If you were going to reboot DC...

[Swiss Ultimate]

how would you do it? Where would you start? Who would you keep and who would you cut? Why?

[Fignuts]

I wouldn't because the continuity is already fucked as it is.

[BigDaddyCool]

I wouldn't because DC is gay.

[Swiss Ultimate]

I'd start everything out in 1938 so my characters could focus on the Nazis as their major villains. I'd keep the core characters like Superman, Batman, Flash, Aquaman, Wonderwoman, Green Lantern and have the core villains come after the WW2 storyline was finished. Basically I'd have each character involved in the war in their own way while making major changes to their character.

Superman will be recruited by the US military at the age of 16, he'll be super-strong and invulnerable but he won't have super-speed or x-ray vision and he won't be able to control his flying ability. He's still an alien though.

Batman will be in pre-hero mode, basically Batman Begins for the entire WW2 story-arc. He'll be a well-to-do rich-boy who enlists and becomes an army sniper. This is where he will learn of his hatred for killing. Basically, he'll be just way too good at killing people and regret the ease in which he did it while everyone around him seemed to die. His comic will be a bit like Band of Brothers and focus on what key events turn him into a vigilante.

Flash will be an America scientist working with Einstein and others who accidentally becomes the Flash while trying to build a bomb.

Wonderwoman is going to be a British spy who infiltrates the Nazis and discovers by accident her magical heritage.

Aquaman will be a British sailor who learns that he was born with the ability to breathe underwater and command the creatures of the sea. Basically the first DC "mutant".

Green Lantern will be an alien sent to Earth to observe Superman, he'll eventually be killed and have to give his ring to a human. Yellow will not be a weakness.

[Swiss Ultimate]

I wouldn't because DC is gay.

Are you capable of un-gaying it?

[BigDaddyCool]

Yes I am, but willing, no I am not.

[Fignuts]

Green Lantern will be an alien sent to Earth to observe Superman, he'll eventually be killed and have to give his ring to a human. Yellow will not be a weakness.

Japanese people are yellow, and they are part of who green lantern is fighting against. You have to keep the yellow weakness.

[BigDaddyCool]

One thing that would have to be done is scaling back Superman's power.

[Fignuts]

I would replace Darkseid with Thanos. Far more interesting character.

[dronepool]

I would replace Darkseid with Thanos. Far more interesting character.


That's very debatable.

[BigDaddyCool]

They are both big cosmic jerks.

[Fignuts]

That's very debatable.

Perhaps, but I'm with Thanos.

[Fignuts]

I mean he definitely started off as nothing more than a Darkseid rip-off, but Jim Starlin fleshed him out throughout the years, and between his obsession with death and his subconscious giving up the omnipotence he always achieved, he became a very complex and interesting character.

The other reason I like Thanos is that he is more human than Darkseid. Thanos still has that presence and feel of a cosmic power, but at the same time being at least somewhat relatable, thanks to his personality. That's not an easy task to accomplish. It also makes the evil things he does more hard hitting to me. Because Darkseid is typically very cold, and emotionless. Like he is above things like a concience or humanity, and is more like a force of evil nature. Thanos does what he does, because he chooses to. He isn't a god, and he has a concience and some shred of humanity. He just chooses to ignore it most of the time.

[Fignuts]

Also, you gotta love Thanos' sense of humor. He's written with a very dry, sarcastic wit, and he doesn't utilize it often. Just enough where it doesn't seem out of character, and it works. You wouldn't think it would, with a character like this, but fortunately, most of the people who have written him, understand him really well.

[Lock Jaw]

I wouldn't reboot it. I'd just make a separate line of comics. Much like they are doing.

They are coming out with their "Earth-One" graphic novel series, which is supposed to basically modernize everybody or something. Announced so far is Superman by J. Michael Straczynski and Batman by Geoff Johns.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/62/Superman_Earth_One.jpg

If that goes well, then perhaps start up an "Earth-Two" line that can continue the adventures of the All-Star Squadron during WWII and beyond.

[Fignuts]

Wait, so is writing Thor now?

[Boondock Saint]

I would have a Crisis...then another....and another...

[Boondock Saint]

Wait, so is writing Thor now?

Kieron Gillen writes it now up until 614, then Matt Fraction takes over

[Lock Jaw]

I think Matt Fraction writes Thor now.

EDIT- Or what he said

[BigDaddyCool]

I would have an ultimate crisis.

[Swiss Ultimate]

One thing that would have to be done is scaling back Superman's power.

Agreed. I'd do a long-term story arc where the more powerful he gets the closer he gets to death, sort of like a star going super nova though.

[BigDaddyCool]

i don't know about all that.

[Fignuts]

Agreed. I'd do a long-term story arc where the more powerful he gets the closer he gets to death, sort of like a star going super nova though.

All-star Superman

[Swiss Ultimate]

I am just really tired about where main-stream comics have ended up. Marvel and DC have gotten stale.

[Lock Jaw]

So make your own comic book company. With blackjack... and hookers!

[McLegend]

That sounds like it would be really hard to do.

[Swiss Ultimate]

So make your own comic book company. With blackjack... and hookers!

Join me?

[Fignuts]

I am just really tired about where main-stream comics have ended up. Marvel and DC have gotten stale.

Ummmmm gotta strongly disagree.

Captain America, Daredevil, Iron Man, Thor, Batman, Green Lantern, Iron Fist, Moon Knight, anything written by Gail Simone, and all of Marvel's cosmic stuff have all been great.

Fuck, even Spider-man with his new The Gauntlet story arc, and Superman with New Krypton, are interesting again, after over a decade of being utterly boring.

[Swiss Ultimate]

I thought the death of Captain America and Captain America VS. the Tea Party were kind of retarded.

[Fignuts]

It's best if you read from the very beginning of the volume, all the way through all three Death of Captain America sets.

The overall story isn't about steve rogers death, but about bucky's ressurection and transition into becoming the new cap. Something I never thought they could do, but it's executed beautifully.

Also, I thought Cap's death was a great break from the cliche norm. It was gritty and realistic, but at the same time he still went out a hero.

[Fignuts]

Definitely agree with you on the tea party thing. Was pretty tasteless, no matter what side you are on, and writers really shouldn't be using the book and characters to preach their political stance. It's rarely that blatant and in your face though, and there was a lot of backlash from it, so I don't think we'll be seeing anything like that again soon.

[Fignuts]

I hate superman with a passion. More than I hate any other character. So if I can enjoy a superman story, you know it's good. Only ones I've ever enjoyed were Kingdom Come, All-Star Superman, and Brainiac/New Krypton

[Lock Jaw]

The whole New Krypton thing was way too long. If they cut out all of the filler and expanded on the parts where actual things were happening, it could have been Awesome.

[Fignuts]

http://extmovie.com/zbxe/files/attach/images/979625/011/600/001/Darkseid_vs_Thanos_by_duss005.jpg

[dronepool]

^ that's fucking cool

[LoDownM]

Was really hoping they had a Darkseid vs Thanos, or a team up type thing, back when they did Marvel vs DC.

edit, I don't follow comics anymore, so if they did do one, awesome.

[Lock Jaw]

I think Darkseid and Thanos DID do something during Marvel vs DC, didn't they?

Apparently there is also a Darkseid/Galactus comic out there as well.

[LoDownM]

If they did it was in the 4th book for Marvel vs DC, which I don't have and have only read once.

[Fignuts]

Never did anything susbstantial in any of the Marvel vs Dc books. Would love to see that done with the writers of today. Maybe a Brubaker/Morrison team up.

[dronepool]

Morrison writing Dr. Strange or any mystic character at Marvel would be sweet.

[Rammsteinmad]

http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/06/13181_4_001.jpg

I believe Thanos appears in this, but can't remember. I own it but haven't read it in years and have no idea where it is.

[Swiss Ultimate]

http://www.cracked.com/article_16230_6-creepiest-comic-book-characters-all-time.html

http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/wong/creepyc/incest.jpg

Creepy Because: Twincest.

The Ultimates is a modernized, alternate universe version of The Avengers where they finally figure out they are not really avenging anybody or anything in particular and that the name Defenders was already taken. Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch are the twin son and daughter of Magneto. Just by taking a second look at that picture up there, unless you are a relative of that banjo playing kid from Deliverance, you can start guessing what their problem is.

Yes, both kids have decided to keep it in the family, and when we mean "it" we mean Quicksilver's penis, and when we mean "the family" we mean "his sister's vagina." In the beginning of the series, the incest was subtly implied and kept as a joke of something that happened off panel and could easily be denied, until the third series came around and we got this.


http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleimages/wong/creepyc/incest2.jpg

[Swiss Ultimate]

Narcissus, want your opinion.

[Kane Knight]

Never did anything susbstantial in any of the Marvel vs Dc books. Would love to see that done with the writers of today. Maybe a Brubaker/Morrison team up.

Old post, but....It's hard for them to do anything substantial when so many penises are being waved around.

[Nowhere Man]

Well, Narc might not have given his opinion yet, but I'll go ahead and throw in my ideas. Fair warning, there's a lot of reading ahead--I've been kicking around ideas for this sort of thing for years, and the ungodly mess that is the New 52 has only got me thinking more about how I'd do it differently.


Superman:


I've actually been working for a few months on a complete detailed reboot of the Superman mythos, which you can read here (http://bazzardthebazz.blogspot.com/2012/05/how-to-build-better-superman-part-i.html) (Part II here (http://bazzardthebazz.blogspot.com/2012/06/how-to-build-better-superman-part-ii.html) and Part III here (http://bazzardthebazz.blogspot.com/2012/06/how-to-build-better-superman-part-iii.html)), but bear in mind, it's an awful lot of reading. To keep it short, the idea is to forget writing it as a traditional 'superhero' story and think more in terms of doing more straightforward science fiction, with a little bit of tech-noir/cyberpunk sprinkled in as Lex Luthor has already pretty much secretly taken over the world by the time Superman shows up. Basically think Ghost in the Shell meets Doctor Who, with more fist fights.

In my concept, while Superman is still a moral and positive figure, he's acting more as a force anarchism, trying to topple the all-encompassing empire that Luthor has strung together out of governments and mega-corporations. While there'd still also be alien threats like Brainiac and General Zod, most of the other villains would be based out of Lex's techno-dystopia. Metallo, f'rinstance, starts off as a mercenary in a super-advanced battlesuit that basically mimics his own thought patterns, until he's accidentally killed and the suit continues on without him, a crazed cybernetic 'ghost' out to kill Superman because it blames him for its pilot's death. Then there'd be The Toymen as an underground network of androids out to wipe out humanity a la the Cylons from BSG, the Prankster as a master cyber-terrorist who is paid to distract Superman by screwing with the city's central networks and causing train wrecks and the like, Livewire as a narcissistic attention-whore who's converted to a being of living electricity, Parasite as a shape-shifting monster that gains mass by absorbing bio-electric energy, etc.

Superman himself would start off roughly as powerful as he is in the Animated Series, where steering a crashing plane to land safely is about the best he can do strength-wise. As the series goes on, he'd get more powerful, but so would his enemies. I'm perfectly okay with Superman being the indestructible demigod, but I think it's important that he grows into it as the stakes get higher.


Batman:


In his own self-contained franchise, Batman is perfect just the way he is. In the larger DC Universe, however, it doesn't work at all, because I don't buy for a second that the rest of the Justice League would stand by and let Gotham City deteriorate the way it has. And as cool as it is, the idea that Batman can beat someone like Superman with nothing but Bat-karate and 'prep time' is just as ridiculous as a lot of the stuff people complain about Superman doing. So I'd beef up Gotham City some more, make it more in-line with the DCU at large instead of expecting the rest of the planet to pretend that Gotham isn't there.

If Metropolis is like city from Ghost in the Shell, then Gotham is Detroit from Deus Ex. Wayne Enterprises (taken over by Ozzie 'The Penguin' Cobb after the death of Bruce Wayne's parents) is a major pharmaceutical firm, which also dabbles in biotechnology and genetic engineering. Cobb flagrantly abuses the company's influence over the city, not helped by his close ties with the equally corrupt Mayor, Carmine Falcone. Together, the two of them have carved up the city for themselves and brutally dealt with any opposition from the media or the police, giving high-tech weapons and genetically-altered villains to the mob to keep them loyal.

Like in Batman Begins, Bruce Wayne receives his training from Ra's al Ghul and the League of Shadows. However, he doesn't reject them until they've already brought him back to Gotham--he believed they were there to free the city from Falcone and Cobb, while they actually planned to seize Wayne Enterprises' bio-weapons for their own destructive agenda. Combining weapons from the League of Shadows with technology smuggled out of Wayne Enterprises by Lucius Fox, Bruce creates the suit and gadgets and vehicles and becomes Batman, at first in order to stop Ra's al Ghul from destroying the city, but then as a Robin Hood-like outlaw figure to take on Falcone and Penguin.

Batman is obsessively dedicated to restoring his family's good name and returning Gotham to prosperity, even at the cost of his own humanity. As the battles get tougher and the villains he fights get more powerful, he begins implanting cybernetic augmentations in his body, to make himself stronger and faster, to give himself better reaction times and beef up his brain's processing power. While desperately trying to save Gotham City's soul, Batman slowly but surely gives up his own.

And as a response to all this, another force emerges from the wretched underbelly of the city, someone who looks at the selfless crusading figure that Batman's become....and thinks it's the funniest thing he's ever seen. The Joker is kind of a cross between the version from Alan Moore's "The Killing Joke" and Tyler Durden from Fight Club, a nihilistic terrorist with a cult-like group of followers, the disenfranchised and disillusioned masses that the Joker's warped into people like him, who think that society itself is a sick joke and want to see it all burn down.

Robin eventually shows up, too, but strictly in a support capacity. Dick would be a hacker and information-gatherer; he'd only go out on combat missions when he's already fully grown and about to break off on his own anyway. The biggest thing Robin does is run a network called 'The Outsiders,' who are like if Anonymous actually did something constructive. They're everyday people who moonlight as hackers, informants, etc, feeding Batman live intel as he needs it. And the best and the brightest among them is an elusive figure called 'Oracle,' who turns out to be a teenaged Barbara Gordon.

Anyway, the four-way struggle between Batman, Joker, the mob, and the League of Shadows spawns more heroes and villains as it goes on. Cobb uses Wayne Enterprises' bio-weapons to create monsters like Clayface, Killer Croc, and Poison Ivy--and their tech-weapons lead to the creation of Mister Freeze, Mad Hatter, and Firefly. Joker's life-shattering destruction creates or inspires other psychotic murderers like Scarecrow, Victor Zsasz, and of course Harley Quinn. Jim Gordon and the GCPD fight on the front lines the best they can, but lose some of their own, returning as Two-Face, Riddler, and The Question (who's like a cross between Rorschach and the Punisher). And the League of Shadows sends assassins after Batman and his ilk, including Deadshot, the Talon, Catwoman, and finally Bane.


Wonder Woman:


Okay, so far I've really only just brushed up on already well-loved franchises, basically just giving them a fresh coat of paint and a couple of tweaks here and there. Wonder Woman, though, is gonna be a challenge. I want the DC Universe to be consistent within itself, and so far everything's technology and sci-fi oriented, but Wonder Woman has always been purely supernatural. So then the question is how do you bring that in line with the rest of it, without just making up something completely different and slapping a familiar name on it?

Well, for starters, borrow a page from Ultimate Thor: make it unclear if she's actually what she says she is or not. Diana would claim that she's the last great creation from the gods of old--not just the Greek gods, but from every pantheon--to save the world of men from itself, an all-purpose 'angel' to act as a champion and protector of mortals. But there's a fair amount of doubt about that: Superman suspects she's an alien like him, Batman thinks she's a bio-weapon or a cyborg, etc. What is known, however, is that since she arrived on the scene, she's never been beaten in a fight--while she's not quite as strong or fast as Superman, she's still easily within the realm of the superhuman, and apparently received combat training far beyond even the most elite military special forces.

Whether it's from her supposedly divine heritage or an extremely complicated delusion, Wonder Woman does believe herself to be an emissary of peace and goodwill, wanting to be more of a philosopher than a fighter. In fact, forming the Justice League would be her idea, and going with the original lineup of the JLA where Superman and Batman aren't full-time members, she would be in charge. However, she's also frustrated by the fact that nobody seriously believes she's what she says she is, and worries that people only cooperate because they're afraid she'd beat them up rather than because they believe in her.

Wonder Woman's villains are also kinda-sorta-maybe supernatural in nature, as her primary antagonists are the gods themselves--Ares, Hades, Loki, Odin, Osiris, Anubis, etc. She eventually learns that they created her, as well as the other Amazons that show up later, to bring the mortal world under their control again. She refuses them, and they send monsters from all different kinds of mythology and folklore after her, as well as villains like Cheetah and Giganta. Again, though, it's uncertain if these gods are the genuine article, or a cabal of incredibly powerful telepaths and whatnot, or ancient aliens, or whatever (I'd also posit that they might be aspects of Darkseid).


The Flash:


Barry Allen's a 19-year-old college student (studying forensic science), a geeky superhero fanboy, kind of the DCU's answer to Peter Parker. Only instead of being bitten by a radioactive spider, he's caught in an accident while snooping around to investigate a break-in at the local branch of STAR Labs. The accident involves an experimental warp drive, and Barry is caught in basically a one-man time/space warp. He's able to travel just outside of physical space to negate the effects of friction or spilling his guts out when he stops, and reflexively speed up and slow down the passage of time as he moves--so the Flash isn't really running at super-speed; he's essentially time-traveling.

Flash's time/space warping doesn't just allow him to be anywhere almost instantaneously; by slowing down time around him, wounds that would take weeks or months to heal seem to knit themselves up back together in seconds. He can read and process information at insanely high speeds as well, able to clear out a whole library in an afternoon. While moving at Flash-speed, even his thoughts are faster, giving him a kind of defense against psychics since they can't read his mind fast enough to see what he's thinking. And the idea of him speeding through a time warp opens up room for crazier stuff like actual time-travel, phasing into parallel dimensions, all the stuff they used to do in the Silver Age.

There's a major drawback to this, though: by accelerating his own passage through time while slowing down everyone else's, by all appearances he's aging at an alarming rate. If Barry can't find a way to cancel that out, he'll die of old age before his twenty-first birthday.

Flash kind of hero-worships his compatriots in the Justice League, and doesn't really believe he's worthy of being on the team, since everyone else was either born great or worked their asses off to become great while he just stumbled ass-backwards into his powers. And the fact that his villains are always pretty easily dispatched (never mind that the Rogues would be a real handful for anyone that isn't a speedster) doesn't really help his superhero inferiority complex.


Green Lantern:


Most of Hal Jordan's origin is largely the same: hot-shot Air Force pilot loaded down with a lifetime of family issues, can't hold down a job after a dishonorable discharge from the service, is given one last chance by Carol Ferris, then is yanked out of a plane in mid-air when chosen by a Green Lantern ring.

However, from here we're going to splice it with Kyle Rayner's origin. There is no Green Lantern Corps, there are no Guardians, no Oa. They've all been wiped out--all that stuff about the War of the Light and the Blackest Night has already happened, millions of years ago. All that's left is one last ring, which finally finds a worthy bearer in Hal.

Apart from its usual powers--energy beams and constructs and shields and whatnot activated by sheer force of willpower and imagination--the last ring also contains the entire history of the Lanterns, able to summon simulated holographic representations of past Lanterns and simulate their personalities based on their stored thoughts and memories (like speaking to a virtual ghost of them). This allows Hal to interact with Lanterns like Kilowog and Tomar-Re, despite them being dead for eons.

Chief among these past Lanterns is Sinestro, the most celebrated Lantern in the history of the Corps, the last and greatest hero during the War of the Light, lost during the Blackest Night. Sinestro's data-ghost trains Hal on how to use the ring, how to fight in zero-gravity, how to travel through hyperspace, etc. Unknown to Hal, this simulated avatar has an agenda of its own: to reunite the ring with the long lost body of the real Sinestro, who could use the ring's power to impose his will upon the entire universe.

In the Justice League, Hal is all swagger and machismo, always trying to impress, to show off what he can do. This gets on the nerves of the Big Three (Supes, Bats, and Wondy), but Flash thinks he's just awesome. While out in space, he's clearly in way over his head, but on Earth he's the shit and he knows it.


Martian Manhunter:


Or rather, just The Martian. I never understood why he's a "manhunter," and the name just makes him sound like a villain.

Anyway, life on Mars evolved along extremely different patterns than on Earth. In fact, there was only really one life form on the whole planet: a shape-shifting, planet-covering collection of biomass, every cell of which contained consciousness. This mega-organism could adapt to every climate Mars had, and could transmit its thoughts from one end of the planet to the other telepathically. Essentially, it was the monster from The Thing, only with no desire to eat people.

However, during the primordial forming of our solar system, Mars was bombarded by meteors, rendering the planet uninhabitable and destroying the Martian life-form. Debris from the meteor impacts flew out into space, one of which made it to Earth, carrying just a few surviving cells of the Martian on it.

After millions and millions and millions of years, the meteor was excavated by humans. Sensing the presence of foreign minds and bio-mass awakened the Martian cells out of a dormant state, and it began to grow again. Eventually it escaped the laboratory where it was being kept, and spent several more years studying this alien world and its horrifyingly singular creatures, as well as eluding the various government and private companies that want to capture the Martian for their own purposes.

Eventually, the Martian crossed paths with the Justice League, and after communicating with them and seeing their beliefs in ideals of unity and peace despite their bizarre evolution, it agreed to join them and become an active force for good on this world.

The Martian (who goes by the human name "John" to make things easier) is at first secretive and distrustful, and uncomfortable remaining in the same form for too long. He feels a sort of kinship with Superman, since they were both from other worlds, and bonds especially well with other telepaths, which is why he becomes friends with Aquaman. Oh, and I'm leaving in the thing where he's addicted to Oreos, because I think that's funny.


Aquaman:


Poor Aquaman. Nobody loves him, and despite one attempt after another to make him awesome (Keith Giffen, Peter David, and recently Geoff Johns have all had really good runs with him), he'll never live down the reputation from the SuperFriends. Still, might as well take a crack at it.

Arthur Curry grew up an only child in a single-parent home in Mercy Reef. His father was a sailor with the Coast Guard, and he never knew his mother. Once he grows up, he starts developing powers, and his father tells him what he knows about his mother and where he came from.

Atlantis in this continuity isn't a magical underwater city, but the lair of an ancient primordial creature named Kordax (basically it's Cthulhu), who has raised a mass of human slaves, altering their bodies to survive underwater, and changing their minds to be more susceptible to his psychic control. Every few generations, the hybrid fish-people produce one among them that's powerful enough to resist Kordax's control, and strong enough to actually fight him, but Kordax has them killed before they develop their powers. This time, however, Arthur's mother Atlanna smuggles him to the surface world, entrusting the baby with Tom Curry until he's strong enough to return to his home and fight off Kordax.

Apart from sprouting gills and fins (I'd base his look off of Aqualad in Young Justice), and having super-strength in order to survive undersea pressures that can crush submarines, Aquaman's also telepathic, though his psychic field only really conducts through water. Extending his psychic field through water also gives him the ability to control the water itself, like Water-Bending from Avatar and Korra, only he can do it with the entire ocean once he learns how to do it. This also helps him fast travel, as he can change water pressure around himself--immense pressure behind him and near-frictionless in front--to 'shoot' him through the water at supersonic speeds.

Aquaman's generally a nice guy and a huge environmental activist, but he's also got a real chip on his shoulder. As the Justice League's reputation grows, he becomes painfully aware of the fact that everyone kind of considers him 'useless,' making him resentful of more powerful members like Superman and Green Lantern.


Also, in a reboot, there are two other things I'd really want DC to consider:

1) No 'status quo.' There shouldn't really be a time when everything goes 'back to normal'-- show the consequences of big super-powered crises, the damage that they'd cause, the lives that would be lost. Don't just trash a city and have it rebuilt as soon as it's over; actually deal with how it affects the world around them.

2) Stop trying to be like Marvel. Marvel's great, yes, but you're not Marvel. People who exclusively like Marvel aren't going to also want some pale imitator. Find your own identity with the character's you've got and make the best possible franchises you can, rather than just looking over at what the other guys are doing and then yelling "Oh hey, we can do that too!"

[Swiss Ultimate]

Some really in-depth visions there, bro. I like the scifi take on Batman and Superman.