<ubergeek>It was actually a robot gladiator match. </ubergeek>
And they actually turned Chuck down the first time he applied for membership. It was only after he rescued Saturn Girl (whom he had a major crush on at the time) that they decided his powers were useful after all.
Actually, I think Terra-Man had a fine origin. Maybe the motivation wasn’t logical (gee, we all know that doesn’t ever happen in comics. :rolleyes: ), but he’s just a man from the 19th Century Old West who was raised by aliens and comes back to Earth – and time dilation has him coming back in the 20th/21st century. Granting the aliens, it’s perfectly fine. And in the original Terra Man story, the alien did not wipe out the memory of his father’s death; just the memory that the alien had done it. So it was logical that he would remember the dying clue.
I actually think the silliest origin was Kid Flash. Barry Allen was turned into Flash when a lightning bold hit a bunch of chemicals and drenched him. Fair enough. But Kid Flash had the exact same thing happen to him (and the lightning came out of a clear blue sky). What are the odds? :rolleyes:
With how repeatable some of these are, you have to wonder: Did anyone out there drink gingold tea and inject mongoose blood? Or deliberately combine any of the other really easy origins? 'Cause then, you could have a suitable villain for any of those heroes. “Ha! I can move just as fast as you, but I can also stretch my body! You’re no match for my powers!”, whereupon, of course, the hero (whose strength is as the strength of ten because his heart is pure) proceeds to be a match for him anyway.
Superboy destroyed Luthor’s hair and, more importantly, the formula Luthor had discovered for artificial life, which is probably what preyed on his mind more.
Luthor (to Supes):“Don’t lie! You were jealous of my genius! So you deliberately broke those bottles and destroyed the formula which was the result of thousands of experiments! You knew I could never duplicate this formula again!”
Come on, people. Most of these are pretty silly because of the era in which they came, and the target audience.
They were conceived as kid’s stories, and so needed to be something simple that a kid could relate to. Drinking a phosphate that gave you super powers? Why, I drink phosphates all the time! I could be super-hero! :eek: 
I just feel like we’re shooting fish in a barrel with the pre-60s superhero origins. Of course they’re going to seem silly!
Let’s focus instead on the origins of superheroes from the 80s and 90s, when “realism” had infected the industry (thanks to Frank Miller and Alan Moore) but the origins were silly, anyway.
I’m only saying all this to circumvent the first person to say “Silver Surfer.”
Nope. That’s one of those memes that won’t die. Even if you look at the original story of the Earth-1 Luthor’s origin (circa Adventure #275 or so), or so, the “You made me bald” thing was a brief aside in the larger picture. it completely misses the point.
Lex Luthor comes to Smallville as a teen with his folks and he idolizes Superboy. (Later versions add that he’s smarter than everyone in class. He’s also a bit unstable and a bit of a practical joker.) He and Superboy become friends. Superboy builds him a lab (in later versions this is in part to keep Lex out of trouble, figuring Lex is doing super-science pratical jokes because he’s bored and at least this’ll be a healthy outlet).
Luthor spends weeks creating life in the lab (a big humanoid torso of scrubbing bubbles reaching out of a vat to hug Lex) and a happy side-effect is that a bit of the protoplasm that Lex has created can be used to create an anti-Kryptonite serum. While doing a “Eureka!” gesture, Lex knocks over some flammable chemicals and the lab goes up in flames.
Superboy sees it, and in a fit of gross incompetence (*he knew that the lab was filled with volitile chemicals in glass bottles–Superboy stocked the lab, remember) uses his super-breath to blow out the fire. Um…guy? Putting a tornado/hurricane force winds (minimum) into an enclosed area filled with flames, smoke and dangerous chemicals is not the best way to put out a fire (especially given the other methods at Superboy’s disposal–what if he flew the lab into space for a few seconds? Or used Super-Breath to inhale creating a vacuum. Or used super-speed to simply dump buckets of sand on the individual flaming areas? Or flew in at super-speed and flew Lex out and then put out the fire?)
The super-breath knocked acid (or something) into the vat of living protoplasm, killing it. It also knocked over a bunch of chemicals who’s fumes permanantly mutilated Lex AND fanned the flames that destroyed Lex’s notes.
Lex snapped at all of this and vowed eternal vengance.
Lex: You rat! Your puff of super-breat blew an acid bottle agains the antidote bottle! They broke and their contents destroyed the formula for my great discovery! Not only that–the gas fumes mad my hair fall out! I’m bald!
Superboy: But…it was an accident…!
Lex: Don’t lie! You were jealous of my genius! You deliberately broke those bottles and destroyed my formula, which was the result of thousands of experiments! You knew I could never duplicate this formula again!
Lex: The fire destroyed the only existing sample of my protoplasmic discovery! I will never be able to discover it again!
Superboy: And the fumes made your hair fall out! What a tragedy! I - I’m…sorry…
Lex: Sorry!…Will that bring back my discovery? Will being sorry bring back my hair?!!
Superboy: Please…if you would just give me a clue to the formula…then maybe I can help you rediscover it!
Lex: LiAR! Why don’t you admit you deliberately ruined me because you’re jealous? You were afraid my genius would make me more famous than you!
So in addition to permanantly disfiguring Lex, Superboy killed Lex’s ‘child’ (the thing was trying to hug Lex) through gross incompetence.
And from the '70s foward, there was another layer put on the story (by Elliot S! Maggin, best Superman writer, ever, IMO)–Lex saw Superman as a meddling do-gooder who, being orphaned was overcompensating by being “daddy” to everyone else. Lex decided to give Superman something to focus on besides playing nanny to everyone in the world and ramped up his attacks on Superman. (There’s echos of this in the (excellent) Morrison revamp of the Byrne Lex-As-A-Thin-Kingpin version).
But even in the earliest telling of the story, Lex was never just in it because of the hair.
Fenris
P.S. This site reprints the original story (Adventure #271 as it turns out) and reprints one of the better Elliot S! Maggin stories (“The Luthor Nobody Knows”). I believe this is a legit site–they link directly to DC Comics, they’ve got contact information for the webmaster, they have Superman in their URL AND they do interviews with D.C. Comics writers. As DC is pretty…protective of their properties and are allowing the site to stay up (it’s been up for at least a year that I personally know of and claims to have been around since the late '90s) I’m assuming DC is cool with this site. Mods, please delete the link if you disagree.
Curse you for beating me to this Captain Amazing!! I swear ETERNAL VENGANCE!
Fenris Luthor
This one is repeatable–Elongated Man discovered that all “Indian Rubber Men” in carnivals drank Gingold soda and figured out that if he concentrated the extract of the plant, he’d be able to stretch. Turns out that it only really works on red-haired people though—and drinking Gingold extract is how Jimmy Olsen (Elastic Lad) and Lana Lang (Elastic Lass) got their powers. (This was a retcon, as Elastic Lad precedes Elongated Man by a couple of years, but there was at least one story that point-blank said that the Elastic Lad/Lass formula involved Gingold and only worked on redheads.
Fenris
I vaguely remember a 3-D man. Didn’t he have 3-D glasses that were possessed by the ghost of his stunt man brother? So of course, when he wears them, they fuse and. . .
But it’s not the least bit logical that it would even occur to the father that his son’s memory could or would be wiped, less so that it might be partly wiped, and still less so that he might figure such an abstract clue would be noticed and understood.
I’d heard that part somewhere.
(twice in two threads Fenris ignores me)
Did any of this survive into the meta-gene era of story-telling?
3-D Man was IIRC an early astronaut or test pilot or something. He was involved in a crash of an experimental vehicle witnessed by his brother. Somehow he was reduced to a pair of images, one on each lens of his brother’s glasses, one red and one green. By focusing on the images the brother can cause 3-D Man, possessed of the strength, reflexes, endurance, etc. of three, to materialize (IIRC for a maximum of three hours at a time). The brother falls into a trance while 3-D Man is active.
Well, come one, wasn’t the Legion of Super-Heroes pretty much ridiculous overall? Bouncing Boy? What the hell was that? Not to mention Matter-Eater Lad. Still, I would LOVE it if they produced a movie based on the Legion, precisely because it was so cheesy.
As for Fenris’ take on Luthor’s origins, that makes sense, although I remember reading that original comic as a kid (this was in the early '90s, but it was the original issue, either taken from my dad’s large comic book stash or bought from a comic store) and just assuming that Lex hated Superman because of the baldness thing. I still like that version better.
Oh come now, people!
Fortunately, my murdered parents were mega-millionaires allowing me to to study and become the world’s greatest detective, while training my body to athletic perfection. Now I can wear a bat costume and fight crime in memory of them.
Fortunately, my father was a brilliant scientist who was able to build a small prototype rocket ship with enough range and life-support to hurdle me halfway across the universe just as my doomed planet exploded.
Fortunately, I was bitten by a radioactive spider and instead of getting really, really sick, I gained super powers.
Fortunately, I was hit by lightning and drenched by chemicals and rather than getting burned, or you know, dying, I gained super speed.
Perhaps we should change the topic to the least ridiculous origin.
Just out of curiosity… was Lex Luthor ever smarter than Superboy or Superman? I mean, Superman/boy had super-intelligence, didn’t he (I remember that Supergirl did, so I’m assuming)? Granted, the point is that Lex was insane, but couldn’t Superboy have recreated what Lex did in the lab in, like, 3 seconds?
Wasn’t there a retcon to the effect that this was not a coincidence?
Bouncing Boy was never much of a hero, more of an administrator, and was comic relief for the most part.
Matter-Eater Lad (and this is from memory so if Fenris or cmkeller correct me, take their word) comes from a planet with no food sources, so they evolved over time to draw nutrients from any injested material (and I guess, to have really hard teeth and strong jaws).
I think you’re right, but that was many years later.
Of course, the silly origin of Kid Flash is compensated for by the fact he had the best costume of any superhero (even though he had to dye his hair each time).
Anyone remember Slapstick?
Allow me to quote: