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Oliver Queen
Jan 5th, 2013, 08:34:55 PM
Some elements of the DC universe are just plain ridiculous. Other elements just don't fit in with the things that we've come up with thus far.

Rather than leave them out though, something Mitch and I were chatting about put an idea in my head. He was talking about the idea of Alan Scott taking some of his golden age buddies and spoofing them / paying homage to them via the medium of television, comic books, and so forth. There's also another Justice Society member, Sylvester Pemberton, who owns a movie studio in the comics.

It might be cool to do something like that, and have a sort of shared pool of in-universe fiction to draw from.

A few possibilities that I've stumbled across -


Adam Strange and the Wingmen of Thanagar

The backstory for Hawkman is kinda messy. In the original version he's a reincarnated Egyptian prince, but in the sixties he was rewritten as Katar Hol (http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Katar_Hol_%28New_Earth%29): an alien police officer ("Wingman") from the planet Thanagar. Later, DC tried to rationalise the two versions together, and it turned into a migraine-inducing mess. Adam Strange (http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Adam_Strange_%28New_Earth%29) on the other hand is a kind of Flash Gordon / Rocketeer / John Carter of Mars mashup: he's whisked away from Earth to the planet Rann, flies around with a jetpack having adventures, marries a beautiful alien princess or something, and then goes home.

Maybe Carter Hall isn't an alien, but perhaps someone based a fictionalised character on Hawkman that is. The war between Rann and Thanagar was a relatively formidable event in the comics; for us, it could just be the plot of some cheesy scifi drama that everyone watched as a kid.


The Crimson Avenger

He's basically the Green Hornet, but red instead of green. He even has an Asian valet / sidekick. He was originally meant to be the inspiration for early costumed crimefighters: it's possible that he's the character from some sort of old school pulp fiction, and there have been more recent adaptations of him. Maybe we can spoof off things like the Green Hornet movie, The Spirit, the slightly naff superhero movies of the nineties, et al.


Johnny Quick and Liberty Belle

Johnny Quick (http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Jonathan_Chambers_%28New_Earth%29) is the other speedster who isn't the Flash. While he himself is a fairly run (heh) of the mill character, his wife is a little bit odd. Liberty Belle (http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Elizabeth_Lawrence_%28New_Earth%29) is a journalist who gains special powers every time someone rings the Liberty Bell. It's mostly just Captain America level stuff, but she also has some sort of sonic powers. It's possible that Johnny Quick is a direct parallel of the golden age Flash, while the blonde bombshell Liberty Belle might be a tribute to Black Canary, what with her sonic powers and all.


Miss America and the Freedom Fighters

Miss America (http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Joan_Dale_%28New_Earth%29) had a dream that the Statue of Liberty came to life and granted her superpowers. I think that alone is a dodgy enough premise to qualify her for television. The Freedom Fighters are a team of similarly patriotic characters: like Uncle Sam (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Sam_%28comics%29) (the avatar of American patriotism), Plastic Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_Man) (Mr Fantastic in hot pants), Black Condor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Condor) (Tarzan with wings), and Red Bee (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Bee_%28comics%29) (who uses trained bees as weapons).

Mostly though, Miss America is a Wonder Woman knock-off. Her outfit is equally patriotic; her husband is "Derek Trevor", and they were the adoptive parents of a character who was meant to be Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor's daughter. They're from a squiffy sort of continuity that doesn't quite fit with all of the changes that wound up happening.

Some kind of Miss America series that embodies all of the tropes of the real-world Wonder Woman series (and the numerous failed attempts at rebooting it in recent years) might be fun. Maybe mashed up with GI Joe: full of over the top patriotism and copious amounts of product placement?