There are a lot of reasons why a character would have a mysterious background: Wolverine’s was due to agglomeration of stories; Wonder Girl’s was a misunderstanding that spiralled out of control; in Cable’s case, they just didn’t care. Sometimes, as with Golgo 13, a multiple-choice history works, other times you get the infuriating Joker technique, which assumes readers are idiots by undermining its own narrative, leading to today’s amnesiac query…
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) will lean towards Patrick Verona, Padua High School’s most eligible and talked-about senior, asking: In your opinion, what example of the “mysterious stranger” multiple-choice background story trope works the best?
3 Comments
I really don’t remember any that worked for me. I just stick with the one I see first because retcons are almost every time too try hard shocking just because.
King Mob from “The Invisibles” who has the whole multiple pasts built up in-universe on purpose to confuse others, so if someone thinks they know his past or reads his mind, they won’t know which pasts are real and which are fake.
I really dislike the concept of having multiple Jokers over the years. I do like the idea of the Joker not remembering his own origin.