Most bizarre origin stories

[JoeZhang]

Over the holidays I have being reading various back issues and stumbled across the origin of Hammer and Anvil, now I always thought that the origin of the original Whizzer* was hard to beat but this is a good one.

Two escaped convicts (chained together at the wrist) are running through a swamp and they encounter a alien, they blast him with a pistol and he says "ah - thanks, I needed the metal in these bullets to feed on" and in gratitude turns their chain into a high-tech super-powered one and then wanders off never to be seen again. This all happens in about four panels.

So what origin story makes you go "huh?"


* blood transfusion from a mongoose.

 

[Admiral2]

Marvel's Alpha Flight and everybody in it.

 

[kirk55555]

Marvel's Alpha Flight and everybody in it.

For superhero origins, Alpha Flight isn't that weird. For the main team:

Guardian - Scientist/Inventor, makes a special suit and ends up working for the Canadian government
Vindicator - Wife of Guardian, takes up suit when he died the first time (he got better, but she stayed a hero)
Puck - 7' Tall theif who was cursed by a demon to be 3'6'' and immortal (ok, I'll give you this one, it is especially weird)
Sasquatch - A scientist experiments with Gamma rays, which turned him into a big hairy monster instead of a big green monster
Aurora/Northwind - Mutants
Snowbird - Half Human/Half god
Shaman - A doctor who, after his wife's death, goes into seclusion and ends up taking his grandfather's role as shaman and uses his new powers to eventually become a hero
Marrina - An alien who landed on earth as an egg, she bonded with a human that found the egg and ended up becoming half alien/half human, with aquatic powers, kind of a fishy Superman

Even if we list a few of the more well known others:

Wolverine - Mutant
Talisman - Daughter of Shaman, has magical powers basically because of that
Box - Smart guy with a robot, sometimes remote controlled

Maybe the second version of the team (with people like Major Mapleleaf) was weirder, but they barely lasted and are barely related to the old team anyway (and this is coming from a big Alpha Flight fan, although I haven't read much of the short Volume with that team). As far as superhero teams go, the Alpha Flight members origins (with a few exceptions) aren't particularly weird compared to other superhero origins, at least in my opinion.

 

[Admiral2]

Marvel's Alpha Flight and everybody in it.

For superhero origins, Alpha Flight isn't that weird. For the main team:

Guardian - Scientist/Inventor, makes a special suit and ends up working for the Canadian government
Vindicator - Wife of Guardian, takes up suit when he died the first time (he got better, but she stayed a hero)
Puck - 7' Tall theif who was cursed by a demon to be 3'6'' and immortal (ok, I'll give you this one, it is especially weird)
Sasquatch - A scientist experiments with Gamma rays, which turned him into a big hairy monster instead of a big green monster
Aurora/Northwind - Mutants
Snowbird - Half Human/Half god
Shaman - A doctor who, after his wife's death, goes into seclusion and ends up taking his grandfather's role as shaman and uses his new powers to eventually become a hero
Marrina - An alien who landed on earth as an egg, she bonded with a human that found the egg and ended up becoming half alien/half human, with aquatic powers, kind of a fishy Superman

Even if we list a few of the more well known others:

Wolverine - Mutant
Talisman - Daughter of Shaman, has magical powers basically because of that
Box - Smart guy with a robot, sometimes remote controlled

Maybe the second version of the team (with people like Major Mapleleaf) was weirder, but they barely lasted and are barely related to the old team anyway (and this is coming from a big Alpha Flight fan, although I haven't read much of the short Volume with that team). As far as superhero teams go, the Alpha Flight members origins (with a few exceptions) aren't particularly weird compared to other superhero origins, at least in my opinion.

Yes, but Guardian's and Vindicator's are the most normal origins, followed, strangely, by Aurora and Northstar. (At least mutants i get...)

But the fact that Sasquatch is a bright orange monster without a touch of green is an indicator that gamma radiation had nothing to do with his transformation (or it did back when, until marvel did with hulks what geoff johns did with lanterns...), and you add to that the Inuit version of Doctor Strange, the demon-cursed midget, the goddess with the birdy wings...

I liked Alpha Flight for a while back in the day, but I was always at a loss trying to make sense of the characters. I don't count Wolverine as one of them because from what i understand he was only with the team long enough to say F-you and run, setting up the Flight's first appearance in uncanny X-men.

 

[JoeZhang]

But the fact that Sasquatch is a bright orange monster without a touch of green is an indicator that gamma radiation had nothing to do with his transformation (or it did back when, until marvel did with hulks what geoff johns did with lanterns...),

Yeah, they changed that, he's mystically powered.

 

[Admiral2]

But the fact that Sasquatch is a bright orange monster without a touch of green is an indicator that gamma radiation had nothing to do with his transformation (or it did back when, until marvel did with hulks what geoff johns did with lanterns...),

Yeah, they changed that, he's mystically powered.

Yeah, see?

The most fascinating thing I remember about Alpha Flight was one issue where John Byrne got away with turning in about ten pages of empty panels by having Snowbird fight the "Beast of the Snows" in the middle of a whiteout blizzard.

Nothin' but sound effects, guys. Literally.

 

[Saga]

Cable.

 

[Sto-Vo-Kory]

The original origin for Star-Lord, where it's strongly implied that he's the second coming of Christ (seriously) because of, uh, astrology...and stuff.

 

[BigJake]

So what origin story makes you go "huh?"

Black Condor, adopted by a super-intelligent flock of condors who taught him how to fly... but the really weird part is that he also happens to be a lookalike for an assassinated US Senator whose identity he assumes.

I always thought the "computer hormonal remote control operation done by an omniscient A.I. satellite" origin story of the original OMAC (One Many Army Corps) was delightfully bonkers, as was the proto-cyberpunk setting he was part of. (If this is ever an entry in the MCU I will be so all over it.)

The Vagabond was an FBI agent who dressed up as a clown named Chauncey Throttlebottom III who, in turn, dressed as a clown version of a hobo, affected an upper-crust British accent and started bar brawls with the signature battle cry "Yoiks and Tally-ho!" He was given carte blanche to deal with crime "his way" and his origin story is that that's what he came up with. Which is the best thing ever.

Cable's origin story involved so many timelines and characters and trips into the future to prepare for epic confrontations in the past that I honestly just have no idea what's going on there at all.

I'm unclear whether the Badger (Capital Comics' mentally ill superhero with multiple personalities) could actually talk to animals or just thought he could, but his origin story -- receiving the call to superheroism from a vision of a giant badger named Myrtle after eating roaches in the jungles of Vietnam -- is quite singular.

 

[Silvercrest]

I don't even understand Cable's code name.

As for Alpha Flight, I've only read them a limited amount, but what I've read has never hooked me. I get that Byrne was trying really hard to make the characters unique, interesting, distinctively Canadian and yet non-clichéd -- but the result was still "meh".

And there are far too many logic holes. Guardian's trick with gravitons, for example. By effectively cancelling the Earth's rotation with respect to himself, he remains in place while the Earth spins, effectively "teleporting" him westward at speeds up to 1000 mph. Every time I see his description, it mentions some version of this. But that is not teleportation. Hopping that way would punch you through walls, trees, people, and any other objects in the way (at speeds up to 1000 mph), doing the appropriate amount of damage to them ... and you. Do the comics actually address this; i.e. making sure there's a clear space wherever he hops to? Or do they just treat him as being able to simply teleport?

Puck's history is colorful and interesting, but it doesn't really justify why he belongs on a superhero team. He's short, tough, and long-lived. What, did they mix up his resumé with Wolverine's?

Snowbird and Marrina have always struck me as so alien as to be unrelatable.

Is this just me?

 

[iguana_tonante]

Wonder Woman comes to mind. A clay statue? Really?

 

[BigJake]

Oh, and there is of course The Maxx. Who is a homeless man who got hit by a car and consumed by a lampshade that transported him to the Outback (subconscious represented as a funhouse version of Australia) of a traumatized social worker.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Wonder Woman comes to mind. A clay statue? Really?

Not a fan of Pygmalion or Pandora?

So what origin story makes you go "huh?"

Black Condor, adopted by a super-intelligent flock of condors who taught him how to fly... but the really weird part is that he also happens to be a lookalike for an assassinated US Senator whose identity he assumes.

Nah, the weird thing is the condors lived in Mongolia.

But the fact that Sasquatch is a bright orange monster without a touch of green is an indicator that gamma radiation had nothing to do with his transformation

The Hulk was gray at first. The gamma=Green thing is stupid.

 

[Greg Cox]

And then there was Super-Horse, who wasn't simply an equine from Krypton, but was an ancient Greek centaur magically transformed into a super-powered horse . . . or something like that.

 

[BigJake]

Comet had two origin stories and they were both totally inexplicable.

 

[The Old Mixer]

It was initially believed that Sasquatch was orange because there were cosmic rays in the mix. It was later revealed that his experiment had weakened dimensional barriers and allowed one of the Great Beasts to possess him. He was never a gamma ray mutate at all (unless they retconned that later).

I always thought the "computer hormonal remote control operation done by an omniscient A.I. satellite" origin story of the original OMAC (One Many Army Corps) was delightfully bonkers, as was the proto-cyberpunk setting he was part of. (If this is ever an entry in the MCU I will be so all over it.)

OMAC is a DC....

Guardian's trick with gravitons, for example. By effectively cancelling the Earth's rotation with respect to himself, he remains in place while the Earth spins, effectively "teleporting" him westward at speeds up to 1000 mph. Every time I see his description, it mentions some version of this. But that is not teleportation. Hopping that way would punch you through walls, trees, people, and any other objects in the way (at speeds up to 1000 mph), doing the appropriate amount of damage to them ... and you. Do the comics actually address this; i.e. making sure there's a clear space wherever he hops to? Or do they just treat him as being able to simply teleport?

The one time I know of that he pulled this trick, he was at altitude. It was the explanation for his ability to seemingly disappear while pursued by Storm and Banshee at the end of his original appearance in X-Men #109.

I liked what Byrne did with Alpha Flight. I hated how the next creative team that came along couldn't take away the elements of his unique approach and turn them into a generic super-team fast enough.

(And FWIW, the bizarre Puck origin was the work of that next creative team, not Byrne.)

 

[Hound of UIster]

Cable's origin story involved so many timelines and characters and trips into the future to prepare for epic confrontations in the past that I honestly just have no idea what's going on there at all.

That happens when you start off with a character with no defined origin and invite the whole Marvel Bullpen including the Scott Lobdell of all people to build up his background.

Comet had two origin stories and they were both totally inexplicable.

The post-Crisis version is a completely different character that just shared names and some other features with the pre-Crisis character. In retrospect Peter David should have just named them something else. But the editor in charge of Superboy/Supergirl probably just wanted more references to pre-Crisis stuff.

 

[Admiral2]

But the fact that Sasquatch is a bright orange monster without a touch of green is an indicator that gamma radiation had nothing to do with his transformation

The Hulk was gray at first.

For like an issue. It's not like they were ten years into the series and sprang green on the readership.

The gamma=Green thing is stupid.

Right, it's stupid... and it gave the Hulk and the entire series a unique signature that grew to iconic status.

 

[Hound of UIster]

Wonder Woman comes to mind. A clay statue? Really?

The creator of Wonder Woman had some rather nutty ideas. He also invented one of the early lie detector tests and wrote historical fiction about the private sexcapades of Julius Caesar.

 

[Sto-Vo-Kory]

I liked what Byrne did with Alpha Flight. I hated how the next creative team that came along couldn't take away the elements of his unique approach and turn them into a generic super-team fast enough.

(And FWIW, the bizarre Puck origin was the work of that next creative team, not Byrne.)

Correct. Bill Mantlo was the writer that followed Byrne and delivered that ridiculous "cursed blade = shortening" origin for Puck. Mantlo didn't seem to have any idea what to do with Alpha Flight and his tenure on the title was, thankfully, brief.

Hudnall and Nicieza had decent runs, but I loved Simon Furman's take on the characters. He really emphasized the team's unique nature and setting, picked up threads that Byrne had introduced and made them relevant again.

Steve Seagle's version of the team -- a superhero team operating within a government conspiracy -- was interesting but too short-lived to develop properly. Largely forgotten, this volume of Alpha Flight gained a little notoriety this past year because one of its issues contains the first appearance of Big Hero Six.