We dive into the many different backstories of your favourite comic book heroes…
So, you fancy becoming a superhero do you?
But before all that, youre going to need to get your superhero origin in order.
Their powers are an inheritance, but not always a welcome one.
Fortunately, they were granted amazing powers rather than radiation sickness.
The Incredible Hulk, Spider-Man and Daredevil soon followed with their own accidents.
He gained the ability to change the world forever, but became increasingly alienated from and disinterested in humanity.
Prime examples:Green Lantern, Captain America, Shazam!
Sometimes its noble, admirable but very human qualities that can lead to a persons transformation into a superperson.
Billy Batson was an intrepid orphan boy whose personal qualities made him worthy of receiving the powers of Shazam!
Quite often, these chosen characters find themselves as part of a larger organisation.
Hal Jordan inherited a power ring from a dying alien that allowed him to fly and create solid projections.
Even Captain Britain was later revealed to be a member of a larger, multiverse-protecting corps.
Its corps all the way down.
But in this case their powers dont set them apart from the rest of humanity, but above them.
They are basically sometimes literally gods.
Thor is an obvious example, with his origin and adventures drawing heavily on Norse myths.
Not all of these heroes are literal gods.
As for the uber-superhero, Superman, he combines this with aspects of born different.
At school, he couldnt play sports, as he would risk causing physical harm to his opponents.
His god-like powers make him an outsider.
In both cases, these genetic experiments were intended to produce living weapons.
Not all experiments are done on unwilling subjects.
Other experiments skip the living test subjects in favour of starting from scratch.
Comics are full of ordinary people who drive themselves to extraordinary lengths in the fight against evil.
But sometimes they dont even have superintellect, or even much money to throw around.
Watchmens Rorschach only had his psychosis to keep him warm.
Sometimes it all comes down to hard graft and a lot of target practice.
X-Men favourite Rogue too started out working with her evil adopted mother, Mystique.
As the saying almost goes, theres nothing more pious than a reformed supervillain.
Marvel has had various Captains America and Thors, and a couple of Hawkeyes, too.
Stan Lees Alliances: A Trick Of Lightis available on Audible now.
