#superhereos

Star Pirate

Creator(s): Len Dodson

Alias(es):  Unknown

1st Issue w/Uniform: Planet Comics #38

Year/Month of Publication: 1945/09

Love superhero stuff. Love me a good villain.

Villain backstories can be anything.... okay almost anything.

The thing about backstories, is that they don't matter. The character who has that backstory is what matters.

Some classics backgrounds for superheros or villains:

-The death of a loved one (family member, friend, mentor, etc.)

-Betrayal from a loved one

-Being physically/emotionally/mentally hurt themselves, or someone they love being hurt

-Realizing that their city/state/country/ or world is terrible through some kind of injustice or failure in the system

-Constant teasing/ societal pressure or expectations

-Messing around with their powers and someone gets hurt either directly or inderectly because of it

-Getting lost in the sauce (see: The Joker)

Ask yourself why the character is a villain? Do they see themselves as the villain?

Remember that it is okay to have a villain just be an awful person. Sometimes awful people are just awful. Not every villain needs to have some tragic secret or hidden good deep inside them. Sometimes people just want to watch the world burn, they don't always need a reason. You don't always need a complex villain backstory. Sometimes a person wakes up and chooses violence, and it is okay to write your characters that way.

Most importantly: Have fun with it. Don't worry about 'has this been done?' or if it's interesting or not. And remember that a good backstory has no one single moment where a person decided who they wanted to be. Realistically and more interesting is a series of maybe smaller events that lead them towards the path, and one maybe slightly larger moment that launches them off the cliff at the end of it. You can have an awakening, an epiphany, but if there's nothing else in the rest of your story to back up that moment of realization, it's likely either out of character or forced and filled with holes.