10 Comics Characters You Didn’t Know Were Rip-Offs

10. Harley Quinn (Dream Sequence from Days Of Our Lives)

Harley Quinn is one of the most popular supervillains ever. After her appearance in Suicide Squad, she is set to appear in three different movies - each built around her. Which is a pretty amazing accomplishment for someone who was ripped off from a dream sequence in a long-running soap opera.

Harley Quinn appeared for the first time in the children's cartoon Batman the Animated Series. She was a one-off character who jumped out of a cake, as part of a prank that the Joker was pulling on Commissioner Gordon. Her voice actor, Arleen Sorkin, impressed the creators, who decided that giving the Joker a female sidekick might yield some interesting stories. But what should she look like? In the scene, she wore a police outfit, but that’d be a silly costume for her to wear all the time.

The creators, who seemed to have nothing better to do with their days than watch soaps, decided to steal Harley's design from a dream-sequence in Days of Our Lives. During the dream, Sorkin's character dresses up as a Harlequin. The creators took one look and said, "Okay, let's make her the companion of our sociopathic serial killer!"

Since then, Harley Quinn spread to comics before becoming a lead in the video games, and now she is a major motion picture star. She's become one of the biggest comic characters out there and it all started with a bunch of comic cartoon creators ripping off a soap opera dream sequence. See, kids, soap operas are good for you.