Marvel-DC Merged Universe Community Project...

This is how I see it: the Masters of Evil are just part (or become part) of the larger Secret Society of Super-Villains. Then Zemo comes up with the whole Thunderbolts plan recruiting some villains that could pass as heroes- he might very well choose some Dc villains for his team.

Meanwhile, Amanda Waller recruits several imprisoned villains for (her) version of the Squad (let's not forget the original SS were heroic badass normals.) These might include Marvel villains.

Eventually, the T-Bolts plan is exposed, and while some did reform, others didn't. Those could end up in the SS or the Dark Avengers (if those ever happen.) Conversely, villains who want to reform (even a few SS ones) might join the version of the T-bolts that Hawkeye led.

So basically, while indeed both teams are separate in ideals and development, they could exchange members easily. Overall, the SS would be composed of villains the government sees as expendable while the T-bolts would be about villains who (try to) reform.

edited 23rd Jun '16 1:31:19 PM by Sijo

New attempt at a backstory for the Justice Society.

The Justice Society is brought together in 1940 by the machinations of the Shadow, with funding provided by Lamont Cranston. The Justice Society coordinates vigilante action among themselves, while the Shadow acts as a mysterious informant.

The initial lineup is:

• Phantom Lady, liaison to the Shadow.
• The Spirit
• Crimson Avenger
• Midnight
• Phantom Reporter (unless kho still wants to use him)
• Hourman
• The Spectre
• Sandman (Wesley Dodds)
• Mandrake the Magician
• Lothor
• Narda

After the war, they are joined by several discharged members of the Invaders, notably Green Lantern and the Flash. The Shadow dies in 1946, while foiling the final plot of Shiwan Khan.

Unfortunately, things don't last. The Justice Society quickly comes under attack from Joe McCarthy and Fredric Wertham, who accuse them of being communist agents based partly on the fact that two of their high-profile members prominently wear red. A media storm ensues, and without the Shadow, there is nobody to pull the strings necessary to protect the heroes. Green Lantern is outed as Alan Scott; to make things worse, papparazzi manage to get photos indicating he is secretly gay. Since this is the mid-50s and he's already facing accusations of communism, he is sent to Arkham Asylum. His marriage to Rose (AKA Thorn) Canton falls apart, and their children, Jennifer (AKA Jade) and Todd (AKA Obsidian) are forcibly taken away and placed in foster homes.

(Yes, I did manage to have Alan be gay without losing his marriage or his children).

While Green Lantern is the worst affected, the other heroes don't fare well either, and the Justice Society disbands in 1954.

Meanwhile in space, Flash Gordon has spent years opposing Ming the Merciless, whose empire has been divided by civil war. When Mongo is besieged, Ming takes the last of his forces and, in a last-ditch effort, invades Earth in 1955, where he poses as a benevolent alien overlord who is fleeing a violent rebel who forced him to flee his peaceful home planet. People buy it.

Flash Gordon also tries to warn Earth, but arrives too late and is shot down. He lands in Bangalla, where he is rescued by the 21st Phantom and Mandrake. After hearing Flash's story, they travel to America, where Ming has his new headquarters, to overthrow the tyrant once and for all.

Unfortunately, the majority of Americans believe Ming's story. The heroes keep a low profile, Flash disguising himself as one of Mandrake's stage hands, as they attempt to revive the Justice Society.

By 1956, the Society has been mostly restored, and also includes Lady Luck but is missing Green Lantern. Ming reveals his true colours, and sends forth a robot army to forcibly take control of America. He also activates switches secretly inserted into the police and army's new equipment, deactivating them. Thus, it's up to the heroes to save the day one last time.

An epic battle ensues, and in the course of things, Alan Scott dramatically reclaims his ring and flies into the fray, turning the tide just when things are looking bad for the heroes. Big battles and explosions ensue, and many of the heroes are apparently killed. In the end, however, Ming is defeated by Flash and returned to Mongo in chains. The surviving heroes are given a pardon but, mistrustful of fickel public opinion, they choose not to reform the Justice Socity.

And, in an epilogue, we see that Green Lantern did not die as was previously indicated, but got himself a log cabin in the woods where he can live out his life in peace...

(At least until he gets caught up in the modern day adventures).

Huh. Looking back on that, I suddenly notice that the initial lineup has a shadowy theme. That was not done on purpose; I just took the original membership, deducted those members who we're assigning to the Invaders, and added some non-Invader Marvel and newspaper characters who would be active around that era. It ended up working out pretty well given the Shadow's role here.

So both Carol Danvers and Hal Jordan have similar super hero origins in that they're both pilots who got powers from an alien. I'm thinking of having them both be friends over that. In fact, in my story, the Guardians learn of Carol's powers and are weary of her and demand she surrender them. Hal, however, hearing her story, defends her and even points out the hypocrisy of the Guardians protesting against a woman being granted super powers by an alien. And no the irony that Hal's love interest is also called Carol is not lost on me.

edited 30th Jun '16 10:24:52 AM by windleopard

That would not be so bad except it would be the Nth "The Guardians are dicks and Hal Jordan is right" story ever. I'm honestly sick of those. OTOH, the fact Carol is Half-Kree, and there would have to be some non-interference covenant between the two races (since our Galaxies are next to each other, yet the Guardians have not interfered in the Kree's military empire) could be used to justify it.

You know, I've got something I want to ask: What is wrong with just having the Justice Society be exactly the way it was in the comics? What's wrong with having GL, Flash, Atom, Spectre, and the rest getting together in early WWII and getting mixed up with Hitler and Valkyries and the Spear of Destiny and staying together until the early 50's? Why does everyone seem to feel the need to try and give them a completely different origin or even a different line-up? At least in my hypothetical series, I'd still keep the other JSA'ers around in related squads, but most of these different origins seems to cut most of them out of the picture altogether. Again, it just seems like you're changing them up because you can, and not because you think it's actually appropriate. No offense to anyone doing so though.

Well in my case, I write based on logic, never (well Ok almost never ) on "fanboyism". So for a combined Marvel/DC universe, I try to think how things would logically be. And you're right, there are not many reasons why the membership or status of the Justice Society would change much from the comics (Note that the JSA is not the same thing as the All Star Squadron, that was a temporary team that subsumed them during the War.)

The only exceptions would be: Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, because after DC first reorganized itself they decided their Golden Age versions never existed (except for Hyppolita as Wonder Woman, but that was part of a very complicated WW storyarc, and we have to decide if she's good (DC) or evil (M); eventually the comics settled for Miss America as her replacement anyway (though that also brings the problem of which heroine by that name keeps it. That's why I came up with that idea that whoever decides to change her name goes on as Wonder Woman instead, after whom Diana would name herself decades later.) Supes and Bats only were honorary members, so replacing them is easy- and why not do it with Marvel Heroes? Since the three top heroes at the time were Captain America, Human Torch and Sub-mariner -and the latter wasn't very sociable- it makes sense the first two would be invited to join, even if they only helped in the occasional adventure.

Since this is a merged universe, I figured the larger teams without specific themes or group origin stories would have characters from both companies. So, for example, just as there are DC characters in the Invaders, so there are Marvel characters in the Justice Society. I was also thinking that nobody would be in both the JS and the Invaders simultaneously.

I agree, but for the opposite reason: most teams DO have defined purposes, so those heroes who fit in should be members regardless of which company they are from. And the JSA is distinct from the Invaders in that one protected America and the other, the occupied territories.

So what role could Lobo play in regards to the Guardians of the Galaxy? Member or enemy?

Okay, but that doesn't mean you have to leave some characters from each team out. If it means you have one giant team, so be it, but it's better than leaving some members of either group by the wayside, at least IMO.

Well, for one thing I wouldn't call the GotG that; it gets confusing with the Guardians of the Universe (who should only hold sway over our galaxy); and second, before the GotG (current version) debuted, we had DC's L.E.G.I.O.N., which pretty much served the same function, so Starlord and Co. would likely have been members of it (either that or its spin-off, R.E.B.E.L.S.) And Lobo was a member, so there.

edited 1st Jul '16 4:52:24 PM by Sijo

How would John Constantine fair in a battle of wits against Loki?

Constantine's way is to win but pay the price by collateral damage. Lokie does some of that, too, but is it his main motif?

Well, *my* interpretation is that Loki isn't that much of a genius (unlike say, Thanos) it's that most of the people he tricks (like Thor) tend to be less smart than him. Constantine is more of a "X has no idea what I can do/ how far I'm willing to go" kind of Con Man. So, it would really depend on the situation.

Loki has manipulated Red Skull, Kingpin, Magneto, Mandarin and Wizard simultaneously (Acts of Vengeance). He also manipulated Norman Osborn and it looked like he did the same to Doom but it turned out to be a Doombot. Because of course.

But anyway Loki's done pretty well against rather clever people.

So which cosmology are you guys going with? Marvel's where it's an infinite number of universes with their own abstract concepts watched over by LT? or DC's where the universes are in the bleed and there are dimensions outside of that like New Genesis?

Also which version of the Olympians are you using?

edited 4th Jul '16 11:05:08 AM by Manaic

It hasn't been decided, that I know of, and anyway we have just been shuffling ideas around so far.

But let's discuss that now.

First, for technical purposes, let's establish the difference between a Parallel Earth (as in DC) and an Alternate Timeline (as in Marvel.) The former are created due to some Cosmic Incident, and are usually independent of each other, though you can travel between them by "shifting your vibrations"; The latter are created from events in another timeline (usually by time travelers trying to change history, though that never works) you can also visit them by traveling "sideways" in time.

Nothing says you can't have both types of universes in your stories, but I would find it redundant. Personally, I prefer Alternate Timelines: they make for better tales. Example: which is better, to say "someone went back in time and created a reality where the Nazis won WWII" or just saying that some cosmic explosion caused it? That's just lazy writing.

Another thing I would do, is merge those Earths that have a similar theme: for example, since we are talking about Marvel + DC here, how about if the Squadron Supreme's homeworld -which is Marvel's stand in for DC- got combined with DC's Marvel-based world (uh, I forgot its name.)

edited 4th Jul '16 2:00:33 PM by Sijo

I think the parallel universes could be kept for universes that can't be easily explained by time travel. Like one where everyone good is inexplicably evil, the cartoon universe, or the bizarro universe.

Or for ones that have a completely different roster of characters, like the Squadron Supreme earths or the Tangent universe.

Like Sijo said, alternate timelines are for when somebody actually travels through time and changes things.

Parallel universes, then, are the result of quantum waveform collapse - when an even can go more than one way, the universe divides, with each universe taking a different path. (Note that this is not how the Many Worlds Interpretation actually works, but it's the way to go for crazy scifi). So, for example, we can have a universe where Captain America was never frozen, one where Jor-El was a second late and Superman never came to Earth, one where the dinosaurs never went extinct, and so on.

I agree that we only really need one universe where the Nazis win WWII, one where morality is inverted, one where the heroes are fascists, and so on.

I had a structure of branching timelines in a previous post, but I have to go to bed now, so I'll retype it tomorrow.

All right, so time travel and alternate universes.

History is like a fractal branch. Every time a decision is made, the universe divides, creating muleiple complete universes, each of which contains one of those decisions. As such, there is a universe containing every possible combination of matter, every possible assortment of probabilities.

So there's a universe out there where heroes are villains and villains are heroes. There's one where Steve Rogers is a Nazi. There's one where Wonder Woman never existed. There's one where a neptunium atom on Skrullos decayed at 08:57:24 instead of 08:57:23, one where superheroes only exist in fiction, and so on. (Well, actually there are trillions of each of those, but for the sake of story we won't be using the indistinguishable ones).

There are various ways to travel between universes, none of them easy. Wormholes are the most common method. Those who are particularly strong and skilled in the Speed Force can vibrate at just the right frequency to attune themselves to another universe, and thus cross over.

Time travel works on similar principles to universe-hopping, but throws a monkey in the works. First of all, let's consider which timelines they can go back to.

Remember back when I described history as branches? When you go back in time, you progress back in the direction of the last point of divergence, and when you reach it, you continue on to the previous POD, until you cease artificial time travel. This will be at a point where multiple uptime possibilities are available, one of which is your own timeline; in other words, from the perspective of people in the time you travel to, your own present is one of several possible futures (though it may be more probable than others). Due to the branching nature of history, it is possible for time travellers from multiple different futures to visit the same time period.

However, the mere presence of a time traveller throws history off. Even if they just stand around where nobody can see them, they affect the paths of molecules in the air. In such a case, there will be no appreciable difference to the universe they ultimately return to, so all involved would consider the person to have returned to their own future.

On a larger scale, if the time traveller takes actions in the past, their actions may create the circumstances which lead to their home time, giving the appearance of a stable time loop.

Most often, however, a time traveller's actions downtime throw the universe into a different timeline, for example if they prevent an assassination, or even just hold someone up by one second; indeed, the arrival of a time traveller is itself a point of divergence. In such a case, the time they travelled to can no longer be reached by any universe uptime of it, though that universe may still send agents to anywhen immediately downtime of the time travelled to. Furthermore, if the changes a time traveller makes are minor (for example, if they just change the paths of air molecules and nothing more), they can still meet people from, and return to, what appears to be a variant of their own time, but is actually a seperate but similar universe to the one they originally left.

From the point of view of a person living in the universe, the time traveller's timeline no longer exists, but the traveller themself does. From the point of view of universe-hoppers, the time traveller's home universe does still exist, but the time traveller can no longer access it.

Did we drop the Loki thread?

I think so.

There's just the one thread; topics just come and go, sometimes in circles.

On the multiple Earths/Realities topic: personally I would keep them at a minimum; none of this "there's one for absolutely every possibility" -even if that's a valid quantum physics theory- it's just too hard to keep track and easy to abuse (so-and-so died? Just bring in his counterpart!) To be specific:

• For Parallel Earths, I'd explain them as being created by Cosmic Beings with their own agendas. Marvel's Shaper of Worlds is all about this.
• In the case of alternate universes, they are created only by interference by time travelers. You may not be able to change history but villains would still try to get the world they wish to exist. Btw the TVA and the Linear Men would be the same thing (except I'd use the latter's name as it sounds cooler than the Texas Valley Authority soundalike.)

I agree about keeping them to a minimum. We'd only see a handful of alternate universes, but it can be mentioned that there are millions out there.