Did you know that Christopher Nolan based his screenplay for Inception on a Scrooge McDuck comic? Were you aware that James Cameron got the idea for The Terminator by ripping off a few Harlan Ellison short stories? Cameron might have gotten away with the unacknowledged plagiarism if he hadn’t shot his mouth off about it an interview around the time of the film’s release.

Inspiration can be found in the most unexpected places. Take for instance the upcoming summer 2015 blockbuster Avengers: Age of Ultron. The titular villain is a robotic menace (played by James Spader) originally created by Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) to serve as a global peacekeeping program so that he and the other Avengers can breathe a little. When Ultron becomes self-aware and declares that the human race is the real enemy Earth’s Mightiest Heroes must come together to save the world from the horror that Stark has inadvertently wrought.