Hello everybody on Comic Vine, welcome to CV's first ever "Roundtable User Discussion".
Let me explain a bit of how this works. A handful of us have virtually gotten together to discuss a topic related to comic books. Here we will talk, play and laugh about said topic. In the comments below you can submit your own opinions after reading ours.
I'm Mato, better known as jordama. My major is X-Men, with a focus on the newer members, and a minor in Marvel studies ;)
xerox-kitty here. I'm a bleach blonde Brit who has more comics than sense!
I'm danhimself...I know a little about pretty much everything and a lot about nothing.
Awesome! After those introductions we can easily get right into it. So for this first discussion I have decided to go waaay back in time and talk about comic book origins. So, (entering teacher mode) jordama what is an origin?
jordama: Well an Origin is how the character got their powers. An Origin story can make or break a character. If the Origin is just non plausible than fans just won't like a character, I think.
xerox?
xerox-kitty: I'd say at it's simplest, it's the Alpha. The start. The root cause of plots to come... Or something to that effect :)
Thanks! Origins are what makes the hero a hero. Otherwise we would be reading about nerdy Peter Parker and his Not-So-Amazing High School Adventures.
I know that both jordama and xerox are HUGE X-Men fans, do you have an area of expertise dan?
danhimself: I read just about everything....almost all of the main titles from both Marvel and DC and then I read some Image, BOOM!, and a little bit of everything else.
Okay then, how 'bout each one of you tell me what character's origin is your favorite.
xerox-kitty: I'm now trying to think of origins that don't involve being born with an X-Gene...
jordama: As a huge X-Men fan most of the origins are the same, hit puberty, gain powers, family hates them and they go live in the magical land of X-Men. From that I really like Jean's story, having her best friend killed in front of her and cradling her as she died. That is pretty intense for a child to go through. It was handled really well in the First Class Marvel Girl recently.
xerox-kitty: As a kid, I always liked the idea that an alien could arrive and transfer his powers, as with Power Pack. Back then I didn't think about poor Whitey the Kymellian who had to die to give the kids their powers!
But right now I keep thinking about the Doctor Strange limited series 'The Oath'. It brilliantly showed how he used to be an arrogant money-grabbing surgeon who had to rediscover & reinvent himself after a car crash meant that he couldn't use his hands again. Although traveling the world to study black magic isn't particularly an original origin, the story shows the redemption of his character.
danhimself: I'd have to go with Superboy. He went from someone who was cloned from and designed to replace the world's greatest hero to finding out that he was also born from the world's greatest villain and had to struggle with the two sides of his parentage.
jordama: They have to fight the idea that they are just a clone. Having to come to an identity that is separate from the original while everyone tells you that you are just a clone, a knockoff, of someone else.
You make an excellent point. Clones in comics might start out as copies but end up having a will of their own.
danhimself: I think it's because they end up having so much to live up to. X-23's got Wolverine's reputation as a killer, Scarlet Spider didn't even have his own identity and was asked to step up and become Spider-Man, and Superboy I think has it worse than anyone. Everyone is expecting this kid to grow up and be Superman's replacement, those are HUGE shoes to fill.
In my personal opinion I love what they did with Jessica Drew's origin in the Ultimate Universe. She is Peter Parker, but with what she's been through she is definitely a complete tough version of Pete.
jordama: There are interesting levels of clones. X-23, Superboy, Ultimate Drew all have developed as characters but then you see Sinister making clones of his Marauders that are just fodder for battles.
So do you guys think that clones (putting aside Sinister's cheap knock-offs) have better origins than their original counterpart?
danhimself: I don't know if it's better. I mean Superman's origin is known by everyone. You could walk up to just about anyone on the street and ask them what his origin is and they would be able to tell you. I think what's unique about Superboy is that he could go either way. His "parents" are the world's greatest hero and the world's greatest villain. So he's got these 2 conflicting sides to him.
xerox-kitty: Often, the creation of a clone isn't the origin. It'd be difficult to explain why a character is a clone without laying the foundations of who they're a clone of, as their history is often the reason why a clone was made. You need Wolverine to have X-23, there wouldn't be a Stryfe if it weren't for Cable & Apocalypse... I wouldn't say that they become more interesting than their originals. More like, we seem to like to find the differences in character. After all, it's not a if anyone would say that the Gwen Stacy clone was better than the real Gwen.
jordama: I think the time of creation has to come into play. A lot of these clones were created much later than their originals.
Interesting, so the fact that they weren't made in the 60s (or before) affects the views of the readers?
jordama: More like their origins are more interesting now. Last of an alien race or clone of the greatest super hero and greatest supervision (And I use the greatest terms loosely).
danhimself: I think it all depends on the character and how well they're developed. Look at Scarlet Spider. This character is despised and loved by a lot of fans. His origin though really isn't all that complicated. He was made simply to mess with Peter's world, to confuse him and ultimately ruin him even without Ben knowing it.
Then how about the "originals"? I like the Scarlet Spider but I still prefer Spider-Man. What are your favorite origins when it comes to the older characters? Character's whose titles are well over issue 300.
xerox-kitty: Well, I already mentioned Dr Strange's origin. The origin itself is fairly easy to sum up, but it's the change in character that made it interesting... Yet it's not a lasting origin that pushed him on for the rest of his adventures. Not like Spider-Man's sense of 'great responsibility' which keeps him working hard to save the neighborhood (and world).
jordama: I'm still going with Jean's origin as my favorite of the mutants.
danhimself: I don't know if I can really give a definite answer. There are so many that come to mind. Superman being the perfect immigrant story, Batman's need for vengeance and to make sure that no child would ever go through what he did, Hulk's inner anger and turmoil surfacing and becoming a monster, Spider-man going from weak and timid high school nerd to the strong and wise cracking superhero. So many to choose from.
I love Jean, but Dan mentions something that every comic book character's origin has: overcoming something. Aside from a few villains, most of the origin stories have this. Can an origin work without the character in question overcoming 'something'?
xerox-kitty: Overcoming is pretty much what most adventures are. Whether it's something as simple as problems at school, relationships, or an alien invasion. The hero has to overcome something to prove that they're worthy of being a hero (or heroine ;)
xerox-kitty: It used to be that villains didn't need much of a reason other than the desire for more power. Almost as if the source of their powers wasn't as important as the fact that they chose not to be heroes when they gained their powers.
jordama: I would definitely have to say Magneto. I read Testament and it was incredible. Showing how humanity has been attacking him for his entire life, and then becoming a mutant, another hated group but one that gives him the power to exact revenge on the people that hate him so.
xerox-kitty: Magneto is a great example of how a villain isn't always a villain. When his background was revealed, he became a more complicated and almost sympathetic character.
I wouldn't consider Magneto a villain, especially not now that he's on the X-men's side. Xerox does make a good point though, I find villains with no motive boring. I was reading Green Arrow and was bored with the villain after a couple of issues because all she seem to want was power, but I didn't know why. Then again, I jumped in without knowing anything about the characters or the plot.
In a way the worse villains are the ones who have no reason for fighting, they just fight. Do you guys agree?
jordama: Well there are villains that are just insane, they don't really have a reason to fight but that is what makes them scarier than the rational villains.
The villains that are the scariest I would have to say are the ones that think they are actually the hero of the story.
danhimself: For me it's the Joker's origin. I know, I know, he really doesn't have one and that's what makes it special. We really have no idea what his ultimate plan is other than his infatuation with Batman. He's gone through so many personality changes that no one knows what he's going to be doing next.
xerox-kitty: Yeah, if a writer can't invest that little bit of imagination to give a reason why a villain is villainous then why should their readers care? I'm sure Green Goblin would still be popular purely for throwing Gwen off the bridge. But the reason he's a classic villain who keeps coming back is because there's more to his character than just a murderer.
Good point. I don't know the Joker's motive but he does freak me out! Yet the psychologically broken mind of Osborn interests me more because of whatever he is planning. If it wasn't for whatever motive the Green Goblin had, we wouldn't have had Dark Reign.
So lets shift this origin conversation to the less-known characters. Do you guys have any non-DC or Marvel favorite origin stories?
xerox-kitty: I liked the psychological aspect to the Cowboy Ninja Viking, and the agency with characters filled with different multiple personality disorders. It's complex, but more than anything I like that it's original.
jordama: I got nothing... Well, and this is just based of the movie, Scott Pilgrim's lack of origin worked great. There is no explanation for what he can do, he just does it.
Everyone in The Walking Dead but mostly Rick Grimes' son Carl. He's got to be one of the best characters in modern comics. He's an 8 year old boy who has been thrust into an apocalyptic world where he's been forced to abandon his childhood and do things that no child should have to do in order to survive.
xerox-kitty: Have you read Herobear & the Kid? The Kid inherits a teddy bear that turns into a superhero when punched on the nose. It's such a simple concept, but it's so well told. It would be easy to dismiss it as a kids comic, but it has touching themes of death & loss before the Kid even discovers his amazing inheritance.
It's the sort of origin that you can imagine happening to you, but you don't want to because it means losing someone special to you in exchange of that magical inheritance.
I want to read Herobear & the Kid now!
For me it would have to be Fables. This is going to sound really stupid, but the fact that the writer used our childhood fairytale stories to continue on modern character is probably one of the best ideas ever. No matter where the story is taken now, the origin will always be the one I read or was told by my parents while growing up.
xerox-kitty: Oh yeah, Fables! Great example! You don't need to waste time with exposition because we already know who the characters are. Instead, the fun in the first volume is discovering what happened to them after those famous fairy tales ;)
Let's move to an area we are all more comfortable with. What origin do you NOT like?
xerox-kitty: Spider-Man... spiders? No thanks!
jordama: [laughs]
xerox-kitty: It's not that there's any type of origins I don't like, really. More like how well it's told... or how badly it's told.
danhimself: I guess if I had to choose then it would Hal Jordan's origin. He was simply in the right place at the right time.
xerox-kitty: Was Hal's that bad? I thought the ring chose him because he had the level of will-power required. You can tell I'm not a GL reader...
danhimslef: It used to be that the ring was going to go to Guy Gardner but it was to low on power to get to him so it chose Hal instead.
jordama: I would say that the origins that I like the least are the ones that have changed overtime, the ones that have been retconned so I don't really know what is going on for the character
xerox-kitty: Ugh, don't mention retcons. They're just as creepy & crawly as the spiders.
So you don't like Wonder Woman's re-do xerox? [laughs]
xerox-kitty: I haven't read the recent Wonder Woman but I like the new look.
danhimself: Retcons are necessary evil in today's comics. Some of these characters have been around for 60 plus years and some of the stories that they've been in no longer hold up to today's story standards. So some things need to be retold and some things need to be added to stories. A lot of people get down on Geoff Johns for retconning Green Lantern but the truth of the matter is that he hasn't changed anything but instead he's added new elements to the story and now Green Lantern has gone from a B-List character to one of DC's best books.
I don't think we need retcons. Mike Carey turned the awful Gambit-Death story into an interesting twist on a character, purely because he didn't want to retcon the character by ignoring his background. Retcons are an uninspired way of hiding stories that publishers are ashamed of. And time shouldn't be a reason to retcon. I don't see why iconic characters aren't allowed to grow. But that's yet another different debate ;)
jordama: I wouldn't say they are always to hid a bad story, but sometimes to make the story more interesting. But sometime they don't need to make them more interesting.
danhimself: Yeah we should probably save that for another discussion [laughs]
Before this origin discussion becomes a struggle to understand retcons I think we should end this and continue with that topic another time. Would you guys like to say your farewells?
xerox-kitty: I'm already in bed... Good night! :)
jordama: My X-Gene is activating, gotta go.
danhimself: Oh Young Justice is on, Bye
So I think that is all for this discussion! Everybody be sure to comment below and let us know if you agree or disagree with any one of us. Also, tell us if you like this idea and if you do, don't miss the next CV Roundtable.
I am Geo/sora_thekey signing off, bye!
-- Geo ( sora_thekey) 24/7 geek! -- Follow me on Twitter: @sora_thekey
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