Superhero beginnings you just can not believe.

[telcontar42]

I think the better question to be asking here is what superhero beginnings can you actually believe. I mean these are superheroes, with with crazy science fiction/magical super powers. When you get down to logically and scientifically analyzing them, 99% of them will not make any sense.

Batman's super power is ridiculous wealth combined with grudge against criminals from the death of his parents, so that works. Other than that?

[Jesse]

Maybe he has the reality bending powers of Scarlet Witch, but some mental block is stopping him from useing it in its entirety.

Maybe, but then someone could say all mutants have the same power, but they use it in different ways.

You could extend it that all non-mutants merely have complete mental blocks as well.

It's unlocked by the X-Gene.

[SecondTalon]

Batman's super power is ridiculous wealth combined with grudge against criminals from the death of his parents, so that works. Other than that?

Iron Man's power is ridiculous wealth combined with a genius mind, alcoholism, and some unobtanium for power. Really, so long as you allow for the unobtanium, the rest is believable.

[Luthen]

Really, so long as you allow for the unobtanium, the rest is believable.

You're telling me The Core is believable?

[SecondTalon]

No, because the Unobtainum in that movie just allowed them to drill into the Earth. EVERYTHING ELSE about The Core is what makes it Unbelievable.

[Maseiken]

So you're saying that if you assume the existance of a material that can be used to drill all the way own to the Core, then you can believe the premise of drilling all the way down to the core.

Or, in a distilled form, if you believe the absurd premise of the film, that will allow you to believe the absurd premise of the film, and nothing more.

[SecondTalon]

I thought the absurd premise of the film was the collapse of the Earth's magnetic field caused by the solidliquid core no longer spinning because of ??? and that this could be remedied by setting off nukes in said core.

Next to that, magic material that withstands pressures in magma is goddamn realistic.

[Maseiken]

So I actually watched The Core the other night, by an amazing coincidence. I'm pretty much willing to forgive it any of the technobabble since I genuinely enjoyed watching it. As far as Trashy, quasi-scientific thrillers go, it's pretty far up there.

I also watched the remake of The Wicker Man, so by comparison it seemed like a god-damn MASTERPIECE.

[Endless Mike]

Maybe he has the reality bending powers of Scarlet Witch, but some mental block is stopping him from useing it in its entirety.

Maybe, but then someone could say all mutants have the same power, but they use it in different ways.

You could extend it that all non-mutants merely have complete mental blocks as well.

It's unlocked by the X-Gene.

That doesn't really work. A mental block is keeping everyone but Beak from being a chicken man?

[Jesse]

No, the X gene gives you the ability to alter reality in some way, how it does so depends on your own mentality.

It doesn't have to make sense. Just sound cool.

[pineapplepie]

The X-Men are weird, as are Spider-Man's radioactive totem whatever and Green Lantern's magic worthiness. Also, all the Hawk-people.

[danielnairn]

Related is how said superheroes begin their crimefighting:

Superhero discovers powers and thinks they're cool, but doesn't use them responsibly. Suddenly, his father-figure dies, probably at the hands of a criminal, maybe even a super-villian. Hero dedicates his life to finding crime. Optional time period of discovering who he is before starting to fight crime.

Let's see who fits:
Spiderman
Batman
Superman
Any others?

[Zohar]

How is that true for Batman and Superman? How does either of them use their abilities irresponsibly?

[Jesse]

Also, Pa Kent is still alive long into Superman's career.

[The Mighty Thesaurus]

He could be talking about Jor-El

[Zohar]

But Jor-El wasn't a parental figure to Superman at all, not when he was young anyway. And he didn't have any powers before Jor-El died.

[The Mighty Thesaurus]

You're right. I guess danielnarn is simply a charlatan.

[danielnairn]

Hmmm...well, I guess I've only seen the Christopher Reeve Superman movie...that's what I was referring to. I always just thought it was a standard comic hero thing to start off with the death of a father figure...Now I feel sheepish

EDIT: So I just had to figure this out for myself. I used Comic Vine to find the most popular comic book superheroes by appearance at this site http://www.comicvine.com/characters/. Then I used wikipedia to research what I didn't already know about the superheroes' origins. Here's all of the superheroes who lost parental figures before becoming superheroes:

Superman: Biological father and mother both die when superman is still young. in addition, silver age and bronze age accounts of superman's origin have his adopted parents dying before he becomes Superman
Batman: Father and Mother killed in front of his eyes at young age
Spider-Man: Uncle Ben murdered, partially at the fault of Spider-Man
Robin: Dick Grayson's parents killed by criminals
The Thing: Older brother killed when he is 8 (Bit of a stretch...)
Human Torch: Lost his mother in car accident, father driven to alcoholism (Again, a stretch)
Invisible Girl: Same as Human Torch
Cyclops: Parents die in a plane crash
Storm: Parents killed by a jet crash

[SecondTalon]

Sure, but.. let's compare Spiderman and Batman here.

Batman loses parents at age 8 when he was far too young to do anything to prevent the problem and as a result dedicates his life to always preventing the problem via becoming some ubermensch. Were it not for his parent's death, he'd likely just be an intelligent wealthy man. Getting robbed by the Joker every other week.

Spiderman gets awesome powers and fucks around for a bit. He refuses to stop a criminal, and said criminal goes on to kill Uncle Ben. When he discovers that he could have easily stopped the guy and Uncle Ben wouldn't be dead, he becomes a crimefighter.

Batman - There was absolutely nothing he could have done, except die. Also, all *powers* are a direct result of parent's death.
Spiderman - If he wasn't being a lazy asshole, Uncle Ben would still be alive. All powers have jack and shit to do with anyone dying.

[Zohar]

And it's the same for the other people as well. The common link you're finding is "dead parents", not "negligent or irresponsible use of powers".

[Endless Mike]

FTR Pa Kent was killed last year.

Batman's origin is believable enough, it's just that everything following that is not.

[danielnairn]

And it's the same for the other people as well. The common link you're finding is "dead parents", not "negligent or irresponsible use of powers".

You're absolutely right. Scratch what I said about irresponsible use of powers.

[smw543]

And it's the same for the other people as well. The common link you're finding is "dead parents", not "negligent or irresponsible use of powers".

There's also a high correlation between dead parent(s) and being a professional writer. And writers, lazy bastards that we are, tend to base stories on life experiences. danielnairn may have stumbled onto something here (though I'm far too lazy to do any cross-referencing).

[Kewangji]

While it deserves some credibility for being built up so long, and for making us figure it out ourselves instead of just shoving it in our faces (most of the time), I always felt that Refrigerator Woman's background story sucked.

[El Spark]

Who's that? Green Lantern's girlfriend?

[Kewangji]

Yeah.