DC Characters Based Off Of Real Life People

[Anodyne]

Shortly after the 1960s Batman TV show aired, comic-book Bruce Wayne lost his drawn-with-straight-lines jaw and started to look something like Adam West.

[Güicho]

Superman:

Jerry Siegel - "I loved The Mark of Zorro, and I'm sure that had some influence on me." ..."When writing the script, I had Douglass Fairbanks very much in mind in the athletic stunts that he did too, so the influence of Douglass Fairbanks was not only in the art but in the visual action."

Joe Shuster - "I was a great fan of Douglas Fairbanks, and so was Jerry and I tried to use his stance, the way Douglass Fairbanks looked, ...with his hands on his hips, in Robin Hood and Mark of Zorro, in all those he had those marvelous attitude..." " [His costume] was inspired by the costume pictures that Fairbanks did: they greatly influenced us. He did The Mark of Zorro, and Robin Hood, and a marvelous one called The Black Pirate - Fairbanks would swing on ropes very much like Superman flying... the feeling of action as he was flying or jumping or leaping - a flowing cape would give it movement.

Batman:

Bill Finger - "Batman was a combination of Douglas Fairbanks [who played Zorro] and Sherlock Holmes."

Bill Finger- "My idea was to have Batman be a combination of Douglas Fairbanks [Zorro], Sherlock Holmes, The Shadow, and Doc Savage as well."

Bob Kane -"Zorro’s use of a mask to conceal his identity as Don Diego gave me the idea of giving Batman a secret identity…Bruce Wayne would be a man of means who put on a façade of being effete. Zorro rode a black horse called Tornado and would enter a cave and exit from a grandfather clock in the living room. The bat-cave was inspired by this cave in Zorro. I didn't want Batman to be a Superhero with superpowers…So I made Batman an ordinary human being; he is just an athlete who has the physical prowess of Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., who was my all-time favorite hero in the movies.”

Alter Ego (Roy Thomas) - Bill maintained (well into the 1960’s) a file of Douglas Fairbanks Sr. photo stills. He showed me the file and said that he would attach selected photos to finished scripts for Bob [Kane] and his assistants to use as models. I recognized pose after pose. The stills I saw (and had never seen before that date) were the familiar swinging poses that characterized the Acro-Batman…

Fairbanks was a tremendous consequential influence defining the industry...
There was influence form many places, from mythology to the pulps, etc.
Yet it really is worth emphasizing, how much this one man, the movies and characters he played (while Keaton/Lloyd were more slapstick) Fairbanks essentially invented the action-hero movie for that gen.) helped define what would become two of the most significant characters in comics history. Superman and Batman

And while Lloyd became Kent's alter ego. Fairbanks garnered their hero template.

I know that Bruce Wayne and Superman's appearances were both based off of Douglas Fairbanks,

[Güicho]

Mr Miracle was based on Jim Steranko....

Who besides a comic artist was a practicing escape artist.

And Barda apparently on Lainie Kazan

[Riv86672]

A name, not a look...:

According to comics historian Bill Schelly in American Comic Book Chronicles: The 1950s, DC Comics editor Julius Schwartz, who oversaw the creation of the character in 1956, recalled that the “Flash’s secret identity of Barry Allen was a combination of two show business personalities he was fond of in those days, radio talk-show host Barry Gray and humorist Steve Allen.”

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Darwyn Cookie's Hal Jordan was based upon a young Burt Lancaster

[DrNewGod]

Attachment 101388
Larroca based the characters on real people:
- Starbrand : Josh Holloway (Sawyer from "Lost")
- Justice: Bruce Willis
- Spitfire: Angelina Jolie
(not sure of the others)

The guy with glasses looks a lot like James Cromwell of L.A. Confidential and more than one Star Trek role.

Image.jpg

[CellarDweller]

Wonder Twins powers activate...?
Always seemed obvious, yet was this ever officially acknowledged by anyone in production?

There is an online/digital mag called 'Back Issue', and in issue #38 they have a story called "The Perplexing Popularity of the Wonder Twins", and they discuss the whole Donny and Marie connection. The image you posted above with the dolls is actually used in the article.

You can see it here. Just enlarge the issue and skim through until you find the article. If you look at the page numbers of the digital comic, the article starts on page 59.


https://twomorrows.com/index.php?mai...roducts_id=842

[Timothy Hunter]

Who besides a comic artist was a practicing escape artist.

And Barda apparently on Lainie Kazan

I thought Big Barda's appearance was based off of Jack Kirby's wife, Roz.

[Holt]

There may be some plausible deniability with Rihanna and Katy Perry, but Stewart was so blatantly drawing Lady Gaga that I was surprised editorial wasn't worried about a lawsuit.

[The Darknight Detective]

Ray Palmer was originally modeled to look like movie star Robert Taylor:

[SecretWarrior]

Green Lantern (John Stewart) was originally patterned after Sidney Poitier, but I see him as more of a Denzel Washington.

[Holt]

There was that one Superman villain who was initially designed to look like Noomi Rapace from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.



The final look wound up being drastically different though.

(The New 52 was a hotbed of bad ideas.)

[The Darknight Detective]

Golden Age sidekick Doiby Dickles was modeled after character actor Edward Brophy.

[The Darknight Detective]

... and Asa Ezaak was modeled after my favorite science fiction writer:

[williamtheday]

Golden Age Flash's friends Winky, Blinky, and Noddy are modeled on Moe, Larry, and Curly.