This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Ununnilium: Note that Ambrose Bierce was a real person. Is this one the same as the historical personage, or is it just somebody else with the same name? `.`
Filby: I believe that he was a fictionalized version of the real person, done up to look and act exactly like the Hellblazer. He was from Phil Foglio's Stanley and His Monster, which came out shortly after Constantine was shipped off to Vertigo-land.
Paul A: My recollection is that DC definitely owned Plastic Man at the time the Elongated Man was created, it's just that the writer in question hadn't heard about the acquisition. I'm sure I've seen him having an "If only I'd known" moment in an interview somewhere.
Ununnilium: I believe I've seen the same.
Yoshi348: Does anyone have a date on that literary example, to see if it qualifies this entry for The Oldest Ones in the Book?
Gus: The Solar Pons collections were first published over the period 1928 to 1968.
Chrome Newfie: I might be able to go you several eras better. I recall Greek mythology which indicates a flight to Egypt of the Greek Gods, in forms and with domains that imply that the Egyptian gods were just Greek ones in disguise, or vice versa. The reference is Pears Cyclopaedia 1962, so it may be hard to correlate....
Harpie Siren: I'm not so sure about Egypt's gods, but the Greek and Roman gods are basically the same gods....
Ununnilium: The "Egyptian gods are Greek ones" is a now-mostly-discredited archeological theory, and the Greco-Roman pantheon isn't quitethe same thing.
Arakhor: The Romans just absorbed the Greek gods, like they did with so many other cultures, and identified them with their pre-existing pantheon. The Roman myths are much more hero-centred though, with barely any original divine-level stories.
Burai: Static wasn't a Captain Ersatz of Black Lightning — he was part of the Milestone comics launch. In that universe he fills a niche more often compared to Spider-Man than anything else.
HeartBurn Kid: Read the entry again; it doesn't say that Static is a Captain Ersatz for Black Lightning. It says that another character on Static Shock, Soul Power, was.
Paul A: Read the edit history; it did say that, before Burai edited it out.
HeartBurn Kid: Oops, sorry, didn't realize that.
Webrunner: does Deadpool being heavily originally based on Deathstroke count? (Leifeld created Deadpool for Marvel directly after working on Deathstroke for DC). Also, apparently there was one superman/batman annual that has Deathstroke acting like deadpool (and is drawn like deadpool in the pencils!)
Ununnilium: Good point; I'll put in a note.
Dinobottm2: Nobody mentioned Miracleman and Moon Knight yet?
Danifesto: Someone deleted my Marvelman edit, hopefully by accident. It's back now...
32_Footsteps: Okay, hopefully, that clears up the Expy/Ersatz issue. I'll now go curl up in a corner and mumble something about rather similar tropes.
Luffy is not a Captain Ersatz of Goku. He's more of an Expy, since he's inspired by Goku.
32_Footsteps: Please read the trope descriptions. Expy only applies if the same creator created both characters. Akira Toriyama created Goku. Eiichiro Oda created Luffy. They cannot be Expies. And given that Oda did acknowledge the influence of Goku when making Luffy, he's a clear Captain Ersatz.
Yeah, but Oda didn't intend on making him a Goku clone. If he was a clone of Goku, he would be a Captain Ersatz. He is just a Shout-Out to Goku.
copycatzero: Thoughts on an entry for Yue Ayase being one of Patchouli Knowledge? The TouhouWiki entry for Patchy mentions the existance of the rumor, and Embodiment of Scarlet Devil does beat Negima! by about 6 months, but I don't think there's been any sort of official comment one way or the other.
Arima Reiji: Mini-rant - doesn't the whole concept of Tropes blow a giant hole in many of the claims here? You know, the notion that because there's nothing new under the sun, almost every work will have a lot of commonalities with other works?
Absent Word of God, discussion in a trade publication, or widespread speculation (i.e. a lot more than just "I had this idea and I think people might agree" or "I heard someone say on a de facto forum"), it's over-reaching to say that "XYZ is a copy of ABC because they're both male, in high school, good-looking, and tall! That's four traits in common, so obviously it's specific enough to eliminate at least 50% of all other characters from fitting the exact same description."
