What Makes a Good Superhero Origin Story?
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What makes a good superhero origin story?
It’s a question I found myself wondering recently when I was browsing Reddit rather than doing something useful like writing or sleeping.
It was on the “Superhero Writing” subreddit–a sub “dedicated to writing in the superhero genre, whether it be literature, comics, or whatever else”–where I saw this thread about how not making cliche backstories is hard. And I found it rather interesting.
Having a good superhero backstory or origin is one of the most important things to do. It’s a major part of how to ensure your audience understands your characters. It tells how this character gained such unusual abilities, the nature of their powers, and why they do something as self-destructive and self-sacrificial as being a superhero.
But I think the people in that thread are looking in the wrong place. Meaning there are important ingredients as to how to write a good superhero origin story that they are missing.
Today, I would like to take a moment to delve into the key ingredients of a hero’s backstory and figure out what makes a good superhero origin story.
What Are the Key Ingredients of a Good Superhero Origin Story?
Looking around on the subreddit to see people talking about their heroes’ origins and backstories, I feel like too much emphasis is being placed on some inciting event that made them a superhero.
On that thread, they talk about all the different ways a speedster can get their powers and how everything’s already been done, but everything’s already already been done.
Lab accidents, military experiments, alien technology, space magic, magic magic, and everything in between.
But there’s more to it than that. A superhero origin story should be a tale on its own. It should bring something more to the table.
It should bring not only a “how”, but a “why”.
In fact, I believe that is what a lot of origins have been missing over the years.
And if we can boil down a superhero origin story from one large amorphous blob of a tale to two important sections–isolate those two ingredients–I think that not only does it become easier to make a good backstory, but it ensures you aren’t focusing on the wrong elements.
So if we were to divide every iconic superhero backstory into two main parts, we would get the following ingredients:
The “How”, or “What Event Gave Them Their Powers?”.
And the “Why”, or “Why Do They Use Their Powers To Fight Evil?”
Superhero Origin Story Ingredient #1: How Did They Get Their Powers?
If we were to take any superhero backstory and divide it into two major sections, I think we would get the first part being the actual granting of the superpowers themselves.
Now, I have no data on this other than vibes and two obscure Reddit threads I quickly looked at, but I feel like a lot of emphasis is placed on this section.
In fact, I feel like too much emphasis is on answering this question.
That might be a strange thing to hear me say, and I’m not making the argument that the source of a hero’s powers are not worth addressing.
But there is no reason to try to reinvent the wheel or make the most original superhero origin ever.
After all, the 1940s were filled with superheroes gaining abilities through lab experiments and accidents.
Look at the Nedor comics heroes. Bob Benton drank a tonic with formic acid in it in order to get his powers and be able to become the Black Terror. Doctor Hugo Strange (not the Batman villain) drinks the sun particle-infused “Allosun” to have his mighty strength. Andrew Bryant bathes himself with gamma and infrared rays to be able to be Captain Future (maybe Bruce Banner should look into infrared rays to cure his Hulk problem). Archibald Masters was caught in an atom smasher to become the American Crusader.
Is this really all that much different from Bruce Banner being bathed in gamma rays? Or Peter Parker being bitten by a radioactive spider? Or the Fantastic Four being bombarded with cosmic radiation?
Jay Garrick became the Flash due to inhaling heavy water vapors. Barry Allen became the Flash after being covered in chemicals when their beakers were destroyed by a lightning bolt.
Having some super original method of giving the hero powers isn’t necessary.
In fact, and stay with me on this one, I don’t think any explanation of how the hero got their powers is necessary.
Crazy, right?
Because the real trick isn’t giving the readers an explanation for why this person is faster than a speeding bullet or more powerful than a locomotive, but making an explanation unnecessary.
Or, more accurately, if you’re going to forego the incident in which a superhero is granted their abilities, then make their possession of superpowers something that is either ubiquitous or doesn’t need explanation.
In X-Men, all the characters are mutants. It’s just the next stage of human evolution. Characters in My Hero Academia just have their quirks as everyone in that world has a superpower.
In my own Blue Eagle Universe, the superheroes just developed powers over time–sometimes genetically, and sometimes through some incident–because it is a superhero universe. Switch, Moon Shadow, and the rest of my characters don’t need an explanation for why they have the powers they have.
Ultimately, my point is that this part of the backstory isn’t something worth spending a great deal of brainpower on. You’re not going to wow anybody by creating a complicated Rube Goldberg machine of events that gives your superhero powers in the most unexpected of ways. Originality isn’t bad or anything like that, but it isn’t what’s going to make your hero stand out.
Sometimes, a bolt of lightning and some volatile chemicals is all you need.
Superhero Origin Story Ingredient #2: Why Do They Use Their Superpowers To Fight Evil?
That brings us to the second part of any superhero origin story. Why does the newly powered character use their powers to fight evil?
The most interesting, most iconic superheroes with the most well known origins focus on this part.
A good superhero origin story will not just show them getting their powers, but show why they use their powers to fight crime and be a superhero. This would be, broadly speaking, the second major part of the superhero origin story.
The most obvious example of this in action is Spider-Man’s origin. Amazing Fantasy #15 (and wow, look at the price of this version!), his very first appearance, tells firstly how he was bitten by a radioactive spider at a demonstration of the safe handling of nuclear waste, and then shows how, in his selfishness, he failed to stop a criminal that later killed his Uncle Ben. Two major events: 1) Radioactive spider bite and subsequent discovery of powers, and 2) Letting the criminal run by him and the subsequent death of Uncle Ben and discovery of the killer’s identity.
For my money, this is probably one of the greatest superhero origin stories ever created, and I think the fact that it was conceived as a one-shot not intended to be connected to any ongoing series was part of it. It was its own story.
But regardless of that, I don’t even think it’s necessary to have a big, major shocking event that gives the “why”. But there needs to be some insight and exploration as to why they fight the battles they fight. Why do they use their powers so selflessly when they could use it for something selfish?
Spider-Man did use his powers to make money. But he let one criminal get away and it took Uncle Ben’s life.
Batman has vowed to wage war on criminals after the death of his parents. His origin shows a bat inspiring him to use its imagery to instill fear into their hearts.
The Punisher’s origin story isn’t just about him losing his wife and child to New York mobsters, but about how the entire criminal justice system failed him and has driven him to kill all those that the legal system has unofficially deemed untouchable.
The X-Men are part of a disenfranchised minority group. There’s no need to explain how they got their powers, and instead how they came together and how they fight for equality.
I’ve mentioned the Nedor heroes before, and I’m certainly a big fan of these public domain heroes, but when I think about what was the appeal of those old superhero comics, I can’t help but think that part of the sameness that so many of those stories had was their lack of identity. There was nothing the heroes stood for that set them apart from each other. They all got their powers and then just decided to fight for American democracy against Nazi and Japanese spies because of patriotism. Par for the course for comics at the time, but pretty lacking in terms of creating memorable superhero backstories.
My Final Thoughts On What Makes A Good Superhero Origin Story
Like anything that seems like a big task, creating a good superhero origin story gets easier once you break it down into parts.
A good superhero origin story should tell how they came to be, separating their rise into how they got their powers and why they use their powers for good.
But these two elements aren’t of equal importance. And it’s the latter, rather than the former, that makes a memorable superhero origin.
Having some completely original way of giving your hero their powers isn’t important. Whatever you have in mind, it’s all been done before.
It’s giving your character a tragedy or a strong moral axiom that makes their backstory memorable.
You don’t even have to specifically give them a big event for either of these things. A superhero world can be full of costumed crimefighters and no real reason to question why your protagonist is there. But they do what they do for a reason, even if they don’t really know why themselves.
If you could understand how to work these two elements, you’ve got down what makes a good superhero origin story.
For exciting superhero fiction written by me, be sure to check out the BLUE EAGLE Universe!