Top 10 Worst Origin Stories In Marvel And DC Superhero Movies
Origin stories are a necessary - and often tedious - part of superhero movies, and surprisingly few of them manage to do a good job at exploring their characters' early years. These were the worst!
There was a time when origin stories in superhero movies weren't that bad, but these days, most of us are jaded enough to know that they basically mean we're going to spend at least half of the film watching our favourite hero do normal, boring stuff until they get their powers. Some releases do an amazing job with them to be fair, but looking back, there are many which dropped the ball in a big way.
Whether it's because the filmmakers decided to take huge liberties with the source material or just missed the point of what makes these great characters tick, the origin stories you'll find here are without a doubt the most frustrating and controversial. Some were in fact so bad that subsequent reboots have skipped the character's early years altogether, and honestly, that might be for the best...
10. The Amazing Spider-Man
The Amazing Spider-Man promised to reveal the "Untold Story" of Marvel's most iconic superhero, but we were instead left with an origin story which created a huge list of unanswered questions. Those were the result of some seriously sloppy plot holes caused by last minute reshoots, and as if that wasn't bad enough, the reboot also tried way too hard to differentiate itself from Sam Raimi's Spider-Man.
Even so, many of the scenes felt like deja vu, and several of the key moments which were deliberately left out disappointed fans. Perhaps The Amazing Spider-Man's biggest crime was failing to include Uncle Ben's "With Great Power, Comes Great Responsibility" line, while his death was really down to Peter generally being a bit of a jerk, a personality trait that his Uncle's demise didn't really impact. Shockingly, the sequel didn't even try to make up for any of this.
9. Hulk
What a mess. Instead of having Bruce Banner exposed to Gamma Rays and transformed instantly into the Green Goliath you see above, Ang Lee's take on the Marvel superhero was incredibly convoluted and involved Bruce's father, genetic testing and a confusing and borderline nonsensical plan from David Banner to steal his son's powers and become a pretty terrible version of the Absorbing Man.
Lee made a lot of mistakes here, particularly with his portrayal of the Hulk - he ended up being ridiculously huge at points - and a stylistic decision to use comic book panels to show the action from varying perspectives. The Incredible Hulk was a semi-reboot which skipped over the origin story, and it might be best to just leave it well alone for the foreseeable future, especially as the brilliant Mark Ruffalo has since taken this role and really made it his own.
8. Catwoman
Patience Phillips (an awful turn from Halle Berry) worked for a cosmetics company...wait, who the hell is Patience Phillips?! That's just one of the many bizarre elements of this Catwoman movie as it ditcheed the famous Selina Kyle and replaced her with the uninteresting Patience who was given powers and mysteriously brought back to life by an Egyptian Mau cat. She then developed cat-like abilities, and yes, it really was as bad as it sounds.
Needless to say, the plot just got worse from there, and what could have been a really brilliant Batman spin-off was ultimately one of the worst comic book movies of all-time. Thankfully, Selina Kyle and Catwoman would get the big screen treatment she deserved in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises, though it would be great to see an even more comic book faithful version in the DC Films Universe.
7. Batman
Look, there's no denying that Batman was a very important step in superhero movies becoming as successful as they are today, but it didn't exactly do a great job of telling the Caped Crusader's origin story. The movie doesn't even spend all that much time dealing with how and why Bruce Wayne decided to don the cape and cowl, and the big twist that it was in fact a much younger version of The Joker who was responsible for the death of Thomas and Martha Wayne was in equal parts idiotic and unexpected.
Comic book fans would have to wait a whopping sixteen years to see a proper Batman origin story with Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins, though more would soon follow thanks to Gotham on the small screen and this year's divisive Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (though that was at least that retelling was relatively brief and found a nice way of paying homage to the comic books).
6. Green Lantern
There's very little this movie got right in its exploration of Green Lantern's origin or character, and it's a shame we'll never get to see Reynolds have another go at playing Hal Jordan. After all the money wasted on dreadful special effects and a poor marketing campaign, the movie made very little profit at the box office, and Warner Bros. is seemingly so scared of getting Green Lantern wrong again, he won't return to theaters until 2020.
5. Elektra
We were first introduced to Elektra in Daredevil, a movie which spectacularly failed at revealing a satisfying origin for the comic book assassin. In that film, she went from rich businessman's daughter to someone who was able to take on the Man Without Fear just from spending time slicing up a few sandbags with her sais and learning martial arts when she was younger.
If you were hoping that they'd make up for past mistakes by giving the character her own solo outing, you would be wrong, as the former flame of Matt Murdock was resurrected, trained, kicked out of the Hand and became a contract killer all in the first few minutes of her movie. If that sounds bad, then those of you who have seen Elektra will know that what followed wasn't much better either, and like Catwoman, you can blame this release for why it's taken so long for us to get Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel!
4. The Punisher
As with many of the other superhero movies on this list, The Punisher's origin story couldn't be any simpler. After serving his country overseas, Frank Castle returned home only for his family to be gunned down in front of him during a picnic when they got caught in the crossfire of a gangland shooting. The movie took that idea, stretched it out, and made the murder of Frank's family an act of revenge (completely missing the point of what made their deaths so tragic in the first place).
This would end up taking up the plot of almost the entire movie, and while parts did pay homage to some famous Punisher comic books, this was the second of three failed outings for the character and the origin story alone makes it one of the worst. Daredevil season two would later take another crack at it, but that too made it overly complicated, with only Jon Bernthal's performance helping to elevate that material to stop it from bogging down an otherwise perfect take on Frank Castle.
3. X-Men Origins: Wolverine
With X-Men Origins: Wolverine, we were promised a movie which would reveal the early years of the iconic Marvel superhero. After an extremely rushed opening sequence which did the childhood of James Howlett no justice at all (see: Origin), a cool credits sequence paved the way for mediocrity. As it turns out, this idiotic version of Logan volunteered to become part of the Weapon X programme and the trauma of the adamantium being bonded to his skeleton didn't wipe away his memories; a magic bullet did.
On the plus side, Liev Schreiber was just about perfect as Sabretooth, but he sadly hasn't popped up again in an X-Men movie since. Rumours point to a return for him in next year's Wolverine: Weapon X, but who knows how long it will be until we get to see a decent take on Logan's early years.
2. Fantastic Four
The Fantastic Four's origin story really couldn't be any simpler. They steal a spacecraft, get bombarded with cosmic rays in outer space, crash to Earth and suddenly find themselves imbued with strange new powers. Their main foe is Doctor Doom, one of Reed Richard's former classmates and the now scarred dictator of the fictional European nation of Latveria.
It makes "sense" then that Tim Story's take on the iconic superhero team would be to make their relationship as convoluted as possible, while simultaneously turning Victor Von Doom into a shadow of his comic book self. The team behind the movie were trying to go for a family friendly tone, but failed at that and failed at successfully adapting these characters. A decade or so later, Josh Trank's reboot would attempt to adapt elements of the team's Ultimate Fantastic Four origin, but that movie also failed to get the early years of these characters right. Marvel Studios, you're our only hope...
1. Deadpool (X-Men Origins: Wolverine)
For a little while at least, we did. Then it happened. By the end of the movie, Deadpool had been transformed into some sort of bizarre multi-powered mutant who could fire optic blasts and teleport. But hey, at least they gave him weird marks on his eyes which looked a bit like his mask from the comics! This was a complete and utter failure, and while the origin story we saw in the character's solo outing this year wasn't exactly groundbreaking, it was a million times better than this.
Which of these superhero movie origin stories do you think was the worst? Have we missed any others worthy of a mention here? As always, share your thoughts in the comments section.