EOIN COLFER’S FICTIONAL supervillain Artemis Fowl II features at third place in a new Forbes’ list of the richest fictional creatures on Earth.
Fowl, the 15-year-old who usurped his namesake father as the head of a notorious crime family, is a master technological whiz-kid as well as one of the world’s top forgers – and boasts the highest IQ of any child in Europe.
Though his most favoured creation is a palm-sized computer that can read any type of digital data, Fowl’s real wealth is derived from a side project created under the assumed name of ‘Mark Zuckerberg’.
His creation, a social network (you may have heard of it) called ‘Facebook’, has seen its value explode in the last twelve months – seeing Fowl’s wealth skyrocket, with his total wealth rising from $1.9bn last year to $13.5bn this time around.
The riches of Dublin’s teenage progeny pale in comparison to that of list-topping mining tycoon Scrooge McDuck, whose penny-pinching ways and mineral ownerships have seen his wealth increase to a massive $44.1bn.
That volume of wealth would put McDuck – best known for his escapes with his nephews Huey, Dewey and Louis in Disney’s DuckTales – fourth in Forbes’ parallel list of real-life billionaires, with only Carlos Slim, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett boasting a greater wealth.
Fowl’s own wealth, meanwhile, is marginally ahead of Irish-Indian building tycoon Pallonji Mistry – whose $8.8bn wealth puts him at the top of Forbes’ real-life Irish list, well ahead of Denis O’Brien on $4.2bn.
One surprise inclusion in the list is Stephanie Meyer’s immortal vampire Carlisle Cullen, 370, who is now worth $36.2bn – simply by having banked a small amount in 1670 and watching the interest pile up ever since.
Richie Rich, at fourth in the list with a net worth of $9.7bn, loses his title of ‘world’s richest child’ after investments into fashion (“oversized bow ties”) and transportation (“diamond-encrusted scooters”) didn’t work out.
The Beverly Hillbillies’ oil magnate Jed Clampett comes fifth in the list, with the increasing price of oil sending his net worth to $9.5bn.
Among the names to drop off the list are Arrested Development’s Jucille Bluth, who is in jail awaiting an embezzlement trial, and Jay Gatsby whose assets have apparently being seized as part of an investigation into tax-evasion.
The Tooth Fairy has also been dropped from the list, after her inclusion last year prompted significant outcry from younger Forbes readers who disputed her inclusion in a list of fictional characters.
The Forbes Fictional 15, in full:
- Scrooge McDuck [Disney]: mining and treasure hunting, $44.1bn
- Carlisle Cullen [Twilight novels]: compound interest, investments, $36.2bn
- Artemis Fowl II [Artemis Fowl novels]: theft, forgery, Facebook, $13.5bn
- Richie Rich [Richie Rich novels]: inheritance, $9.7bn
- Jed Clampett [The Beverly Hillbillies]: oil and gas, $9.5bn
- Tony Stark [Iron Man]: defence, $9.4bn
- Smaug [The Hobbit]: marauding, $8.6bn
- Bruce Wayne [Batman]: inheritance, defence, $7bn
- Mr Monopoly [board game], property, $2.6bn
- Arthur Bach [Arthur films], inheritance, $1.8bn
- Jo Bennett [US version of The Office], electronics and inheritance, $1.2bn
- C Montgomery Burns [The Simpsons], energy, $1.1bn
- Chuck Bass [Gossip Girl], property, $1.1bn
- Gordon Gekko [Wall Street movies], investments, $1.1bn
- Jeffrey Lebowski [The Big Lebowski], inheritance, $1bn
