After purchasing Marvel for billions of dollars it was a bit of a surprise that the first property Disney adapted was the obscure comic Sunfire and Big Hero 6. The original comic bares little resemblance to the 2014 Disney movie, and is kind of crazy. After reading the original it’s hardly surprising the Disney has altered so much, after all, there really isn’t a place for the ghosts of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear attacks in a movie for kids.
Bringing Back Dad and Fighting A Radioactive Ghost
In the Disney movie Baymax is an adorable, soft and gentle robot that could melt anyone’s heart. In the comics he is a shape shifting robot that switches between being a butler, complete with bowler hat, and a badass dragon. Oh, he is also the reincarnation of Hiro’s dead father who is secretly in love with Hiro’s mother because she has no idea that her dead husband is now a dragon. The rest of the big Hero Six team is made up mostly of of X-Men characters and a cute blonde whose superpower is carrying around a purse. She is pretty amazing though as her purse is kinda like Felix the Cat’s bag-o-tricks where she can pull anything out of it that she can think of. It’s like the Clueless version of Green Lantern. Things get rough for Big Hero 6 when the mysterious Everwraith shows up and kidnaps Hiro’s mom. The Japanese superhero team sets out to save the day only to find out that Everwraith is the spectral form of all the Hiroshima and Nagasaki victims. He then goes on to tell the quirky team of dragons and purse girls that his master plan is to turn one of them into a nuclear bomb and nuke Japan. His great idea is to nuke Japan because he feels that the original nuclear attacks did wonders in unifying the country, which made them more progressive. Perfect material for a kids film.
The More Things Change, the More They Stay The Same
It’s hard to understand why Disney chose to adapt this particular property, and even stranger still when it has very little in common with the source material. The comic is strictly focused on Japan and firmly set in Tokyo while the Disney movie is really just Avengers junior. 
What’s even stranger, and raises some historical questions, is what the hell is San Fransokyo? The movie is obviously set in America, but did the Japanese take over? Did they win World War Two? How did the world of Big Hero 6 come to be? Why is Baymax so lovable? Unless Disney moves into some dark directions these questions will never be answered. They didn’t throw out everything though, they kept the name Hiro and Baymax and kinda, sort of, kept the two female characters. Honey Lemon is by far the most similar thing between the two stories. In the comics, just like in the movies, she’s an upbeat, blonde with big heels who uses her purse to dispense justice. In the comics though, her purse is a straight up, super powerful item with no real limits put onto it, and Hiro is obsessed with her. Gogo in the movie is known as Gogo Tomago in the comics, and while she’s got a chip on her shoulder in both, her power in the panels is her ability to transform into force energy which allows her to move, and attack, incredibly quickly. TJ Miller’s stoner character and Wasabi are nowhere to be seen in the comics, and their positions on the team are filled by Silver Samurai and Sunfire of X-Men fame. Hiro’s still a boy genius, but in the comics he is super arrogant, super rich, and loves to wave a gun around. Their the perfect team to take on the fused together souls of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Big Hero 6 is a great kid’s movie and full of imaginative settings and characters, but the comic is really a completely different beast. Every Marvel fan out there owes it to themselves to read this interesting and short-lived series. It’s definitely not for kids.
– Ian Benke
Worried Nerds 