Comic Universe Rebooting Brainstorming Thread

Overall themes: Now, in my mind, one of the big problems the JLA faces is that, when Superman is invincible AND a genius, and when Batman can do ANYTHING, and when Wonder Woman and Martian Manhunter can do ANYTHING, and when Green Latern can make ANYTHING, and Flash can be ANYWHERE, why is there any crime? HOW is there any crime, when you have seven people who are invincible working together? So, with that in mind, the easy answer is just to nerf them. But I don't like that, for...I dunno what reason. I think it's better to give the League reasons to depend on one another by having each of them lack in certain areas where the others are better, which is what makes them infinitely more powerful when they're united, not just their raw strength. Also, I feel like certain members of the team should be fluid, coming and going when they're available, based on their responsibilities or personalities. So, with all that in mind, let's get to work.

Superman: To me, and maybe just because I'm a huge Superman fanboy, nothing needs to really be done with Superman at his core. Last son of Krypton, sent to Earth to give hope to a young race, raised on a farm by two lovely people, learned the difference between right and wrong. Kyryptonite, red suns, magic. Good, great. Maybe tone down his speed to sub-light. So a lot of this is fine-tuning. Rather than representing a culture or a nation, I feel like Superman should represent people, and an ideology. The wide-eyed, almost childlike belief in the inherent goodness of people, and that everyone deserves a chance to be a better person. This would be further accentuated by his youth, as I'd put Superman somewhere in his early twenties. Now, this idealism would also be one of Superman's weaknesses: it's very easy to deceive him because he's naive. He doesn't imagine why anyone would want to lie to him, because in his mind, he just wants to help. It also makes it difficult for Superman to deal with situations where a solution isn't always as cut-and-dry as "punch the bad guy, save the day", because in Superman's mind, there is always a better solution. A benefit of this idealism is that The Justice League is Superman's own creation, staying late at the Daily Planet to research rumors about other superpowered people. Because it's an idea an idealist would have. "We all have gifts and qualities that make us special. And we use those gifts to help people. Imagine how much more good we could do if we all work together." And he would get this idea because he'd start superheroing when he was in his very early teens. Yes, Superboy is canon, because why wouldn't Clark want to use his powers to help people as soon as he could? Now, there'd be some successes, but there would also be an incident where Superboy would overestimate his powers and things would go catastrophically wrong. That's what keeps Superman humble, and that's why he believes the world needs the Justice League: because no one can do everything on their own.

Wonder Woman: Now, here's where I mess with things a little bit. As we all know, Diana's mother, Hippolyta, was at some point retconned into being the Wonder Woman who was in the JSA. I say let's stick with that. In this universe, there was a time where Hippolyta was thinking about opening Themyscria to the rest of the world, and made her first move towards this by joining with the Allies during World War 2. So, what caused Hippolyta to lose faith in Man's World? Well, let's bring back Steve Trevor as her lover/liaison to the American government. At some point, Trevor is killed in the line of duty. Hippolyta, being of an Ancient Greek mindset, expects him to be honored appropriately for his sacrifices. However, due to the highly secret nature of Steve's job, the US government instead acts like Trevor never existed. Which, to a certain degree is reasonable, but it horrifies Hippolyta, looking to her like a callous disregard for honor and human life. Between that and the horrors she saw in the War, she returns to Themyscria and rules the Amazons in seclusion, shut off from the rest of the World. As Hippolyta begins to grow older (slowly, given her Amazonian physiology, but undeniably older), she decides that she wants a daughter, both out of a maternal desire for one, and someone who can defend Themyscria when her time is through. So Diana is crafted from clay, and blessed with powers by each of the Gods. Most of the usual, though she's not QUITE as strong or as tough as Superman (It's like 1A and 1B), and she can fly. Because why would they know what jets are? Also, I'd keep the bit about how being restrained drains her strength (I dunno if that was ever taken out), as I do think it's a slightly subtle feminist message. And, Diana doesn't have many weaknesses, other than brute force. So Diana is trained in the arts of combat and diplomacy by her sisters, but she wants to experience more out of life, to go out and see the world. Because the idea of a superheroine who's also a Disney princess amuses me. So, since she can fly, Diana starts going out at night and performing acts of heroism, fighting pirates and breaking up sex trafficking rings and stuff like that. But she's still very unwise to the ways of Man's world, so she's naive in her own way, though not like Clark. She's actually the first person Clark gets into contact with, literally flying to Themyscria to find her, (which just goes over so well with mom), hoping that she's like him. She's not, but she supports Clark's ideas and shares his passion for justice. As the spirit of Truth, Diana also shares much of Clark's ideals, but she isn't as idealistic. Even though she's been on Themyscria all her life, Diana's still been tempered by the wisdom of the Gods. Also, there'd be a little romance between the two of them. Nothing long-term, and nothing that would keep them from being friends. They just...try it, and it doesn't work out. More often than not in comics, people either break up violently, or are fated to be together forever. But that's not real. So...I dunno, little nuance that I like. Diana is both the warrior and the diplomat. She is the tactician in battle and the mediator in negotiations because, like Clark, she believes that violence and pain is not the best, most immediate solution to every problem.

The Flash: Wally West loves being The Flash. Not just because the people of Keystone loving him (feeding his ego [Wally's a bit like Booster in that way]) and the kicking butt and the super speed aren't awesome, but because he worships Jay Garrick, the original Flash (Yes, I know, no Barry. Oh well), who also happens to be his grandfather. Jay's slowed down quite a bit since his youth (he went from the Speed of Sound to about 200 mph), but Wally still holds him in reverence. It's why Wally became a forensic scientist, to try and help people like his Grandfather. Now, you know the story. Forensic experiment, struck by lighting, chemical explosion. Now, here's where it gets interesting. Even though The Flash has limitless speed, he never really leaves Keystone city. Seems normal comic book stuff, but there's a reason. Wally is TERRIFIED of failure. He's succeeded at everything he's ever done in life. He was a scout, AND he got straight A's, AND he was a sports star, AND he got the High School Sweetheart, AND he has a Ph D. Success comes easy to Wally West. But now that he's got superpowers, his actions can have major consequences in the lives of other people. And he's terrified of something going wrong and someone getting hurt or dying because he wasn't fast enough, or because he was too fast. So he stays in Keystone City. Because even though he never pushes himself, as long as he stays in Keystone, there is no chance of failure, and no crime he cannot stop. When Clark offers Wally the chance to join him and Diana in the Justice League, Waly turns it down, because Keystone City is safe. Jay slaps the crap out of Wally for this, and gives him a lecture about how even though Jay didn't have a tenth of Wally's speed, he still helped people all over the world. It wasn't about being afraid to fail, it was about doing everything he could to succeed. Wally's major journey as a member of the Justice League would be about growing up (Metaphorically. Outside of Batman, J'onn, and John, he's the oldest on the team), realizing his potential, and become the hero he was meant to be.

Doctor Light: Kimiyo Hoshi would fill a rare role on a superhero team: the jerk. A brilliant, arrogant scientist, by pure chance, she had the same mutation that gave Arthur Light his powers, and also chose the same name and costume. Living on opposite sides of the world, the two Doctor Lights never knew of each other. While Kimiyo used her powers as a hero, she looked at it more like a job, never doing too much, and never smiling. She sees herself a scientist first, not a clown. Somewhat naively, Clark believed that working with the Justice League would help make her a nicer person, and that her talents would be invaluable to the group. Only hearing the second part of that, Kimiyo accepted Clark's offer, wanting to show the world her power. Kimiyo's arc would be learning that there is more to being a hero than raw power.

Martian Manhunter: J'onn would be the most drastically changed, I think. First things first, we need to shave down his powerset. By all accounts, J'onn should be invincible. All of Superman's powers, but with intangibility, invisibility, telepathy, and shapeshifting. Let's skim the strength down by a lot (Maybe not COMPLETELY), and focus more on his shapeshifting, intangibility, and telepathy, powers that are more or less unique to J'onn, and you can do a lot more with them than brute strength. Now, since they're so similar (last sons of dying worlds and all that), J'onn should exist as a bit of a cautionary tale to Clark, about the dangers of detaching himself from his humanity and by letting his failures consume him. While everyone on Mars had telepathic abilities and were slightly stronger than humans, J'onn was special even among them, with his shapeshifting and increased strength and so on. J'onn was a superhero on Mars, because superheroes seem to be a mostly Terran concept in the DCU. J'onn even went off-world during his hero days, to give the JLA some scope of the greater cosmos. However, even J'onn couldn't save his people from the White Martians, even with all his powers. Forced to wipe out his entire race to also destroy the White Martians, J'onn sat alone with his shame, the only man on Mars. For four hundred years. Purely by chance, J'onn was transported to Earth by an American scientist testing his teleporter. The man had a heart attack, and J'onn was stranded on a strange world, where he was forced to adapt to survive. Once he grew accustomed to his new world, he started being a hero again, even as a member of the Justice Society under the alias of The Atom Smasher. Eventually, the JSA was dissolved by the government, and J'onn went low for a few years before resurfacing as simply The Manhunter. Clark eventually found J'onn, and J'onn took his offer, thinking that being among such unique individuals might fill the emptiness in his life. J'onn would be the veteran, with literal decades, if not centuries, of experience to bring to the relatively youthful team. As far as weaknesses, connecting to his telepathy, they should be more psychological than physical. Normal fire doesn't damage J'onn, but the doomsday weapon he'd been forced to use to wipe out the White Martians was a fire, and that connects to his shame over his failure, which causes him to lose the ability to hold his shape. Similarly, trying to gaze into the mind of a psychopath causes J'onn intense physical pain.

blue: fluid members.

Green Lantern: John Stewart is the Green Lantern in this universe, after Alan Scott (whose lantern and ring were made from a meteorite of experimental, lost lantern metal, which would have made its user immune to the energies of fear). John wouldn't be too much different from his DCAU counterpart. A bit more of a hardass, what with his being a space cop and all. John wouldn't be a constant member of the team due to his Lantern responsibilities, which take him all over the sector (seriously, why are the Guardians not more mad that so many Lanterns spend all their time on one planet?), so he brings a greater amount of a cosmic presence and understanding than J'onn, who'd been stuck on one planet for nearly half a millennia. But when he's there, John is an invaluable member of the team due to his powers. As far as the weakness of the lantern: The color yellow itself is dumb. A slightly less dumb idea: fear is the death of will, and for whatever reason, fear manifests itself as yellow energy. But a Lantern with sufficient will can defend himself against the fear. As far as joining the team, Lantern just comes to Earth on a job, sent to intervene against Starro (who I like as the force that brings the JLA together more than Darkseid, since he's someone you build up to, and Starro is a bit more unique), and he happens to join the fight with Superman, J'onn, Wonder Woman, Flash, Dr. Light, and Batman.

Batman: Bruce Wayne, parents, you know the deal. But, rather than becoming a master of everything before becoming Batman, Bruce is constantly learning and studying new techniques and sciences, because it makes him more human and shows the vulnerability that he doesn't know everything, and can always do better. He has his Batmobile and his suit is loaded with gadgets to help him fight crime, but he spends a large amount of his money towards the betterment of Gotham City, understanding that he can't just punch all of Gotham's problems. Bruce is in his late 30s. He's closer to the JSA in style, a bit more of an old-world hero, and most of his enemies are old-world villains. Suit wearing, gun-or-knife wielding, lots of henchmen. But as the world changes, guys like Killer Croc, Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, and Clayface become his enemies, and Batman has to change with the times. In come Superman and Diana in the middle of one particularly nasty fight with Batman's upgraded Rogues Gallery. Together, the three of them clean house. Clark offers Batman a place on the team, but after a few months, it's just too much too soon for Batman to handle, and he leaves, though he says he is always willing to support. Even though he's not on the team, he still works regularly with Superman. He tries to teach Clark to not be so trusting of everyone, and Clark tries to teach Bruce to trust people more. That might lead to Bruce having a Bat Family, maybe it's too late. I don't know.

Tony Stark would be half-Latino, the result of his father having an affair with a Latina maid.

The Asgardians would be closer to their mythological versions, rather than the total bastardization of it that Lee/Kirby set up. Odin, rather than loving peace and honouring life, would be a violent asshole. Thor, likewise, would have absolutely no compunctions with killing, and would enjoy fighting.

I'd make Tony the result of an affair just because it really seems like the kind of thing a rich asshole like Howard Stark would do.

With the Asgardians, I'd simply be making them more like they're actually supposed to be. I'd do it with all the pantheons. None of this bullshit where the gods worshiped by fucking Vikings are all about peace, love and regard for human life. They wouldn't be the berserkers that people mistakenly believe the Vikings to have been, but they'd see nothing wrong with slaughtering enemies. Odin wouldn't deliver sermons on the fucking sanctity of life, because the Odin of myth didn't give a shit about the sanctity of life.

Green Lantern... Superman, J'onn, Wonder Woman, Flash, Aquaman, and Batman.