Not all superheroes can have a wonderfully crafted origin story like Batman’s or Superman’s.
The truth is, many of the heroes that we see in modern day comics initially were presented
with a pretty silly origin story, or no origin story at all, and became the victim of awkward
retconning that seemed like a good idea at the time.
Today, we’re taking a look at those less fortunate vigilantes with our list of the
top 10 dumbest superhero origins you won’t believe.
Some of these origin stories are flat out silly, while others seem like they were last
minute ideas whipped up on a whim.
So with that in mind, let’s get to our list!
10 The Badger Let’s start off our list with one of the
more obscure heroes to appear on our countdown today.
We’re talking Norbert Sykes, aka THE BADGER.
Oh friends, it only gets worse from here.
So our buddy Norbert is a Vietnam vet who was initially published by the very short
lived Capital Comics.
His rights then went to a publisher called First Comics, and then, after the 90s, he
was released by Dark Horse, Image and IDW.
So yeah, he’s been around.
Wonder why.
First appearing in a self titled comic, Badger issue 1 in 1983, this is a character who is
an expert martial artist, and (this is THE best part) he can talk to animals.
So how did he get that power?
Well, we should probably preface this by noting that he has multiple personality disorder.
Because one of his personalities believed he could talk to animals, and that personality
referred to itself as ‘the badger’.
Oh, it’s also worth noting that this persona of his believed he saw God appear as a badger
to him.
Yup, like I said, gets worse.
Norbert escapes the mental asylum he’s in and becomes a vigilante based off of this.
He’s also got a ton of other personalities too, including a dog, a 9 year old girl, a
playboy and an inner city black kid.
So not only is this absurd, it’s also a little offensive.
9 Defensor Defensor is another slightly obscure character,
and he has a very obscure origin story, to boot.
Defensor first appeared in Marvel Super Hero Contest of Champions issue 1 in 1982.
Before becoming a vigilante, he was a construction worker named Gabriel Carlo Dantes Sepulveda.
Gabriel found an underground passageway that he snuck into after his superiors at his job
had gone home for the day (they had previously told him to ignore his discovery).
Stubbornly, he entered, and found that the cavern contained a suit of vibranium armour
connected to an unknown machine.
So what did Gabriel do?
He put it on, of course.
And as soon as he did, things went to hell; he was attacked by a group of creatures, and
he fought his way back to the surface.
And thus began his vigilante career.
His death happened off panel in 1995, being reported in Captain America issue 442.
8 Elongated Man Ralph Dibny may be a more respected b-tier
superhero these days, but that’s not something you’d assume based solely off of his origin
story.
How did he become a superhero?
He drank soda.
Not even kidding here.
Dibny, a young regular dude who just so happened to be obsessed with circus performers, wanted
to be like the contortionist and acrobats he so dearly admired.
So he did his research and asked around, and turns out the particular performers he questioned
claimed that they drank a particular kind of carbonated beverage that helped them stay
in top form.
That soda was a drink called Gingold.
So what does our pal Ralph do?
He went out and bought as much Gingold as he could get his non-powered hands on.
And he drank it.
A lot of it.
Like, an unsafe amount of it.
And surprise surprise, it worked!
He had gained stretchy powers, capable of elongating his body in any which way.
Now, you’re probably thinking, this story has some obvious plot holes.
Can anyone drink a bunch of pop and be granted super powers?
Definitely not.
Really, he’s lucky he didn’t gain a massive amount of cavities instead.
7 Black Condor There have been three Black Condors over the
years.
And all three haven’t had great origin stories.
But let’s specifically look at the first, Richard Grey Jr.
First appearing in Crack Comics issue 1 in 1940.
Grey got his powers thanks to nuclear exposure from a radioactive meteor.
Despite this, he personally believed that this wasn’t actually the reason he had gotten
powers.
He believed that he was capable of flight because he had been raised as an orphan by
a flock of wild condor birds in the wild.
When he returned to civilized society, he just HAPPENED upon the dead body of a Senator
named Thomas Wright.
So he stole his identity because they shared an uncanny resemblance.
How convenient!
And yes, he led a double life as a senator while operating as a crime fighter.
6 Green Arrow Green Arrow’s initial origin story is so
bad it’s laughable.
And that’s because it’s literally a rip off of another one of DC’s more popular
characters- Batman.
First appearing in More Fun Comics issue 73 from 1941, DC was clearly trying to capitalize
on the success of their caped crusader Batman by creating a similar hero.
This hero was Oliver Queen.
Queen was an orphan.
Queen had a traumatic experience that inspired him to fight crime.
Queen was a millionaire philanthropist playboy.
Queen had an arrow cave, and an arrow car, and even a young ward.
The difference?
He found himself on a deserted island one day and taught himself how to be an expert
archer.
This is literally THE ONLY difference between him in Bruce Wayne.
Like Batman, but more Robin Hood.
Luckily, Queen has become a more independent character in terms of his identity, having
had a major overhaul and a neat little retcon in the 60s that mixed up his ideologies, ditched
his millionaire background and turned him into a liberal man fighting for the people.
5 Catwoman Oh yes, an iconic character the caliber of
Catwoman can be victimized by a terribly whacky origin story just like any other hero.
Selina Kyle first hit the scene in the early days of the Golden Age, appearing in Batman
issue 1 from 1940.
But she hadn’t fully come into her own yet.
During her debut, she was merely an expert thief who made use of disguises that made
her appear like an innocent elderly woman.
But how did she enter this glamorous life of crime and jewel thievery?
Once upon a time, she was a flight attendant, and during one fateful flight, the plane she
was working on crashed.
She suffered from amnesia as a result.
And upon waking, what did she do?
She decided that she should start a life of crime.
That’s a completely rational idea, right?
As for the whole cat part of her persona, she chose to adopt the mantle of The Cat (she
wouldn’t be called Catwoman until later) all due to her daddy dearest having owned
a pet store in the past.
As you can imagine, DC being the king of reboots and retcons eventually retconned this origin
and replaced it with a new one in the 1980s after the character made a come back in the
silver age.
4 Shanna The She-Devil Shanna first appeared in a self titled comic
book in 1972.
She’s a well trained vet, an olympic level athlete, experienced in combat, and has extraordinary
agility.
She’s also a highly sexually objectified character, but that’s not why she landed
on this list.
Shanna witnessed the death of her mother; her father murdered her.
Moving from Africa, she came to the US to become an olympic athlete and vet who specializes
in raising leopard cubs.
Here’s where it gets weird.
One of the cubs she was raising was shot at by a zoo guard, and feeling she needed to
protect wildlife better, she moved BACK to Africa to fight off poachers.
Cool story.
3 Bouncing Boy Bouncing Boy is by far one of the silliest
superheroes out there.
He is a boy who has the power to inflate like a giant ball, and, of course, bounce around.
He first appeared in Action Comics issue 276 in 1961, and was a part of the Legion of Super-Heroes.
Bouncing Boy aka Chuck Taine is largely thought to be a character created by Jerry Siegel
as a means of reflecting Siegel’s interest in comedy and desire to have a vehicle for
humour on the team.
So how did Chuck get his powers?
He wasn’t born with them.
And, silly enough, he’s the SECOND individual on our list to gain his powers from a beverage.
No word of a lie, Chuck thought he was gulping down a delicious soda when in fact, he had
just consumed a super plastic formula.
He was first rejected by the legion, but after defeating a robber, he was accepted onto the
team’s roster, and self-appointed himself as the Legion’s, I quote, “morale officer”.
2 Firebrand The Firebrand mantle has been held by two
individuals, siblings Rod and Danette.
Rod Reilly was a bored wealthy socialite who decided he would fight crime alongside his
man servant, donning a very flamboyant costume that consisted of a transparent shirt and
tight red pants.
Aside from being a bit of a latent queer superhero, Rod was a pretty darn racist superhero; his
story had been retconned, making him present at Pearl Harbour during it’s attack in World
War 2.
So justified racism!
Oh boy.
Danette, after finding out her brother was Firebrand, would state, I quote, “what a
confirmed bachelor playboy like my brother needed with a bodyguard, I never understood”,
and, “from the look of these clothes, I didn’t know my brother quite well as I thought
I did!”
In other words, your brother’s gay, sweetie.
Speaking of, her origin was more absurd than her brother’s; she was studying volcanos
north of Hawaii in the 40s when she was kidnapped by a sorcerer named Wotan.
When she tried to escape, Wotan hit her with a magical blast and knocked her into lava,
which gave her the power to control heat and shoot fire blasts.
1 The Whizzer The Whizzer aka Robert Frank is a product
of the Golden Age, having initially been published by Marvel’s predecessor, Timely Comics.
First debuting in USA Comics issue 1 in 1941, the Whizzer not only has a silly name.
His origin story is almost baffling it’s that bad.
Born in St Louis, Missouri, Robert Frank was a fellow who went on a trip to Africa with
his father Emil Frank when he was bitten by a cobra.
An almost fatal bite, his father saved him with a blood transfusion from a mongoose.
Why?
To counteract the poison, apparently.
But because of this, Robert was given super speed abilities.
Later on, writers tried to make this less absurd by saying that the mongoose blood actually
triggered latent meta-human abilities.
Yeah, sure.