Generation Hope, the comic that follows the exploits of Cyclops’ (The King of Mutants) adoptive granddaughter, Hope Summers. If you’ve picked up an X-Book in the past 5 years, then you know that there are less than 200 mutants left in the Marvel Universe. Thanks to a wish by the Scarlet Witch, mutants were sentenced to an EW conservation-level status. There were to be no more born, that is, until baby Hope was born. There was a war or two fought in her name, and in the end it was Cable, Cyclops’s son, who came to the rescue. Cable, being the time-traveling deus-ex that he is, took Hope to the future, where in real-life time, Hope went from being a baby to a teenager in about 3 years. Anyway, with her arrival into the present and the manifestation of her mutant powers, 5 new mutants (The Five Lights) manifested their powers… But they had no control over their power. It wasn’t until Hope was able to physically touch them, that their powers became controllable to the host. So now, that we are caught up, I can get to my point.
What the hell is Tetsuo doing on the team?
You see, the last of the Lights manifested in Tokyo, Japan. There we find a painter who suddenly loses control of his body, and he starts killing everybody. At some point, he comes across a red curtain or sheet and uses it as a cape. And most absurdly, he fires his arm out at someone, just like Tetsuo in the Akira movie/manga. And yes, his arm is all gross and stuff. Hell, the kid, Kenji Uedo, even has the same haircut. Ultimately, his powers ended up being a little different from Tetsuo, but come on. A X-Men comic was the last place I thought a Tetsuo homage would pop up in. But ultimately, I’m kinda ok with it. I’m sure it could’ve been a lot worse, and its not as if the creators were trying to pass him off as an original design. I imagine that the whole point of the Akira recap was just to get the comparisons out of the way, to get us to accept that yes, they really did just rip off a character. So, at the very least, they get points for being upfront about it.
But this isn’t the only time Tetsuo has popped up in things that aren’t Akira. Gaara from the Naruto (The creator of which has stated to have been influenced a bit by Akira) books got a little Tetsuo-armed from time to time, South Park featured an episode about Eric Cartman’s trapper keeper gaining sentience and eventually assimilating the things around it and Cartman to become the giant blob version of Tetsuo, (This episode also featured a theme that was very similar to the theme in the movie that played during Tetsuo’s transformation). And then there’s the character from King of Fighters 2001 & 2002 named K9999 (pronounced “Kay-Four-Nine) who is another direct copy of the Tetsuo character, even going as far as to be voiced by the very same man who was the original voice actor for Tetsuo. He also has a funky arm move. Todd Ingram, from the Scott Pilgrim series features an attack in the videogame where he has a funky Vegan-Psychic arm attack, just like Tetsuo as well. And I know that there are more Tetsuo clones out there, maybe one day, I’ll make a website that features Tetsuo copy-cats, but for now, I think I’ll go draw my own Tetsuo copy-cat character. But in fairness, all these characters, including Akira’s Tetsuo (whom which he was named for) are based off of another Tetsuo, Tetsuo the Iron Man. But whatever.
-Fleet
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One of my favorite bookstores in St. Louis. Star Clipper offers not only the best selection of comic books and graphic novels in the city, but also a cornucopia of art, design and pop-culture related books and magazines. 
Dunno if your last statement is correct. Both the Akira manga and movie came out before Tetsuo the Iron Man.
Hey, you’re right. I’m not sure what I was thinking when I wrote the last bit of this entry. I know it was late, but that’s not much of an excuse. I stand corrected.