I’ll open with that of Bouncing Boy. The tale is a veritable ode to laziness, incompetence, & stupidity. Given the simple task of dellivering a bottle of super-elastic fluid, Chuck Taine manages to drink it instead, and gains the power to become a human beach ball and…well, that’s it.
Bouncing Boy is a lad clearly adored by Zeus. There’s no other explanation for this guy being married to this girl, especially given the obvious possible uses of her powers.
That’s fantastic. The exposition of the gladiator match is just terrible! And the “good thing he’s wearing expandible clothing!” line is the icing. Someone on the boards is a huge Legion fan - I hope he checks in and tells me why these early stories are good, or if he reads them for the kitch value. (Okay - I’ve collected the recent Waid run of Legion, and enjoyed it. I like the entire concept of the Legion. Just wondering where this takes off.)
You want good origin stories, stay away from the Legion.
Chlorophyll Kid, fell into a plant growing solution.
Color Kid, hit by a ray from another dimension.
Colosal Boy, radioactive meteorite.
Fire Lad, gas from a meteor.
Invisible Kid, potion.
Lightning Lad, shot by a lightning beast and given some of its powers “like an infectious disease”.
Sun Boy, thrown into a nuclear reactor.
Ultra Boy, swallowed by a space whale.
Not to mention a bevy of, “everyone on my planet has this ability” heroes. Is you’re planet hot? Why evolve the ability to project cold and ice of course!
Sprock - Chuck was who I was going to mention. I love him, but his origin is just…just…nass.
There’s a few real gems in the Legion, to be honest. Ultra Boy getting his powers by being swallowed by a ‘space whale’ is my favourite aside from Chuck. (To make it better, his real name is Jo Nah. I didn’t get that one for YEARS.)
Those are my favorite, because they’re basically describing immigration as a superpower. There’s a whole planet full of Triplicate Girls. The only reason she’s a superhero is because she left home.
The worst – Kid Flash.
Now, the silver age Flash’s origin was pretty classic: police scientist Barry Allen is working late when lightning hits a cabinet of chemicals, drenching him and giving him superspeed powers.
For the Kid Flash, Allen’s nephew Wally West is visiting his uncle in the lab when lightning hits a cabinet of chemicals, drenching him and giving him superspeed powers.
Even in comic books, the unlikelihood of the exact thing happening with not only the lightning, but the exact same chemicals in the exact same proportion strains disbelief.
DC later came up with some explanation that both events were caused by some supernatural creature, which reduced the unlikelihood but increased the ridiculous factor by several hundredfold. The creature has never been referred to again.
BTW, I read the early legion stories and enjoyed them. But comics were written for a different audience at the time and people were far less cynical about their superheroes. Bouncing Boy’s origin wouldn’t have bothered anyone at the time.
It seems like the mack-daddy of all origins is Batman. Ever since the Dark Knight comic book, the focus has all been on his traumatic origin and how every day of his life has revolved around it. But it is a cool origin, especially since it explains how this non-super powered guy got so badass.
Batman’ origin story I think is the best: young boy sees parents killed in a robbery and vows to fight crime. Does.
Superman’s is also great: last son of a dead world grows up on Earth and protects it.
The Flash’s however is incredibly lame: scientist is bathed in chemicals as a lightning strikes him, develops super speed, dresses up in red costume and becomes crime fighter. It’s still better than golden age’s Flash, however, whose powers were acquired by drinking heavy water IIRC.
In a different note, Wolverine is probably the superhero with the greatest number of different origin stories.
I’d mention Hawkman, but I’d have no idea where to begin.
Isn’t Wolverine’s LIFE one big Origin Story?
I gotta say, SpiderMan had one of the better origins too back in its day- the whole bitten by a radioactive creature thing, it’s been done to death by now, but back then that was some great stuff- a nerdy shy guy who becomes a wisecracking superhero? Sheer genius (the first time)!
And Batman’s isn’t bad either.
Pft, Hawkman and Wolvie aren’t nothin’.
Power Girl - hell, she had at least a half dozen all introduced in a single issue, with no real indication which was correct! (None were…her original has since been restored.)
Even Donna Troy still isn’t sure what the hell her origin is.
Boy Bitten by Radioactive Spider Dies of Leukemia
Most superhero origin stories, other than “train like a mo-fo and spend truckloads of money,” are crap. You just have to willingly buy into the crap to get to the exciting stories of honor, courage, and beautiful people in spandex.
Exposure to excessive radioctivity produces super strength, not sickness and death. Random genetic mutations result in telekinesis, invulnerability, or beautiful plumage.
There’s always Black Condor, whose power of flight comes from his having been raised by condors. He then assumes the identity of a United States Senator who conveniently looks exactly like him and is assassinated.
I always loved how ridiculous that aspect of Wonder Woman’s origin was, too. Wow, a woman who looks exactly like me who is literally willing to sell me her identity for a handfull of cash!
My favorite might be Captain America. He puts his life on the line for some bonkers experiment all because he wants to serve his country.
Fumes from hard water. Evidently there was some scientific basis for this at the time; something about hard water increasing some reaction times slightly.
The Silver Age Flash is a perfectly good origin, and no different than being bitten by a radioactive spider. It was only silly when they insisted it happened twice.
The Golden Age Green Lantern origin was pretty mythic: “Three times the lantern will flash. Once to bring death; once to bring life; once to bring power.” And the Green Lantern Oath is comic greatness.
Hehe reminds me of one of my favorite ball-busting moves I pulled from when I GMed Heroes games.
I was giving one guy his character, and gave a 5 minute speech about how strong, and fast and smart the race was. Near omnipotent gods really. His eyes got wider and more eager by the minute.
the last line of the introduction was “Unfortunately you were born severly retarded and couldn’t do any of that stuff, so they opened a dimensional portal scrubbed your memory and sent you to Earth where you will fit in perfectly.”
Bwahahahaha
The plumage don’t enter into it.
The best part about Cap’s origin is the underlying theme. Steroids work great! They can even help you win wars!
Catman (the Holyoak golden age superhero, not the DC comics villain, or the Fairly Odd Parents Batman parody*) had the same origin…only, you know, it was a Big Cat, not a bird. (Can’t remember the species offhand…Cougar, I THINK.)
(It’s possible that the DC version is a deliberate takeoff on the Holyoak, and Butch Hartman no doubt knew of, at the very least, the DC version, so I’m willing to wager this is not a coincidence.)
Comet Queen. I want super powers so I’ll just dive into the tail of a comet. And of course I’ll do it nekkid.
Possibly Graydon Creed for most absurd, in a way. It’s sort of emblematic of the various overly-complex sillinesses of the general comic book tropes.
First he was introduced initially looking decidedly middle-aged (at least mid-30’s-ish), although this was somewhat relaxed later. He is the son of Mystique and Sabertooth, making him related to about half the fricking Marvel universe, none of whom care if they know.
He apparently discovered who his parents were (although how, I cannot say, seeing as he was abandoned by his psycho dad and ice-cold-callous mom. He later founded a pro-human anti-mutant group, apparently all because Mommy -and-Daddy-don’t-love-me. Note that he apparently doesn’t believe it; he just wants petty childhood revenge.
Somehow, he got involved with the Upstarts, a random collection of second-rate villains competing for status. His mom decided to kill him because some of his goons beat up her lesbian lover’s grandson., possibly earning a spot in the competition for Worst Mother Ever.
Yeah, you can’t take a break from your busy life killing people and slavishly serving your current (always temporary) employer to raise sonnyboy, but go back in time to waste him because he actually became the leader-born semi-supervillain you always failed at? Sure!
(Seriously, are all comic-book parents Saints or Monsters, or have some complex nightmarish background? Or do the comic writers just have daddy issues?)
Now, Creed has been ressurected (along with Cameron Hodge, the eternal enemy Who Will Not Die Permanently) as some kind of Technarch servant of Bastion, who ironically, was previously a Sentinel and then a human member of Creed’s Freinds of HUmanity. Of course, Creed and Bastion are now super-robot-human super-beings, so it’s kinda moot. Creed has now completely dropped out of sight and it remains to be seen if anyone will ever bring him up again.
I should note that the animated series Creed was even worse off, having been raised (and savagely beaten regularly) by Sabertooth, apparently having deluded himself into blocking his childhood out, and becoming increasingly insane as the series progressed. He was last seen having been dumped his Friends of Humanity into the loving care of his daddy, and may have been killed.
It’s another supervillain, basically, that wassomewhat illl-used because you think, geez, that guy’s life just sucks. There are precious villains you can just hate, and love to hate in the X-men series, because they all have horrible, tragic pasts.
