|
Post by mikelmidnight on Aug 19, 2017 16:41:51 GMT
I like that idea! It'd be totally like those two imps, as well.
Mallo always has some potential as a fun source of mischief (although I always thought the 'cosmic balance' idea profoundly stupid), but he tends to work across Earths rather than within Earths.
|
|
|
Post by dans on Aug 19, 2017 21:23:48 GMT
Having the heroes manipulated by two much more powerful cosmic entities is exactly what I personally want to stay away from. It has been done, and done and done again, and then yet again.
On the other hand, there is a lot of discussion going on, which was what I had in mind, so there's that! So, I'll get into the spirit of the current discussion...
Accepting the two deus ex machina figures, and addressing the 'heroes lose their powers and average people are imbued with those powers' idea currently being discussed, how about a twist - the heroes lose their powers and average people gain powers of their own because of it, but instead of strict transference of powers, all the missing powers are melded and merged into a 'Magical Malleable Empowerment Force' - which endows random people with powers but not necessarily the same powers as were drained from a particular hero, but instead they are given the powers of their favorite hero or heroine? So maybe Talib Ixman has always admired the Justice Machine comic book series, and the MME-Force touches him, and he becomes Talisman, and Bill O. Wright becomes 'The Fighting American'... while Clara Kent becomes Super Sister, and Stinky Gerbilhead becomes the original hero he has blogged about for years, the Cookiedough Commando. etc., etc., etc. to as many heroes as we wish to include... so for someone who wants to explore the concept of 'What if Doc Quantum had Superman's powers?" that possibility would exist too.
Maybe we could mix in some of the depowered heroes getting a different powerset, too, in some totally inappropriate mismatch, such as Superman getting the powers of maybe Color Kid, so Cosmic Manipulator #1 can prove that it isn't the powers that make the hero, but the hero that makes the powers stand up. And there could be 4 people, all of whom get the powers of the same hero, allowing that writer to explore the different ways a single, identical powerset could be exploited by different wielders...
A story wouldn't have to necessarily contribute to the resolution of the plot, either - it could be a side story, of interest only to the reader and the Cosmic Manipulators.
It also seems possible that some of the average people who get empowered might remain empowered after the end of this series, leaving us with new original heroes, who would then have pretty unique origin stories!
|
|
|
Post by starskyhutch76 on Aug 20, 2017 1:23:05 GMT
I figured someone like Superman would prove he was still a hero by donning a new masked identity and use his knowledge of the Kryptonian art of Kuklor to fight crime.
I'd rather see how regular folks would react to being thrust into the regular Super heroes' roles.
Would Joe Schmoe rise to the occasion when given Superman's powers or would he go off the deep end like Tighten from the movie Megamind when the villain tried to turn him into a new super hero to challenge him after he defeated Metro Man.
How would someone react if Batman's expertise, fotune, and gadgets are thrust on him (along with his tragic backstory).
|
|
|
Post by dans on Aug 20, 2017 1:42:20 GMT
I deliberately left that option open. No reason why Joe Schmoe or Louis Smith can't get Superman's powers in the scenario I painted. But somebody who didn't like that option would have others, as well...
|
|
|
Post by starskyhutch76 on Aug 20, 2017 2:15:46 GMT
The one way sounds pretty straight forward, though. The other I could see it going off the rails pretty quickly.
I just really want to keep this as a 5 Earths story. Otherwise, I would feel like I was wasting my energy.
|
|
|
Post by dans on Aug 20, 2017 15:43:49 GMT
SH, I respect that, but I don't get it. 5 Earths continuity is not overflowing with new stories or dragging in new authors at a rate where we have trouble reading new stories. We have been stuck in 1988 for 4 or 5 years now, and we see maybe 1 story per Earth per year? And it's recently been mainly from the same 4 folks, you, Libby, John, Doc. My contributions (other than my stalled collaboration with you, for which I apologize) have all been stories written for other purposes, either adapted to fit earlier contributions (AVant Guard) or totally independent (Justice Machine).
My hope is for something different that might attract members who are currently readers only to join in as writers, or even that we could post somewhere else with links to draw in writers who have never been to 5Earths before, and who might be interested in fitting stories into continuity. More like a Brave and Bold than a 'just another 5 Earths' story. I am not wedded to any particular characters, but I was kind of hoping we might come upon some ideas that are relatively under exposed (since in comics, it's really too late to expect to find an idea never used before!) rather than more of the same old stuff...
|
|
|
Post by DocQuantum on Aug 20, 2017 18:36:21 GMT
Maybe there could be some kind of wildcard in play, so some people get the powers of characters from fiction instead. Of course, we know that all fiction takes place in other realities.
|
|
|
Post by dans on Aug 21, 2017 0:52:38 GMT
Maybe there could be some kind of wildcard in play, so some people get the powers of characters from fiction instead. Of course, we know that all fiction takes place in other realities. I actually get Starsky's point, about how other heroes leads to open ended situations - introducing heroes from other realities could lead to plot arcs which never get resolved, and questions which could take a lot of exposition to answer, and we'll end up with yet another team writing event which gets off to a start and then fizzles out before it gets finished. (This is actually one of the reasons I thought it would be best to make it a non-continuity event - if it fizzles in the middle, there won't be any unresolved plot lines hanging around to disrupt continuity...) Plus, ending up with characters from other universes in our stories could actually lead to some copyright and or trademark issues which we really want to avoid, depending on the character owners. So throwing in fictional characters might not be a very good idea for an 'in-continuity' event. Whatever, I'd still like to see some kind of event that is interesting enough that we get more than just 'the usual suspects' who want to contribute chapters, or stories.
|
|
|
Post by mikelmidnight on Aug 21, 2017 17:17:07 GMT
I tend to dislike random heroes being brought in from hither and yon - it just doesn't appeal to my personal aesthetic.
But here's a potential way to involve Mallo - suppose Mallo in the name of his cosmic balance thingie swaps out some of Earth-1's heroes' powers - but does it from some other single universe which is at some tangent to the DCM?
For example ... the Lightning Comics universe, with the 'Split' Captain Marvel, Tin Man, Micro Man, Super Green Beret, and Captain Shazam? Outside of Cap though most of these guys have fairly average-ish powers, but there might be some sillier option out there?
|
|
|
Post by dans on Aug 22, 2017 0:11:49 GMT
It would be interesting to see how a single hero (say, Hal Jordan, who has some practice in using his power in different and non-standard ways) would resolve a particularly difficult situation with the powers of other heroes. Say, for example, that just before an encounter with Sonar, some cosmic being swaps out his powers with those of Ultra, the multi-alien, and after that, he gets attacked by Dr. Polaris, and the same joker swaps out his powers with those of Viking Prince, and then he fights Star Sapphire with the powers of Lead of the Metal Men, and then...
Edit: on reflection, this concept is really pretty much the same as Dial H. A single person who has to adapt to a changing series of power sets, supplied by a more powerful, secretive entity. So my concept earlier in this post has been done before...
|
|
|
Post by mikelmidnight on Aug 22, 2017 16:43:07 GMT
Maybe ALL of DC's heroes ought to get the powers of Ultra the Multi-Alien!
|
|
|
Post by DocQuantum on Aug 25, 2017 15:55:48 GMT
Libra and his transmogrifier (sp?) could also be behind the powers transfer.
|
|