Curious: What is the most Complicated Backstory....

[Tami]

Curious: What, in your opinion, is the most Complicated Backstory regarding how a character gained their powers or powerful weapons/costumes/etc.?

[Riv86672]

Hawkman’s gotta be up there.

I mean, it may have started off straightforward, but the layer after layer of reboots reimaginings and retroactive story telling have made it pretty complex.

[Jack Dracula]

Firestorm has a pretty complicated backstory.

[ed2962]

Donna Troy. Back in the day, she's had like three different origin stories, the Nu52 happened and she got yet another one. I'm not sure what her deal is currently.

[ed2962]

Quicksilver and ( especially ) Scarlet Witch. I'm convinced that Stan got Jack on the phone on a Friday and told Jack, "Come up with some characters for the X-men to fight and have it ready by Monday! I'll put the words on top in the office!" Meaning to flesh them out in follow up story but they never got to it.

It was almost 10 yrs before Pietro and Wanda even had last names! Then they were the Whizzer's kids. Then they were Magneto's kid's. And I think a couple of years ago Marvel toyed with them being Inhumans? I'm pretty sure I read an old reprint that said that Pietro was older, I'm not sure when it was decided that they were twins.




Then there's the issue of how Wanda's powers work...in those old comics it seemed she'd gesture and something would break or maybe fly through the air and hit you. Then her "hex" was some ill-defined energy bolts that would kinda zap you. Then she was learning "true magic" that would only effect organic things. Then there was the "hex spheres"...ultimately they settled on Choas magic and that seems to have been the most consistent.

[seismic-2]

It gets complicated for characters who have had multiple origin stories in various separate incarnations (e.g., Supergirl).

[CaptainEurope]

Quicksilver and ( especially ) Scarlet Witch. I'm convinced that Stan got Jack on the phone on a Friday and told Jack, "Come up with some characters for the X-men to fight and have it ready by Monday! I'll put the words on top in the office!" Meaning to flesh them out in follow up story but they never got to it.

It was almost 10 yrs before Pietro and Wanda even had last names! Then they were the Whizzer's kids. Then they were Magneto's kid's. And I think a couple of years ago Marvel toyed with them being Inhumans? I'm pretty sure I read an old reprint that said that Pietro was older, I'm not sure when it was decided that they were twins.




Then there's the issue of how Wanda's powers work...in those old comics it seemed she'd gesture and something would break or maybe fly through the air and hit you. Then her "hex" was some ill-defined energy bolts that would kinda zap you. Then she was learning "true magic" that would only effect organic things. Then there was the "hex spheres"...ultimately they settled on Choas magic and that seems to have been the most consistent.

I read an interesting blog recently that reminded me that Marvel had toyed with the ideas of the siblings not being actual mutants way back in 1966:
https://cokeandcomics.com/avengers-30/

[From The Shadows]

Donna Troy. Back in the day, she's had like three different origin stories, the Nu52 happened and she got yet another one. I'm not sure what her deal is currently.

This is who I was thinking of actually.

Psylocke and her body switch with Kwannon back in the day. It's a doozy of a story.

And this.