Although it is a well-known fact that the Walt Disney Company now owns the majority of Marvel Comics characters, there are a few that are still under the banner of other companies, most notably Spider-Man and his associated characters. One of the lesser-known group of characters that Disney did manage to get a hold of was the Big Hero 6 team.
Made into a computer-animated adaptation in 2014, Big Hero 6 chose to go in a similar route to many of the Marvel Cinematic Universe films, taking the general plot structure and characters while injecting them into an entirely original story. While this means that some aspects of the film are accurate to the source material, there are many others that are very different to the comics it was based on.
10 Its Close Ties To The X-Men
As X-Men was one of the few franchises Disney couldn't get a hold of at the time of Big Hero 6, this aspect of the superhero group was largely left out. Two members, Sunfire and Silver Samurai, both have close ties to Professor X and Wolverine respectively, with Silver Samurai making an appearance in the Wolverine centered film appropriately titled The Wolverine. While Big Hero 6 did have the Stan Lee cameo that had come to be expected by every other Marvel film, it chose to leave out this aspect of the superhero group from its story and focus more on the science fiction side of it.
9 Tadashi's Absence
One of the driving points in Hiro becoming a part of the titular superhero team was the death of his brother, Tadashi. His death, along with learning that someone may have been purposefully responsible for it rather than the accident it appeared to be, was responsible for the bulk of the plot of Big Hero 6. That's not the case in the comics as Tadashi is entirely absent from the comic's story, though Hiro does have both a mother and father in the comics instead.
8 Hiro's Beginnings
As Tadashi isn't present in the comics to instigate Hiro's turn to become a superhero, his backstory is a little different from the film. Following the formation of Big Hero 6, the Japanese government sees potential in Hiro becoming the latest member of their superhero ground, so they send Silver Samurai to try and convince Hiro to join.
While this doesn't work at first, he is eventually convinced to join the team after his mother is kidnapped and he resorts to requesting the help of Big Hero 6 to get her back. After Silver Samurai and Sunfire left the team, he would later go on to become its leader, not unlike in the film.
7 Baymax's Origins
While Tadashi's inclusion in the story of the film allowed for a more personal reason for the creation of Big Hero 6, it also meant that several aspects of characters needed to be changed. Most notably of these was the origin of Baymax, the medical robot created by Tadashi in the film. In the comics, Baymax was actually created by Hiro, rather than the microbots he made in the film, and was developed as a bodyguard rather than a medical assistant.
6 Baymax's Design
Another aspect of Baymax that had to be changed, largely because of the fact that it was a Disney film, was its design. Called Monster Baymax in the comics, he is capable of shapeshifting into any form he chooses, though will often take the form of a large humanoid when not in combat. When he is fighting, he will change into a monstrous dragon or mecha form that would be significantly more terrifying to watch on screen than the marshmallow in red armor that was made for the film.
5 Robert Callaghan
Another character that wasn't a part of the comics, but was a central part of the film, was Robert Callaghan. The main antagonist of the film, who used his influence and the power of Hiro's microbots to try and rescue his daughter, has no real comic counterpart. Considering the addition of Tadashi as well, he was likely created to maintain the personal touch of the film's story compared to the more outlandish plot points of the comics.
4 Fredzilla
Fredzilla is one of the whackier characters in Big Hero 6, which is saying something when there are also characters like Honey Lemon, who uses a purse capable of creating nearly any chemical substance, and Go Go, who is essentially Mumen Rider but better equipped for fighting crime.
In the comics, however, this strangeness is turned up to eleven, since Fred can actually turn into a kaiju. He may only have a suit that can leap tall buildings and breath fire in the film, but in Fred's comic origins, he has the power to transform into a massive monster that puts Godzilla to shame.
3 The Setting
While the film could have simply made the story of Big Hero 6 take place in Japan likes its comic counterpart, the movie instead creates a fictional city called San Fransokyo. While there is a clear reference to the source material here, as well as Hiro and Tadashi's clearly Japanese names, it also means that it is detached from the real world somewhat, which other comics will do from time to time.
2 The Far More Ridiculous Storylines
The story of the film is a fairly good science fiction romp, with the majority focused on robotics technology and failed attempts at teleportation, but the comics are significantly stranger. Most notably, some of the bigger Big Hero 6 storylines involve the ghosts of the victims of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings and a monster born from children's drawings that can change its form and shape at will. While these stories are right at home in comics, they are a little too out there for most films to tackle.
1 The Entire Premise
The formation of Big Hero 6 was almost exclusively to stop Callaghan from abusing Hiro's microbots for his own personal gain, but the comics took a very different approach to how the hero team was formed. Under the command of the Japanese government, a group of superheroes was formed with Silver Samurai as its leader in an effort to prevent various criminal and superpowered activities in the country, with no ties to Hiro until after the group was already formed.