Superhero Movies Have Stopped Obsessing Over Origins
Time has always been a key part of superhero movies, and it used to be that their starting points could be whenever a creative team chose. In 1978, Superman could be an origin story, while 1989's Batman could take place at a nebulous (but still early) time in his career, and that was that. Both the latter and 1998's Blade happen after the characters have realized their identities, but they also touch on their respective origins—an efficient way to help newcomers dive in. This approach persisted in the early 2000s with Daredevil, X-Men (to a point), and Constantine, while other heroes like Spider-Man and the Hulk came to the silver screen to have their beginnings told.
After Batman Begins became a hit in 2005, 'origin' was the word of the day, and it wasn't long before we were seeing how James Bond, the crew of the Enterprise, and plenty more came to become as we know them. It actually took superheroes a little longer to get on board, but time had to matter once cinematic universes began taking off: Green Lantern, Iron Man, Captain America, the list of origins is well-documented. During the 2010s, some of the most interesting experimentation with this formula came from team movies; Black Panther technically never gets an origin in either Captain America: Civil War or his 2018 solo movie, and Ant-Man is both an origin and pseudo-legacy sequel (in spirit more than anything). Meanwhile, the 2016 Suicide Squad and Guardians of the Galaxy had characters who came in pre-formed but gave us plots about the beginnings of one or more characters; Harley Quinn & the Birds of Prey can't really exist without the building blocks established by Squad, and the first and third Guardians are directly about how Peter Quill and Rocket became as we first see them.
For the first-timers making their big-screen debuts, these origin stories were a necessary onboarding process and typically worked well enough to get audiences invested. Repeat heroes weren't so lucky—since it hadn't really been that long since we last saw them, their retold origins were looked at with disdain, usually because their changes went against tradition and could be overcomplicated or just bad. Between the Amazing Spider-Man duology and the 2015 Fantastic Four reboot, Marvel was certainly the worst offender of the 2010s, and it's no wonder that it elected to just hit the ground running with Tom Holland's MCU-approved Peter Parker. The lack of an onscreen origin was appreciated but ended up working against this specific iteration now that he could hang with the Avengers. With nary a mention of Uncle Ben, fans felt like something was missing with this particular Peter, in turn leading to his Home trilogy stealthily becoming an origin story so he could be a more 'faithful' Spider-Man beginning with 2026's Brand New Day.
The origin approach has changed in the 2020s, in part because TV shows have become more integrated into these cinematic universes and can now handle that part of a character's life. Marvel's used several of its shows to give characters their origins or put them in specific places so they can come to the big screen like they're having just another day on the job, as we've seen in Brave New World, The Marvels, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Fantastic Four, which takes place in an alternate universe, also goes for this approach, opening with the heroes having already gone through the struggles of their superpowers offscreen and now operating as a superhero team and worldwide celebrities for about five years. The movie uses old footage and a TV show host to get audiences up to speed, a more tactile and period-appropriate way compared to just having characters explain themselves to others in the first act of the film, as is the case in Marvels or Thunderbolts.
Conversely, DC's going back to the old ways and just having movies take place early enough in their heroes' timelines. As The Batman and Superman open, the respective heroes have been around for two or three years and have some experience, but still have some things to learn so they can become the version fans expect them to be. There's no real origin playing out in any of these movies; supporting characters like Catwoman and the Penguin in Batman and Superman's Justice Gang have also been doing their own thing for some time. Again, some of these characters have already been on screen before in general audiences' lifetimes, so the heavy lifting's been partially done, but this is also done to show them that an actual world's going on outside the frame and they're getting a chance to see what things are like in Gotham or Metropolis for a few days.
What do origin stories look like going forward for DC and Marvel? It's been years since either did ones for characters who weren't first introduced beforehand—Shang-Chi in 2021 and Blue Beetle in 2023—and it could take quite a while for a pre-established character to get a spotlight for their backstory to play out. (Don't forget, it took Black Widow 11 years worth of guest appearances and her onscreen death for us to learn her full deal.) Fully ignoring the origin isn't entirely an option, as Superman and Fantastic Four critiques have shown just jumping in fully can also put off some audiences, whether they're a diehard fan or it's their first time seeing these characters. That the two films try to shake things up is appreciated nonetheless, and it'll be interesting to see how later projects figure out how to make the beginning feel new again… so long as we don't have to watch Uncle Ben or the Waynes get shot again.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what's next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
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