For those not in the know, I work at a graphic design studio, where we primarily deal with branding for small businesses. My boss is an avid fan of shonen anime and various superhero media.

My boss, Antonio, loves these genres so much that he wants to create his own series and publish them online. To this end, he has created a YouTube channel to promote his "work."

AMAZINGLY, despite the overall laughable production quality of his videos and his general lack of any concrete information about anything other than how super cool his characters totally are, his channel isn't getting any attention that doesn't come from paid bots.

This is a good thing, because, to be honest, his ideas are pretty much all blatant ripoffs of existing series and characters.

Any attempts to bring this to Antonio's attention are met with insistence that they're totally unique and interesting enough for fans to fall in love with them, really.

Antonio's most recent video is about The Mighty Blue Tornado, his attempt at crafting a superhero universe on par with Marvel and DC. This video is an hour and two minutes long.

So far, I've made it about a third of the way through this video. Aside from being every bit as amateurish as the rest of his channel (it's filmed using a laptop webcam, shows a cluttered mess behind him, and Antonio frequently stumbles over his words, rambles, and repeats himself), every single plot element introduced so far is lifted straight from Marvel.

wait. these are just. vids where he explains things?

DC also gets stolen from later on.

Multiple times throughout the video, Antonio pauses to insist that he isn't plagiarizing, that his characters are totally unique, and besides, DC and Marvel used to copy each other's characters all the time, so what he's doing is perfectly fine.

So, to make a long story short (too late), I'm going to catalogue all the times Antonio was "inspired by" existing series and characters, as well as the ways whatever changes he did make just don't work.

To start, there's his main setting: Peachtree City, which he claims he created to serve as his answer to Gotham. PTC is a major city located in the Southern US.

So basically, Atlanta. The problem is that Peachtree City is a real place; it's an upper-middle class suburban area right next to Fayetteville, where our office is located.

Antonio does not acknowledge its existence in the video. So right off the bat, he's managed to steal from real life. We're off to a great start already, folks.

Then there's the star of this series, the Blue Tornado himself.

Stop me if you've heard this one before, folks: a guy visits a lab where a specimen of a certain critter with venomous properties is being studied. This critter bites the man, and due to its uniquely altered nature, the man is endowed with the same capabilities as the critter and goes on to become a superhero.

But Jon Marsh is no Peter Parker. A former Marine turned private detective, Jon was bitten by a pufferfish that had been exposed to toxic waste some careless mad scientist had dumped in its habitat.

So does Jon gain the ability to inflate his stomach and swell up to deter predators? Of course not, that's just silly!

Instead, he can now create tornados, just like the pufferfish can thanks to its exposure to the toxic waste.

And if you're about to say something about how pufferfish are poisonous, not venomous, then congratulations! You have done more research than Antonio ever has on this subject. Well done.

Now that Jon has gained superpowers, it's time for him to become part of a bigger universe. Joe Flame, head director of a global security organization called DETS, soon arrives to personally recruit Jon for a team of superheroes he's been putting together: The Association.

Any and all resemblance to the stinger of the first Iron Man movie is entirely coincidental. Honest.

Unlike the SHIELD Helicarrier, the central command post of DETS is located in a submarine called Helios. (Don't ask me why an underwater vessel is named after a sun god.)

tbh this sounds like really...mediocre superhero fanfic

Because surely all the personnel and equipment needed to run such an operation can easily fit inside a narrow metal tube, even if it is a teeny bit longer than the largest submarines on the planet.

How do they intend to send agents out on missions from deep under the sea without any sort of smaller craft that can independently leave the larger command vessel?

How can the submarine quickly receive and transmit information at a moment's notice if radio waves travel poorly through salt water?

Your guess is as good as mine, because Antonio sure hasn't given any answers.

Now, DETS stands for Deviation, Evolve, Tech, Skill, which represents the different types of superhumans they look out for.

Deviations (pronounced with a "deh" sound because Antonio is an idiot) are people who are born with their powers, aka Mutants.
Evolve is for people who started out as normal humans but gained powers through some change to their DNA, like the Fantastic Four.

Tech is self-explanatory, like Iron Man.
Skill is for normal people who are just really, really good at martial arts or weaponry, though apparently you can also have the power to, say, regrow a lost limb and still fall under Skill. Somehow.

Oh yeah, and they also monitor aliens, but I guess they just weren't important enough to make the acronym.

could've had the acronym be DEATS and said like deets

But Deviations might not know how to responsibly control their powers. They may feel scared and alone and in need of an accepting community that can help them learn--a school, perhaps.

Such a school is run by a guy named Darius (named after Antonio's former business partner who split off from him over a year ago, something Antonio still doesn't seem to fully realize.)

Now before you start to say this sounds suspiciously like the Xavier Institute, it's totally different. Really. Honest.

So Darius buys a mansion to use as his school--and this is as far as I got before needing to hit pause and walk away. Again.

And yes, Karu. These are just videos where he (badly) describes his characters and their powers. Because who cares about things like plot when you have super badass fighters who beat each other up all the time?

He called the aliens something dumb like Solars, iirc.

This is Antonio's entire MO: steal plot or character elements, change a few cosmetic details, then claim the result is his own unique creation.

A 14-year-old on DeviantArt (oh, sorry, "DehviantArt") in a middle-aged father of two's body. Original characters, do not steal.

And as an additional moment of fail, he posted a sock puppet comment praising his own video... only he did it in the most inept way possible.

Try and spot where he screwed up.

I told him it's obvious what he did and makes him look like a tool (not in those words, obviously), but he still hasn't taken it down.

you just don't understand his genius!!!

he's got endorsements from big names like SEXY BABES

and Asian Girl

Oh, how silly of me to forget!

How strange that his loyal fans haven't commented on his latest masterpiece, though...