Desperate parents send their child away

from a dying world, raised by humble American farmers,

the boy grows up to be a symbol of truth and justice.

A mugger shoots and kills two wealthy

industrialists in a dark alley, in front of their son.

He dedicates his life to stopping the criminals

who prey on the innocent.

A bullied teen gets bitten by a radioactive spider

and learns the hard way that with great power,

comes great responsibility.

Why are we so fascinated with origin stories?

(rock guitar music)

Welcome to comic misconceptions,

the show that takes you into detail about the things

you think you know about comics, I'm the host,

Scott Niswander.

That was the very first episode of

the show you're watching right now.

This is the very first logo I made for the channel.

Atrocious, and this is a screen shot

of the very first time I ever wrote the word, NerdSync.

These are all little fragments

from the origin of this channel,

and as next week will be our 100th episode,

I thought it would be kind of interesting

to take a quick look at how this all started.

But why, why do origins even matter?

Comic books are littered with origin stories.

They're constantly telling, and retelling origins,

Tweaking little details, showing it

from another perspective.

Rebooting it altogether or simply

refreshing the reader's mind.

The origin of a superhero is important, to say the least.

But what is an origin story?

Clinical psychologist, Dr. Robin S. Rosenberg,

who literally wrote the book on superhero origins,

says quote,

"Origin stories are often tales about transformation,

"stories in which a pivotal event

"or set of events

"sets us on a particular path in life."

They explain who someone is

and what makes them the way they are.

And a superhero origin features

two types of transformation.

There's the super part, which centers around

how a character receives, discovers,

or develops special powers or abilities,

and the hero part, which, as you can probably guess,

focuses on the transformation of the character

into a hero, where they decide

how to use their new powers and abilities.

And for the sake of this video,

we're going to address all comic book heroes

as superheroes, even though

you might personally argue that

someone like Batman, for example,

isn't a superhero, but just a hero.

We'll discuss this topic in a future video, I promise.

Just hang in there.

Another distinguishing feature of an origin story

is that it's followed by subsequent stories.

Take Jurassic Park, you could argue that

the first movie in the franchise is the origin story.

It shows how the dinosaurs were grown

and the beginning of the proposed theme park.

It showcases the transformation

from an exotic island resort and amusement park

to a terrifying landscape of certain death

and a very scary place to use the bathroom.

But, if there were never any sequels,

then we might not consider it to be an origin story.

It would simply be

a story, the existence of accounts that take place

after the first movie, in effect, turn it into

an origin story.

Okay, that sounds simple enough,

but a great comic book origin is deceptively complex.

In reality, it has to cover a lot of ground

in a very short amount of time.

Comic book writer and editor, Tom DeFalco,

laid out a blueprint for crafting the

perfect superhero origin stories.

First, and most obviously,

we need to be introduced to the protagonist,

but it can't just be anybody.

The main character has to already be interesting

before they become a hero.

Whether that's Barry Allen being a forensic scientist

obsessed with solving his mom's murder

and proving his father's innocence,

or Scott Lang, being an ex-convict

who would do anything for his daughter.

These are people you can get invested in immediately.

Then, something happens.

There's some kind of accident or inciting event

that changes the character.

A radioactive spider bite,

the death of a loved one,

getting bitten by a snake and then injected

with mongoose blood until you have super-speed.

Then the death of a loved one.

And it doesn't even have to give them powers or abilities

right then and there.

It can simply inspire them to become a hero

through their own needs.

Bruce Wayne didn't become Batman and start beating

up thugs as soon as the trigger was pulled.

Instead, he used that moment as motivation

to train, and learn, and become the Dark Knight

years down the line.

But remember, that's just the super part of superhero.

A good origin also needs to explain the hero part.

Spiderman used his powers initially

as a means to make money,

but when Uncle Ben died,

Peter did not hesitate for using his special skillset

to catch the murderer.

Imagine, though, if that was the end of the story.

Pete caught his uncle's killer.

Good job.

Now what?

There's no reason for him to continue

fighting crime.

Why not just go back to making money on TV?

Ah, because of that famous twist.

That criminal wasn't some random guy,

it was the same thief Spiderman intentionally

failed to stop earlier that day.

Because of this revelation,

Spidey learned a lesson to use his powers responsibly.

An origin needs to clearly spell out

why someone would choose to be,

and remain, a hero.

The origin should also establish the rules of a character.

Green Lantern has to keep his Power Ring charged.

Deadpool can heal from almost anything.

And Wolverine must refer to everyone as Bub.

Has to, no way around it.

We need to understand how the heroes' powers work

and their limits.

Are their abilities strictly advantageous,

or are there downsides?

It doesn't have to be entirely laid out

like the excruciatingly detailed Bloodshot comic,

but just throw in some hints to the reader

as to establish some ground rules.

Lastly, the origin needs to set up a theme and structure

of the kinds of stories that you'll be

telling with that character.

Batman often fights ruthless, criminally insane adversaries.

Doctor Strange revolves around the mystical and magical.

The X-Men regularly struggle against

oppression in the eyes of the public.

It's fun to see Batman fight aliens occasionally

when he's with the Justice League,

but it'd feel really weird

if that's how his stories were all the time.

That's not the theme of his origin.

Batman's origin is about the loss of his parents

at the hands of an average street thug.

It's about the trauma he suffered as a child

and how he found meaning in it.

And trauma, as Rosenberg points out,

is one of three kinds of superhero origins.

She explains that all superheros are made in some way.

They can be born super, i.e. with powers,

but they're never born super heroes.

This leads back into the idea that

an origin story is a kind of transformation

that the character undergoes.

And the events that lead into these transformations

can fit in to one of three general categories.

The first one, as we mentioned,