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

4. Thanos (Darkseid)

Everyone knows Thanos. He's the arch-enemy of the Avengers, a creature of pure hate, one of the most powerful living beings - nearly a God - who can and will destroy everything he gets his hands on. His name even means Death. He couldn't be more of a bad guy if his name was Dark Side. Speaking of, there's another arch-enemy (of the Justice League), one of the most powerful living beings, who actually is a God, and his name is Darkseid.

There's no cleverness here. A writer for Marvel was working on a new enemy (for Iron Man) and decided to rip-off a DC character named Metatron. Metatron is one of the "New Gods" - beings of a higher power level than humans. His editor saw what he was doing and told him if he was going to rip off one of the "New Gods," he should at least rip-off the cool one. So he did.

Oh, and a further twist? The idea behind Darkseid and the rest of his "New Gods" came from a plot that Jack Kirby came up with for Marvel, that would have involved all of Thor - and the rest of the Gods - dying and being replaced with "New Gods." So, in a way, Thanos always belonged at Marvel. Yeah, that's a good excuse for plagiarism.