Best DCU Origin?

[Stu]

Hey,

This thread applies to all of the DCU characters, heroes and villians.

So, to put it bluntly, which is best? Which is worst?

[karasu]

Superman has the best origin IMO

Amazo's stinks .

[Harper]

Among the most obvious choices for best origin are Mr. Freeze and the Mad Hatter, especially when considering their comic book counterparts...

[Phantasm]

Andrea Beaumont's Phantasm persona had a great origin!!!!

[Lunchbox]

Andrea Beaumont's Phantasm persona had a great origin!!!! Who saw that one coming?

Seriously, though, I've always dug the Creeper's animated origin.

[Fone Bone]

Superman and Solomon Grundy. One was perfect, one was extra stylish.

[Charles Gunn]

Clayface is still tied for number one along with Two Face in my book. I still remember being really freaked out when I was younger watching “Feat of Clay” it was some pretty dark stuff for a cartoon. Worst has to be the Royal Flush Gang, it basically works but I wish that it ran a little more deeply than it seems to right now, hopefully General Hardcastle’s talk about them being apart of the big over arcing conspiracy involving Galatea will lead to their origins being expanded on a little more.

[Carrieattheprom]

Harley Quinn, as described in Mad Love.( The fact she was drafted to the mainstream comics really says something about her character.)

[Anthonynotes]

Best origin: Superman (animated or comics), of course. :-)

Origins that bite: Wonder Woman's "I stole my costume" bit on JL is probably is my "winner".

Runners-up: Live Wire (she got powered just by getting shocked by lightning that had, uh, passed through Supes, or something? Blech....); Farmer Brown (rednecks with gene-splicing tech?); Baby Doll (has-been actress with a lame grudge?).

In the comics, there's probably way too many lame origins to list (esp. with the 90's "anyone with an AK-47 and a grudge/surly attitude can call themselves a 'hero' " stuff) ... though I always thought (the comics) Amazo was cool (a "one-man Justice League").

-B.

[Eddie G.]

Best: Batman, and not just because he's Batman. The scene in MOTP where Bruce puts on the costume is one of the greatest moments in the DCAU.

Worst: Joker and his origin that doesn't make sense. In the comics it makes perfect sense for Jack to go insane because he was a good person who had a lot of bad things happen to him and in a twist of dark humor looks like a clown. Basically in the DCAU he is a mobster who killed a lot of people without anything bad happening to him and then his skin and hair got messed up. Why exactly did he go insane?

[SecretWars]

For me, best one I've seen is probably Bats. Reason is that it is simple and believable (but not 'commonplace') and it can be related too on a human level (quite a deep one really)

Worst I've seen is probably the original Green Lantern..... very very convoluted and just plain daft in places.... IMO of course! He did have a big following I'm sure.

[Crow]

Worst: Joker and his origin that doesn't make sense. In the comics it makes perfect sense for Jack to go insane because he was a good person who had a lot of bad things happen to him and in a twist of dark humor looks like a clown. Basically in the DCAU he is a mobster who killed a lot of people without anything bad happening to him and then his skin and hair got messed up. Why exactly did he go insane?
There's compelling arguments for both sides of a 'what makes a better baddie' debate - the 'good person gone bad/corrupted/defeated in some inner battle by his inner demons' villian versus the 'born bad/bad to the bone/always evil' villian.

A little something (it might already happen on this site, those sticky threads are similar) the admins could do is organise a debate day/night/week or something. Put out a question like 'Lex Luthor - Should They Have Kept Him In His President of Lexcorp Persona?', have three or so people for the affirmative and negative and then let it go from there. I'm off topic now so I'll submit the post.

Best Origin: Batman. Mask of the Phantasm rules.

Worst: Flash's. From what we've seen so far, that is.

[Karkull]

They've all had varing degrees of success, but I think that the absolute worst was Maxima's in Warrior Queen, where they transformed a wonderful, evil-Wonder Woman character who sought Superman for his genetic material into a spoiled princess voiced by Sharon Lawrence (who played a similar character at the time on NBC's Fired Up). Such a waste of potential -- I'd argue that this was the only time that the DCAU creative team dropped the ball.

Well, maybe Ares as well, but the jury's still out there...

[Jor-El]

The problem with Batman's origin (no matter how great he was in BTAS and how much BTAS and MotP completely RULED all) is that we've never actually seen it. We saw his first night out pre-costume and we saw him put on the costume, and, okay, we saw him train with Zatara, but besides that, what exactly have we seen? We don't see him travel the world nor do we see his "first" fight with the Joker and we don't see a lot of things about him that we probably need to see before we can say that his is the best origin. We've never even seen a terribly solid sequence where his parents are killed and he prays in front of that candle (one of the most oft-repeated and re-envisioned scenes in comics history.) So where does this idea of his being the best origin really come from?


Worst I've seen is probably the original Green Lantern..... very very convoluted and just plain daft in places.... IMO of course! He did have a big following I'm sureI'm very confused by this. What about Kyle's origin did you find "convoluted" or "daft"? I think that it was one of the most brilliant adaptations that I've seen on the show. It combined what fans like about Kyle and what fans like about Hal and I don't see how that hurt the S:TAS Kyle at all. At least Kyle had an origin. What about Kyle's origin do you find more poorly done than, for example, John Stewart's origin or lack thereof? In fact, looking back on IN BRIGHTEST DAY, we had a lot of things very clearly explained: the existence of the GL Corps, the battery, the ring, etc. Is it my background in the Green Lantern mythos that puts me at an advantage of understanding?

Having said all that, I agree that Superman has had the best origin, if only because he had a three-part episode devoted to it and the writers could devote the most time to him.

[Eddie G.]

There's compelling arguments for both sides of a 'what makes a better baddie' debate - the 'good person gone bad/corrupted/defeated in some inner battle by his inner demons' villian versus the 'born bad/bad to the bone/always evil' villian.My problem has nothing to do with what made him bad, it has to do with what made him insane.

[Yojimbo]

You never see the events that lead Jack to go insane, we all knew he was bad from watching Mask of the Phantasm and the series, in BTAS he is situated as an unnamed hitman and perhaps pieces of his transformation from "The Man Who Killed Batman" and the Creeper episode and others but they never delved into the beginnings of his murderous instincts like how he even killed his own fellow mobsters just to have a short term relationship with some woman he lusted on a whim. The only thing I found interesting that resulted from Joker's origin in BTAS is that he and Batman's are so closely tied to one another it's ironic.