Metahumans treatment within the DC universe

[Alpha]

Ok, we agree to disagree.

[Alpha]

Seems like me and AgentZ disagree on every single issue in the world of DC comics. Quite frustating for me since none of us ever gains anything from these discussions. Hope it's not as frustating to you as it is to me. I guess sometimes I get too attached to these ideas.

[John Venus]

Or Maybe DC has superhero group that actually take up for ALL superpower people instead of hanging them out the dry

Crutch? You did the same thing. You suggested that basically that everyone gets their power by accident via supernatural deity. Which makes nobody origin meaningful because everyone is the same after awhile.

Individual origin stories get playout after a while and it is hard to think up unique good ones there only some much you can new stuff you can do. A generic system that give allows people to get freely powers which is important because heroes & VILLAINS all of them need powers and allows unique origin stories to stand out. This is a crude way explaining it but imagine for some reason the hottest person ever decide to hook up with you and you go to tell friends this amazing story but before you can tell your story, your tells a story about how he accidently hook up with hottest person, Then next friend walks in and he tells the story about he accidently hook up with hottest person ever and this happens couple more times before you can tell your story. All of sudden your story doesn't seem that amazing now? Right?

Your powers don't need a back story if a character has a good backstory, Black Canary being bitten by a radioactive canary does not make her a better character, Black Lighting getting struck by radioactive lighting does not make him a better character. It just makes them lesser version of something you saw before and character like Wolverine, Storm and Nightcrawler are just fine without origin story for their powers. Everybody getting power via accident is just as "generic" as people being born with powers.

Plus, once you have saturated your universe with enough characters, somebody is going to go "why are there so many people with so many accidents?" or "why does this guy fall into a fire pit and got superpowers and this guy just died?".

I'm not sure how to word this exactly but I think that with some characters, like Black Canary and Black Lightning, you just need to go "screw it, they can just *do* this shit" without going into another secret origin of their super powers. Origin stories can burn out fast, just get on with the main story. There is a reason why Stan and Jack just threw their hands up in the air and said the X-Men were born with powers rather than craft individual origins for each characters. It also allowed writers to give a bit more weight and plausibility to characters whose origins follow the cookie cutter "got into an accident/got superpowers" origin without having to wholesale re write their original stories. Dr Mid-nite's stories gains something by saying that the accident that blinded him activated his metagene.

I think that one advantage that DC's meta human concept has over Marvel's mutants is the fact that it's a better metaphor for evolution. The X-Gene in Marvel is closer to puberty than evolution. At Marvel it's "evolution gives you laser eye beams" but at DC it's "your body adapts to survive life threatening ordeals which often results in super powers".

[Alpha]

And who says every character has to gain powers from surviving an accident or being experimented on in a secret laboratory? There are countless other ways you could give heroes super powers. Meta gene just wastes potential stories.

Like yes you could have Peter Parker just be a mutant, but him being bitten by a Oscorp science project like most versions nowadays portray it, adds lots of potential stories about Norman and his other experiments. Same thing is true of the Ninja Turtles for example, they could just be mutated freaks of nature, but the 2012 animated show found a lot of cool stories off of the lab that created them.

And my Black Lightning origin stories introduces lots of important elements for Jefferson Pierce, like his relationshio with his neighborhood, his social activistic ideals, the importance of educationand dangers of the systems. But it also creates potential stories about him trying to find oit what happened to his mentor, him trying to get back the technology the goverent stole and learning what they've done with it, and Black Lightning using his powers in new ways to improve the infrastucture of his district.

Fire (Beatriz da Costa) having a mystical source for her powers creates an instant mystery and allows her culture to be used in unique ways that are tied to her powers.

[John Venus]

Not every character *has* to gain their power through the meta gene but it being around to serve or as a template for writers to work with helps. It's a net gain advantage.

It doesn't stop characters who gain their powers through experiments, being hit by a meteor or derived through mystical objects from existing.

[Killerbee911]

And who says every character has to gain powers from surviving an accident or being experimented on in a secret laboratory? There are countless other ways you could give heroes super powers. Meta gene just wastes potential stories.

Person gets powers by experiment: On purpose or accident
Person get powers by magic: On purpose or accident, * Magic item gives powers, * Magic monster in habits the person
Person gets power by tech: On purpose or accident * Tech Item gives them powers
Person is born with powers: via gene
Person is born with powers via being half alien or half mystical
The person is a alien, demon, another dimensional entity or God
Person is the represents one of most skilled humans, years of training made them who they are, they are so skilled they are superhuman

They aren't countless (they are probably handful ones that missed) but this pretty much all you can do in terms of powers. The point is you HAVE to repeat origins stories if you don't have a generic system. And if you have to repeat origin stories then they become generic. Also Superheroes don't just exist, Villains do as well and everyone of them would need an origin story. Lets say every hero has 20 villains, Let just use current Justice League which is currently 10 heroes that is 200 villains that need a back story beyond "hey I was born with powers". But obviously they aren't only 10 heroes, Let say DC has 100 heroes in total, you would need 2,000 different back stories for all the villains.

Metagene, Mutants, Posthumans, Psiots,etc they are systems give out amazing powers, and through being a generic system they save unique back stories and origins for the focus characters. Seriously look at Superman, he escape his dying planet, He was the last of his kind. Then DC went we want to do something else like Superman, So he got a cousin who also survived the planet dying and was sent to earth. Suddenly he isn't that unique anymore. Spiderman was bitten radioactive spider, but Marvel created Silk who also bitten by that same Spider, Suddenly he isn't that unique anymore. As you keep adding stuff they get less unique. Hal Jordan was first only green lantern from this primitive planet that never had lantern got his ring from dying alien, Now they are what 8 or 9 human lanterns? Preserving the uniqueness of origin stories is more helpful than harmful more always isn't better.

The problem in what you are presenting you see every notable character as character who needs origin story for their powers because it slightly helps their solo efforts better. We will use Black Lightning

This is generally what Black Lightning is which works fine

Black Lightning . He is an Olympic athlete that wants to serve his community and comes back home as a superhero for his neighborhood and a school principal by day.

This how he got power in comics

Equipped with a force-field belt that enabled him to generate lighting bolts, Black Lightning was born.... Peter Gambi who paid the price, leaping in front of a gun-blast meant for Black Lightning Stripped of his force-field belt, the hero seemed destined for a similar fate but, in his fury, Black Lightning generated its effects from within his own body. In some unknown manner, he'd internalized the electrical power.

This what you suggested

As the years go on Jefferson secretly uses the battery to heal people from the crime and police violence in his district, and to give electricity to his friends when they can't pay the electric bill. Eventually the battery dies out and stops working. It doesn't matter anymore, because from prolonged exposure to it Jefferson gained that bio electricity within his own body. He is Black Lightning

this what CW did

n the 1980s, the A.S.A. began an experiment, in which they gave people a vaccine they created, to keep the people stable and make them docile in an unstable environment, but the vaccine inadvertently created meta-humans....In 1986, Peter Gambi was tasked with finding these people, but after he realized that the A.S.A.'s vaccine was killing children, he leaked the information to a journalist in Freeland, Alvin Pierce. After Gambi found another one of the test subjects, Jefferson Pierce, the son of the late Alvin Pierce......One night, when Jefferson was twelve, he took part in a riot, which he was chased down an alley by two SWAT officers and accidentally set off his powers for the first time, knocking out both of the officers. Jefferson than ran down another alley and was knocked unconscious after absorbing electricity from an electric fence.

What is difference between what you suggested and other the origins, CW and DC have system for creating multiple villains and side heroes. When a villain shows up it is metahumans, Green Light or ASA experiments. What ever Black Lighting loses by not having "unique individual" origin beyond he was born it is gained by Black Lightning having tons of villain and cast around because of a group origin story. AND because the metagene is also triggered Black Lighting has hero origin like any other superhero. Your idea means you have make up origin for every Black Lightning villain and honestly a point out above there isn't much new you can do in the genre and quickly those guys will become not interesting just like if their origins was they were born with it.