Hello /co/
Someone I worked with who is a very casual fan asked me a question I just couldn't answer.
Which superheroes have the most light-hearted and happiest superhero origin or backstory?
Not sure who to start with. Superman and Batman are definitely out. Although Superman's prior to discovery his home origin is pretty good
Stargirl, from DC?
>>84290609
I'd say Superman is pretty damn close. Sure he lost his "original" family, but he was raised by loving parents. He was adopted, and then he got badass powers out of it, too.
He's got the whole "I'm lonely cause I'm the last of my race thing" going on but it's nothing near "parents got murdered" trauma.
>>84290665
yeah clark had living loving parents, who taught him how to function and be a good person
thats better than a good deal of what REAL people get
Spider-Man had an amazing first few weeks.
>>84290609
>>84290665
>>84290698
Yeah. Especially if you consider early Golden Age Superman, where his Kryptonian heritage was basically a footnote.
>>84290753
poor thing was baldest as a child
>>84290753
>(The entire first half of Man of Steel covered in one panel)
Tim Drake,
I dunno much about booster gold, but I would imagine his was stellar.
>>84290965
Booster's background is pretty sad actually
Wonder Woman? She lived in paradise but left it out of a desire to better the outside world
>>84290338
i´m tempted to say animal man because his family is lovely
Thor maybe?
Before the rebirth retcon, Barry Allen had a perfectly happy life.
>>84290993
I just read up on it and realized I was mistaken.
If you dont count Ben, the fantastic four. Really very little about their lives changed.
hers wasn't bad at all
>>84290965
pffft
>>84291009
Is that the most common version? I've been reading legend of Wonder Woman and in the act of returned Steve Trevor to the outside world she forgot where her home was.
>>84291076
Now he has one of the most dogged.
Superman doesn't have exactly a happy origin. Both ma and pa Kent end up dead as well.
Bart Allen aka Impulse is a good one.
He is raised in a computer simulation where there is no consequence to his actions. The guy basically grew up in a sweet video game, the first time shit ever hit the fan Iris takes him to the past and puts him under Wally/Max's loving tutelage.
Hal Jordan?
Idk nigga, shiiiiit, all dem bustas got some dead ass nigga weighin em down with some great power great responsibility fuckshit ya dig dog?
>>84291155
old people die.
>>84290338
Booster Gold? He's just doing it for fun.
>>84291180
Hal had the pleasure of watching his dad crash and die while testing a plane.
>>84291207
Moon knight?
Spawn?
Spectre?
Kratos
Scorpion?
Guile?
Ryu?
Zangief?
>>84291207
Also his mom refused to ever speak to him again after he joined the air force, and his brother blamed him for their Mom's death
Hal and Barry had way less depressing back stories before Geoff got to them
Probably some golden age hero who just fought crime to better his community.
>>84290338
Prez?
Literally kid fixes town clocks and becomes president of the USA
>>84291276
>Hal and Barry had way less depressing back stories before Geoff got to them
Because both were relics of the Silver Age. Geoff modernized them in the only way he knows how (muh tragic backstory). Not saying that's okay, but that's what happened.
Look at Silver/Golden age characters, almost universally happy. Jay Garrick for example fell asleep on the job and got sweet powers, bashed criminals around for a couple of years and then retired with a hot wife.
>>84290338
Wally West
Ted Kord?
Got rich as fuck, not even off of blood money, then decided "Fuck, why not become a superhero?"
Unless I'm missing something.
>>84291343
I think Barry's death is pretty core to his backstory.
Maybe the power pack kids in the all ages version of their story? Still pretty sad but there are sadder..
>>84291343
Didn't they basically retcon his father into being more abusive
>>84291406
His family was never good. But he travelled back in time and reassured himself that it would all be okay and Iris really looked after him. So I don't think his family was excessively bad.
>>84291359
Wally had already been active as Kid Flash for years at that point. It's the origin of him becoming the Flash but not a Superhero
What about shazam?
Blue beetle?
Why can't people have simple back stories?
The entire Green Team
>>84291498
This
>>84291458
I would disagree, but not with any objective evidence, your opinion is perfectly valid. I just see Kid Flash -> COIE -> Flash #1 - 61 as the back story. Things really kick into gear when Waid takes over.
So for me, the dream start, the shocking loss and the dickish teenage years give the platform for him to go from.
>>84291186
They got killed by a 5th dimensional trickster
>>84290665
>but it's nothing near "parents got murdered" trauma
New 52 Supermans parents were murdered though. Not Mr Mxy made them die in a car crash
I feel like you guys (and the rest of the internet) undersell Clark's situation. It's literally "you're adopted" multiplied by a billion.
>>84291633
What bigger testament of your parent's virtue and love is there than actually keeping you despite knowing you're an alien no matter what consequence it might have for them? If anything it should just make him love his parents all the more.
I think the answer is Golden Age Captain America.
He was a good kid, lived a nice life, joined the army, became the greatest mankind had to offer, and used that power to beat the shit out of his enemies and win World War 2.
Until the whole "Frozen in ice and thawed in the modern era" thing happened not a damn thing went wrong for him.
>>84291741
That's logically sound, but Superman found that shit out as a teenager. You think a TEENAGER would take the situation with ease?
>>84291770
I don't know, I was never much of a teenager. I just masturbated all those years and did nothing else.
>>84291770
>That's logically sound, but Superman found that shit out as a teenager. You think a TEENAGER would take the situation with ease?
I would argue that comics, especially in the age that defined superman were not logically sound.
>>84291021
His son is currently dead because of his origin, so he's hardly an example of happy.
Luther Strode? He was picked on a little then became magically buff as fuck. If you disregard everything that came after his powers, that's a pretty solid origin.
the new ms. marvel didn't really have that much of a tragic backstory. her parents moved to america to get away from the chaos in pakistan, but that was before she was even born. she disobeyed them one time to go to a party, almost immediately regretted it, and got hit by the mist bomb on her way back home.
it seems like all the really bad things that have happened to herlike having her likeness used without permission for a gentrification project that hurt her reputationhappened after she got her powers
>>84291770
>I think the answer is Golden Age Captain America.
Doesn't he have dead parents?
>>84291964
Yeah but they were Irish
>>84291483
>What about shazam?
Orphan is kind of a sad origin.
>>84291100
Which explains why (pre-nu52) she was a very generally optimistic and outgoing character
The answer is Franklin Richards.
>>84290338
Remember Tim was this before TT/Identity Crisis made him edgier?
At least his parents are alive in new 52 even if his new origin is ass
>>84291276
The "mom was a stifling cunt" half of Hal's story, I find, is actually necessary to explain what personality traits he has. Geoff's pretty good at looking at "Why does this character act this way?" (In Hal's case, being all "nobody tells me what to do", willpower as stubbornness, drive to be free and not "tied down", etc.) and then coming up with a reason that makes sense.
>>84290876
Even less in the original action comics version of that page from the previous year
Hes not got a happy life and he's not really a superhero but problems with his family aside constantines early days were pretty good. (Or at least he considers them as such)
He literaly got into magic for the sex.
>>84291483
Captain marvel grew up on the streets or in some story's his parents died and he got taken in by his evil uncle.
He's a happy character it was a shitty past
>>84291553
Isent pa Kent supposed to die of natural causes
>>84291940
Ok yeah that was fairly happy not much more then the standard parental friction.
>>84292360
I guess that makes sense
>>84291483
Tragedy is an easy way for people to sympathize with characters.
Johnny and Sue Storm grew up in an alright family. Ultimate verse makes them into think thank babies, but otherwise they are well enough. Ben And Reed had shitty family situations.
Spidey actually had a decent upbringing by loving people. He never really knew his parents, but his aunt and uncle were more then surrogate parents enough. Shit hit the fan afterwards.
Tony Stark?
Wally West has the happiest origin for a DC superhero I think. He literally became what he ever dreamed of and was essentially adopted by Barry & Iris afterwards so his abusive household didn't really define him anyway.
>>84290338
Funny Image.
>>84292360
True, plus it helps explain why we heard about Hal's brothers and some extended family but iirc never his dad until Emerald Dawn and never his mother until he was the Spectre (and even then it was only in the context of his childhood)
>>84295557
Tony's parents died so no
