20 Comic Characters That Are Total Rip-Offs‏

9. Supreme/Invincible/Hyperion/The Sentry

Rob Liefeld's Supreme is a superhero with superhuman strength, vision, stamina, and the ability to fly, plus he has a snazzy cape. In the alternate Marvel Universe of Squadron Supreme, Hyperion is a superhero with superhuman strength, vision, stamina, and the ability to fly, plus he has a snazzy cape.

Invincible is a superhero with superhuman strength, vision, stamina, and the ability to fly, and no cape, but he is part-alien. The Sentry is a superhero with superhuman strength, vision, stamina, and the ability to fly, plus he has a snazzy cape.

Totally a rip-off of: Superman

Superman analogues are all over comic books. Really all superheroes are inspired by Kal-El in some way, since he was the very first. The more blatant take-offs on the prototypical comics hero tend to be done not so much as a way to capitalise on his success - because people can see a Superman rip-off before he's even leapt a building in a single bound - but as a homage to him, and as a way of exploring some of the themes and history of the character.

At least that's the case with Supreme, who really came into his own when Alan Moore took over the character from Liefeld, threw out all the previous history and turned the title into a long form deconstruction of the character's Silver Age depiction, which he'd already started to do with his legit Superman story Whatever Happened To The Man of Tomorrow?

Meanwhile The Sentry and Invincible offer different spins on the core concept of the character, with the former introduced in 2000 but retconned into the history of Marvel Comics as a way of illustrating how comics have changed; the latter with his father, Omni-Man, who had a similar power set, costume and origin to Superman, except he came to Earth to conquer it. Hyperion's pretty much just a rip-off.