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This requires Flash

A mild-mannered alter-ego can also suffer from an accident at work

If you were involved in an accident at work, you might expect the result to be the need to wear a sling, to take some weeks of bed-rest, or to find a personal injury lawyer and make a compensation claim. But that's very much the thinking of someone who lives in the real world.

The alternate world that can be found in the panels of superhero comics thinks differently. Here, explosions, negligence and falls can be the life-changing events through which ordinary people gain remarkable powers.

Take the Hulk, for example. Although the origin story of this hero has been told in several versions, in various formats - film and TV, as well as the comics - one constant is that Dr Banner's exposure to gamma radiation occurs while involved in scientific research.

In the first comics, Banner's heroic attempts to rescue a teenager who had strayed into the blast radius of an experimental bomb were only made necessary through negligence on the part of those who should have kept the site clear. Similarly, in the Ang Lee film version, the workplace accident is the result of a scientific colleague straying into a lab that Banner should have sealed.

It may be very much the thinking of a personal injury worker, but the havoc and heartache that this most self-divided of heroes suffers seems like it could have been avoided with some basic health and safety manoeuvres.

DC Comics' Flash, at least in two versions of his origin story, has his superspeed powers bestowed upon him by the careless storage of volatile fluids - on a windowsill, where a mid-thunderstorm bolt of lightning can shatter the bottles and thus cause him to be splattered with a mysterious cocktail of chemicals.

This could easily have been avoided if the HSE's statement that "You must prevent your employees being exposed to hazardous substances" had been followed. Would this have been a good thing for graphic literature, though?

One of the most famous of superheroes, certainly in terms of recent box-office success, is Spider-Man, who - of course - received his powers through the negligence of the laboratory staff where the genetically modified (or radioactive, if you prefer the comics) spider escaped. What is also interesting, however, is that each film features villains whose existence is due to accidents at work.

The first film's Green Goblin brings his accident on himself by rushing into the use of the empowering drug before all testing is complete; Dr Octopus from the second does run the tests, but a moment of pride prevents him from shutting down his experiment when the observers tell him he should. And Sandman, from the third, is another victim of the negligent security staff at these installations who can't prevent outlaws from climbing into nuclear test sites.

Admittedly, if the HSE regulations had been followed, there would have been no escaped spider, and probably no reason to watch a film called simply "Man". Without an accident at work, in fact, there could have been no Fantastic Four, no Joker, and younger viewers would be deprived of the Powerpuff Girls.

It may seem a frivolous thing to worry about, but as we've seen smoking largely vanish from screens (except for bad guys), it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that a vocal group could appear that seeks to rid our screens from the glamorisation of an accident at work.

This would leave us with aliens like Superman and the X-Men-style mutants, who do make up a good selection of heroes. But it would be a great loss to have the modern myths with unsafe origins censored, even if they do break health and safety regulations by showing an accident at work.

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