Tuesday, June 26, 2012

How Harry Potter Stole Everything from the X-Men



Its a bold statement, I know, but as The X-Men have been around since 1963 when Stan Lee created the group consisting of Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Beast, Iceman, and Angel. Since then they've been fighting a world that hates and fears them. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was released in June of 1997, thirty four years later after Stan's book had been up and running. In fact in the 90's The X-Men were really at their highest comic book popularity Did author J.K. Rowling take some ideas from minds of Marvel? Lets take a look at the similarities.



Both books take place in schools.




While most super teams are in their lairs, satellites or headquarters the X-Men have always operated out of a school. The Xavier's Institute in West Chester New York has been housing the team since the very beginning. 


Harry Potter of course is the story of a young boy becoming a wizard at Hogwarts school of Wizardry. Now there are a lot of stories about schools, so this might be a stretch, but both schools had students who were gifted with powers.


Professor 


In Harry Potter the great wizard Dumbledore is the headmaster of the school and of course everyone in the group runs around calling him Professor. Over in West Chester the X-Men school we also have The Professor running the group and being in charge of the group and helping them with their missions.


The Main Character


Lets break down the two main characters from both books.


Harry Potter - Lost his parents, has to wear glasses, has great power and incredible potential to be the best ever. He's a personal friend to the Professor, so close that he thinks of him as a son. He's known as the chosen one and he was the one to take down his groups greatest enemy Voldermort. 


Scott Summers/Cyclops - Lost his parents, has to wear glasses, has great power and incredible potential to be the best ever. He's a personal friend to the Professor, so close that he thinks of him as a son. His son was the chosen one but he in fact was the one to take down his groups greatest enemy, Apocalypse. 


The Women


Hermoine Granger - The brains of the group, confident, strong and relies on her brain to be able to save the day. She had to leave her family and muggle parents behind to become a wizard and realize her power and potential, not a red head, but fair haired.


Jean Grey - The one with mental powers of the group, confident, strong, and of course relies on her brain to be able to save the day. She too left her family whom had no powers to become a wizard and realize her power and potential, not fair haired she's actually the ginger of the group.


The Best Friend


Ron Weasley - Ron is a bit cowardly but always there for Harry, he comes from a family a wizard and has the family knowledge of the history of the Wizarding world. He's an athlete, but he's also a goof who tends to get into more trouble than he helps out with.


Beast and Iceman - Ron Weasley is actually a combination of these two, the brains of beast with the goofball of Iceman. The intelligence of Beast combined with the great potential power of Iceman and both were always there for Cyclops and their team.


The Greatest Enemy


In the world of Harry Potter there is one ultimate enemy who's goal is to destroy everything and recreate the wizarding world and bringing death to all the muggles, Voldermort. He has vast incredible power, seems to be unable to be killed until all his parts are destroyed and has his personal group of Death Eaters at his disposal to do his evil bidding. 


In the world of X-Men we have Apocalypse, possibly the first mutant ever who's goal is to destroy the world and kill all the humans on the planet and let the mutants rule over everyone. He has vast incredible power has been around forever and has his own group of personal minions The Four Horsemen to do his bidding. 


The Enemy/Friend?


From the start in Harry Potter it had seemed that Professor Snape was a bit villianous, but being a teacher he also seemed to be working with Dumbledore and being an ally. Even when it looked as though he turned on the group and was the greatest enemies ally, he was in fact working for the greater good all along. Snape is powerful, smart and always condescending with a tone of superiority. 


From the very start for the X-Men, Magneto has been a man who has constantly challenged them. Magneto's past made him someone who never wanted to be controlled by a group of people ever again, you understood why he was a villain, even if you didn't agree with his ways. Magneto was even headmaster of the Xavier Institute, a teacher to them he did go back to being a villain but now he's one of their most powerful allies. He's powerful, smart and yes he too seems to always speak with a condescending tone of superiority.


Was J.K. Rowling inspired by the stories of marvel's mightiest mutants? Was the group of people born with power who were constantly feared by the flatscans of the world the inspiration of the wizards conflict with the muggles?


I'm a fan of both books and both worlds, well I'm a far bigger X-Fan than I am a Potter head in fact here's another great fact that ties the two together. I've seen every movie for both X-Men and Harry Potter but I haven't read every book for both. (But I've probably read more pages of X-Men than I have Potter)