Yeah, well, the episodes one big gag, with the Joker being a cuckold to Ivy/Harley's partnership only for the punchline to be no one cucks the joker. He shows up, burns Ivy's house down, after Harley throws herself at him and he steals their money.
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Yeah, well, the episodes one big gag, with the Joker being a cuckold to Ivy/Harley's partnership only for the punchline to be no one cucks the joker. He shows up, burns Ivy's house down, after Harley throws herself at him and he steals their money.
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That shit was hilarious, I miss Joker being genuinely funny, those faggot movie adaptations ruined him.
Him doing that is some proper old Rockstar games type-shit, I could see a GTA protagonist doing that, getting his wife back from her lesbian lover, destroying their stuff and robbing them to boot.
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I think the friendship between Harley and Ivy kinda worked, but the issue with trying to "redeem" Ivy is that they never address what a psychopathic killer she's been.
It'd be better if we have a big breakdown as Harley realizes that every rogue in gotham is a psychopathic manipulator as she just tries to get away from the cape and costume world. Maybe have her try to undo her skin bleach and try to rebuild a life quietly, with the aid of Batman and co. setting stuff up for her.
And then you get a fresh start and plenty of focus for conflict in a new series. Harley shacks up with someone she thinks is normal, only to find out they're the grandkid of a super-something. Or maybe she gets chased by Punchline or something.
I recall the Batman White Night or w/e miniseries that had harley marry bruce? It wasn't bad.
I kinda want a miniseries about the dissolution of Captain Atom and Plastique's marriage, done in a slightly comedic tone.
Joker's overused and too many writers keep trying to make him sound like the green goblin on schizo drugs.
I want Joker to go into his "clown" persona for an arc, then he swaps to the criminal or comedian for a while.
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I count myself as a fan of Captain Atom and I’d kill for Nathaniel to get some respect, to this day I still stand by his greatest feat being the “big dog” to all of Wildstorm and killing those libshits in the Authority. Seriously, in Captain Atom: Armageddon he kills the queers and their daughter, it’s incredibly based.
“My name is Captain Atom, as in a-bomb…. as in nuclear fission, as in…… the end of the world.”
I like Joker being funny, I hate the “grit” or “edge” takes, I like him being colourful and taking a silly, harmless concept (clown/circus) and being joyfully sinister about it.
Tim Curry Pennywise essentially, colourful, silly, genuinely funny…….. and pure evil.
Not really. Not in the way they want I think.
Gotham Sirens is probably the closest we got (The OG series) to it. With Ivy at least coloring within the lines. I mean, Harley Quinn (cartoon show) doesn't redeem anybody as far as I remember. Sirens does it right in that they're all cleaning up their acts, but none of them are good people, except Selina whose pretty grey/neutral.
we got that in the Convergence mini of hers, it was pretty good.
I never got the overuse thing. If a character is consistently good, it's never overused. The problem with the joker is...you go from shitty Joker story to shitty Joker story with mediocrity in between.
If you've got the story, write it, if not, let the character be.
ArthuriusMartyrius
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They did? From what I recall he's basically the same "waaah, waaah, Superman is to blame, waaah, waaah" type as in the comics except with an added Darkseid angle and hyper-violent as usual. Admittedly I haven't watched that movie in years and consider Superman: Doomsday to be a much better adaption of the Doomsday arc if only because it condensed all of the main points into a shorter runtime.
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Hank in the movie is hard-carried by his “real voice” once Big Howie starts voicing Hank then he becomes fun.
“You and your girlfriend will suffocate and it’s all your fault.”
I’ll be honest, I just liked seeing him finally be animated, him and Eradicator (who they styled after Cavill hilariously enough)
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Not only do I think this is an extremely good idea, since Harley Quinn is far too marketable a character to give such an ending of "happily ever after, away from the capes" as well, you can still use the series to ACTUALLY build her up into a heroine as she feels forced to get back into costume... but with a newfound determination to keep her new home, friends and neighbors, etc. safe. And eventually gain the sanction and trust of the Batfamily while not being part of them per se. Boom. Actual character development for Harley while allowing you to re-rail Ivy into being a supervillain as Harley is forced to confront that fact.
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Reign of the Supermen gave him that Osborn moment.... just with Hal Jordan.
Hanks chief problem is that he's Dan Jurgans pet villain and outside of Tomasi, no one else wants to do anything with him because of him being a guy who is synonymous with the JOSS era post-crisis Superman and the fact that the real juice he has is being a Hal Jordan villain. Even Geoff Johns only tacitly used him in GL because he was an elephant in the room with Tomasi being the guy who did the most with him as a character in the GLC book
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Captain Atom soloing all of Wildstorm aside from Void and maybe Majestic was pretty fun.
I think the issue is that DC, moreso than Marvel, has a LOT of characters who could be marquee names but DC just kinda takes the lazy-ish route. Focus on the Trinity, the original silver age JLA members, and then maybe add in someone like Swamp Thing/John Constantine or someone else that's connected with the trinity or the OG Silver-Bronze age JLA members. JSA? They're innately tied as the originals from the '40s. Titans? All the sidekicks and young heroes. Outsiders? A rebel JLA centered around Bats.
Captain Atom has a really good time to be introduced into a relevant role right now with Amanda Waller being built up as a more major force. Just have the Captain Atom project open up again. Doomsday Clock introduced an idea of the Superman Theory of government made metahumans being way more prevalent than one realizes. (Arguably as a way to explain a lot of seemingly random metas. )
Peacemaker's gotten in the spotlight, Blue Beetle's been notched up a little. It's time we get Captain Atom action.
Catwoman's often painted as a reformed one, or someone who changes from being an outright villain to becoming more of a rogue-hero type.
Everyone wants to use Joker but then they just have him be a chaotically insane maniac. I'm then like. . . why not just use Scarecrow or someone else? I get it, he sells and he's a big name. But half the time he wants to cause immense chaos in a population and I'm just like. . . fucking use Scarecrow instead.
The DC movie verse's Death of Superman movie actually hits a lot of the beats it needs to. It focuses on Superman's decision on opening up to Lois to humanize him and set an emotional focus. It highlights a classic JLA lineup getting their asses beaten. Not the JLA from the '90s comic that was almost all second-stringers. We're talking Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, J'onn, GL, Hawkman, Aquaman, Shazam, and because this is a n52 influenced thing, Cyborg. It shows each of the heroes going down swinging. Even Lex Luthor gets his time to fight Doomsday. Lois throws rocks at the beast to buy a few seconds. Superman dies. I wish they did some version of the attempts to revive him like they did in the comic, but that would probably have taken away from the pacing.
There's a big cheesy funeral. You see the Kents crying.
And they even did the heartwarming but cheesy scene where Bibbo prays a hail mary in a rainy day and asks God why Superman had to die but a bum like him goes on living. The fact that they saw that scene from the comics and decided to incorporate it was just an extra bit of love towards the comics. Bibbo isn't a major part of the mythos like Jimmy or the Kents, but he was present throughout the post-crisis Metropolis and I just grew to really enjoy him. They need to use him more often nowadays. The guy was just a goon that won the lottery, then decided to open a bar and try to live up to Superman's example in his own way.
Cyborg Superman has the potential to be memorable. I like him to an extent, but he really gets wasted a lot.
I don't think anyone's gonna seriously write that because it won't sell to tumblr retards.
Hell, give Ivy an apartment. Do the 2000s Nightwing thing where it's full of residents, including an elderly former golden age superhero. In Harley's case, we've got the perfect Golden Age hero. A guy DC owns called "The Jester". The perfect thematic character to inspire her to be a better person while having a touch of the silliness she may be prone to.
Cyborg Superman being a GL villain works. I think it'd be more interesting if he became a yellow lantern again and winds up sucking in all the fear of Coast City, then zips to metropolis and remakes the same war-engine over the place.
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Captain Atom, the Superman theory, the WW2 JSA and Waller all seem like they should go together.
A “missing link” hero to explain the absence of them from the JSA’s time to Superman’s emergence as the first public superhero.
Enter Captain Atom, the “Superman” of the Cold War, who instead of being thrown though time at the instance of his creation gets thrown through time after preventing a nuclear war, waking up in “present day” and falling in with Waller as his “Nick Fury” equivalent. Basically, instead of him being inspired by Superman, have him be a hero Clark would’ve read about in books, invert it. Do that “never meet your heroes” when Clark learns that Nathaniel Adams is a sad old soldier who outlived most of his family, has a daughter in her sixties and due to Waller’s manipulations, is incredibly lonely. Play him as a cautionary tale for Clark to avoid, don’t trust the government, don’t focus solely on “the job” and tell the ones you love that you do love them.
Then have Atom break off and join the JSA, a team his superiors back in the day ordered him to stay away from, Nathaniel is welcomed with open arms and finds some belonging.
Or have him go back to being “the third guy” to Booster and Blue Beetle.
A “missing link” hero to explain the absence of them from the JSA’s time to Superman’s emergence as the first public superhero.
Enter Captain Atom, the “Superman” of the Cold War, who instead of being thrown though time at the instance of his creation gets thrown through time after preventing a nuclear war, waking up in “present day” and falling in with Waller as his “Nick Fury” equivalent. Basically, instead of him being inspired by Superman, have him be a hero Clark would’ve read about in books, invert it. Do that “never meet your heroes” when Clark learns that Nathaniel Adams is a sad old soldier who outlived most of his family, has a daughter in her sixties and due to Waller’s manipulations, is incredibly lonely. Play him as a cautionary tale for Clark to avoid, don’t trust the government, don’t focus solely on “the job” and tell the ones you love that you do love them.
Then have Atom break off and join the JSA, a team his superiors back in the day ordered him to stay away from, Nathaniel is welcomed with open arms and finds some belonging.
Or have him go back to being “the third guy” to Booster and Blue Beetle.
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what's funny is that DC's established that there were superheroes active in between the end of the JSA and the "modern" age. The recent-ish JLA title had an '80s Starman Will Payton pop up and it seemed he was known.
They also established Waller getting her start in the end of the Cold War years with a recent miniseries. Don't recall the name.
Have us go through the whole Eiling and Captain Atom relationship. The key would be the idea of Eiling fucking over Atom in the present day until it almost breaks Atom while Eiling spirals into becoming The General. Waller winds up taking advantage of Atom in the same way she has done so to Peacemaker.
I'd like to imagine that, with quite a few golden age heroes (masked and non-masked) that had ties to the government, that the HUAC pressure released and that there were small bursts of colorful heroes here and there, but without anyone being able to be the "light" or "driving force" to truly make it a heroic age. Plus, have it be that the JSA & co were staunch about being in retirement. No Superman, no Batman, no Wonder Woman, no Flash, no Green Lantern.
Ideas off the top of my head.
- have this sorta "missing decades" series try to work and tie more stuff together in a similar way to Roy Thomas' autism with All-Star Squadron/Invaders. Fuck, this'd probably be a really good Kurt Busiek type project if they let him have unrestrained Astro City style autism with it.
- Captain Comet tries to be a new "space-age" hero, but leaves Earth due to not wanting to deal with being hated and feared due to arriving a few years after the JSA disbanded. He's a young guy and his powers are new and scary. Let's say that he's from the sticks in the midwest, so he doesn't really know much about superheroics. He tries to learn, but his powerset of psychic abilities radiate the public's fear and mistrust towards him and his spirit isn't strong enough to muscle past it.
- Uncle Sam tries to re-invent the Freedom Fighters as a patriotic hero group, only to realize that the government keeps trying to forcefully get him to accept morally questionable acts and he winds up disbanding over something like a '50s or '60s "Superman Theory" thing where he sees the government torture metahumans to make weapons. Maybe, because he's the actual spirit of America, we see his personality take a drastic shift into cold war paranoia at times.
- We see the original JSA members, Johnny Quick/Liberty Belle, and others who retired all try to enjoy retired life with slowed aging. Because Jesse' Quick's somewhat young by the modern age, maybe she was a "miracle baby" for Johnny and Libby. Hell, maybe make it so that the Ian Karkull shadow-effect fucked with the metabolisms of all the JSA members and whoever else was there so we can explain the sliding timescale and why Obsidian and Jade and etc. are like 20-25 in the present.
- Speaking of the JSA, I'd love a quick story bit on Wildcat's unknown son that was kidnapped and raised by a villain in the '60s or some shit, and then wound up dying. There's a lot of fun stuff with Ted Grant's lore additions in the 2000s.
- Have the understanding of robotics and artificial intelligence be fleshed out a tad with the original Robotman and Robotdog and GI Robot. It's a fine idea to fiddle with.
- In this hypothetical DCU Astro City style work, it'd also be a good way to expand on other things. The creation of the Global Guardians is something that was always a background bit in DCU to have more "international heroes" when they needed to. I posit the idea that Captain Atom was the first American representative on the team in the early '60s and was sent forward in time in the midst of a massive event that had a large amount of heroes, metahumans, and villains trying to ignite the Cold War. Many minor golden age characters take part in it and decide to hang up the capes after seeing Captain Atom prevent the Cold War from becoming hot, at his own sacrifice. This event makes Doctor Sivana's reputation as it seemingly kills the "new star of a generation". (I'm picking Sivana because he's seemingly been around forever, but this'd also elevate him beyond just being the primary Shazam villain). The Global Guardians stays on until right before the JLI arrive, but they've been sorta performative since Captain Atom's sacrifice.
- In this grad expansion of DC history, we'd actually have the opportunity to expand DC's history. Roy Thomas had some fun with Amazing Man being retconned as the first black superhero in-universe. Let's introduce a few more for the timeline. Doctor Mist's an obvious pick from the Global Guardians. I'd also buy DC trying to turn Vixen into
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Oo Wonder Woman and JLA Dark omnibus coming next month. Team roster sounds weirdly interesting. I'm not that familiar with Man Bat except him scaring the shit out of you in Arkham Knight. Don't really know Detective Chimp either...
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Detective Chimp's a fun golden age character that got fully revived during Infinite Crisis. (yeah yeah he had appearances before, but he's now a solid C-lister.) You can check out Shadowpact and the Days of Vengeance tie-ins to Infinite Crisis.
Man-Bat isn't someone I'm too familiar with, but I did read the last JL Dark series and it was kinda fun. It defined exactly where Wonder Woman stood in regards to the DC magic world as she's always been sorta "tangential" to it by way of ties to the gods.
I'd say it's worth a read. Chimp's a major character in the most recent JL Dark run. There's no gay shit or wahwah identity politics.
Edit:
Rereading the Tim Drake Robin book that started in the '90s.
I'm realizing just how much shit's getting lifted from this run and the events it got tangled with. I'm also surprised at the quality of the writing being consistently decent. Chuck Dixon and Fabien Nicieza do decent work.
But also, like, it feels like a lot of recent ideas regarding Batman plots were lifted from the '98-2010 era of Bat books and kicked up a few notches. Jokerized heroes/villains running rampant? Check. Batman's backup personality causing a lot of worry? Check, but now knock it up to a proper threat. Gotham got locked down and isolated during No Man's Land. I recall Gotham getting locked down in a way right before the recent-ish Scarecrow themed event from a year back. Etc.
Batman created AI designed to take out the JLA and etc. that gets co-opted by some other force? Brother I / Failsafe.
Screwing Tim Drake over? I'd argue that the amount of in-universe trauma Tim had to go through during War Games and Identity Crisis and Infinite Crisis is probably not as bad as turning him bisexual.
Honestly at this point, what the fuck, lmao.
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Also, that scene where Captain Atom on camera eats a nuke should be his introduction to the world, a nice bit of scare propaganda to the reds. Not something like Supes catching a woman in one arm, catching a helicopter in the other with a shit-eating grin, highlight the difference between the two.
Atom is the apex of his generation, his only limitation being that he was made from a soldier and not a scientist (I like to think he could get on Doctor Manhattan’s level if he had Osterman’s intellect) and despite his creation being an attempt to scare the reds, he worsens things and during the Global Guardian’s final mission he accidentally slew one of the Russian superheroes, causing the nuclear war, only stopped when he carried out his greatest feat and absorbed Earth’s entire stockpile of launched nuclear weapons, effectively cooling off the war permanently.
Atom is the apex of his generation, his only limitation being that he was made from a soldier and not a scientist (I like to think he could get on Doctor Manhattan’s level if he had Osterman’s intellect) and despite his creation being an attempt to scare the reds, he worsens things and during the Global Guardian’s final mission he accidentally slew one of the Russian superheroes, causing the nuclear war, only stopped when he carried out his greatest feat and absorbed Earth’s entire stockpile of launched nuclear weapons, effectively cooling off the war permanently.
Clyde Cash's Left Teste
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I think weaving them with the evolvution of tech that will bring about the Brain, Cyborg, Red Tornado among other could be really interesting
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Given DC's list of Russian Heroes, we have Rocket Red Brigade, the russian Firestorm counterpart Pozhar, the new Red Lantern, the Young All-Stars adjacent heroine who was named Fireball or sth, Red/Blue Trinity, Red Star, and The People's Heroes.
I'd say that the most interesting part of this is that the only ones that you couldn't retrofit into this time period would be the Rocket Red Brigade and Red Star due to the Rocket Reds being invented by Kilowog and Red Star being a Teen Titan. Rewrite the Trinity Speedsters as the soviets trying to recreate Flash/Johnny Quick, have Pozhar be their attempt at a Captain Atom, and whatnot.
The event goes well enough, with Fireball shaking hands with the Guardians and the semi-retired golden age heroes, trying to bring peace. In the background, it all gets upended by someone triggering fights between the more volatile members of the Soviet group and non-soviets. So, like Blue Trinity/People's Heroes fight and injure a bunch of the older heroes, leading to Fireball trying to stop things before she gets put into a coma. The Nukes are launched. Pozhar tries to absorb as many as he can before he falls and we see a younger Martin Stein witness this, inspiring him to work on the Firestorm project for the government (as alluded in Doomsday Clock). Atom believes that he's just like Pozhar and volunteers to absorb all the nuclear energy. The Ray and a few others capable of controlling the directions of the launched nukes help aim them at the man. Doctor Mist sighs as he says that, perhaps, the world isn't ready for a new age of heroes just yet.
Captain Atom and Pozhar are honored by their countries for saving the world. The Man of the atom and The Soviet Nuclear man prevent a great disaster, but both goverments realize that the real arms race is no longer nuclear. They need metahumans, magic, super-science, and all the crazy shit from the Golden Age. A comic book version of Operation Paperclip occurs on both sides. The Soviets and the Chinese try to kidnap as many surviving super-scientists, mages, and monsters from their sphere of influence while avoiding touching NATO/American areas. The US Government and the NATO countries try to recruit as many specialists and metahuman and etc. by preying on cold war fears as well as the idea that, if the good guys don't get with the program and help guide things, then they'll just let the bad guys do their agenda. This leads to the introduction of a young T.O. Morrow and others. Basically, 52s Oolong Island but for the Cold War and for each side.
In the meantime, we get bits of lore on other happenings. A man from the land by the name of Curry falls in love with a woman from Atlantis. A young man on America's West Coast sees his father sacrifice himself in a plane test gone awry. In the midwest, another young man sees his mother killed and his father sent to jail for it. In gotham, a robbery goes wrong in Crime Alley. In kansas, a kindly couple find a baby in a spaceship. On an island, a woman makes a child out of clay and asks the heavens to grant her life.
Doctor Erdel's teleportation works and summons a green man, the last of his kind. The Green Man melds into Earth, engaging in superheroics on the sly.
In the midst of these origin stories, The Phantom Stranger walks and tries to prevent various crisis events. However, during his off-time, he walks and sees these young people through their dark hours of their youth and tries to give them a few words of wisdom as a friendly stranger.
Somewhere else, the Justice Experience all die, except for J'onn. Making him more reluctant to engage in Superheroics until the modern age really kicks in.
What's funny is that those three have a prominent scientist character that works on them
Niles Caulder, Silas Stone, T.O. Morrow. You'd be able to work each of them into the stories very easily. Maybe make it so that Caulder starts off as a heroic idealist on a slippery slope. Stone is a man that gets too focused on research, but is otherwise sorta normal-ish, and Morrow just invents his damned time-viewer and keeps it a secret. The original Starman and Hourman are the most important super-scientists due to Starman working on the Manhattan Project and Hourman making the world's first known super-steroid.
You know what else could be fun would be the government trying to reverse engineer a few samples of Miraclo and the Blue Beetle drug from the '40s, but to little success. Which leads to the creation of venom and other similar drugs.
The whole project with The Ray and all that, which has been running since the '40s, yields a successful process in creating a person with that powerset, but it requires a special combo of rare ingredients. (This lets the government use the shitty evil Ray from the '00s Freedom Fighters comic as a government goon. Maybe call him something else)
The government gets some of these metahuman projects to work, but most of them aren't great. They get a Doll Man, an atomic Human Bomb, and whatnot. They want to make another Captain Atom, but can't find the special metal alloy required.
Somehow, somewhere, Dan Garret is still active as The Blue Beetle, having tricked the public into thinking he's the second one. As the modern age begins, he dies in the first year or two, before the JSA comes out of retirement.
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I’d have Captain Atom’s sacrifice be a ripple effect, due to the EMP an alien object is knocked off-course, rather than landing outside New York, it crashes in Kansas. Thomas Wayne, inspired by an American and a Soviet dying to save the world starts investing in clean energy and the (clean) blast is even seen by the Amazons, validating their belief in man’s fallibility.
The original Blue Beetle (the Batman to Atom’s Superman) gives a speech at Nathaniel’s funeral, lamenting that for peace to come about, the Heroic Age had to die and that, only together can they “build a planet of wonders, a future of ideas, a future metropolis where they can all live in.”
The tech heroes come about because Captain Atom was one in a trillion and the powers that be come to believe technology is the best runner-up.
I’d also have these Cold War heroes be responsible for certain things, Deathstroke being one of the sibling projects to Atom, the place where these heroes shake hands and stand side by side after the near apocalypse is a little-known port city that, afterwards is renamed after Blue Beetle’s speech and due to various technological companies sponsored by the government’s newfound interest in tech, it rapidly become the fastest-growing city in America, Metropolis.
I’d actually have Wade Eiling’s role in Nathaniel’s story be filled by Waller after his time-jump, after the sacrifice, Wade actually comes to regret his actions and uses his own assets and fortune to keep Nathaniel’s family safe (he doesn’t cuck him) and he died a changed man in the years after. Waller becomes his primary manipulator in the present and her BS causes him to entertain a dark phase where he throws in with the Authority, sick of being a puppet and pissed off with constantly having his life toyed with, their methods start to appeal to the Captain.
The original Blue Beetle (the Batman to Atom’s Superman) gives a speech at Nathaniel’s funeral, lamenting that for peace to come about, the Heroic Age had to die and that, only together can they “build a planet of wonders, a future of ideas, a future metropolis where they can all live in.”
The tech heroes come about because Captain Atom was one in a trillion and the powers that be come to believe technology is the best runner-up.
I’d also have these Cold War heroes be responsible for certain things, Deathstroke being one of the sibling projects to Atom, the place where these heroes shake hands and stand side by side after the near apocalypse is a little-known port city that, afterwards is renamed after Blue Beetle’s speech and due to various technological companies sponsored by the government’s newfound interest in tech, it rapidly become the fastest-growing city in America, Metropolis.
I’d actually have Wade Eiling’s role in Nathaniel’s story be filled by Waller after his time-jump, after the sacrifice, Wade actually comes to regret his actions and uses his own assets and fortune to keep Nathaniel’s family safe (he doesn’t cuck him) and he died a changed man in the years after. Waller becomes his primary manipulator in the present and her BS causes him to entertain a dark phase where he throws in with the Authority, sick of being a puppet and pissed off with constantly having his life toyed with, their methods start to appeal to the Captain.
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I think it'd be especially interesting if we have a gap of time in between the Cold War and the modern age where Superheroes sort of fade away.
Slade Wilson's a fun one.
Eiling and Waller are still around, but Waller starts as Atom's handler. The Authority pops up, but tries to keep things strictly under wraps because they're very aware that they want to stay the fuck away from The Spectre.
I'd all lead this up to a modern re-working of the Armageddon event with a tint of Injustice and have his daughter get killed in an Authority/Suicide Squad mission gone wrong. Captain Atom finally succumbs to evil. Sivana or someone else gives him an IQ booster. He becomes a sorta proto-Doctor Manhattan as he tries to figure out how to warp reality and makes the Monarch suit. He's only stopped by the use of a dreamstone or something similar.
Waller takes notes. Someone tries to suggest that, next time, they try honey and not vinegar with their atomic supermen.