis for the character, while adding some unique changes to help them stand out. Interestingly, there are some artists who were so enamored with an actor or another celebrity that they completely based their character’s appearance on that person, and sometimes even added some Easter eggs to the character’s life.
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Here is a look at seven comic book characters who were modeled after real people.
7) Donald Pierce (Donald Sutherland)
Donald Pierce made his debut in X-Men #129 in 1979 as part of the Hellfire Club. He was an industrialist and a high-ranking member of the Inner Circle, but he was a cyborg instead of a mutant. Chris Claremont and John Byrne created him, and Byrne based his appearance on actor Donald Sutherland, who had starred at the time in movies like MASH and Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
On top of the physical appearance, Claremont and Byrne also added some Easter eggs to his name. OF course, his first name is Donald, which is the obvious reference. However, his last name is Pierce, and Sutherland played the character Hawkeye Pierce in the movie MASH.
6) Dracula (Jack Palance)
Vlad Dracula made his comic book debut in Suspense #7 in 1950. However, Dracula made his official Marvel Comics appearance in Tomb of Dracula #1 in 1971. This appearance had Gerry Conway and Gene Colan as the creative team, and Colan used a specific movie version of Dracula as the basis for his Marvel depiction.
Interestingly, it wasn’t the original Dracula actor, Bela Lugosi, or the more recent repeat Dracula actor Christopher Lee (who played the character 11 times from 1958 to 1976). Instead, it was Jack Palance, who played Dracula in a television movie in 1974 called Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
5) Wilson Fisk (Sydney Greenstreet)
Wilson Fisk made his Marvel Comics debut in Amazing Spider-Man #50, before he went on to become a major Daredevil villain. Stanb Lee and John Romita created the criminal leader of the underworld, and they had a classic Hollywood actor in mind when designing the villain. John Romita Jr. said his father based Kingpin’s appearance on Sydney Greenstreet.
Greenstreet was a British actor who appeared in some incredible movies over his career. He starred in both the film noir classic The Maltese Falcon and the brilliant antiwar romantic drama Casablanca. It was The Maltese Falcon that likely inspired Romita, as Greenstreet played a gangster named Kasper “The Fat Man” Gutman.
4) Wesley Gibson, Wanted (Eminem)
Wanted was a 2003 Top Cow comic book miniseries created by Mark Millar and J.G. Jones. The story follows a young man who has a terrible life, and is abused by almost everyone in his life, from his boss to his best friend and girlfriend, to people he sees on the streets. When he learns he is the son of a master criminal, and he is supposed to replace his dad in the secret society that rules the city, his life changes.
Millar and Jones designed the character to look just like rapper Eminem, and they didn’t change much of anything, ensuring that even his bleached blonde hair was in place. Fans who only know Wanted from the movie based on the comics saw James McAvoy in the role, although the producers initially approached Eminem, who rejected the offer.
3) The Joker (Conrad Veidt)
When looking at the image, it is easy to see where the Joker’s inspiration came from. Joker made his comic book debut in Batman #1, where he was the villain in the first issue and seemingly died. However, he proved to be so popular that DC found a way to bring him back, and he has become one of the company’s most popular villains ever since.
Bill Finger, Bob Kane, and Jerry Robinson created Joker, and they based his appearance on an image of actor Conrad Veidt from the 1928 movie The Man Who Laughs, based on the Victor Hugo novel. Veidt played Gwynplaine, and it was the grotesque grin on his face that played into the Joker’s appearance.
2) Nick Fury, Ultimates (Samuel L. Jackson)
When Marvel Comics created the Ultimates line of comics, the creators chose to reimagine several characters. One of the biggest changes came to Nick Fury, who went from being a white World War II hero to a Black man who looks just like Samuel L. Jackson. There was even a line in Ultimates #3 where it says that Jackson will play Fury if he is ever in a movie.
This, of course, happened in real life. While Nick Fury in The Ultimates was based on Samuel L. Jackson, the MCU hired Jackson to play Fury in the movies, with him debuting in the first Iron Man movie and still playing a role in the franchise two decades on.
1) Wee Hughie, The Boys (Simon Pegg)
Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson created the comic book series The Boys for WildStorm in 2006 and then moved over to Dynamite Entertainment after the first six issues. One thing that many cult movie fans noticed instantly was that the main character the audience followed, Wee Hughie, had an uncanny resemblance to actor Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead).
Not only did Robertson base Wee Hughie’s appearance on Simon Pegg, but they had Pegg write a forward to the first six issues collected edition. The story gets even better. When Prime Video began airing The Boys, Pegg was too old to play Hughie, but there was a place for him anyway, as the show cast him to play Hughie’s father.
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