the vynsane asylum

Eternal Padawan wrote:Had Uncle Ben shown up it would have been a trifecta of pissing on his own rule.

technically, he did show up. granted it was an alternate-reality ben, but he was in the official 616 U for a while.

I think Cable should be the most powerful mutant of all! And Supreme should somehow cross into the Marvel Universe and kick all their butts. I could totally write and draw that! I can see it now: Supreme comes into Avengers Mansion after starting off a fire that is put out by the sprinklers, but the lingering smoke covers everyone's feet. That'd be wizard!

Rob, it's a shame and a waste that you have a hot wife. You know how they neuter dogs and cows by wrapping rubber bands around their balls until they fall off? They need to do that to you.

If you've got to have two somewhat different Punisher continuities, why not play with the 616 version? Not in the stupid way he's been done in War Journal. But how about Frank decides he's winning battles but losing the war, and needs to up his stakes. And somehow it dawns on him: all these super-powered do-gooders, well, they have powers! So he starts studying them, trying to duplicate their powers. Obviously, he can't get them all, but what would he do with, say, a suit of Iron Man armor? Adamantium implants? A Darkhawk amulet? Hell, what if he decides that he's better off with these powers, and somehow is able to get them all? Imagine off-kilter Frank Castle running around with super senses, heightened agility, increased strength, telepathy, a healing factor, a symbiote, high tech armor, adamantium claws, and the spirit of vengeance. Jesus fuck, I'd hate to be Stegron.

Or maybe Kingpin stops pussyfooting around and uses all his resources against one hero. Probably DD, Spidey, or Punisher. He hires every lower-level baddie, and sends them all to kill the guy. And what if they do it?

What about DC?

Batman needs to be taken out of the big picture. Take him out of the JLA, out of the Outsiders, and put him squarely in Gotham. Do the same with Nightwing and Robin. Make Gotham this total hell on earth (figuratively, not literally), where honest people are scared to set foot. Maybe have Superman remain his friend, but make the rest of the JLA hate him. Or, better, he refuses Superman's requests to join, because he wants to remain an urban legend. He's been awfully high-profile of late. This would probably require a full-on retcon.

I'd love to see Superman dealing with real-life problems. Like maybe he comes home, and accidentally hears one of his neighbors molesting his kid. He totally loses it, busts through the wall, and punches the guy so hard that it not only kills him, but sends his mangled corpse flying several hundred feet. Bam. Secret identity compromised, murder charges, mistrust of everyone on Earth--what happens next would be a shitload more interesting than him fighting off Mongul and Warworld for the fiftieth time this week.

Kill Wonder Woman. She's stupid. No way to get around it. Just pretend she never existed. And have her take Supergirl to whatever pit of hell she decides to go to.

Have Hal slowly go insane again. I hated it when it happened, but retconning it isn't any better. Have it build up slowly, where first he starts being a jackass, then he slowly starts abusing his powers, etc. After five or six years, Kyle and Guy have to take him out when he takes over the world, Sinestro-style, and beats John so badly that he can no longer serve as a GL.

Bring Anarky back, but not in a stupid-ass "I wanna be a superhero" horseshit series like the last two he had. (I love Grant and Breyfogle, but there is no end to the ballkicks they need over those pieces of crap.) Make him a deranged genius, determined to destroy evil (be it a mugger or a vice president), and constantly haunted by the fact that his father is the Joker. Fuck, the last series was so screwed up in its timeline (like the tag in #1 that said it took place during No Man's Land, but Arkham was intact and fully housed when he went there in #8), just say that the last two were totally in his screwed up head. Make it a Vertigo title, yet firmly stuck in the DCU.

Hell, since he'd be nuts, have him go after Batman after a few issues. Have him use his genius to slowly analyze the evidence, plot reverse courses for the Batmobile, etc, until he just strolls into the Batcave one night and waits for Batman to come home. Maybe so he can know for himself that he's better than his father, even if he plans to tell no one. Hell, he doesn't have to fight him. Just say, "I know who you are, Bruce, and if you ever try to bring me down, Alfred will die."

Somehow, whatever it takes, put Lex Luthor back as the evil businessman he was in the early days of the post-Crisis universe. It's so much more interesting than a lunatic in green battle armor.

Double post!

Back to Marvel for a minute:

I don't believe there has ever been a story featuring Vengeance, Ghost Rider I, and Ghost Rider II, all in full-on flaming skeleton mode. There should be. The fanboy in me says that would make millions jizz their pants.

Anarky is Joker's kid?!? And nobody does anything with that? Shame on the DC editorial staff!!! That's prime fucking real estate, story wise.

For DC, i think they should inexplicably make all the first stringers just dissappear. No explanations. One month they just aren't in their books anymore. And then you have all the second stringers step in and fill their shoes, Nightwing becomes Batman, Donna Troy becomes Wonder Woman, etc. But then have something happen where they aren't up to the challenge and get knocked out of commission, so then you have either third stringers trying to cope with being the A-listers, or you bring in entirely new people. What if Tim Drake had to be Batman? And if Drake was Batman, who would be Robin in the monthly Robin title? And how would that affect things if Bruce Wayne were just gone?

I've also thought about what would happen if a reporter or somebody figured out Bruce was Batman. Enough other people have figured it out. What would be a plausible explanation for a connection between Bruce and Bat? Bruce confesses to the reporter that a mysterious individual came to him many years ago, someone who had also lost loved ones, and convinced Bruce to fund his crime fighting. So all the gadgets and batmobiles are paid for by Wayne Enterprises, but Bruce has no idea who Batman is. This mystery man has since trained several people to act as Batman ( thus building a myth that there are several Batmen patrolling Gotham) but the one that Bruce first talked too, was killed years ago, and nobody can know about the batman conspiracy, and the reporter has to leave it alone for the sake of the city.

Double post right back at ya!!


What is the connection between the Spirit of Vengeance and Konshu, the god of Vengeance that gives Moon Knight his powers?

What if Konshu joined Zarathos, and Noble Kale as a vengeance spirit and became the third Ghost Rider? Also, what is the name of the demon that gives Vengeance his Ghosty powers?

I like that idea. (Batman and the reporter--you posted while I was writing this.) The idea of possibly being multiple Batmen could add so much to the "urban legend" factor of the character that's just been chucked away of late.

Howsabout this:

Bruce comes up with this story on the fly, but after his discussion with the reporter, he thinks, "Hmm, why aren't there multiple Batmen?" He's the first Batman, Nightwing becomes the second (still going by Nightwing as a code name, but with a more Batman-ish costume). Jean Paul Valley is revealed to not really be dead, and becomes the third. Tim Drake remains Robin, but takes on a more Batman-like costume as well. All the costumes are different (Bruce has the "classic," Dick has one with strong ties to the Nightwing costume. Jean-Paul has some hybrid of the last costume he wore and the Knightsquest costume. Tim's is the Robin costume without the red--maybe actually based a little on the Robin costume from the movies, but with a few definite "Batman" touches). This way, it's less likely that witness descriptions will ever match up. Hell, bring Batgirl, Huntress, and Batwoman in on the fun, and make their costumes less revealing and less obviously feminine. Even Jason, if he can keep his head somewhat together. The various Batmen are careful to not operate in the same place at once, so that there isn't a possibility of confirmed reports of two in one place, and, yet, the Batman myth seems more mysterious when witnesses say he pops up in multiple locations at once. And let's have Oracle coordinate it all. And retcon the death of Harold, if we're retconning anyway. His pointless death was the one part of Hush that pissed me off. I really like Harold, and he deserved better.

It also should not have been retconned that Riddler no longer knows his secret identity. Mistake. It gave gravitas to an otherwise stupid-ass character. (Remember in the 90s, with that one story, I think "Dark Knight, Dark City," where they tried to make Riddler dark and dangerous, and it totally didn't work? Loeb is the first person to make him a real threat. And I'm counting the otherwise wonderful DC Animated Universe when I say that, too. Riddler is just a pathetic little joke of a villain.)

The brief history of Anarky, and all the times a potentially great character has been fucked over:
1) Introduced in Detective, and we find out he's this semi-deranged kid.
2) Pulls financial strings as the Moneyspider until Robin figures it out.
3) Gets an Eclipso diamond during that stupid Eclipso crossover, and Robin beats him up again.
4) (This is where it gets really stupid.) It's revealed that he's taken advantage of 100% of his brainpower. He goes to Apokalips, fights Darkseid (WTF?), and steals boom-tube technology.
5) Saves some lives during the earthquake in the Cataclysm storyline.
6) As Gotham is shut down, Batman tells him he can do more good elsewhere. He goes to Washington, where his teleportation allows him to construct a sanctum sanctorium several hundred feet below the Washington Monument.
7) Trying to find info on his parents, he finds out (from his incredibly annoying supercomputer buddy Max) that he was adopted.
8 ) Steals a Green Lantern ring to fight this tremendous foe to all of reality, which somehow the Guardians and everyone else sorta couldn't figure out existed. Gives the ring back to Kyle at the end of the story.
9) Investigates further into his parents, finds his mom, and learns that his father is someone who's in Arkham. (What? Was this woman sleeping around with all the loonies at once?)
10) Participates in another stupid company-wide crossover, fighting alongside the Haunted Tank.
11) Goes to Arkham to find his father. Learns it's the Joker. Leaves Arkham, afraid his father's legacy will destroy him.
12) Series is mercifully cancelled. Anarky fans rejoice, as their character will not be abused anymore in this waste of paper.
13) Character disappears off the face of the earth. Apparently has a minor appearance in a Green Arrow book several years later, which doesn't address anything about the character's current status.
14) DC editorial staff promises he will appear in Countdown. Aside from an A in a circle on one cover, he does not.

I read somewhere that it was retconned that Joker is not his father, since this would be impossible given the currently accepted timeline of the universe. However, since he's apparently only appeared once since his series was cancelled, who can say?

As for the timeline, I say fuck it. Look at the incredible mess of a timeline during his series. In the first issue, Gotham is in ruins and being shut down for the No Man's Land series. He finds out he's adopted when trying to find info on the Machins (his adopted parents) in the wake of these events. Yet, he walks into Arkham, which is in a quite pristine-looking Gotham and fully occupied by villains. Only, uh, Gotham is in ruins, Arkham simply isn't there, and all the villains are running around No Man's Land. And a footnote says the entire series takes place prior to Cataclysm?

I say fuck it because obviously, if the story is taken at face value as events from his POV, he's completely and totally nuts. Worthy of being Mr Napier's bastard son.

In any case, I think the core of the character as originally presented is still one of the best ideas to come out of DC in the past twenty years.

Wow! Give it to Geoff Johns. He'll find a way to make all that garbage work FOR the character. Anarky is a great idea.

anarky wrote:If you've got to have two somewhat different Punisher continuities, why not play with the 616 version? Not in the stupid way he's been done in War Journal. But how about Frank decides he's winning battles but losing the war, and needs to up his stakes. And somehow it dawns on him: all these super-powered do-gooders, well, they have powers! So he starts studying them, trying to duplicate their powers. Obviously, he can't get them all, but what would he do with, say, a suit of Iron Man armor? Adamantium implants? A Darkhawk amulet? Hell, what if he decides that he's better off with these powers, and somehow is able to get them all? Imagine off-kilter Frank Castle running around with super senses, heightened agility, increased strength, telepathy, a healing factor, a symbiote, high tech armor, adamantium claws, and the spirit of vengeance. Jesus fuck, I'd hate to be Stegron.

Yeah...no.
The appeal of Frank Castle is that he has no powers and does what the heroes won't.

Besides, the way Matt Fraction is fucking things up, he is probably way ahead of you on that front.

Like I said, if they feel like there has to be two different Punisher series, and one is all superheroish, they should go balls-out and do some crazy shit like that.

I seriously think some approach that's set in-continuity, with Frank dealing with guys like Kingpin and Bullseye, but edgier like the Ennis stuff (in other words, the 80s and 90s interpretation, except not toned down for Comics Code standards) would be ideal. Oh, and he'd have to eventually be able to kill the fucking Kingpin already.

I see what you're saying, but War Journal is going in that direction a little and eats more cock than Leifeld. Like I've said before, Ennis did some really crazy shit in MK (like The Russian) and made it work without fucking up The Punisher.

Kingpin and Bullseye could make a really good Punisher Max story.
Strip down the bullshit abilities and make Fisk more like the movie version (crime lord businessman that can throw down when the need arises) and could be Bullseye his bodyguard (or a sniper or just really talented or something).

With great writers handling them, I'd love to see realistic (no powers) Max versions of many other Marvel Universe characters showing up in The Punisher, like:
Steve Rogers (as the ultimate elite black ops soldier)
Tony Stark (as a weapons manufacturer)
Charles Xavier (as a human rights activist)
Peter Parker/Norman Osborne (photographer discovers dangerous secrets about his friend's dad and Frank helps/rescues him)
Even Lynn Michaels (the female Punisher that ran around for a few years in the 90's) could make a nice subplot that could run for a while.

Y'know, DB, it occurs to me that we both feel exactly the same about the character of a normal man fighting crime in a superhuman world. We both want the superhuman aspect toned or down or completely excised, lending a more realistic tone to the story.

Only thing is, you're referring to Frank Castle, and I'm referring to Bruce Wayne.

More on the idea of a "Batman Corps" (though it should absolutely not be called such):

Shortly after this is set in motion, one of the Batmen is killed. My money is on Jason. Bring him back, develop him into a major character, then kill him. Nightwing would've been my first choice, but the ties to Bruce could screw things up.

Totally random minor street thug who does it, too. Can't be anyone who's really familiar with Batman.

But there's confirmation that Batman is dead... only he continues to protect the city. That could make things even loonier.

Jason would work better for this, also, in that no one is ever going to check his identity against a kid who died years ago. And his DNA is probably not on file anywhere. He'd be a total John Doe.

i wood have spider man fuck super man + bat man blow them both, all u fags would be so hapey, that is what u won't U GOD DAM GAY FRUTE FAGGETS!!!! :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad: