Marvel Universe
The Marvel Universe has Sufficiently Advanced Alien Ancient Astronauts called the "Celestials", who did experiments millions of years ago on proto-humanity, creating the offshoot races known as The Eternals and Deviants, as well as putting in the "X-gene", which causes the wide variety of super-powered mutants in the MU. open/close all folders
Comic Books
Comic Books
- In Earth X, everything is a direct-or-indirect result of Celestial manipulation. The superhumans, The Inhumans, the Kree, the Skrulls, and even the Asgardians. To make a long story short, everybody on Earth has the potential to have superpowers (usually activated by radioactivity or the Terrigen Mists) because they are the antibodies protecting what's inside the planet: an infant Celestial ready to hatch and destroy its shell.
- Spider-Man
- In Marvel Knights: Spider-Man #9, it was explained that, after World War II, big businessmen had feared superheroes would start interfering with politics and business, so they created most of the early supervillains, to keep them busy and make sure that Reed Richards Is Useless. This hasn't been mentioned again since, and may have fallen into Audience-Alienating Era status. Although it should be noted that the fourth issue of Daniel Way's Bullseye miniseries threw out the same concept at the same time (they were published the same month) with no apparent contact between the two writers.
- Spider-Man: Chapter One retconned and fused Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus' origins.
- The Amazing Spider-Man (2022) reveals that Madame Monstrosity, a brand-new villainess, is not only the mother of the creators of Scorpion and the Human Fly, but her work in human-animal hybrids was not only used in their creations, but also the creations of the Lizard, the Rhino, turning Dr. Michael Morbius] into a Living Vampire and (possibly) Spider-Boy. It's also revealed the reason most of those characters went bugnuts insane is because she got angry her work got used and she altered things to get revenge.
- In Ultimate Marvel, everyone who isn't a mutant, an alien, a god, or somehow involved with the Baxter Building teleportation experiment has their powers derived from the Super-Soldier project or one of its offshoots. The mini-series Ultimate Origins elaborates on the Meta Origin and how it connects everything else; it seems that the mutants, too, owe their origin to the project.
- It also reveals that the Super Soldier project was responsible for Nick Fury's entire career. He was part of the same program that spawned Captain America, but chose to conceal evidence of his peak-human abilities and increased lifespan so that he could have some shot at a normal life.
- The obscure 90s miniseries Conspiracy implied this was largely true of the 616-verse as well but everyone's forgotten about that.
- In the Golden Age flashback miniseries The Marvels Project, it's implied that the super-soldier serum was derived from Atlantean DNA.
- The New Universe had the "White Event", a sudden flash of energy over the entire surface of the Earth that gave one out of every 500,000 people powers. Later revealed to be the first Star Brand wearer trying to rid himself of his power. A similar event destroys Pittsburgh when the next Star Brand also becomes unsatisfied with his power.
- In the newuniversal reboot of the New Universe concept Earth enters a region of space monitored by a vast, ancient computer system that empowers several humans to help the world adapt to the new physical laws. It's shown that this has happened before, but its previous attempts only created a small number of superhumans and eventually failed.
- Neil Gaiman's Marvel 1602 empowers Elizabethan-era Captains Ersatz of mainstream Marvel characters by sending Captain America back in time during a failed execution attempt, which "signals" to the universe that it's time for superheroes to start showing up.
- Grant Morrison's New X-Men run revealed that Wolverine was the product of a larger project dubbed Weapon Plus, which was also responsible for the creation of Captain America and the Daredevil foe Nuke, among others.
- It's also since been implied in Secret Avengers that both Captain America and Luke Cage owe their origins to John Steele, a Golden Age superhero who was captured and experimented upon by German scientists (one of whom was Professor Erskine, the man who would later create the Super Soldier Serum).
- The Marvel Universe takes this to its limit with the little known Anthropomorphic Personification called Origin
, the origin of every empowered individual. - Infinity and the followup, Inhumanity, reveal that numerous humans across the globe possess dormant Inhuman genes, which can activate when they are exposed to the Terrigen Mists.
- Matt Fraction's final arc on The Defenders revealed that all superhumans are the result of manipulation from a race of beings called The Omega, who needed a fighting force of extraordinary creatures to battle a god-like entity called the Death Celestial. The Omega used a machine that helped miracles occur in order to create said superhumans, thus explaining why so many people have gained powers from Freak Lab Accidents and Million To One Chances, rather than simply ending up dead as they would in real ife.
- Previously unconnected Power Crystal using superhumans were connected by establishing the Lifestone Tree as a collaboration of eight alien races to empower a group to protect them all deemed the Guardians of the Galaxy.
- The Avengers (Jason Aaron) returns to the Celestial idea, revealing that millions of years ago, a diseased Celestial infected Earth's primordial waters and was subsequently buried deep underground. This infection spread across the entire planet and eventually caused the superhuman boom many years later.
- Supreme Power links all of the powered heroes' origins to Hyperion's arrival on earth.
Films
Films
- Marvel Cinematic Universe:
- In The Incredible Hulk (2008), both Bruce Banner/the Hulk and Emil Blonsky/the Abomination gained their powers through attempts to replicate Captain America's Super Serum. Banner thought he was researching ways to resist radiation and had no idea what his superiors were really after. Emil Blonsky's version of the serum seemed to work just fine, but when the Hulk still curb-stomped him, he got greedy and demanded that he be injected with a large sample of Banner's irradiated blood, which goes horribly right.
- Several characters are revealed to have gotten their powers from the Infinity Stones, and several powerful objects from the comics are revealed to be Infinity Stones.
- In Iron Man 2 and Captain America: The First Avenger, it's implied the the Arc Reactor created by Howard Stark was created by studying the Tesseract (a seemingly Asgardian artifact discovered by the Red Skull), and in turn was adapted and miniaturized by Tony Stark for his Iron Man armor, linking Iron Man to Asgard and other supernatural elements by way of the Super-Soldier project.
- Thor: The Dark World reveals that the Tesseract (the "Cosmic Cube" in the comics) and the Aether are the Space Stone and the Reality Stone, respectively, and it's heavily implied that the Asgardians can build space portals because they had the Space Stone in their possession for centuries.
- In Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Ronan the Accuser gets his enhanced strength from having the Power Stone embedded in his hammer.
- In Avengers: Age of Ultron, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, the Vision and Ultron himself are all created in some form or another by the Mind Stone; Ultron achieved sentience after being connected to it, the twins gained their powers from experimentation with it, and the Vision achieved both his sentience and his energy-blasts from the Stone being embedded in his forehead.
- The Eye of Agamotto from Doctor Strange (2016) contains the Time Stone, which gives it its powers.
- Captain Marvel (2019) reveals that the titular hero's powers actually were the result of her being caught in an explosion of a space engine powered by the Tesseract, meaning her powers are derived from the Space Stone.
- In the supplementary material for Captain America: The Winter Soldier, it's revealed that the Falcon's military exoskeleton was designed by Stark Industries, presumably utilizing technology similar to what is found in by Tony's Iron Man suits.
- The weapons used by the soldiers in The Incredible Hulk (2008) were also designed by Stark Industries. In fact, the sonic weapon seems to be the big brother of the sonic paralyzer Stane uses on Tony at the start of the final act of Iron Man.
- Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. establishes that HYDRA was originally an ancient cult worshiping a powerful Inhuman who had been exiled from Earth. HYDRA was the proximate cause of much of the preceding: their actions led to the creation of the Strategic Scientific Reserve (later SHIELD) in response, which led to the creation of the Super Soldier Project, HYDRA were the ones who uncovered the Tesseract and began using it, uncovering the Tesseract led to Loki's invasion that created the Avengers, and HYDRA was also responsible for the creation of the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver (which accidentally led to Tony Stark creating Ultron). All of this can therefore be directly connected to the Kree having attempted to create supersoldiers out of humans (creating the first Inhumans) in the ancient past.
- This version of Spider-Man got his enhanced costume and web-shooters (an upgrade from his initial homemade costume) from Tony Stark, who first recognized young Peter Parker's potential as a superhero and took him under his wing. Spider-Man: Homecoming also reveals that his enemies the Vulture, the Shocker and the Tinkerer are all part of the same gang, and that they built their enhanced gadgets out of salvaged Chitauri technology after the Battle of New York.
- In Daredevil (2015), Matt Murdock's costume and billy clubs are designed and built by Melvin Potter ("Gladiator"), who has also built Wilson Fisk's armor-weave suits that give him the appearance of being invulnerable. note The "Incident" also provides a handy justification for Matt and Foggy being able to start their own law practice in New York right out of college: it turns out that an alien invasion can really bring down real estate prices, even in one of the world's most expensive cities. Likewise, the Incident doing a number to Hell's Kitchen is a handy way to explain how it's gentrification has been reversed and crime increased to a level reminiscent to how it was in the 70's.
- Oscorp, with its mysterious "Special Projects" division, is the common thread tying together all costumed characters in The Amazing Spider-Man and its sequel. The company produces the genetically-enhanced hybrid spiders that give Peter Parker his abilities, and Peter eventually uses synthetic threads from the same spiders to build his web-shooters, while Harry Osborn gets his superhuman abilities from a concentrated dose of the spiders' venom. Meanwhile, Curt Connors (Lizard) and Max Dillon (Electro) are both Oscorp scientists who gain superpowers from projects gone awry, while Aleksei Sytsevich (Rhino) uses a robotic exoskeleton given to him by Oscorp. A scene near the end of the second movie even shows a pair of robotic wings and a harness of four robotic tentacles in the Special Projects vault, hinting at the eventual emergence of the Vulture and Doctor Octopus.
Western Animation
Western Animation
- Spider-Man: The Animated Series has the science of "Neogenics", which is basically the science of applying LEGO Genetics to an existing life-form (why take years to grow your super-mutant to adulthood when you can zap someone who is already an adult?) in a process that involves a kind of radiation. The spider that bit Peter hadn't been zapped by generic radiation, but with a "neogenic recombinator". Neogenics goes on to be responsible for the transformations of Lizard, Scorpion, Vulture, and Morbius, mostly preserving their comic-book origins but pulling them together in a way that makes it a bit more plausible than a bunch of Million to One Chance accidents.
- Interestingly, Morbius is the only vampire created by the "mix human and bat DNA" method; Blade and his enemies appear to be the supernatural real deal. However, vampire queen Miriam ( Blade's mom has moved up in the world, hasn't she?) is more than happy to "borrow" the Neogenic Recombinator and mass-produce Morbius-like vampires.
- Also, in the "Six Forgotten Warriors" arc, attempts at recreating Captain America's Super Serum were responsible for five other Golden Age heroes (the Destroyer, the Whizzer, Miss America, the Thunderer and the Black Marvel) as well as Black Cat, and even Omega Red from the X-Men: The Animated Series cartoon.
- Similarly, The Spectacular Spider-Man: Many of the previously unconnected villains now related back to Oscorp (just like in the Ultimate Universe): Dr. Octopus worked as a brilliant scientist and inventor who works at Oscorp, Toomes became the Vulture because Oscorp stole his technology, Sandman and Rhino get their powers from Oscorp experiments, Shocker gets his suit as the result of Norman Osborn's machinations, and so on. Interestingly, one of the few major villains in the series whose origin was related to Oscorp in the comics universe, Tombstone, has a criminal-working relationship with the company, and nothing more.
- Spectacular also makes use of the ESU genetics lab: For one thing, it's where Spider-Man himself got his powers. Then there was an electrical freak accident that created Electro, which in turn affected Doc Connors' Lizard serum. Miles Warren later used the Lizard serum research in order to give Kraven powers. And to top things off, the symbiote later known as Venom was to be studied in the lab (just like in the Ultimate Universe), too. But since ESU is a subsidiary of Oscorp, it all amounts to the same thing.
- In Ultimate Spider-Man (2012), both Venom and Carnage are genetically engineered from samples of Spider-Man's blood, while the Rhino, the Lizard and the Vulture are all products of Doctor Octopus. Additionally, the Awesome Android is a S.H.I.E.L.D. project created by Curt Connors, and Deadpool is a former S.H.I.E.L.D. trainee and protege of Nick Fury. Or at least, claims to be.
- In Avengers Assemble, the Falcon's wings and costume are actually a suit of Powered Armor he made with help from his teammate Tony Stark.
- Wolverine and the X-Men (2009):
- Nitro is a mutant rather than the product of Kree experimentation like he was in the original Captain Marvel comics.
- The Wendigo is also introduced as S.H.I.E.L.D.'s attempt at recreating the Super Serum that turned Steve Rogers into Captain America. In the comics, the Wendigo was the product of an ancient Indigenous curse.
- Iron Man: Armored Adventures:
- Likewise, this show makes the Extremis formula into another attempt at recreating the Super Serum, even though they're entirely unrelated in the comics.
- It also establishes Doctor Doom's Powered Armor as something engineered from Makluan technology, much like the Mandarin's rings. Likewise, the Grey Gargoyle is reimagined as one of the Makluan's guardians, rather than a human scientist who gave himself superpowers.
