The DCU
The DC Universe copied the Marvel concept when they introduced the "metagene" in the 1988 Crisis Crossover Invasion!. When someone with this gene underwent a moment of extraordinary physical stress, the gene would activate, giving them some ability that would allow them to handle it. Any character who doesn't have powers from some other, explicit source is assumed to be a "metahuman". (A similar explanation is at least Fanon with Marvel; when you get superpowers from a Freak Lab Accident or magic radiation or electricity instead of the more likely horrible death, maybe it's because you were a mutant that just needed a kick-start for your powers to activate?) open/close all folders
Comic Books
Comic Books
- Interestingly, the reason for the extreme variance and unusual circumstances of activation is because millions of years back during humanity's infancy, the White Martian race studied humanity and performed experiments on them, changing their genetics, specially the nature of what would be the metagene. The group of renegades who did this (the Hyperclan) was imprisoned in the Still Zone as punishment. Had the White Martians not interfered with primitive humans, humanity would've evolved into a more uniformly powered race, much like Kryptonians and Daxamites (or the Martians, for that matter) did.
- The titular hero of Hitman once recapped his origin from the 1992 Crisis Crossover Bloodlines, and said "Even I think it's embarrassing." Said origin involved said metahumans having a specialized reaction that allowed them to survive when aliens with a taste for spinal fluid fed on them.
- The concept of the "Speed Force":
- It links most super-speed heroes (like The Flash) by positing that they draw the energy needed to break physics like they do (including the Required Secondary Powers to survive the process) from an extradimensional power source; it's implied that the Speed Force has a will of its own and needs to "notice" you to give you its powers, and it's also implied to be a sort of Heaven/Valhalla for dead speedsters.
- Post-Flashpoint, the Speed Force is what uplifted the gorillas that created Gorilla City. It's also the source of a number of other metahuman powers vaguely related to vibration, acceleration or age regression. One metahuman has invulnerability and force fields from the mutual ability of freezing atoms in place.
- The "Godwave" from the Crisis Crossover "Genesis", which was explained as creating both Physical Gods and super-powered humans, but that seems to have been quietly ignored since.
- In Milestone Comics (now part of the DCU), many supers are "Big Bang Babies" who got their powers when a massive gang fight was broken up by cops deploying tear gas that had (without the cops' knowledge) been laced with "quantum juice".
- Alan Moore's run on Swamp Thing established that all characters with plant powers (Poison Ivy, Floronic Man, etc.) were connected to "the Green". Neil Gaiman later added Black Orchid, and revealed most of them were at university together. Animal Man parallels it by establishing that Animal Man and all animal-based characters (Beast Boy, Horsewoman, Vixen etc.) are connected to "the Red". The New 52 keeps this.
- In the New 52 version of Action Comics, John Henry Irons (Steel) and John Corben (Metallo) both got their Powered Armor from the US Military's "Steel Soldier" project, which was designed by Lex Luthor and headed by Lois Lane's father, General Sam Lane. Further on, it's also revealed that their suits were reverse-engineered from Brainiac's technology, and that Brainiac's psychic influence was the initial cause of Metallo's insanity.
- Scott Snyder's Batman run reveals that millions of years ago, a meteor struck the Earth and brought to it strange new chemicals and metals. The same meteor that would immortalize Vandal Savage. It's from these chemicals and metals that the Lazarus Pit was also created. It's also what probably possibly maybe gave the Joker immortality and he claims to have been around far before Gotham was even an idea.
- Dark Nights: Metal reveals that all metahumans have their powers because of trace amounts of Nth Metal in their bodies, tying everything to Hawkman's origin as well as other immortal DC characters like the Immortal Man, Ra's al Ghul, Vandal Savage, and the Court of Owls. This is also the basis for the name for metahumans and the meta-gene: someone tried to indicate in a medical record where the mutation came from, but the field only had enough room for four letters, so "metal" became "meta".
- The WildStorm universe (now also part of the DCU):
- The main sources of powers were either alien ancestry (like the Wild C.A.T.s (WildStorm), who were all part or full Kherubim) or the Gen-Factor, a Super Serum whose results were inheritable. The Century Babies also often had mysterious abilities, but their origin is unclear.
- In Planetary, it was revealed that all Century Babies are part of the universe's immunity system, created to stop attacks from Alternate Earths.
- The mysterious comet that passed Earth in the 1970's, which was the cause of the powers of the Seedlings, not to mention the all-powerful yet crazed WarGuard.
- In the New 52 Fury of Firestorm book, the Firestorm Protocols have empowered not just the two Firestorms, but Pozhar, Firehawk and Hurricane.
Films
Films
- In Green Lantern (2011), Hector Hammond gets his powers after accidentally becoming infected with Parallax's DNA, unlike in the comics, where his mental abilities came from a crashed meteor.
- The DC Extended Universe uses a Kryptonian scout ship that crashed on Earth thousands of years ago as a point of reference to minimize the typical Contrived Coincidence in comic book stories. It explains how Krypton knew of Earth in the first place, and when Clark finds the ship it sends out a beacon that fellow Kryptonian General Zod was able to track back to Earth. In the comics, Doomsday appeared in The Death of Superman initially without an origin, but was later given a complex backstory as a genetically engineered Living Weapon originating from Krypton in the distant past, bounced around from one planet to another before crashing on Earth and remaining dormant until the modern age. In Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice the "Kryptonian Living Weapon" premise is more or less intact, but Lex Luthor creates him using the database and technology within the scout ship to reanimate General Zod's corpse, also creating a Composite Character.
Literature
Literature
- One plot strand in Harley Quinn: Reckoning involves a possible meta-origin for supervillains, with a group of neuropsychology researchers investigating the possibility that the tendency to react to trauma by putting on a costume and committing elaborate crimes is connected to the activation of a specific "SV gene".
Live-Action TV
Live-Action TV
- Arrowverse
- In Arrow, Solomon Grundy, Roy Harper, and Slade Wilson all got their powers from a Japanese Super Serum dubbed "Mirakuru".
- In The Flash (2014), the hero and most of his villains got their powers from a particle accelerator explosion that occurred at S.T.A.R. Labs. The lightning that struck Barry came from a cloud that had been altered by the explosion, with the Speed Force still serving as an unifying factor for speedsters' powers.
- Gotham reveals corrupt Wayne Enterprises executives engaging in twisted experiments at Arkham Asylum. This leads, directly or indirectly, to the origins of several Batman rogues.
Video Games
Video Games
- Batman: Arkham City retcons Solomon Grundy's origin and ability to die and resurrect to a Lazarus Pit in the swamp near Gotham City where his body was dumped, these Lazarus Pits are part of a big scheme by Ra's Al-Ghul.
- Batman: The Telltale Series: For season one, it's the mysterious leader of the Children of Arkham. They bring Penguin and Catwoman into Gotham, infect Harvey Dent with the Psycho Serum that sends him down the path to becoming Two-Face, and they're somehow connected to that strange, pale, giggling guy you encounter in the asylum in episode 4.
Western Animation
Western Animation
- DC Animated Universe:
- While much less overarchingly-celestial in origin, Superman: The Animated Series tended to interlink the origins of various characters that were previously not related in-comics, making for stronger continuity: For instance, rather than being made by an unaffiliated scientists, Metallo and Bizarro are now the direct creation of Lexcorp (though the latter was true in the comics canon as of John Byrne's Post-Crisis Man Of Steel reboot). Brainiac is portrayed as a Kryptonian computer system with a direct link to the end of that world, rather than being an unrelated alien that just happens to stumble across Earth. Toyman's origin is now the result of the actions of Intergang, which itself became a pawn to Darkseid's schemes, and so on.
- Batman: The Animated Series had The Creeper gain his powers after being dumped into a vat of chemicals by The Joker.
- Justice League explicitly ties the origins of Wonder Woman and the Martian Manhunter to the same alien invasion that leads to the formation of the Justice League, since both characters made their debut in that show without prior introduction. Diana chooses to leave Themyscira to aid the people of "Man's World" against the invaders, refusing to remain safe in the Amazons' island refuge while innocent people die; J'onn J'onzz is a veteran of the invaders' earlier war with the peaceful Martian race, who escapes to Earth to warn humanity about their return, and he's the Last of His Kind because the invaders slaughtered his people. Note that Green Lantern and Hawkgirl don't get this treatment, instead being examples of Remember the New Guy?.note
- In Static Shock, all of the original characters' powers can be traced to the Big Bang, when a container of mutagenic Quantum Vapor exploded during a gang riot. The resultant mutated individuals became known as "Bang Babies".
- Young Justice (2010):
- Season 2 introduced the concept of the metagene into animation, with the explanation that a small percentage of the human race possessed the genetic potential to develop superpowers in times of duress. Static, Neutron, and Captain Ersatzes of the four Canon Foreigner Superfriends all got their powers from metagene experiments by the Reach, as opposed to the comics, where they all had separate and wildly different origins.
- In the show, Bumblebee was the sidekick of The Atom and got her Sizeshifter powers from the same white dwarf star matter that her mentor used.
- Beast Boy manifests his abilities after getting a blood transfusion from Miss Martian.
- Matt Hagen was transformed into Clayface after being trapped in Ra's al Ghul's Lazarus Pit for too long, the Lazarus Pit filling in for the mystical pool that gave Matt his powers in the comics.
- The show's tie-in comic provides a coherent Meta Origin for the various Killer Gorilla characters DC has (Monsieur Mallah, Gorilla Grodd, Ultra-Humanite, and Congorilla) by establishing that they were all part of a troop of gorillas that had been captured and experimented upon via exposure to a serum. The serum in question was created by the cultist Kobra, combining Venom (the steroid used by Bane) with Project Blockbuster (the formula that turned Mark Desmond into Blockbuster), and also is the source behind the powers of Teen Titans villain Mammoth. Shortly before the Team's encounter with the gorillas chronologically, they had previously met a series of mutated animals that also were exposed to the formula, among them Tawny (Captain Marvel's tiger companion) and Wolf (an original animal character who becomes Superboy's pet and fills a similar role to Krypto the Superdog and Rex the Wonder Dog).
- In season 3, the same meteor that gave Vandal Savage his powers also mutated his genes to create the first metagene. Therefore, as he passed it down to so many children throughout time, he became the ancestor to every metahuman in the present day. Season 4 continues the trend with the reveal that he founded Atlantis and was also the ancestor of the magical humans known as Homo magi. When he made Klarion sink Atlantis, the surviving Homo magi in the ocean evolved into the aquatic Atlanteans.
