7 Movies That Stole Their Plot From Comic Books

In 1994 DC’s Vertigo imprint published the first issue of Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles – a mind-bending series about a group of renegades fighting to expose the fact that reality as we know is an illusion. If you’re thinking that sounds suspiciously like the Wachowski’s first Matrix film that came out five years later then you wouldn’t be the only one.

The similarities don’t end with the basic plot premise either. One of The Invisible’s main protagonists is a distinctly Neo-like character going by the alias Jack Frost who discovers he is a messiah fated to save humanity whose powers enable him to bend reality and win awesome fights and the like. He’s joined by character named King Mob who sports a shaved head, leather jacket and circular sunglasses and seems to have informed much of Morpheus’ look.

Then there’s the specific details and imagery that The Matrix rips-off too. Part of Jack Frost’s training to become an Invisible involves leaping off a tall building just like Neo does in The Matrix. Another story sees King Mob captured and tortured by a bad guy disguised as a government agent just as Morpheus was, except the villains are alien gods rather than sentient computer programmes.

Morrison himself was struck by the similarities when he saw the film and was reportedly told by Matrix crewmembers that his comics were used as a visual reference during production.

As for the subpar second and third Matrix films? Morrison, who’s largely gotten over his initial and very justified anger, thinks they could’ve been better movies had the Wachowskis continued plagiarising his work. The shade is palpable.