origin stories
How things started
Origin stories explain how something came to be—a superhero's transformation, a company's founding, a nation's birth.
The term comes from comic books, where heroes acquire their powers through formative events: Spider-Man's origin story involves a radioactive spider bite.
It now applies broadly to any narrative about beginnings: Every startup has an origin story, the origin story of the universe.
- creation mythsTraditional origin-of-everything tales
- once upon a timeTraditional narrative opening
- beginningsInitial stages of something
- humble beginningsUnprivileged early circumstances
- trickster talesFolklore of cunning characters
folklore · cosmogony · heroes · mythology · storytelling · primordial chaos · fairy tales · ancestral tales · world egg · genesis · backstory · hero's journey · retcon · birthplace · tribal lore · chosen · oral traditions · powers
- fictionfiction, novel, novels, novella, novellas
- storytellingstorytelling, story, tale, narrative, narrator
- American folklorePaul Bunyan, tall tales, folk heroes, John Henry, folk narratives
- mythologyZeus, Apollo, Athena, Poseidon, Odin
- mythsmyth, legend, fable, fairy tale, folk tale
- comic book elementssuperheroes, villains, sidekicks, alter egos, secret identities
origin storiesendings
Concluding portions
conclusions · final chapter · conclusion · finale · swan songs
origin storiesobituaries
Published notices of deaths
postmortems · eulogies · fall from grace · retrospectives · epitaphs
origin storieseschatology
Study of ultimate destiny
end times · twilight of the gods · end of days · final judgment · revelation
original, origin, stories, originality, unoriginal, origins, originated, originating, origination