Tales of the Superverse is a Massive Multiplayer Crossover written by L.J. Anton AKA Troper Lukaswordsmith featuring a slew of characters from a wide assortment of superhero comics, be it from Marvel, DC, Image, Valiant, Dark Horse, IDW and who knows what else. It doesn't matter how obscure they are; if a character is dressed up in a gaudy uniform and beats up baddies, chances are it belongs in this series.
It's set up as a collection of one-shot stories set in a larger shared universe. It's up to four chapters as of June of 2023, with more promised along the way.
The work can be found here.
Starting April 6th 2023, Lukas has started making supplementary material on Deviantart based around other events from the Superverse. So far he has done origin stories for Superman and Spider-Man. They can be found here.
Tropes
- 20 Minutes into the Future: Chapter 2 takes place in the year 2024.
- Always a Bigger Fish: Omni-Man can beat Homelander like a ragdoll, but even he is completely dwarfed by The Plutonian.
- Batman Gambit: Samaritan made use of this when he's negotiating with Jason Wynn in Chapter 4.
- Beam-O-War: Between Living Laser and The Infidel in Chapter 4.
- Canon Welding: As the series is set within a shared universe, plenty of characters know each other. Supreme and Ultiman knew each other during World War II, Martian Manhunter working as a liaison for both the Justice League and the Authority (combining both the Wildstorm and New 52 versions of the teams as a result), and the Ninja Programme and Action Man Programme working as rival agencies under MI 6 are just a few examples.
- An even more meta example where it seems that the 1991 and 2012 versions of the Valiant canon have been combined to share a single setting, as shown with an abridged summary of Unity's exploits as well as Doctor Solar having history with them.
- Cape Snag: Used when Invincible is fighting Titan.“Hey, Titan!” Invincible shouted as he chased down his enemy, “Rule of thumb; no capes! How else did I manage to stay alive so long?”
- Credits Gag: Done in Story 2 as a cheeky nod to the style codified by Stan Lee, with a dramatic opening blurb and tongue-in-cheek nicknames for the talent.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Omni-Man effortlessly thrashes Homelander in Story 1.
Funnily enough, that lil ish predated the whole "Everyone Beats Homelander" meme by a whole year! Talk about foresight!
L.J. "Prophet" Anton
- The Dark Age of Comic Books: Has been alluded in Story 1 and is the setting for Story 2. The events of Kingdom Come are canon to the Superverse, and as such provided the floodgates to open for people like Youngblood.
- Deadly Game: The whole point behind Chapter 1, orchestrated by Mr. Mxyzptlk and the Impossible Man to determine which Superman copy (or in the in-universe case, Übermenschen) would reign supreme.
- The Dreaded: Understandably, just about everyone is afraid of The Plutonian.
- Evil Versus Evil: The Plutonian comes into conflict with The Void.
- Expy Coexistence: Chapter 1 in a nutshell.
- Gone Horribly Wrong: Because Impossible Man and Mr. Mxyzptlk engineered the Superman expies in Story 1 to be at the height of their power, that means they had Plutonian from Mark Waid's Irredeemable at the same time he received his Deadly Upgrade from the Eleos, meaning he was on a higher level than even the Void himself.
- Just in Time: Just when things seem hopeless as The Fury is about to eliminate Livewire, Solar comes in to save the day and de-atomize the opposition himself.
- Last Ditch Move: With a powered-up Plutonian having taken care of Superman and Sentry, he tries to continue his onslaught by trying to kill Impy and Mxy. Before he could escape from the pocket Earth they created, the two of them simply erase the pocket Earth and return all the heroes alive and dead to the points they were plucked out of.
- Let's You and Him Fight: Superman and various other heroes just like him are pitted into a Pocket Dimension and are forced by Mr. Mxyzptlk and Impossible Man to fight it out to see who is the ultimate Ubermensch in the first story. It doesn't end well.
- Subverted as the Aesop at the end when Mxy stops the whole game, realizing how stupid superheroes fighting each other can be.
- Magic Versus Science: Used twice. The first time in Chapter 2 between Mister Fantastic and Youngblood's Troll. The other in a more action-packed way in the beam struggle between Infidel and Living Laser (see above.)
- Magical Accessory: Infidel's Aegis Charm, named after Athena's shield. It created a barrier that stopped Roku's sniper bullet dead.
- Mean Boss: Used deliberately with Jason Wynn who took over as leader of the Suicide Squad in place of Amanda Waller. He took every opportunity to point out how the team were always under his thumb and were one button press away from a bloody end.
- Minion with an F in Evil: Living Laser is like this halfway through Chapter 4. Even though he's a villain, he believes his time in the Suicide Squad could allow him to do at least something heroic.
- Mrs. Robinson: Emma Frost took a liking to Ian Noble in Chapter 3 while they went undercover in Soho.
- Ominous Message from the Future: Subverted when Blok gives the message of Darkseid making his way to Earth, even though that won't be until a year from when Blok arrived to the present. Double subverted when the New York invasion from a "Great Darkness" was actually Darkthornn, who was just greatly inspired by Darkseid.
- Reed Richards Is Useless: Alluded to by Quantum in the opening scene of Chapter 2.
- Shout-Out: More often than not, references are sprinkled in the chapters to give the Superverse a wider scope. There's even footnotes at the end of scenes to provide even more information to references that likely went over the heads of readers.
- Sliding Scaleof Idealism Vs Cynicism: The central theme of Chapter 2 with the Fantastic Four and Youngblood working together reluctantly.
- So Much for Stealth: Unity and Action Man are part of this trope when their cover's blown and The Fury is revived by Livewire.
- Superman Substitute: Weaponized in Chapter 1. Over 20 characters are used from all across comics be they popular or obscure. Name one Superman copy and it's very likely they showed up.
- Who's on First?: Harley Quinn tries telling this joke to Overtkill in Chapter 4, to which he misses the point entirely.Overtkill: Their parents must hate them very much.
- Wrong Line of Work: Hammered home with Jason Wynn when he's part of the Suicide Squad. In Spawn, he regularly deals with political intrigue on top of working with crooks. So when he got the job, he could only do minor jobs like stopping revolutions in Central America successfully. And then he decides to meddle in the affairs of upper-echelon superheroics, which goes as well as you'd expect.
