10 Real-Like Superhero Counterparts

Copyright 2016 by Gary L. Pullman

Lately, superheroes have adopted additional alter egos, as admirers don their masks and costumes.

Although people may identify themselves as well-known superheroes to generate publicity for themselves or for other purposes, some men and women do seem both to resemble and to have, to a limited extent, some of the same abilities or technological capabilities as the characters after whom they name themselves.

Often, they have enhanced their natural abilities through intense, extended exercise and practice or by means of thorough research and development. Their training grounds may be gyms or streets, and their laboratories may be their garages, but these would-be superheroes often succeed in maximizing their own natural powers or in designing devices similar to those of the superheroes who use them. Others simply have their courage and their passion to help those in trouble or who are victims.

These are 10 real-life superhero counterparts.

10 Batman: Chris Banner

Part athlete, part inventor, and part detective, multimillionaire BruceWayne is a Renaissance comic book superhero whose powers come from within. After witnessing a mugger's murder of his parents, Wayne became Batman, dedicating his life to fighting crime. 

One of the Caped Crusader's biggest fans, Chris Banner, admits he's a bit batty. Obsessed, some might say. He's absolutely devoted to all things Batman. “Everything I have is a bat,” he confesses. “All my tractors have bats; my trucks, bats. Socks, underwear, you name it. I’m bat.” He even wears a Batman costume while he “patrols” Gotham City (actually, his hometown, Valley Center, north of San Diego, California). His Batmobile is a refurbished, 6.7-meter (22-foot) fiberglass 1947 Ford Galaxy (another report says it's a 1970 model), complete with a smoke generator. 

His “favorite TV show,” as a boy, he says, was Batman (1966-1968). Now, at age 49, Banner shows up at parties and charity events, driving his “Batmobile” and dressed in one of his four authentic-looking Batman costumes. The money he makes from paid appearances as Batman goes toward the purchase of new costumes. His appearances at charity events are always free. In 2014, he made a terminally ill third-grader's dream come true. The boy had expressed his heartfelt desire, through the Make-a-Wish Foundation, to ride in Batman's Batmobile. Banner made the youngster's dream a reality, driving him in the Batmobile while the boy operated the smoke generator and flipped lighted switches on the car's dashboard.

9 Captain America: Steve Voglezon

A patriot and a World War II soldier, Steve Rogers was injected with an experimental serum which enhanced his natural abilities. Embedded in ice, he was “left for dead,” only to awaken “years later” to resume his “never-ending battle for liberty.”

U. S. Army Captain Steve Voglezon doesn't dress as Captain America, except for a T-shirt emblazoned with an image of the iconic superhero. There's no doubt that his military training and his heart help him to emulate the costumed crime fighter. Recently, the captain happened upon a car crash in North Carolina. The driver and a passenger of one of the cars were pinned inside burning wreckage. Displaying his heroic nature, Voglezon didn't hesitate to assist. After “witness John Spurrell helped one of the accident victims get clear of the scene,” he videotaped Voglezon as he dragged one person a safe distance from the fiery car and then returned for the other. This time, he had to “force his way” into the vehicle to rescue the victim. “We're all called to do what we have to do,” he said. 

8 The Flash: Jamie McDonald

Like other superheroes, Barry Allen, the original Flash, has astonishing powers. He's especially quick on his feet. Nicknamed “The Fastest Man Alive,” The Flash can run at speeds approaching that of light (299,338 kilometers, or 186,000 miles, per second). He can also run up the sides of buildings, “across oceans,” and even “around the world.” His powers enable him to fight crime and prevent others from suffering the same fate as his mother, who was killed by a murderer who was never brought to justice.

British adventurer Jamie McDonald, age 27, who sometimes wears an outfit similar to The Flash's costume, doesn't run anywhere nearly as fast as The Flash, but his stamina certainly approaches that of the comic book superhero. He ran 8,047 kilometers (5,000 miles) across Canada “without a support team.” His marathon run took 12 months and raised ₤150,000 ($194,910) for charity. Voters on Facebook and Twitter chose his costume for him. His run wasn't uneventful. He suffers from tendinitis. He “permanently injured his foot.” He encountered temperatures of -40 degrees Centigrade (-40 degrees Fahrenheit). However, Jamie (“Flash”) McDonald has overcome worse: He “suffered from a debilitating immune deficiency and potentially fatal spinal condition syringomyelia as a child, spent the first nine years of his life in and out of children's hospitals and ran to raise funds for SickKids Foundation, Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity and the Pied Piper Appeal.” That's quite a superhero.

7 Green Arrow or Hawkeye: Lars Andersen

Green Arrow and Hawkeye are both superb archers who use their prowess with bows and arrows to fight crime.

Once a “spoiled billionaire” who was “completely self-absorbed,” Oliver Queen became a different person after he was left to die on an “desolate remote island.” Surviving by the skills he developed with a bow and arrow, he later took up the cause of justice, assuming the identity of Green Arrow.

Orphaned at a young age, Clint Barton ran away with his brother Bernard, and the boys joined The Carson Carnival of Traveling Wonders. When Clint caught his mentor, The Swordsman, counting stolen money, the robber “left Clint for dead after his protege fell from the high wire.” Clint survived, however, left the carnival, and ultimately joined the superhero team known as The Avengers.

If ever Green Arrow or Hawkeye needs someone to fill in for him, Lars Andersen would probably be his go-to guy. A master of “ancient archery practices” and a superb stuntman, he can do things only superheroes can, such as catching an arrow in mid-flight or firing multiple arrows at the same time. “His skill set is tremendous,” says Byron Ferguson, owner of the Bare Bow Archery School and star archer on the History Channel's show, Extreme Marksmen. Able to shoot three arrows in succession within .6 seconds, Andersen holds the world's record for speed. He shoots under one knee, shoots while kicking himself off a wall, shoots arrows as rapidly as if he were fanning a six-gun, shoots on his knees, shoots over barriers, shoots targets while spinning, hits beverage can pull-tabs in mid-air, shoots with his hand and foot, shoots targets on the fly, shoots left-handed or right-handed, and performs many other amazing archery feats. He always hits his target, dead center, whether the target is a traditional circle with a bull's eye or human silhouettes. 

6 Hulk: Sajad Gharibi

Subjected to gamma radiation while rescuing a teenager during an explosion that occurred during the testing of a new bomb he'd “designed for the U. S. Defense Department,” Dr. Robert Bruce Banner found that, when stressed, he transforms into the Hulk, a huge, green-skinned, muscle-bound “engine of destruction.” Once hunted by General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, the Hulk was pardoned by the president and later joined the superhero team known as The Avengers.

A 24-year-old Iranian weightlifter, Saja Gharibi weighs in at 350 pounds, and it's all muscle. He's known as the “Persian Hulk,” because his physique closely resembles that of the superhero Hulk, and Gharibi sometimes paints his skin green so he looks even more like the comic book character. He may not be more powerful than a locomotive (he's not Superman, after all), but Gharibi can lift more than his own weight: an impressive 386 pounds, in fact. Like the Hulk, Gharibi aspires to become a fighter. He hopes to become the next World Wrestling Entertainment "superstar."

5 Magneto: Nikolai Kryaglyachenko

After seeing his family killed by the Nazis, Max Eisenhardt married a Gypsy woman named Magda, and they had a daughter, Anya. “When his family were trapped in a burning house,” Eisenhardt, a mutant, discovered his magnetic powers, which allow him to control metal, unleashing them on the hostile crowd of normal humans who interfered with him. Fearing another holocaust, he became a staunch opponent of normal humans, forming a team, The Brotherhood of Mutants, whose nemeses were another group of mutants, the X-Men, led by Magneto's one-time friend, Professor Charles Xavier.

Although he's certainly not villainous like the X-Men's mutant arch-enemy Magneto, Nikolai Kryaglyachenko, age 12, definitely has a magnetic personality. In fact, he's pretty much a human magnet. How he came by his powers is worthy of a comic book story line. After shocking himself when he leaned against a lamppost on his way home from school, Kryaglyachenko found metal objects stuck to him. At home, other metal objects, including coins, a dropped spoon, and a nearby glass, stuck to him. While he can't command magnetism like Magneto, he's young yet. It's good he doesn't share the evil mutant's ambitions to conquer the world.

4 Mr. Fantastic: Jorge Ivan Latorre Robles

During “a rushed test flight of an experimental spacecraft,” the crew on board, Reed Richards, Ben Grimm, Sue Storm, and her brother Johnny, were bombarded with cosmic radiation, which transformed them into The Fantastic Four. The members each developed super powers. Richards is able to stretch his body to incredible lengths and to contort it into amazing configurations. Bullets and other objects are engulfed in, or bounce harmlessly off, his elastic body.

JorgeIvan Latorre Robles' resume might list some abilities similar to those of The Fantastic Four's leader, Mr. Fantastic. Robles can stretch his skin, dislocate his joints, and pop his eyes. He has Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a condition which makes his skin loose and exposes him to injury and sun damage, but it also allows him to perform as La Chicle the Clown, a role that earned him a place in the Ripley's Believe It or Not book Eye-Popping Oddities.

3 Spider-Man: Patrick Priebe

Bitten by a radioactive spider during a field trip, Peter Parker acquired the arachnid's abilities. He is able to climb walls, cling to ceilings, and leap great distances. He has a sixth sense he calls his “spider sense” that alerts him to unseen dangers. He also possesses superhuman strength. A genius, he devised a “web-shooter” that fired strong, gossamer strands of webbing that stuck to virtually anything but would disintegrate an hour or so later. He'd seen his Uncle Ben killed by a robber, and he'd vowed to do all he could to prevent additional innocents' deaths at criminal hands. He fashioned a distinctive costume, and Spider-Man was born.

Like most superheroes, Spider-Man has his own way of getting about town. His alter ego, Peter Parker, is quite an inventor, and he put his skills to work to create a web-slinging device he wears on his forearms, under his costume. The press of a button causes a super-sticky web to streak from the nozzle of his device, allowing him to ensnare villains or use strands of the webbing to swing from one building to the next.

Inventor Patrick Priebe has created a similar “web-shooter.” His “homemade” electromagnetic device shoots “fishing line out of a wrist-mounted coil,” retracting it through the same gadget. The line is attached to a tiny “brass-tipped” harpoon, which embeds itself in Priebe's target. To better direct his aim, Priebe can project a laser beam onto his target before pressing the button that activates his web-shooter, something that never occurred to Parker or something that, perhaps, Spider-Man, with his heightened senses, doesn't need. 

2 Thor: Allen Pan

One of the Norse gods, Thor grew arrogant because of his great strength. When he “broke a truce” with the gods' enemies, the Frost Giants, almost starting a war, his father Odin, “stripped him of his hammer, his powers and memories” and banished him to Earth as a mortal, “crippled medical student Don Blake.” Blake became an accomplished and compassionate surgeon. Visiting Norway, Blake fled into a cave to escape invading aliens and found a cane. When he “struck the cane against a boulder, he transformed into Thor, while the cane became Mjolnir,” the god's hammer, and he joined a group of superheroes, The Avengers.

No one can lift the mighty Mjolnir but Thor himself. The same can be said for engineer Allen Pan's hammer. He created a version of the comic book superhero's hammer that, once it's set on metal, only Pan can lift. The secret's in the hammer's handle, which contains a “touch sensor . . . connected to a solid state relay.” Essentially “a switch that turns on the electromagnets in the hammer's head whenever anyone touches the handle,” the touch sensor-relay turns off the electromagnets only when a “fingerprint sensor embedded into the handle” allows the “hammer's programming” to recognize Pan and then turn off the electromagnets, allowing him to lift the hammer.

1 Wolverine: Colin Furze

JamesHowlett is a mutant and a member of The X-Men. He has unbreakable adamantine claws which, at will, he can extend and retract from his hands, between the knuckles. After leading a group of superheroes known as Alpha Flight to rescue a team of mutants known as The X-Men from their captor, “an island-being known as Krakoa,” Howlett, now calling himself, Logan, decided to join them.

Colin Furze has invented a pair of the hand-claws. Unlike Wolverine'sclaws, though, Furze's aren't made of adamantine, nor do they extend and retract into his own hands. Furze's versions are .30-meter (12-inch) long and stainless steel. Connected by wires to a backpack containing the electric motor that powers them, each set of claws is mounted to a sled-like apparatus worn on either forearm. By pressing a button, Furze causes the claws to shoot forward; another press of the button makes them retract. Running forward, with his arms stretched out before him, claws extended, Furze looks as impressive as Wolverine. Although Furze's claws may not cut through steel, the way Wolverine's do, they make short work of cardboard and watermelons and definitely could be hazardous to one's health.