In this image released by Comic Connect Corp., a the June 1938 cover of "Action Comics" that first featured Superman, is shown

A rare copy of the first comic book featuring Superman sold Monday for $1 million, smashing the previous record price for a comic book.

A 1938 edition of Action Comics No. 1, widely considered the Holy Grail of comic books, was sold from a private seller to a private buyer, neither of whom released their names. The issue features Superman lifting a car on its cover and originally cost 10 cents.  

The transaction was conducted by the auction site ComicConnect.com. Stephen Fishler, co-owner of the site and its sister dealership, Metropolis Collectibles, orchestrated the sale.

Fishler said it transpired minutes after the issue was put on sale at around 10:30 a.m. Eastern time. He said that the seller was a "well known individual" in New York with a pedigree collection, and that the buyer was a known customer who previously bought an Action Comics No. 1 of lesser grade.

"It's considered by most people as the most important book," said John Dolmayan, a comic book enthusiast and dealer best known as the drummer for System of a Down. "It kind of ushered in the age of the superheroes."

Dolmayan, who owns Torpedo Comics, last year paid $317,000 for an Action Comics No. 1 issue for a client. Others have sold for more than $400,000, he said, but this copy fetched a much higher price because it's in better condition. It's rated an "8.0 grade," or "very fine."

Dolmayan said he didn't buy this copy but he wishes he could have.

"The fact that this book is completely un-restored and still has an 8.0 grade, it's kind of like a diamond or a precious stone. It's very rare," he said.

There are only about 100 copies of Action Comics No. 1 believed to be in existence, and only a handful have been rated so highly. It's rarer still for those copies to be made available for sale.

"The opportunity to buy an un-restored, high-grade Action One comes along once every two decades," Fishler said. "It's certainly a milestone."

The sticker shock was astounding to Fishler, nevertheless.

"It is still a little stunning to see 'a comic book' and '$1 million' in the same sentence," Fishler said. "There's only one time a collectible hits the $1 million threshold."

Marvel Entertainment, home of superheroes such as Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four and the X-Men, sued the heirs of one of its most successful artists Friday to keep the rights to the lucrative characters.

The federal lawsuit filed Friday in Manhattan by Marvel, now a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Co. (DIS), asks a judge to invalidate 45 notices sent by the heirs of artist Jack Kirby to try to terminate Marvel's copyrights, effective on dates ranging from 2014 through 2019.

The heirs notified several companies last year that rights to the characters would revert from Marvel to Kirby's estate.

The lawsuit says Kirby's work on the comics published between 1958 and 1963 were "for hire" and render the heirs' claims invalid. The famed artist died in 1994.

Kirby's attorney Marc Toberoff says the heirs were merely trying to take advantage of change to copyright law that lets artists recapture rights to their work.

Of Marvel's lawsuit, he said: "It is a standard claim predictably made by comic book companies to deprive artists, writers, and other talent of all rights in their work ... The Kirby children intend to vigorously defend against Marvel's claims in the hope of finally vindicating their father's work."

The statement claims Kirby was never properly compensated for his contributions to Marvel's universe of superheroes.

"Sadly, Jack died without proper compensation, credit or recognition for his lasting creative contributions," the statement said.

Comic book characters such as Spider-Man and the X-Men have become some of Hollywood's most bankable properties.

The lawsuit says the comic book titles in the notices to which Kirby claims to have contributed include "Amazing Adventures," "Amazing Fantasy," "Amazing Spider-Man," "The Avengers," the "Fantastic Four," "Fantastic Four Annual," "The Incredible Hulk," "Journey into Mystery," "Rawhide Kid," "Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos," "Strange Tales," "Tales to Astonish," "Tales of Suspense" and "The X-Men."

John Turitzin, a Marvel lawyer, said in a statement that the heirs are trying "to rewrite the history of Kirby's relationship with Marvel."

"Everything about Kirby's relationship with Marvel shows that his contributions were works made for hire and that all the copyright interests in them belong to Marvel," he said.

Every one of us once dreamed of donning some spandex pants and taking our brand of renegade crime fighting to the streets. The only problem was our total lack of super powers, and the fact that when we blasted ourselves with gamma radiation we only got a super-powered tumor that becomes more malignant when angered.

Recent scientific breakthroughs are changing that. Within our lifetimes we just might be able to see mankind do the things it only wrote about in cheap picture books and their multi-billion dollar film adaptations. Some day, you or your children may very well get to be ...

The Character's Power: Technologically advanced battle suit.

After being kidnapped by the Vietnamese (or in the film, some brown people) billionaire inventor Tony Stark MacGyver's himself a technological wonder of a battle suit that simultaneously prevents shards of shrapnel from entering his heart and helps him explode you with literal hand cannons.

How Science Can Give It To You:
Meet HAL 5.

HAL 5 is an acronym for Hybrid Assistive Limb ... 5. HAL is an artificial powered exoskeleton. In other words, a technological wonder of a suit that is capable of allowing the user to carry five times the weight they could normally carry.

"When a person attempts to move, nerve signals are sent from the brain to the muscles via motoneuron, moving the musculoskeletal system as a consequence." We just copy and pasted that from the official HAL website because it sums it up well enough (apparently just saying, "When you move, this thing moves HARDER!" is too simplistic for the type of people who know how to make cybernetic suits).

Unlike Tony Stark's "Mark VI" Iron Man suit, HAL was not invented for tearing-ass through a war zone, leaving behind a trail of men slowly realizing they just got their limbs torn off by a robot. On the contrary, HAL was designed for factory work, disaster relief, assisting disabled people, and, as the website states, "the entertainment field" which we're sure is code for "Superhuman Endurance Sexbot."

The only problem is ...
You'll probably think we're being silly when we point out that "HAL" is also the name of the AI in 2001: A Space Odyssey. If you're having trouble remembering the character let us refresh your memory: HAL 9000 spied some astronauts talking shit about him behind his back, and went on a murderous rampage in response. Probably just coincidence, right? Surely not a sign that the inventors have evil intentions or anything.

Well, do you remember when we linked the official HAL website earlier? Look at the web address. That's www.cyberdyne.jp. Cyberdyne! As in, "the manufacturers of the Terminator" Cyberdyne.

Don't get us wrong, we're not saying this isn't an amazing technology. All we're saying is that you should find your nearest John Conner and sequester him in your local underground robot apocalypse bunker before some dip-shit scientist puts some kind of thinking chip in these things.

The Character's Power: Telekinesis.

Jean Grey, more commonly known as "That redheaded bitch that dies whenever shit gets serious," has telekinetic powers that allow her to do much more than lift simple objects with her mind. She can also use her powers as a kind of Jedi-like force push and as a defensive shield.

How Science Can Give It To You:
The Brain-Gate Neural Interface System (BGNIS).

Foxborough, Massachusetts based company Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology Systems, Inc. is working on technologies that let the paralyzed interact with their surroundings using only their thoughts. The "Gate" in the name refers to a computer interface that acts as a gateway for the entire process. The system begins with the implantation of a sensor in the motor cortex, the part of the brain that controls movement.

This sensor detects neural signals that your brain would normally use to tell your body to move. But, rather than having this information transmitted to an arm or leg these signals get relayed to a computer which then decodes the information and converts it into a physical action. So when you think about an action (say, giving a stripper a dollar) that thought would go though the computer which then would activate a device (say, the dollar bill cannon attached to your pelvis).

The BGNIS project has been approved by the FDA and Cyberkinetics hopes this technology will be ready for the mass market within three to five years.

The only problem is ...
This technology clearly isn't going to stay limited to the disabled. The prospect for being able to, with a simple implant, turn on your coffee maker or car with the power of your thoughts, will be too much to resist. How will a society already plagued by obesity and sedentary lifestyles adjust to the invention of the mind controlled pudding cannon?

And how long until a group of rogues find a way to get souped-up implants that let them take over your car from a mile away? Or send your lawnmower on a murderous rampage?

They'll also make it fly somehow

Without the wisdom of a Dr. X to guide them, they will wreak havoc on a world too fat to defend itself.

The Character's Power: Web slinging and wall climbing.

When a young loser named Peter Parker gets bitten by a radioactive spider he becomes endowed with the powers of an arachnid. He can crawl on walls and, just to round out the whole "Spider" gimmick, he invented his own web slingers. Furthermore, he has a spider's ... precognitive abilities? We must have missed that day of science class.

How Science Can Give It To You:
Carbon nanotube technology and nanoglue.

Spidey holds the honorable distinction of being the only character on this list that has two real life technologies currently being researched that can one day bring us a step closer to being riddled with bullets after trying to stop a bank robbery.

First up is carbon nanotube technology, which will basically be Velcro for the "What the fuck is Velcro?" societies of the future. Like Velcro, carbon nanotubes can be formed as a series of hooks and loops that interlock, thereby creating a clinging effect. Unlike Velcro, these hooks and loops are microscopic and can latch on to nearly any surface imaginable, even while underwater.

The creator of the nanotube, Italian scientist Nicola Pugno, says that when placed on gloves and boots, his wall-crawling breakthrough would be able to keep a fully grown person suspended on a ceiling. He hopes to have a prototype suit out by 2010.

The second Spider-Man tech that will revolutionize the way we as a society approach cosplaying is more of a theory, but it's a very promising one at that. This theory is based around something called nanoglue.

A group of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute scientists working with nanolayers (molecular chains of carbon molecules with elements such as silicon, oxygen or sulfur) accidentally found that heating nanolayers of commercially available glue sandwiched between copper and silica, it created a bond that one researcher called "As strong as a motherfucker."

 
Metal chains and hooks are metaphorical

The leader of the project, Professor Ganapathiraman Ramanath, hypothesizes that this "nanoglue" could be used as a real-life version of Spider-Man's web shooters:

"If we can find a way to create threads and/or intertwined bundles using the molecules in a scalable fashion, while retaining the adhesive properties, then creating web-shooters similar to Spiderman's is a real possibility," he said as he pointed to the face of Spider-Man gracing the crotch flap of his Underoos.

The only problem is ...
We admit, it's awesome that a mountain climber plummeting to his death may one day be able take a minute to enjoy the quickly passing scenery before deploying a stream of stringy glue that will save his life, before crawling effortlessly back up the rocky cliff with his hands.

The problem is that once the method of web-swinging from building to building becomes possible, no one will ever use any other means of transport. So what's wrong with that? Well, what goes unreported in Spider-Man films and comics is the hundreds of long, sticky strings of web he leaves behind wherever he goes.

In the city of the future, where rush hour features a few million Spideys web-slinging their way to the office, pretty soon every building is going to look like it's either wearing a fur coat, or been Bukakked within mere inches of its life.

The Character's Power: Fast-healing wounds via tissue regeneration.

According to the comic, the man formally known as James Howlett was born with keen animal senses and lizard-like tissue regeneration abilities. That made him a prime candidate for an experimental surgery that grafted adamantium to his bones. The lesson learned here is that you never give metal claws to something that doesn't die when you shoot it in the head.

How Science Can Give It To You:
The extracellular matrix.

In 2005, Lee Spievack, a man working in a Cincinnati hobby store, sliced off the tip of his finger as he was showing a customer how you can lose a finger when dealing with a model plane's motor. This is either an ironic accident or the single most badass thing any retail associate has ever done to sell a customer.

In another ironic twist to the plot, Spievack just so happened to have a brother in the tissue regeneration business. This brother told his fingertip-less sibling to forgo a simple skin graft and opt for a ride on a model train toward the future of wound healing: a powder made from the extract of a pigs' bladder. This extract is called the Extracellular Matrix.

This protein-based substance can also be found in human fetuses and assists in repairing any damage incurred by even the most hardcore fetus. Supposedly when the extracellular matrix is turned into a powder and applied to a wound the substance breaks down the surrounding tissue and causes it to rebuild in the same way it would in the womb. Which theoretically should let you heal stab wounds in seconds, while the knife wielding thug looks on in terror, stuttering, "T-THAT's IMPOSSIBLE!"

Well, maybe not exactly that quickly. But within four weeks of applying the powder, Spievack's finger tip grew back, nail and all.

The only problem is ...
Some scientists do contend that he could have tossed Pop Rocks on the stub and he still may have grown back the finger tip, as it wasn't like he had lost the whole finger or anything so a natural healing wasn't out of the question. Still, as we type this sentence, military research is being conducted on this pig bladder based limb re-grower. So as unbelievable as the story sounds, at least somebody thinks there's something to it.

We can't argue with helping the wounded grow back tissue and limbs. The problem will come once somebody inevitably says, "You know, since we're growing it back anyway, we might as well grow it back better."

We could be looking at a future of monstrocities, swimmers cutting off their hands to get webbed fingers, basketball players adding a foot to their height by cutting off their legs, and men doing the unthinkable for the chance to be endowed like a porn star. Clearly this would be a terrible thing, somehow.

The Character's Power: Invisibility.

Wikipedia says, "She has the psionic ability to manipulate ambient cosmic energy to mentally bend all wavelengths of light (including infrared and ultraviolet radiation) around her body without causing any visible distortion." See, that's why Wikipedia is untrustworthy. It took 30 words to say something that only takes one.

How Science Can Give It To You:
Retro-Reflectum.

Susumu Tachi, a scientist at Tokyo University, is hard at work on a ground-breaking piece of tech that could very well be one of mankind's greatest achievements ... until it's used by chronic masturbators to peer in on your sexual exploits, that is.

What Tachi has done is create the fabled invisibility cloak through the usage of a camera that records a background image. This Background image is then projected via a device that scientists have dubbed a "Projector" that actually "projects" the background image on to a screen.

Here's where the real science comes in to play: This projection can only be seen on a special material known as retro-reflectum, a material made-up of thousands of tiny beads that were specially designed to capture the projected image. This retro-reflectum allows a projected image to be seen in three dimensions or, rather, to be projected in three dimensions. The image wraps around the cloak wearing subject, thus, creating a sense of blending in with the moving background.

 
A platoon tests prototype retro-reflectum camoflage

Tachi envisions a future where such a system lets pilots look right through the floor of a plane's cockpit to see the ground (or, you could do the same with the passengers if you wanted to fuck with them) or it could be used on surgical gloves, so surgeons can see through their own hands and get a full view of the operation.

Time magazine even dubbed it one of the "Coolest Inventions" of 2003, saying it would be on the market by 2008, so it's a little late.

The only problem is ...
Or is it? Couldn't somebody be outside your window right now?

Even if nobody is watching you in the shower every night, the military is going wild thinking about chilling ways to apply the stuff. The fine folks at DARPA (the Department of Defense's research and development team that created ARPANET, the precursor to the very same internet you are using right now) wants to create shields for soldiers that can be seen and fired through from one side, invisible and bulletproof from the other.

They have given plenty of scientific reasoning explaining how this would work but halfway through reading it we came to the conclusion that it must have not been in English. The whole thing just sounds like cheating.

Via:Cracked.com

They say there are no original ideas out there, and we can believe that. Storytelling themes are universal and we understand when a character or scene gets "borrowed" here and there.

But it's hard not to feel betrayed when you find out that some of the stories around which your entire childhood revolved were, for the most part, copied and pasted in with a cavalier attitude of, "the little bastards will never know the difference!"

We're talking about...

Mutated freaks gathered by their wheelchair bound mentor in order to protect a world that fears and hates them. You think we are talking about the X-Men? No we are not. Well, we will be in a second, and technically we are, but not in this paragraph, except for the parts where we do.

They are a Rip-Off of:

The Doom Patrol, which debuted in comics three months before everybody's favorite, more marketable mutants.

Unlike the X-Men, the Doom Patrollers were once normal people who suffered an accident that disfigured them but also gave them superpowers. Shunned by the world for just being plain ugly, the freaks were gathered by Doctor Caulder, a paraplegic, who thought that maybe the world wouldn't dislike them so much if they used their powers to save the normal people's asses from giant robots once in a while.

If this sounds somewhat familiar to you, it's because the same thing as X-Men with the only difference that the smart guy in the wheelchair was bald in one and X-Men uses mutants as an allegory for minorities instead of people with elephantiasis or whatever the heck Doom Patrol was going for.

Even the tag line is the same! At least make an effort, guys!

Possibly, the most unnecessary thing borrowed by X-Men was the name of the Doom Patrol's enemies: The Brotherhood of Evil. In Doom Patrol the name made sense; because they were a group of evil assholes, which got together to do asshole things. There was never any confusion about what the group was about.

On the other hand Magneto stole the name, added the word mutant at the end of it and then whined endlessly about how humans persecuted and hated him. Maybe people hated you, Magneto, because your group's name was The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and you went around the world trying to wipe out humanity?

How successful would the American Paraplegia Society be if they called themselves the Brotherhood of Child Molesting Guys on Wheelchairs? Magneto's weak PR skills aren't the only reason the original Brotherhood looks awesome by comparison ...

A brain in a case and an armed gorilla? How is Magneto more famous?

"Hold on a minute!" you may be shouting from your cubicle. "Not only is he one of the most famous and recognizable icons in the world, he is also the first superhero ever created! So how can he be a rip off of anything if he was the first, you idiot?"

Well, that's where you are wrong, hypothetical Cracked reader who is talking to us and for some reason insulting us even though you are figment of our imagination; Superman may be the first superhero, but not the first character with those superpowers.

He is a Rip-Off of:

Philip Wylie's wrote a pulp novel called Gladiator in 1930, starring Hugo Danner, a man whose father invents a secret formula that can create superpowers. Instead of selling it and making millions, he just injects it into his son, because, hey, why not? Hugo gains super strength, bullet proof skin and the ability to jump over the tallest building in a single bound. Jumping, not flying--so it's sort of different, right? Well, actually, in Superman's early years he couldn't fly either, just jump really high.

All he was missing was the laser/telescopic eyes and the million retarded powers Superman pulled out of his ass in the 50s. And it was published eight years before Superman appeared.

But superpowers are kind of standard, right? Super strength? Hell, Hercules had that! It doesn't mean it's a rip-off!

But the resemblance doesn't end there. Both Superman and Hugo Danner grew up in a small farming town. Supes in Kansas and Danner in Colorado. Both pretended to be meek and weak to prevent people from finding out about their superpowers. And both had a special place where they went to be alone: Superman had his fortress of solitude in the Arctic, and Donner had his own place in northern Canada. Of course, his didn't have the total emo name, which really only proves that he was less of a huge tool.

And to boot, the first image of Superman the world saw, the cover of Action Comics #1, recreates a scene of the Gladiator novel where Hugo loses his shit, lifts up a car and scares the crap out of everyone.

"And fuck you for cutting me... I mean Clark Kent off in the intersection."

Oh sure, Gladiator doesn't have five movies, several TV shows, a crapload of cartoons, a 70-year-old still going comic book and millions of dollars from merchandise. But he sure tapped way more ass than Supes.

No, we're not talking about the fact that The Lion King was Disney's take on Hamlet (interestingly, Shakespeare originally intended to have his plays performed by animals but had to reconsider when his lions escaped and caused the London Massacre of 1600).

But Disney wasn't happy to just rely on the bard, and massively ripped off an old Japanese cartoon just to wipe away any inadvertent hint of originality.

It is a Rip-Off of:

Kimba the White Lion.

Kimba, the small albino lion cub in the picture, is the creation of legendary Japanese cartoonist, Osamu Tezuka, creator of other famous characters like Astro Boy. And this is were you go "Kimba? But the Disney lion is called Simba. OH! Wait, they are lions and their names sound alike; that's all?" Oh no, that's not all, that's just the tip of the iceberg. Or should we say theftberg?

Even though Disney denies it, it has slipped more than once that The Lion King was initially a remake of Kimba, including this early sketch with Simba colored white that was included in one of the DVD versions:

Maybe the color blind won't notice.

At some point Disney decided not to inform whoever holds the right for Kimba about this remake, recolored the lion cub and went to town. The Lion King also borrows scenes and characters like the shaman monkey, Simba's bird friend and the evil comedy relief hyenas.

The main bad guy in Kimba was Kimba's aunt, while Disney's version gave her a sex change operation and she became Simba's uncle. And some of the most famous scenes from the movie were practically Xeroxed from Kimba, including the one where Simba speaks with the ghost of his father who appeared in the clouds.

Here's a little experiment. Turn the tables, and try to create a cartoon series about a high-pitch-voiced mouse called "Mikey" and his friend "Ronald Duck." Start selling merchandise for these characters, and see how long it takes you to hear from Disney's lawyers.

Although the G.I. Joe action figures have existed since the 60s, it wasn't until 1982 that they gained personalities, an actual story and their very own nemesis; becoming the G.I. Joe we know and love. And we're not talking about the 1996 "extreme" version which we prefer to ignore and hate.

The enemy was of course Cobra, a snake themed terrorist organization with a soft spot in their dark hearts for secret fortresses, giant lasers and parachutes (safety first!).

They are a Rip-Off of:

HYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYDRAAAAAAAAAAA!

Oh, and also:

KOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOBRAAAAA!

Cobra is what you get when two other snake themed terrorist groups, DC Comics's Kobra and Marvel's Hydra, get drunk one night and have awkward sex in the back of Kobra's dad's Honda Civic. And since both Kobra and Hydra were created by the same person, the legendary Jack Kirby, that's incest and it's wrong! Kirby had a Honda Civic? Yes, don't question us!

Hydra was created in 1965, as an enemy organization of Nick Fury's S.H.I.E.L.D. while Kobra was created in 1976, and even were the stars of their own comic. And let it never be said that the comics industry doesn't like to recycle good ideas, or at least snake-themed terrorist organizations.

When HASBRO decided to revive the G.I. Joe action figures, they contacted Marvel to publish a comic about the new version. Marvel then dug through the trash and rescued a rejected pitch for a new comic. It was about a group of elite S.H.I.E.L.D. soldiers and Nick Fury's son fighting against Hydra. They just changed "Hydra" to "Cobra" and "Nick Fury Jr." to "Duke" and the rest is 80s icon history. Considering this is the comic version of going to a restaurant and having the chef pull out a burger out of the garbage can, it worked pretty well.

Anything else besides all of them being snake themed ultra high-tech criminal organizations? Oh yes! Hydra and Cobra like to hire dominatrix girls and put them in charge of the troops. That way if the troops don't do their job the commander has to "punish" their naughty asses... Hmmm... maybe that's why these guys never win.

And here is another odd one. Lord Kobra, from DC's Kobra, had a brother, who was one of the good guys. Because they were twins, they could feel what happened to the other, which probably made masturbation creepy beyond belief. Twin brother who could feel what the other was feeling? Doesn't that sound a lot like Cobra's very own Tomax and Xamot?

We have to agree with Kobra here, Twinsy, you are just being an ass.

Wait... Tomax? Xamot?

Have you guys noticed they are the same spelled backwards? WHOAAA! It only took us 20 years.

Green Lantern is the only superhero who can make a giant cue the shape of a dong to play pool with planets, and yet get his ass kicked by Sesame Street's Big Bird because he's allergic to the color yellow.

He is a Rip-Off of:

The classic space opera series Lensman started in 1937, and since then, just like Thomas Jefferson before it, fought injustice and left enough bastard children around to populate a small city.

Every sci-fi series with some sort of space police owes something to Lensman, from the Jedi Knights of Star Wars to Buzz Lightyear. If it has space policemen then it's ripping off Lensman or ripping off something that ripped it off first. The apple that fell closest to the tree was the Green Lantern Corps.

The first Green Lantern was created just one year after the first Lensman story was published, but back then Green Lantern was just one guy who found a magic ring and he wasn't weak against yellow but to wood, making the banana tree the only natural predator of all Green Lanterns. Or maybe, also, really racist cartoons of Asian people with baseball bats.

In 1950, the original Green Lantern had been out of print for quite a few years and DC comics thought it was time to bring back the name. Now this time he was part of a group of space policemen, which are like regular policemen but they stop black people in fancy cars in space. Now, unlike the Jedi Knights who were happy to just copy the general idea of space policemen and a few things here and there, the Green Lanterns Corps went overboard.

The Lensmen were created by the most advanced alien race in the universe, the Arisians. The Green Lanterns were created by the Oans. The Lensmen are chosen for being the epitome of bravery and honesty, just like the Green Lanterns (how they even measure that is never explained, probably have them fill out a questionnaire). Finally, both organizations give their member a special, unique weapon that can be used by nobody else but the person to whom it was given. In Lensmen's case a lens that gives them telepathic powers, and in Green Lantern's case the ring that can't protect you from banana peels.

The creators of Green Lantern deny even knowing about Lensman, which is odd coming from sci-fi writers talking about a sci-fi series that was well known in its time. It would be like "Star Wars? Nope, doesn't ring a bell..." coming from your local nerd. As a bit of a nod and wink, a Green Lantern was created as a homage to the Lensman series (Arisia, named after the planet where the Arisians from Lensman come from).

Also, although it doesn't count as a rip-off, according to comic historians the Oans, the blue midget aliens who go around giving out Green Lantern rings, are based on David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister of Israel. And we are including the picture because we love the side by side comparisons pictures thing.

That's just weird.

Oh, shit. We went there.

He is a Rip-Off of:

El Zorro! Yes, the guy with the sword.

Zorro, created by Johnston McCulley, debuted in 1919 in the pulp magazine All Story Weekly. And while some of the things that make Batman Batman were inspired by other sources (his rogues gallery was inspired by the army of fugly mutants Dick Tracy has been putting in jail since 1931) a big bunch of them were copied from Zorro.

Zorro was first at being a millionaire playboy-slash-dark costumed evil face puncher. Zorro had a secret cave under his mansion where he kept his horse and Zorro stuff, not unlike a certain caped crusader. The big difference being that Zorro didn't call it the Zorrocave or the Zorrohorse.

Zorro was also the first hero with a butler, his trusty servant Bernardo. But Alfred is probably more useful since Bernardo was deaf and mute. With Alfred you just have to yell "Hey, go make me a hotdog." With Bernard you have to mimic putting a sausage in your mouth, rub your tummy and then hope he doesn't think you want him to fellate you.

And last, Zorro also hid his secret costumed persona by pretending to be a complete foppish rich douche long before Bruce Wayne. Although, to be fair, the Scarlet Pimpernel invented this one in 1903, but nobody counts him since he committed the crime of having a superhero name that was lame despite having the word "pimp" in it.

The connections are so obvious DC comics doesn't bother to deny them. In fact, the movie lil' Bruce Wayne goes to see with his parents the night they're shot is The Mark of Zorro.

A clever nod to the original masked vigilante? Maybe. Or maybe in an effort to keep their secret safe, Batman's creators were trying to send a message to children: if you go see anything with Zorro in it, your family will be killed.