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I was thinking we could use a thread for discussion of DC and Marvel's (and any other comic publisher that does this) out of continuity stories. Marvel has it's What If series, which changed the outcomes of previous plots, as well as one shots and limited series. DC has its Elseworld range, which sometimes does much the same as What If, and sometimes just shoves DC characters into pointless retellings of classic literature. Superman is Tarzan, stuff like that. Also in Silver Age some DC books would occasionally say screw continuity and publish stories in their regular books that if canon would end the series, those were called Imaginary Stories. I don't think we should count stuff like the Ultimate books or the All Star DC series, or Earth One since those are pretty much self contained continuities in their own right. Mind Loving Owl fucked around with this message at 13:23 on Nov 27, 2014 |
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Aug 29, 2013 05:01
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I hold out hope that I will wake up and DC will announce that the New 52 was just a huge Elseworlds experiment.
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Aug 29, 2013 08:28
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Rhyno posted:I hold out hope that I will wake up and DC will announce that the New 52 was just a huge Elseworlds experiment. I wouldn't mind that particular stupidity if it was DC's equivalent of Ultimate. Also anyone else read the Last Family of Krypton? I've heard mixed things about it.
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Aug 29, 2013 08:49
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Marvel should really come right out and say it: whatever happens in a What If, Spider-Man and Nightcrawler are probably dead as hell. The rest of the Marvel Universe is iffy.
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Aug 29, 2013 10:58
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One of my favorite forgotten Elseworlds is this one. The premise is a gem: what if the Waynes found Kal-El's rocketship, and the tragedy of their death still happened? J.M. DeMatteis is a long-time favorite of mine - there are not that many writers who can shift so effortlessly from comedy to melodrama. This is DeMatties at his most melodramatic, aided by classical styled art from Eduardo Baretto. Sadly, this is not his best work - it's a bit rushed as it heads into the conclusion - but it is still a favorite Elseworlds of mine, because it illuminates a trait of Superman's character that we can't really see in the main DC Universe. Everyone always asks why Superman is such a goody-goody and why can't he be more like Batman, with Batman breaking people's legs and puncturing their lungs? Speeding Bullets shows us why:   Because Superman's power mixed with Batman's attitude crosses the line from "badass" to "loving terrifying." Batman, despite being a rich old money 1%er who fights crime in a million dollar car and gets his wounds patched up by his combat-trained butler, is still allowed to beat people up, but someone with Superman's power can't get away with that without scaring everyone around him, and not in the gently caress-yeah-Batman's-here sense, but in the "I am really uncomfortable reading this" sense. Superman can't be an off-the-shelf badass - in order to work, he has to actively strive to be above all that, to fight with one hand tied behind his back. Superman is about the virtue of restraint - all about "shoulda," not "coulda." It'll surprise no one that this is one of those "oh, he turns out becoming Superman after all" stories, but J. M. DeMatteis isn't doing this out of laziness. Rather, it's the thesis of the comic: that in order to be considered a hero, Superman can't work the way Batman does. And maybe writers should stop trying to make that happen. Let Superman be his own hero instead of a pale imitation of someone else's.
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Sep 1, 2013 03:36
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Superman as Batman, sounds like someone making fun of Man Of Steel One I read recently that seemed a bit silly to me was JLA Created Equal. Produced in 2000 the premise is that some cosmic storm creates a plague that kills every sapient male on the planet including the aliens, except for Superman. The first issue is mainly a lot of angst about the impending extinction until Lois Lane falls pregnant, therefore restoring hope and giving Larry Niven the finger. But oh no Lex as it turns out has been hiding in an environmental suit all this time! He tells Superman that for bullshit reasons his solar powers will doom us all so he flies of. But Wonder Woman has a big golden cannister of his super jizz. The next issue picks up five years later and that's where things get weird. Lois has been hugged to death by her son and all the Children Of The Golden Cum Bucket are relocated to Paradise Island. Where in their sleep they are turned into Men's Right's redditors by Luthor. Which leads to a war between Amazons and the half Kryptonians as they demand the Amazons make them coffee, seriously. And after Superman returns and kicks the poo poo out of Lex it turns out he has been raising hundreds of his babies in a skinner box. And so Humanity doesn't need to become half Kryptonian after all because the insane super villian with premature baldness and sudden sexism is a way better Adam for the human race than Superman! Also Power Girl apparently used Superman's sperm to have a daughter, gross. Mind Loving Owl fucked around with this message at 16:18 on Nov 19, 2013 |
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Sep 1, 2013 04:35
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Mike From Nowhere posted:One of my favorite forgotten Elseworlds is this one. Speeding Bullets definitely had its moments. My favorite being the alley scene. Instead of sitting there in a catatonic state, Kal-Bruce responds to his parents' deaths by crying. Joe Chill yells at him to stop and shoots him, saying, "I hate it when kids cry!" The bullets deflect off of Kal-Bruce, whose eyes go red in anger and says, "And I... HATE... YOU!" before frying Chill's face off. Kal-Bruce represses this memory for years. One of the most clever bits in there is why he goes for the bat-based identity. He doesn't realize that he's an alien, so between his red eyes and ability to fly, he has this insane kinship with the bats in the cave, like he's one of them. Also, one of the best parts in there is when a bad guy confronts him and warns him about this big grenade he has. Batman silently motions for him to throw it and he does. Batman catches it, holds his hands tightly over the grenade and puffs of smoke explode between his fingers. Then he just glares at the criminal, who is promptly making GBS threads himself.
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Sep 1, 2013 05:40
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I had the first two Elseworlds and they both blew my mind at the time. "Gotham By Gaslight" was 1880s Batman going after a Jack The Ripper style murderer, and worked well as a mystery and as a period piece. "Batman: Holy Terror" was Batman as a rebel against a Protestant/Puritan theocracy that was kidnapping, brainwashing and killing superhumans. I still don't know if the name of the Green Man Project in Holy Terror was a deliberate fakeout or not. I assumed it would be either Green Lantern or Martian Manhunter, but what I got left me pretty surprised. (The symbolism was a little over-the-top, though.) There was another Batman Elseworlds where instead of seeing a bat that inspires him, he sees the spaceship Abin Sur was flying. In that reality, the spaceship crashes on the East Coast instead of in the Southwest. So when the ring scans for people with exceptional willpower nearby, it finds Bruce Wayne and Abin Sur gives him the ring. It's a great setup but wasn't a very good story, and it really fell apart when Sinestro became the Joker for some reason. One of my favorite Elseworlds was a John Byrne one where a Kryptonian from the El family (but not Kal-El) is the lone survivor of Krypton's explosion. He lands in North America just before the Revolution, takes over the world and only lets it advance to about the late-19th/early 20th century level. His reasoning is that advanced science is partly what killed Krypton in the end, so he doesn't want that happening again. His mostly-human nephew Kal rebels against this and things get interesting. The ending seems kind of rushed and sudden in retrospect but it was an unexpected turn, which I always enjoy.
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Sep 1, 2013 14:11
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The Last Family Of Krypton has one bit that really annoys me. The premise of that is Jor-El building a ship big enough for him, Lara and Kal and all of them openly living on Earth and using their knowledge to improve the world. Any way years and years after their landing (and the El's having two more kids, who because they were born on Earth or something are only half as powerful as the rest of the family, everyone treats this as being a big handicap) the Guardians Of The Universe call up Jor -El and tell him off for the terrible crime of rendering other superheroes superfluous. Because it's so important the Flash has insane super criminals to fight or that Bruce Wayne got to grow up happy with an intact family. I really dislike "This is the best of all possible world", so self satisfied.
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Sep 1, 2013 14:25
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The "Batman is a vampire" trilogy is way better than it has any right to be.
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Sep 1, 2013 17:57
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I liked the Batman 'Book of the Death' one
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Sep 1, 2013 19:55
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Dark_Tzitzimine posted:I liked the Batman 'Book of the Death' one Isn't that the bizarre Ancient Aliens one? Where Egypt was ruled by aliens and the myths about their gods were based on real people. Of course one of their gods was a Batman-esque one and Bruce Wayne gets his suit. E the Shaggy posted:The "Batman is a vampire" trilogy is way better than it has any right to be. I thought the first one was pretty crappy but the second and third are good.
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Sep 1, 2013 21:07
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I enjoyed the Batmn vs Punisher comic, if cross-overs count.
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Sep 1, 2013 21:13
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I have mad love for The Justice Riders, a Chuck Dixon story set in the Old West, with Wonder Woman as a frontier lawman (woman), Blue Beetle as a wacky steampunk-style inventor, and Booster Gold as a Maverick-style dandy and professional gambler. It was fun.
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Sep 1, 2013 21:24
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muscles like this? posted:Isn't that the bizarre Ancient Aliens one? Where Egypt was ruled by aliens and the myths about their gods were based on real people. Of course one of their gods was a Batman-esque one and Bruce Wayne gets his suit. Yeah, that's the one. I always found the premise really awesome and egyptian god Batman's suit was cool as hell. To be fair I was ten when I read it for the first time and was my first elseworld ever 
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Sep 2, 2013 04:48
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Being the huge JSA fan that I am, one of my favourite Elseworlds is 'JSA: The Liberty Files' It's a more "grounded" take on the JSA in the 1940's, starring primarily Batman ('The Bat'). The first bit has Batman, Hourman, Nite-Owl and Mr. Terrific hunting down the Joker (who in this is a German spook who has intel on a Nazi "superman"). Like many of these sorts of Elseworlds do, there's a bit of a twist when they eventually find that the "superman" is Martian Manhunter, whom Hitler has kept hidden away, so J'onn thinks that Hitler's worldview is the right one, since he hasn't been psychically exposed to anyone else. So Batman touches him and transfer his memories and the good guys win yayyy. Then part two is post-war, and the same crew are reunited to take down some super KGB agents. The leader of their new group is Clark Kent. All is well until it turns out that this isn't Kal-El, it's Zod. He punks Alan Scott by burning his hand off and everyone has to team up to take him down. It's got a noir, "real world" sort of feel. I really like it.
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Sep 2, 2013 15:07
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Batman: Gotham Noir A noir story about how WWII veteran turned P.I. James Gordon gets into trouble. This is how Batman is represented in the story:  Written by Brubaker Batman: Nine Lives Another noir story, this time about Batman, a P.I. named Richard Grayson and the criminals of Gotham.   Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham Batman vs. the elder gods, written by Mike Mignola. Which is all I need to say.
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Sep 2, 2013 20:36
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Waffles Inc. posted:Then part two is post-war, and the same crew are reunited to take down some super KGB agents. The leader of their new group is Clark Kent. All is well until it turns out that this isn't Kal-El, it's Zod. He punks Alan Scott by burning his hand off and everyone has to team up to take him down. I do remember that. My favourite part of it is Mr. Terrific is this broken down, semi-alcholic guy after his wife died, partially because Batman hosed up. At one stage Batman shows up to talk to Terrific, and he calmly explains that he sometimes spends days devising plans to kill Batman and describes one to him. At which point Batman makes this face as he realizes that if he wanted to, Terrific could just straight up and kill him.  Re: JLA: Created Equal. My problem with the story was it started with an interesting premise (all the men on Earth die, except for Superman.) And it wants to follow up on the societal changes this will wreck. But it doesn't go into nearly any interesting places. It doesn't deal with how losing 50% of the Earth's population is going to cause a mass scale of shock and depression that can't be just punched into oblivion. It doesn't examine what kind of societal relationships are going to form now that all men are dead. (there's no mention at all of any of the survivors starting new relationships with each other. I guess what I'm saying is all the questions I wanted this book to explore it didn't. But fortunately Y: The Last Man, did.
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Sep 2, 2013 20:37
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With the What If: AvX miniseries, I started to notice how the whole point of any What If relating to a major event is that if it didn't go completely right, the world explodes. So here's every event-based story and what happens: - Kree-Skrull War: Other than killing off Rick Jones, everything ends up really well for everyone involved and is just a better story. - Evolutionary War: Everyone evolves to the point that humanity can wipe out the Celestials with just a thought. Wolverine leads the super-evolved mutants into space where they defeat Eternity and Death and blah blah the universe restarts. It's dumb. - Armor Wars: Been a while since I've read it, but I'm pretty sure everything turned out okay outside of nobody trusting Iron Man anymore. So no difference. - Inferno: Demons destroy the world and while they're defeated at the end, humanity's numbers are desperately low. - Atlantis Attacks: Everything is hosed. The world is made up of mutated snake people, everyone's dead except Silver Surfer and Quasar (who is stuck in an eternal wrestling match with Set) and Set's children have been escaping into alternate realities to spread their evil. I hope the Exiles took care of that. - Infinity Gauntlet: Three stories came from this. One about Silver Surfer getting the Gauntlet and one about Impossible Man getting it. Both definitely qualify as happy endings, including possibly the happiest ending Surfer can get for the first one. Then there's one about the New Fantastic Four taking on Thanos, which also has a happy ending and even fully separates Hulk from Banner. - Acts of Vengeance: Spider-Man keeps the Cosmic Powers and while the power goes to his head and he loses all of his powers in the end, the world is still a far better place at the loss of one random dude. - Galactic Storm: Earth is blown up in the first couple pages. After that, Avengers die every other page for two issues until there's only a handful left when they win. - Age of Apocalypse: We've gotten three AoA stories. One is about Legion killing Magneto, which brings a present that in the end is still good mutants vs. evil mutants, though a ton of X-Men are killed. One shows that if AoA continued, Magneto would have led the siege against Galactus, which ended in plenty of casualties, but ultimately is a win, since it brought the world together. Then there's the one where Legion accidentally killed Xavier AND Magneto, which would have turned the world to absolute poo poo while causing a chain reaction where other alternate worlds are given the same Xavier/Magneto death incident, causing history to repeat again and again. - Clone Saga: One story where Ben is forced to kill Peter, which is meant to do nothing more than give us hints at how the Saga might end. Ben simply went off to find his own life, so the whole thing was kind of in the middle. The other story was the origin of Spider-Girl and that got its own continuity, so that's a win. - Secret Wars: The heroes and villains are stuck on the Beyonder's planet for decades. When their children end up finding a way to Earth, they discover a Days of Future Past reality and figure it's up to them to save the world. There's also a story about Dr. Doom keeping his Beyonder powers, which ends with a lot of superheroes being either killed or taken out of commission, as well as alien civilizations being wiped out, but Earth is well taken care of. - Avengers Disassembled: If Jessica Jones was on the Avengers at the time, everything would have been unicorns and rainbows because she would have nipped that problem in the bud and married Captain America because of it. Then there's the other issue where it turns out Cap was the mastermind of Disassembled (which is implied that this is how it happened in regular continuity, only he magically forgot about it). This one gives us an ending where 90% of the hero community is wiped out. - Planet Hulk: In one story, Caiera survives instead of Hulk, comes to Earth, slaughters the Illuminati and enslaves Earth. In the other story, Hulk lands on the correct planet and finally finds peace. - Annihilation: It's heroic as gently caress, but endless lives are lost across the cosmos, Earth and even the moon itself is blown up. - Civil War: Either Henry Gyrich runs the country in a satire on Bush's presidency with the dial pushed to 11 after most heroes are wiped out or Iron Man and Captain America talk out their problems and bring a Heroic Age. - House of M: In a ripoff of Elseworlds: Act of God, Scarlet Witch strips the world of superpowers. In the end, it's kind of a wash. Namor doesn't seem the least bit concerned by the fact that all of his subjects must have drowned. There are also two dumb stories about Gwen Stacy returning to regular reality instead of Hawkeye. One ends with the world falling apart because of her presence (even though that was never the case for Hawkeye) while the other had Peter retain his Green Goblin mentality and he ended up dying. - Fallen Son: Iron Man dies instead of Cap. The story really tries to push it as humanity being screwed with the coming of the Skrulls, but the logic dictates that we'd have a better chance to win the Secret Invasion. - Secret Invasion: Two stories that both have dark endings. One shows that if the Skrulls had won, the heroes would have eventually teamed up with Norman Osborn to unleash a virus that would have killed not only all the Skrulls, but the humans who had biologically turned themselves into Skrulls. For instance, Aunt May and countless others. The other story is about how the Skrulls stayed secretive through the whole thing and although Osborn uncovers the conspiracy, it turns out he's a Skrull as well. - World War Hulk: One story is super metal and brings us NYC being blown to smithereens, the Skrull Invasion having zero problems taking over and Hulk convincing Galactus to devour Earth. The other story is about Thor fighting Hulk instead of Sentry and cooler heads prevail. - Siege: Void eats the world. - AvX: Phoenix-Magneto kills a bunch of dudes, Wolverine kills him and then the explosion wipes out all life on Earth except for Wolverine and for some reason Jean Grey. So I'd say that gives us a win-loss record of 11-16-7. Not as bad as I thought.
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Sep 2, 2013 21:01
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The biggest problem with Elseworlds comics in general was too often they ended up with things basically turning out like they usually do. Do anything they want with Kal-El or Bruce Wayne and by the end of the story they end up as Superman and Batman. That's probably why I like the vampire Batman series the best. There is no happy ending to it where Batman just is Batman as a vampire (except for the first one, which is the worst.)
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Sep 2, 2013 21:03
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What If: Inferno: Wolverine eats a baby.
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Sep 2, 2013 22:22
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The Question IRL posted:Re: JLA: Created Equal. Something that niggled me about the book, why did Martian Manhunter die? Couldn't he turn into a woman? He once turned into a Japanese teenage girl so I can't see why he didn't. And Billy Bastion probably could have survived in his Marvel form. Though then we'd have to deal with people wanting his DNA, ew.
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Sep 3, 2013 00:52
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Mind Loving Owl posted:Something that niggled me about the book, why did Martian Manhunter die? Couldn't he turn into a woman? He once turned into a Japanese teenage girl so I can't see why he didn't. And Billy Bastion probably could have survived in his Marvel form. Though then we'd have to deal with people wanting his DNA, ew. The same reason Green Lantern's technology based ring failed in JLA: Act of God, plot necessity. It's a little extra stupid with Martian Manhunter though since he couldn't produce offspring with humans and his survival would have no effect on the plot.
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Sep 3, 2013 01:18
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muscles like this? posted:The biggest problem with Elseworlds comics in general was too often they ended up with things basically turning out like they usually do. Do anything they want with Kal-El or Bruce Wayne and by the end of the story they end up as Superman and Batman. It's full of Adam Warren manga fight scenes and dialog and is just generally a joy to look at and read. But my favorite part is the last few panels.  
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Sep 3, 2013 01:30
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SirDan3k posted:The same reason Green Lantern's technology based ring failed in JLA: Act of God, plot necessity. It's a little extra stupid with Martian Manhunter though since he couldn't produce offspring with humans and his survival would have no effect on the plot. Just realised by the logic of JLA: Act Of God literally every Atlantean died in agony.... Also I am so sick of Wonder Woman/Superman pairing in elseworlds (and the stupid reboot) why do people keep trotting it out?
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Sep 3, 2013 01:43
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Mind Loving Owl posted:Also I am so sick of Wonder Woman/Superman pairing in elseworlds (and the stupid reboot) why do people keep trotting it out? Larry Niven has a lot to answer for.
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Sep 3, 2013 01:46
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Mr Wind Up Bird posted:That's why my favorite Elseworlds is the Teen Titans: Scissor Paper Stone story Adam Warren did. The basic story is that in the distant future there's a giant unstoppable threat approaching humanity and a witch with the power to make any kind of belief structure "true" takes it on herself to try and stop it. In an inspired moment, she decides that since superheroes always win, why not try to emulate one of the ancient teams? She's kind of like Raven after all. So she collects a teenage girl who, after he body was horribly burned in a fire, has her mind put into a military android, a corpse that has it's nervous system possessed an energy alien, and her boyfriend with Batman's brain. With her rough Teen Titans in place they go and fight the good fight and save the day but only after countless destruction and her boyfriend/Batman has to sacrifice himself. Since she's trying to replicate the Teen Titans (and their power set), our "Raven" thinks she's uploading Robin/Nightwing into her boyfriend's mind. I don't think it's ever explicitly said that he's Batman, but he does have some fun with her thinking he's Dick Grayson.
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Sep 3, 2013 01:46
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Not enough Marvel talk so here's something I've noticed. Aside from the fact they probably have the most What If stories, the Fantastic Four seem to be the only team where things are regularly allowed to turn out differently, but often for the better or at least not terribly worst.
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Sep 3, 2013 01:57
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Mind Loving Owl posted:Not enough Marvel talk so here's something I've noticed. Aside from the fact they probably have the most What If stories, the Fantastic Four seem to be the only team where things are regularly allowed to turn out differently, but often for the better or at least not terribly worst. Here's where I'll put my english studies to good use and half-assedly hypothesize why we're not talking about Marvel as much hah I've always thought that one of the biggest differences between DC and Marvel is that DC heroes are based more on archetypes; they tend to be less nuanced and more simple than their Marvel counterparts. As such, I think writers tend to have an easier time putting them in different circumstances. For instance, "Batman" is a set of easy parts: dead parents, noir-like, doesn't kill, bats, lots of planning; it doesn't take much for a reader to go, "aha! That's meant to be Batman."
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Sep 3, 2013 02:22
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SirDan3k posted:The same reason Green Lantern's technology based ring failed in JLA: Act of God, plot necessity. It's a little extra stupid with Martian Manhunter though since he couldn't produce offspring with humans and his survival would have no effect on the plot. Yeah, Act of God is full of stupid stuff like aliens losing their abilities even though its just something that their race has and wouldn't be considered a "superpower" on their world. The other annoying thing about Act of God is that nobody took losing their powers gracefully. Clark and Lois split up because he has a breakdown, Wonder Woman for some reason becomes hardcore Christian, Kyle Rayner becomes an insane shut in who ends up dying in a fight with a villain, etc. As for Marvel, for some reason they almost never actually do "Elseworld" style stories where you take a character and put them in a different setting. Instead they focused more on the whole What If? thing where they explore how things could have gone differently. Maybe because Marvel integrated their multiverse more than DC. Off the top of my head though for Marvel "Elseworld" style stories there are the Noir books where they reimagine characters as if they lived in the 20s. muscles like this! fucked around with this message at 03:17 on Sep 3, 2013 |
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Sep 3, 2013 03:14
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As a kid, the What If where Michael Korvac beat the Avengers and then proceed to take out all the elders of the universe really blew my mind. It ends with him absorbing all of humanity into him for one last big fight with everyone else in the known universe. He realizes he can't beat them, so he uses the ulimater nullifer on all existence. The book ends with Death opening her mouth wider and wider until you see nothing but inside her mouth, which is just the word OBLIVION. That's heady stuff for an 8 year old.
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Sep 3, 2013 03:20
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muscles like this? posted:Yeah, Act of God is full of stupid stuff like aliens losing their abilities even though its just something that their race has and wouldn't be considered a "superpower" on their world. The other annoying thing about Act of God is that nobody took losing their powers gracefully. Clark and Lois split up because he has a breakdown, Wonder Woman for some reason becomes hardcore Christian, Kyle Rayner becomes an insane shut in who ends up dying in a fight with a villain, etc. Oddly enough Billy Bastion probably takes it the best. The ten year old boy if you recall. I wonder if any Kryptonians in say Kandor are having to deal with not being able to metabolise sunlight. They do need that to live. Oddly enough DC did the "all the heroes lose their powers" thing again with Distant Fires. That time it was nuclear war. Yes nuclear war got rid of everyone's powers regardless of function or source, Superman, Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel (who's still a grown up for some reason), everyone. Including the Joker. Yes the Joker was cured of being nuts by nuclear war. And it turns out Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman were an item because that's a confusing and wrong concept. Then she latches on to Superman because that's an unoriginal and stupid idea. Any way eventually their powers return and Captain Marvel takes half the survivors (because only metahumans survived for some reason) to form a colony of dicks. To make an insane story nuts it turns out the Earth is having a delayed reaction to nuclear war and is exploding. Superman uses a green lantern ring to make a ship for his and Diana's kid, and refuses to accompany him because he led in his own words "A fabulous life", the end.
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Sep 3, 2013 03:37
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Forever ago I picked up What If?: Wolverine fought Conan? Wolverine is thrown into the Mkraan Crystal during the fight on the Moon as Phoenix goes bad. He emerges in Hyborea, gets in a fight with Conan, who gets his hand sliced off and tossed back into the Crystal. Wolverine becomes a wandering hero sorta figure, basically taking Conan's place. Conan emerges at the Phoenix fight, throws a rock at Cyclop's head, and then the Phoenix eats everyone. Short end of the stick there Conan.
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Sep 3, 2013 03:48
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Mind Loving Owl posted:Also I am so sick of Wonder Woman/Superman pairing in elseworlds (and the stupid reboot) why do people keep trotting it out? I'd be happy if they didn't keep bringing Lois and Superman together, no matter the circumstances, that's more egregious to me.
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Sep 3, 2013 04:26
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Mister Mind posted:Since she's trying to replicate the Teen Titans (and their power set), our "Raven" thinks she's uploading Robin/Nightwing into her boyfriend's mind. I don't think it's ever explicitly said that he's Batman, but he does have some fun with her thinking he's Dick Grayson. She says "Bye Bruce." when she unplugs him from her boyfriend. It's him.
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Sep 3, 2013 04:32
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What was really weird about Scissors Paper Stone was when they showed up in one of the Teen Titans cartoon shorts. This came out last year. The book came out in 1997. It has never once been mentioned a single time in any book or context between these two appearances and maybe a tiny handful of people in the entire world would have ever made the connection.
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Sep 3, 2013 04:49
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My favorite What if is the one where The Silver Surfer agrees to stay in Hell with Mephisto to save one of the fantastic four. Mephisto thinks this is easy but OH NO! Silver surfer absolutely becomes the ultimate buddha in Hell and ends up tormenting Mephisto for entirety. Also I enjoyed the Avengers X JLA crossover event.
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Sep 3, 2013 05:07
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You know what's the shittiest Elseworld book written by an ex Python? True Brit. Superman is probably the easiest hero ever to make an Elseworld out of, all you have to do is have him land somewhere else as a baby. He's landed in Medieval England, an Amish Community, Apokolips, Gotham and anywhere else you could care to think of. True Brit is a lame comedy about Superman growing up in Britain suppressing his powers because apparently British people are all Dursleys according to John Cleese. When he eventually becomes Superman the tabloids smear him and in the end Superman moves to America because Britain is the only place with awful tabloids and that is a sensible move if you never get sick ever.
Mind Loving Owl fucked around with this message at 06:31 on Sep 3, 2013 |
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Sep 3, 2013 05:26
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Mind Loving Owl posted:You know what's the shittiest Elseworld book written by an ex Python? True Brit. Superman is probably the easiest hero ever to make an Elseworld out of, all you have to do is have him land somewhere else as a baby. He's landed in Medieval England, and Amish Community, Apokolips, Gotham and anywhere else you could care to think of. True Brit is a lame comedy about Superman growing up in Britain suppressing his powers because apparently British people are all Dursleys according to John Cleese. When he eventually becomes Superman the tabloids smear him and in the end Superman moves to America because Britain is the only place with awful tabloids and that is a sensible move if you never get sick ever. Plotted by John Cleese. John Byrne is to blame for the true horror of that piece of poo poo.
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Sep 3, 2013 05:27
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| # ? Apr 23, 2024 19:24 |
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One Elseworlds that always bugged me was JLA: Destiny by John Arcudi. It's an okay miniseries with an awesome hook: Jor-El and Thomas Wayne survived instead of their sons. That on its own could sell a story. Only they didn't use that to sell it. They just released the comic and let the readers figure it out. I reviewed it a while back and I searched for other reviews online. Nobody got past the second issue and for good reason. We didn't even find out what the story's really about until the third issue out of four! Instead we just got a bunch of uninteresting crap featuring either forgotten Golden Age heroes, made up heroes or other "___ instead of ____" heroes such as Guy Gardner being Green Lantern, a black kid being Captain Thunder, etc. In this world, Thomas Wayne got his hand shot off by Joe Chill, which ended his medical career. He used all of his money to fund the Justice League of Gotham in honor of his dead wife and son. Meanwhile, Krypton blew up while Jor-El was testing the rocket and he had to go to Earth. Before his powers 100% manifested, he saved Luthor from a fire and burned his own face. They made an agreement that Jor-El would take Luthor's identity and Luthor would use the rocket to seek other worlds. A lot of it was pretty dumb, but it had some cool moments. Thomas and Jor-El got to interact twice and each time they were the most interesting scenes. The villain behind everything was Mongul, who became like Lex Luthor, learning that it's better to conquer through trickery to make your subjects love you instead of fear you.
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Sep 3, 2013 06:00
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