Rewrite the Criseses

[adamishere1]

Hey all, a random notion that woke me up.. in the middle of the night and if its already been done feel free to delete.

So DC has had a lot of events from Crisis on Infinite Earths to Flashpoint and so on. But having read them now and having had time to reflect. How would you have done them. Supposes its 1985 and someone asks you to write the story for Crisis, how would you have done it, the same with things like The Death of Superman and the aftermath. Call me curious.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Crisis on Infinite Earths - I would put a little more focus on Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman as the characters who take us through this story. I'd use Kal-L of Earth-2, the Batman of Earth-1 and a newly created Wonder Woman of Earth-whatever that would greatly resemble the Post-Crisis WW that Perez was cooking up. During the course of the story, Wolfman & Perez's original story would otherwise remain the same, but I would give Kal-L, Lois Lane, Robin, Huntress and Supergirl a somewhat nicer send off. I'd also combine the Multiverse into one Earth as was originally done, but I would explicitly show the new Wonder Woman being incorporated into the history of this merged Earth as the latest incarnation of the Wonder Woman who had first appeared during WW2 and joined the JSA, then later formed the JLA at the start of the current heroic age. Byrne's Superman would be less a reboot and more a revamp as he initially proposed. Aside from those changes, I would have an epilogue showing Kal-L, Lois Lane and Alexander Luthor exploring a newborn Multiverse that would one day become accessible to New Earth when it was ready.

Since the subsequent follow-ups to the original Crisis were all attempts to fix problems that the previous Crisis had caused, it would feel a little repetitive, but I'd do more or less the same with Zero Hour in terms of sorting out the fallout from the Superman and Wonder Woman reboots.

Same goes for Infinite Crisis, although there really isn't a whole lot that could be done with that story because of editorial and legal issues outside of Geoff Johns's control.

With Final Crisis, I would go with Morrison's re-edit, eliminate all the pointless and contradictory tie-ins and make Seven Soldiers connection as the true Countdown to Final Crisis more explicit.

As for Flashpoint, I'd leave it relatively the same, as the main problem there was with the mismanagement of the New 52, not the story itself.

[Crawford Crow]

Bobby steps out of the shower and realizes the whole thing was just a horrible dream. :-)

[theoneandonly]

Bobby steps out of the shower and realizes the whole thing was just a horrible dream. :-)

I see what you did there.

[DrNewGod]

CoIE. I would not have destroyed all the disparate realities, but I would have sealed them off from one another, with one exception (stand by for more on that). Beyond that - assuming I couldn't talk DC out of just continuing the Silver-Bronze Age DC that ignores, rather than eradicates any of the stuff TPTB find awkward, I'd play it out pretty much the way Wolfman and Perez, but basically write it as a conclusion the both Earth 1 and Earth 2's eras of superheroics, with the survivors (hero and villain alike) too busy trying to rebuild to play cops-and-robbers anymore.

I'd let Thomas play out the end of his All-Star Squadron epic, perhaps under a different imprint that could also continue Infinity, Inc., and without stripping him of key figures of his cast or making him attempt to turn the title into The Swing-Era Teen Titans.

I'd launch the new DCU from scratch, picking it up "five years later," with the foundation of The JL, and relaunch the Teen Titans a year later. Byrne, I'd let run pretty much as he did, and the same with the Bat-titles. I'd try talking Perez out of some of the stuff that turned the Amazon's to pawns of the gods instead of women improving themselves to superhuman levels. Flash and GL I'd relaunch with new, more diverse characters in the role. Similarly, create a new version of The Spectre that's more similar to Phantasm than the original overpowered plot device.

The one exception to all this: Dr. Fate, who begins spending all of his time on Earth New because that's where he senses the new mystical threats arising. How if, as I said, we've sealed the dimensions? Turns out the Tower of Fate has a practically infinite number of exterior walls, but only four of them manifest in any one specific dimensional plane. So if we really need to have Kal-L turn up, Dr. Fate can do it for us.

Go from there.

[Güicho]

Sliding time-scale.
It's what has made comics unique from almost every medium, and allowed it's characters to persist and remain popular for longer than most every other medium.
You built your universe on it, it's a fiction tool, use it, take advantage of it.

AND STOP TRYING TO EXPLAIN IT!
STOP MAKING EVENTS THAT RE-WRITE THE PREVIOUS EVENTS, AND MAKING THEM THE MAIN FOCUS OF YOUR UNIVERSE. (although I blame the fans who keep repeatedly falling for and devouring these events)
These ham-fisted events are always the problem, never the solution.

The "Golden-Age" doesn't need a time stamp, it never looked exactly like the 30-40s, it was always full of anachronistic, science, inventions, magic, look and setting, let it be a past and STOP TIME STAMPING IT to satisfy some unnecessary fanboy desire to fact check and line things up with the real world.
You can portray a vintage, pulpy, noir, diesel-punk fictional world, that conveys the past, where Batman would have operated, what maters is the visual, without putting a date on it.
It never needed a date, it never will.
That's a bunch of fanboys trying to convince themselves this is more than absolute fiction.
The same goes for the portrayal of their present and future look of the DCU.

As far as characters over-time acquired from other companies or imprints.
Integrate them, develop them into their own cities, where they are the absolute definitive champions of that series and all spin-offs.
Yet also allow for them to cross over with the other DCU characters.
Although never treat them as secondary, looking for, or awaiting approval of the other DCU characters.

If it's a main character in the DCU, and you want the readers to perceive them as such, they should exist in that main U.

And by all means have alternate universes, where fun alternate time-lines and versions of characters can exist.
That is part of them fun.
And don't put a stupid limit on those either.

[DrNewGod]

Sliding time-scale.
It's what has made comics unique from almost every medium, and allowed it's characters to persist and remain popular for longer than most every other medium.
You built your universe on it, it's a fiction tool, use it, take advantage of it.

AND STOP TRYING TO EXPLAIN IT!
STOP MAKING EVENTS THAT RE-WRITE THE PREVIOUS EVENTS, AND MAKING THEM THE MAIN FOCUS OF YOUR UNIVERSE. (although I blame the fans who keep repeatedly falling for and devouring these events)
These ham-fisted events are always the problem, never the solution.

The "Golden-Age" doesn't need a time stamp, it never looked exactly like the 30-40s, it was always full of anachronistic, science, inventions, magic, look and setting, let it be a past and STOP TIME STAMPING IT to satisfy some unnecessary fanboy desire to fact check and line things up with the real world.
You can portray a vintage, pulpy, noir, diesel-punk fictional world, that conveys the past, where Batman would have operated, what maters is the visual, without putting a date on it.
It never needed a date, it never will.
That's a bunch of fanboys trying to convince themselves this is more than absolute fiction.
The same goes for the portrayal of their present and future look of the DCU.

As far as characters over-time acquired from other companies or imprints.
Integrate them, develop them into their own cities, where they are the absolute definitive champions of that series and all spin-offs.
Yet also allow for them to cross over with the other DCU characters.
Although never treat them as secondary, looking for, or awaiting approval of the other DCU characters.

If it's a main character in the DCU, and you want the readers to perceive them as such, they should exist in that main U.

And by all means have alternate universes, where fun alternate time-lines and versions of characters can exist.
That is part of them fun.
And don't put a stupid limit on those either.

DC will let go of WWII/JSA when it's pried from their cold, ,dead fingers

[Nick Miller]

Johns is doing it now

[Güicho]

DC will let go of WWII/JSA when it's pried from their cold, ,dead fingers

You do realize I'm advocating how they can have them in continuity, without having to "fix" anything.
Or concocting yet another useless crisis event.

They can even have Batman be a part of it again. WITHOUT ANOTHER CRISIS event.
It's called a sliding-time scale, what has helped define comics, and allowed it's characters to persist and remain popular for longer than most every other medium.
The only obstacle is fans that need a sliding-time-scale explained.



And if you are a fan going, ..."but how can batman be there, and and in current continuity?" Or imagining another crisis on how to "fix" it, then you are part of the problem they keep pandering to, and the reason for these endless useless crisis events that have come to define DC

Read what I wrote.

Sliding time-scale.
It's what has made comics unique from almost every medium, and allowed it's characters to persist and remain popular for longer than most every other medium.
You built your universe on it, it's a fiction tool, use it, take advantage of it.

[CRaymond]

I had a concept for something called First Crisis that was set against World War One and starred Queen Hippolyte, Alfred Pennyworth, and the Quintessence versus a fresh new Apokolips.

[theoneandonly]

the term crisis would be retconned to being writers crisis meaning each time Superman fails to think of something to write about as Clark he rewrites reality by using his super complicated plot power.

[Jon Clark]

You do realize I'm advocating how they can have them in continuity, without having to "fix" anything.
Or concocting yet another useless crisis event.

They can even have Batman be a part of it again. WITHOUT ANOTHER CRISIS event.
It's called a sliding-time scale, what has helped define comics, and allowed it's characters to persist and remain popular for longer than most every other medium.
The only obstacle is fans that need a sliding-time-scale explained.



And if you are a fan going, ..."but how can batman be there, and and in current continuity?" Or imagining another crisis on how to "fix" it, then you are part of the problem they keep pandering to, and the reason for these endless useless crisis events that have come to define DC

Read what I wrote.

OK, except that it is mostly new readers who are going to be confused how Batman is fighting guys from "when dad was born" and still running around in 1986 (let alone 2018). And they are the ones who are going to be asking how this "sliding time thing" works.

I, as a fan, got how there were two (or more) Batmen, Supermen, etc in the comics and didn't need a Crisis. It was guys like Wolfman who insisted on the need for Crisises. I mean if you can't get something as simple as one Earth One the heroes are adults and on Earth Two they were adults when your dad was a kid and are old guys now, I don't think sliding time scale is going to make much sense.

[Jon Clark]

As for the original question- Crisis is two things.
One, it's what DC intends to do after the series (stuff like kill Supergirl, replace Barry as Flash, end up with a place where all the heroes can interact).
Two, it's a story (Monitor Vs Anti-Monitor. heroes and villians fighting on the same side, minor deaths to add drama)

I'm figuring the first set is sort of set in stone. I'm asked to write Crisis but at the end I need to have cleared much of the table. Barry has to be gone. I can't save Earth-S (or any of the others). I might be able to change some minor details about the end result, but pretty much all I could really do differently is tell a story other than the one Marv Wolfman told to get us to a similar place.

Issue One has the heroes encountering strange anomalies. Superboy and Supergirl are shown leaving an adventure with the Legion for their home times. Superboy arrives in a Smallville where it is 1929, but everything else is the same. Supergirl finds herself in 1986 but in a Nazi controlled Chicago. The Legion themselves have to fend off attempts to steel various weaponry from United planet's bases by (what we readers recognize as) the JSA. Batman arrives at a crime scene where he is already present and speaking to the police, only to realize that the man in the Batsuit is a slightly older Dick Grayson and that Robin is not Jason Todd- both claim Bruce is dead. And John Stewart is startled to discover an entire Venusian civilization where none existed before. Each encounter ends with a pull back to the Monitor's viewscreen with his commenting to Lyla on some aspect that he is pleased by. The last pages shows Per Degaton, Barry Allen and the Time Trapper chained near the statues of the Seven Deadly Sins which we pull back to see is only a page of a comic on a drawing board to a sleeping man,


Issue Two: We see the man from last issue being awakened in the DC offices. It's Marv Wolfman and he gripes that he has to stop listening to those BS stories by Cary bates if he plans on staying awake long enough to finish his own work. We cut back to the DC story as Wolfman continues typing- the panel zooming in to his typed page with the written words becoming the lead in to the next panel. The New Teen Titans are in mid-battle against the Fearsome Five when Wonder Girl starts flickering in and out of existence. When the flickering stops Donna Toy has been replaced by Fury of Infinity Inc, who is at a loss of how she got there. Elsewhen Superboy time travelling in an attempt to return to the Legion from the ersatz Smallville finds himself in the 1960's with the original Teen Titans. Supergirl attempts to find Superman on this Nazi-controlled Earth but instead finds herself confronted by a Nazi version of Power Girl and Infinity Inc. Outnumbered Supergirl is on the losing end until the Freedom Fighters arrive. In space John Stewart finds himself facing Dr Sivana and Mr Mind who have enslaved an army of Venusian Amazons

Issue Three: Batman brings the Grayson Batman back to the Batcave and contacts Nightwing who is at the Titans Tower with Fury trying to discover what happened to Donna Troy. Superboy and Kid Flash (from the 1960's Titans) seek out Barry Allen's assistance only to find that Central City is gone and in it's place stands Keystone City, home of Jay Garrick. Supergirl and the Freedome Fighters manager to escape Aryan Inc. Uncle sam explains that they are the last remaining heroes, Superman and the JSA are assumed dead after the Nazi invasion of June 1944. John Stewart having freed the Venusians attempts to contact Oa only to be confronted by a ring wielding Guy Gardner who wants to know where Hal Jordan is.

Issue Four: In Titans Tower the two Dick Grayson's compare notes. Batman discovers that the kid in the Robin costume is Bruce Wayne Jr- son of himself and Kathy Kane. And he hears how the boy's parents died. Jay Garrick attempts to return Superboy and Kid Flash to Earth-One (despite Wally insisting he and his Titans never left there) only to find that the attempt merely moves the two through time and returns then to the same Keystone City several years later. Supergirl is torn between helping the Freedom Fighters and trying to find a way back to her own history but find the choice made for her when her attempts to travel in time are thwarted by the same Iron Curtain she remembers from her Legion adventures. John Stewart finds himself teleported to Oa to face trial for "stealing a Green Lantern Ring" and is even more confused to find Sinestro amongst the Lanterns gathered there.


To be continued