Clones in comics have become a tried and true method of either bringing back long-thought dead characters or introducing powerful dark versions of our favorite characters, usually with the hopes of switching up the status quo to boost sales on the title.
Marvel and DC both have a fair share of clones running around their respective comic universes, so we wanted to take some time today to focus on a few of the most powerful clones we've seen from the Big Two comic companies.
10 MARVEL: X-23
One of Marvel's most popular and powerful clones is the young mutant known as X-23, which is a reference to the experiment number that created her in an attempt to clone the X-Men's Wolverine.
Having failed to create a viable clone of Logan normally, they attempted to create a female version and succeeded, though they quickly lost control of their weapon. And while X-23 recently discovered she's less of a clone and more of a daughter, she remains one of the deadliest heroes in the Marvel Universe.
9 DC: SUPERBOY
Following the iconic Death of Superman storyline, four new heroes resembling Superman appeared to carry on for the fallen hero, with the young Metropolis Kid revealing he was a clone of Superman created by Cadmus Labs.
What fans didn't know immediately was that the clone who would become Superboy was actually created using two DNA donors - Superman and Lex Luthor. Superman still took young Superboy under his wing as Kon-El/Conner Kent, who recently returned to DC's continuity in Young Justice.
8 MARVEL: GENESIS
Wolverine and his team of Uncanny X-Force hoped to end the threat of the eternal mutant Apocalypse forever, though it resulted in the murder of a youthful version of Apocalypse at the hands of Fantomex.
However, unbeknownst to the rest of the team, Fantomex cloned the child he murdered and raised him away from the evil Clan Akkaba, resulting in young Evan Sabahnur/Genesis, who shared the same abilities as his "father" and a Celestial suit of armor, though he was trained with the ideals of the X-Men instead of Apocalypse.
7 DC: HERETIC
The villain known as the Heretic first appeared alongside Talia al Ghul and her Leviathan organization in the pages of Batman and Robin, though it wasn't revealed until much later that the hulking warrior was actually a clone of Damian Wayne/Robin.
After Damian chose to stay with the Batman instead of Talia, she created a clone of Damian that was grown inside of a whale and experimented on while his aging was accelerated, making him incredibly powerful and virtually unkillable, as shown by his recent reappearance in Teen Titans after being decapitated.
6 MARVEL: MADELYNE PRYOR
Marvel's mad geneticist Mister Sinister has experimented with cloning for years, as proven by his constant cache of Marauders or his own Sinister clones he goes through, but he also created one of the most potentially powerful clones on the planet.
Madelyne Pryor is a clone of the X-Men's Jean Grey that also contained a sliver of the cosmic Phoenix Force's power, though she was also corrupted by dark demonic energies that turned her into the Goblin Queen, which made her a universal threat in some alternate realities.
5 DC: BIZARRO
There have been a few different versions of Bizarro over the years, though in almost all cases post-Crisis he is a failed clone/duplicate of Superman created by Lex Luthor who is the Kryptonian's mirror image in almost every way, including the way he speaks.
Bizarro shares all of Superman's powers though he exhibits them in different ways, with flame-breath and freeze-vision. There are also a number of other Bizarro-versions of heroes and villains that live on Htrae/Bizarro World which now exists in its own multiversal reality.
4 MARVEL: OTTO OCTAVIUS
Thre are quite a few cloned characters from Spider-Man's corner of the Marvel Universe thanks to Miles Warren/Jackal, who created the Scarlet Spiders' Ben Reilly and Kaine Parker, along with numerous Gwen Stacy clones.
However, when Reilly took on the Jackal namesake and began creating his own clones, he enlisted the aid of Otto Octavius/Doctor Octopus, whose body had died though his consciousness lived on in a clone. Octavius managed to create a powerful new clone body for himself using his and Peter Parker's DNA that he paired with his technological genius to become the Superior Octopus.
3 DC: DOOMSDAY
While Doomsday's post-Flashpoint origins have changed slightly, the original Doomsday was an experiment to create the ultimate lifeform, which he did by accelerating evolution through repeatedly killing and cloning a living being so it would adapt to any possible danger.
The countless violent deaths and repetitive cloning created the monster known as Doomsday who inevitably turned on his creators to unleash his rage on the universe, and eventually, Superman, resulting in The Death of Superman storyline.
2 MARVEL: STEPFORD CUCKOOS
The Stepford Cuckoos were powerful telepathic quintuplets with a hive mind named Sophie, Esme, Celeste, Mindee, and Phoebe, though after the deaths of Sohpie and Esme they became the Three-In-One and continued to work alongside the X-Men.
It was later revealed that the Cuckoos were actually clones of Emma Frost created by John Sublime and the Weapon Plus program with the goal of killing all life on the planet with a massive telepathic assault.
1 DC: JUSTICE LEAGUE 3000
DC's New 52 reboot introduced a new possible future in Justice League 3000 that featured a new team of heroes who had been cloned from the original members of the Justice League, though they weren't exactly perfect replicas.
Nor were they exactly clones, as it was eventually revealed that the process used to create the new League members was actually a serum that overwrote a volunteer's body with the genetic code of the hero, which was responsible for the differences in the characters and reduced abilities, though they were still incredibly powerful.