The 8 Best Origin Stories In Superhero Movies

Ah, the superhero origin story. No matter how complex or varied the comic book movie genre becomes, it can never stray too far from that familiar story structure. Next month, Marvel will deliver another one in Doctor Strange. Its content might be different from the norm – the movie will introduce magic and mysticism to the Marvel Cinematic Universe – but its format will be cut from the same cloth as Iron Man, Ant-Man and Thor before it. Hopefully Doctor Strange will join the ranks of some of the best superhero origin stories rather than those that did not work. We’re thinking Green Lantern, Hulk and Fantastic Four (any of them, really). Despite those failures, the familiar framework of the everyman (or woman) going on a journey of discovery to become a hero always has the potential to be brilliant, regardless of how many times it is used. So, what are those great origin tales of which we speak? Read on for 8 of the best openings to superhero stories that we’ve ever seen on the big screen. 8) X-Men: First Class When the X-Men franchise started in 2000, it already had a great deal of backstory to deal with. In X-Men, the elderly Professor X and Magneto have already had a life-time of being frenemies, the X-Men have been operational for years and Wolverine had lost all his memories. Over the years, we have learnt all about many of these origin stories. While some of these should have been left unexplored (see X-Men Origins: Wolverine, for example), others made for great viewing. In particular, X-Men: First Class proved to be a highly effective revamp of the franchise that filled in the gaps and had a lot of fun doing so. The main members of the young cast - James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence, in particular – are all spot-on replacements for the previous stars and the answers to long sought after questions are mostly satisfying. Even if they leave the continuity in knots. 7) Captain America: The First Avenger Marvel faced a tough challenge in bringing such an old-fashioned hero like Captain America to the big screen in 2011. Previous attempts (wartime serials and TV movies) had removed various aspects of his backstory, even his status as a man out of time, in a failed bid to modernize him. Thankfully, Marvel didn't follow suit and offered up an entirely faithful version of the character in Captain America: The First Avenger. From director Joe Johnston, First Avenger fully embraces Steve Roger’s roots. Rather than making him moody or gritty, the movie wears Cap’s heroism on its sleeve and plays up its period setting by being an out-and-out war movie. Just with crazy comic book bits added in. Fast forward to 2016 and a film with Captain America in the title has smashed box office records. Though the subsequent work of the Russo brothers should not be underrated, the character’s success is all down to The First Avenger. 6) Deadpool What surprised many viewers when Deadpool came out this February is that, underneath the anarchic humour and the non-linear storytelling, it was basically a traditional origins story movie. Familiar its set-up might have been, then, but Deadpool is a great example of why there is nothing wrong with falling back on tried and tested formula. After all, it's very rare for something to be genuinely original, so it's really more important to focus on the telling of it. And with everything from the tragic backstory to the hero rescuing their love interest from the villain in the third act, there wasn’t much in Deadpool’s story that we hadn’t seen before. The trick was to look at it from a new angle, with a very different main character and a lot of side-winks at the audience. Let’s hope that Deadpool 2 can similarly play off the conventions of superhero movie sequels and again offer up something familiar yet fresh. 5) Guardians Of The Galaxy As has been said many times, Guardians of the Galaxy was a very risky move for Marvel back in 2014. With a different tone, scope and setting from their other movies, fans could have been turned away by the changes. Thankfully, the studio knew to wrap it all up in a classic origin story. In a similar way to Deadpool, beneath James Gunn’s irreverent approach Guardians shared many similar beats with other MCU origins films. Like Iron Man or even Thor, our heroes are wayward sorts with heart who learn to be better people while stopping a villain in possession of an Infinity Stone. Like The Avengers before it, though, the film gives each of its team a chance to shine – from Star-Lord’s love of classic rock to Groot’s winningly sweet demeanour. This is even more impressive when you consider that these were fresh, unheard of characters for most of the audience, rather than the tried and tested cast of Joss Whedon’s movie. 4) Iron Man Back in the 1960s, Stan Lee created Iron Man as an experiment – he wanted to see if he could create a really unlikeable guy and make the audience love him. In 2008, Marvel Studios likewise decided to tackle turning the billionaire womanizing weapons dealer into everyone's new favourite superhero. Against all the odds, they managed it. First of all, they obviously nailed the casting with Robert Downey Jr, the only person we could ever imagine playing Tony Stark. But it’s the movie itself that fleshed him out, putting Tony through the emotional ringer and forcing him to become a better person. In short, Iron Man is the definitive origins movie for this current era of superhero films. Of course, Iron Man also gets plaudits for not only acting as an origin story for the shellhead but for the whole Marvel Cinematic Universe. In what was a revolutionary moment in the genre, Nick Fury turns up for a post-credits scene to introduce the concept of the Avengers… 3) Superman You can’t go wrong with the very first superhero origin movie of them all. As the tagline famously said, ‘you’ll believe a man can fly,’ and we did thanks to the well-handled treatment of Superman’s busy backstory in the 1978 classic. It didn’t go for realism like certain other Man of Steel films, but it told its mythic story with a suitable grand and sweeping nature. Even more so than more movies, Superman is split into three distinct acts – the destruction of Krypton, Clark’s time in Smallville and finally his burgeoning career as Superman in Metropolis. It still manages to be a cohesive whole, however, thanks to the classic arc of the hero’s journey that is woven through all three. While Clark could do nothing to save his home planet or his adoptive father before, by the end of the film he is able to turn back time and save Lois. By that moment, Superman - the hero who always finds another way - was properly born. 2) Spider-Man The big reason 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man was such a pointless endeavour was that the webslinger’s origin story had already been brought perfectly well to the screen just 10 years earlier. Sam Raimi’s 2002 movie might have taken some liberties with the character (organic webbing) but it did offer up what is now the definitive version of his beginnings for most fans. Peter’s initial arrogance and misuse of his powers directly leading to Uncle Ben’s death is such a tragic scenario that it brings a lot of weight to his mantra of ‘with great power, comes great responsibility.’ This element was of course something that was sorely lacking from Amazing’s version of the events. As is evident here, Spidey’s guilt, rather than his quest for vengeance, is at the core of his journey to heroism. Thankfully, next year’s Spider-Man: Homecoming will forego serving up yet another version of this story. 1) Batman Begins As is shown by his getting top billing, 1989’s Batman was really Jack Nicholson’s film. With the Joker owning the screen, then, the Caped Crusader’s own origin story had to play second fiddle to Jack Napier’s fall into a vat of acid. Thankfully, Bruce Wayne’s personal history was properly documented in Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins in 2005. Through its commitment to showing Bruce’s long road to donning the cowl with as much detail and care as possible, it became the superhero origin movie to beat in the process. In a strange way, beneath the grit and realism, Batman Begins has much in common with Superman as both movies keep the hero out of his iconic costume for much of the runtime. As such, we get to care about the man behind the mask first and fully understand what leads Bruce to choose the tough, selfless life of a hero. Which is exactly what a superhero origins movie should always do.