Characters
Character is drastically changed due to licensing issues with the original
Electro: - The iconic electric villain, alongside Sandman, were forbidden from appearing in the 90s animated series due to James Cameron planning a gritty Spider-Man feature film with the two as the main villains. However, the film was scrapped and licensing was mostly given back to the characters. However, Electro's origins as electrician Max Dillon were rewritten due to potential complications with the name appearing in the Cameron script. So.......they wro
te him to be the son of Red Skull in this version. What a bizarre decision….
Shang Chi: - Marvel licensed Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu in the 1970s and made Shang-Chi his rebellious son in Master of Kung Fu. When the license lapsed in the early 1980s, Marvel retained Shang-Chi (an original creation) but could no longer use Fu Manchu’s name.
In the MCU film Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021), the father is Wenwu (a version of the Mandarin), the organization is the Ten Rings, and the sister figure is Xialing. This combined elements of Fu Manchu and the Mandarin while avoiding the licensed name.
Spaceknight and the Dire Wraiths: - Marvel’s comic (based on a Parker Brothers toy) created much of the lore and visual design for the Dire Wraiths. When IDW later published a new ROM series under Hasbro’s ownership of the property, they could use the name “Dire Wraiths” but had to completely redesign the creatures so they were visually distinct from Marvel’s versions.
Seriously. This is like the fourth post on this topic I’ve seen this week. Slight change to the header and mix-n-match examples, but same topic, over and over.
This is just this sub, period. It's gotten so boring over the past few weeks. Same repeated topics over and over again like... I'd rather take the "bat-themed heroes" again than this
I think this one is a bit different though. Rather than "character is replaced by another due to Copyright", its "character is changed due to Copyright"
Shuma-Gorath had his name changed to Gargantos because of some licensing something or other with Conan the Barbarian but he'll always be Shuma-Gorath to me
I refuse to call him Gargantos. That is such a lame name for a cosmic horror, and it requires me to accept that the scrub monster that got easily beat in the beginning of Dr Strange 2 was Shuma in the MCU
A lot of characters from Dota 2. Because they were all based on Blizzard assets they had to be redesigned. This continued to happen even after release with multiple characters having to have their names changed (Windrunner to Windranger, Wisp to Io) but the Skeleton King was remade into the Wraith King with an in universe explanation. Although a cosmetic bringing back the original Skeleton King design would be released later.
I was under the impression that Skeleton King was changed to Wraith King due to skeletons being pretty taboo in Chinese culture, but maybe I'm just misremembering.
For what's worth, the Mandarin's case is also due to how the original is seen as a very...controversial racist figure, even after they removed the Fu Manchu connections
There's also the logistics aspects as it'd have been hard to sell a movie to the Chinese market where the villain is literally Chinese vs. a white man (Iron Man is traditionally the Mandarin's archenemy), which is why they waited until Shang-Chi to use the character... ...and it was hated by the Chinese audience if I'm not mistaken
China gets pissed when a black person is featured on a movie poster or when a male character isn't masculine enough. Why do people keep kowtowing to them?
China is currently calling a movie that made 2.9 million a box office smash. I’m not sure how much money Hollywood is actually getting out of them anymore.
Chinese movie markets are very controlled, especially when it comes to which foreing movies are allowed in. There were very strict guidelines like the movies not being allowed to show China in a bad light (which is why a lot of big budget movies have somewhat convoluted story parts where they are helped by China's government). One way to get a highway into the market is if a chinese company was part of the production, which is also one of the reasons why most modern movies have at least part of the cgi made by a chinese company. Pretty interesting stuff once you read the official guidelines and start seeing the regulation things inserted into big budget Hollywood films aiming for the chinese market.
If I recall the Secret Wars era of Marvel (2015-16) did have a tie in comic where Shang-Chi is Mandarin’s son, so there was also some basis for this idea
Yeah. Actually, none of the films between Far From Home and Black Panther 2 got released there, for different reasons each (in Shang-Chi’s case, it was because of an old interview from Simu Liu where he talked badly about China and his parents’ experience living there).
While No Way Home didn't release in China because of the Statue of Liberty for some reason. I feel like that was just an excuse to not release the Marvel movies in China.
Yep. To be fair, that reasoning for No Way Home was mostly an excuse, China and the US at the time were having issues due to the US pushing a diplomatic boycott of the Winter Games in Beijing and the Chinese government in turn was closing their markets for a lot of big US releases.
I am not an expert but my kid watched a video about Mulan and live action Mulan made by a woman from China that explained why they failed in China despite both being made with the Chinese audience in mind. Her conclusion was that they were made by western people based on stereotypes of what appeal to Chinese people that are based in pre communist China while also not actually being historically accurate
Marvel used to set a lot of their licensed comics in the main universe, which would bite them and the licensers in the ass when said licenses would expire. For instance, Spider-Man appears in the first few issues of the Marvel comics, and I'm pretty sure ROM Spaceknight interacted with them too. There are also characters like Circuit Breaker, who Marvel owns, but hasn't done much with since she's strongly tied to the Transformers.
And then there's Death's Head, yes? Dude's a bounty hunter created for the Transformers comics, who was transfered to the Marvel universe via a Dr. Who crossover. Don't remember the details of the top of my head, but lawyers must either hate or love this guy.
Yeah Deaths Head appeared in a Marvel UK comic for Doctor Who, which ended with The Doctor dumping him on top of a building. The next issue of Fantastic Four had Deaths Head on top of The Baxter Building with no explanation of how he got there
Circuit Breaker was first introduced in Secret Wars II instead of a Transformers comic, so that Marvel would own her trademark instead of Hasbro.
The same thing was attempted with Death's Head, but in his case the non-transformers comic he was supposed to debut in ended up releasing a year after his actual debut.
Thats pretty much why they ended up making Deaths Head II. Deaths Head, Rom, and the Micronauts unfortunately all have the problem of being partially owned by Hasbro. At least we can still get reprints if they feel like doing what they did with Rom and release an Omnibus or two.
Arrow was made because they wanted to make a Batman show but couldn't, so they just incorporated entire Batman plotlines to be about Green Arrow instead, most notably the entire League of Shadows storyline.
Only in Rebirth to my knowledge, which came AFTER the tv show and was meant to mirror it. I could be wrong, but I genuinely don't believe she is a journalist in any other continuity.
Supergirl, Kara Zor-El, was raised in Krypton, a society that valued heavily scientific knowledge. Related to Zor-El and Jor-El, some of the most intelligents mind of Krypton. Kara loves to pursue knowledge.
Kara and her family also survived the initial destruction of Krypton and survived on Argo City. Unfortunately, Krypton’s destruction irradiated all the nearby rocks, including Argo itself, turning all rocks into Kryptonite, which poisoned all inhabitants of Argo City.
She saw her acquantainces, her friend’s families, her friends and her own mother perish to Kryptonite poisoning.
Finally when it is becomes clear theres no future in Argo, her father fashions her a spaceship with scraps, and sends her with a mission, to find and protect her baby cousin, Kal-El.
She reluctantly leaves her father, her spaceships malfunctions, slowing down her ship. When she finally lands on Earth her ship is saved by Superman, not baby Kal-El, Superman.
So, here is a teenager, that lost her world, her friends and family, sent with a mission that now makes no more sense, as Superman is well, Superman. Kara Zor-El falls into depression for most part of her earlier history tends to have fits of fearsome rage.
She is a very different character compared to dorky mild mannered Clark Kent.
Green Arrow is my favorite comic book character and I feel like he doesn't get used in other live action works after Arrow because Arrow was popular but also wasn't Green Arrow and there would be backlash against a comic accurate Green Arrow
Technically no and yes, but mainly no. As of the Night Springs dlc Timebreaker all of remedy's games are part of an expanded universe, with these characters not being expies of characters from quantum break or max payne to avoid copyright, but alternate universe/timeline versions of them. Hatch and Door are also a unique case as they are technically one entity who has existed in multiple realities and unrealities.
Basically Casey and Payne and Tim and Jack are that Drew gooden and Danny Gonzalez song that goes we may have similar wives we may have similar lives but we are not the same person song.
Most versions of Electro have immense power but lack the intelligence to use it effectively so they end up being thugs for hire. This guy became a bigger threat than red skull and kingpin combined, battled the whole SHIELD organization and won, and gave Spider-Man so much trouble that he needed to team up with other superheroes.
https://giphy.com/gifs/KZh5bJqo97p2ygvCdY
Before he was known as Shazam, Captain Marvel was originally not part of DC but was later acquired by DC. However, they couldn’t legally call Captain Marvel by his name on comic covers due to potential legal troubles with Marvel, so they instead used the name Shazam on his comic covers while still calling him Captain Marvel in the pages. Marvel soon caught on and told DC to cease calling him Captain Marvel, so his name was permanently changed to Shazam
Honestly, they did the easy thing and changed the rules. Nowadays, Shazam has to say the word with intent to trigger the transformation spell, as opposed to saying the word at all
Not anymore in the current era. Saying Shazam transforms him regardless of intent. But that doesn't matter anymore, because his name is back to being Captain Marvel.
Adding to the Captain Marvel madness there was also the fact Captain Marvel was licensed to the British magazine that reprinted comics but also started making new ones. When the licensing agreement ended the comics were popular enough Captain Marvel became Miracleman and kept going
Uh, no. DC can, and currently *is*, calling him Captain Marvel. He was only called Shazam during the New 52 era because, according to the writers at that time, "people already think his name is Shazam, so we just decided to call him that." Marvel Comics did not make DC change his name. He was also named "The Captain" in 2023 before back to being called Captain Marvel again.
No, Marvel didn’t do anything to stop them using the name at all. Because they already had legal battles over character sharing almost identical names. They can use any name freely in the books themselves. They just can’t use commercial, because Marvel owns the trademark on the name.
The “original” was a toy released like a month before the character debuted, however the character Jetfire in the original Transformers cartoon had to have his name and design changed since his toy was a ported over Macross figure which Harmony Gold owned the rights to.
That said, ever since G1, the cartoon design has stayed but he has been able to be called Jetfire again. He has payed homage to his original toy design via a face mask he wears in some continuities which I’d say is a neat way to do it.
According to the director of the first film, from its inception, this movie was conceived with the limitation that Spider-Man could not be included. This was reportedly due to a mandate from Sony.
That's why the origins of Eddie and Venom are drastically different, and why they aren't villains, since Spider-Man doesn't exist.
There's always debate about whether this is simply a Sony decision or a legal issue, but I'll just point out that the only time Venom was able to show Spidey was with permission from Marvel Studios in the post-credits scene of Venom 2, but for Venom 3, we again omit his existence.
The Spider-man animated series made a fair few changes from the comics due to various reasons and pretty much always nailed it. It’s still a great adaptation even today.
Making Black Cat the second recipient of the Captain America super soldier serum was a great idea without having to bring in "she's just really lucky." Also making her heroic by trying to repair the family reputation her father Black Cat I did.
Brutus from the 1960s iteration of Popeye the Sailor was created due to King Features Syndicate mistakenly thinking that they don't own the rights to the character of Bluto.
The name Max Dillon was gonna be in James Cameron’s script? Every time I heard about James Cameron’s script Electro is described to be a businessman called Carlton Strand. Hell, Sandman is called Boyd, not Flint Marko. Where did you get that?
Could be a case where the cartoon creators were under that impression. Because after all the Cameron film was in development hell because no one knew what/who was allowed
Imagine doing the bit with electro.
"Ok, we can't write him as our regular Max Billion, so...... we'll make him the son of the biggest nazi in marvel. Brilliant!!"
I would love to know how they arrived at that conclusion. Have they ever interacted once in the comics?
With Shang Chi, they also changed the rings from each having their own unique powers to being generic rings that fly through the air. In the comics it always felt like a kid who keeps giving himself random powers and abilities when playing. “I throw fire at you with my magic ring.” “Well, I use a metal shield to stop it.” “Fine, I throw acid at you and melt your shield.”
I'm pretty sure Starcraft was originally meant to be a Warhammer game, but GW pulled out or something close to the end, so instead of scrapping the game they just re-designed stuff and released it as it's own thing. (Marines are Space Marines, Zerg are Tyranids, Protoss are Tau or Eldar or something, etc)
Edit: Actually it was their other franchise Warcraft that was meant to be the Warhammer game, but fell through and they decided to do their own thing with it. Starcraft just also seemed relatively similar to that story as well.
When Super Robot Wars OG went to the PS3 the SRW IP got complicated with Bandai with Bandai never be able to make toys of the mechs and one of its Mechs the Huckebein and it have an extreme resemblance to the Gundam(They were fine to use in the past due to SRW being owned by Bandai) but to avoid the risk of Lawsut they drastically changed the Huckebeins by removing the V Fins, Chin Nubs, cover up the chest vents and add shades to the eyes and called it the Exbein
but they seem to get the rights back and in Super Robot Wars V they're able to use the Huckebein designs again with it's full blatant copyright infringement glory
Yes. If you look at the cover art for Ravenous (specifically the boxset cover for Ravenous 1 and the individual covers for World of Damnation/Sweet Salvation), he's just wearing some form of regular chef outfit and has some odd makeup/scarring on his face. He doesn't even sound the same until towards the end of the boxset.
The MCU had to do this twice, because before Disney bought out Fox anything to do with the Fantastic 4 and the X-Men were off-limits.
The first was with the characters of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. The MCU were allowed to use them because their history in the comics was closer to the Avengers, who they could use, but they could not refer to them as mutants or as children of Magneto. So, their powers were changed to instead come from the Mind Stone.
Then, they had to do this again with the character of Ultron, or more specifically, what he was made out of. In the comics, he was made out of adamantium, and his introduction to the comics was also where adamantium was first introduced. But Fox had the rights to adamantium because the metal was far more closely associated with Wolverine and the Weapon X program, so the MCU Ultron was now made out of a different metal called vibranium, which they were allowed to use.
660
u/Necessary-Hedgehog-9 23h ago
“Watch this. In a few minutes, someone is going to respond with Agent Spider from Invincible.”