Comic book companies, every few years like clockwork, publish comics that re-tell the origin of a particular superhero. We already know the origins of the most popular superheroes – Superman, Spiderman, Batman, etc – why go over the same tale again and again and yet again?

I’ll tell you why: superhero origin stories sell. Whether it’s a comic book, cartoon series, or movie, the tale of how a man or woman became super-powered usually guarantees an audience. Corporations make sweet profit from superhero origin story re-telling and, to be honest, I find that fact puzzling. Why? Well, when you carefully examine a superhero origin story, it becomes apparent that the hero and/or the situation is pretty stupid right out of the gate:

Superman

 We all know the story of Superman being rocketed to Earth from the exploding planet Krypton. While baby Supes, “Kal-El”, seems blameless, his parents sure as hell aren’t.

Jor-El, Superman’s father, must have been a complete and utter idiot of the first degree. First off, he discovers that the planet is going to explode, so he constructs a spaceship that can carry his son AND NOBODY ELSE. Talk about your advanced Kryptonian intellect.

“Oh, no”, the comic book fan may interject, “Superman’s father didn’t have the time to build a bigger spacecraft.” C’mon. This is incredible Kryptonian technology we’re talking about here. All the buildings on the planet are made out of talking computers that project the head of Marlon Brando, for chrissakes.

These incredibly advanced outer space people only had ONE spaceship lying around that could hold only ONE tiny baby? Even if there was a law prohibiting space travel (as some of the varieties of the Superman origin tale make apparent), out of a planet of billions of incredibly advanced geniuses only ONE Kryptonian slob had the guts to construct something akin to Sputnik and slap his kid into it?

Yes, yes, there’s Supergirl, Krypto the Superdog, Beppo the Supermonkey… I think all of them were podded into space when Krypton went bah-BOOM. But my point still holds: all of these Kryptonian scientists made teeny-tiny spacecraft when the probability suggests at least ONE of them could have built a big space pleasure-cruiser, to sail away from the citizens of Krypton as they screamed and burned in the flames.

Also consider that Jor-El’s logic was faulty. Why send only one of his offspring when he and his wife could have hopped into the escape rocket, made it to Earth, and had more kids? “But the escape ship couldn’t hold the size or weight of Superman’s parents”. C’MON. I said this is KRYPTONIAN technology we’re talking about here, not the Mercury space program where every second rocket went BANG on the goddamn launch pad. Couldn’t Jor-El and his wife SPOON together in the rocket? I know if I was on an exploding planet and there was an escape ship, I’d punch my wife and baby son in their faces just to get the hella into space.

Okay, so now we have the infant Superman in his tiny escape ship heading towards the planet Earth. Who’s feeding this kid? It has to be a long trip! In NONE of the Superman origin stories did I see a baby bottle, Gerber’s food jars, or hell, even a Kryptonian artificial breast hanging from the interior ceiling of the spaceship into Kal-El’s tiny suckling mouth.

And then the spacecraft lands on Earth, to be discovered by Mr. & Mrs. Kent, who adopt him on the spot.

Riiiggghhhtt. I said it before, I’ll state it again: C’mon.

Let’s say you’re married, and one day you and your spouse observe a UFO plow into a farmer’s field. The both of you (with astonishing stupidity and lack of foresight) investigate the downed craft (disregarding possible radiation burns and forced anal probing by giggling “Greys”) only to discover a child inside the small spacecraft.

Your wife says to you, “Oh, how cute the baby is! Let’s adopt him.”

As a husband, wouldn’t you feel really insulted? I know If I was Pa Kent I would’ve said the following to Mrs. Kent: “What, my reproductive faculties aren’t GOOD enough for you? You’d prefer some struggling SPACE-THING over the natural born child of our loving mating? Look, that damn alien creature-baby just broke my Ford TRUCK! ! How the hell are we going to raise a kid that tosses farm equipment around like Nerf footballs?”

But, no… the Kents adopt little Kal-El. And I have to ask, as baby Superman grew up, how could his parents discipline him? Especially in his rebellious young teenage years? I can just imagine the family discussions:

CLARK KENT: Dad, I need the keys to the truck tonight. I need to go slap the entire Smallville football team around for a few hours.

MR. KENT: No, son. You can’t have the truck tonight.

CLARK KENT: Give me the keys, old man, or I’ll punch your head off your neck.

MR. KENT: Here are the keys, son. Have a nice night.

The whole Superman origin story has more holes in it than if the “Man of Steel” lost control of his heat vision in a Swiss cheese factory. And don’t get me started about Spider-Man!

Spider-Man

Imagine this scenario: you’re a high-school student and you decide to attend an exhibit that houses horrible poisonous spiders AND radiation generators. Fun city! I know I’d attend, knowing there’s a chance of sterility and arachnid bites all over my body.

Being Peter Parker, you decide to A) stand right by the radiation emitter, and B) have the stupidity to stand still long enough in a room full of spiders to let a big ol’ hairy eight-legged biter land on you.

I know if I was in a room chock full of spiders with fangs, even if they were behind glass, I’d be turning to every person nearby to yell, “IS THERE A SPIDER ON MY BACK?!?” In fact, I do that often even when there’s no spiders around just to make sure none are crawling on my back. Those eight-legged abominations make me scream like a frightened prom queen, radioactive or not.

And then after Peter Parker gets bit by a radioactive spider in a room full of left-over Chernobyl equipment, he decides to go home and “sleep it off”. Dear GOD. If it had been me bitten by a radioactive spider, I’d be hauling myself to the emergency room screaming my fool head off.

Oh, and WHY did Peter Parker evolve the ability to shoot spider-webs from his WRISTS? Spiders make webs from a spot real close to their, uh, posterior. If Spidey’s origin story was more true to fact, we’d see ol’ Webhead bent over the skies of New York City shooting goo from his backside. Wrists, my ass.

And why doesn’t Spider-Man suck the life-juices out of the criminals he’s caught out of his web, like real spiders do? I guess that would be kind of weird… but it’d probably sell a lot more comics in certain demographics.

Enough of Spidey. There’s another super-hero origin story that infuriates me, and that’s:

Batman

“Hey, as responsible parents, let’s walk down this crime-infested alley with our young son while wearing jewellery, fur coats, and talking about how good life is!”

‘Nuff said (yes, yes, I know that’s a Marvel phrase). But I just want to add one thing: what’s with this Superman-Batman teaming up we see all the time? Superman, whom whence he passes gas mountains move, teaming up with a super-powerless Batman. There are many varieties of the story of Supes and Bats first meeting, but if I published comics (and I should), my DC Universe would portray their first conversation like this:

SUPERMAN: Nice to meet you, Batman.

BATMAN: Nice to meet you too, Superman. What powers do you have?

SUPERMAN: I can fly, I’m invulnerable, I have heat-vision, super-cold breath, microscopic vision, X-ray vision, super-hearing, super-speed WHILE flying, and of course super-strength. How about you, Batman?

BATMAN: I can throw batarangs.

SUPERMAN: Ah… I… see.

BATMAN: And I have a snazzy car.

“Wait,” the comic book fan in you might be saying. “Superman teams up with Batman because Batman has great detective skills.” If you’re Superman and have X-ray vision and super-hearing, do you NEED a detective? Just fly up into the sky, turn around in a complete circle with the X-ray beams sterilizing Metropolis, and voila! There’s your villain.

Superman can’t see through lead walls? So what? Who the hell uses lead walls except super villains who want to hide something? Maybe the government, yes, but they’re always hiding evil experiments Superman should investigate anyways. If I was Superman and I saw a lead wall, I’d say to myself, “Yup, time to smash that puppy DOWN.”

The Hulk

Here we have an intelligent scientist, Bruce Banner, running out onto a nuclear bomb testing range to save a stupid teenager who has wandered onto the field.

If I was Dr. Smart-guy Bruce Banner, PhD, and some guy told me that a kid was now walking around the nuclear blast range, I’d say something like this:

“Geez. Poor kid.”

And then I’d keep my scientist ass parked on my laboratory bench and give General Talbot the big thumbs-up sign as he pushed the big red button.

Supposedly the gamma bomb test was run by the United States army. Have they become so lazy as to not post WARNING: NUCLEAR BOMB GROUND signs for miles around the blast area? No, I guess not. Well, now the army has an enraged green monster stomping on their tanks, and they’re the only ones to blame.

Aquaman

Oh God, don’t even get me started about the aquatic lameness all the other superheroes call Aquaman. And to be honest, I don’t even know his origin story and I don’t care. I’m just gonna make fun of Aquaman because, gosh, it’s so darn easy.

NARRATOR: BACK AT THE HALL OF JUSTICE, THE SUPERFRIENDS ARE HAVING A MEETING.

AQUAMAN: Even though I can (gasp) only stay out of water for an hour (gAsP) or I’ll DIE, I still want to help fight crime on land (GASP) uh…oohh… getting light-headed… need… water…

SUPERMAN: Gee, Aquaman, are you okay?

BATMAN: Here, maybe my batarang will help.

Yes, Aquaman is always a great help to the Justice League whenever they haul him around in a kiddy pool.

Okay, no more. I’m afraid I’ll go insane if I familiarize myself with the origin stories of other superheroes. From this point on, I don’t care how the Green Lantern got his ring and the fact he’s not making green-skinned pleasure slaves every second of every minute of every hour instead of fighting crimes. Green Arrow? Ah, yes. “Look, I’m going to shoot an arrow at you-“ What happens when he meets up with the Green Bullet? BLAM!

I rest my case. All superhero origin stories are stupid. And another th– IS THERE A SPIDER ON MY BACK?!?