Origin Story : Captain America

OK, I know that a lot of people now know the story of Captain America thanks to the MCU movies starring Chris Evans, which I adore, but his birthday is coming up soon, so I felt an origin story was in order.

So Captain America was born on 4th July 1920 as Steven Grant Rogers. Steve was an ordinary kid throughout his childhood, in the Brooklyn streets he lived in with his family. The only problem for Steve is that he was seen by other kids his age as a weedy, scrawny, girly (because of his blonde hair and blue eyes) weirdo, meaning he was bullied and beaten up a lot.

When Steve had reached 20, not much had changed. Steve was still small, still scrawny, but he knew something in his mind. Steve wanted to be a soldier in the army. War had broken out across the world for a second time, and Steve wanted to help. Why? Because all his life, he had to put up with bullies, and he saw Germany as a bully and wanted to do something about it, but there was one big problem for him. In order to join the army, you had to be seen as medically and psychically strong, and Steve was neither, what with his astmha and weakness. The list was incredibly long, so Steve got turned down. So he tried again in another state - and failed again, so he tried - and failed - again. Infact, this happened several times over, and the worst part for him was that his best friend, James Buchanan Barnes, known to others as Bucky, managed to get into the army, and would normally walk around in public in uniform, whereas Steve was still nowhere near that stage.

One day, though, Steve got his big break. While out with Bucky, he saw an army recruitment tent, and so abandoned his best friend in hopes of making it into the Army.

As the medical test went on, Steve's hopes worsened, but luckily for him, a doctor from Germany by the name of Dr. Erskine was in charge of his evaluation, and saw that Rogers may be a good candidate for an experiment for the army, and so, regardless of all his problems, Steve Rogers was now a soldier.

As expected for him, the army was incredibly tough. All the recruits had to go through vigorous training that was tough even for the strongest and hardest of men, so poor Steve was truly struggling with everything, but he showed courage and determination. While out on a training run, the soldiers were told to stop at a flag pole and told the one who can reach the flag gets a ride back to camp, while the others had to run. Steve's fellow recruits either tried to jump for the flag or shimmy up the pole, but they all failed. Then Steve had a go. Instead of doing the same as the other soilders, Steve loosened the bolts of the flag pole so it fell to the ground, and then picked up the pole. Dr. Erskine heard about it, and was impressed. Steve was showing intelligence.

Back at the camp, everyone was doing routine exercises, when Erskine tried to test Steve again. He took a dummy grenade, yelled "Grenade!" And threw it in his direction. All the other soldiers around him scattered, fearing for their lives, while Steve did the opposite. He curled himself around the grenade, hoping it would stop the explosion he thought would happen. He had shown bravery. This was perfect. He had shown all traits to be Erskine's ideal candidate.

A few days later, Steve had been informed of what was to happen. A "super-soldier" serum was to be injected into him. As well as giving him the perfect physical traits, ( tall, well balanced, muscly), it would also enhance his personal traits. Anything good within in him would become better, but anything bad would become worse.

The next day, Steve was taken to an underground laboratory filled with lots of "important" people coming to witness the transformation. Steve met the man who would be helping to operate the mission, a man named Howard Stark (Who later becomes Tony Stark/Iron Man's father. Small world we live in) and soon after was strapped into a giant machine with doors so that the radioactivity wouldn't leak out. Howard Stark counted down, and the serum began flowing into Steve's body. At first, he began yelling in pain, and the procedure was just about to be stopped, but all of a sudden, a voice came from the machine saying "Don't stop, carry on. I can do it", so the advice of Steve was followed. The serum was transfused into his body, until it was complete and the machinery stopped. The door was opened, and inside sat Captain America at his beginning.

I must say, Captain America is one of my favourite heroes, even my ringtone is the 1960's Captain America cartoon theme song. Happy 95th birthday to the Cap for tomorrow!

Poison Ivy Origins

Alright! So I had a request to do the origin of Poison Ivy, and I'm a little shaky on her history, although I adore her, so I do apologize if I get anything wrong.

Poison Ivy started out as (yet another) Doctor Pamela Lillian Isley, a bright, young lady who grew up with wealthy but emotionally distant parents and all alone, since she also had no siblings.

In her early twenties, Pamela started at university, studying advanced botanical biochemistry along with Alec Holland (who later became Swamp Thing, but that's a story for another day)

While studying ABB (abbreviation of advanced botanical biochemistry) Pamela had a teacher named Doctor
Jason Woodrue (aka Floronic Man) who, many created The Swamp Thing and wanted to create another like The Swamp Thing. In order to do this, he needed to get a student to trust him, and Pamela seemed perfect, with her shy, insecure personality, she was easy to persuade. Slowly, Jason Woodrue started to seduce Pamela, and to him, that was easy.

Woodrue needed to get a move on with his experiment, and so when Pamela wasn't expecting it, he injected her with several toxins and poisons, then left her. These poisons started to cause her transformation.

Obviously, since Pamela had poisons and toxins in her system, she was incredibly sick, to the point that she almost died twice, and it slowly drives her into insanity, getting her closer and closer to the villain we know. Woodrue found out about this and knew he'd be caught, and so he ran away from the authorities, leaving Isley in the hospital for 6 months and this enraged Isley, which started to affect her mind by giving her incredibly violent mood swings. She could change mood in the click of her fingers.

Not long after, Pamela's boyfriend (who isn't very important right now and so I don't want to bother naming) was in a car accident in very strange circumstances. He had died from a massive fungal overgrowth and when she hears of this, Pamela drops out of school and moves to Gotham City after realising that the one that released the spores that killed him was her. She had killed him.

Later on Pamela finds she has more talents, like toxic kisses, and ability to contact The Green, which is what is used to contact the plant world. Other abilities are having genius level intellectual, immunity to all toxins and amazing hand to hand combat skills. But by this point she had dropped the name of Pamela Isley in order to become Poison Ivy.

So that's Poison Ivy done! I'm so sorry if I or anything wrong, but my knowledge on Poison Ivy isn't as good as I would like it to be. Anyway, let me know what you'd like next and I'll see you around.

Harley Quinn Origins

So, I've decide to start a series where I tell you guys about the past of certain superheros or villains and today was my birthday. One of my presents happens to be a custom Harley Quinn doll made by my best friend known to the interwebs as The Dorky Dinosaur. (Visit her blog here, she does toy reviews and talks about her custom dolls, she's incredibly clever) Anyway, my first "History Of" is going to be about Harley Quinn.

So, Harley Quinn started in the Batman Animated TV series during the 90's as Dr. Harleen Quinzel, a new doctor at Arkham Asylum. As she was observing the patients, a certain one got her attention. That patient was The Joker.

Dr Quinzel slowly started becoming obsessed over The Joker, and used to schedule meetings between herself and The Joker. It started as Dr Quinzel asking The Joker about his life, but slowly turned into The Joker listening to Harleen's life problems. The Joker came up with a pet name for her, she was his Harley Quinn. They became very close friends. Close, to the point that Harleen helped The Joker escape Arkham Asylum, knowing he was destined for better.

A few weeks later, Batman walks into Arkham Asylum, holding a beaten, bruised Joker. Batman throws him on the floor and Harleen runs over to look after The Joker. She looks over at Batman and scowls. She'd never admit it, but at that point, she'd defiantly fallen in love with The Joker, and realised she wanted revenge for what had been done to her love.

Other workers at Arkham had realised of her infatuation with The Joker and cut her off from all contact with him, for her own safety, but that angered her further, and she began to make plans for hers and The Joker's future together.

First, she realised that The Joker needed to escape from Arkham easily, but if she were to go with him, she couldn't be the Arkham doctor she was. So Harleen went to a fancy dress shop, grabbed some gag weapons, and a jester catsuit. She stormed out of the shop without paying and hurried back to Arkham with her bundle. She put on her outfit, and some stage makeup, strapped her gag weapons to herself. She walked over near to The Joker's cell and blew it open. During the explosion, The Joker looks up from where he was sat to see Harleen dressed as a harlequin. She opened her mouth and said in a London accent "Hello puddin'. Say hello to ya new Harley Quinn!" Dr Harleen Quinzel was dead now. There was just Harley Quinn now.

And that's Harley's origin, according to the Batman Animated Series. There are several origins for Harley, but this is the most widely accepted.  I'll see you later!