Before One-Punch Man or My Hero Academia existed, the Japanese loved to have their own versions of superheroes. That meant taking an already existing and established western superhero, drawing another version of him or her, and then maybe putting a spin on their origin story or straight-up changing who they are, including their alter egos.

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This was especially true for the most popular western superheroes. It was also either comic book publishers or license owners' attempts to expand to the Japanese market. The partnership was more or less bizarre in the eyes of anyone who's used to the original versions of these superheroes. Here are 10 of them that most comic book fans never had manga or anime versions.

10 SPIDER-MAN

Being one of Marvel's flagship superheroes, Spider-Man just had to have his own manga in Japan. This Spider-Man's cultural crossover to manga dated back as early as the 1970s where his Japanese version had quite a few big changes from his Silver Age era counterpart.

Instead of Peter Parker, it was Yu Komori who got bitten by the radioactive spider. The manga Spider-Man notably killed his enemies, namely Electro and The Lizard. They do die by his hands unintentionally and the manga had darker subject matters compared to the US Spider-Man.

9 SPAWN

Speaking of dark, Spawn is one of the most brooding antiheroes around and even he became popular enough to have his own manga. That version is also called Spawn, except the person behind the mask or Hellspawn suit is different and of course, Japanese.

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It's called Shadows of Spawn and follows the Hellspawn transformation and struggles of street thug Ken Kurosawa. Apparently, he became a Hellspawn the same day as Al Simmons from the US and their stories even have parallel events and highlights.

8 THE HULK

It's not really hard to miss the Hulk in every culture or country — he's big, loud, and the best fictional representation of anger issues. Oddly enough, Hulk's rage wasn't the defining feature of his Japanese version, but it was his tendency to cry.

This one follows a Japanese parallel to Bruce Banner named Dr. Araki, who became the Hulk because of gamma radiation from a disastrous bomb test. Dr. Araki was also a Hiroshima bombing survivor. This makes his Hulk sadder than the American one, leading to crying sessions after realizing he has hurt humans due to his anger.

7 WONDER WOMAN

Now on to DC, turns out they have their fair share of superheroes who got the Eastern treatment. Wonder Woman had a transient trip to Japan as well in a rather brief cliffhanger of a one-shot called Justice League Origins: Wonder Woman.

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Shiori Teshirogi was the author and artist responsible for this one and it explores a more kawaii take on Wonder Woman but still retains her Amazonian qualities. Don't expect much of it, it's only a few pages short.

6 BATMAN

Batman does whatever he pleases and his Japanese version also shares this antisociality. Back in the 1960s, manga author Jiro Kuwata got the green light to adapt Batman for the Japanese audience. The result was a wacky take on the Dark Crusader.

As always, it wasn't just Batman who made his crime-fighting career interesting, but also his enemies. His enemies in the manga were more hilarious and more eccentric than in the US version.

5 IRON MAN

Mr. Stark doesn't necessarily have his own licensed manga version but rather an insert of himself in another intellectual property, namely Space Brothers. That one is a slice-of-life manga/anime about two brothers who dream big of becoming astronauts.

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One of the brothers, Nanba Mutta, was doing some routine work in orbit during a crossover short story when Iron Man flies in to escort him back to Earth for some tickets to Hawaii — it's an Avenger-level task apparently. Mutta did muster up the confidence to ask Tony to share his technology with him for easier space travel. Tony didn't, that's him alright.

4 WOLVERINE

Japan already came to Wolverine in many of his movies and his comic books so it's only appropriate for him to come to Japan. Turns out he was one of the most popular superheroes and mutants in that country.

Stories like Wolverine: Snikt! and Wolverine: Prodigal Son paint the short-fused fan-favorite X-Man in a youthful and funkier light. They did keep Wolverine's ferocity and angst intact and because of those, he fit right into the manga medium.

3 BLADE

Blade anime Sword

The Blade TV series was an anime but for the sake of inclusivity, it will be included here. Besides, the Blade anime was made by the legendary Kenta Fukasaku, the man responsible for the highly influential Battle Royale.

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Blade is a mini-series consisting of only 12 episodes and follows the vampire hunter's exploits in Japan. He's very much the same character in the comic books and movies and even chases the vampire responsible for his mother's death.

2 WITCHBLADE WIELDERS

Witchblade is one of the most daring comic book titles of the 1990s and helped establish women as antiheroes. It was popular enough to appear in several crossovers with Spawn and even Japanese iterations of the material.

Apart from the weird ecchi anime Witchblade, there's also a manga that tackles the Witchblade weapon. This time around, it had a younger host— a high school girl who lives in a Buddhist convent. One can probably guess what the undertones and themes are because of that.

1 X-MEN

Apart from the Wolverine, it seems the rest of the X-Men are also in-demand in Japan. It had an anime featuring the all-star mutant power-players and even a cute manga called X-Men: Misfits. Fitting.

Dave Roman, an American comic book writer, even supervised the whole thing. X-Men: Misfits is different from its source material, to say the least. It takes a more laid-back slice-of-life school approach where the X-Men are just young teenage students who, apart from their raging hormones, must also wrestle with their developing mutant powers. At the center of it all is Kitty Pride.

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