Scottish illustrator Matt Cowan explains the origin of some of your favourite characters be they from TV, film, or comic books. Cowan illustrates them in a minimalist way and uses simple arithmetic operations, such as subtracting an eye to create a series of blind super heroes, or adding a cricket bat and a shadowy pharmaceutical company to his Zombie Maths series.

Cowan’s pop culture math equations add up to awesome. See them after the jump.

Avengers Maths

Batman Maths

Blind Maths

Doctor Maths

Star Wars Baddies Maths

Zombie Maths

See more of Cowan’s clever math at deviantART.

[via Shortlist]