Ah, the retcon. It seems to be a very common occurrence in the world of comic books. You can’t really fault a modern comic book writer for trying to rectify a storyline situation by saying “Oh, that’s not what really happened. This is how it should’ve been in the first place!” While it does seem to be more prevalent in modern comics, it’s actually been done during the very early days of comics.

In fact, some of even the most iconic things about superheroes, their origin story, has been retconned to the ones we’re all familiar with. So, let’s go look at just five superhero origins that have been changed.

#1 Superman (just another Kryptonian)

It seems only fitting we start out with probably the most well-known superhero and possibly why we call them that in the first place as it is part of his name. We all know how Superman was born on Krypton and rocketed to Earth when the planet exploded. Upon arriving on our world, the Earth’s lighter gravity and yellow sun supercharged his Kryptonian biology to give him super-strength, super-speed, the power of flight, the ability to die and be reborn in order to get more people to buy his comics, yadda yadda yadda.

However, during the Golden Age of comics, it wasn’t Earth’s lighter gravity and our yellow sun that granted Superman these powers. It was actually just evolution. It was explained that, during the Golden Age, Kryptonians just had all of the powers noted above. Well, maybe Superman’s power of dying and resurrecting is unique to him… but you never know.

It’s not really mentioned as to why they started removing the Kryptonian evolutionary concept later on. But the best guess would be that it was getting harder and harder to explain Superman’s growing number of superpowers. Sure, leaping high and gaining super-strength was fine then as it just showed that Kryptonians were the next step in human evolution. But when Superman started to fly and can burn things just by looking at them, the entire “peak human evolution” idea starts to be far-fetched, even in comic book land.

#2 Thor (a man who found a stick)

The origin story of Thor we all know today is very Shakespearian when you really think about it. Odin, the King of the Asgardian Gods, is fed up with his son’s arrogance and banishes Thor to Earth without his powers to learn humility. He eventually does learn his lesson and reclaims Mjolnir, his trusty hammer, to once again become the powerful God of Thunder.

In the early Marvel comics run, Thor’s powerless avatar was Donald Blake, a doctor who needed a walking stick to get around. This was actually a retcon as Donald Blake was originally just an ordinary person who, while hiding from an alien invasion, stumbles into a cave, mistakenly gets a stick thinking it’s his cane and gains the power of Thor.

Yes, the original origin of the Asgardian God of Thunder, as depicted in Journey Into Mystery #83, was that a cripple found a stick and, because he was just a all-around good guy, the stick changed him to Thor. Things quickly became a whole lot more confusing as, just two issues later, Loki popped into Donald Blake’s life as he was searching for Thor, who had been missing for years, hinting that either the real Thor is still out there or Donald Blake was actually the missing god. Finally, in Thor #159, four whole years after Thor’s first appearance, was everything cleared up and it was revealed Odin essentially created Donald Blake for Thor to live in to learn his lesson, which is kind of dumb because how can Thor learn a lesson when he doesn’t even know he’s done anything wrong. Maybe this was Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s plan all along… but I highly doubt that.

#3 Batman (where Bruce Wayne’s parent’s killer gets a ever-changing backstory)

Batman’s origin has relatively stayed the same. While walking home, Bruce Wayne and his parents run into a mugger. Things get a little too hairy and the mugger shoots and kills the boy’s parents. The shock of the murders drive Bruce Wayne to learn all the skills necessary to fight crime, eventually turning the young boy into the Dark Knight, Batman.

While that has remained consistent, what hasn’t is the mugger’s identity. Originally, it was just an unnamed criminal who just wanted to mug Thomas and Martha Wayne. But this is the Golden Age so they just had to add more stuff to this origin. Years have passed since that fateful night and Batman is investigating a smuggling operation when he sees the photo of Joe Chill, the owner of a shipping company. He recognizes Joe Chill as the mugger who killed his parents. Batman eventually confronts Joe Chill and even reveals his identity to him. Joe Chill turns to his henchmen but when they figure out it was their boss’ actions so many years ago that created Batman, they turn on Joe Chill and kill him.

Even after that Golden Age tale, Joe Chill’s backstory kept changing. In fact, that bit where Batman would get him killed was retconned as it was explained much later on that Joe Chill was actually a hitman hired by mobster Lew Moxon, who wanted the Waynes killed for getting him arrested. The reason why he left Bruce Wayne alive so the young boy could testify that it was a random mugging. I oddly like the original version where the mugger was just a nobody as it doesn’t make sense for Batman to continue his war on crime once he captured the man who murdered his parents. Then again, what do I know?

#4 Daredevil (now with ninja training)

Is it just me or did Stan Lee have this weird fetish with radiation? Besides the aforementioned Thor, most of Marvel’s superheroes during the early days had something to do with being close to something radioactive. Bruce Banner was hit by radioactive gamma rays, turning him into the super-strong Hulk. Spider-Man was bitten by a radioactive spider, giving him the powers of a spider. Same thing with Daredevil. Although Matt Murdock did become blind after being doused with toxic and, you guessed it, radioactive waste, the same radioactive chemicals enhanced all of his other senses to superhuman levels, allowing him to “see” even better than a normal person. The substance also enhanced his reflexes and agility, enabling him to jump around the city like a parkour enthusiast on steroids. Matt Murdock, instilled with his father’s lessons of being a good boy, decides to use these abilities to fight crime in New York.

In Stan Lee’s time, that was all that was needed. You didn’t need fancy martial arts training to be good at fighting! That wasn’t enough for Frank Miller, however. When he took the job of writing Daredevil, he also introduced the idea that Matt Murdock was also trained in the art of ninjitsu by Stick, a blind man who was the leader of the Chaste clan. Sure, he was kind of a dick as pushing a kid off a roof may seem a little harsh. But, hey! It worked, didn’t it?

The addition of Stick to the Daredevil mythos did pay off really big as it allowed The Man Without Fear to face off against a new enemy, The Hand, a clan of evil ninjas. It also paved the way for the introduction of Daredevil’s most famous love interest, Elektra. I guess these elements could’ve been woven in without the entire ninja subplot but it certainly wouldn’t be as interesting.

#5 Aquaman (trained to breathe underwater)

We’ve talked about a couple of DC superhero origins that have changed already. While there are some differences, the basic blueprint of their origins still remain the same. The same cannot be said for Aquaman. Today, we all know about how Arthur Curry is the love child between the Queen of Atlantis and a lowly lighthouse keeper. Although he’s only half-Atlantean, the man who would be known as Aquaman still had all of their abilities, like breathing underwater and communicating with sea creatures. Also, as he is the son of the former queen, he was always destined to be the Ruler of the Seven Seas.

Well, in the Golden Age, when Aquaman was first introduced, Atlantis is dead. As in it’s destroyed. A seasoned undersea explorer found the ruins of Atlantis and built a lab to further study the lost civilization’s history. With that knowledge, he proceeded to teach his son how to breathe underwater and live in the sea. Why he never bothered to, I don’t know, reveal this knowledge to the rest of the world, we’ll never know. Heck, even in the comic where he’s telling his origin, Aquaman doesn’t seem to care for the reason, so why should we?

Apparently, DC also didn’t care as it took them almost two decades to realize what a dumb origin this was. Of course, this is still technically canon but, as this origin was told in the Golden Age, it was just shifted to the origin of Earth-2’s Aquaman. DC, you’re weird!

BONUS 1: Spider-Man (who said that iconic mantra?)

This is a bonus entry because, even in his first issue, Spider-Man’s origin has remained very consistent. After bitten by a radioactive spider (still with the radioactivity, Stan Lee?), Peter Parker uses his new spider powers to try to make as much money as possible. One faithful night, Peter Parker allows a criminal pass by him, even though he could’ve stopped him easily with his new powers. Sadly, this same criminal then kills Uncle Ben later in the evening while trying to rob him. This is when Spider-Man really digests what Uncle Ben meant when he tries to teach him “with great power comes great responsibility.”

Well, he really didn’t. No, the entire “with great power comes great responsibility” was never said by Uncle Ben in Amazing Fantasy #15, Spider-Man’s first appearance. It was said by the narrator telling the reader about what Spider-Man learned that night! Heck, that’s not even the exact quote as the original phrase is “…with great power there must also come — great responsibility!” Yeah, doesn’t exactly roll of the tongue, does it?

I totally understand the change as having Uncle Ben try to teach Peter Parker this lesson, only for him to die because he never understood it is much more poetic. It also becomes more understandable why Peter Parker would carry on as Spider-Man, despite already taking the criminal in, as he feels guilty for letting his uncle down. It’s a minor change but still a change.

Bonus 2: Hawkman (…I don’t even know where to start)

This was actually the origin of this list. However, the deeper I delved into Hawkman’s origins (yes, that’s plural), it was just too confusing to really talk about them (because plural) as it’s super convoluted. Just watch this video detailing Hawkman’s origins (once again, plural).

Yeah, kinda hard to summarize in a couple of paragraphs. Never mind.

What other superheroes can you think of that had their origin altered? Let me know in the comments section below!