How would you have done it?

[Eternal Padawan]

I was thinking about this character since we'd been having those rants about people suing for stupid shit like the bitch and her Starburst or the people who bought glassware from Pier 1, and then when anarky brought up the underrated characters/series topic, I was going to add a post about this guy. But then I read this blurb about a new MAX title they're doing.

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This fall sees the release of Foolkiller, featuring a new vigilante unlike one you’ve ever seen by L.A Times bestselling novelist Gregg Hurwitz. In the old days, it was the fool who was allowed to insult the King, keeping our ruler in touch with the needs and desires of the common man. In modern times it is once again the fool who shines his light on the truth, as Foolkiller dispenses justice equal to that of the crimes committed by his victims. You may not like the truth he shows you, or the methods he uses to unearth it, but know this—if you are guilty, you will experience the Foolkiller’s wrath! 

Lets hope he kills that bitch for chewing soft candy...

[anarky]

I was just thinking about crossovers and "events," and how most of them don't quite work, since they're geared toward selling comics rather than telling a story. In this thread, we can talk about various events in comics history, and how they should've been done.

First: Infinity Gauntlet.

It always bugged me that this dude gets the power of God (literally), but fucking Spider-Man tries to stop him. That is simply retarded. And why did he allow anyone to live who might threaten him? More retarded.

I think Thanos should've wiped out half of the living beings in the universe to impress Death, including anyone that could threaten him. Here's the tough part (at least from a corporate standpoint): this isn't permanent, but it's going to last a while. Let's say a year. Then, as in the comic, his semi-dead daughter is able to wrest the Gauntlet from him, only in this version, she doesn't become another uber-supervillain for the fruitcake Adam Warlock to fight. She sees how fucked up the universe is, and tries to undo the damage Thanos did. However, all she's able to do is to bring back those who were actually killed by Thanos. Not anyone killed in the year since.

This would mean that suddenly books like Thor, Dr Strange, and Silver Surfer would've stopped. They wouldn't have been cancelled, but it would've looked that way for a while, until the characters came back. The rest of the books would be characters who couldn't threaten Thanos (well, with about half of them wiped out, just because half of the superheroes would logically be wiped out, and this would mean that those characters who had solo books would have phantom cancellations like Thor).

Imagine: half the people on Earth simply vanish. Blam. Chaos ensues. No one knows why. For one full year, Spider-Man and Wolverine and the remaining heroes try to maintain order in this new world. Let's say, for drama's sake, that fewer than half the villains were wiped out. Then, as suddenly as they vanished, the people show back up again roughly a year later. (Afterwards, everyone can find out what happened when Silver Surfer tells them, or something.) How do they deal with things? How does the world deal with their return?

That would be a lot more interesting than Spider-Man and Cyclops trying to fight Thanos in space.

[vynsane]

i don't know if that could work from a business standpoint - you can't just cut your publishing in half. and half is too many books to publish like captain america, continuing to tell the story without the main character in the title.

in addition, the "bunch of heroes killed" thing has been done before, except they were sent to a pocket universe. yes, they were done in by ONSLAUGHT. and we all know how well THAT went over...

what WOULD be cool is if they tied the origin of the "marvel zombies" universe into the infinity gauntlet by having thanos win the conflict. he then uses his powers to cause the zombie plague.

[anarky]

Well, if this had been how Infinity Gauntlet went down, then Onslaught wouldn't have been a problem as it wouldn't have been published yet.

The books where the character was killed wouldn't exactly be cancelled, but it wouldn't be known for several months that they were merely on hiatus. No pocket universe. Maybe a flashback mini, if they really felt it necessary to keep the characters in print.

In Age of Apocalypse, why didn't it affect every title? Why just the X-Men?

My point is (and it's primarily a business thing, acknowledged) neither Marvel nor DC have the balls to do a crossover like this. They both think in terms of profits, not story. I think if they did get the huevos to pull off something like this, it could potentially earn them a lot of respect, and possibly more loyal readers in the long run.

Throw the outcome into a little bit of doubt. Most of these epic events are transparent from the get-go, and it's not because of leaks and internet rumors.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

The problem with the big mega event crossovers is that they solicit them as these huge continutiy shattering events that will change the status quo FOREVER in order to get you all excited about the book. But they can't follow through and risk alienating any one title's readership. I give you the Civil War/Fantastic Four as an example. Sue leaves Reed. Sue and Johnny defect to the resistance team. Ben leaves altogether. Reed becomes a douche for Tony Stark. They promised a huge shakeup in the regular title. But Reed and Sue were "off the team for all of three issues and they were never NOT in the book. And then they come back and its the Fantastic Six for a good long while. And now everything is hunky dory again.

They do a good job of soliciting these things, but it's like a rubber band. Soon everything has to snap back the way it was in order to get pulled back for the next big rubber band crossover mega event.

[anarky]

The Whole Cable/Stryfe Thing

My thoughts are that it should've been what it initially looked like: Cable = Stryfe. But they copped out with the clone bullshit.

When you introduce time travel, which came up with both characters early on, it would make it even more interesting.

I think Nathan Summers should've grown up in a hostile future and became the terrorist known as Stryfe. He would try to change the past, sort of like all the protagonists of every Terminator movie. However, after years of doing so, he had a change of heart and became Cable. Now, since they time-travel, Stryfe can actually have some knowledge of what Cable's plans might be, by sending spies into the future or whatnot, and the nature of all the changing of history has resulted in Cable only having memories of how things originally went down, so any confrontation still has an ambiguous outcome. Thing is, Stryfe knows he can kill Cable, but Cable knows that, no matter what, he must never, ever kill Stryfe--he must even defend his life as he tries to thwart his evil plans.

Convoluted, but it is a mutant comic involving time travel. I honestly can't think of anything that's involved time travel in such a fashion, where someone is trying to stop their own past actions.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

I have always thought that Cable and Stryfe should be the same person from various points in the character's life. I always thought that eventually Cable would be "Fuck it." and turn into the maniacal Stryfe at some point in his future.

But either way works. The clone thing is shit. There's gotta be some easy retcon for that though.

[anarky]

Still think the "half of everyone's simply dead for a year" would've been brilliant from a storytelling perspective, even if not necessarily from a business perspective. It would've pissed people off, but they would still buy it (I call this the "Diabolical/Legacy Law of Fandom"), and the simple fact that Marvel would have the balls to do it would have probably attracted people.

[Rollo Tomassi]

I have this idea for a Fantastic Four story. Let's say I take over the series as the new regular writer. I talk up a bunch of shit I'm going to do over the next year or so at conventions, on CBR, etc. Lay out a fairly conventional series of story arcs lasting two to four issue each.

But then half way through my first arc (say after three issues) the Four just vanish. WHOOOOSHT. Like the last two pages of that issue are just white blank pages.

Then Marvel hits up this massive ad campaign. "WHERE are the Fantasitc Four?" or 'Where were you when the FOUR vanished?!" Getting all these fanboys wanking their shit.

So then starts off this three tiered storyline. First off, I introduce a new Fantastic Four which is Val and Franklin looking for their family obviously (by the way, the only cool thing that came out of Millar's run on the title was making a two year old Val hyper intelligent like her father. I LOVE that aspect of the ongoing series now. Brilliant.) Anyway, they are joined by Lyja who wants to find Johnny (I would also retcon that she actually had his baby, but that comes later). And the fourth member would be Dr. Doom. Mostly because I would love to play Doom off of the Richards' children. And Doom would be arrogant enough to assume that he is the only one capable of finding the missing Four. I would also re-introduce young Kristoff, who is actually a young man at this point. Mostly for the father/son riff of him playing off his "father" Victor VonDoom whom he now realizes in an incredible douche, and Doom in turn sees Kristoff as a failure because he's not as "EVIL" as Doom. Which I realize is Five instead of four, but whatever.

So the second prong of the story would be four random characters coming together by fate and becoming a New Fantastic Four. These would be brand new characters, a new team dynamic who become the Public Heroes while the "Family" (Val, Franklin, Lyja, Doom, and Kristoff) are focusing on finding the missing Four. How does the world react to these unknown heroes. How do other here teams react? other villains, etc? This is mostly done because after almost 600 issues, lets face it, Reed and company are stagnant at times. Theres only so much you can do with the same four characters.

Finally, the third arc is eventually finding out what happened to the Four. They got shunted to the far corners of the universe. They have no idea who they are or where they are. Ben landed on a world that has access to the Old Power (which has been established on the world of Skaar that other worlds have a similar power in them) and he now has access to it really ramping up the Thing as a this "rock creature". Reed has no idea he can stretch, but is still hyperintelligent, except now he has no sense of morals and is actually flunkie for some evil alien force on the other side of the universe. Sue is ONLY invisible. She doesn't realize she can revert. I'm not sure of where she landed but I was thinking she has become almost like a God on some world, unseen using her powers to make "miracles" happen. And finally Johnny has gone Supernova permanently and might even be a Herald-like being for some Galactus type being.

In any case, finding and bringing the original Four back would take more than a couple years, so that when they finally returned to earth they would actually be a big deal again AND in the case of Ben and Johnny for example they are even more powerful than ever ( and in a reversal, Ben can change to and from the Thing at will, but Johnny is now the one stuck powered up. And at the same time, hopefully, the "Replacement" Four have had enough time to establish themselves as interesting characters in their own right and their adventures would continue as well. Not to mention the character development of Lyja and Kristoff as permanent supporting characters in the book. AND whatever characters/stories would be continued from the four worlds the Four were eventually discovered on.

That's how I would do it.

[anarky]

and in a reversal, Ben can change to and from the Thing at will, but Johnny is now the one stuck powered up.

Wanted to refresh my memory on this story you came up with. I forgot about this detail, and notice now I didn't say, "Fucking brilliant!" when you posted it. So....

FUCKING BRILLIANT!!

[Rollo Tomassi]

JOHNNY STORM IS DEAAAADDDDD!!!!

Damn Hickman derailin' my sweet plans and all that. Who does he think he is?!

[anarky]

One Year Later

Admittedly, I think this idea was fucktarded to begin with ("Hey, Superman, howsabout we all go on vacation for a year?"), but, if it had to be done, here's how I would've done it.

The big-shot heroes go off to fight in the Infinite Crisis (which is infinite because Dan Didio is still in charge to this day, but, hey, I digress). Street-level anti-heroes remain on Earth, as do a few minor heroes, because, well, the big guys don't know them and don't send them an invite.

The heroes win Infinite Crisis (I'll admit I have no idea how IC went down). But they return to find that, for reasons they're unsure of, while a week or two has passed for them, exactly one year has passed on Earth since they left.

Normal humans have been forced to deal with supervillains for an entire year. Some places have fared better than other. Many governments have collapsed due to the chaos.

The United States has not exactly fallen apart, but the government has far more influence in some places than in others. There are just too many fires going on for Uncle Sam to put them all out, so to speak.

Lex Luthor has, surprisingly, been mostly on the side of the angels and kept Metropolis under control, but as a totalitarian city-state. (Let's say he was never president since we're re-writing past stories anyway. That was just fucking stupid.) Superman returns to a town where he appears to be unwanted. But it's more complex than that. About half the people are siding with Luthor (either for real, or out of fear). The other half think Superman abandoned them in their hour of need. He has to work to regain the trust of everyone. Oh, and the defenses Luthor has constructed? They have all sorts of anti-Superman measures worked into them, which will make Supes' job much harder. Luthor always thinks ahead.

The Middle East is in utter chaos. The heroes left in the middle of two wars. Those wars got a lot worse as the governments fighting them had to focus on other matters. And then R'as Al Ghul made his power play, carving out his own kingdom in the Arabian peninsula. This has caused serious problems, as Mecca is now in his domain, and this is causing significant friction with neighboring states. However, unlike Israel in the real world, R'as Al Ghul is a fucking supervillain with no qualms about committing genocide. Every attack on his territory has failed. But, on the plus side, what was once Saudi Arabia is now the most lush environment on Earth.

Gotham City has fallen into disarray. Not the feudal state that had occurred only a few years prior with No Man's Land for various reasons, but it's not pretty. The Penguin has been elected mayor of the areas still under the control of the Gotham government, because the citizens were so scared of the supervillains that they handed over the reigns to the guy they thought could placate them. His rule makes Boss Tweed look like a saint. Sure, the Joker doesn't destroy the place every week, but that's because Penguin's paying him under the table with the proceeds from his insanely high taxes. Many other "former" supervillains work as enforcers for Penguin, often by pretending to be rogues and scaring the people into submission. Jim Gordon pretends to be loyal to the Penguin, despite their past differences, but secretly leads (along with his daughter, whom he now knows is Oracle) a team of vigilantes made up of Harvey Bulloch (whose mouth got him canned from the force the minute the Penguin took over), Ragman, the Huntress, Cassandra "Batgirl" Cain, Anarky, Lock Up, and any other crazy Gotham-based vigilantes I'm overlooking. Together, they are the real force keeping the chaos of the "Lost Neighborhoods" from encroaching on the rest of the city, as well as Penguin's regime from getting too powerful. Gordon's greatest ally is, surprisingly, Bane, who leads a similar team of former villains, but prefers to stick to the Lost Neighborhoods and is based out of a building overlooking Crime Alley, where he has built a shrine to the memory of the parents of (and inspiration for) his onetime greatest nemesis. Bane keeps with him at all times the head of a popular and major Batman villain (I'd say Joker, just for the "holy fuck!" aspect, but that'd never happen), which he believes shows his enemies how fucking badass he is. And he's also managed to perfect Venom so that he doesn't lose his intellect or suffer any ill effects when he's pumped up.

Obviously, the whole world has been fucked up during the past year, but these are the ones I've thought of, and I don't care to put more effort into it since it's a moot point anyway.

[Rollo Tomassi]

Reading that just gave me a cool idea. Riffing off your "Penguin as Mayor" idea. A villain gets elected Mayor of Gotham. Penguin works, but it could be anyone. Anyway, Batman knows the guy is dirty as all hell, so he goes and gets evidence proving such. Then there's this big ass trial and the Mayor's defense team finds out that Batman supplied the "incontrovertable" evidence of this guy's shady dealings. But since it was obtained illegally by a vigilante its inadmissable, so it gets thrown out. And then the new badguy Mayor does a little "nanner nanner boo boo" dance in front of Bruce Wayne (who the whole world knows is Batman thanks to the Stupidity of Batman Inc). Then he has Bruce Wayne arrested at the courthouse for vigilantism. And endangering minors. And they get a court order to search all his house and businesses and find the Batcave. Stupid Bruce Wayne. Then Bruce spends the next forty years in prison getting cornholed.

[anarky]

Up until the last sentence, that sounded like an awesome idea. I dunno if it's soon enough after Bruce Wayne: Murderer to seem original, though.

I'd pick Penguin since he's generally believed to have gone legit. Rupert Thorne would be a good choice, too, if he hasn't been killed off, as would any of the "named" non-costumed mobsters. Louis Berlinger might be interesting in that role as well, only, well, they haven't ever actually introduced the fucker in the comic (and I just stole the last name from the actor).

[Rollo Tomassi]

Up until the last sentence, that sounded like an awesome idea. I dunno if it's soon enough after Bruce Wayne: Murderer to seem original, though.

I'd pick Penguin since he's generally believed to have gone legit. Rupert Thorne would be a good choice, too, if he hasn't been killed off, as would any of the "named" non-costumed mobsters. Louis Berlinger might be interesting in that role as well, only, well, they haven't ever actually introduced the fucker in the comic (and I just stole the last name from the actor).

The kicker would be that the Mayor, while being slimy, is actually getting things accomplished because he's got hands in both the legitimate and illegitimate areas of the city. Labor disputes are getting quashed, stuff like that. So it might be better for the city overall if Batman let things slide. There'd be a hint of seediness and crime in the city, but it'd be "managed" for the greater good. But Batman is so rigid, he wouldn't stand for it, and throwing the dirty Mayor out would ultimately be worse for the city, and his dogmatic stance against crime hurts the city in the bigger picture.