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What is a well structured origin story (or super power) for a comic book super hero? (lemmy.world)

submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Lots of superheroes are "children of the atom" in the sense that they derive powers from some sort of radioactivity (think Spiderman or Hulk or even Daredevil) while others are just born with powers without explanation (X-Men, Thor, Superman, Aquaman, Wonder Woman).

Who is a superhero that is somehow grounded in reality, meaning that they could "potentially" make sense (either their origin story is believable, even if it has some obvious gap to make a super power happen, or their power is somehow limited or constructed in a "reasonable" way).

I guess with these restrictions, Batman would be OK since he's got no superpowers, but he's insanely rich and therefore can both train himself and have access to sophisticated gadgets, but can you think of less obvious ones (even if they're minor characters)?

Thanks for reading this!

Edit: thanks for all the answers and apologies for the slow replies. I've had a couple of complicated days. I'll now go through answering you. Several people made me realize I hadn't been precise in what I meant and helped with their answers. I was looking for superheroes or superpowers that are somehow "believable" in that they're either constructed in an unexpected way or in a way that you could almost accept as plausible

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

That's an interesting take, because it is a plausible origin story arising from an "implausible" one! What I mean is that, according to the (admittedly not well defined) "bounds" of my original post, mutants have a less believable origin story since they're just born with powers, but Deadpool becomes a superhero since he already lives in a universe where mutants and healing factors exist and so it makes sense they make experiments on it!

I didn't know Norman Osborn tried to kill Deadpool with a cure for cancer. That's a neat plot device!