The Origin Story is the key foundation to all superhero tales, our modern mythology. How the hero got his/her powers, what drives them to risk their lives, who was their first opponent, all these things are covered in the Origin Story.
With Mr. Incredible, however, we have no such information.
Unique, to say the least.
All other Superhero films provide an introduction to the Origin Story. But not here.
The Incredibles is a very fine addition to the genre, & I find it utterly charming, but the info vaccum is disturbing.
Is there an Official Biography of the character?
Were there hints in the film that I missed?
Any & all input, including gueswork, is appreciated.
While it doesn’t cover the source of his powers, the Incredibles DVD has superhero profiles on every hero mentioned in the movie; more information about Mr. I can be found there.
I thought the lack of an origin story was one of the best parts of the movie. It contributed a lot to the setting–superpowered individuals exist, and that’s life.
Absolutely. The worst part about almost every superhero movie is the need to sit through an hour of origin before anything of interest starts. The Incredibles was far superior because it didn’t have that awful hour.
Dash, Violet, and Jack-Jack get their capability for powers by being born with it: in my opinion, this is passed down from the parents. Individuals without this genetic gift have to use technological means to create powers: Syndrome, for instance.
Presumably Mr Incredible and Elastigirl got their power-capability from their parents.
(From the timeframe of the movie, they’d have been born sometime in the twenties or thirties. The Nazi-fighting adventures of their parents might make another good movie…)
No no no. If they make a sequel (and I so very much hope that they do) it has to be about Jack-Jack. I think ultrafilter and Exapno hit the nail on the head. The Incredibles is about the social implications of the existence of super powered people, not the fantasy story of how they got that way.
But that works just as well with a story about their parents. Imagine growing up super in a time of economic collapse and growing authoritarianism and gathering war, and having to choose sides.
Although the first world war might be even more interesting (watching countries march gaily over the cliff, thinking the troops’ll all be ‘home by Christmas’…)
I have no idea what Mr. Incredible’s origin is, and I really don’t care – as others have said, the movie is just perfect, <Edna> dahling, </Edna> without it.
That said, if I had to wage a guess, I’d say “Marvel-style mutant.”
Note the heavy government involvement in everything super? I have a hunch that all of the supers are the result of some secret and embarassing government experiment, and that all of the funded relocations and the like are part of a payoff to keep quiet about the experiments. It definitely doesn’t seem like supers had been around for a while (else there would already have been plenty of legal precedent for the the associated liability issues, and the torrent of lawsuits wouldn’t have occurred), and folks are also surprised when Syndrome presents himself as a new superhero, implying that whatever caused powers to manifest in the past no longer occurs.
