• 3 Posts
  • 82 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 22nd, 2023

help-circle










  • Wait, if you can (or anyone else chipping in), please elaborate on something you’ve written.

    When you say

    That means they can engineer a solution to any problem that has already been solved millions of times already.

    Hasn’t Google already made advances through its Alpha Geometry AI?? Admittedly, that’s a geometry setting which may be easier to code than other parts of Math and there isn’t yet a clear indication AI will ever be able to reach a certain level of creativity that the human mind has, but at the same time it might get there by sheer volume of attempts.

    Isn’t this still engineering a solution? Sometimes even researchers reach new results by having a machine verify many cases (see the proof of the Four Color Theorem). It’s true that in the Four Color Theorem researchers narrowed down the cases to try, but maybe a similar narrowing could be done by an AI (sooner or later)?

    I don’t know what I’m talking about, so I should shut up, but I’m hoping someone more knowledgeable will correct me, since I’m curious about this





  • I’m trying to answer everyone and you pointed out correctly something I didn’t define well in my original post: I was trying to find either “believable” powers (in the sense of being well constructed) or “believable” origin stories. They didn’t need to come from radioactivity only. The reason I was excluding mutants in my original post was that they have powers since they have a different gene, but that is a very “cheap” way of creating a superhero, since no other explanation is necessary!

    Wolverine (as pointed out in the first answer to your comment) is born a mutant and later on given an indestructible skeleton.

    Make no mistake: the post is not about superheroes being or not being cool because of their origin story or super powers. I really like Wolverine and Sabertooth!



  • That’s a great and involved origin story. Jack takes the mantle though he wants no part in it and becomes a superhero to protect and avenge his family.

    It’s interesting to have superheroes who are born out of revenge, like the Punisher mentioned in another comment. I guess revenge is also part of the Spiderman lore, though it isn’t involved in what makes him Spiderman in the first place (and also isn’t shown acting out of rage, like the Punisher).

    I admit to not knowing Starman enough so I don’t know if he’s shown acting out of rage (like the Punisher) or of justice (like Spiderman)



  • Watchmen is a great answer! All characters are normal people, save for Dr Manhattan and, even if the source itself of his super power is “sketchy” (in that it involves a radioactive event that just makes it true, without real explanation), there is a long section showing us how he tried to reassemble himself very very slowly while learning how to use his new powers which makes for a great and detailed origin story.

    Doctor Strange is also a great answer since it taps into something that people have believed existing for centuries (aka magic) and Stephen Strange goes on to study it to save his own hands. It’s a great origin story!

    Green Lantern is also awesome in that it’s a very unexpected origin story with aliens from Oa and lanterns being used to give this incredible power. I would say it’s unbelievable as a power (with respect to the restrictions I was thinking about in my post), but the origin story and lore is much more unexpected than so many other superheroes