Let's Try Again: Tracking the 52 Worlds (and Beyond!)

[resipsaloquitur]

I've been telling my wife about the Guidebook and this thread we've been discussing since July. She tells me she's glad I don't live in my parents' basement.

[Dispenser Of Truth]

Dispenser, why do you dislike Captain Adam Strange?

Just Adam Strange in general, he's the anti-Superman to me. Instead of a powerful man protecting us, he's a 'nerd' who gets to go to a world where everyone else is weak and infertile. It's just to me a super messed-up power fantasy where a guy implicitly ashamed of who he 'really' is gets to retreat from his boring, societally useful actual job to a place where he's a magnificent hero-stud who fights monsters and beds a princess that's better than everyone else because there, he's the big tough he-man and everyone else is the nerd, so take that, jocks. It's the basic Superman model, but twisted around into something that just strikes me as really self-loathing, toxic and anti-heroic. The few stories with him that I've really liked tend to be ones he either has little real role in, he's just there to be a space dude (New Frontier) or pick at the nature of the fantasy (52, his Wednesday Comics story). Maybe it's just because he was in the worst story of Morrison's JLA run (a Waid fill-in two parter, which was the first time I realized he could write anything that wasn't phenomenal), but whenever he meets up with the JLA and starts acting like at all theirequal, he just always strikes me as arrogant and unselfaware. The one story of his I really liked was his subplot in Starman, where he's legitimately thrown in over his head, and him revealing himself on Earth at the end of the story feels like a genuinely significant moment of him accepting who he is and putting himself on the line to do the right thing for the world he wants to leave behind. I don't know that I really hate the character himself, honestly (except that sense of arrogance that I mentioned), it's the basic core of the fantasy that creeps me out.

Great costume though.

[Dispenser Of Truth]

Well, yeah. Earth-10 used to be called Earth-X (a politer way of writing "Earth-Swastika"). X = Roman for 10. So Earth-20 = XX, which represents female chromosomes. Woulda been funny if they did that, but it got 11 instead. Oh well.

Well, 11 + 52 = 63, like rule 63.

[K. Jones]

I read the issue looking for the spider-string connection between various cosmic Morrison threats, particularly the Gentry and maybe the Sheeda, so I didn't expect to get my connection in that ComicsAlliance interview.

Fantastic. Plus validation for the Gentry members being extrapolated tropish archetypes! I hadn't harped on about that since the first issue. Woot! They come from ... OUTSIDE.

[Thor-Ul]

I was thinking about some specific characters. For example
spoilers:

Golem of earth-7 is Ben Grimm. I mean Ben Grimm is Jewish and the Golem is a creature of jewish folcklore. Isn't? Is higly possible than the version of earth-8 is also called Golem. The Red Tornado look alike from earth-41 seems to be Nightcracker. Could be easly a Diehard or Superpatriot analog, both characters are basically a man transformed in machine.

end of spoilers

[K. Jones]

I can see this, but man, my thought was spoilers:

Storm Shadow. Larry Hama and "Silent Interlude" and all that.

end of spoilers.

Morrison famously (at least in my circles!) wrote a Storm Shadow story in UK Action Force, called ... "Old Debts" I think. It was REALLY similar to Joe Chill In Hell. Just with the Arashikage Clan and WWII history.

[Thor-Ul]

Just Adam Strange in general, he's the anti-Superman to me. Instead of a powerful man protecting us, he's a 'nerd' who gets to go to a world where everyone else is weak and infertile. It's just to me a super messed-up power fantasy where a guy implicitly ashamed of who he 'really' is gets to retreat from his boring, societally useful actual job to a place where he's a magnificent hero-stud who fights monsters and beds a princess that's better than everyone else because there, he's the big tough he-man and everyone else is the nerd, so take that, jocks. It's the basic Superman model, but twisted around into something that just strikes me as really self-loathing, toxic and anti-heroic. The few stories with him that I've really liked tend to be ones he either has little real role in, he's just there to be a space dude (New Frontier) or pick at the nature of the fantasy (52, his Wednesday Comics story). Maybe it's just because he was in the worst story of Morrison's JLA run (a Waid fill-in two parter, which was the first time I realized he could write anything that wasn't phenomenal), but whenever he meets up with the JLA and starts acting like at all theirequal, he just always strikes me as arrogant and unselfaware. The one story of his I really liked was his subplot in Starman, where he's legitimately thrown in over his head, and him revealing himself on Earth at the end of the story feels like a genuinely significant moment of him accepting who he is and putting himself on the line to do the right thing for the world he wants to leave behind. I don't know that I really hate the character himself, honestly (except that sense of arrogance that I mentioned), it's the basic core of the fantasy that creeps me out.

Great costume though.

That's a way to see him. What I read of him was as a man who is used by self proclaimed superior beings than despiste him but used him because they don't want to do the hard work. Did you read when he found Swamp thing?
But I suppose is about tastes.

[Thor-Ul]

Morrison famously (at least in my circles!) wrote a Storm Shadow story in UK Action Force, called ... "Old Debts" I think. It was REALLY similar to Joe Chill In Hell. Just with the Arashikage Clan and WWII history.

So...
spoilers:

Ghostman is Black Rapier. I just discover than Morrison went with create duplicates by opposition with Cosmoville: Savior comes from the past instead the future; Goodfellow looks like a peasant instead a elegant man; Cutie seems more like an action figure instead a girl's doll; Radman hides his energy instead showing it; So Ghostman is White instead full black. Herculina, Formula-1 and Stingray however doesn't fit this pattern. Or they do?

end of spoilers

[Dispenser Of Truth]

That's a way to see him. What I read of him was as a man who is used by self proclaimed superior beings than despiste him but used him because they don't want to do the hard work. Did you read when he found Swamp thing?
But I suppose is about tastes.

I read Swamp Thing, and I did like him a lot better in there.

[Thor-Ul]

So is a thing about how the writer use the characters.

[resipsaloquitur]

The Guidebook is so rich with information that I keep having to tweak the OP. If anyone has any clarifications for Page 1, particularly with the Trinities, let me know.

[Clairaudient Freedom Soldier]

The Guidebook is so rich with information that I keep having to tweak the OP. If anyone has any clarifications for Page 1, particularly with the Trinities, let me know.

For earth-18, is Bat (Bartholomew) Lash the Batman of the trinity? Or could it be El Diablo? I wish the artist drew more of the earth-18 characters that were named in the text, so we could make better inferences.

[resipsaloquitur]

Yes, I think Bat Lash is a play on Batman. This seems to be a world where the expys are both obvious and not obvious all at once.

Musing on Earth-34, it's amusing that all the characters are inversions of Astro City characters.
Savior = From the past instead of Samaritan's future. (The name might even be a play on Jesus being a Jew, vs. the Samaritains who were the Jews' cousin-neighbors.)
Herculina = based on male Greek imagery instead of female (Winged Victory)
Formula One = classical racing vs. MPH's modern
Goodfellow = bumpkin Lil Abner instead of suave...I don't know, Fred Macmurray
Cutie = porcelain doll instead of Beautie's plastic Barbie
Master Motley = a european mime instead of Jack in the Box's American slapstick

Stingray, Radman, and Ghostman, I can't figure out.

[NeonZ]

Stingray is one of Bruce Wayne's possible identities from that one comic with Iron Knight, The Owl, The Scorpion and others. I don't think any of them fit that well in the counterpart worlds they were assigned to.

[Jody Garland]

Stingray is one of Bruce Wayne's possible identities from that one comic with Iron Knight, The Owl, The Scorpion and others. I don't think any of them fit that well in the counterpart worlds they were assigned to.

Iron Knight fits pretty well with the Knight Watchman from Big Bang, and the Owl fits OK with Professor Night, who was Batman mixed with Dr. Midnight. Owls fit with the night vision and night theme, after all.