8 DC Characters Shamelessly Ripped-Off From Marvel

When it comes to borrowing ideas, the Big Two are just as bad as each other...

by Ewan Paterson
Marvel Comics/DC Comics

Although Marvel pretty much have DC beat when it comes to shameless rip-offs, the House of Ideas' biggest rival aren't exactly immune to criticism either.

A veritable troff of DC characters boast a whole bunch of similarities with their Marvel counterparts, and while DC aren't as bad in this respect (to speak nothing of the fact that there have, in all seriousness, been good Marvel rip-offs over the years), there are still a few noteworthy DC characters to have emerged from some dubious creative processes, to say the least.

Villains, heroes and more have all taken inspiration from across the comics aisle, borrowing everything from powers, personality traits, looks and more to level the playing field when it comes to the 'who ripped off who' game, and therein lies the rub.

Neither company has a leg to stand on in this instance as, wherever you look, the similarities are blatant, and while plenty of these 'copies' have largely gone on to define themselves over the years, there's no getting away from those comparisons.

Marvel may get a bad rap for their rip-offs, but if you look closely - or just at all - DC are just as culpable.

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.