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The 8 Best Origin Stories In Superhero Movies

Ah, the superhero origin story. No matter how complex or varied the comic book movie genre becomes, it can never stray too far from that familiar story structure. Next month, Marvel will deliver another one in Doctor Strange. Its content might be different from the norm – the movie will introduce magic and mysticism to the Marvel Cinematic Universe – but its format will be cut from the same cloth as Iron Man, Ant-Man and Thor before it.

2) Spider-Man

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The big reason 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man was such a pointless endeavour was that the webslinger’s origin story had already been brought perfectly well to the screen just 10 years earlier.

Sam Raimi’s 2002 movie might have taken some liberties with the character (organic webbing) but it did offer up what is now the definitive version of his beginnings for most fans. Peter’s initial arrogance and misuse of his powers directly leading to Uncle Ben’s death is such a tragic scenario that it brings a lot of weight to his mantra of ‘with great power, comes great responsibility.’ This element was of course something that was sorely lacking from Amazing’s version of the events. As is evident here, Spidey’s guilt, rather than his quest for vengeance, is at the core of his journey to heroism.

Thankfully, next year’s Spider-Man: Homecoming will forego serving up yet another version of this story.