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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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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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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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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 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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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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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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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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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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I love the insane lengths some stories will got to have Kal-El end up as an American citizen named Clark Kent no matter where he starts. Take The Last Family Of Krypton. In that Jor-El and Lara went with him to Earth, there's no reason for him to be adopted by the Kents. But Lara decides growing up in the spotlight (The El family are celebrities and even own a company) is bad for him and so dumps him at the age of six with John and Martha. And despite the kid being raised in the public eye the glasses fool his classmates. And actually the Nosferatu one did get sequels, Superman: Metropolis (where Kal landed in Fritz Lang's Metropolis) and Wonder Woman: The Blue Amazon. Sequels in theme if not plot;. Mind Loving Owl fucked around with this message at 06:16 on Sep 3, 2013 |
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Sep 3, 2013 06:11
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Interestingly enough both Superman and Captain America had stories about them being revived/coming to Earth at the time of publication rather than a decade or two before. Captain America's What If had a pretender to his identity turn America into a authoritarian nightmare, and features Captain America actually calling America trash in an awesome speech. The Superman one had him stop a nuclear war. That was kind of cool.
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Sep 3, 2013 13:02
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That last page reminds me of that scene in Justice League where the Flash returns to his home town and takes out a baddie by simply checking if he's on his meds, and escorting him back home. He even offers to play darts. Does anyone know some elseworlds or what ifs where things turn out really well?
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Sep 4, 2013 05:30
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There was this What If where Namor joined the FF. Susan got together with him instead of Reed but Reed got a scientist lady and they lived happily ever after. Oh and Namor got the Mole-Man to stop mole-manning.
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Sep 4, 2013 06:49
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McSpanky posted:Superman: The Dark Side both ends well and doesn't end with the "Kal-El must become Superman and end up with Lois Lane" stock ending that so many others fall prey to. Also, it does a far cooler and more interesting thing than simply set things up with "what if baby Kal's rocket landed on Apokolips instead of Earth?", but more broadly interprets the scenario as "what if Superman were an integral part of the Fourth World saga?", with very satisfying results for all involved. Well I'm reading this one, haven't gotten very far, so the only comment I can make is Jesus Jor-El has a big loving head. Is he evil? He just has an evil looking head. And it's funny reading really old Superman elseworlds because you get glimpses of all the weird ideas Bryne introduced. Like Kryptonians hating sex and reproducing through magic eight balls.
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Sep 4, 2013 13:01
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McSpanky posted:Amazingly, both of these things play significantly into the plot of The Dark Side. Really, Jor-El's big loving head is a plot point? And the magic eight ball wombs? Heh. Also as someone who isn't as knowledgeable about the Fourth World as I should, are all people from the two planets supposed to be super or just like the aristocracy? Also surprised Darkseid never considered enslaving a bunch of Kryptonians before. I think he did once take control of Daxam so that's one thing. Also good to know Apokolips has a yellow sun. Mind Loving Owl fucked around with this message at 13:46 on Sep 4, 2013 |
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Sep 4, 2013 13:40
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picosecond posted:Sort of: In a John Byrne Superman/Batman Elseworlds series called "Generations" they show Bruce become the new Ras for a while. He directs the group's criminal activity for decades, in a way that slowly phases it out in favor of legit businesses that make money by helping people. Then he hands the job off to his grandson so he can go be Batman again. (Which he can do because of the Lazarus Pit). Generations isn't bad but sometimes it seems to get off on making making everyone miserable.
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Sep 5, 2013 03:48
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Lurdiak posted:Is this where I post that map again? A map, sure sounds fun. Also let's try not to get too far into an Ultimate derail. It's pretty much it's own continuity.
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Sep 5, 2013 05:32
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Has anyone read those Stan Lee writing the DC universe books? I'm reading the Superman one at the moment, and there's some good ideas it's obvious Stan Lee hasn't updated his writing style in fifty years.
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Sep 5, 2013 06:21
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So reading the Dark Side and I though Suli was dead. Eh elseworlds who knows what's different.
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Sep 5, 2013 06:52
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Anyone got any anti-recs? Elseworlds to avoid?
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Sep 5, 2013 07:05
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Finished The Dark Side . Excellent story, it's nice seeing an elseworld where things turn out way differently but not worse. Also that little allusion to the main Superman's upbringing is cute. One thing that kind of confused me though. So Superman didn't have his kryptonian powers on Apokolips because he wasn't getting yellow sunlight. But then why was he so amazing according to Darkseid?
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Sep 5, 2013 10:49
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McSpanky posted:The implication is that his armor is imperfectly approximating the radiation of a yellow sun, giving him the basic strength and invulnerability but it's not good enough to open up the full suite of superpowers. But still, Superman-level strength and invulnerability (or somewhere close to it, granted it's kind of ambiguous) makes him pretty friggin' badass. I kind of assumed Apokolips had a yellow sun but the pollution blocked most of it. Which would explain how baby Kal just out of the rocket could crush steal in his hand. picosecond posted:I remember really liking Stan Lee's take on Wonder Woman. A South American woman who was part Native American as a pro-woman super hero? I'm surprised DC didn't try to run with that, it's a hugely untapped market. Stan Lee is not a bad writer really, just one that hasn't changed with the times. He's still pretty good at coming up with ideas. Like his version of Superman, who honestly has a lot of contempt for humanity and is only really helping us so we can invent space travel and he can be on his way. That's a pretty interesting character.
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Sep 5, 2013 14:31
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Superman got one of those as well. Though dead baby Kal-El was creepy.
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Sep 5, 2013 16:44
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Gavok posted:So should this be the thread where we officially discuss the Injustice comic? Because it's getting an annual in November. Sounds like it went to a lot of effort for a video game tie in. Also that and every other elseworld where Superman gets some has taught me Superman should stop trying to have kids. It's worse than the Flashes and they have kids with mayfly like lifespans.
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Sep 6, 2013 05:33
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Just read The Nail, very solid story, Jimmy Olsen being the bad guy really blew me away, the best/worst thing is it makes a lot of sense, constant transformations would gently caress someone up. Plus the ending is just so sad. Reading Another Nail now, only read up to the culmination of the big boom fiesta on Apokolips. One of the good things about elseworlds I think is that heroes can have definitive victories in them. No surprise Darkseid gets the best death ever. And Scott Free is a perfect choice for a Green Lantern
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Sep 6, 2013 16:41
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Think Marvel stories set in the future count as elseworlds? Like The End stuff and Spider-Man: Reign. And speaking of Spider-Man: Reign.quote:Is he strong, listen chum! Also J. Jonah Jameson like worshipped masks or something.
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Sep 7, 2013 06:36
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So reading Last Son Of Earth. It's like a museum piece for Bryne's vision of Krypton. Got to give it credit for remembering Krypton would not be very hospitable to a human body. Plus character development for Bryne's Lara, always nice.
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Sep 7, 2013 16:55
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Jesus when people say elseworlds like to end close to the status quo they aren't kidding! The Last Stand Of Krypton is a sequel to Last Son Of Earth, where Not-Kal-El leaves a restored Earth to check on Krypton, followed by Lex and Lois. Jor-El and Lara and some followers of their's are making their little corner of Krypton look very pre-crises. Council Of Sceptics deems this evil and sends Zod after the commune. To make a long story short Lex after giving him and Kal superpowers using a triple cherry flavoured laser (yes) fucks up Kal's anti blowing up measure. Jor-El has a rocket for some reason and sends Lois and Lara on their way, Lara being pregnant with Jor-El's kid. Funnily enough Bryne when he was working out the new Superman origin he wanted to have Jor-El send a pregnant Lara to Earth, where she would give birth to Kal-El while dying of kryptonite poisoning.
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Sep 8, 2013 09:12
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Fantastic Four: The End is an interesting little premise. Basically a lot of people have wondered why Reed hasn't let any of his technology filter into civilian life. In this universe the deaths of Franklin and Valeria the Richards drift apart but in the process turn the Solar System into a futuristic utopia. Any other comics that've had super-scientists actually use their tech for wider society?
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Sep 10, 2013 03:20
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Mr. Maltose posted:It's not even an interesting gently caress you. Guess what happens to anyone with powers? Ruins is a deeply repetitive book. As you said, everyone with powers gets cancer. Which yeah would work once or twice in a dark twisted version of the Marvel universe (which isn't a bad premise for a blackly comedic one shot, not sure why the idea needed two issues) but it seems like Ellis just ran out of ideas after the Hulk turned into a pile of tumours, and gave Rick Jones cancer. And for some reason the Kree have cancer. Because when you create a concentration camp the first horror you can think of is cancer. Rhyno posted:My absolute favorite. I've read one of the annuals. Basically Jor-El convinces the elders of Krypton to let him take one hundred thousand Kryptonians to Earth, where they form sort of a Vichy government. I think this was before magic radiation was invented to keep Kryptonians from leaving without dying. And Legends Of The Dead Earth sounds fascinating, especially that one about the team who each have one of Superman's powers but not the others.
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Sep 10, 2013 04:17
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Mr. Maltose posted:The finale of Ruins is Phil Sheldon, who we've been following around because if you're going to make a shitcan version of Marvels go whole goddamn hog, dying before he can publish the notes he's been collecting of all the cancer victims and dicks of the worst Marvel Universe. It's like as good a comic as Marvels was, there had to be a miniseries as lovely as that one was wonderful. To balance things out. Also seems like Ruins actually had some interesting ideas (Professor X as an evil president who cripples mutants for their own good, the Avengers as a violent secessionist group) but chose to focus on cancer. I bet if Warren Ellis saw someone hit by a truck he'd scream "That man got hit and run cancer!"
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Sep 10, 2013 04:31
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At least Ruins didn't touch Power Pack, they were awesome, probably give them all childhood leukaemia and have the boys turn out to be bronies of the worst variety.
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Sep 10, 2013 04:36
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Sometimes it got really hard to phrase What If premises as questions. "What If Spider-Man turned into a monster instead of a super-person, and married Gwen Stacy and then she died after having a child with Peter's problem." One of the few non Earth X comics to explicitly link mutants and non mutant super humans actually.
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Sep 10, 2013 04:55
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Hollis posted:Yeah but I mean I really think Warren was purposefully doing that , I really do think Ruins was written as a joke and a black comedy. Then it's repetitive and not very funny. You know Miracelman actually had a miniseries about the title character reading what ifs and elseworlds about himself. Like What If Kid Miracleman was misunderstood y'all, or this one really sad one. Basically it's a photo album created by some old enemies of his about him maintaining a normal life with his wife and kid. And it always ends badly. Can't help but think it's a commentary of the often pessimistic nature of What If style stories.
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Sep 10, 2013 06:32
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Since we've all remembered that Warren Ellis really only had one good superhero satire in him, how about something a bit lighter? Like Imaginary stories. Those silly what if tales from DC back in the Silver Age. Like the one where Superman feels inadequate and splits himself into two guys and removes humanity's free will and marries both his hangers on. What the hell was with that one? And why did we feel the need to change Superman's powers in the 90's so we could eventually homage it? Anyone know any interesting ones? Good bad, written on drugs it's no matter.
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Sep 10, 2013 16:36
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The Question IRL posted:"Well done, Mother Nature. This sunrise pleases Doom, and as a reward I shall not deploy my Hyper-cane machine today. Never has anyone on the Internet succeeded at imituting Doom so exultly! It took me way to long to figure what what a Hyper-came would mean. I was picturing a super-tech version of a cane an old man waves at kids on his lawn. Roark posted:Superman's Secret Family! Superman's Genius Baby (who is kind of a jerk)! Superman's Jerk Father Makes Him Fight His Jerk Brother! I'm imagining Jor-El is making the brothers fight right as the quakes start. Also don't forget the one where Lex time travels to Krypton (somehow not liquefying from the immense gravity on arrival) to try and father Kal-El. And the baby gets it from his dad. And another elseworld (Batman/Superman Generations to be precise) had a thing where Superman had a powered kid and a non super child. That ended badly, tugged at the heart strings you might say. Did this one involve gold Kryptonite as well? And since those are always fun, anyone know any fun (or anti-fun) superheroes having kids stories? Of course the really famous good one is Spider-Girl, which oddly enough Joe Quesada called the natural progression of Spider-Man's story. Yes he said that about a world where Spider-Man marries and has a daughter....
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Sep 11, 2013 16:51
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fatherboxx posted:I don't know why it is hard for people to accept Ruins as the comedy - it is a spot-on parody (and the logical endgame) of the early 90s DC-Vertigo "mature reimaginings" of classic heroes, down to the terrible prose and dark, scratchy, Dave McKean-like art. The cancer thing is derived from the Stan Lee's obsession with radiation as the prime source of superpowers ("Children of the Atom", anyone?) As someone who can't stand the Norman Rockwell-ish nostalgia of Marvels, I prefer this series of violent banana slips. Okay the problem with Ruins is as a parody it fails. It apes its subject so perfectly it becomes indistinguishable from it, and lacks room to comment on what it's satirising. Of course not all satire has to be funny but it has to make some kind of point or draw attention to a flaw of the work it's based of. And yeah the cancer thing is obviously making fun of how radiation was used in older comics. You'd have to have never even seen anything that ever even mentioned comics to miss that. But it gets receptive, yes you should probably point out how dumb that was in a satire of comics. But for every other character in practically the same way every time? Radiation in real life can hurt you in other ways, and why were the Kree made cancer victims as well? They're aliens, they don't have much to do with radiation. Why not make fun of how they look just like humans or hell go into the real horrors that go on in any concentration camp? You would get way scarier and more interesting ideas from that than just cancer. And why do people complain less about Planetary. Well for one thing that had things like story, creativity, character and something resembling a point, yes it had dark and twisted stuff but there was substance. And its premise wasn't lol cancer and general horror, it was what happens when Wold Newton writers get really drunk.
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Sep 11, 2013 17:47
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One of things you described should have seemed really weird to me, and something did.., but it's that Superman has two sons, can't think of new names and yet doesen't name one Jonathan. Silver Age Supermen never seemed to care much about his human family did he?
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Sep 11, 2013 18:58
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muscles like this? posted:You know that famous monologue from the end of Kill Bill? That's pretty accurate for Silver Age Superman. A lot of the time he was written as Superman, first and foremost and didn't really care about Clark Kent as an individual person. It probably didn't help that pre-Crisis he always had powers, unlike now where he's written as being mostly human as a child and not gaining his abilities until around puberty. Probably does not help that Clark for some reason kept calling the Kents his foster parents.
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Sep 12, 2013 03:25
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You know there are surprisingly few elseworlds where the premise is Kryptonians actually migrating to Earth.
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Sep 13, 2013 08:00
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