Origin stories are the bread and butter of superhero​ fables.
Even with constant reboots, the origin story tends to remain consistent.
But some origin stories were almost very, very different.
Here are some that were changed at the last second.
Wolverine might be the most popular X-Man ever, but boy, has his life sucked.
Amnesia is bad enough, but he's also got dozens of dead girlfriends, he killed his biological
dad, and he was turned into a nightmarish science experiment that bonded metal to his
bones.
But the original plan was to eventually reveal that the clawed one wasn't a real mutant,
but instead, an actual wolverine that had been transformed into a human through some
mad science.
That might sound like a bad joke, but early X-Men comics even hinted at this twist, such
as one issue in which Sentinel-manufacturing bad guys scan Logan's body and pick up weird
readings.
And another time, when the X-Men meet up with magical leprechauns, Logan gruffly says that
he doesn't believe in such fairy tales, to which the leprechaun responds that he doesn't
believe in "talking wolverines" either.
Thankfully, Stan Lee put the kibosh on this wacky concept.
For a long time, X-Men was Marvel's biggest franchise, and a lot of the credit for that
goes to longtime writer Chris Claremont.
But not all of Claremont's ideas made it to print, though.
For example, consider Nightcrawler, that lovable blue-skinned Catholic mutant.
In the comics, Mystique is his mom, but according to Comic Book Resources, Claremont's original
idea was for Mystique to be Nightcrawler's father.
Mystique is a shapeshifter, after all, so it's entirely possible that she could morph
the necessary "equipment" to impregnate someone.
In this case, the mother would've been Destiny, one of Mystique's fellow Brotherhood members.
This plot twist never moved from subtext to actual text because of the now-defunct Comics
Code, which barred the depiction of LGBTQ+ relationships.
By the time the Comics Code became dust in the wind, later writers had already come up
with a different depiction of Nightcrawler's parentage.
You might already know the classic Robin origin story: Dick Grayson is a high-flying young
circus acrobat, whose parents, the "Flying Graysons," are murdered by gangsters.
He's adopted by a strange billionaire named Bruce Wayne, and his colorful Robin costume
serves as a clear homage to the circus family he lost.
"Who's your tailor?"
“I took the liberty, sir.”
But Robin's backstory could've been very different.
A canceled 1943 Batman radio show would've changed the Flying Graysons into a pair of
FBI agents who are murdered by Nazi spies.
While this retcon wasn't directly proposed for the comics, such media adaptations had
a way of causing the comics to be rewritten.
For example, such classic Superman staples as kryptonite and the Daily Planet were first
created by the Superman radio show and then adapted into the comics, while Batman's iconic
Batcave was introduced in a 1943 serial.
So if the Batman radio series had been produced, there's a good chance the "Nazis killed Robin's
FBI parents" origin would've become part of the comics.
In many ways, Eddie Brock makes the perfect anti-Spider-Man.
While Peter Parker is the kid who grew up too fast and is always plagued by responsibilities,
Brock is the kid who never grew up and never takes responsibility.
The two are so perfectly opposite that you'd imagine their storyline had been planned all
along, but surprisingly enough, Brock wasn't the guy who was originally intended to become
Venom.
In fact, the character's creators weren't aiming for a "guy" at all.
According to Venom creator David Michelinie, the character was originally conceived as
a happily married pregnant woman who gets in a car accident when her taxi driver is
too busy looking up at Spider-Man to pay attention to the road.
Her husband dies, she has a miscarriage, and she's so enraged at Spider-Man that his rejected
alien costume is drawn to her like a moth to flame.
But this pitch was rejected because Michelinie's editor didn't believe a female villain could
really face off against Spider-Man.
This sexist dismissal hasn't aged well, but at the time, it meant that Michelinie had
to quickly invent Eddie Brock, who's since become the symbiote's most iconic host.
And the pregnancy angle hung around, as Venom and Eddie found out they were expecting in
a 2018 issue.
"I have a parasite.
Yeah.
Night, Mrs. Chang!”
“Parasite?!”
“Yeah, it’s a term of endearment, that’s all.”
“Apologize!"
The entire superhero genre as we know it depends upon the creation of Superman.
It's the ultimate sci-fi immigrant story, first brought to life by two Jewish kids from
Cleveland named Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.
However, back when Siegel first made it out of high school, he self-published a story
called "Reign of the Superman," in which the title character is a villainous powerhouse
created by an evil mad scientist.
According to the Jewish Virtual Library, Siegel and Shuster abandoned this villainous Superman
concept when the Nazis started distorting German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche's "Superman"
concept for their own purposes.
So the duo recreated their Superman character with a new origin story as a heroic force
for truth, justice, and the American way.
These days, Superman seems old school, but at the time, he was so innovative and radical
that it took five years for Siegel and Shuster to find a publisher willing to produce their
story, which finally came to light in Action Comics #1.
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