Originally Posted by
godisawesome
I got another idea:
DC - The Deluge
Back in the 1940's, WWII wound up involving the Atlanteans, who were in the middle of a succession crisis. Things went crazy, and one violent faction of the Atlanteans managed to trigger a World Wide Super Flood to drown their surface world enemies and to pollute their undersea rivals. In the resulting chaos, upwards of 70% of the world's population, both surface and underwater, was wiped out.
Think Waterworld, but not quite as devastating, with several cities and civilizations that don't go Mad Max but instead go steam punk or diesel punk in their stylings and technology. And just because there's a lot of water doesn't mean that ruling the waters equals ruling the world... There's still the sky, after all.
- Metropolis is a literal City In The Sky, floating above the surface of the Earth with Bioshock Infinite-style science of hot air balloons and diesel-punk, Ray Gun Gothic, retro-futurism Art Deco going on for the aesthetics and sci-if side of the story. Lex Luthor's rivalry with Superman takes on a harder edge here, since Luthor's exploitation of Kryptonain technology has allowed the city to grow much, much larger at the expense of the bottled city of Kandor, which was stolen from Brainiac. Also, because the city circumnavigate the planet by traveling against the Earth's spin to stay in the sunlight, they also are the prime source for worldwide communication... Meaning that the Planet News organization is actually very important, so Clark's still employed, having impressed Perry White when the City floated over the Smallfry Fishing Platform.
- The Gotham Cantons are a small but rich archipelago of islands, floating cities, and platforms, with the largest surface dweller population. The emphasis for their aesthetic is on the "Gothic" part of Raygun Gothic, and they even feature an underwater segment. There's mutants all over, since this is basically, on a good day, the best middle ground between the water and the surface (so it saw the earliest experiments to change surface dwellers), but with the rise of Metropolis (Ha!), the city's fallen on hard times. Giant mutant Bats dominate the night, so of course Batman uses them as camouflage and not just inspiration. Instead of the Batmobile, he has a submersible-seaplane.
- Coast City is now occupied by Atlanteans, with Green Lantern being an amphibian version.
- The Flash operates on the largest dry land area, which is basically a gigantic farmland with cities in giant, hanging garden-style towns in towering cylinders.
- The Amazons have emerged from hiding because of the chaos, with acting as ambassadors to everyone, with Diana becoming their leader via the traditional contest, though now as Queen.
- Aquaman's the main star, trying to unite the underwater kingdoms and undo the flooding, since it's messed up their entire ecosystem above and below water.