8. Spider-Man
The tragic death of a loved one is usually part and parcel of the whole superhero package. It takes a special brand of luck to also be the one responsible for their death. For that you’d have to be the hero who’s been wedgied by fate more often than any other: Spider-Man.
After gaining his spider powers, Peter Parker made the (totally reasonable) decision to make a little money off of them. Later, when he had the chance to stop a burglar, he made the (again, totally reasonable) decision not to get involved. He had a successful entertaining gig by now, and didn’t need to risk that by tangling with some criminal.
Unfortunately, sensible decisions have no place in comic books, as that same burglar then turned around and shot his beloved Uncle Ben dead. You know, the one who taught Peter “with great power comes great responsibility,” the catchphrase that would cement Spider-Man as the universe’s whipping boy for the rest of his life.
7. The Runaways
Missing your dead parents is one thing, but learning your parents are part of an evil coalition bent on destroying the earth is quite another. For the characters of Marvel’s Runaways, this revelation leads to the formation of an unlikely superhero team with more variety and teen angst than the freshman locker room at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters.
The children of “The Pride” (an occult group of villains comprised of time travellers, mad scientists, mutant telepaths, crime lords and, of course, wizards) are burdened not with the death of loved ones, but with witnessing their parents sacrificing a young girl as part of a dark ritual. Most tragic origins fuel a sense of vengeance in their protagonists, but Runaways, however, derives its tragedy from an odd mixture of teen rebellion and hard-to-answer questions of morality and loyalty. It does involve a telepathic dinosaur, however, which is pretty much the opposite of tragic.
6. Taskmaster
Despite having a costume that looks like a high school theater’s prop department exploded, Taskmaster’s superpower is pretty cool: he has “photographic reflexes,” or in more scientific terms, a “magic plot device brain.” Any physical skill he sees someone else do, he can instantly copy. Which means not only is he as capable as any athlete he’s ever seen, he was also the best devil sticks player on his college quad.
Pretty sweet deal, until we learn that every new skill he learns pushes an old memory out of his head. As a professional mercenary, Tasky goes through quite a few skills, and so nearly everything about his old life is now lost to him. It’s later revealed that his wife, whom he no longer remembers, has been quietly keeping tabs on him from afar, organizing his affairs and watching over him while he wanders through life in his amnesiac state. Tasky even meets a girl who is probably his daughter, but he’s unable to tell her so for sure, or even that he’ll remember her after they meet. It’s an impressive amount of character development for a B-list supervillain. He’s like Memento with a cool skull mask.
5. Magneto
When you’re comparing tragedies, it’s kind of hard to top the Holocaust. It seems odd for a comic book to co-opt the most monstrous event in modern history, but hey, at least it becomes an important part of Magneto’s character. Plus it’s history, so, you know. Educational.
As a hip young Jew living in Poland during the Holocaust, life played out for a young Magneto pretty much the way you’d expect: his family was murdered, he escaped, was recaptured, tortured, escaped again only to watch an angry mob burn down his home & kill his baby daughter. Then, when he used his powers to murder those responsible, his wife ran away from him out of fear. Magneto would later channel this crummy childhood into years of hunting down Nazis and forcing them to consider this uncomfortable fact: when your opponent crashes down through your ceiling in a costume that looks like Satan’s dildo and begins using his immense magnetic powers to feed you your own automobile piece by jagged piece, maybe you’re not on the winning side of this whole “ubermensch” debate.
4. Astro Boy
Any tragic origin story worth it’s weight in tears involves at least one gruesome, unjust death. However, in the case of Astro Boy, that death just happens to be his own. As Tezuka’s now-famous manga reveals, Astro was originally a boy named Tobio who died in a futuristic automobile accident. His father, the famous roboticist Dr. Tenma attempts bring him back to life in the form of a robot replica, a pretty standard weekend project by robotocist standards. However, he eventually disowns Astro due to his lack of human flaws, and sells him to a robot circus where he is abused and mistreated. Tezuka and the Japanese school of comics teach us a valuable lesson about tragedy: the only thing worse than a dead parent, is one you wish was dead.
3. Martian Manhunter
Sure, Superman lost his whole planet. But he was just a baby when Krypton blew up, and he immediately got a couple of charming old foster parents & ten seasons of Smallville to work out his abandonment issues. J’onn J’onzz, on the other hand, was already a family martian when his wife, child, and every other member of his species were murdered by his evil twin brother. Now, normally comic book characters go insane at the drop of a hat: all it takes is seeing a loved one killed or getting infected by a cosmic fear entity and boom: Bonkerstown USA. But in this case, I think J’onn earned the trip.
Luckily for him, a kindly Earthling scientist accidentally teleported him to Earth, and, upon seeing an alien for the first time, promptly had a massive heart attack and died. He was already the last of his kind. Did he also deserve to be stranded on the planet that invented Jersey Shore?
2. Swamp Thing
Scientist Alec Holland started off his day by researching secret plant growth formulas, and ended it by being murdered. Covered in burning chemicals, he fell into the swamp surrounding his lab, where the plant life re-animated him into a giant vegetable monster. Swamp Thing led a classic Frankenstein existence after that: wandering the land as an outcast, defending himself from man while trying to reclaim his own humanity. Pretty rough, right? It gets worse.
Shortly after writer Alan Moore, known for his lighthearted, cutesy-wutsey comic books where nothing bad ever happens, took over the title, our mossy hero was gunned down by the evil Sunderland Corporation. His body was frozen, dissected, and later revived only to discover the horrifying truth: he was never human at all.
Alec Holland died from his injuries. His decomposing body was consumed by swamp plants, which (thanks to the aforementioned chemicals) absorbed his memories and began to believe that they were Holland himself. Swamp Thing was never human at all, just a confused pile of peat moss with legs. That’s a pretty heavy truth to lay on a man. Or, in this case, a seven-foot-tall chia pet.
1. Wolverine
For years, Wolverine’s origin was shrouded in generic tough guy mystery. However, the 2001 limited series Origin finally revealed a very Batman-esque background for the moody hero: A boy of privilege, James Howlett witnessed a disgruntled servant-turned-burglar kill his father. The trauma caused young James to pop his claws for the first time and murder the burglar. Big deal, right? On the spectrum of vigilante-producing calamities, that’s some MyFirstTragedy Playset stuff right there. But finding out that burglar was your mother’s lover? And that he may have been your biological father? And then watching your mother blow her own head off with a shotgun in response to the whole debacle? Now we’re talking. There’s nothing like a little triple murder-suicide to put a foppish dandy on the road to ruthless berzerker killing machine.
http://www.dorkly.com/article/17658...-book-origins-more-tragic-than-batmans/page:3
