Comic Book Resources

Ultimate Nick Fury?

I really can’t think of any that aren’t parodies, except maybe when Moench and Gulacy perfectly cast Connery and Brando in Master of Kung Fu.

Later, they had Groucho, which was pure parody and not that good.

Of course, any seductress written by Stan Lee always talked like Mae West.

I know Yogi Bear is modeled on Art Carney and Fred and Barney are modeled after the Honeymooners. Do those count as parodies?

Ah wait, not comic book characters. Forget it.

Lord Julius of Palnu in the first 200 or so issues of Cerebus. He was essentially Groucho Marx, for those unfamiliar.

True Fact:

Wolverine is modeled after The Man with No Name.

Ehh, maybe not so true.

I’m not sure about personality lifts, but JLI sure borrows catch phrases from old films/celebrities.

Guy for instance said ‘What A Maroon! in the last trade (and then referenced it as from his favourite actor… which unless I’m mistaken means that Bugs Bunny is his favourite actor…)

Only one comes to mind: the D.A. in Batman: Dark Victory was lifted directly from Lana Turner. Although that’s a physical appearance, and not necessarily a “personality.”

I’m sure there’s others, and I’ll be slapping myself for not remembering them when they get mentioned.

Well, there’s always the old one about Tony Stark originally being based on Howard Hughes.

Someone should write an arch where he holes up in his home for a decade, watching his old failures over and over, letting his hair and nails grow out as he goes crazy. Well, if anyone would write it, it’d be Fraction.

Patrick mentions Lord Julius from Cerebus, but he’s just one of many. There were also characters based on Chico and (IIRC) Harpo, Woody Allen (and to a lesser extent Mia Farrow), Oscar Wilde, Ernest Hemingway, Margaret Thatcher, and the Three Stooges. (I probably missed a few.) And Elrod– Dave Sim’s Elric parody– took his personality from Senator Cleghorn, a radio character from the Fred Alan show (who also loaned his personality to a nowadays-much-more-famous cartoon character, Foghorn Leghorn).

– The Kingpin was apparently originally modeled on the villainous characters Sydney Greenstreet played in films like The Maltese Falcon. Later, a more explicit Greenstreet manque showed up for a Steranko SHIELD story.

— Batman villainess Poison Ivy was originally based on pin-up queen Bettie Page.

— Captain “Shazam!” Marvel was famously modeled on Fred McMurray.

— Steranko created minor SHIELD character Clay Quatermain as a very direct lift of the young Burt Lancaster.

— The 1940s Clayface had the real name “Basil Karlo” and was a washed-up horror film actor. No prizes for naming his inspiration.

— Ringo Chen, from Ennis’s Hitman, was explicitly meant to stand in for Chow Yun Fat.

— The original Hellfire Club members from the Claremont/Byrne X-Men were all based on various actors and actresses. Sebastian Shaw = Robert Shaw (not the actor Sebastian Shaw, as is sometimes claimed), Emma Frost was Diana “Emma Peel” Rigg, Donald Pierce was Donald “Hawkeye Pierce” Sutherland, and Harry Leland was Orson Welles (who starred as Harry Lime in The Third Man and scripted a character named Jed Leland in Citizen Kane).

Not comics, but I wonder why they chose to evoke Tom Green as their vision of Forge in the latest animated X-men (Wolverine and the X-Babies is it? I’ve lost track)

Come to think of it, every time I see Sabretooth in comics up until about 1990 I think of Nick Nolte.

Guy Gardner’s looks and personality are supposedly based on actor Martin Milner of Route 66 and Adam-12 fame.

The original Beefeater was based on Basil Fawlty.

Dunno if this is parody or what…
Batroc’s moustache is liften from Salvador Dali.

Dan Turpin was created by Kirby, and then in Bruce Timm’s Superman the Animated Series their characteration of Turpin was supposed to be actually modeled on Kirby.

An older one, but Betty from Rocketeer was clearly based on Bettie Page.

Frank Miller has said his Alfred Pennyworth from The Dark Knight Returns was based on the dry attitude and sarcastic wit of John Gielgud as Dudley Moore’s butler in the movie Arthur. Many creators, including those of the animated series and movies, have written Alfred in the same manner, making Miller responsible not only for infamously “inspiring” the grim and gritty era of superheroes but also for bringing a new side and personality to Alfred: tempering his long-suffering patience with Bruce’s eccentricities and obsessions with a witty and acerbic retort.

Gabriel: thans for the thorough Cerebus list. I honestly had forgotten about the Woody Allen stuff from near the Latter Days era. Come to think of it, he did the Moe, Larry, Curly, and Shemp material around then as well.

Jamie Hernandez had a Lucille Ball styled character in Wig Wam Bam, near the end of the first volume of Love & Rockets. I had an opportunity to ask Jamie when the issues came out why he didn’t just use Ball. He was very kind with his response to what, in retrospect, was a lame question.

Oh! And in Giant Size Man Thing #1 Gerber or Ploog chose to model a cult leader visually after Nixon. Not exactly what’s being discussed here, but always got a kick out of that.

As was posted above-
“The original Beefeater was based on Basil Fawlty.”

I agree he was, as his wife was based on Sybil, and the butler/servant/whatever was based on Manuel.

But I take these more as parody.

The Ploog thing reminds me of another one: in Green Lantern/Green Arrow #83, Neal Adams modeled Grandy and his weird psychic child Sybil on Nixon and Agnew, respectively.

Am I the only one utterly disgusted by the Thing’s beard?

You are not.

Looks like he just finished eating out a porcupine.

Nightcrawler and Errol Flynn.

@Sean WHitmore: You see Porcupine, I see Play-Doh Fun Factory.

hangmanjury

It actually makes my skin crawl! I know that sounds weird but something about it freaks me out a bit.

Hangmanjury and Jax,

If I remember correctly, the panels come from a story from an old issue of Marvel Fanfare, where the Torch is playing a practical joke on Grimm. He glued straws or pipecleaners to his face to make it look like stubble. The story was drawn by Barry Windsor-Smith.

The one that springs to mind is Dino Manneli from Sgt. Fury’s Howling Commandos who is supposed to be analagous to Dean Martin.

I know it doesn’t really count but I always loved the idea of John the Skrull in Captain Britain.

The original Nick Fury was originally based on an actor – but I can’t remember who.

IIRC Pete Milligan based Christopher Chance on George Cloony in The Human Target and I’ve heard (though don’t know if it’s true) that Judge Dredd is based on Clint Eastwood.

Oh and every character Mark Millar ever writes is based on someone.

Oh and Christopher Priest (not the real one) said that that lame supporting character in Black Panther who looked like Michael J Fox was actually based on Chandler Bing from Friends.

>>>”— Captain “Shazam!” Marvel was famously modeled on Fred McMurray.”

Actually, many have suggested he was based on the German heavyweight boxer MAX SCHMELING, although there are lots of accounts (including C.C. Beck’s) that Fred Mac Murray was indeed the inspiration.

Photo of Schmeling:
http://www.chessbase.com/news/2005/ausflug20.jpg

Peter David based the Foreigner off of Patrick McGoohan in the Prisoner.
Sweeny, from his DC Star Trek run was John Cleese.
A gang in Spider-Man 2099 was based on me:)

Jax: me too…it’s squicky.

“Well, there’s always the old one about Tony Stark originally being based on Howard Hughes.

Someone should write an arch where he holes up in his home for a decade, watching his old failures over and over, letting his hair and nails grow out as he goes crazy. ”

Elijah, look no further than “Earth X”- done and done, and in a very clever way.

Everybody seems to have covered the biggies. Of course in Captain America, lots of writers based Abraham “Dr. Reinstein” Erskine on Albert Einstein (particularly “Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty” mini).

Hey, now that I think of it, haven’t more than a few artists pretty much made the Sandman a taller version of Neil Gaiman?

Actually, years ago at a comic-con I asked Neil Gaiman about Morpheus and Lucifer and he confirmed that they were indeed modeled after Bauhaus frontman Peter Murphy and coolest person ever David Bowie, respectively.

Of course, he could have just been humoring me.

Back in the 80′s there were a couple Spiuder-Man annuals that featured a character called “Ace” who was based on the Purple Rain era Prince.

Sting was used as a model for John Constantine when he first appeared in Swamp Thing.

I saw Ace as a more Micheal Jackson then Prince.

A character named Ax was introduced in New Mutants(vol 1) in 1983 who looked just like Mr. T and was a bad brother.

Dazzler was modeled to look like Bo Derek

It’s looks not personality, but Ragged Robin in The Invisibles is based on (IIRC) Jill Thompson

Delirium was based on Tori Amos.

Ace! I forgot about Ace- yes definitely Prince.

I had recognized Lucifer as Bowie with the very first establishing shot- hell, they didn’t try to play it as anything else- right down to his bemused expression. So he was not humoring you there. Morpheus? Your explanation is as good as mine, if not better- I’ll take your word for it as I don’t know Peter Murphy. I just saw a bit of a resemblence in author and character when Jones and one or two others were drawing, and I finally saw Gaiman in person during a reading of an excerpt of “Coraline”.

Mike Allred seemingly bases *most* of his romantic leading ladies on his wife Laura, but most especially so with Joe, Madman’s girlfriend.