The Strangest Secret Origins in Comics

 

 

Today at ComicsAlliance, I’m getting ready for tomorrow’s release of the DC Universe: Origins trade paperback by chronicling a few of my favorite completely insane origin stories!

There are a couple of old ISB favorites in there (I am, of course, the Internet’s #1 Marvex the Super-Robot fan), but I think the real draw here is seeing me try to sum up the tiny-footed majesty of Nathan Charles Christopher Dayspring Askani’son Cable Soldier X Summers in one sentence. Enjoy!

10 thoughts on “The Strangest Secret Origins in Comics

  1. “He’s lucky he’s wearing clothing made of stretchable fiber!”

    I love this line. This was Jerry Siegel trying hopelessly to fend off angry letters. The creator of Superman knows comic book nerds and he knows that they’ll take teenage, outer space, superheroes from the future for granted; they’ll take magic potions that turn you into a rubber ball for granted; but, by God, they will tear you to shreds for not making the teenage, outer space, rubber ball, teenage superhero’s clothes burst off unless it’s somehow explained to them in story.

    Never change, comics fans (not that you ever have).

  2. It’s pretty clear that Marvex the Super-Robot just enjoys taking his clothes off.

    (Is it possible that Marvex was put in suspended animation for 40 years, retooled and reanimated by Dr. Abel Stack, and then raised as Stack’s son?)

  3. The LSH were great for bizarre origins, weren’t they? I seem to recall Chlorophyl Kid’s origin involving him mistakenly taking a steam bath in a vat of some sort of liquid super-fertilizer.

  4. I like how you automatically disqualified any characters who were invented by Grant Morrison to inhabit the Core DC Universe, from his Doom Patrol run onward, because that could pretty much fill the entire article all on its own.

  5. Geez, beaten to the stretchable fabric in the first post. Oh well…

    It’s nice to know that big and tall shops will still be around in the 30th century.

  6. This would be good for a regular feature–Lord knows there’s no shortage of material to work with.

  7. Cable’s origin really isn’t difficult to comprehend, despite having some absolutely strange details in there. It’s about as convoluted as anyone in superhero comics’ origin. Try checking out a site that details Wolverine’s life, THAT’LL make your head explode.

  8. How can anything possibly claim to be the strangest secret origins in comics when it doesn’t include Donna Troy?