Marvel-DC Merged Universe Community Project...

I'm down with all of that except for the founding of the JSA, because they should already have been founded back in 1940 or so. Maybe they could form some sort of anti-alien invader group or something?

I prefer limiting things to DC and Marvel. Otherwise, where do you stop? Besides, in-between those we cover almost all options. Want to use Hellboy, but can't? Use DC's The Demon instead.

I say if we do plan on bringing something that isn't DC or Marvel we atleast stick to it being a Superhero story. Hellboy in my mind is fine, maybe some others like perhaps Spawn.

How does Mephisto interact with Lucifer? The Presence with the Beyonder? And what about Spawn's pantheon?

Sooo, Image Comics? That's going to make things real complicated. On one hand, a bunch of characters from Wildstorm Line of Image Comics exists in the DC Universe and that would mean we get characters like Savage Dragon, Witchblade, Spawn and Invincible integrated in the mythos. On the other hand, that would mean a lot of work needs to be down including another big universe into a Merged Universe that involves two mega huge universes and that would mean we have to integrate all the crap line-ups like Youngblood.

. . . . . Or, maybe we should just use only the Image Characters who will interact well with this universe.

edited 21st Jun '16 4:08:48 PM by BigK1337

Isn't that what we're doing with the merge in general? Only using characters that work within a merged setting?

There are a whole bunch of Hell Lords that can each pass for Satan. No reason we can't have a few devils.

Are we doing Image now? That's going to make the unified cosmology even nuttier. I assume we all agree we can do without Youngblood, right?

And this will make Angela interesting.

Sijo: I came up with that because the idea of having Phantom and Mandrake had been floated earlier in the thread. And, as others have mentioned, both Marvel and DC have published comics about King characters.

Zadkiel: Nobody said we had to use every single thing. For example, I don't think anything from the New 52 has gotten in.

edited 21st Jun '16 4:32:57 PM by VampireBuddha

Regarding Christianity, it is canon in Marvel that there have been many Demon Lords who have claimed to be Satan, but none of them, not even Son of Satan's father, turned out to be the real thing. Mephisto and his "brothers" (such as Satannish) all formed from the energies left behind after the Elder Gods (think Cthulhu) were devoured by the God-Eater. Similarly, I suspect there's an Impostor "God" who is responsible for Lucifer and the other "Angels" who, let's face it, are small fry when compared to the Cosmic Entities of the universe. The true Creator (aka as The Presence/The One Above All) is way above him.

Also, he's currently dead.

Who, Lucifer? God? I never saw the ending of Lucifer. Not that it matters, because it was all non-canon, as was most Vertigo stuff. Sharing some characters with the main DCU doesn't change this fact. Most comics just ignored them.

God is currently dead... ish. Or something. In the Lucifer continuity. The plot right now is not just a Whodunit, but a Howdunit too, since apparently Lucifer got injured in a related process.

It's all a bit of a Mind Screw, but it's cool to read.

Does Star Wars belong to the Marvel Multiverse?

No

Pity. The Dath Vader comic kicks ass.

Yeah, Star Wars is just too separate to include.

Speaking of other properties, I'd like to pre-emptively exclude Transformers. Now I like Transformers, and probably know more about it than Marvel or DC, but their conflict takes place on such a scale that it would inevitably sweep up everything else.

Ironically Transformers began *as a Marvel comic* and even guest-starred Spider-Man! However they soon decided to set them in their own continuity until the license ran out. Marvel did keep an original character, Death's Head, from those comics as part of their universe.

In fact, Death's Head's first ever appearance was in a one-page strip on the back page of a bunch of different comics, which was done specifically so Marvel would have the copyright. In his last appearance in Transformers, he fell sideways through time and ended up in the Doctor Who comic, which had also started off in the Marvel Universe, featuring a guest appearance by the Fantastic Four, before it went off in its own direction.

The same thing happened with Circuit Breaker, actually. Her first print appearance was in one panel of Secret Wars, again so that Marvel would keep the copyright (which caused problems when IDW started reprinting Marvel stories). Budiansky and Furman wanted to spin off Circuit Breaker and some other original characters into a new superhero team, but nobody was interested.

Have you talked about Suicide Squad yet? I apologize if you have, but I read through the first 30 pages before I got overwhelmed by the amount of ideas you all have, haha.

Anyways, I was wondering which Marvel villains/anti-heroes you guys think would fit well in Task Force X. This is actually a team I'd be interested in writing, myself. I just need a little help coming up with the roster cause I'm not too familiar with a lot of Marvel's villains outside of the X-Men's, Spider-Man's, the Avengers' and Doctor Doom himself but if any of you name characters I'm not familiar with I'll go read up on them. I was thinking that it would include mostly badass normal-type characters (the metahuman or tech-enhanced members would not be too much stronger than the rest, I don't want anyone to be too powerful) and include only one from each Rogue's Gallery.

Obvious returning DC characters would be Rick Flag Jr, Deadshot and Captain Boomerang. I want to possibly include Elektra and a Spider-Man villain but I can't decide between Kraven the Hunter, Mysterio and the Vulture.

Also, in continuing the convo about non-Marvel/DC characters, what do you all think about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' origin canonically being tied to Daredevil's, as was implied? Imagine if they fought crime in New York alongside the rest of the heroes who reside there. I think it would be interesting and hilarious if they looked up to him as a big brother figure (he personally thinks they're annoying though) and are good friends with Spider-Man.

edited 23rd Jun '16 6:07:12 AM by mchlfx

Suicide Squad makes sense as any government willing to go to extremes to deal with metahuman menaces (without superhero help) would definitely exploit any imprisoned Metas it gets. Lots of Marvel Villains would qualify for the Team, especially the Masters of Evil/Thunderbolts/Dark Avengers.

This brings up the question of which Government Agencies, real and fictional, exist here. SHIELD, contrary to some people's beliefs, is International rather than ran by the US Government, and their focus is terrorism not fighting villains. The USA would instead have DC's Checkmate, possibly secretly financed by the Hellfire club (which would explain its odd Chess motif.) Also, the Department of Extranormal Operations handles metahuman affairs and probably runs Suicide Squad (albeit as a Black Ops team- its existence would be very bad publicity!)

edited 23rd Jun '16 6:26:58 AM by Sijo

Bullseye could work for the Suicide Squad?

I was thinking Bullseye too but he's more of a loose cannon than most Suicide Squad members are (besides Harley who is/was similarly deranged) and his super-aiming would make Deadshot a bit redundant. Then again Deadshot doesn't necessarily have to be a part of the team but he has such a long history with them that it'd be odd to just remove him.

Do they actually do any avenging?

Now that you mention it, I wonder how the Suicide Squad and the Thunderbolts would relate to each other. They're conceptually very similar, but one is a group of super criminals being manipulated to work for the government and the other is a group of super criminals pretending to be heroes to gain good publicity and further their own goals. The latter does end up 'seeing the light' and realizing they actually like being heroes though. Should they be merged together somehow to make the universe less convoluted?

edited 23rd Jun '16 7:06:15 AM by mchlfx

Probably not. Like you said, the 'Bolts are, eventually anyway, villains who do truly want to become heroes, and they actually end up succeeding around the middle of their first run. The Squad on the other hand is mostly made up of straight up villains without any real intention of ever turning straight, though there were a surprising number of anti-heroes in the mix too back in the Ostrander days. The point is that the two groups have vastly different goals and purposes, and so while it might seem easy just to merge the two together, that's just not really possible without compromising one or the other.

True. Also the secondary code name thing from Thunderbolts could be problematic 'cause then we'd have to come up with ones for the Suicide Squad and I don't really want to do that lol

How about there's s schism within Suicide Squad, with one group deciding that good feels good and they want to be heroes for real, becoming the Thunderbolts, while the other side just stays villains. For maximum drama, it could happen in an illegal black ops mission with dark goals, meaning the nascent Thunderbolts have to go renegade and fight against shady government organisations.