Lots of superheroes are “children of the atom” in the sense that they derive powers from some sort of radioactivity (think Spiderman or Hulk or even Daredevil) while others are just born with powers without explanation (X-Men, Thor, Superman, Aquaman, Wonder Woman).

Who is a superhero that is somehow grounded in reality, meaning that they could “potentially” make sense (either their origin story is believable, even if it has some obvious gap to make a super power happen, or their power is somehow limited or constructed in a “reasonable” way).

I guess with these restrictions, Batman would be OK since he’s got no superpowers, but he’s insanely rich and therefore can both train himself and have access to sophisticated gadgets, but can you think of less obvious ones (even if they’re minor characters)?

Thanks for reading this!

Edit: thanks for all the answers and apologies for the slow replies. I’ve had a couple of complicated days. I’ll now go through answering you. Several people made me realize I hadn’t been precise in what I meant and helped with their answers. I was looking for superheroes or superpowers that are somehow “believable” in that they’re either constructed in an unexpected way or in a way that you could almost accept as plausible

  • @decerian
    6•23 days ago

    This isn’t a “comic book” universe, but the parahumans story universe (Worm and Ward) fits this pretty well.

    Without spoiling too much of the story, characters all get powers in response to traumatic events. The powers they get also tend to reflect the type of trauma that occurred, so if they lost an arm they might get a healing power, or if they were trapped in a burning building they might get the ability to phase through walls and a resistance to fire. All of the powers in the setting tend to follow this approach, and stay within the rules of the setting.

    • @ConstipatedWatsonOP
      2•20 days ago

      I really like this. It has a similar (but different) feel than the answer involving Poison Ivy and Mr Freeze (which at the end I was abstracting as “believable experiments gone wrong with unexpected but somehow credible outcomes”).

      In the case of para humans you’re saying, powers are well constructed within the limits of the world they live in and are related to something traumatic (and not necessarily reversible) which gives them abilities related to the event.

      I admit ignorance in their respect and will look more into it. Thanks!