The majority of characters featured in comics are, for the most part, fictional, even if they are inspired by real life personalities. There are of course very famous examples of these: the Marvel characters of Spider Man, Iron Man and Captain America being obvious choices that have become household names.

However, sometimes comic book characters are based on real life people, some famous, some less so. These are usually short cameo appearances, but occasionally go on to make regular appearances, which can be an interested way to follow the lives of these people. Some of those famous people that have been featured in comic books include: Angelina Jolie, who featured in Female Force, Justin Bieber, who featured in multiple editions of Fame, and Taylor Swift, who also featured in several editions of Fame.These latter two took legal action to stop their likenesses from being used.

Here is an in-depth look at some other famous people featured in comics.

Muhammad Ali

Young children often spend hours arguing with friends in the school playground over which superhero would win in a fight with another one. Sometimes these arguments extend into including people from the real world, sports people, criminals, film and TV characters, or even their parents. Whilst some people may have some strong opinions, there is no definitive way of settling these arguments, unless of course there is a comic written about it.

In 1978, the argument of “who would win, Superman or Muhammad Ali?” was settled in #C-56 of DC Comics’ All-New Collectors' Edition. In this story, a species of aliens called “the Scrubb” were invading planet Earth. With countless spaceships in position and ready to destroy our planet, the aliens gave the residents of Earth the chance to avoid total annihilation through a fight between the greatest Scrubb fighter, and ours.

The issue for Earth was that it had two different people claiming to be its greatest fighter: Muhammad Ali and Superman. The pair battled it out to decide who would go on the defend all of Earth’s residents, with Superman being totally destroyed by Muhammad Ali. The latter then went on to fight the alien, of course beating it and thus saving us all. Thanks Muhammad!

Vivian Im

Poker was not the most likely career Vivian could have chosen, but after many years working as a teacher in South Korea, she began playing online in 2008 before going on to win her first tournament just 12 months later. Her story gave unlikely inspiration to the author of a comic called TDG Cartoon, who began featuring Vivian and her story as a professional poker player.

Vivian was quite surprised to been turned into anime, and only found out that she had been featured in a comic when her friend called her up to tell her. However, when the comic became more popular she was contacted by its author and they met to to discuss her poker playing stories. They began working together on formulation of the story, which remained largely fictional, providing a window into the world of poker to people who otherwise may never have heard of games such as Texas Hold’em.

President Barack Obama

The 44th President of the United States of America, Barack Obama has had his fair share of cameo appearances, including singing and dancing performances on a number of TV talk shows.

President Obama also featured in issue number 583 of The Amazing Spider Man back in 2009, shortly before his inauguration to president of the free world. In this issue, the Chameleon appears disguised as Barack Obama and Spider Man must work out which of the two is the real President Elect.

To establish the identity of the real Obama, Spider Man asked a number of questions that only the real Barack Obama would be able to answer. Once his identity has been confirmed, US President number 44 is sworn in without a hitch.

This is not the only appearance of Barack Obama in a comic book, other appearances include Licensable BearTM number 4, Archie Comics numbers 616 and 617, Savage Dragon numbers 137 and 145 and Youngblood number 8.

In conclusion, comics frequently contain cameo appearances of celebrities that you would not expect to make it into such a medium. Some of these famous people don’t take kindly to being included, whilst others embrace their new role and even provide input that helps enhance and develop the story.