Marvel’s 7 Best Copycat Villains, Ranked

Marvel Comics has been copying since the beginning. We like to think of the House of Ideas as the place that revolutionized the superhero, but they usually did that by taking what other publishers were doing, or what older Marvel creators did, and repackaging it. In real life, calling someone a “copycat” is an insult, but in fiction it’s often impossible to not be one. Everything has been done at some point and many creators want their chance to use ideas that define a favorite character in a new character. It’s basically their way of making it their own. On top of that, there’s the profit motive; as much as people talk about liking unique stuff the most, they like a lot of copycat characters and stories.

Marvel has created loads of unique villains, ones that have been copied by others. However, some of their most beloved villains are actually copycats. These are Marvel’s seven best copycat villains, bad guys molded in other antagonists’ images.

7) Malice

Invisible Woman is a Marvel icon, but that means something different for female characters than men. Sue was given a plot line that other powerful Marvel women like Jean Grey and Scarlet Witch got, her powers and emotions driving her to evil as Malice. Malice is basically just the Dark Phoenix. You can argue against that by saying there’s no Phoenix Force equivalent, but when Phoenix was first created, the Phoenix powers were just an evolution of her abilities, much like Malice’s were. She was even created by Dark Phoenix co-creator John Byrne, putting to bed any doubts about Malice’s copycat status.

6) Thanos

Thanos is considered by many Marvel’s greatest villain and anyone who’s read comics know who he is a copy of. The Mad Titan was created by Jim Starlin as an answer to the New Gods, specifically Darkseid (with a little Metron thrown in for good measure). If you go back to his first appearance, his costume is patterned after DC’s God of Evil, something that would change in the years to come, and his main means of transportation was based on Metron’s Moebius Chair. While there are some differences between him and ‘Seid, it’s obvious what a rip-off he is to anyone who knows comics.

5) Mister Sinister

Sometimes, a copycat villain rises to greater stature than the character that begat them and that’s the case with Mister Sinister. While the villain can seem unique to fans who don’t know a lot about Marvel Comics, for those of us in the know, he’s just the mutant version of the High Evolutionary. Instead of creating Earth-life planets full of humaniform animals, he creates clones and mutant chimeras of varying strength. Like the High Evolutionary, he’s made himself powerful and that’s honestly the biggest difference between them; Sinister is nowhere near as powerful as ol’HE (I’m tried of typing his whole name; remember, give your characters names that can be cut down). However, it’s plain to see how much he owes to that older villain.

4) Romulus

Romulus was created to be the next big Wolverine villain in the late ’00s, but right away fans of the ol’Canucklehead realized something simple – he was just a new kind of Sabretooth. He had all of the same powers as Wolvie and ‘Tooth, a mysterious past bound to Logan and Victor’s, and constantly lorded over Wolverine with the things he remembered that the hero didn’t, much like Creed did. Basically, Jeph Loeb wanted to create his own Sabretooth and we were stuck with this guy until his recent death. He’ll probably come back and fans will go back to complaining about him.

3) Baron Heinrich Zemo

While Helmut Zemo is usually the one that people are talking about when they say “Baron Zemo”, his father Heinrich is the one who made the mantle. Heinrich is a Nazi villain with ostentatious headwear who while alive was obsessed with killing Captain America. Does that remind you of any other Marvel villains out there? If you guessed Red Skull, you’d be correct. Zemo was introduced in 1964 and Red Skull wouldn’t make his return until ’65. Heinrich was the Red Skull replacement before he returned with a whole new origin and would be killed soon after Skull’s return.

2) Magneto

I know what you’re thinking and it’s that Magneto is a villain that has inspired others, not been copied. However, anyone who’s went back in time and read pre-Chris Claremont Magneto (the creator who gave him his sympathetic Holocaust origin), you’ll know that he was basically just mutant Doctor Doom. He had the same imperious personality, the same hyperbolic way of speaking, and the same burning hatred of Xavier that Doom had for Reed. In fact, there are loads of Stan Lee-created villains who are basically just different versions of Doctor Doom, including icons like Kang the Conqueror.

1) Doctor Doom

Stan Lee patterned many of his villains after Doctor Doom, but that doesn’t mean that Doom is a unique character. There’s a DC villain that is definitely the inspiration for Doom and it’s plain to see – Lex Luthor. The two of them are powerful geniuses who had a relationship with the object of their hatred when they were younger that went completely awry, blame them for everything bad in their lives, and have devoted themselves to destroying them. There would be no Doom without Lex.

What’s your favorite Marvel copycat villain? Leave a comment in the comment section below and join the conversation on the ComicBook Forums!

Marvel’s 7 Best Copycat Heroes, Ranked