It wasn't until I read "Son of Origins of Marvel Comics" that I realized the origin was an important part of a superhero. Specifically, when Stan Lee started whining about how he'd forgotten to tell us about Dr. Strange's origin.
Anyway, this phenomenon is also around other place. "House," tonight, had House's origin. (Hugh Laurie would make a good Dr. Strange, btw.) The Star Wars flick opening this week is Darth Vader's origin.
So, what are the best origins in comics? Superman and Batman are pretty cool. ANd Spider-man original origin is very nice, though there must be something wrong with it since every writer seems to have a psychological compulsion to fiddle with it. Captain Marvel was cool. And I always had a soft spot for...well, if I name them all, I don't leave any for you guys.
My absolute favorite is the Hulk. The ultimate no good deed goes unpunished. Plus it introduces Rick Jones to the world, and as a Howling Curmudgeon, how can I resist anyone named Rick Jones?
On the other hand, there are characters who still don't have origins. I sort of lost track in the 1990's, but do we yet have an origin for Wolverine?
And we never found out who Brainiac 5 was in terms of his motivations. Gerry Conway wrote an origin for him. I choose to ignore it as so incredibly stupid that it was a deliberate attempt to drive away readers, sort of his version of "Guess who's back? Wrong!"
Posted by Mike Chary at May 17, 2005 10:50 PM