Character Origins Considerations

[sinanju]

After reading a post about Marvel Mutants* just now, I began to think about the origins for characters of mine in both my games and my fiction. And I decided to make a list and see what I got.

 

IRON MAIDEN, flying brick (Portland, OR). The result of a one-night stand between an unnamed Flying Brick hero and her mother. Her mother never knew he was Flying Brick To Be Named Later , she only knew him as a hunky one-night stand; he never knew she got pregnant. Is she a mutant? She inherited her powers, but does that make her a second generation mutant? Or does it depend on whether her father is a mutant (as opposed to the recipient of powers acquired via accident/radiation/chemicals/alien physiology)?

 

ROSE HANCOCK, flying brick (London, UK). ALSO the result of a one-night stand between FBTBNL and a married woman. Iron Maiden's half-sister, though neither of them are aware of it for a long time.

 

BLACK KNIGHT, a WWII vet who received a mysterious gem in the mail in his retirement home (he was in his nineties), which he held onto for a long while before succumbing to a heart attack and dying. then he woke in the morgue in the muscular, 20 year-old form he had in WWII--with a healing factor that would make Wolverine weep with envy. The gem disappeared while he was "dead" so he still has no idea who sent it to whom or why or who's got it now. So, origin: magic or Weird Radiation .

 

ZOE HARRISON, a young woman who is effectively immortal, as a result of exposure to the same gem as Black Knight (she's the one who sent it to him, to keep it out of the hands of bad guys pursuing her for it). So, origin: Weird Radiation. (She's based on Chloe Sullivan from Smallville, who in a panfandom LJ game was aged nearly to death by Wraiths from SG: Atlantis, but who had a piece of Kryptonite (the gem) in a lead box. With nothing to lose, she gambled and won by exposing herself to it for days, and being rejuvenated.)

 

LLOYD GREYSTOKE, Man-Ape. A former B-list actor whose struggling PI show (Gumshoe Guy) became a worldwide phenomenon after his Kafkaesque transformation (in real life) into a man-ape was written into the show. Eventually, of course, the show ended. There's not a lot of call for Man-Apes in Hollywood, so his career ended with it. Origin: darned if he knows. He just woke up that way.

 

DOCTOR SMITH, suuuuuper-genius. Only child of intelligent, ambitious, driven--but normal human--parents. An inventor and gadgeteer. Is she a mutant because she's so smart? Was Tesla a mutant?

 

HELL'S ANGEL: Human torch with angel-like wings. She acquired (discovered? accessed?) her powers while being tortured by a fire-wielding criminal for information. Some hints that he might be her father (though he either didn't know or didn't care). Apparently there's a lot of unsafe hanky-panky going on in my game/fiction world....

 

SILVERSTREAK, speedster. Origin, unknown (I haven't written it yet).

 

RAVEN, reality-manipulator. To hear her tell it, she's simply the only person lucid enough to recognize that "reality" is a collective fantasy, and therefore she's able to manipulate it in various ways. Everyone else just thinks she's crazy (albeit with the magical mojo to back up her delusions). Not a mutant. Not a classic magic-user either. A madwand (untrained mage), maybe?

 

BLACK MASK, martial artist and reality-manipulator. Essentially the same powers as Raven, but a more sober and stable personality.

 

I could go on, but that's enough, I think. What can I determine from this? Powers in this world are definitely inheritable. They DON'T follow the Marvel approach of Power A + Power B = Completely Urelated Power Z, though. Your powers will resemble the powers of your parent(s). On the other hand, it's clear that sometimes people just acquire powers seemingly out of the blue, like Lloyd Greystoke. No dramatic disaster, no accident, no...nothing. It just happened, as randomly as getting hit by lightning or winning the lottery. And he's not the only one. It *can* happen in extremely stressful situations, providing for the classic radiation (or chemical) accident origin. But it probably won't. Most people, most of the time, don't find themselves in such situations, so when they manifest powers, it's seemingly without cause.

 

It's also the case that such events seem to be on the increase. There may have been (and probably were) such individuals throughout history, but they were extremely rare (plus, the population of earth through most of history was much smaller, so "one in a million" was a considerably smaller absolute number. There's also still room for some magic, and even for some nominally-normal human supers like Doctor Smith.

 

 

*I have always found the anti-mutant hysteria in Marvel comics to be absurd. The man in the street is not privy to the details of the characters' origins in most cases. So, how exactly, do they manage to discriminate (har har) between mutants and non-mutant supers so precisely?  Spider-Man, mutant or non-mutant? He's superhumanly fast and agile, and sticks to walls and spins webs (again, most people are probably unaware of the web-shooters). How is he NOT viewed as a creepy mutant? But, eh, I'm probably preachng to the choir....

[Amorkca]

I agree with your comment about anti-mutant hysteria, and technically Peter Parker did mutate from a human to Spider man after the radioactive bite... I think its assumed that unless you explain another origin that you are a mutant!!

 

Thor - I am a god

Iron Man - I built it

Fantastic Four - we were exposed to radiation

X-Men - what?? No explanation?  AHHHH their mutants!!

etc

[wcw43921]

 

Apparently there's a lot of unsafe hanky-panky going on in my game/fiction world....

 

Not unlike a number of characters in Greek mythology.  This is from the Wikipedia article on Heracles---

 

"Another episode of his female affairs that stands out was his stay at the palace of Thespius king of Thespiae, who wished him to kill the Lion of Cithaeron. As a reward, the king offered him the chance to make love to his daughters, all fifty of them, in one night. Heracles complied and they all became pregnant and all bore sons. This is sometimes referred to as his Thirteenth Labour. Many of the kings of ancient Greece traced their lines to one or another of these, notably the kings of Sparta and Macedon."

 

This could be a way to explain superpowers among humans--that the potential for them was introduced into the gene pool through Heracles' impregnation of the daughters of Thespius.  A mythological metagene, if you will.

 

As for anti-mutant hysteria--it makes much more sense in a world where mutants are the only super-powered beings, not unlike the X-Men movies.  It's when you try to make the concept fit within a universe with other superpower possibilities that it becomes more difficult to accept.  Then again, when it comes to Marvel, superheroes aren't that well regarded to begin with.  Spider-Man, throughout most of his career was hounded by the press (The Daily Bugle in particular) and wanted by the authorities.  The Hulk is less welcome that three natural disasters all on the same day.  Only the Avengers and the Fantastic Four seem to get any respect, and even that depends on the whims of public opinion.  Compare that to the DC Universe, where at least one superhero had an entire museum devoted to his exploits.

 

Just some thoughts on the subject--take them as you will.

[Lord Liaden]

IMHO one of the best features of different Hollywood studios owning different Marvel comics properties, is that all the X-Men/mutant-related stuff has been relegated to its own separate film continuity. I believe it makes a lot more sense in that context than trying to mash mutants, and the public's concern over them, in with the rest of the Marvel Cinematic supers. I see a lot of people agitating for Marvel to acquire some or all of the X-properties to incorporate into the MCU, but I for one hope it doesn't happen. Right now movies seem to be giving us the best of both worlds, by treating them as two worlds.