My Version of DCEU Phase 3
This is a continuation of my continuity from a previous blog entry that can be seen here: http://connorveenstra.blogspot.com/2016/10/my-version-of-dceu-phases-1-2.html
Girl of Tomorrow
Kara Zor-El has been watching Superman in hiding since the day they landed on Earth. She works as an editor at the Daily Planet where she can keep a close eye on him. She eventually comes out to him and they begin to hang out more consistently. Superman tries to persuade her to be a superhero, but she's scared to do it because she'd have to leave a whole life behind; she has a good job, has a good husband and they're looking to adopt a kid. Why would she throw that all away? She asks Clark if he ever thought of giving up on being Superman and just settling down with Louis Lane, having a family. Superman says he has but has made the choice to sacrifice his wants in the name of the safety of others. One day, Mxyzptlk, a sorcerer from another dimension, challenges Superman to defeat 5 super criminals from his world before they destory his city. Bane, Cyborg Superman, Blackrock and Klarion all come through a portal to do battle with Superman. Kara makes the spontaneous decision to put on old Kryptonian dress that her parents had packed for her and help keep the crowd safe by destroying threatening debris and keeping them at a safe distance. With Superman softened up the final challenger comes through the portal, a monster known as Doomsday. Superman defeats it but is horribly wounded in the process. Mxyzptlk leaves, his mischief making over, leaving Clark to die in Kara's arms. He begs her to take up his mantle, to protect Metropolis and everybody in it. Supergirl concedes and Clark dies. After the funeral, Supergirl flies high above the clouds and begins to listen. She hears a cry for help and flies off to save the day. We get an end credits scene where we see Mxyzptlk bow before Darkseid, telling him that the Superman has fallen.
Knightfall
Batman and Robin are heralded by a psychotic gangster called the Joker. The clown pushes Batman to his morale limit, forcing him to solve puzzles that would involve him killing people. However, Batman is able to get through these tests without killing anybody, though it is extremely difficult at times, and eventually tracks down the Joker, forcing Robin to stay in the Batcave. It ends with a brutal, bloody fist fight inside the ACE Chemicals factory, Batman is forced to break Joker's neck and they die together, Batman bleeding out from his wounds. Commissioner Gordon makes sure that the Batman's identity is never revealed to the public and comes up with a cover story for Batman. However, he leaves the disappearance of Batman unexplained, leaving the fear of Gotham's now dead protector over the heads of criminals.
Eyes of the Gorgon
Honestly, I've never read this one but it sounds like a really cool story and I'm told it's one of Greg Rucka's best books.
Green Arrow
A Green Arrow movie would be done by Edgar Wright. He can do whatever he wants.
The Scarlet Speedster
In one of his regular therapist meetings he's had since he was ten, the therapist asks him to once again recount the night his mother died, thinking it'll give his some catharsis. We get a flashback to when Barry was nine and his house was broken into by a strange flash of red and yellow. The flash of red carried him to safety. The flash of yellow killed his mother. The next day, he's fighting crime and doing his superhero duties when he's attacked by the same yellow flash. He chases him across the city, but eventually looses him. The yellow blur comes right back around, though, and proceeds to beat the Flash half to death in the middle of the street. Bart turns up, kind of beats the crap of the yellow blur and it runs off. This is when Bart reveals the real reason he came back in time: in an alternate timeline Eobard Thawne, aka Reverse Flash, actually killed Barry and took over the world. That is what he's here to do now and Bart came came back to help Flash defeat him. They battle against RF but it eventually comes down to him and Barry. They fly through the city in an intense fight until RF sends them both into the speed force, both of them racing back through time. They arrive at Barry's childhood home and RF tries to kill a young Barry Allen. Barry manages to save his young self, but his mother is killed by RF. Flash talks to his mother as she dies and tells her he's doing fine. She dies and Flash chases after RF back to the present, where he's finally subdued. Wally locks him into specially design handcuffs that disable his powers and he's put in prison. Barry runs off into the city, having avenged his mother.
Martian Manhunter
J'onn J'onzz is a manhunter (cop) on Mars who lives with his loving wife and delightful niece M'gann as a surrogate daughter. His brother, Ma'alefa'ak, is a scientist born without the innate Martian ability to communicate telepathically. Not only is he relentlessly mocked by his coworkers, but he is shunned by society in general. J'onn tries to support his brother, but it's not enough. Ma'alefa'ak creates and disperses a toxin that responds to telepathic energy, causing every Martian who uses their powers to burst into flames. J'onn is tasked with finding who spread the disease as more and more Martians keep dying. He goes around the planet to black markets, mobsters and other scientists, finding clues and eventually piecing together that it was indeed his brother's doing. He goes to confront him and they have a fight, but it's too late; when he goes back home, he finds his family crumbled to ash and his mind snaps. We fade out like we're gonna end the movie only to fade back into a bumbling scientist trying to make contact with Mars. He zaps J'ohnn into his living room. He whispers, "M'gann" and we end the movie. In an end credits scene, we see J'ohnn waking up, seeming fine, and the doctor by his bedside asking him how he's doing.
Constantine: The Helmet of Fate
Constantine is a sorcerer who travels around the world collecting magical items to protect them from those who'd use them for evil. He decides to find the fabled Helmet of Fate, an ancient artifact said to house a powerful demon. He's in swift competition with a young thrill seeker and rival named Shazam, who plans to actually use the helmet after he finds it. We basically have an Indiana Jones adventure through Chinese jungle land, ancient ruins and populated cities. Constantine picks up a hot sorceress as his companion, we get a backstory about how his mother died in childbirth and the strained relationship with his father because of it and an end fight against Shazam who puts on the Helmet of Fate and is taken control of by the demon. Constantine and his lady friend defeat him and they go back to England. We get an after credits scene showing Constantine being tempted by the helmet as it whispers to him in some unknown language. We see him reach for it and cut to black.
Blackest Night
John is still mourning the loss of his friend Hal Jordan and is constantly distracted in the field because he's thinking about it too much. His status as a Green Lantern is temporarily revoked, his ring is taken away and he's put on hiatus. With their most powerful member gone the Green Lanterns are wide open for the Black Lanterns, who use one of the guardians as a puppet and spread their black rings, turning most of them into emotion craving zombies. They proceed to Earth where black rings begin to latch on to dead people, including dead superheroes, and bringing them back as zombies. John is given back his ring by the last surviving guardian and is told of a white monster of life who can be summoned if all the lanterns were to fight as one against the black lanterns. John goes across the galaxy getting the other lantern clans to help him fight the zombies one by one. They return to earth ready to fight, with surviving superheroes being given their own colored rings as well. There's a final showdown in space where the leaders of the factions combine to summon the white monster to defeat Necron, the physical embodiment of death who'd organized the entire hostile takeover. Meanwhile, the ground troops attempt to fight the black lanterns but without much effect; you can't really kill something that's already dead, after all. After an intense fight, Necron is defeated with a burst of white light, the black rings are destroyed and everybody who was dead, including superheroes, are brought back to life. John is reunited with Hal and there's much rejoicing. We get an after credits scene where Darkseid is told that all the heroes are once again alive. Obviously pissed about this, Darkseid tells his minion to contact their insider on Earth. They have some business to take care of.
Crisis on Two Earths
Darkseid wants Mxyzptlk to completely open the doors between his world and this one so that all the evil monsters from his world will kill all the superheroes, leaving Darkseid free to conquer Earth. However, Mxyzptlk's magic isn't strong enough for that; they need something much more powerful. Cut to Constantine, who's hanging out with his girlfriend. She slips something into his drink and he passes out. Then she puts the Helmet of Fate on him, awakening the demon to take over of Constantine's body. His girlfriend then introduces herself as Amazing Grace, one of Darkseid's servants. She persuades him to help Mxyzptlk open up the dimensional doors and they're successful. Unfortunately for them they opened the wrong door. Not only do several villains spill out but so do many heroes: Power Girl, the Huntress, Nightwing, Cyborg and even the Sandman are all brought in through the portal alongside villains like Magog, Owlman, Black Adam and the Enchantress. As Darkseid gathers the new villains under his command, the heroes do the same. Everybody meets the alternate versions of people they know; in some cases people meet alternate versions of themselves. Cyborg eventually discovers that a dimensional rift of this size has caused several unstable parts in the space/time continuum to form in the physical realm and they need to find the one that leads to Mxyzptlk's world and close it off before they can open it. While the rest of the heroes go on their adventure to find the specific rift, battling villains along the way, the sorcerer Zatara goes to find the helmet of fate to hopefully turn it to their advantage. He's told that he must forfeit his soul to the helmet if he wants control of it. He submits and replaces the demon as the spirit of Fate. With constantine still wearing the helmet, the tide turns in the favor of the heroes in a final battle which Darkseid almost wins singlehandedly until Doctor Fate unleashes an enormous energy attack. There's a bright flash of light and we cut to black. When we fade back in, we see a strange sight indeed: the heroes from the two universes talking like they'd known each other forever. Batman and Robin fight crime with Nightwing, Power Girl and Miss Martian having coffee with Supergirl, Cyborg hanging out with Martian Manhunter. It's like it's always been this way. We see Constantine talking to the Helmet about how nobody knows that they just smacked the two universes together and reset the whole thing. They both decide that it's probably better if they didn't know; it's not like it'd matter to them anyway. Our movie ends on an optimistic note... Until the end credits scene where we see Darkseid gathering up the super villains, old and new and declaring, "We have work to do."
That was phase 3. What did you think?
Girl of Tomorrow
Kara Zor-El has been watching Superman in hiding since the day they landed on Earth. She works as an editor at the Daily Planet where she can keep a close eye on him. She eventually comes out to him and they begin to hang out more consistently. Superman tries to persuade her to be a superhero, but she's scared to do it because she'd have to leave a whole life behind; she has a good job, has a good husband and they're looking to adopt a kid. Why would she throw that all away? She asks Clark if he ever thought of giving up on being Superman and just settling down with Louis Lane, having a family. Superman says he has but has made the choice to sacrifice his wants in the name of the safety of others. One day, Mxyzptlk, a sorcerer from another dimension, challenges Superman to defeat 5 super criminals from his world before they destory his city. Bane, Cyborg Superman, Blackrock and Klarion all come through a portal to do battle with Superman. Kara makes the spontaneous decision to put on old Kryptonian dress that her parents had packed for her and help keep the crowd safe by destroying threatening debris and keeping them at a safe distance. With Superman softened up the final challenger comes through the portal, a monster known as Doomsday. Superman defeats it but is horribly wounded in the process. Mxyzptlk leaves, his mischief making over, leaving Clark to die in Kara's arms. He begs her to take up his mantle, to protect Metropolis and everybody in it. Supergirl concedes and Clark dies. After the funeral, Supergirl flies high above the clouds and begins to listen. She hears a cry for help and flies off to save the day. We get an end credits scene where we see Mxyzptlk bow before Darkseid, telling him that the Superman has fallen.
Knightfall
Batman and Robin are heralded by a psychotic gangster called the Joker. The clown pushes Batman to his morale limit, forcing him to solve puzzles that would involve him killing people. However, Batman is able to get through these tests without killing anybody, though it is extremely difficult at times, and eventually tracks down the Joker, forcing Robin to stay in the Batcave. It ends with a brutal, bloody fist fight inside the ACE Chemicals factory, Batman is forced to break Joker's neck and they die together, Batman bleeding out from his wounds. Commissioner Gordon makes sure that the Batman's identity is never revealed to the public and comes up with a cover story for Batman. However, he leaves the disappearance of Batman unexplained, leaving the fear of Gotham's now dead protector over the heads of criminals.
Eyes of the Gorgon
Honestly, I've never read this one but it sounds like a really cool story and I'm told it's one of Greg Rucka's best books.
Green Arrow
A Green Arrow movie would be done by Edgar Wright. He can do whatever he wants.
The Scarlet Speedster
In one of his regular therapist meetings he's had since he was ten, the therapist asks him to once again recount the night his mother died, thinking it'll give his some catharsis. We get a flashback to when Barry was nine and his house was broken into by a strange flash of red and yellow. The flash of red carried him to safety. The flash of yellow killed his mother. The next day, he's fighting crime and doing his superhero duties when he's attacked by the same yellow flash. He chases him across the city, but eventually looses him. The yellow blur comes right back around, though, and proceeds to beat the Flash half to death in the middle of the street. Bart turns up, kind of beats the crap of the yellow blur and it runs off. This is when Bart reveals the real reason he came back in time: in an alternate timeline Eobard Thawne, aka Reverse Flash, actually killed Barry and took over the world. That is what he's here to do now and Bart came came back to help Flash defeat him. They battle against RF but it eventually comes down to him and Barry. They fly through the city in an intense fight until RF sends them both into the speed force, both of them racing back through time. They arrive at Barry's childhood home and RF tries to kill a young Barry Allen. Barry manages to save his young self, but his mother is killed by RF. Flash talks to his mother as she dies and tells her he's doing fine. She dies and Flash chases after RF back to the present, where he's finally subdued. Wally locks him into specially design handcuffs that disable his powers and he's put in prison. Barry runs off into the city, having avenged his mother.
Martian Manhunter
J'onn J'onzz is a manhunter (cop) on Mars who lives with his loving wife and delightful niece M'gann as a surrogate daughter. His brother, Ma'alefa'ak, is a scientist born without the innate Martian ability to communicate telepathically. Not only is he relentlessly mocked by his coworkers, but he is shunned by society in general. J'onn tries to support his brother, but it's not enough. Ma'alefa'ak creates and disperses a toxin that responds to telepathic energy, causing every Martian who uses their powers to burst into flames. J'onn is tasked with finding who spread the disease as more and more Martians keep dying. He goes around the planet to black markets, mobsters and other scientists, finding clues and eventually piecing together that it was indeed his brother's doing. He goes to confront him and they have a fight, but it's too late; when he goes back home, he finds his family crumbled to ash and his mind snaps. We fade out like we're gonna end the movie only to fade back into a bumbling scientist trying to make contact with Mars. He zaps J'ohnn into his living room. He whispers, "M'gann" and we end the movie. In an end credits scene, we see J'ohnn waking up, seeming fine, and the doctor by his bedside asking him how he's doing.
Constantine: The Helmet of Fate
Constantine is a sorcerer who travels around the world collecting magical items to protect them from those who'd use them for evil. He decides to find the fabled Helmet of Fate, an ancient artifact said to house a powerful demon. He's in swift competition with a young thrill seeker and rival named Shazam, who plans to actually use the helmet after he finds it. We basically have an Indiana Jones adventure through Chinese jungle land, ancient ruins and populated cities. Constantine picks up a hot sorceress as his companion, we get a backstory about how his mother died in childbirth and the strained relationship with his father because of it and an end fight against Shazam who puts on the Helmet of Fate and is taken control of by the demon. Constantine and his lady friend defeat him and they go back to England. We get an after credits scene showing Constantine being tempted by the helmet as it whispers to him in some unknown language. We see him reach for it and cut to black.
Blackest Night
John is still mourning the loss of his friend Hal Jordan and is constantly distracted in the field because he's thinking about it too much. His status as a Green Lantern is temporarily revoked, his ring is taken away and he's put on hiatus. With their most powerful member gone the Green Lanterns are wide open for the Black Lanterns, who use one of the guardians as a puppet and spread their black rings, turning most of them into emotion craving zombies. They proceed to Earth where black rings begin to latch on to dead people, including dead superheroes, and bringing them back as zombies. John is given back his ring by the last surviving guardian and is told of a white monster of life who can be summoned if all the lanterns were to fight as one against the black lanterns. John goes across the galaxy getting the other lantern clans to help him fight the zombies one by one. They return to earth ready to fight, with surviving superheroes being given their own colored rings as well. There's a final showdown in space where the leaders of the factions combine to summon the white monster to defeat Necron, the physical embodiment of death who'd organized the entire hostile takeover. Meanwhile, the ground troops attempt to fight the black lanterns but without much effect; you can't really kill something that's already dead, after all. After an intense fight, Necron is defeated with a burst of white light, the black rings are destroyed and everybody who was dead, including superheroes, are brought back to life. John is reunited with Hal and there's much rejoicing. We get an after credits scene where Darkseid is told that all the heroes are once again alive. Obviously pissed about this, Darkseid tells his minion to contact their insider on Earth. They have some business to take care of.
Crisis on Two Earths
Darkseid wants Mxyzptlk to completely open the doors between his world and this one so that all the evil monsters from his world will kill all the superheroes, leaving Darkseid free to conquer Earth. However, Mxyzptlk's magic isn't strong enough for that; they need something much more powerful. Cut to Constantine, who's hanging out with his girlfriend. She slips something into his drink and he passes out. Then she puts the Helmet of Fate on him, awakening the demon to take over of Constantine's body. His girlfriend then introduces herself as Amazing Grace, one of Darkseid's servants. She persuades him to help Mxyzptlk open up the dimensional doors and they're successful. Unfortunately for them they opened the wrong door. Not only do several villains spill out but so do many heroes: Power Girl, the Huntress, Nightwing, Cyborg and even the Sandman are all brought in through the portal alongside villains like Magog, Owlman, Black Adam and the Enchantress. As Darkseid gathers the new villains under his command, the heroes do the same. Everybody meets the alternate versions of people they know; in some cases people meet alternate versions of themselves. Cyborg eventually discovers that a dimensional rift of this size has caused several unstable parts in the space/time continuum to form in the physical realm and they need to find the one that leads to Mxyzptlk's world and close it off before they can open it. While the rest of the heroes go on their adventure to find the specific rift, battling villains along the way, the sorcerer Zatara goes to find the helmet of fate to hopefully turn it to their advantage. He's told that he must forfeit his soul to the helmet if he wants control of it. He submits and replaces the demon as the spirit of Fate. With constantine still wearing the helmet, the tide turns in the favor of the heroes in a final battle which Darkseid almost wins singlehandedly until Doctor Fate unleashes an enormous energy attack. There's a bright flash of light and we cut to black. When we fade back in, we see a strange sight indeed: the heroes from the two universes talking like they'd known each other forever. Batman and Robin fight crime with Nightwing, Power Girl and Miss Martian having coffee with Supergirl, Cyborg hanging out with Martian Manhunter. It's like it's always been this way. We see Constantine talking to the Helmet about how nobody knows that they just smacked the two universes together and reset the whole thing. They both decide that it's probably better if they didn't know; it's not like it'd matter to them anyway. Our movie ends on an optimistic note... Until the end credits scene where we see Darkseid gathering up the super villains, old and new and declaring, "We have work to do."
That was phase 3. What did you think?
Cool list. I've come up with hypothetical movie slates like these in my free time as well- it's fun and interesting to imagine how DC could be crafting an engaging cinematic universe, especially give how horrible their real life one is. I like the fact that you have a plethora of heroes in this world- it's so disappointing to watch the X-men movies rely way too much on Wolverine.
ReplyDeleteReading this reminded me of one of my biggest problems with superhero fiction: the near inescapable lethargy of characters in long form superhero storytelling. When characters possess near-limitless power and ability, it becomes challenging to put them in a scenario that actually causes them to grow as a character. More often than not, superhero stories are simply solved by the protagonist learning to punch bigger things that they could at the start of the film. There's a very high risk of these movies turning into monotonous slugfests, which is the last thing you want in a vast, expansive continuity.
Some of your proposals would definitely be interesting on the big screen- a Superman movie from the perspective of Jimmy Olsen sounds intriguing, and a disease outbreak thriller on Mars is fantastic. However, a lot of your movies fall into the trap of a "Character X" vs "Character Y" battle being the barebones story, and I think that can get old really fast (Green Lantern vs. Parallax, Justice League vs Imperiex, Aquaman vs Cthulu, Batman vs Killer Croc, etc.). Obviously these are just short paragraph summaries, but I still think they're pretty limiting in terms of the potential themes.
Don't take this as an insult, by the way. This is still far superior to the garbage that Zack Snyder and his cronies have churned out. In fact, nearly all superhero media falls into that trap. One of the few outliers I can think of is the Justice League animated series from about ten years ago. Instead of just having heroes punching things and teaming up to punch even bigger things, they put them in bizarre scenarios and really got beneath the surface of the character dynamics. There's an episode where Wonder Woman gets turned into a Pig and Batman has to sing at a nightclub in order to save her; the Question and the Huntress go on a double date with Green Arrow and Black Canary, and one where Captain Marvel is manipulated into fighting his idol Superman.
Obviously the medium of animation allows for much greater risk taking than live action film, and that's fine. However, I'm still waiting for the cinematic superhero genre to evolve into something a little more interesting than a glorified video game.