Random Comic Book Villains With Horrifying And Heartbreaking Origin Stories (15 items)

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  (#4) Bane

  Many a super character, be they villain, hero, or something in-between, have been victimized by an abusive father. Perhaps none, however, have paid a higher price than Batman’s nemesis, Bane. Bane was born between the walls of a prison, his life sentence divvied out before he was even born. It was a sentence he was serving in his father's place. How's that for passing the buck?

  Bane was raised by the Hard Rock, named by a warden and forced to fight for his own life on a daily basis. He killed his first man as a child by wisely hiding a murder weapon in his teddy bear. As an adult, after knowing nothing but rage, he was subject to intense experimentation like a common lab rat.

  As the result of an experiment gone haywire, Bane was presumed dying and thrown out to sea. It was on that ill-fated day that he rose from the ashes of his wretched existence and lived on to become one of Batman’s most feared foes.
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  (#5) Bizarro

  Bizarro is kind of a wacky f*cker. Not only is he Superman's doppelgänger, but he's also one of Superman's greatest mistakes. Since he was created, rather than born, he has no parents. This is doubly tragic, since he operates on a child's level mentally. He has no true home or purpose. Honestly, he never chose to become a villain.

  In fact, even Bizarro himself doesn't quite understand his own fate. From his perspective, he is Superman, yet the world appears to hate him. Different versions of Bizarro have been "owned" or created by menacing villains like Joker or Lex Luthor. Orphaned, outcast, and tortured throughout the majority of his appearances, Bizarro has known only pain, sadness, and confusion.
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  (#13) Red Skull

  Tragically, Red Skull never got to know a mother’s love or the warmth of a bed. His mother died during childbirth and his already abusive father then tried to drown him. On top of all this, the guy grew up in Nazi Germany in an impoverished village. He spent a good deal of his childhood in an orphanage and on the streets.

  By his teen years, he was already in and out of jail. To make matters worse, there was only one person whoever showed Red Skull any genuine attention or affection: Adolph Hitler. And we all know how that turned out. 
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  (#8) Doomsday

  Doomsday, despite his menacing exterior, is really just dealing with some daddy issues. Doomsday’s father was a mad scientist who built his "son" out of the remains of hundreds of lifeless test tube children, all of whom were Doomsday’s siblings. In other words, Doomsday himself is created out of hundreds of his own dead siblings. Gross.

  At this point, you might be wondering how things could get any worse than that. Well, because Doomsday was created to be an immortal monster with an undying hatred for all living beings, he was banished from several worlds, constantly attacked since the age of two, isolated, and finally abandoned. At one point, as a toddler, he was left alone to drift in space, dying and coming back to life over and over again. Yeah, that seems like a pretty reasonable explanation for anger issues.
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  (#14) The Governor

  You'd think that in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, everybody's origin story would be the same: zombie apocalypse. However, as demonstrated through the Walking Dead comic book characters, the events leading up to the new world order are equally important. In order to understand the comic book version of the Governor, one must first understand Philip Blake.

  Philip Blake was a strong man, who had a beautiful daughter named Penny. Philip, his brother Brian, and his daughter Penny comprised part of a planned community originally referred to as the Wiltshire Estates. The survivors there lived in fear. They were held under the harsh rule of national guardsmen gone rogue.  

  The two brothers together led a heated battle against the guardsmen and learned that the living were much crueler than the dead. Brian lost his brother Philip and his niece Penny. He was so scarred by the experience that he took on the identity of his dead brother, feeling that he was too meek to be a leader as himself. He even started calling his zombiefied niece his daughter. Many of his questionable actions from there on were the result of a dissociative disorder which he developed out of fear and necessity.
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  (#12) Cheetah

  Cheetah was initially an archeologist and, admittedly, a bit of a weirdo. She had an obsessive love of artifacts and didn't care much for other humans. Still, she didn’t exactly intentionally become a villain. She was actually tricked by a witch doctor during and has been paying the price ever since.

  In the original story, the witch doctor relays the legend of the Cheetah to her while she is still going by the name of Barbara Ann Minerva. She feels enticed by the idea of becoming the plant god Urzkartaga’s bride. She fulfills all of the requirements to become his bride, but a key element is left out. She is never told that she must be a virgin in order to seal the deal.

  Since she isn’t a virgin, she is cursed to consume human flesh for the rest of her life as the Cheetah. She also faces fierce competition due to the fact that many feel she "stole" the Cheetah identity. What a raw deal.

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