Adaptation Origin Connection / Live-Action Films

• In Batman (1989), it turns out that Jack Napier, the future Joker, was in fact the man who killed Bruce Wayne's parents rather than Joe Chill. In an early draft, he was going to be the killer of Robin's parents as well.
• Batman Begins: Ra's al Ghul (and the League of Shadows) was actually the one who trained Bruce Wayne in the ninja techniques that he uses as Batman. In the comics, Ra's had nothing to do with Bruce's origin or training, though he was a great foe. Also, while Ra's was training Bruce, he was under the alias Henri Ducard, who was an actual character in the comics and one of Bruce's many teachers.
• Batman Forever:
  • This happens by way of Composite Character, as Dick Grayson/Robin sees his circus acrobat parents killed by Two-Face instead of Tony Zucco. This makes him a bit like Jason Todd in the Post-Crisis comics, whose gangster father was murdered by Two-Face.
  • The Riddler/Edward Nygma really has nothing to do with Bruce Wayne or his company in the comics, but in the film, Nygma starts out as an employee of Wayne Enterprises and has Bruce as his entire motivation.
• Inverted in Blade (1998). Deacon Frost, the vampire who bit Blade's mother while she was pregnant, causing Blade to become what he is, becomes the Big Bad of the film. Turns out he fully turned her and she's now on his side. While Deacon did turn Blade's mother in the comics, him being the Big Bad is new to the movie.
• Bram Stoker's Dracula: In the original book, Mina Harker was a major supporting character who became a victim to Dracula before joining the mission to destroy him, but had no connection to the Count's backstory. In this version, she's reimagined as the reincarnation of Dracula's former wife who was the cause for his turn to darkness.
• Cruella:
  • Horace and Jasper, Cruella's usual flunkies, are shown to have known Cruella since they were children living on the streets. In all other portrayals, the brothers are never shown to be anything other than Mooks, with Cruella often expressing contempt for them.
  • The Stinger reveals that Cruella, in this continuity, is the one who gave Roger and Anita their respective Dalmatians (Pongo and Perdita). On a somewhat related note, Roger appears as a lawyer working for the Baroness von Hellman, although, like his animated counterpart, he decides to try his hand at a music career after the Baroness fires him.
• Daredevil (2003):
  • The Kingpin is the man who killed Matt Murdock's father and set him on his vigilante career, rather than Roscoe "The Fixer" Sweeney, the Token Motivational Nemesis from in the comics.
  • Additionally, Elektra starts her own career after Bullseye kills her father, and he is her primary enemy in the film; in the comics, her father died in the crossfire of a botched hostage rescue attempt involving a SWAT team and some generic Western Terrorists.
• Inverted in The Dark Knight, where Batman plays no role whatsoever in Joker's creation, unlike in most depictions.
• DC Extended Universe:
  • Similar to the first Superman movie, Man of Steel has General Zod try to prevent baby Kal-El from being launched into space just before Krypton's destruction.
  • In Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Zack Snyder's Justice League, Cyborg's cybernetics come from a Mother Box, a technology used by the New Gods.
  • SHAZAM! (2019) reveals that the Big Bad Doctor Sivana was once a candidate to receive the wizard Shazam's powers a child, which caused him develop a lifelong obsession with finding the Rock of Eternity after being rejected. He later gets the same Flying Brick and Shock and Awe powers as the Marvel Family.
  • In Birds of Prey (2020), Victor Zsasz is revealed to have been one of the mob gunmen who massacred Helena Bertinelli’s family. Black Mask was not present but is implied to have been in on the plot.
  • In Wonder Woman 1984, both Cheetah and Maxwell Lord get their powers from the Dreamstone, a mystical artifact created by the Duke of Deception.
  • Zack Snyder's Justice League implies that Batman was the one who took out Deathstroke's right eye.
  • Late in Black Adam (2022), it's revealed that Ishmael, the man who becomes Sabbac, is actually the descendant of the ancient dictator who was responsible for the deaths of Teth-Adam's wife and son, giving Adam a personal motivation to defeat him in the present.
  • The Flash (2023) presents an alternate take on the events of Man of Steel mentioned above, but with the Kryptonian child Zod pursues to Earth being Kara Zor-El rather than Kal-El. Additionally, her public debut happens after she is freed from captivity by the Flash and the older Tim Burton version of Batman.
• Dragonball Evolution makes Ozaru into a minion of King Piccolo, tying Piccolo to Goku since, as in the original Dragon Ball, Ozaru is a transformed Goku. It also makes Chi-Chi a classmate of Goku's rather than a stranger he meets on his journey.
• Every film iteration of Fantastic Four as of 2015 has done this with Doctor Doom. In The Fantastic Four, Victor von Doom is Reed Richards' close friend from college and becomes Doctor Doom after being badly disfigured when he and Reed attempt to harness energy from a passing comet (the same comet that transforms Reed, Ben, Sue, and Johnny years later). In Fantastic Four (2005), Victor von Doom is with the others during the cosmic ray storm that empowers them because he is Reed's financial backer, giving him powers of his own and setting up his status as Big Bad. In Fantastic Four (2015), Reed's misanthropic colleague Victor von Doom is present on the ill-fated drunken interdimensional jaunt that empowers the other four, and once again becomes the Big Bad. It has the result of making him very much unlike the Doom from the comics — the ruler of Latveria whose past with Reed took place many years before the gang got their powers.
• Gamera: In the original Showa continuity, Gyaos was just another Monster of the Week that Gamera fought among numerous others, without special distinct. The Heisei reboot turns Gyaos into Gamera's archenemy and gives them a unified origin, both being created by ancient Atlanteans. Gyaos was the Flawed Prototype that Turned Against Their Masters and Gamera was the creation made to fight the Gyaos.
• Green Lantern (2011) makes Parallax indirectly responsible for Hal Jordan becoming a Green Lantern due to causing Abin Sur's death and therefore making it necessary for Abin Sur to recruit a successor. In the comics, Parallax's only connection to Hal Jordan was possessing him during the Emerald Twilight saga, and Abin Sur's mortal injuries were inflicted upon him by either Legion (according to the Emerald Dawn miniseries) or Atrocitus (according to the "Secret Origin" arc of the Geoff Johns run). Unrelated villain Hector Hammond is also tied to Parallax, with the mutation that deforms his body and grants him psychic powers coming about after he's infected with a sample of the entity's DNA.
• In the film adaptation of The Howling, Eddie Quist, the serial killer who stalks and attacks Karen, is revealed to be a resident of the werewolf town known as the Colony; Karen's therapist (also a werewolf) intentionally sent her to the Colony, presumably to keep an eye on her in case she regained her memories of the attack. In the book, Max Quist is just some random psycho with no connection to the werewolves and poor Karen is unlucky enough to coincidentally move to a werewolf-populated town following Max's attack on her.
• Inspector Gadget (1999) is an interesting variation on this trope. Their origins were never given in the original cartoon, but the live-action film opted to give Inspector Gadget and Dr. Claw a connected origin. Sanford Scolex tosses a "victory cigar" (actually dynamite) at John Brown's car, causing it to explode and leave Brown severely injured with bad tissue damage. However, the explosion also sends a bowling ball flying out of Brown's car and crushes Scolex's left hand as he is closing the sunroof. Yet another thing to note is that Brown was rebuilt as a cyborg as part of the Gadget Project and Scolex's interest in using the technology for his own ends was what caused Brown's accident in the first place. Not only does Gadget get rebuilt into a cyborg after his accident while Claw replaces his crushed hand with a robotic claw, but in this continuity, Gadget's cybernetics are the product of a cyborg creation experiment that Claw wanted to steal information about so he could create robots to do whatever he pleased.
• I Shot Jesse James: An odd version of this trope happens here, given how it involves two characters who were real people. The film shows the main character Robert Ford (the killer of Jesse James) and his rival John Kelley running into each other years before their conflict in Creede, Colorado, and these encounters helped solidify their future rivalry. However, there's no historical evidence that the real Ford and O'Kelley^note Or maybe not; Wikipedia lists him as "Edward Capeheart O'Kelley" and suggests that contemporary accounts in newspapers were contradictory about the spelling of his last name, with some reporting the "O" as a middle initial knew one another before they came to blows in Creede.
• James Bond: The Continuity Reboot with Daniel Craig as James Bond ties his Arch-Enemy Ernst Stavro Blofeld to him in a more much more personal manner than previous incarnations of the Diabolical Mastermind. While originally unaffiliated, in this continuity Bond and Blofeld are adoptive brothers, as the young orphaned Bond was taken in by Blofeld's father after the untimely death of Bond's parents, which motivated Blofeld (aka Franz Oberhauser) to kill his father.
• In Joker (2019), Arthur Fleck/the Joker's actions are indirectly responsible for the murder of Bruce's parents by Joe Chill, who was inspired by Arthur's on-screen murder of Murray Franklin to kill the Waynes for being a part of the wealthy elite. There's also the possibility that Arthur is Bruce's older half-brother, though it's left ambiguous as to whether or not this actually is the case.
• Madame Web (2024):
  • Ezekiel Sim knew Cassandra Webb’s mother and was responsible for her death, while in the comics the two haven't even met.
  • Cassie's partner in her paramedic career is none other than Ben Parker, another character she's never interacted with in the comics.
  • While familiar with Julia Cornwall/Carpenter, Mattie Franklin and Anya Corazon, Cassandra never had a role in their origins or lives before getting their powers while here she needs to protect them from Ezekiel, who has never even met the girls.
• Maleficent: Maleficent and Stefan (Princess Aurora's father) are portrayed as childhood friends who grew apart as Stefan became more obsessed with climbing ranks in the human kingdom, while Maleficent herself grew to become the guardian of The Fair Folk. When the human king is fatally wounded by Maleficent in battle, he offers the crown to whoever can kill her. Stefan, unable to go through with killing his former friend, drugs her and cuts off her wings in order to fake killing her. While he becomes king, Maleficent is traumatized and enraged by his betrayal, leading to the plot of the original Sleeping Beauty.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • In Iron Man, Obadiah Stane is a long-term business partner to both Tony Stark and his father. His betrayal is what leads to the creation of Iron Man. In the comics, Stane has no connection to Tony's origin, being simply a rival arms manufacturer.
  • In The Incredible Hulk (2008), the Abomination is a soldier working under Thunderbolt Ross who gets a dose of Captain America's Super Soldier serum and then doses himself with a vial of Bruce Banner's blood obtained from Samuel Stern, rather than merely a KGB spy who bombarded himself with gamma rays. Speaking of Samuel Stern, the forgotten Sequel Hook implied that the Leader's origin would be tied to the events of this film,^note Stern is last seen mutating after accidentally becoming infected with a sample of Banner's gamma-irradiated blood. rather than him having been a janitor who accidentally broke open a container of gamma waste.
  • In Iron Man 2:
    • Ivan Vanko, a.k.a. Whiplash, is the son of the disgraced scientist who co-developed the arc reactor with Howard Stark back during the 60s. Due to Howard getting his father deported back to Russia (where he died in poverty) and subsequently taking full credit for the invention, Vanko blames the Starks for destroying his family and stealing his birthright, which is why he decides to go after Tony in the first place. His electrified whips (as well as the Powered Armor he dons during the final battle) are even powered by the same arc reactor technology used by Tony's Iron Man suits.
    • Justin Hammer is the one who transforms Tony's old Mark II prototype into the War Machine armor.
  • In Captain America: The First Avenger, the Red Skull is a recipient of a previous version of the Super Soldier serum. In the comics, he's just a guy that Hitler trains and gives a mask to be scarier. For a time, he does possess a cloned body of Cap and an accident does turn his head into a shriveled red-skull-looking thing, but that's not how he was in WWII.
  • In Iron Man 3, the Big Bad turns out to be Aldrich Killian, a vengeful scientist that Tony was a massive dick to in the past, tying into one of the major themes of the movie (that we all create our own demons).
  • Minor example in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, but Brock Rumlow is introduced as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and ally of Captain America. In the comics, Rumlow is just some asshole mercenary who works for the Red Skull. The events of the movie turn him into Crossbones when he gets caught in a collapsing building trying to subdue Sam Wilson, returning for a brief moment in Captain America: Civil War under the "Crossbones" moniker.
  • Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) ties Ronan the Accuser with Drax's origin story by having Ronan be a puppet of Thanos that performed the killing of Drax's family, so Drax switches targets to Thanos once Ronan is dead by film's end. In the comics, said atrocity was all Thanos' doing and he was the sole target of Drax's obsession.
  • In Avengers: Age of Ultron, Ultron, Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, and the Vision are all either created or empowered by the Mind Stone. Additionally, Ultron is the creation of Tony Stark and Bruce Banner, a connection that doesn't exist in the comics.
  • Each of the artifacts that turn out to be Infinity Stones in the movies have nothing to do with each other or the Infinity Gems in the comics. For example, the Space Stone is the Tesseract, the Time Stone is Doctor Strange's Eye of Agamotto and the Mind Stone is the jewel in Loki's staff.
  • Ant-Man makes Darren Cross into a Composite Character for this exact reason. He's introduced as the protege of Hank Pym (the original Ant-Man), and later becomes Yellowjacket, the Evil Counterpart of Scott Lang (the new Ant-Man). Edgar Wright cited the use of this trope in the first Iron Man movie as a major inspiration, arguing that the hero and villain getting their powers from the same source makes for a simpler and more coherent story.
  • In Captain America: Civil War, Black Panther's father is killed in the present day by Zemo, the film's Big Bad, and a large chunk of the story revolves around Black Panther trying to kill Bucky Barnes, who has been blamed for the deed. In a broader sense, it could be argued that Black Panther's origin is tied to the Avengers, as the whole reason he and his dad come to Europe in the first place is to address the events of Avengers: Age of Ultron. His origin was fairly isolated in the comics, as his dad was killed by a Dutch scientist named Ulysses Klaw many years ago. This film also sees Iron Man taking a young Spider-Man under his wing, and later providing the boy with his trademark costume and upgraded web-shooters. In the comics, Peter's outfit was something he designed himself.
  • In Spider-Man: Homecoming, the Vulture's winged flight suit is created from leftover technology from the Chitauri invasion seen in The Avengers (2012), and the entire reason he's a villain in the first place is that Tony Stark ruined his business. It's also revealed late in the game that the Vulture is the father of Liz Allan, Peter's love interest. Additionally, the Shocker's gauntlet is created from one of the gauntlets used by Crossbones in the above-mentioned Civil War.
  • In Ant-Man and the Wasp, Ghost turns out to be the daughter of Hank Pym's embittered former colleague Elihas Starr (Egghead in the comics), and the accident that granted her the power to turn intangible came about during an attempt by Starr to recreate Pym's plan to harness energy from the Quantum Realm. After the death of her father, she was adopted and raised by Bill Foster, another scientist who researched the Quantum Realm with Pym.
  • In Spider-Man: Far From Home, Mysterio turns out to be a bitter former Stark International employee who got fired for instability and tried to con people into thinking he was a superhero (with the help of other fired employees). Also, part of the con involves fictional "elemental" monsters who happen to strongly resemble classic Spider-Man villains, the Elementals, and the Elementals Of Doom, who were Fantastic 4 villains.
  • In Captain Marvel (2019), Monica Rambeau's mother Maria is Carol Danvers's best friend and fellow Air Force pilot, with Monica looking up to Carol as an Honorary Aunt.
  • Black Widow (2021): Melina Vostokoff's identity as Iron Maiden (a Russian assassin unrelated to the Red Room) is excised, and she is presented as another Black Widow agent, from the generation before Natasha and Yelena. Alexei Shostakov, a.k.a. Red Guardian, is also depicted as an associate of Red Room mastermind General Dreykov. Finally, Taskmaster is shown working for the Red Room — specifically, she is Dreykov's daughter, whom Natasha thought she killed (albeit as collateral damage) in Budapest.
  • Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings makes Shang-Chi the son of the Mandarin, with his martial arts training having come from the Ten Rings organization. Death Dealer, a villain with no connection to the Mandarin in the comics, is also made into a Ten Rings member and one of Shang-Chi's martial arts mentors.
  • Spider-Man: No Way Home has the Green Goblin from the Sam Raimi-universe as the one who kills Aunt May, resulting in Peter learning the lesson that With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility. In the original comics, it was a random burglar who killed Uncle Ben instead.
  • Black Panther: Wakanda Forever reveals that, like Wakanda, Namor's undersea kingdom of Talokan owes its existence to a vibranium meteor that fell from the sky millennia ago. The people of Talokan also first gained the ability to survive underwater by ingesting a special herb grown in the vibranium-rich soil, similar to the heart-shaped herb used to empower Wakanda's various Black Panthers.
  • Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania depicts M.O.D.O.K. as a servant of Kang the Conqueror, a character he has no connection to in the comics. He also used to be Darren Cross, Scott Lang's nemesis from the first movie.
  • Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 reveals that the High Evolutionary was responsible for Rocket's transformation from a normal raccoon into an Uplifted Animal, as well as several other talking animal characters like Lylla. He also created the Sovereign and Ayesha, which in turn gives him an additional connection to Adam Warlock^note Whom the Evolutionary does have history with in the comics, but did not create. Lastly, one of his genetically engineered Star Children turns out to be the MCU version of Phyla-Vell, who is an unrelated Kree heroine in the comics.
• Mortal Kombat (2021):
  • The film introduces a Meta Origin establishing that most of the superhuman special moves the fighters use in the games are actually arcanas, supernatural abilities granted to those who bear the dragon symbol that denotes a participant in the Mortal Kombat tournament. This is used to explain how ostensibly human martial artists like Liu Kang, Sub-Zero, Sonya, Kung Lao and Kabal can perform physically impossible techniques like fireballs, ice manipulation, Hand Blasts, Teleportation and Super-Speed.
  • Jax's arms are shattered by Sub-Zero, which leads to him gaining his trademark cybernetic prosthetics.
• The Punisher:
  • The 2004 version of The Punisher makes Canon Foreigner and film Big Bad Howard Saint ^note Or, more specifically, his wife Livia the man who ordered Frank Castle's family killed, thus setting off his Roaring Rampage of Revenge as the titular Vigilante Man.
  • It's Inverted in the sort-of sequel, Punisher: War Zone, where Jigsaw — a villain who, in the comics, was part of the mob family involved in the Castles' death — becomes a straightforward example of Create Your Own Villain.
• Shin Kamen Rider (2023):
  • In the original series, Ruriko had zero connection to Shocker outside her father having been coerced into working for them. In the film, she was raised in the organization, and is eventually revealed to actually be an Artificial Human created using its resources.
  • Likewise, Wasp Woman was just another Monster of the Week in the 70s show, but her Shin counterpart is actually Ruriko's former childhood friend Hiromi.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (2020): In the games, Pachacamac and the Knuckles Tribe lived 4000 years before Sonic was born. Here, they're alive when Sonic was a toddler and caused the attack that forced Sonic to flee to Earth.
• Spider-Man Trilogy:
  • Spider-Man 3: Sandman is retconned as the man who kills Peter's Uncle Ben. In something of a subversion of normal expectations, Peter simply forgives him as it was an accidental mistake of a desperate man. In the comics, Sandman is simply an early enemy of Spider-Man's.
    • This is also invoked with Venom. In the comics, Eddie Brock was an Unknown Rival who lost his job at a competing newspaper due to Spider-Man's actions. In this movie, Eddie and Peter both work for the Daily Bugle, sort of compete over Gwen Stacy's affections, and Peter takes a much more proactive approach in ending Eddie's career. Then, he becomes a supervillain.
  • In Spider-Man 2, Peter was introduced to Otto Octavius (Dr. Octopus) and forms a friendship with him before he turns into a villain. In the comics, while Peter was aware of Octavius as a famous scientist, the two had never met before becoming enemies.
• The Amazing Spider-Man Series:
  • The Amazing Spider-Man: A less direct example than usual, but everything is caused by OsCorp. Everything. Peter's parents disappearing, the lab that made the spider that bit Peter, much of his Rogues Gallery, all tied into OsCorp. In the original comics, none of those things were related. In the first film, it's even implied that The Lizard had a role in Peter's parents dying. This might be a case of Pragmatic Adaptation, tying all the otherwise Freak Lab Accidents to one Big Bad Corporation.
  • Then in the sequel, Harry Osborn is introduced as Peter's childhood best friend who later turns into the Green Goblin after injecting himself with the same venom that turned Peter into Spider-Man.
    • Oh, guess what company Gwen Stacy works for, and what company Max Dillon was working for as an electrical engineer, hence the accident (involving mad science'd electric eels) that turns him into Electro? Go on, guess.
    • ASM2 showed the tech the other villains in the cancelled Sinister Six film would've used (such as the Vulture's wings, Doc Ock's tentacles, and the Rhino's armor) was also being produced by Oscorp. It was joked before but now it's official: making supervillains is Oscorp's main aim, and they really are responsible for the entire Spidey Rogues Gallery.
• James Cameron pitched an idea for a Spider-Man movie where Doctor Octopus got superpowers after being bitten by the same radioactive spider that bit Peter.
• J. J. Abrams' Superman: Flyby concept, would have had Lex Luthor turning out to be a Kryptonian like Superman.
• In the 1982 adaptation of Swamp Thing, Big Bad Anton Arcane is behind the attack that transforms scientist Alec Holland into a plant creature.
• In Superman: The Movie, General Zod is sentenced to the Phantom Zone by Jor-El on the same day that baby Kal-El is launched into space.
• In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014), April O'Neill's father worked in a laboratory with a man who was later revealed to be working with the Shredder, and Splinter and the turtles were the test animals they experimented on. Splinter later informs April that witnessing the love and affection between her and her father inspired him to show the same care and attention to the turtles, basing his own role as a father on the relationship between April and her father and the kindness April showed them in turn, even before anyone could have known that the animals were becoming intelligent.
• Ultraman Story, a movie based on combining together Clip Shows from the Ultra Series, does this with two of their monsters, Alien Mefilas II and Eleking II (both from Ultraman Taro). In the original series, both monsters are acting independently on their own, but in the dubs, Eleking II is said to be a henchman of Alien Mefilas II.
• Inverted in Venom (2018): As Spider-Man is Adapted Out, the Venom-symbionte has zero ties to the wallcrawler, who in the comics was his first host before Eddie Brock which lead to the symbionte copying some of Spidey's powers like organic webbing, which aren't part of Venom's powers here.
• The Wizard of Oz actually features a rare inversion of this trope. In the book, it's explained that the Tin Woodman was once a human woodcutter who lost his heart after the Wicked Witch of the East cursed him with her magic, and he has a body of metal because she also cursed his axe to slip and cut all of his limbs off (forcing him to build tin replacements). Not only was this backstory cut from the movie, the movie's version of the Tin Woodman apparently has no connection to the Wicked Witch of the East.
  • In Ozma of Oz, Billina (originally called "Bill") wasn't owned by Dorothy. In Return to Oz she's called "Billina" from the start and is one of Dorothy's family hens.
• X-Men Film Series
  • X-Men: First Class: Professor X and Mystique never had a Like Brother and Sister connection in the comics. In the movie-verse, Raven Darkholme has essentially replaced Cain Marko as Xavier's non-blood-related sibling who later becomes his enemy, although Charles' relationship with Raven is a lot more positive during the 18 years that they lived together. Also, while Xavier and Magneto always had a complicated shared past in the comics, the film takes it a step further by establishing that Magneto was a founding member of the X-Men before he left to form the militant Brotherhood of Mutants instead. He's also the one responsible for Xavier being in a wheelchair in this version.
  • The Wolverine: In the comics, Yukio has no particular connection to the Yashida clan; she was simply a human mercenary hired by them. In this movie, she's a mutant orphan who Yashida took under his wing, and she grew up as a foster sister to Mariko.
  • In the comics, William Stryker was originally a wealthy televangelist who used his money to fund an anti-mutant hate group called the Purifiers. In X2: X-Men United and the ensuing X-Men Origins: Wolverine prequel, Stryker is revealed to be Wolverine's former commanding officer from the military and the one responsible for his adamantium skeleton. He also had the same procedure performed on Lady Deathstrike, in contrast to the comics, where she was given an enhanced cyborg body by Spiral.