10 Superheroes You Totally Forgot Were Rip-Offs
9. The X-Men - Ripped-Off Doom Patrol
Comics fans know that the X-Men were Stan Lee's laziest characters, though often not for the reasons they think. Lee was always up front with the fact that he put little to no effort into the first wave of the iconic team. Their personalities are all archetypes and even their backstory, that they were just born with their powers, was because Lee was tired of making up complicated explanations for people to have supernatural abilities.
However, anyone with deeper interest in the medium will recognize the character types and imagery being drawn from in the initial X-Men series. The leader in a wheelchair herds a team of young people with bizarre powers who are shunned by society into an opulent and technologically advanced manor was also the general concept behind the first incarnation of DC's Doom Patrol.
Cursory research reveals that Lee wasn't even trying to hide his shameless rip-off. Doom Patrol came out four months prior to X-Men, but both were marketed as the "Strangest Superheroes" of their respective worlds. While the Doom Patrol fought the Brotherhood of Evil, the X-Men fought the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. As if that qualifier disguised anything. And both teams of arch-nemeses debuted within months of each other as well.