Marvel's Best Heroes Have Great Backstories, But 10 Avengers Didn't Get the Memo

The Avengers are known far and wide as Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, and more often than not, Marvel Comics’ premiere superteam lives up to their reputation. From iconic powerhouses like the Hulk and Thor to more contemporary additions like Ghost Rider or Storm, the Avengers welcome heroes from all backgrounds.

Usually, those backgrounds make for some pretty interesting reading on the part of Marvel fans. But unfortunately, there are more than a few Avengers members that didn’t realize their origins were supposed to be well-received.

10 Silverclaw

Created by Kurt Busiek & George Pérez

Arguably the most obscure Avenger on this list, Silverclaw’s somewhat underwhelming backstory doesn’t exactly ring true as the stuff of Marvel legend. Hailing from a village within the small nation of Costa Verde, Maria de Guadalupe Santiago is the daughter of the volcano goddess Peliali and villager James Santiago, later orphaned and sponsored by Avengers butler Edwin Jarvis via an international outreach program.

Born with mystical shapeshifting abilities that allow her to assume the physical characteristics of any animal native to the rainforests of her home, the future hero was obsessed with her sponsor’s tales of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. And ultimately, Silverclaw essentially met and joined the Avengers by the coincidence of her relationship to Jarvis which isn’t exactly the most cutting-edge origin story ever devised despite Lupe’s heroic moniker.

9 Jack of Hearts

Created by Bill Mantlo & Keith Giffen

The son of an alien spy from Contraxia and the revolutionary human scientist behind the groundbreaking Zero Fluid liquid fuel, Jonathan Hart was bathed in the Fluid after criminals murdered his father in front of his eyes and ransacked the lab. The Zero Fluid reacted with Hart’s genetic structure, granting him incredible energy-based abilities that allowed him to avenge his father and don the costumed identity Jack of Hearts in honor of his father’s love of playing cards.

Jack of Hearts would go on to be a fan-favorite Avenger, but between his alien heritage, his father’s experiments, and the out-of-nowhere playing card theme, there’s just too much going on with his backstory. When it comes to origin stories, Jack of Hearts wasn’t dealt a winning hand, but he’s certainly made the most of it.

8 Red Hulk

Created by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Jeph Loeb, & Ed McGuinness

The life of the Hulk’s longtime nemesis and sometime father-in-law Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross had been long been entangled with that of the Green Goliath ever since their shared first appearance, but the twist of his secret identity as the Red Hulk – though decades past at this point – is still an overall recent reveal that is more than a little convoluted in retrospect.

Manipulated by the Leader and M.O.D.O.K. to seek revenge on the Hulk for the death of his daughter, Betty, Ross along with former Hulk ally, Doc Samson, siphoned energy from the captured Bruce Banner following the events of World War Hulk to empower himself while using a Life-Model Decoy to sidestep any suspicion as to the Red Hulk’s identity. Though it’s not the worst origin on this list, this convoluted twist keeps Red Hulk’s origin from being one of the greats.

7 Marvel Boy

Created by Grant Morrison & J.G. Jones

Similarly to the other Kree-based heroes like Carol Danvers, Mar-Vell, and the rest of Marvel’s own “Marvel Family,” Noh-Varr a.k.a. Marvel Boy’s backstory is a bit more complex than it needs to be. Hailing from the alternate reality of Earth-200080, Marvel Boy is a Utopian Kree super-soldier lost in the Marvel Multiverse after battling Celestial-level space gods.

Upon arriving on Earth-616, Marvel Boy declared war on all of humanity in the name of the Kree as revenge for his less-than-stellar reception and promised to make the Earth the capital of his new Kree Empire. Clearly, Marvel Boy’s better angels steered him towards more traditional heroism, but it’s his alternate Kree origins that present the unnecessary complication with his backstory as Marvel tends to portray him as part of Earth-616’s Kree hierarchy these days anyway.

6 Tigra

Created by Linda Fite & Marie Severin

Tigra is undoubtedly an iconic Avenger with her fair share of die-hard fans, but this feline femme fatale still has an origin story that is admittedly pretty silly. Steered into vigilantism after a personal tragedy and a series of clandestine lab experiments enhanced her physicality to superhuman levels, Greer Nelson first fought crime as The Cat.

Greer would then become the Tigra fans know and love after learning that her mentor was secretly a member of the Cat People – a mystical race of humanoid felines from the Middle Ages. With Greer poisoned by Hydra, the Cat People perform a ritual to transform her into the mythical Tigra that readers recognize today. As both The Cat and Tigra, Greer Nelson has sought to scratch out villainy, but her origin is far from purr-fect.

5 Thunderstrike

Created by Tom DeFalco & Ron Frenz

One of a handful of humans worthy of wielding Mjolnir, Eric Masterson first befriended Thor after the Asgardian donned the human guise of construction worker Sigurd Jarlson. After a series of misadventures involving the High Evolutionary, the Celestials, and more, Eric and Thor are bonded into one being by Odin in order to save Eric’s life before yet another set of circumstances leave his mind the sole occupant of Thor’s body.

Eventually, Thor himself would return to life, reclaiming his name and his hammer, as Odin gifted Masterson with the mystical mace called Thunderstrike from which the hero would take his name. Though Thunderstrike would later die heroically, his beginnings as Thor’s understudy don’t do much for his cache, and at this point, he’s no longer even the favorite replacement Thor.

4 3-D Man

Created by Kurt Busiek & George Pérez

The heroic journey of Delroy Garrett, Jr, the current 3-D Man formerly known as Triathlon, never quite became an A-list Avenger, and it’s not hard to see why. A former Olympic athlete disgraced after testing positive for steroids, Delroy turns to the Triune Understanding – a religious cult formed to protect the world from the mysterious Triple Evil.

Like many of Earth’s Mightiest, Garrett’s association with the Triune Understanding first brought him into conflict with the Avengers before finding himself among their ranks, and he would later adopt the legacy identity of the 3-D Man following the events of Civil War. In the year since, he’s aided his fellow heroes against the Skrulls, Hydra, and even Orchis, but many are still looking for a good way revamp the hero called 3-D Man.

3 Doctor Druid

Created by Larry Lieber, Jack Kirby, & Steve Ditko

Anthony Druid admittedly seems like a knock-off of Doctor Strange, but the former Doctor Droom and future Doctor Druid debuted years ahead of the Sorcerer Supreme. Druid’s original appearance and origin are more than a little racially insensitive by today’s standards, but even his current canon origin is far from magical.

Seeking mystical education to reclaim his druid ancestry, Anthony Ludgate (Druid’s surname before he had it legally changed to Druid) travelled the world in search of mystical mentors, including Strange’s future mentor, the Ancient One. Like Strange, Druid would learn at the feet of the Ancient One before venturing back out into the world as an arcane adventurer, but both in-continuity and among fans, he’d never become more than a second-string Strange, and his nearly identical origin is likely a major reason why.

2 Mantis

Created by Steve Englehart & Don Heck

These days, Mantis is most heavily associated with the Guardians of the Galaxy, but she started out as one of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes after a somewhat shaky beginning. Trained from an early age by a Kree sect called the Priests of Pama, Mantis was raised to believe her destiny was to become the Celestial Madonna and protect the alien race called the Cotati. Mastering both the martial arts and her telepathic abilities, Mantis excelled until her eighteenth birthday when her mind was wiped.

Mantis’ mind was then implanted with false memories of an orphaned childhood in Vietnam to humanize her before her great destiny. Continuing to play into more than a few anti-Asian tropes, Mantis ended up as a sex worker in a Vietnamese bar, later joining the Avengers alongside the roguish Swordsman she sought to redeem.

1 Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver

Created by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby

Initially portrayed as Transian mutants rescued and indoctrinated by Magneto into joining his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, it would be revealed years later that the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver were actually Magneto’s long-lost children. This retcon stood for decades and was even reflected in most major adaptations of both the twins and Magneto himself, prior to the events of AXIS proving this supposed origin to be yet another ruse. In actuality, Wanda and Pietro were abducted from Serbia as children by the High Evolutionary who experimented on the pair until he, unsatisfied with the results, returned them to their aunt and uncle disguised as mutants.

Not only was this change an ill-advised attempt at brand synergy with the MCU, but it was and still is largely reviled by both Avengers and X-Men fans alike. More recently, a familial bond has been somewhat reestablished between Magneto and his erstwhile heirs, but there are still more than a few fans waiting for the day that Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver’s backstory is finally cleaned up for good.