9 Great Superhero TV Show Characters Who Weren’t From The Comics

From Arrow and Daredevil, to The Flash and Jessica Jones, the bumper crop of superhero TV shows around right now are bringing a whole host of comic book characters - both familiar and obscure - to life. Sometimes, though, the reams of source material out there just isn't enough and the writers decide to create their own characters and add something new to the mythology. Surprisingly, these guys frequently end up being more vibrant characters than the ones taken from the page. It’s a trend that goes back a long way. The 1960s Batman TV series asked DC Comics to create them a new female crime-fighter to assist Batman and Robin – the result was Barbara Gordon AKA Batgirl, who has since become a core member of the Bat-family. Interestingly, this is mostly a technique of DC television, though Marvel shows have done it, too. Just look at Firestar in the old Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends cartoon, or X-23 in the more recent X-Men: Evolution. Here, you'll find 9 of the best superhero TV show characters that are original to the medium. If you have another one to add, be sure to let us know who we missed out in the comments section down below. 9) Coulson And His Team (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) From the off, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was intended to be a show about the heroes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe who didn’t have superpowers or fancy costumes. As such, most of its main characters don’t hail from the comics and are instead original to the screen. Obviously, Phil Coulson is the first one that comes to mind. A brand-new character created for Iron Man, Clark Gregg’s chirpy everyman secret agent was so popular that he just kept coming back in the films – until he was killed off in The Avengers. Still, even that didn’t stop him and he jumped ship to TV land shortly after. Some of his S.H.I.E.L.D. co-stars - like Daisy “Quake” Johnson (known as Skye for the first two seasons) and Bobby “Mockingbird” Morse - might be pulled from the comics, but the majority certainly aren’t. For instance, Melinda May, Jemma Simmons, Leo Fitz and Grant Ward are all terrific characters but are not based on any pre-existing person on the page. These guys are now the faces of S.H.I.E.L.D. though, turning the mostly anonymous organization of the movies (excepting Nick Fury, of course) into a group of legitimate heroes. 8) Chloe Sullivan (Smallville) Over its ten year run, Smallville brought pretty much the entire DC universe to TV - including everyone from Green Arrow and The Flash to Booster Gold and the Justice Society of America. That said, it wasn't happy to simply take from DC mythology without adding a little of its own. One of the biggest characters in the show was a Smallville original - Clark's best friend, Chloe Sullivan. Originally created to add some diversity to the cast, Allison Mack impressed the production team so much that they changed their plans (instead, Pete Ross was made African-American, as played by Sam Jones III). It's easy to see why, too, as Mack’s charm and comic timing made Chloe a fan-favourite character. Beginning the show as a sort of proto-Lois Lane – an aspiring journalist with a crush on Clark – Chloe grew into a valuable asset in Clark’s early crime-fighting career. In many ways, the one-liners and tech support she offered mark her out as a precursor to the likes of Arrow’s Felicity, The Flash’s Cisco and Winn from Supergirl. In fact, while the comics characters came and went, Smallville couldn’t do without Chloe. Apart from Tom Welling, obviously, Mack was the only main cast member to remain so across all ten seasons. 7) John Diggle (Arrow) Back in Arrow’s first season, the writers wanted Oliver to have a right-hand man, someone who could have his back in his quest to save his city. The only problem was there was no equivalent character in the comics. Undeterred, they just made one up. Named after comic book writer Andy Diggle, army vet John Diggle began the show as Oliver’s bodyguard and grew to become his crime-fighting partner – the very first member of the extended Team Arrow. Through his marriage to Lyla Michaels, Diggle was also a key player in one of the most interesting features of Arrow’s early seasons - ARGUS and the Suicide Squad. His own superhero career as Spartan – complete with Magneto-like helmet – looks to be over, but he'll surely continue to be a big part of the series going forward. As well as being a tough, dependable guy, Diggle is also a great source of dry wit and David Ramsey is a delight in the role. Not to mention that he's one of the most fun crossover characters, thanks to his inability to function around metahumans. 6) Sara Lance (Arrow/Legends of Tomorrow) Arrow is in fact full of original characters, including Thea Queen/Speedy and Tommy Merlyn. Even Felicity Smoak is basically a new character, despite the fact that she borrows the name of a very minor figure from Green Arrow comic history. The one who has made the most impact on the show and the Arrowverse as a whole, though, is Sara Lance. So much so that she has trumped a version of a classic comics character. Sara is a slightly tricky one as both of her superhero alter egos do exist in the comics – Black Canary is obviously a long-running DC hero and White Canary is a minor villain. However, the character herself is original, so she counts here. Trained by the League of Assassins, the highly-capable Sara was notably the first person to suit up as The Canary on the show. Her sister, (Dinah) Laurel Lance is, of course, Black Canary in the comics, but it is Sara’s version who's almost universally preferred by the fans. Unsurprisingly, then, Sara was spun off into Legends of Tomorrow, where she gets to travel in time and space. Laurel, meanwhile, is dead. 5) Joe West (The Flash) Family is a big theme in The Flash and, as if to emphasize this, Barry Allen has numerous father figures – his real dad Henry Allen, his dad’s doppelganger from another Earth Jay Garrick, his science hero who turns out to be a supervillain (just go with it) etc. The one who feels most like Barry’s actual father, though, is Joe West. It’s a little surprising, then, that he is completely original to the show. On the one hand, Joe fulfils that old superhero trope of the detective ally e.g. Commissioner Gordon, Captain Lance or Maggie Sawyer. On the other, he's the beating heart of the show. Always there for Barry when he needs advice and someone to believe in him, Joe is Barry’s rock and probably a big reason why he's The Flash in the first place. Besides all that, Jesse L. Martin is just so darn loveable in the role, making us feel like we all want Joe to be our dad. 4) Lionel Luthor (Smallville) One of the joys of Smallville was its portrayal of a very different Lex Luthor to the greatest criminal mind of our time that we all know and love to hate. As brilliantly played by Michael Rosenbaum, Lex began the show as Clark’s best friend. But in his place, the show needed another big bad. The answer was Lionel Luthor, Lex’s manipulative father and a completely original creation. In the sense of providing an explanation for how Lex would turn out, Lionel is a neat narrative device. Just as Clark gets his sense of right and wrong from the Kents, Lex inherits his father’s amorality and lust for power and wealth. More than that, though, Lionel is a terrific character on his own. Played with charm and a streak of steel by John Glover, Lionel goes through many changes across the show, but his core nature as a callous man and a terrible father remains the same. Once Rosenbaum and Glover bowed out of the regular cast after season 7, Smallville lost a large part of its appeal. Still, at least Lionel’s influence on the Lex Luthor legend is still being felt. In Batman V Superman, we got echoes of Lionel when Jesse Eisenberg’s Luthor hints that his father was an emotionally and physically abusive man. 3) Harrison Wells (The Flash) From the off, Harrison Wells has been one of the most fascinating characters on The Flash. In season 1, he was seemingly Barry’s benevolent disabled mentor but was really Eobard Thawne AKA Reverse-Flash AKA The Man in Yellow AKA the murderer of Barry’s mother. That persona is, of course, The Flash’s arch-enemy in the comics, but Wells himself is all-new for television. And, it has to be said, a more significant part of the show than Thawne is. What's great about Wells is the show’s knack for keeping him fresh and unpredictable, by serving up a slightly different version of the character each season. After Reverse-Flash was defeated, the Earth-2 Harrison Wells – and his daughter Jesse – shacked up in STAR Labs to help the gang stop Zoom. After Barry has changed the timeline, another new incarnation arrived in season 3. It makes for a unique character and Tom Cavanagh has to be commended in the role(s), as he plays each Harrison with subtle differences but still makes them feel like the same person. We now couldn’t imagine The Flash without him. 2) Terry McGinnis (Batman Beyond) Bruce Wayne is Batman - that is the one constant of the franchise. However, it turns out that Batman isn’t always Bruce Wayne, as the Batman Beyond animated series dared to imagine. In this fan favourite follow-up to the already beloved Batman: The Animated Series, we catch up with Gotham several decades in the future, where it is now a Blade Runner-esque sci-fi metropolis. With Bruce Wayne now an elderly recluse, someone else must take up the mantle of the Dark Knight to protect it from a new generation of villains - wayward teen Terry McGinnis. What's great about Terry is how different he is from Bruce Wayne. Clearly inspired by Peter Parker, he'll quip and make puns at his enemies whereas Bruce would be stoic and silent. Again like Spider-Man, he has to juggle his nighttime life with his everyday existence. e.g. catching the bad guys without missing a date with his girlfriend. In many ways, he's a more relatable character than Bruce and we still hope to see him in a live-action project at some point. 1) Harley Quinn (Batman: The Animated Series) Speaking of Batman: The Animated Series, that show created several characters who would go on to become comic book fixtures e.g. GCPD officer Renee Montoya, supervillain Lock-Up and Nora Fries (the tragic wife of Mr. Freeze). However, only one broke out of the TV series, into the comics and slap bang in the middle of popular culture. Naturally, we're talking about the one, the only, the infamous Harley Quinn. The Joker had had henchman and the odd sidekick before, but the addition of Harley in BTAS explored the character in a whole new way. Here the arch-villain actually had someone who cared for him - would it melt his cold, clownish heart? Of course not. Instead, it added another notch to his evil bow – domestic abuse. But it is Harley herself as much as her relationship with the Joker that her millions of fans worldwide have fallen in love with. Harley might be totally insane, but she's always unapologetically herself, which made her an instant feminist icon. Margot Robbie might have made quite an impression in Suicide Squad, but it'll take a while before BTAS’s Harley - complete with jester outfit and Arleen Sorkin’s shrill Brooklyn accent - is no longer the definitive version of the character.