Even though the second season wasn’t nearly as good as the first season, Heroes is still one of my favorite television shows. I’m just drawn to shows and movies that involve people with superhuman powers and this could be because I was brought up watching Saturday morning cartoons and playing action-packed video games.
I remember my initial reaction to Heroes was that it was a virtual clone of other franchises like Fantastic Four and X-Men. The parallels with the latter are particularly pronounced and the more I watch Heroes, the more I see that it has in common with X-Men.
The Heroes season premiere took place on Monday and that episode further drove the point home. Peter Petrelli talks about a future where those with abilities are persecuted, hunted, used, abused, and slaughtered. That sounds a lot like the world depicted in the X-Men universe, don’t you think, where mutants are chased after and treated like threatening animals. Let’s go through a few Heroes characters that have obvious parallels or counterparts in X-Men.
Let’s start with an easy one. The main character of Heroes is arguably Claire Bennet. She was the focus of the entire first season — “Save the Cheerleader. Save the World” — and she happens to ahve a pretty powerful ability: she can regenerate. Burn her, cut her, and break her bones and those injuries will heal right before your eyes. Given this ability, it’s reasonable to assume that she will live forever. While it seems that her regenerative ability is more powerful, Claire Bennet is pretty much the same as Wolverine (Logan). She just happens to be prettier and to have a more cheerful personality.
Although he doesn’t realize it right away, police officer Matt Parkman from Heroes has the ability to read the minds of other people. After encountering his father, Nightmare Man, he also learns that he has the ability to plant thoughts and influence the behavior of others. This is exactly like what Charles Xavier, better known as Professor X, can do. I wonder if Parkman was hooked up to Cerebro, would he gain Molly’s ability of finding anyone in the world too?
Much like the first example, the outward appearances of this pair could not be more different, but their respective abilities are virtually identical. Peter Petrelli has the ability to gain the superhuman abilities of other people. This is what Rogue (Anna Marie) can do as well, but Peter happens to be more powerful than that. Rogue has to touch the person and the power absorption is temporary. Petrelli, by contrast, just has to be near the person and the power absorption is persistent. He can activate these powers at will (with a little practice).
Mohinder Suresh was one of the very few main characters in the Heroes cast to be without a superhuman power, but that changed with the arrival of the third season. We’re not completely sure about the extent of his powers just yet, but his superhuman strength and agility is right in line with Beast. I initially compared Mohinder to Blanka from Street Fighter, but the similarities to Beast are much more striking. They can both hang upside from ceilings, they both happen to be intellectuals and scientists, and they’re both pretty hairy.
Some other pairings between Heroes characters and characters from the X-Men universe include the following:
- Bob Bishop (bald Company head) as Alchemy: Transmutation
- Brian Davis (killed by Sylar) as Jean Grey: Telekinesis
- Candice Wilmer (false morphing) as Mastermind: Mental illusions
- Dale Smither (killed by Sylar) as Banshee: Superhuman hearing
- Daniel Linderman as Archangel: Heal others (Archangel needs to provide blood)
- Daphne Millbrook (new character) as Quicksilver: Superhuman speed
- D.L. Hawkins (Niki’s husband) as Shadowcat: Phasing/running through walls
- Elle Bishop (Kristen Bell) as Bishop: Electromagnetic blasts
- “The German” (level 5 prisoner) as Magneto: Manipulate magnetic fields
- The Haitian as Leech: Power negation
- Hiro Nakamura as Nightcrawler and Cable: Teleportation and time travel
- Isaac Mendez (painter) as Destiny: Precognition (see the future)
- Jesse Murphy (level 5 prisoner) as Banshee: Sound manipulation
- Maya Herrera as Plague: Disease spreader
- Meredith Gordon (Claire’s mom) as Pyro: Fire manipulation
- Molly Walker as Professor X with Cerebro: Find anyone by thinking about them
- Tracy Strauss (new Niki) as Iceman: Cryokinesis (freezing)
I didn’t mention Nathan Petrelli (flight) or Niki Sanders (superhuman strength), because those powers are pretty common. Niki is a little different, seeing how she has a split personality (only “Jessica” has strength). I’ve listed her season 3 personality (Tracy Strauss) above. I’m not really sure what to do with Micah Sanders and his technopathy. Forge, maybe?
Have you noticed any other parallels between the two franchises? Would it be fair to compare Noah Bennet to William Stryker? Share your thoughts through the comment form below.
I haven’t seen much of X-Men or read any of the comics, so I don’t know how any comparisons fit.
As a general comment, there is discussion I’ve seen online over whether Tracy Strauss is really an alternate personality of Nikki, or if she might actually be Jessica, the real Jessica that has been presumed dead.
Other people have picked up on other scenes from the season premiere that have been seen elsewhere. Did you ever see Farscape? There was an episode where Crichton was playing chess with Harvey, who only Crichton could see.
And, what about Mohinder and The Fly with Jeff Goldblum?
And, with future Peter and the strings, they seem to be rehashing season one a bit.
Right after Mohinder got his powers I thought to myself… “smart scientist? agility and strength? he better not be hanging from the ceiling…”
And what do you know, grow some fur and you’ve got yourself a law suit NBC!
No Mohinder at all this week.
At least they somewhat explained the Nikki Sanders / Tracy Strauss connection, even if it did open more questions.
Claire seems to be going down a dark path, as we saw in the future in the first episode.
A little bit better this episode was, but still seems to be going in a lot of different directions. You can see things coming together faster, maybe, so perhaps they learned their lesson in trying to juggle too many storylines.
The future that Peter comes from is ripped straight out of every single alternate future universe that the X-Men have gone through, most glaringly the famous Days of Future Past storyline (mutant concentration camps, Sentinels…).