Superhero Origin Stories Werent Actually As Important As Fans Think

Superhero Origin Stories Weren’t Actually As Important As Fans Think

Contents

Origin stories weren’t always an important part of superhero comics, but the Silver Age of Comics irrevocably changed the genre for the better.

You Are Reading :[thien_display_title]

Superhero Origin Stories Werent Actually As Important As Fans Think

Everyone loves a good superhero origin story from Marvel Comics and DC Comics. Heroes like Spider-Man, Ms. Marvel, Shazam, and The Flash all have beginnings as ordinary people who walked into extraordinary circumstances. With the success of recent cinematic adaptations like Joker, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and Venom, it is difficult for many fans to imagine a world where origin stories didn’t impact a comic book character’s identity. But a closer inspection into the history of superhero comics reveals a startling sea change that occurred during the Silver Age of American comics, one that has shaped the course of superhero comics today.

Origin stories have become a shorthand to understanding a particular character’s motivations and how they fit into the world of the story. In explaining a character like Spider-Man to someone who knows nothing about superheroes, it might make more sense to say, “a nerdy teenager developed superpowers after being bit by a radioactive spider,” rather than “a man fights crime in New York City by shooting webs out of his wrists.” While audiences and readers are more receptive to fantastical stories than they have ever been, origin stories construct a believability matrix that has helped the superhero genre thrive.

And while origin stories largely operate within this framework today, it was not always like this in American comics. Many Golden Age (1938- 1956) superheroes like Superman, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman were born with their superpowers, and the majority of the comics from that time were stories about extraordinary heroes doing unbelievable feats. But with the Silver Age (1956-1970) came an onslaught of new heroes whose dramatic origin stories marked a major break from superheroes of the past. Instead of being born with god-like powers, these new heroes, on the whole, were regular people thrown into terrifying situations.

See also  Zorro Reboot Casts Flashpoints Kiersey Clemons

Superhero Origin Stories Werent Actually As Important As Fans Think

It was the Silver Age of Comics that laid the groundwork for the origin story today, introducing a new set of priorities for superhero comics as an art form. Instead of providing readers with spectacles of physical prowess, Silver Age heroes were more relatable figures who readers could easily imagine themselves as. As a result, the relationship between reader and superhero changed during this period, with the latter becoming an avatar for readers to mediate their own personal struggles within. Because of the rise of the origin story, a new figure in superhero comics emerged: the everyman.

Barry Allen’s Debut As The Flash Kicked Off A New Brand Of Hero.

Superhero Origin Stories Werent Actually As Important As Fans Think

In 1956, Barry Allen debuted as the new Flash in Showcase #4, and his origin story contains several hallmarks of this new age of heroes (written by Bob Kanigher and John Broome, pencils by Carmine Infantino, inks by Joe Kubert). Firstly, Barry was a scientist, setting the precedent for the scientist-turned-superhero archetype in superhero comics that continued with the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, and Ant-Man over in Marvel Comics. Like the first Flash, Jay Garrick, Barry gained his superspeed after a freak accident in his laboratory, except his story is more dramatic than the original Flash. Barry was struck by lightning and doused in laboratory chemicals.

At the time of his transformation, Barry was keenly aware of the previous Flash, even reading some of his comics up until the moment of his accident. This reinforced how the emerging new generation of superheroes were first ordinary people living in the shadow of Golden Age heroes. By making Barry Allen just as much a fan of Jack Garrick’s Flash as any regular comics reader, DC Comics wisely depicted their brand new Flash in a world just like their target audience’s.

Spider-Man’s Origin Story Makes Him The Archetypal Silver Age Hero.

Superhero Origin Stories Werent Actually As Important As Fans Think

Peter Parker’s transformation into Spider-Man in Amazing Fantasy #15 is one of the most well known Silver Age origin stories (written by Stan Lee, inks by Steve Ditko, colors by Stan Goldberg, letters by Art Simek). Like other origin stories of this era, it featured a freak accident happening to a regular person, in this case, a high schooler on a class trip. As Spider-Man’s origin story indicates, superpowers were not something that one needed to be born with, but could be attained in the strangest of coincidences.

See also  RHOC Heather Dubrow & Vicki Gunvalson Seen Together As Season 16 Films

As Amazing Fantasy #15 sets up, a person like Peter Parker was never intended to be a superhero. Weak, nerdy, and bullied, he was as far from the god-like heroes that comics readers had been familiar with. This makes his transformation into Spider-Man all the more satisfying, as it showed that even wallflowers could become superheroes.

With the dawn of the Silver Age came a new era for the relationship between superhero and fan. While there are notable exceptions to the Golden Age’s god-like superheroes (namely, Captain America), the overwhelming change that occurred during the Silver Age paved the way for the importance of the origin story in the superhero mythos. Today, it is hard to imagine a superhero story without some detailed origin narrative behind it, and that is in part due to the lengths that Silver Age creators took in making their new heroes believable to their readers.

The spread of the origin story in superhero comics has been an important force in democratizing the genre, making it more inclusive today than it has been in the past. A major component of today’s superheroes are their origin stories, or the series of events that not only gave them their powers, but also their principles. This reflects the Silver Age’s vision of superheroism as not necessarily an innate quality, but an acquired one. As the popularity of characters like Barry Allen’s Flash and Peter Parker’s Spider-Man demonstrate, fans have continued to place great importance on characters with compelling origin stories. And if there is one thing that DC Comics and Marvel Comics have perfected over the decades, it is crafting meaningful stories about how regular people never fail to stand up for what they believe in.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/superhero-origin-stories-spiderman-flash-change/

Movies -