DC and Marvel comics have done lots of these, but are there story lines that haven’t been done yet that you would like to see? The occasion of this thread is one idea that occurred to me: After his parents are killed not by a mugger but by some sort of supernatural menace, Bruce Wayne becomes a magic user instead of a vigilante.
What if Superman had to deal with real-world physics? He tries to pick up a battleship and his hands punch through the hull. He tries to rescue people at super-speed and they burn up and/or their skin is ripped from their bodies. Imagine the destruction from the wake of his flying at hyperspeed through the city!
I think a Marvel “What-If” where worship of the Norse gods on Earth becomes a serious matter, to the point of challenging the other established faiths, would be damn interesting. Gods and goddesses that you can see and touch, that are in the news, that have first-hand knowledge of the beginning of the world-crap like this could really shake the foundations of more than one faith. I could see major movements rising if this happened.
Byrne got around that because Supes uses tactile telekinesis. He also had to wrap people up in his cape when writers remembered physics.
Also New Universe touched on that stuff some too. Like when Starbrand nearly got lost in space.
What if, instead of Superman and Batman surviving the “golden age” it had been, say, Flash and Green Lantern? Then Supes and Batman were reimagined for the Silver Age.
What if Bruce Wayne grew up in Metropolis, where his parents were killed right in front of him – and Clark Kent left Smallville for the big city of Gotham?
What if young Bruce Wayne’s parents were secretly criminals, and as a boy he saw his father kill someone?
Note that that kind of describes Doctor Doom, who set out to rescue his mother’s soul from Mephisto.
The criminal scenario was already played out in a great Batman Special by Mike Barr I believe. With Batman having an opposite he had never met.
If memory serves, this guy’s parents were criminals who were killed by police. I think Gordon was involved…ah the guy was called the Wrath
What if when Kal-el came to Earth he had brought a bacteria or two that would also be indestructible. Mess up our whole ecosystem and even cause a new disease or two.
What if Thomas and Martha Wayne sent their only son in a rocketship, and Bruce crash-landed on Krypton. He’ll be physically weaker than everyone else, but he won’t have any of their vulnerabilities
I like this one. Clever and different.
Kryptococcus!
Oh, sure. The comics sales would grind to a halt, but at least the scientists would be happy. That’s what is most important, isn’t it? :rolleyes:
They have probably done this story at some point but I would like to see a Batman version of Flashpoint. He goes back in time and saves his parents only to find the altered present is much much worse, forcing him to go back in time again to stop himself from changing history.
Here’s another that doesn’t really count because they did it for real but…
When I was a kid I made up my own Elseworld where Kal El crashed out side of Gotham by Thomas and Martha Wayne (I didn’t know at the time DC had already done this). This version of Batman had some of Superman’s powers. He couldn’t fly but he was stop, fast and could leap. Also he had heat and X Ray vision. What was more fun was making up combined versions of their Rogue’s Gallery.
Lois Lane was a reporter for the Gotham Planet by day and burglar and anti hero Catwoman by night.
Lex Luthor used himself to test a chemical formula and became The Joker (yeah, he was an awful lot like the Green Goblin).
Two Brain was half man, half Kryptonian Super Computer
Claytallo was a liquid metal shapeshifter (like a mushy T 1000).
There were others but those were the ones I remembered.
There were other heroes as well, such as the Green Flash whose power ring gave him super speed and Aquawoman (not the most creative names, I know) who was from a Paradise Island that had sunk to the bottom of the sea.
An episode of SUPERFRIENDS brought up what should’ve been explored at great length: dying alien Abin Sur tasks his power ring with finding the strongest-willed man on the planet to be the new Green Lantern, and so of course summons – Lex Luthor.
Also, Prometheus. And at least one other guy, I think, who’s name escapes me. Hush is different twist on the “opposite Batman” idea, except that instead of cops killing his criminal parents, he kills his own wealthy socialite parents to make himself an orphan.
Well, there was millionaire Gotham philanthropist Cameron Van Cleer – secretly the Killer Moth, with a crime lab in his Mothcave, and the gadget-laden Mothmobile, and even that Moth-Signal in the sky whenever criminals need his help.
(That crime lab isn’t for solving crimes, you understand; it’s there because crooks need cutting-edge methods of getting away with crimes. Though in his own right, the guy is nevertheless a great enough detective to deduce Batman’s secret identity.)
I’ve got bad news about the comic sales.
What if The Flash had to deal with real-world physics? Including friction, momentum of body organs vs sudden stops, metabolic rate, and how it would feel to be the World’s Fastest Man constantly stuck behind the people that WE get impatient with, like in a supermarket?