Are there any superheroes who didn't have to suffer a personal tragedy to convince them to use their abilities to...

Are there any superheroes who didn't have to suffer a personal tragedy to convince them to use their abilities to become a superhero?

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Kick-Ass?

Superman

Superman, right? He doesn't find out about his home planet until he's an adult.

Fantastic Four

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Barry Allen before Geoff Johns edged his backstory up.

>Pic related

The Question
He was just doing it for fun in O'Neil's run until he gets his ass beat by Lady Shiva.

I know it gets a lot of hate, but i really do like that costume

I'd swear the death of his father plays a role in a few versions. Though that might just stick out in my mind because the prologue of the Miraculous Return of Jonathon Kent made me cry as a kid.

The Power Pack

Green Lantern? I mean, some random alien croaked, not like he knew the guy.

True for everyone but the The Thing. It's a tragedy for him.

Assuming we omit all mutants because they are generally motivated by persecution (although quite a few like Colossus or Shadowcat start out low on personal tradegy)

The already mentioned Jay Garrick and pre-Johns Barry Allen.
Kyle Rayner, who was heroic before he got hit by a fridge fully of girlfriend.
Richard Rider.
Gravity.
The Power Pack.
Arguably Captain Britain.
Kamala Khan.
Saturn Girl, Phantom Girl, Triplicate Girl. Matter Eater Lad.
Tim Drake.

>hit by a fridge fully of girlfriend

In some versions, but in Post-Crisis the Kents were alive LONG after he went public.

even in MoS Clark is saving people as a kid. And Johnathon Kent seems to die well before he goes off on his own doing more heroic things, so I wouldn't really call that the catalyst.

a hero for fun?

>ctrl + f
>Ted Kord
okay,,,
>ctrl + f Blue Beetle
Still nothing. You are all such massive disappointments!

I don't read Fantastic Four, so I don't know if this was ever addressed, but why did they end up going with "The Thing" as a nickname if he feels so torn up about his humanity being altered? Seems kinda cruel desu.

Nah his power is all about "overcoming fear," and he uses it because he overcomes his great fear of daddy's tragic death

Its only 15 posts in faggot

>powers

>abilities

That Miss America chick Marvel has. Her entire shtick is basically she's objectively better than everyone else and super heroing is fun.

Booster Gold

Green Lantern

Captain America didn't, did he?

I mean, Erskine died, but that was just in the course of giving him his powers, he already knew he wanted to help people before that.

Superman, up until the fucking DCEU.

How about:

Bobby Drake
Hank McCoy

Thunderbird (he WAS the tragedy)

Bishop
Dazzler

Eh, the what if the FF all got the same powers story tends to point that they only become heroes out of Reeds guilt/dickness.

All thing: Live on monster island
All HT: Circus perfomers
I forget what they do with Reed and Sues.

Hank Pym mostly. His first wife did die but that's mostly just incidental.

I think that's the reason why people refer to him as just Ben most of the time.

Kamala Khan

Did One More Day happen in Sony's Spiderman game?

That's kinda debatable, though. He grew up poor and sick during the Great Depression, and his parents died when he was a kid. His life up until getting the Serum was arguably itself one long tragedy, and then his reawakening in the modern era is characterized by mourning Bucky (whose death is his final pre-freeze memory) and a level of disconnect from the world around him, at least to begin with.

Yep, no tragedy there, aside from her entire reality collapsing and her parents sacrificing themselves to save it, and then her running away because she can't deal with the responsibility of keeping her whole reality safe

Personal tragedy takes a back seat to orphans. How long was it before heroes actually had two parent households? I guess Stan Lee and others were targeting kids and kid fantasy is not having parents to answer to. And batman before that. It seemed like decades passed where to be a hero you had to have dead relatives.

>Bobby Drake
Nearly killed by a lynch mob for trying to get a couple of assholes to stop harassing his girlfriend.

>Hank McCoy
Had himself erased from his family's memory to prevent them from being attacked/exploited by people coming after him.

>Thunderbird (he WAS the tragedy)
Generational trauma of being Native, plus Vietnam PTSD so bad he committed suicide by Fuck This Jet.

>Bishop
Grew up in a fucking concentration camp, and came back from the future to catch the guy who murdered his sister.

>Dazzler
Death of her mother drove a wedge between her and her father that only worsened when she dropped out of law school to become a disco singer.

Maybe 1/5.

None of these events made them want to be superheroes though.

Ahem.

>But he's an orphan!
But it didn't motivate him to become a hero. He was just good natured enough to accept the wizard's offer.

Wrong, she was born a woman has to keep the word in her name

I don't know, Bishop at least was motivated to join the XSE because of his camp upbringing, and being in the present avenging Shard is how he became a superhero, rather than a cop with superpowers.

this guy, obviously

She's a derivative of Spider-Man but Spider-Girl is not motivated by tragedy which Frenz explained on a rant after calling out Slott for what he did to her in Spiderverse


>“Pete learned through the death of Uncle Ben that if he doesn't act, people die; Mayday learned in her first couple of issues that when she does act, people live. That subtle, but significant difference put her in a much more positive and proactive headspace, which was pretty much the whole vibe of the MC2 Universe. MC2 was unabashedly a universe wherein heroes existed and helped make the world a better place, so that a second generation of people who get powers are inspired to do the same thing.

ONE PUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNCH

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Static Shock

see

That's not a fedora, it's a trilby.

nicely ememd my friend

Its basically Superman, and I fucking hate it. Everything bad that ever happened to Superman happened before he was born, when he was less than a year old, and AFTER he became Superman. Clark just got to grow up with loving, supportive parents. He lived on a farm, learned the value of hard work, ate a hearty breakfast every day, had tons of pets... hell I'm sure Smallville even has a lower crime rate than most of the world. Superman is a story that basically says "If an average person can grow up without experiencing any real trauma or tragedy, and then they discover they have a bunch of amazing powers. given the opportunity, that person will succeed at doing more good than any other life form on record." Oh word? When everything goes right then everything goes right? Good message guys.

Mutants don't count at all. Once they learn their a mutant that is a life changing experience. It's like imagine you think life is going fine and then suddenly you find out you are one of the most feared and ostracized people on the planet.

You know what? Superman should be about him being physically invulnerable and emotionally overly sensitive. Superman has never dealt with shit like people cutting their own face off and wearing it like a mask. Superman should be great at doing good and helping the innocent, but he should crumble when he has to fight evil since hes lived a live almost completely devoid of conflict. The Man of Steel with a Heart of Wax.

who hurt you user?

Do people generally buy the whole, "he's good just because he's good," narrative? Every book I've consumed on writing keeps on with the whole rationalize why one would do good just because. I know, tools not rules. Has any gun totting vigilantes taken up arms just because? Or does crime need to knock on a character's door first?

Superman
Wonder Woman
Tim Drake
Barbara Gordon
Ray Palmer

Saitama

Dan Garrett's death.

Yeeeah...

Kamala Khan did not have any tragedy as far as I know. with many heroes (mostly the new ones) its common to just jump into it once you get your powers because that is just what you do

Reed is such an asshole

Cosmic Boy (IIRC), Bouncing Boy, Gates, Star Boy and Colossal Boy as well. Maybe Dream Girl too.

Though doesn't Trip's backstory go that she was ostracised by her planet because she had three personalities instead of one? Or maybe that's just the reboot?

Freakazoid

This is still in my top 10 favorite comic panels of all time.

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>Superhero BECAUSE he 'died'.

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In some continuities they're flawed recreations of Doctor Magnus' friends.

>entire home planet and birth parents are destroyed

try again.

although, you could argue the point that counts for kal-el and not the alter egos that are clark kent/superman.

He never knew them. its like saying an orphan who was happily adopted has a tragedy that motivates them

If I remember right, he's just a take on Jon Carter of Mars, and all his suffering comes AFTER he takes the title and is forcibly separated from his family.

He can't be motivated by something he didn't know about.

Cosmic Boy is debatable, because he's travelling to Earth because he needs to send money back home because of economic depression on Braal. That's borderline tragic for a teenager.

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Usually his life on earth is a mess and he's depressed so Ran is kind of his secnd chance at being something.

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Animal Man
Booster Gold

TWISTED, DAMAGED, TELLING IT HOW IT IS

THE WORLD'S A SHITHOLE AND YOU CAN BE THE SHITTER OR YOU CAN BE THE JANITOR

ABSOLUTELY SAVAGE, NEVER HESITATING TO DROP TRUTH BOMBS ON DIPSHIT SHEEPLE WHEN THEY NEED A TERMINAL DOSE OF WOKE AND STEP TO HIM

ITS EDGEANON, YES HE'S BITTER, YES HE'S DARK, YES HE DOESN'T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT YOUR PRECIOUS GOD OR YOUR PRECIOUS LOVE, AND WHY SHOULD HE? HE KNOWS BETTER THAN ANYBODY THAT NONE OF IT IS REAL

GET ABSOLUTELY FUCKED DAD, YOU DON'T KNOW AS MUCH AS YOU THINK OKAY

youtube.com/watch?v=rSMg_GWiBt0

I love this

What you don't get is that Superman is about wanting everybody to have what you have.

His life was indeed cozy as fuck. He could have just kept quiet and been happy, the way any normal man lives his life. Looking for opportunities to help others out is what makes him Super.

Correct me if I'm wrong on this.

Didn't her father die when she was fairly young?

Most of the characters in Watchmen were just being superheroes for the hell of it.

Miles Morales
OG Human Torch

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>This thread

You guys know nothing about comics.

There are plenty but alot of people like to copy the newer spider-man mold for heroes in that the hero is a dick before karma wraps around and they realize their potential.
Revenge stories are also a bit of clasical story motivations.
Actually it's just a cheap ploy for sympathy. It's kind of difficult to complain about a person being an orphan.

Got a link to said rant?

Nah he died when she was an adult or at least after she was banging Constantine

Nah but she was separated from her mom through mystic bullshit

>superhero career literally started by him and his waifu getting murdered

GL's dad blew up in front of him

>skills

Well you know nothing about girls and boobies and stuff, so there.

>You know what? Superman should be about him being physically invulnerable and emotionally overly sensitive.
So, Elliot S! Maggin stories?

I can groove with that.

Plas is an interesting case, because he was a crook that became a cape.
And he didn't become a hero out of a tragic event, but a complete stranger's act of altruism in nursing him back to health.

this sequence needs to be in an actual movie

Barry Allen, before MUH DEAD MOM kicked in when Geoff Johns retconned the murder in. I suspect he was forced into it for movie synergy.

Nothing says relatable like your mother dying in a murder committed by your time-travelling archenemy from the future, right?

Before that, he was just an ordinary guy who was struck by lightning and became a superhero. One of the simplest superhero origins.