Top 5 superheroes with the most tragic origin stories

Being a superhero sounds great, but there appears to be drastic requirements in order to become one… including the death of a loved one. Let’s take a look at the superheroes with the most tragic backstories.

The NFL Draft broadcast on ESPN received some backlash for immediately delving into the tragic backstories of some of those who were drafted, mentioning things like homelessness or the death of a loved one ahead of the star’s skills or accolades. As the Internet does, people made various memes of this broadcast’s approach. Those memes just so happen to include superheroes, pointing out that heroes contribute to the field of tragic backstory.

With that in mind, a number of fans have been wondering just which superheroes have the most tragic backstories? It’s a common trope to have some incident that inspires the hero to become a hero. There are very few “normal” people who strive to go out and try to get their butts kicked on a daily basis.

Also, the main reason why some characters are more memorable than others is down to the fact that they go through so many things throughout their history. One-note characters are fun, but multi-dimensional characters are the ones that stick with us.

Now, there are a lot of characters throughout the history of comics, so I’m going to establish some ground rules for this list. We’re specifically talking the backstories of superheroes so anything that happens after that person became a superhero does not count. For example, Scarlet Witch losing her brother Quicksilver and her lover Vision is undeniably tragic, but she was already part of The Avengers when those things happened.

I’m also just sticking to live-action movies and television to avoid any comic book retcons and inconsistencies. This is not to say those things do not exist in movies or television, but it provides a smaller sample size to work with. And finally, we’re only talking pure superheroes here… so no villains or anti-heroes like Deadpool.

Let’s begin!