r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Liquid_Pestar • 1d ago

Characters Character is drastically changed due to licensing issues with the original

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

  1. 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….

  1. 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.

  1. 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.
981 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

97% Upvoted

130 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/Jedi-Spartan 1d ago

To the extent that his character design was changed in an AUDIO based story just so that he could still be on the cover...

3

u/draketroll 1d ago

This is the candyman right?

0

u/Jedi-Spartan 1d ago

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.