No Celebrities Were Harmed / The DCU

The DCU

Comic Books

Comic Books

• Amazing-Man from the All-Star Squadron is heavily based off Olympic athlete Jesse Owens.
• Batman:
  • Batman #252 featured a back up Robin solo adventure where the Boy Wonder saved the life of an entertainer identical to Danny Kaye.
  • The Bat Family Crossover Knightfall had a few.
    • A psychologist shills his book on shows hosted by Harry Mann and Link Rambeau, parody versions of Larry King and Rush Limbaugh.
    • The Riddler takes talk show host Cassie Josie Rudolpho, basically a blonde Sally Jessy Raphael, and her audience hostage.
    • The Joker was shown killing two movie critics after they criticized the movie he was trying to make, but unlike the others no one bothered trying to hide the fact that the unnamed movie critics were basically Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert.
  • In one Chuck Dixon Robin story, the Teen Wonder finds himself rescuing pop star Normandy Shields from a crazy stalker. It turns out she encouraged him in order to get more publicity.
  • Batman: The Dark Knight Returns was rife with these, containing caricatures of David Letterman ("David Endochrine"), Connie Chung ("Lola Chong"), Dr. Ruth Westheimer, and a nameless President that was obviously supposed to be Reagan. The Joker killed Letterman and Dr. Ruth.
  • The original Clayface is an actor named Basil Karlo (Boris Karloff).
  • In Batman Family #6, the first appearance of Duela Dent, the McGuffin is the final manuscript of mystery writer Christine Ariadne, creator of the detective Ulysses Pylate, an obvious reference to Agatha Christie, with a nod to her own Author Avatar, Ariadne Oliver.
  • The Oliver Twists in the 1970 story "Dead Til Proven Alive!" are The Beatles, complete with "Paul is Dead" conspiracy theory, with the twist that Paul's Expy turns out to be the only one who isn't dead.
  • Batman 80-Page Giant 2011 has one story in which the Riddler takes over a quiz show "in which the questions are answers and the answers are questions" called Imperilled!, hosted by Trey Alexander. Mixing things up a little, he also has a Lovely Assistant named Hannah Black.
• Poison Ivy (2022): Issues #10 and #11 feature Gwendolyne Caltrope, the female owner of a company called Glop who claims to be dedicated to improving health and the environment. Her name and company establish her as a not-so-thinly veiled pastiche of Gwyneth Paltrow.
• Death Mayhew from the 1988 Blackhawk mini-series was very strongly based on Errol Flynn: a swashbuckling, Australian actor in Hollywood in the 1930s and 40s. However, Flynn's (falsely) suspected Nazi sympathies are exchanged for Mayhew being an out-and-out Nazi.
• In the 1998 "Flash Family" one-shot Speed Force, the Jesse Quick story involves her trying to meet three billionaires in her role as CEO of Quickstart Enterprises. They are J. Wilmer Tarott, a Texan computer salesman with a line in colorful similes (H. Ross Perot); Ken Cordler, a cable news network owner who has the rights to "every movie on Earth" and uses the latest technology to alter them as he sees fit (Ted Turner); and Jeeko Norlock, a New Zealand media mogul who bought all the newspapers in New York and California to fight "socialist bias" in the media (Rupert Murdoch).
• In the comic book adaptation of The Flintstones, Bedrock's resident all-purpose outer space expert Professor Sargon is clearly modeled after Carl Sagan. There's also a director named Werner Herzrock.
• Green Lantern:
  • During Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams' run the one-shot villains, Joshua and Senator Jeremiah Clutcher, were based on Charles Manson and Alabama Governor George C. Wallace, respectively.
  • In one GL story in Action Comics Weekly, it's revealed that Hal Jordan was one of ten people who Abin Sur considered for the ring. Two of the others were Guy Gardner and John Stewart, of course. There was also Clark Kent (rejected for not being an Earth native) and Dick Grayson. The rest weren't named, but clearly included Archbishop Desmond Tutu, hostage negotiator Terry Waite, Polish activist (later President) Lech Wałęsa, Pope Jean Paul I and someone who is probably meant to be Secret Service agent Rufus Youngblood^note While the others all looked very much like their inspiration, "Grandpa Rufus" was drawn as a stereotyped Native American, presumably because he had a Native-sounding surname.
• Mike Grell has stated that Tyroc from the Legion of Super-Heroes was inspired by actor and football player Fred "The Hammer" Williamson.
• In her original Fawcett Comics incarnation Mary Marvel was visually based on Judy Garland.
• During their run on JLA (1997), Grant Morrison made Plastic Man into a superpowered Jim Carrey.
• New Gods:
  • While on the subject of Jack Kirby, Mister Miracle villain Funky Flashman was a publicity hogging sleazy businessman based partially on Stan Lee. Many fans believe this was a Take That! by Kirby after he left Marvel due to creative differences with Lee. His hapless sidekick Houseroy is probably then Marvel editor Roy Thomas. Flashman's other inspiration is a man who scammed Kirby into drawing several promotional illustrations and then never paid him back for it.
  • Kirby also created Glorious Godfrey as a jab at Billy Graham and the fire-and-brimstone rhetoric he used. he was also used as a middle finger to G. Gordon Liddy and Final Crisis used him as parody of Al Sharpton (and had him resemble Don King, complete with spiky hairdo).
• Prez (2015):
  • Franklin Holyfield, the science adviser to President Ross, is an expy of Neil deGrasse Tyson.
  • Corrupt Corporate Executive Smiley heads a cabal called the Build-a-Burger Group.
• Rorschach (2020) has a really strange and play on this with the Rorschach copycat: a former comic creator named Wil Myerson, who is effectively Steve Ditko in all but name. The metatextual significance of this is that Ditko was the creator of the pro-Objectivist work Mr. A, which Alan Moore lampooned with the character of Rorschach for Watchmen. The fictional Myerson also created his own Mr. A (in this story called "The Citizen") before adopting the Rorschach mantle, metaphorically representing the real-world man becoming like his creation.
• The Spectre: The 24th issue of his third run starts with the Spectre dissuading some teenagers from committing suicide by showing them the image of their idol, Karl Colter, burning in hell after his own suicide. With the initials and being in a rock band before killing himself, Karl Colter is clearly Kurt Cobain (say that five times fast). There's also a bit of Genius Bonus in that Colter's band is named Oblivion, which ties into what Nirvana means (the Cessation of Existence, more or less).
• Superman:
  • Daily Planet reporter, and Clark Kent's bully, Steve Lombard originally was a takeoff of Joe Namath.
  • A story featured various talk shows discussing Lex Luthor's apparent death. These included the sensationalist Ronaldo and the mawkish Susie Jamie Donatello.
  • At around the time Steve Lombard was introduced, the Planet's gossip columnist was Lola Barnett, who was based on real gosspip columnist Rona Barrett (as was Rova Barkitt of Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew!).
  • Superman (1939) #355, "Momentus, Master of the Moon!": This issue came out in 1980, with a villain whose private identity is Dr Asa Ezaak. The villain has glasses, thick sideburns, and has published two hundred books on topics ranging from Astronomy to Zoology. The issue came out the year after noted science fact and Science Fiction author, Dr Isaac Asimov published Opus 200. He's also known for the muttonchop sideburns that "good doctor" Ezaak is drawn with.
• Teen Titans had the Citadel leader Lord Damyn supposedly inspired by real-life dictator Idi Amin.
• Worlds Finest 1941 #248 (January, 1978) revealed that Bruce Wayne's old girlfriend Julie Madison, last seen as an actress under the name Portia Storm, had married the prince of a Medeterranian microstate and was now Princess Portia of Moldacia, obviously inspired by Grace Kelly becoming Princess Grace of Monaco.
• The members of Young Justice used to watch Wendy The Werewolf Stalker, a show created by "Joe Westin".

Films

Films

• The Batman Film Series film series (1989-1997):
  • Mayor Borg from the first movie was clearly a fictional version of then New York City mayor Ed Koch. There's also murdered swimsuit model "Candy Walker."
  • In Batman Returns, Christopher Walken played Max Shreck a lot like Donald Trump. (He also claimed to have based his characterization on Meyer Wolfsheim, a minor character from The Great Gatsby that was itself a No Celebrities Were Harmed version of organized crime figure Arnold Rothstein.)
  • Batman Forever and Batman & Robin had tabloid reporter Gossip Gerty (Elizabeth Sanders, wife of Batman creator Bob Kane) as a send-up of legendary Hollywood gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (although, frankly, she looked more like Dame Edna).
• Reign of the Supermen
  • The film applies Adaptational Job Change to the alter ego of Ms. America, Joan Dale, as instead of a reporter, she's basically "What if Hillary Clinton the 2016 Presidental election?" and is a reference to the original story, seeing as Hillary and her husband Bill Clinton are depicted in attendance at Superman's funeral (as it was during the start of Bill's tenure as President).
  • Speaking of the 2016 election, as has become customary for Lex Luthor, there's a Donald Trump reference as he stands in front of a "Make Metropolis Safe Again" banner.

Live-Action TV

Live-Action TV

• Pennyworth:
  • The show, which is set in an alternate '60s England where the United Kingdom is apparently no more, has a Queen (played by Jessica Ellerby) who physically does resemble a younger Elizabeth II, but it's left ambiguous whether she's meant to be her or not. She seemingly has no children while Elizabeth already had three of them (Charles, Andrew and Anne) by 1960.
  • One man being subjected to a Public Execution is a white-haired rapist and murderer called James Savile.

Video Games

Video Games

• The incarnation of the Riddler seen in Batman: Arkham Asylum is based, most notably in his file picture, on Neil Patrick Harris.

Western Animation

Western Animation

• Batman: The Animated Series: Mark Hamill has said that his performance of The Joker was a mixture of Hannibal Lector and Jerry Lewis.
  • The DC Animated Universe is peppered with this, particularly for Justice League and Justice League Unlimited. Because of the number of voices required with a limited cast, voice actors would break out voice imitations to make a more significant variety. Notably, Michael Rosenbaum's Deadshot was an imitation of Kevin Spacey, and Phil LaMarr's version of Steel was somewhat based on Morgan Freeman. Rosenbaum also gave Ghoul, one of the Jokerz in Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker and an episode of Justice League Unlimited, the voice of Christopher Walken.
  • Batman Beyond: In "Sentries of the Last Cosmos", Eldon Michaels, the creator of "Sentries" was an amalgamation of George Lucas, Gary Gygax, and Bruce Vilanch.
• The Batman's version of the Riddler is best described, visually speaking, as Marilyn Manson wearing a ton of green.
• Batman: The Brave and the Bold's incarnation of the Music Meister seems to be a thinly veiled parody of famous pianists Elton John and Liberace.
• In the first two seasons of Young Justice (2010), G. Gordon Godfrey is basically Bill O’Reilly. In Season 3, he’s Tucker Carlson right down to the cadence.

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