Hypothetical DCU: Change ONE aspect of a DC story that didn't work for you..

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Here's the premise: Take a major DCU story that didn't quite click and alter ONE aspect of it and try to figure out how that would alter it in interesting ways that might make it work. Not a story you hate or fundamentally disagree with the entire premise of, but one that you think had potential, but fell short.

PLEASE NOTE: This is not yet another avenue to bitch and moan about comics we don't like. We've got enough negativity already, this thread isn't here to contribute further to it. So, anyone thinking of posting the predictable reply of not even publishing a story you hate, please don't bother. We all get it, you hate some comics out there. Congratulations. Please vent about it elsewhere.

The obvious choice for me here is the original Crisis on Infinite Earths, but altering the ending so that the small handful of main Earths survived and Roy Thomas wouldn't have to completely retcon away large chunks of his DC output



Another good option would be The Killing Joke, but with Barbara as an actual protagonist in the story, rather than simply a victim for Joker to torture in order to motivate Batman & Gordon. And, no, not like they did in that animated adaptation. Ew.

[kingaliencracker]

I think Watchmen the movie was better in terms of framing Doctor Manhattan versus the comic where we had an engineered alien show up. Neither is *great* but at least the framing of Manhattan makes more sense in the Watchmen universe.

I wouldn't have used Jim or Barbara Gordon in The Killing Joke.

I would have left the pre-Crisis Earth One history intact following COIE. I simply would have merged the histories of all the Earths and heroes into one Earth, rather than reboot.

[Robanker]

I'll preface this by noting that my favorite interpretations of Batman generally align with a more Bronze Age sensibility. He's a good man at heart, born of trauma and can occasionally be a bit of an ass. World's greatest detective, excellent combatant and has a whole lot of fun gadgets to aid in his war on crime. He's not BatGod. Without further adieu...

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. I know I'm going to be dragged over the coals for this one and then tortured until I shout "freedom," but the second half of the book. It essentially warps the entire DCU to fit Batman's 1980s Hellscape in order to prop him up. Superman especially being portrayed as a stooge for Reagan shows a complete misunderstanding of who Clark is as a person and what he was created to be: a social avenger who punished those who the law missed or neglected to affect. He was punching wife beaters and crooks in his inception, the cops be damned. He outright would never be in that situation to begin with. If anything, his arrival should kick off a World's Finest back half where they retake the spirit of the country from a corrupt government. Alas, "muh prep time."

Moreover, it's treated as if Batman outright manhandled Clark while the latter was doing his best to put up an earnest defense. It was a team effort requiring Green Arrow and Carrie Kelly, the latter had been nuked recently, and Superman spent the entire fight trying to reason with and concerned over Bruce's safety. Miller himself said he felt responsible for "giving Batman his balls back," and it certainly comes across as something in line with this book. He does great work presenting a Gotham City that is the 1980s American nightmare; the problem is when he handles the rest of the DCU. That sort of scenario can't exist in a world where Superman is, well, Superman or where the entire JLA is around and not being written horrendously so that Batman can reach down and nut up as per the writer's wishes. Any enjoyment I try to get out of the more celebrated of the two is diminished because I see really lazy writing behavior to prop up one character at the expense of another and it's outright shameful that it's lauded as the masterwork it's credited as. It does bug me a bit how fans love this one and treat it as the gospel truth, if only because it had to be built on a bed of mischaracterization with respect to DC's other trademark character.

I want to reiterate, the stuff in Gotham was pretty great. It's the back half that fell off a cliff.

TDKR was a solid Batman story until it set its scope higher, and in doing so did irreparable damage to both Batman and Superman as a whole. Year One is still Miller's best work on Batman and a genuinely wonderful story.

Now then, cast your stones as you will. Aim for the teeth, I hear you get a multiball if you take out at least three.

[Rod G]

Lex Luthor should have LOST the election.

[oasis1313]

........................

[oasis1313]

Another good option would be The Killing Joke, but with Barbara as an actual protagonist in the story, rather than simply a victim for Joker to torture in order to motivate Batman & Gordon. And, no, not like they did in that animated adaptation. Ew.

This panel is shameful. I'd like to unsee it. You'll never see BATMAN posed up like this, and crying in front of the Joker.

[DrNewGod]

My tinkering would also be with Crisis, I'd also have discouraged wrecking the entire multiverse, but would have encouraged sealing them off. In any case, even if we took it down to one universe, I'd have said "no half measures, reboot ALL of it." I realize that would have turned two of DC's best selling books (LoSH and TNTT) completely inside out, but given that both of those titles were just coming off major stories, it might have been a good time to do it, and I'll bet the creators at the time might have jumped at the chance to give things a serious shaking up.

If we're still stuck with clutter Earth, my one piece of tinkering would be with Wonder Woman. I've have applied the Golden-Age-Survivor solution posed for GA Superman to her.

Get General Trevor whacked in The Crisis (the time shenanigans turn E1 Trevor into E2 Trevor's nephew), and E1 Diana gets disintegrated, as written. After the Crisis, Wonder Woman washes the fake gray out of her hair, and resumes her career. She's now the continuity piece of the DCU. She's the elder stateswoman who assembled some of the young punks into The Justice League. A lot of the violence done to the JSA's history simply never happens. Perez's alteration to Diana's relationship with Trevor can still hold, because he's now her favored nephew that reminds her so much of her beloved, lost Steve. We can even still do some of the Stranger in a Strange Land Perez did, we just do them as flashbacks that contrast with the worldly woman Diana's become today.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

The New 52 never happened.

[DrNewGod]

There is one other thing I'd tinker with, Infinity, Inc. #1-10: Thomas basically had the six founders choose to try their hands at superheroing because..."You know, we got powers! Let's do this!"

One of the real weaknesses of Infinity, Inc. is that none of its characters really had a compelling reason for going into the long-underwear business. So, let's fix that.

Rather than have the book open with the next generation crashing the JSA, open with the JSA calling the juniors on the carpet for being amateurs playing a professional's game. The Infinitors storm out on them, followed by PG, the Huntress and SSK, and proceed as originally written. In issues 2-7, include a backup that features the origin of one Infinitor. Over issues 8-9, feature a backup that shows the Infinitors converging on case they've each been investigating separately (Scarab+Fury+Northwind and Jade+Obsidian might have already linked up in their origin stories, with only Nuklon being a solo). Issue 10 (the final chapter of the Generations Saga) show the assembled Infinitors getting cornered by a delegation of JSAers, who've been investigation these mysterious new vigilantes that have cropped up.

[silly]

Monarch is actually Lex Luthor.

[WonderScott]

War of the Gods being truncated from 12 issues to four issues.

[Slim Shady]

Court of Owls. I’d change two aspects tho.

1. Not let the Court quietly kill themselves off panel. After almost a year long arc, that was about as anticlimactic as it could get.
2. Leave out the long lost brother stuff with Lincoln March. Felt too cheesy and wasn’t needed.

Not only would that have helped the actual story, but future stories too. The Court could’ve been a fresh new villain, but they fizzled out with such a whimper it really hurt their credibility. And I like the Lincoln Owlman design. Looked good and he was pretty psycho and a legit physical threat. Always felt he could’ve been a regular rogue. But something about the brother thing just makes him feel not right. It wasn’t needed. Him being taken in by the Court and brainwashed to be their enforcer, and later being brainwashed to be the anti-Batman is a good enough backstory.

[jetengine]

Hal doesn't die at the end of Final Night.

[OBrianTallent]

If we could get very broad one of two things...
1-Crisis on Infinite Earths left us with 2-6 different earths. I think it was in issue 11 we had several separate earths and I would have left it there. There was some merging such as Shazam, Freedom Fighters, Charlton heroes etc, but not everything would have been merged into one earth.
2-barring that...NO NEW 52. Flashpoint would have been fine altering some things but leaving the bulk of the world in fine working order. What we got has proven to most definitely not be working order.

Minor story beats...The Darkseid Saga...Hippolyta only had one child. Period. No Twins.
The other main issue I have is still fixable or at least still needs fixing as nothing in it resolves to the character any more. Donna Troy. She can no longer be created by the Amazons to kill Diana. Diana left the real Themyscira and has never actually been back. There's no possible way that Donna could have been created in the manner she is supposed have been. It needs to be fixed pronto.

[SiegePerilous02]

It's hard to narrow it down to just one, but the main one would be COIE either never happening or ending without the Earths being merged. Which would then hopefully lead to subsequent reboots and tinkerings never occurring either.

Other choices are related to Donna: if COIE and a WW reboot had to happen, the Wonder Woman story would be set in the past so Donna can still work.
For Rebirth, Donna would be added to WW: Year One on the island. She would leave a few months after Diana to become Wonder Girl. She hasn't been back since until Themyscira can be accessed again.