Superheroes gain power from their origins, which explain how they perform their
awesome feats, but also why. And most superhero movies are still origin
stories. But sometimes Hollywood
takes liberties and loses the souls of these characters. Here are eight
superhero origins Hollywood
captured, and eight they ruined.
Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay changed the whole way we thought about superhero origin stories.
Because it’s not just about how this character can do the things he or
she can do, it’s why he/she chooses to become a hero. As Sammy says to
Joe during one of their epic brainstorming sessions about a flying
character, “Why can he fly? Why does he want to? And how come he uses
his power of flight to fight crime? Why doesn’t he just become the
world’s greatest second-story man?”
A good superhero origin story
answers the question of “why” and the question of “how” at the same
time. A bad
superhero origin just hits you with a series of random incidents that
culminate in a power fantasy. A really bad superhero origin creates a
hero who might as well be a villain.
Hollywood’s doing more and
more superhero movies, and these tend to be origin stories — even in
cases where Hollywood’s already done movies about a character before,
they tend to do reboots or remakes, to allow them to retell a
character’s origin once again. Because origin stories are fun and
provide an easy, engaging structure. But not all superhero origins are
created equal — here are six that actually worked on film, and six
that… not so much.
8 Origin Stories Hollywood Did Justice To
1) Batman
Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman
film goes through the Caped Crusader’s origins really quickly, so we can get on with the important stuff, like the
Joker vandalizing an art museum and unleashing poison-gas balloons. But Burton definitely hits the correct notes, and shows Bruce Wayne’s parents death, spurring Bruce’s resolve to become the night. It’s not until Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins that we really
get the important stuff — Batman’s overwhelming drive to fight crime,
stemming from watching his parents die as a young boy, and the lengths
he goes to, to become the ultimate crime-destroying machine. It’s the
difference between hitting the high points in a hurry, versus really
exploring them. (Although I still think having Batman’s trainer turn out
to be Ra’s Al Ghul cheapens both characters a bit. But nothing’s ever
perfect.)
2) Spider-Man
The
first half hour or so of Sam Raimi’s first spider-picture is nearly
perfect. Peter Parker is a high-school nerd who gets pushed around by
the jocks, and then a freak laboratory accident happens, and he’s bitten by a
radioactive spider, giving him all of the spider’s abilities. So he does what anybody
would do: try to turn this ability into profit and success — until his
selfishness leads to the death of his beloved uncle at the hands of a
robber he could have stopped. So he vows to use his powers for good,
instead of just wasting them. I remember being totally thrilled as the
film covered all of these points and brought them to a new vividness —
and then we leave high school behind, in kind of a hurry.
Meanwhile, The Amazing Spider-Man takes some liberties with the source material, adding an obsession with Peter’s missing parents and losing the “Spidey tries to make money off his abilities” subplot. Instead, Spider-Man’s selfishness comes in the form of wanting to use his powers to get justice for Uncle Ben’s killer, which more or less works. The main thing, though, is that the spider-bite and Uncle Ben’s death remain intact, and Spidey still learns responsibility.
3) Superman
A
good Superman origin tale should show us two things: Jor-El and Lara
sending their baby son to Earth to become a champion; and Jonathan and
Martha Kent raising the boy as their own, instilling him with their good
old-fashioned Kansas values while discovering his powers over time.
Despite a few notable flaws, Richard Donner’s Superman film does both
things beautifully. He spends just enough time on the childhood of Clark
Kent to give us a sense that he really grew up struggling with the use
of his powers, without turning the whole movie into a coming-of-age
story. And in keeping with the Silver Age version of the character, his
final moment on the threshold of adulthood is dealing with the death
of Jonathan Kent, whom his power could not save.
https://gizmodo.com/12-weirdest-moments-from-superman-the-movie-512821365
As for Man of Steel, I’m still on the fence about it — it includes the important elements, and it’s a pretty good story in its own right, but it lacks the sunny optimism that makes Superman’s origin the quintessential “you can make it” immigrant tale. Like Amazing Spider-Man, it overlays its own themes onto the character’s origin story rather than capturing the original themes.
4) Iron Man
Like
we said when this movie came out a couple years back, this is the rare
superhero film which actually improves on the original comic book
origins. As in the comics, Tony Stark gets trapped in a cave by a nasty
warlord-type person who wants him to build weapons — and Tony’s injured,
with a piece of shrapnel that’s going to stop his heart unless he can
keep it away. So instead of building weapons, Tony makes a suit of armor
that keeps his heart alive and allows him to thrash his captors.
But the movie adds another layer, drawing on the much later comics —
the assholes holding Tony captive are using leaked weapons from Tony’s
own company, forcing Tony to confront the evil he’s done as a
weapons-maker. So Tony has to make a vow, similar to Spider-Man’s, to
use his power for good instead of evil from now on.
5) Watchmen
Speaking of films that had a lot of flaws — Zack Snyder’s Watchmen film was slow and dull, except
when it was delving into the past and showing us how these characters
had come to be. When we saw Dr. Manhattan created in a burst of energy,
or the complicated backstory of how Laurie Juspeczyk and Daniel Dreiberg
took over as the Silk Spectre and the Nite Owl respectively, the film
came to life. Because the film wasn’t really able to do a great job of
navigating the complicated relationships and crises of conscience these
characters were dealing with now, but it was great at showing how they
got here — especially that justly praised opening credits sequence.
6) Hellboy
This
is sort of a no-brainer — with original creator Mike Mignola in the
mix, and not enough money at stake for Hollywood suits to insist on
screwing it up, Guillermo del Toro was able to capture most of what made
Hellboy’s origin work in the comics, including the Nazis trying to
raise a demon and a kindly scientist finding the young demon boy and
raising him as a human, until he becomes part of the stalwart gang of
the B.P.R.D. It’s great stuff in either medium.
7) Thor
The most important part of Thor’s origin is in the first movie — he’s too arrogant, so his father Odin sends him down to Earth and strips him of his power so he can learn some humility. And then, yes, the film takes some liberties — Thor doesn’t turn into mild-mannered physician Donald Blake, in particular. But I never quite understood why Thor is able to change back into Thor by striking Blake’s walking stick in the comics, if the point is to punish him. In any case, the notion that Thor can’t wield his hammer, Mjolnir, until he’s proved himself worthy again, is perfect and gives the character a proper arc.
8) Captain America
And last but definitely not least… Captain America’s movie origin story is pretty much perfect. It captures the absolute most important thing about this character: he volunteered. The movie goes to pretty great lengths to show how badly Steve Rogers wants to join the fight against the Nazis, and just how much he hates bullies of every stripe. Rogers is rejected from military service because of his physical weakness, but that just makes him more determined. And when he becomes the one and only successful test subject of the Super-soldier program, you know that he’s earned it and that he’ll use his power to defend the weak against those who would abuse them.
8 Origin Stories Hollywood Messed Up
1) Wolverine
I
freely admit that I haven’t kept up with all the crap they’ve loaded
onto Logan’s origin story in the comics, because it’s gotten too
confusing — but I don’t think they’ve gotten rid of the basics. He was
part of the Weapon X program, which gave him superpowers along with a
lot of other mutants and gave him memory implants to wipe his memory.
Logan fights to regain his sense of selfhood and to be more than the
weapon he was made into. In the film version, Logan’s more of a patsy —
William Stryker has Logan’s half-brother Victor Creed kill Logan’s
girlfriend Silver Fox, except she’s not really dead, she’s just faking
it — and it’s all a scheme to get Logan to submit willingly to an
experiment where they metal-up his bones. So that they can then chase
him around for the rest of the movie. None of it makes any sense — but
more important, there’s no drama or character in there at all, and
Wolverine actually manages to become a boring character.
2) The Hulk
Ang
Lee and Louis Leterrier both took their best shots at doing the origin
of the Hulk — in Leterrier’s case, via a flashback — and they both blew
it. Here’s the thing about Bruce Banner: He becomes a hero before
he becomes the Hulk. In the comics, he’s a scientist testing a horribly
destructive bomb, and he sees a young kid sneaking out onto the testing
range. So he rushes out and pushes the kid out of harm’s way, taking
the full blast himself. That moment of self-sacrifice defines him, and
even though the Hulk always seems like a totally self-centered force of
id and destruction, you know that he’ll always wind up putting others
first when the chips are down. Because the Hulk was born in a moment of
self-sacrifice, and he’s a weird mixture of rage and softness. (The
Hulk’s compassion and inability to understand cruelty is a major feature
in a lot of the comics.) For some reason, people adapting the Hulk’s
origin always dispense with the bomb — and the kid, Rick Jones, who’s the
most interesting supporting character in many of the comics. Instead, we
always get the Hulk’s origin taking place in a misguided experiment in a
laboratory. Because, you know, laboratories are automatically more
dynamic to watch than bomb tests.
3) Catwoman
This
is a bit of a cheap shot, sorry — but yikes. In the comics, Catwoman is
pretty basic: She’s a fancy jewel thief who loves cats and puts on a
sexy persona, only to become more of a hero over time as she becomes the
protector of the East End and of a younger girl, Holly. In the movies?
In Batman Returns, here’s some kind of supernatural cat thing
where she dies and gets brought back to life by cats — if you’re thrown
off a building by Christopher Walken, you really ought to have the
decency to stay dead. And in the Halle Berry film, it’s even worse.
There’s some sort of temple cat thing and she has to learn girl-power
Buddhism in order to fight evil cosmetics executives. If they ever make
another Catwoman film, they should have her get her powers from a
supernatural maneki neko, and she should have the power of getting people to shop at your store. I would watch that.
4) Ghost Rider
Honestly,
I wanted two things from this film: Nicolas Cage being ridiculous, and a
biker with a flaming skull for a head. So I really have no complaints.
But if you actually cared about the comic-book character, I can imagine
it would have been a sad experience. They got Johnny Blaze’s origin half
right: He sells his soul to cure his dad’s cancer, then his dad dies
immediately afterwards in a motorcycle accident, leaving Johnny feeling
ripped off. (Except in the movie, Johnny doesn’t actually sign the
contract, he just accidentally bleeds on it. WTF?) But then they missed
the other, crucial, part of the deal — Johnny manages to cheat the devil back.
This is like the whole point. When the Devil comes to take Johnny’s
soul, his girlfriend’s pure love for him saves him, and the Devil gets
bupkis. So the Devil curses Johnny to be bonded with a biker demon as
payback for the reverse rip-off. Instead of this nice bit of symmetry,
the movie creates a whole other mythology involving a contract of 1000
souls, and it turns out that Johnny Blaze becomes Ghost Rider for
reasons totally unrelated to having sold his soul. It’s sort of
confusing.
5) The Fantastic Four
The
comics version of the FF’s origin is simple and elegant — they’re
searching for knowledge, taking an experimental rocket flight, when they
get hit with cosmic rays that transform them and give them super
powers. But instead of deciding that this means they shouldn’t take
crazy risks like that in the quest for knowledge, they become ever more
fearless explorers, and also become the front-line defenders of the
planet when it comes to “cosmic” threats like Galactus. The movie,
meanwhile, muddles this up — Reed Richards is actually seeking to
interact with a cloud of cosmic energy that “triggers evolution.” And
the movie ties the FF’s origin with Victor Von Doom’s, making Doom
responsible for the accident that gives them their powers. Instead of a
more clear-cut story, you end up with something kind of muddled — and it
also makes the world seem smaller because everybody has the same
origin, including the villain. Most of all, the FF’s origin should be
Reed’s fault, and Victor’s scarring should be due to Victor’s own hubris
— and those incidents really ought to be separate or they don’t have as
much weight.
Let’s hope Josh Trank’s new FF movie gives them the launch they deserve.
6) Steel
And
then there’s Steel. As Cyriaque puts it, “He went from being a stand-in
for Superman to being just a guy in a suit.” This film cheapens
everything that’s great about Steel, not least by removing him from the
Superman mythos where he belongs — he’s also no longer a top weapons
designer, but just a military developer who’s just part of a
weapons-development team — and the main point, that the weapons John
Henry developed are now being used on the streets — is blunted
considerably. The Steel suit is no longer a power-armored marvel, but
instead is just sort of a clunky travesty. It’s got Shaq-fu, but it’s
lacking the heart of the original.
7) Jonah Hex
You should go read Chris Sims’ cogent explanation of why we didn’t need a Jonah Hex movie, and how Hollywood took a scarred cowboy with no superpowers and turned him into a supernatural avenger, for no particular reason. And nothing much in this movie makes any sense, at all. As Sims says, “Apparently popping open Microsoft Word and doing a find-and-replace to
swap out “STEAMPUNK COWBOY” with “JONAH HEX” took so much effort that
making sense was relegated to a secondary concern.” To the extent that Jonah Hex felt like a terrible remake of Will Smith’s Wild Wild West.
8) Green Lantern
We can probably all agree that this movie did no justice to the story of Hal Jordan, the heroic fighter pilot who gets a superpowered ring from a dying alien. But we might disagree about why. Although I guess it sticks fairly closely to the facts of Hal’s origin, it’s lacking something of the heart of the character — especially his sheer determination to do the right thing. Hal is a ladies’ man and a bit of a cad, but he’s also a stand-up guy who gets handed the most powerful weapon in the universe and uses it to save people. In any case, the comics offer a few ways to do Hal’s origin: 1) Copy the excellent DC: The New Frontier comics, which give Hal Jordan a new character trait, being a soldier who won’t kill. 2) Copy the original 1960s Showcase issues, in which Hal figures out the ring on his own and doesn’t meet the Guardians or other Lanterns for 20 issues or so. (And thus, have him get his first glimpse of Oa at the end of the movie.) 3) Focus on Hal’s training with Kilowog and Sinestro, and build up those relationships, so those two aliens really come to feel like Hal’s brothers — and thus, Sinestro’s eventual betrayal carries some weight. In any case, turning Hal into a jackass as well as a cad just gives us nobody to root for.
Thanks to Cyriaque for the suggestions. Another version of this article first appeared in 2010.
