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sinkingtime · 2 years ago

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Remaking the DCU 3 - Enter the Multiverse, kind of

Part 1, Part 1 and a half, Part 2, Part 2 and a half

This one is more vague, as I have vastly exceeded the original scope of the idea, but I still have a few stories I want to get to.

Also, the thing I was insecure about including, which nobody said anything either way so I will proceed under the assumption that it's perfectly ok. That's how that works, right?

We should ostensibly be in the "space arc" that I wanted to get Supergirl off-world to introduce. But before that, I have one more Earth character I'd like to have, right after Red Daughter of Tomorrow.

But before that, let me fill in one of the blanks I had before.

But before THAT, minor insignificant addendum.

...about Azrael

Jean-Paul Valley Jr, the Angel of Vengeance of the Holy Order of Saint Dumas, was the one to get Supergirl's hair. There isn't such an order, he's just a hitman who calls himself that.

His sword is actually on fire, so maybe that could establish her hair was a little super after all. I think preferably not, though, on the grounds that the Legion would deem hair useless and not bother modifying it.

Anyways, the point is that I've been skipping over Gotham-based characters, for the sake of the "Bruce but no Batman" agenda. But this guy doesn't need to be from there, it makes the most sense that they meet him in europe somewhere.

Identity Crisis

This isn't actually an adaptation of Identity Crisis, probably doesn't deserve the name, but maybe there could be a couple references that justify a "loosely inspired by" tag. Maybe.

What this is is the movie right after Lobo, dealing with magic and mass-mind control. I have decided Zatanna is the villain. There will also be Manchester Black, but he turns out to be a fake she set up to take the fall.

She's using her power to join the League, retroactively. There's flashbacks to when she first helped with something and they offered her membership, and mention that she and Jinx actually did some training together, Jonah was an old friend of Zatanna's dad, etc. All of that is a lie, but hopefully by this point we have introduced enough members without comment that the audience doesn't catch up early.

J'onn would easily mess up her plot, so she needs to deal with him early; and I consider his reveal important enough that she shouldn't give any indication that she's dealing with him. We don't know about him until Rebirth, but when we do the general thought should go "wait why didn't he know about OH right she did that thing".

So, before she sets foot on the Watchtower Station for the first time, the first time they learn about Black, she's shown to resist him. She later says she always has psychic defenses active, it's an elementary precaution any decent mage would take. Cue awkward fidgeting from Jinx. Then the two of them then cooperate to cast wards protecting the entire League.

Later, when those fail, Zatanna can blame the nature of Jinx's power for it. The movie could also imply this to be true, if it's happening early enough.

Zatanna's power source is a book that is written mirrored. Call it the Tome of Reflections or somesuch. It is the reason she speaks backwards; it's not that anything she so says will happen, but it's still a necessary component of all her spellcasting.

Her plot is ultimately to replace that with Diana's magic. The innate one, what she inherited from Zeus. She's not even using it, really, and Zatanna is professionally offended by that. (If she knew about the Lanterns she'd freak out.)

Extracting Diana's magic would kill her, but I'm saying that as omniscient narrator, I don't think she should know that for sure. Not that it would stop her if she did, but it's probably best if she tells herself she will be fine, that she'll later agree it was worth it, when both of them are heroes together.

Also, I keep imagining her cutting open her own chest to carve magic symbols in her ribs and heart and whatever other surfaces are available. Sadly, we can't use that, because it would be far too gruesome for this kind of movies, and also because she's not going to win. Spoilers, by the way!

Also also, I was considering making King Shark be a demigod after all, and therefore older than Wonder Woman because she really needs to be the last one. That would make him probably a better target for Zatanna, so that finally convinces me against it. He's just a weird mutant after all.

Anyways, I don't have much to add. Manchester Black was sometimes an anarchist, or at least pretending to be. His "evil plan" should include making public statements roughly in that vein. He could be someone who had previously complained about the League's existence and operations, though I don't think that's important enough to actually add him to previous movies.

He dies, by standard supervillain accidental suicide, except it's staged by Zatanna as a last-ditch effort to settle matters and distract everyone's attention.

The movie itself should be mostly mystery, maybe minor horror, on the grounds of the paranoia that Zatanna's actions are seeding.

After her defeat, Diana claims the Tome. She's also not going to use it, just keep it in storage with her friend's brooch. If we actually see that, there should be a third thing with them, doesn't matter what exactly but it should be somewhat recognizable.

Also this means the brooch was also more powerful than the book, or else that'd be what Jinx "borrowed" for Jonah to use during Rebirth.

Roxy Rocket

This was a minor villain from Batman: the Animated Series. She has since also appeared in comics, but never in an important fashion, as far as I can tell. She was a stunt actress who was addicted to danger, and so kept escalating her stunts until studios would no longer hire her. Then she turned to crime, primarily for the thrill but presumably also for the money. She rides a huge rocket with bike controls bolted on, and mostly antagonizes Batman and friends, but also Superman at least once.

Anyways, I want her to have Lobo's bike. I'd thought from the start I should want someone to use it to become a super; it's kind of a crappy spaceship but for a planet-bound character it's probably one of the best vehicles available. Then I dropped that when I thought that would be Supergirl's best idea to contact the Lantern Corps, but then then I remembered Roxy and have decided to go for it.

We open with her jumping out of a plane, wearing one of those flying squirrel-like flight suits. She's intending to get some air time and then land in another plane. This is not being recorded, she's doing it for fun, on her own money. The receiving plane gets out of position and leaves her to fall, presumably to her death.

Either someone from Hollywood wants revenge for some insult, real or imagined, or she was already involved in crime and is being double-crossed. Probably the later, but if I could come up with a plausible motivation for a (previously) non-criminal, I think it could be better to have the start of her life of crime be on-screen and not a flashback. Probably.

She realizes she's been betrayed and panics, but then gets a wide smile. She wouldn't have tried jumping from that height down to the ground, despite her reputation she's not quite that stupid, but now that it's happening she loves it. She does her best to control her fall, having the best time of her life, then crashes into the desert and slides and rolls a large distance, destroying her suit and getting large friction burns all over her body. She smiles and tries to raise her hand in triumph, whispering that she made it, then falls unconscious.

She's woken up by a voice she doesn't understand, probably with weird camera and audio effects to show us she's suffering from pain and hunger and sun exposure, but the voice is genuinely speaking a non-human language; it's someone that received Supergirl's transmission but also didn't understand it, and is trying to get a response back. This probably means it hasn't been very long since she left Earth, though the exact timing doesn't actually matter.

Roxy crawls towards the voice, with great difficulty, until she is convinced that it's below her, and begins digging in the sand, wondering if she's gone crazy. She finds the communicator and tries to answer, but it's quickly made clear to both that they can't understand each other. What's important is she also finds Lobo's bike.

First she raids the cargo boxes, finds his rations and begins eating and drinking. After that, a little more recovered, she takes a better look at the bike. It's obviously weird and she wonders if it's some prop, but by now humanity is aware that aliens and weird science exists, so she gets on it and tries to get it running.

It flies away at great speed, almost tossing her off, but she barely manages to hold on and climb properly. She's once again laughing, extremely happy. As she leaves, the camera goes back to the ground, we see she left behind the comm and Lobo's two books. Maybe some sand starts burying them again.

We should also get some small montage of her figuring out the bike. In particular, it can take her to space, but she very quickly figures out she shouldn't go that high, and it can take her around the planet trivially quickly. She also has some space guns, that she should have fun figuring out. And either we don't worry about power or there's some universal power converter and she also steals electricity from various places.

Beyond that, it's mostly a standard revenge movie. She figures out who betrayed her and why, starts attacking their interests, they start to retaliate but after some dramatic setbacks she wins. As keeps happening, I'm not sure if she should be a hero or a villain. She was already almost sympathetic in the episode, her main motivation is seeking adrenaline and that could easily be fulfilled by fighting supervillains. But I also need some recurring villains, arguably? So maybe she can stay as a "not so bad" criminal. Dunno.

She uses a version of her cartoon costume, which in-universe will be from an old movie she was in, called "The Ultimate Thrill", which was the name of the episode. Her last or her best work or something like that. We should see the poster but she's not in it, since she was a stunt actress, not a star. I think it would be funny to have her stunt double be the one posing for the poster, so as to say the roles are reversed in-universe. Unless the part were played by someone who does her own stunts, in which case nevermind.

After credits, back at the desert, the communicator speaks up again. The voice asks, in english but poorly, if this is the correct language and can anyone understand them now. Then the battery finally dies.

...next is a bunch of movies I can't actually think of

For that "space arc" that I wanted to have, but don't have any good ideas for.

I wanted to have a movie following Jonah Hex in the afterlife, after the events of Rebirth, but it was bad. Mostly the point was to establish that nothing else in the universe could destroy souls, besides the White War enemies; and furthermore that this was the reason why the Legion's meddling with time failed to make them unexist.

But there's nothing I'm comfortable letting get out of the afterlife, so there are no real stakes I could give the movie, so it was always going to be bad. Discarded.

I also had an idea for a New Gods one, mashing together Apokolips and New Genesis into a single planet, so as to make it be a real society. They'd be in the middle of a civil war, from which Orion would emerge as a Robin Hood-like figure.

That one has potential, I guess. I must have writen and deleted it like five times. For now all that remains is this "maybe".

The Violet Lantern Corps have a long-standing lawyer firm, that absolutely exists in the setting even if I've not had a legitimate excuse to introduce them in a movie. And from Lobo's attitude we can infer there is some form of galactic bounty hunters association. Either or both of them should get some sort of police procedural.

I've also decided Dick Grayson was a lawyer, as his day job back on Earth. That probably means when he first left Gotham it was to go to Harvard, and he only wound up in Blüdhaven after. Unless we just say Blüdhaven has a good law school. Either way, the point is that he'll end up joining the Star Sapphires proper, this may be his movie, or at least he shows up after credits.

Also, whoever was trying to answer Supergirl's call was probably either a Star Sapphire or Lobo's contact to them, since she was using his space phonebook. Whoever it was doesn't need to be particularly important, but should probably at least be mentioned.

Princess Koriand'r originally received visions of multiple "nice" worlds, specifically such that the Light thought it possible she would rather go to one of them than stay with her dying mother. Again, I consider this canon even if I don't think it should have been mentioned. Though I suppose she could have mentioned it in Red, actually; Dick could ask about her Test after learning that his was not standard-issue.

Anyways, someone should probably be in or from one of those worlds. The fact that they are desirable places to go to could mean whatever happens there is low-stakes and pleasant, which would make a good respite in between two tense movies, should there be such.

There should also be an appearance by the planet where the martians ended up. I don't have anything specific in mind for them, J'onn wouldn't have gotten to space and they have no particular reason to care about their former world, but nonetheless it feels like a waste to not have them come up.

Also kinda wanna establish that they can't phase through objects, J'onn only has that power as a result of the teleport accident, regular martians are merely shapeshifter telepaths.

A movie about a world that's been ravaged by a gang of space bandits, maybe slavers so they can ultimately rescue some people. A kid manages to escape and goes to seek a legendary warrior, famed for intervening in several wars through the galaxy. It's Supergirl. She helps him hunt them down, they philosophize about the nature of revenge and so on.

This is a story archetype that's been done many times, but I kinda wanna develop this one more. Can't help but feel it just needs one more gimmick.

I want the Challengers of the Unknown. Kind of. They would normally be a human group, but I'm making them aliens in part as payback for all the aliens who got turned into humans back on Earth. They'll actually appear later, so all we want during this section is a tease after credits. Members of the broader organization they will belong to, some space university or something, showing up to check up on whatever scientifically interesting debris one of the movies may have left behind.

I also keep thinking about the Black Mercy, but that's overplayed actually. Maybe mention that someone got black mercied, but don't show it.

And on the subject of officially running out of ideas, there's a minor character known as Space Cabbie. No real name I can find, though I admit I didn't look very hard. He's in the future, but that's easy enough to ignore, so I want him here, even if just as a minor character in some other movies. He transports people through space, and that's it.

His spaceship probably needs to look less like an obvious Earth taxi, but we have many different taxi designs and there's only so many colours, so I guess some overlap will be ultimately inevitable? But at least it shouldn't look like a New York taxi, since those are the ones we all see in movies.

Also there needs to be a sequel to at least one of these, hopefully more, to give this stretch of the franchise legitimacy. That I need to specify it like that betrays its lack of legitimacy, of course. So moving on.

Lanterns

Poster is one of each of the Lantern rings, threaded on a string that's held from off-screen. In rainbow order, backwards, just because.

We open with Koriand'r and Dick Grayson following rumours that her sister has become a Blue Lantern. He was probably the one that heard of it, on his new job with the Star Sapphires. Along the way they should find at least a bit of further weirdness; the answer is that people from other universes are being transferred here for reasons unknown, but they shouldn't quite figure that out yet.

They do meet Blue Komand'r, but she's an alternate version of Koriand'r instead; and in her universe that's the name of her older sister, who is "a bit difficult, sometimes". The two make good friends quickly. (the bet that resulted on each of their parents naming each of them had a different result, but I don't think they should actually learn that part.)

Together they figure out the "alternate universes" bit, and then Dick excuses himself from the rest of the movie, saying he should try and find Supergirl and inform her, in case she wants to try and contact her brother. The other two continue the main plot, eventually teaming up with one of each colour, plus the group that the Challengers are the elite of, to figure things out. Here in rainbow order:

Red is Atros, better known as Atrocitus, but we're using the slightly less on-the-nose "original" name.

In the comics, his galactic sector was mass-murdered by the Manhunters, robot cops who are the Oans' first attempt at galactic police, before the Green Lantern Corps. He survives, along with four others but he betrays them later so they don't matter, and his mastery of blood magic leads him to harness the power of rage and create the first Red Lantern.

For my version, given the changes to Lantern lore, neither he nor the Oans can be in charge of creating either magic. He's just one more Lantern, and they're entirely unrelated. But the rest works reasonably well.

I would limit the destruction to just the planets of Ryut and Oa, which are at war. The Manhunters could still be robots, but Oans in powered armor would probably be better. Atros survives the destruction of his city, hiding in the rubble, having lost his wife and children, and as he watches the army move on his ring appears before him.

He reaches for it once, and when it moves away he screams "Stop that! We have to go!", pointing with his other hand towards the retreating Oan soldiers, where we see one of them take a potshot at the ruins. The ring deems this worthy and flies towards that hand.

He rallies any survivors he can find to fight back, destroying all the Manhunters they can find. Once they run out of enemies he uses his magic to transport his army to Oa. Oa should also be a genuine civilization, not just a dozen old immortals.

Atros' armies run rampant through the world, until one day an Oan flies at him, also wielding a Red Lantern ring. They fight to the death, and as he watches the ring fly away he realizes he has become what he hated, giving him the shock he needs to become at least anti-heroic enough to function properly in the ensemble cast for this movie.

His canonical appearance is good, with the big shoulder pads. Just use his flashbacks to show that Ryut's armies used a version of that armour, so his is retroactively one of them, modified to be Red Lantern-themed.

Orange is John Henry Irons. As he was starting to research AmerTek's crimes, one of the power armor prototypes erupts in orange light, which isn't fading away for no apparent reason. Naturally the company quickly moves it into secure storage, for later research. He switches his efforts towards getting into the team that will work on that, thereby passing his Test; after he gets it he naturally uses it to destroy the company, and also becomes a superhero in his Earth.

He doesn't use a hammer and didn't get a ring, the armor itself being his magic's receptacle. It's still just unpainted steel, but later he crafted the symbol of the Orange Corps into the chest.

He can add other weapons and devices to the armor, to be run on Orange Light, but not immediately. He needs to do research for adapting each. The way that works is that he already comes with a variety of options, and if he collects anything interesting he says he'll work on it and we leave it as foreshadowing for a future appearance.

If he becomes a recurring character after this, it will be by having added dimensional travel capabilites to the armor.

Yellow is Jor-El. The first movie didn't specify one way or the other, but from his talk to the Council it seems possible that he'd warned them about the impending destruction of Krypton years earlier, and then grew increasingly frustrated as they did nothing, until it was too late. I'm running with that interpretation.

In another universe, when he was going to inform them for the first time, he saw a vision of their doing nothing and letting the world fall. So instead he spoke to the people at large, hijacking some sort of public address system they may have had. He was starting to seem like a crackpot, some soldiers approaching to remove him, but then his ring flared into existance. He put it on, raised that hand to call for action, and those soldiers fell to their knees, as well as many people watching through the world.

With the early warning and his magic, they were able to find a suitable new world and evacuate most of the population. They wanted to name it after him, or the Yellow Corps, but he convinced them to go with "Argon" instead.

(That probably also means those names are actually the name of the corresponding element in the kryptonian language, getting translated for our benefit, but we can ignore that.)

Also, because the first movie established kryptonians get their powers from the chemical composition of Earth's air, and I then established Lantern life support is based on your specific species' environment, he doesn't have those powers or know about them.

He still wears the same mostly black suit, but has replaced the symbol of the House of El with that of the Yellow Corps.

Green is Lobo. We do not get to learn how his Test went; instead he tells multiple contradictory stories about it.

He doesn't have his bike, but still carries multiple space weapons which he mostly doesn't need.

He also wears Lantern Rings of every colour except Violet. They don't do anything, of course. Since he can see Koriand'r doesn't use hers, he'll spend the movie pestering her to sell it to him so he can complete the set.

He has the symbol of the Green Corps tattooed on his chest, and loves finding excuses to show it off.

Blue is Komand'r. In her universe, as her mother lay sick, she kept insisting that she would get better, and then they'd travel the galaxy together. Everyone knew she wouldn't, but then one day she suddenly did. The princess grabbed both hers and her sister's hands and tried to drag them away, "to adventure".

The Queen was just starting to say it wouldn't be that easy when the Blue Ring appeared in front of them. She tied it to her hair, which works, and then she did indeed drag them both to another world.

Fun fact: I was considering making tamaranian royals be shaven and wearing wigs, like ancient egyptians allegedly did. I've decided against it for the sake of this.

Nowadays she wears her ring behind her neck, at the base of a braid that's almost as long as her body. She also has the same suit as Koriand'r from "our" universe, a.k.a. a more realistic version of the one from the cartoon and at least some comics, though again with the main colour changed to blue.

Every (tamaranian) year, on the aniversary of her mother's recovery, she brings her to a new, hopefully beautiful planet. Her sister rarely joins them. Last year she missed it on accout of the White War. This time she's just hoping the situation can be resolved in time for her to not miss the appointment again. This could also be a hint for how long tamaranian years are, but I hope that can still be kept vague.

Indigo is Sheko, from the Red Daughter of Krypton comic. She was a judge from a world where the justice system had been corrupted beyond any hope of repair; she's basically the last remaining believer in justice. She declared the crown prince guilty of multiple crimes and sentenced him to death, then the executioner shot her instead. She arose as a Red Lantern and immediately went on a murderous rampage.

She also had some sort of telepathy which she used to "judge" people, which is not standard-issue for Reds but she also didn't seem to have before; I'm also not clear on if those deemed guilty die as a result of it, or she just kills them after.

Anyways, for my Indigo version, her role in her society will be more focused on providing aid to victims, rather than punishment to the guilty. That may mean she should be more of an attorney than a judge, but I like the "judge" title, so let's just say their system is different.

Her Test was during the White War, so innocents were returned, starting with someone she tried and failed to help, then from her coworkers, and so on. She started trying to use her position to aid them, but had to admit it was beyond her resources and instead publicly ask for help, thereby passing the Test and receiving her ring.

However, by that time the corruption had spread enough that some people were White "zombies", further working to spread it and consume more souls. Again she tried to use her magic to save everyone, figured out she couldn't and left for space to seek assistance. Instead she got involved in the War. They didn't save her planet, she's the last of her people, but she cannot deny it was absolutely the right thing to do.

(In the aborted afterlife movie, I was going to show the main universe version of her didn't leave, her magic and soul were eventually consumed and she ended up joining the War on the other side.)

She also always had mild telepathy, which she mostly didn't use because it wouldn't be admissible evidence anyways. Her Lantern magic augments it, so she no longer speaks except telepathically. Maybe she can't, or at least pretends she can't. She also can "absorb" suffering from others, so it's easier to deal for them, though only temporarily.

She still wears her traditional judge robes, though with the colour and symbol swapped out for those of her Corps.

Violet is Koriand'r. We already know her.

Plus maybe alternate versions of one or more actual, named members of the Challengers of the Unknown. They would naturally realize what's going on and try and contact their local counterparts, thereby converging on their planet.

The Lanterns help this group with the research, transporting people and large machines all over the place, volunteering to be tested, powering devices, stuff like that. Together they figure out that space-time is "cracked" and sort of bending "inwards", so that people and things from other universes keep falling in.

Some of them also theorize this could destroy the universe, possibly retroactively; though not all agree on this interpretation. They start a plan to repair it, which will mostly involve them creating more machines and the Lanterns delivering them to key points in the galaxy. When they activate they should automatically push everyone back home; but even if not, they're confident they'll be able to build transporters for them.

The machines activate, nothing happens, and they power down. They check and discover signs of sabotage, so everybody scrambles to check out everything. Most of the devices have been tampered with. One of them also finds a portal machine, seeming similar to what the Science Team said they'd build later, though they insist they haven't yet.

They converge there, though Lobo is missing. After some debate, they decide to cross together, all six Lanterns and a few scientists.

The portal brings them to the outside of the same universe. Should be interesting-looking, but not fully psychedelic nightmare since they'll be spending a reasonably long time there. There are a bunch of highly advanced dimensional machinery, which the scientists are both excited and worried about.

There's also Lobo's decapitated corpse. His Green ring is already gone, having crossed back through the portal and gone off to the local Lantern Sector. We don't know that, because he needs to die offscreen to protect the traitor's identity, but we may see it in flashback later when he or she is ranting about motives.

If possible, have had some red herrings to imply Lobo was the traitor, earlier. He clearly died for getting too close to the truth, which means he was investigating, he suspected someone among them; this is presumably enough for careful scene design and camera work to make him seem suspicious, though I don't have any specific details in mind.

I haven't actually decided which Lantern is the traitor.

Anyways, the group keeps exploring, at least two of them arguing for going back (the traitor is either one of them or "undecided"), until the scientists start figuring out how to turn off or destroy the machinery, then the traitor kills most (but not all) of them before anyone can react. The other five Lanterns stand against him or her, we get a motive rant and a sufficiently impressive fight.

The general gist is that there is a multiversal conqueror, Prometheus, that is expanding in the general direction where all their universes lie. The traitor's world was already scouted by his advance forces, they barely destroyed them before they could report back.

The plan was to turn this universe into a sort of "trap", summoning powerful people from various adjacent ones. From among them he or she hopes to recruit an army that can hopefully stand up against Prometheus'. Also per the traitor's calculations (or whatever scientists support him or her), this particular universe is outside of the army's path, just far enough that they should avoid notice, but just close enough to ambush his forces when the time comes; that was why it was chosen as the staging grounds.

The traitor also needs an advantage to almost stand up to five alleged equals, so:

If Atros is the traitor, he has sorcerous skill far more advanced than Lanterns usually do. His magic may be blood-themed, as a comics reference. He may know how to disrupt other Lantern's magic, or at least mess with their biology in spite of their defenses.

He also has experience rallying an army against a coming conqueror, so it's reasonable this would be his plan.

If John is the traitor, he had a larger humanoid mech waiting, which interfaces with his armor and is powered by his Light. It's full of strange and powerful weaponry, some of it pilfered from Prometheus' scouts.

It's also in character for an Orange to focus on the "gathering" part of gathering allies. They must be prepared. He may be a little manic, in his rant.

If Jor-El is the traitor, he has figured out how to manipulate his magic's atmosphere to give himself superpowers. Either Superman's, or something even stranger and more powerful.

It's also highly in-character for him. He's warning them of oncoming danger, and they are fools not to listen.

If Kommand'r is the traitor, I don't have a particular idea for her advantage, but the betrayal would be extra poignant after the interdimensional sisters have become close. It's worth serious consideration just for that.

If Sheko is the traitor, her telepathy is more powerful than previously advertised, or maybe there are mechanisms that augment it.

She also will be focused on the fact that there's people who need help, she's absolutely willing to do her part, but she's not enough so she also needs them.

After the traitor is killed, the remaining scientist(s) figure out how to reverse the machinery's effect, which prevents more visitors from being dragged, but doesn't automatically send the people back.

They get out to see the rest of the Science Team has moved in and secured the area around the portal. Their instruments did detect the change in the structure of space-time, they are now reasonably certain reality won't cease existing, and will begin working on getting visitors to their homes.

A few months later, they've finished that. Koriand'r uses the Empire's reach to spread the news, direct people to get re-transported. They're also helping with security, and Komand'r (Queen, not Blue) hopes to leverage that into some manner of trade opportunities for them, thereby finally showing some interest in actually ruling her damn empire. At least for now.

The remaining Lanterns make their goodbyes, all promising to keep watch in case that conqueror does come, and carrying the data they'll need to rally their universe's Science Teams to build some sort of transdimensional comm system. If we have remaining alternate versions of Challengers, they also carry a full report. So, the traitor kinda won. Congrats!

Komand'r (Blue, not Queen) also promises to bring her mother here next year, and Koriand'r tells her she'll take them to her boyfriend's world. Unless she was the traitor, of course.

After the credits, in the Director's office in the Watchtower Station, Supergirl is holding back Power Girl. Bruce is cowering at his desk. She screams "HE KILLED THE SUPERMAN!" and her eyes light up, but a display of Red tentacles gets her to back off. He meekly asks what's going on, and the scene ends.

...some more movies here

I don't actually have ideas, just that the next one shouldn't be immediately next.

Challengers of the Unknown

They are basically the Fantastic Four. Actually it seems plausible they are the original idea that the Fantastic Four were derived from, though I don't know that for sure. Anyways.

Lanterns featured the larger group that they are a part of, which has no basis on the comics and I also didn't properly specify; they're probably just referred to as the name of their species and/or planet. But this movie is about an alternate universe version of the actual team, the four, sometimes five named members. I say we go with the five to further distance from Marvel's First Family.

None of them is from the alternates we saw previously. They are travelling on their own, for Science!, aboard a spaceship of their own design that can do that. They don't know about Prometheus, their higher-dimensional trajectory brings them from a different direction, kinda perpendicularly to his army.

The important thing is that they bring us the reveal that timelines created by "time travel" are particularly easy to detect and access. They should find Supergirl and talk to her in particular, explain that time travel actually doesn't exist, and how that really works. She already kinda knew her future had kept on existing, since Rebirth, but she could still get emotional about that and also decide to go home for this reason.

The important thing is the implication that the traitor Lantern was wrong, Prometheus may have been moving in a trajectory to miss this universe, but will presumably correct course as he comes closer, and probably was seeking the Legion's split-off timelines all along. The war will come here. No character has both sets of information yet, but we do, which is always cool when that happens.

The Challengers also sought her intentionally, as she's the single most interesting thing in this universe, from their perspective; they would have some device that can detect her. Again, the implication is that Prometheus' forces may or may not have a similar capability.

The Challengers don't believe there's a way to access her original universe, more or less for the same reason her new one is so easily entered. Action and reaction, something like that. They remain interested in the problem though, and promise to stay alert for any hint of a method, and to come back and inform her if such is found.

No such will be found, I will insist on "no actual time travel" for the sake of things still having stakes, but of course they don't know that. Also the movie presumably also had some sort of crisis or conflict that they dealt with, but honestly that matters less to me than the worldbuilding. Probably someone is attacking someone and they're here just in time to help, the movie ostensibly being a team-up between the Challengers and Supergirl.

With that we can finally have movies openly set in other universes, which means it's time for Power Girl. Actually again there may be a couple more indetermined stuff in between, but still:

So, about that Power Girl...

I'm not lying when I say I'd hoped for feedback on this. Still hoping I'm being over-sensitive.

In the original writeup (for Rebirth), I had Supergirl's brother tell her that the second time traveller, after the Legion deduced she had failed, was "your friend, whom you used to dress in your clothes". At the time I had no intention of bringing that character back.

My only thought had been that he needed some embarrassing anecdote about her, that I should tie that up with some bonus worldbuilding for their future, and that I should take the opportunity to establish the second time traveller was a man, because the Legion is equal-opportunity.

It was only later, after I accidentally invented Prometheus, that I started considering alternate timeline characters. Power Girl is an alternate version of Supergirl, but still distinct enough that either has continued existing at times when the other may have been retconned out. So, her being my second time traveler is too perfect for me to pass up.

I'm still bothered by the implications, and also the fact that Supergirl's brother would have to have known how his sister's friend ended up, but still chose to use that incident to make fun of her. To be honest I am tempted to retcon it away, claim the Legion's future doesn't have gendered clothes and he was instead making fun of her for the frivolity of it all.

But that would be untrue to the original reason for the annecdote, even if I ultimately voided it, kinda (the Legion is still equal-opportunity, because they didn't know until after), and also it would be a retcon, which I oppose on ideological grounds, mostly. So, I can only hope it's not too offensive? Here's her movie.

Justice Society

This is kind of a speedrun of the franchise so far, in the other timeline. Maybe it needs to be broken up; not a full twenty something movies, but perhaps more than one? But for now I will proceed assuming it can all be one.

The poster for Justice Society is a bunch of papers with sketches for various potential logos, and furthermore all sheets are arranged like the poster for Justice League, but mirrored horizontally. Obviously specific logos cannot match up, but they still should look cool side by side, I hope.

The movie starts with the Legion, on the day Supergirl was sent back. That's arguably overkill but we need it for the bookends. We open with her going into the time machine room, but from the other angle, so she's floating towards us. They do the small ceremony, the light show happens, but she disappears and we stay with the rest of the people.

I'd like it if this can be literally another angle of the same moment, filmed from another camera way back then. That may or may not be possible, depending on how exactly her floating is achieved, plus maybe any other technical issues I wouldn't know about.

Anyways, after she's gone everyone stands around stoically, waiting for the end of their universe, which doesn't come. The scientists start frantically checking their instruments. After a moment, the highest military officer present (the guy that Supergirl was talking to) turns to what seems the highest scientist to ask how long is it supposed to take. She looks at all her systems one more time and says "...not this long". Everybody deflates.

Then we would get some opening credits, probably set to some generic soft rock or somesuch, and the title card. Then come three sets of scenes: Power Girl's time in the Legion leading to her time travel, montage of her saving various people right after arriving in the past, and an interview she gives to Lois Lane about six months after arrival.

I'd also like for them all to be intermixed, using Lois preparing the article for publication as a framing device, but I'm not sure it works, since that implies everything is stuff she learned and there's at least two things in the Legion scenes that the people of the past shouldn't learn: that Power Girl is trans, and that she's the second attempt (and they believe the first failed and died). So here in order.

First, we need an actor to be pre-op Power Girl. Given they're rebuilding her "on a cellular level", it could just be anyone and we say any differences were per her request. But I actually prefer to not do that, and get two people as similar looking as possible, both for story clarity and to be able to say she didn't have any particular request, cosmetically. He gets at least two scenes.

First, getting measured for the making of the supersuit. It's again modelled after Superman's, boots and cape still red, but the rest of it is white, and there is no logo. They explain that the first attempt most likely failed on account of faulty historical information of some sort, so they're sending him further into the past, to have the opportunity to research and plan better. Superman is alive at that time, they wouldn't want to offend him. They considered using the Legion's logo, but ultimately decided it's not impossible that some version of it existed back then, better not to risk it.

Second, right after she explains and requests to be remade as a woman. I don't think we should actually hear the request, literally immediately after, with the actor looking slightly embarrased as the scientist responds. He says that yes, they can do that; it's basically trivial given all the other stuff they were already going to do. But re-tailoring the suit is much harder, he's not even sure if they can, "you should really have informed us of this before that was made".

That's also why the boob window; she couldn't fit in, afterwards, and they didn't have the resources to fix it properly so they just cut a vertical slice, at great expense, thus allowing the fabric to be pushed to the sides. I guess that makes it less circular than normal and kind of a diamond or cat's pupil shape, which we would have seen all the way back in Lanterns. Hope some people speculated about that.

I also enjoy having this justification for having the window at all. There's been many through the years, some stupider than others, but I'm reasonably sure it's never been something like this.

I also really enjoy the idea of her trying and failing to put it on, but there's no way to show that in a superhero movie, right? So instead let's say the cast jokes about that in interviews, "we tried so many camera angles and stuff, but couldn't get anything that would fly". And then it would inevitably become a sort of mad quest among certain fans, to get hold of that deleted footage, even if most believe it never existed and it was just a joke.

Anyways, this actor could have more scenes, studying and training for the mission, saying goodbyes to friends and family, stuff like that; or those could go to the final actress. Doesn't really matter, except that at least some training needs to go to her, since logically she'd need to do it after getting her powers.

Then she's transported back to the past, and the very first thing she does upon appearing on the empty Moon is to fly down and plant her feet firmly on the ground, before looking up to see the Earth's status. This one is always standing, and runs a lot; she only flies if required for tactical or logistical reasons. I don't have any deep psychological truths that may be revealed by this difference between her and Supergirl, but I still like to keep the contrast.

Also on the subject of parallels and contrasts, since Supergirl had her hair cut early in her adventure (and therefore presumably had long hair before), Power Girl will start with very short hair, but through the heroics montage we will see it growing progressively longer. Probably at an unreasonably fast rate, since that's supposed to last six months; but maybe it just extends further into the movie. Whatever the case, she ends up settling at butt-length hair.

She arrived in the past 6 years after Jason Todd's death, so the interview is three and a half years before Superman's, and 2 before General Zod came. That also makes it 3.5 years since Princess Koriand'r arrived and 3 since she's been dating Dick Grayson, though that's less important.

As for the montage itself, the only thing of interest is that she saves Victor Stone and his mom from their car crash. That means Cyborg won't exist in this timeline, and therefore also his dad gets to live. The cube itself remains in safe storage at S.T.A.R. Labs, no other scientist having been desperate enough to get stupid with it.

Unless maybe it's related to the end of the world, and both time travellers eventually destroyed theirs. I'm tempted to establish that connection simply for lack of anything better to do with either, but not sure. Let's say "maybe".

After the montage comes the interview, where Lois has various general questions for her. She admits to being from the future, from the Moon, here to save the world from an upcoming disaster she can't say more about for operational security, and various other stuff that it's surprising she'd be so open about.

I figure there may be some oblique-to-casual acknowledgment of her asexuality, as Lois asks about potential love interests (she's very popular, of course) and she denies having any interest. I also picture Lois apologizing, and claiming the more tabloidy questions were not her idea, others at the office insisted. Kinda wanna imply that was Perry, though she'd know better than to name him if that's the case.

At this point the world at large is already referring to her as "Power Girl", and Lois not-so-subtly suggests she use this opportunity to rebrand, as she doesn't find that name particularly dignified. Power Girl agrees she's probably right, but she doesn't care. Per the Legion's attitude towards names, it doesn't matter if it's technically stupid; nobody in the world is confused about it, that's all you can ask for from a name.

She still does share her serial, ac252ac247asc58tf123, and also draws the Legion's symbol for the article, having already determined there isn't any organization using it at this time. That would lead Lois to ask about the boob window, and if we're doing the interlocked scenes this is when we show the pre-op actor getting mildly berated for causing them to have to modify the suit; but either way all she says is "what, you don't like it?".

Also, about that name. That's the first appearances of Supergirl in general, the Legion of Superheroes, Power Girl specifically and Earth 2, respectively. It's also not a coincidence that the first half is the same as Supergirl; they were approximately the same age, and these are supposed to be serial numbers. That can't possibly hold up for any others, but we don't need serials for anyone or anything else.

This also confirms this timeline is a version of Earth 2, as may have been hinted by Power Girl's presence and also the Justice Society. I will be populating it with heroes who are, or could logically have been, from that continuity; not exclusively, but to some degree at least. I also suppose that makes the Legion timeline Earth 0. And then normally Earth 3 is the evil counterparts one, but I'm not doing that, my timelines are strictly "one change, butterfly effect".

Anyways, back to the interview. There's some sufficient generic interview-type questions, as modified by the reality of her being a superhero, then Lois closes by asking if there's anything she wants to tell the world. There's two things.

First, she may not be an alien, as maybe some people had been suspecting (unless the Moon counts), but there is a visitor from the stars currently living among humanity. She wants to have a meeting, in private if need be, for personal reasons.

Second, she needs to meet the Lex Luthor, as soon as possible, for future reasons. She stresses that it is important he receive this message, Lois reassures her the entire world has been waiting for this article and there's no way he'd be the one to miss it, and then they separate.

The very next day, Lex announces he's put all his other business for the month on hold, and is ready to receive her at her leisure, in his mansion in the caribbean. She arrives that same night, finding a fancy dinner waiting for both of them. We may take the opportunity to show she's a picky eater; it nicely contrasts Supergirl again, but it may be a little more unsympathetic than I want for the main protagonist.

Maybe a mild one: she grimaces a little, he asks if anything is wrong, and she says no, she's just still getting used to her enhanced senses, then keeps eating. Something like that may work.

Anyways, Lex is a big fan. He loves the idea that, in the future, humanity will seize godhood for themselves. We should see his "angels vs demons" painting, but he's graffitied it with a Legion symbol. She easily recruits him to save the future, and he admits since her arrival he's been looking into rumours of other people with strange abilities, which he wouldn't have credited before, but now he's been thinking about approaching them (and her) about forming some Society together. "Society for what?" "I don't know, Heroes? I'll have the guys at Marketing come up with something".

So they recruit some people to save the day. Still Wonder Woman, and Captain Cold. For Flash I established the older, dead one was Wally West, so I cannot in good conscience bring in Jay Garrick, sadly; he's either Barry again or missing.

I definitely want Alan Scott, the original Green Lantern from before there were space cops and so on. In this version he's not going to be related to the Corps at all, just a local mage, and won't be called that. From his list of titles from Wikipedia, I think Jade Knight works best. He'd have the power I denied Lanterns, to manifest objects made of hard light, but no active manipulation; he can create any tool but then has to wield it normally. Also his magic needs to be a different shade of green. May or may not have the weakness to wood, depending on if he gets enough screentime for it to be showcased.

Kinda want Shade, one of Jay Garrick's villains, who occasionally was a "noble adversary" kind of thing so it's not so much of a stretch to make him a hero. He basically controls shadows, so if Earth 1 had Ebon, this guy could be his counterpart. At the very least, Lex should be interested in recruiting him, even if he doesn't join.

Also Wildcat, though I don't have anything interesting to say about him. I know he taught Power Girl wrestling or boxing or something like that, but obviously that won't happen in this version. Nonetheless, he's in.

Add a couple more people, they succesfully change the future but she doesn't think she'll die, she solemnly thanks her people for their sacrifice and carries on. Honestly, Supergirl was also told how they expected it to work, she just didn't pay enough attention. Afterwards the gathered heroes become the first of the Society, with Lex as their Director.

For the record, he will be good. A little more underhanded than Bruce would be confortable being, which is why he succesfully recruited Cold, but this is definitely a "redeemed" Luthor.

They do heroics, maybe recruit a few more people, and a few months later Koriand'r meets Power Girl in the sky. Still wearing human clothes, but without her fake skin/eyes, and obviously wreathed in Violet Light. She thinks she's the alien that was being called out at the end of the interview; Power Girl is surprised enough that she realizes she's not and asks who, but agrees when she's told she won't betray the other's secrets.

She's here to tell her about the spaceship her systems detected incoming, and also the fact that she has such systems, though she probably knew that, from the future? She didn't, I know I originally said a better future historian would have recognized Koriand'r, but on second thought I realized they shouldn't; Earth 0 Star Grayson, née Anderson, lived and died in obscurity and comfort.

Power Girl theorizes it's probably the kryptonian survivors, though it's a few years too early for them to come. She guesses, but doesn't say, that probably the Kal-El triggered the distress signal early, as a result of the changes she's made to the timeline. Koriand'r is surprised to hear there are any survivors, Tamaran didn't know that. After a little more catching up between the two, they agree to go to meet them, so she takes her hand and flies them into space.

Minor retcon time! The way the kryptonian ship worked was very clearly visually a teleport, but it was never explicitly said, and the technobabble was very vague. Once again I assume that was on purpose, in case they wanted to build up on it later. That's convenient for me right now: we will say that it's actually continuous travel, though in a semi-immaterial state which is what allows them to break light-speed. I already had the martian experiment and the Cult of Mongul's spell also kinda work like that, so we may even go ahead and say every teleportation does.

The important thing is that a sufficiently advanced technology, such as tamaranian planetary surveillance, allows them to detect ships in transit and intercept them, which is what they will do. The ladies meet General Zod's ship around the asteroid belt, where it materializes to allow them to board. Probably Koriand'r had been transmitting a signal asking for parley, it's something the planetary surveillance systems could plausibly do.

The kryptonian atmosphere bothers Power Girl, but she's better able to resist, on account of her augmentations. Koriand'r probably doesn't drop her aura, after seeing her new friend coughing for a moment. Though she'd be fine if she did; this won't actually come up until later, but Tamaran's atmosphere is sort of "in between" the other two; both humans and kryptonians can breathe comfortably, and the later don't get any powers.

Koriand'r translates for the meeting. We may get a scene of her kissing General Zod, for linguistics purposes, on the grounds that these people aren't capable of love and therefore her magic doesn't give her their language. Faroa Hu-Ul told Superman as much, at least, and I've no idea when else I would be able to invoke that clause.

Plus it'd be kinda cool, her trying and failing to talk to them, until she realizes that won't work and just says "Tamaran", pointing at herself, hoping they understand. General Zod does, sighs and takes off his helmet so she can do it, then when she's done he puts it back on before asking her if it worked.

But on the other hand, clearly Jor-El and his wife and kid were love-capable. Presumably they wouldn't be alone, if we have that restriction it would be for the soldier caste specifically. So that begs the question of whether the requirement for Lantern translation is per person, or species-wide. I feel it should probably be the later, because magic, but it does deprive us of a fun visual right now. So, dunno.

General Zod confirms they're after the other last survivor of Krypton, Jor-El's son, whom he saved using illegal experimental technology. Power Girl denies it, it was she who found the ancient ship, and while trying to salvage it triggered what seemed to be an alarm of some sort, which is probably what they're tracking. He confirms that. She claims there are no kryptonians on her planet; she checked, after first finding the ship, in case she needed one to access the systems. Koriand'r realizes some or all of that is a lie, but doesn't mention it.

They keep talking, General Zod admits to his people's plans for Earth, which Power Girl knew from the future and neither of them will allow. He starts getting angry. Koriand'r insists they must claim a world without an existing biosphere, and offers her empire's resources making up for the added difficulty. This is the first time she'll explicitly admit to being tamaranian royalty, which should make Power Girl flinch briefly.

Koriand'r keeps trying to calm things down, but General Zod keeps getting angrier until he orders his people to attack, then immediately does so himself. The others hesitate very briefly before trying their best to capture or kill the two ladies.

Now, the first movie kinda established that the kryptonian power armors are almost on par with a powered kryptonian. More specifically, they defeated Superman the first time, when he was trying to figure out his powers, then he defeated them the second after he had some proficiency. I've never explicitly established this but it's most reasonable to assume Legion faux-kryptonians have equivalent power levels, and Power Girl is a trained soldier, so she'll have no trouble keeping up with them. The atmosphere probably bothers her more than the enemies.

As for Koriand'r, she's a Lantern. They simply have nothing that can threaten her.

So the two are getting swarmed by mostly ineffectual soldiers, while Koriand'r keeps trying to de-escalate and General Zod keeps ranting madly, until he says something to the effect that he'd rather see the mission fail than take her charity. Then he's immediately shot in the back, and before anyone can react Faroa kicks away his helmet and shoots his head off.

Then she drops the weapon, turns towards Koriand'r and kneels without further word. The other soldiers stop attacking, confused. Most of them drop their weapons, a few bow or kneel. Power Girl drops one she was grappling so he can join in.

Once everyone has acknowledged the end of the fight, Faroa apologizes for her superior. He lost his best friend during the planet's destruction, and apparently his mind as well. They will turn around and seek an empty planet to settle, difficult though it may be. They would be honoured to accept any help she still may feel gracious enough to offer, though of course they understand if the time for that has passed.

Koriand'r tells her to stand up, there's no need for that and of course the offer stands. She just needs to bring her friend home, and say some goodbyes. They agree on that and she grabs Power Girl and flies away. The moment they're gone, General Hu-Ul orders the ship start travelling towards Tamaran, on the grounds that a Lantern can easily catch up with them, or even wait for them there.

Koriand'r brings her directly to her appartment, where she applies the fake skin, so we finally see that. It'd really be up to the special effects people to work something out, but I'm imagining a small plastic box, like any makeup, which unfolds spider-like legs to crawl around her skin, applying a plastic-like substance. She dons it hastily this time, so we can see a little orange up her sleeve or down her neckline.

She also quickly writes some letters to unspecified people in her life, as she asks Power Girl if they can talk further after she comes back. She agrees of course, and promises to keep her human identity out of it, now that she has the address and also presumably could have read all those letters if she wanted, but she does need to report what happened to the Society. They both fly away.

Koriand'r delivers her letters but sees Dick in person, to tell him she'll be gone for a while on business, she can't say more for now but maybe she can explain after she returns, in a couple months. He doesn't see her fly or use any magic, but is maybe confused/worried about her having come all the way to Blüdhaven for that.

Meanwhile, Power Girl flew to the north pole, where she quickly found the ancient kryptonian ship and stood at attention outside. Clark emerges, already wearing his Superman suit and thinking she's here on account of future info. She tells him about the other kryptonians, their upcoming new world, and that the Princess promised to come visit soon-ish, she can take him to them if he wants.

He thinks about it for a moment, but refuses. He literally just found out he was an alien, he's lived on Earth all his life and has no interest in leaving. He'd really like to consider himself human, if possible. And also start helping people, like she does. So she brings him to see Lex about joining the Society.

He's having a meeting and dinner with Raven, who will end up becoming the Society's main mage. Power Girl is the one to introduce Clark as "the Superman", which surprises him briefly but he goes along with it. Lex is again excited to meet him, by now he's definitely an enthusiastic superhero supporter. He's also invited to the north pole, to see the kryptonian ship. He and Jor-El's hologram quickly establish a rapport, as fellow men of science.

They eventually move the Society's headquarters to the ship, and start building more structures for heroes that need or want housing there, plus support staff. Kryptonian science allows it to be both comfortable and ecologically sound. Jor-El ends up being in charge of comms for the Society, so all members get to know him at least a little. We also should meet some more new heroes.

I want both Jimmy Olsen and Lana Lang, in their superhero identities of Elastic Lad and Insect Queen, respectively.

She found an alien in distress and helped him, then he rewarded her with a ring that lets her partially transform into giant insect human hybrids at will. In my version he will not be an alien, I'm being much more conservative with those, so instead it's a human (or secretly atlantean) mage. And maybe she fails to save him so he leaves her the magic ring because he's dying; I denied that to Lantern Corps so there could be a Test system, but for an one-off it's not bad.

As for Olsen, he's actually already been introduced, as a CIA agent who dies as part of Lex's evil plan. There's no evil plan this time, so he'll be fine. Instead he gets involved in a secret project to give soldiers artificial superpowers, being the only success, maybe the only survivor. He's sent to infiltrate the Society, working under Amanda Waller. Lex knows about it, and offers him to coordinate on what he'll report back, which of course Waller knows about, and etc. He's a bit stressed about that but ultimately decides to just focus on heroing, leave the politics to the politicians.

On the other hand, I'm not sure if it's yet time to introduce him. Time is already getting vague, but we still need to be a while before BvS time. On the other other hand, the world is already highly changed, and presumably he'd been in that assignment for a while before it got him killed, so it's probably ok to just say he got different orders.

Other than that, one of the minor powered assassins from Steel, not the same one who was in Task Force X.

This is also probably the time for a super they try to approach but find mysteriously dead. I volunteer Black Canary, the original one from Flash comics; she may or may not leave behind a daughter who will be implied to eventually get the same powers and take over the role. (Batman killed her, but we won't be explicitly told that.)

Anyways, the next big thing is Lex and Jor-El cooperating to use kryptonian terraforming technology to try and help Earth's environmental problems. They construct two of the thing that was in the sea, since the one over Metropolis was their ship and they explicitly were only using it because they didn't have two of the other machine. They are placed on the poles.

Wonder Woman wants them to not do that, she's clearly worried, but doesn't want to say why, even when officially ordered. Lex and Jor-El double-check all the maths, in case she'd noticed something they missed, but decide she was probably wrong and proceed. First test goes well, data is promising, but they do have to cut it short due to an unforeseen event (Martian Manhunter, though we're not told that yet).

A little after, Atlantis attacks. King Orm used the test to rally all other kingdoms to his cause. Presumably, he would have tried it in Earths 0 and 1, but since there it was not humanity's project but rather an attack against them, it didn't work. Also this means Black Manta won't exist this time, since he doesn't need a man on the inside.

This is what Wonder Woman was worried about, but she didn't speak because she respects Atlantis' secrecy. She gets a minor reprimand for it, though ultimately Lex agrees she was caught between a rock and a hard place, there are no repercussions for her other than her conscience.

The opening attack destroys Coast City, Atlantis will use the ruins as their forward base. This means Jinx died, so Raven won't need to worry about that. The Society and various militaries rally to defend against them; if Jimmy's here already, this is when he officially goes from "multiple agent" to "liaison".

While the war is going on, Mera and, uh, Green Goblin? Ok his name is Vulko, thanks google. Those two split off to go betray the war effort. She tries to recruit Arthur, but instead finds a note where he tells her not to bother him again, he disavows both of his peoples. He won't be seen in this timeline.

That would also mean his mom will remain in exile forever. Sorry, ma'am.

Meanwhile, Vulko goes to talk to Luthor, much more succesfully. He goes to Coast City with a bunch of supers, including King Shark even if it's his first introduction, to assassinate Orm and install Mera as Queen, since she failed to find Arthur. Maybe he can suspect she didn't try all that hard, but we know that's not true so we shouldn't dwell on it.

Power Girl is the one to actually kill Orm. By neck snap from behind, because obviously.

Queen Mera immediately orders a ceasefire and announces she's giving the surface world "one last chance to surrender". Lex goes to her under white flag, along with Waller and some military leaders from some other nations, to negotiate terms. Which are secretly exactly as already agreed upon between Lex and Vulko. The atlantean peoples are impressed with their new Queen's leadership and proud of their victory, humanity actually gets a pretty sweet deal, and they begin having actual cultural and economic exchange, leading to greater prosperity to both.

Superman and Power Girl toss the terraforming engines into the sun. Maybe introduce a new hero to help with that. Let's say Rocket Red, I don't know if he would be capable of extra-planetary operation, but we can pretend Lex helped upgrade him.

Wonder Woman is sent back to her people, to also establish actual diplomatic relationships, before something like that happens again. She brings two ambassadors along. Lana Lang for humanity, and Lori Lemaris for atlantis.

That's a mermaid, powerful telepath, who was also one of Superman's ex-girlfriends, though not in this version. She uses a wheelchair, but does not hide her tail, it's simply a legitimate mobility need, on dry land. Also she may be a princess, Aquaman implied only atlantean nobles could breathe both water and air; that doesn't necessarily extend to merfolk but I'm ok with saying it does, so long as it's also clear Lori wasn't a realistic candidate for the throne nor does she have any other obligations she's neglecting by taking this commission.

Diana meets her sister, Donna, who should be a little younger, but I'm not sure how much. She's going to be 15 at the time of Dick's Test during the White War, but I never established exactly how much longer that is after BvS, which has been kinda my centerpoint for timekeeping. I guess she'd be between 8 and 12, but also we're still a little before Superman would have died.

Both ambassadors are very popular with the amazons, but unfortunately both of them are straight. Also, Queen Hyppolita lives, thanks to their presence either her accident doesn't happen or at least she's saved.

Some time passes, and we should see, probably in news clips or so, that some people are nervous about all the power Lex Luthor has been amassing. That's two, arguably three, alien civilizations that kinda have diplomatic relations with his Society, rather than any actual government. Mostly people agree he's benevolent, but not everyone is so satisfied.

Some general anti-superhuman sentiment can also start rising, though we wouldn't dwell on that because I specifically wouldn't want to tread on X-men territory.

A bit later, Ace Reporter Clark Kent is investigating the apparent suicide of Gotham City Police Commissioner James W. Gordon. He's walking a dark alley when a person jumps down from the rooftop, tells him not to move. Obviously he knew but he's here in disguise, so he pretends to be surprised and scared. He turns around slowly and sees Batman pointing a gun at him. That hand is shaking, slightly.

Clark tries to defuse, tells him he thought he was an urban legend, that he'll be glad to bring his message to the world, stuff like that; but Batman "didn't lead you here for an interview". So Clark raises his hands and walks forward, slowly, to press the barrel of the gun against his chest.

He looks around at the alley. We see the abandoned theatre on the side. "It was here, right? This is where the monster was born." "This is where the monster will die." And the next thing he tries to say is lost in the sound of the gunfire, and the pain, and the surprise.

Clark falls backwards and dies with the exact same choreography as Martha Wayne did. Same limb movements, same camera angles, same amounts of slow motion. I would seriously give him a pearl necklace if I could think of a halfway decent excuse.

Batman sees that and drops the gun, stumbling backward a bit. He's breathing hard, and turns to the side, hands on his knees, about to throw up. But he doesn't, he collects himself and walks back to the corpse. He hesitates one last time, then bends down to pick up his gun.

For the record, he never thought he could really get the drop on Superman. He was counting on him playing along, rather than revealing himself, for long enough to allow himself to be shot with what he would expect to be a regular bullet.

Also, this means I do need to remove all guns from BvS Batman. Back then I was ambivalent about that, but now it's important for thematic contrast, so officially: all his murders in that movie were done on melee or thrown batarangs, not a single bullet fired from him or his vehicles.

A few days later, the Society is giving an emergency announcement. There's a temporary platform in a park, with a line of reporters in front of it, not including Lois Lane, and a bunch of random onlookers behind them. On the platform, at the back, a bunch of heroes.

Nightwing is in his older, disco uniform. We probably don't get to hear this, but he first adopted it to distance himself from Batman as he started getting worse, since the better suit is definitely Batman-inspired. In Earth 1 he went back to it after Bruce's redemption, before we met him, but in Earth 2 that won't happen so disco will never die.

Chloe Sullivan, she also has a superhero suit, which shows her duties are as a healer, not any admin. Probably green hearts or plus signs, something like that.

The eldest of the Shazam Family, Mary. I guess arguably she shouldn't exist yet, but whatever. Timeline has changed, Billy was chosen even younger, which is probably fine.

Stephanie Brown, as Spoiler, she'll be 14 or 15 so we are under a year from Rebirth, though we don't necessarily know that since we are just meeting her for the first time.

Flash, if we have him.

James Olsen, the Elastic Lad.

Some strong-looking people. Let's say Hourman and two or three nameless generic heroes.

And at the podium at the front of the platform, Lex Luthor is flanked by his two closest friends, Power Girl and Superman. He thanks everyone for gathering on such short notice, says they must be wondering what this is about. Someone at the back asks if he's finally running for President, causing everybody to start screaming over each other. Not completely positive, but mostly.

Lex just stands in silence, smiling, holding out his hands until everyone calms down. The last thing before silence is someone at the back, not the same person, screaming "You have my vote!". Lex takes a deep breath, then turns around and exchanges places with Superman. Now everyone is really paying attention.

He says he will be going to New Krypton, to be with his people and learn about his culture. He thanks them all for welcoming him all these years, and turns around towards Lex to thank him for letting him be part of such an important project, and then he's shot down from above multiple times, bullets shining green. He falls to the ground, reverting back to his martian form.

Batman falls from the sky in a giant humanoid robot. If Orange Irons was the traitor in Lanterns, it is the same model, though with fewer add-ons, just the two wrist-mounted gatling guns. Also black and with bat ears, purely cosmetic.

The heroes mostly scramble to get Lex and all the civilians to safety. Chloe rushes to try and heal J'onn, Jimmy and maybe one other tagging along to protect her. We see from her expression that it's not working.

Power Girl rushes the robot and knees its chest, pushing it back a few metres but not doing any visible damage. Her eye beams also have no apparent effect. Batman focuses fire on her, which she dodges, but only barely, so as to keep his attention. That works, and while she distracts him Mary gets underfoot to invoke Shazam's name multiple times, getting it repeatedly struck by lightning.

We see from the inside of the cockpit, Batman wearing his power armor, as he desperately flicks switches and presses buttons, trying to keep the systems working as more and more of them fail. Eventually all his screens go black, and then he falls. The robot was toppled, but we're still looking at the inside, hopefully the motion is still clear.

Some light comes in as Mary and Power Girl finally pull open the front of the robot. Then the later grabs the chest of his armor, squeezes a little to hold it, and pulls him out. She starts demanding an explanation, he instead says something defiant. Probably something about killing gods, I don't have good wording. He simultaneously flicks open a butterfly knife, edge shining green, and stabs her directly in the eye.

It shatters, harmlessly. We see genuine surprise in his face; he'd never believed the "future woman from the Moon" thing. She smirks and pulls his face closer to hers. "Seems like someone will be going to New Krypton, after all". Then she flies away with him.

At the north pole base, Jor-El reports the criminal and asks for transportation. Shortly after a ship arrives and takes them both, leaving his armor behind for future study.

Kinda want this ship to be Space Cabbie, but actually New Krypton should have their own prisoner transport by now. But maybe they don't, and he has some comment about that? Not sure.

The audience chamber is clearly modelled after the Council's chamber in Old Krypton, but Governor Hu-Ul stands alone. After hearing the charges, she reminds Power Girl that she had originally testified that there was no kryptonian on Earth. She admits to that, but claims it was per his request, and that he wished to be considered a human, not a kryptonian.

Technically true, though he only said that afterwards.

Hearing her say that triggers Bruce to shout something hateful about him, which in turn makes Governor Hu-Ul shoot him through the chest. Then she says she'll accept that as a confession, from both of them, and sentences Power Girl to some amount of community service, on account of hiding Kal-El from their government, which inadvertently led to his death.

Given her power, she's tasked with helping the terramorphing efforts. Digging rivers, leveling mountains, stuff like that. A couple months later, Koriand'r arrives on a regular visit and learns about that. She helps her finish her tasks faster and then brings her to Earth, glad to finally have the excuse to visit.

She explains the deal with the Star Sapphires, which was easily fixed, but also that she's Queen now, which we should see in flashback. Her and the kryptonians stand before Komand'r in the audience chamber. She says they will not receive a single <alien small currency, probably> "for as long as I sit on this throne". She smiles meaningfully as she says that part. The kryptonians and her guards start getting tenser as the sisters stare down each other, but finally Koriand'r sighs in defeat and walks forward.

She gets up to let her sit down, takes off the Gown and tosses it over her head, and leaves, whistling to herself. That thing is their crown-equivalent, I hope that be clear by now. Also she's wearing regular clothes underneath. I don't want to just give her another colour swap of the Starfire suit, but then I never bothered to establish any further tamaranian fashion. Just, something casual-looking but still tight enough to plausibly have gone under the Gown.

Anyways, the kryptonians are left dumbfounded at what just happened, and the flashback ends.

While Power Girl was gone, Wonder Woman returned. She already sorted out her exile, this time she's an officially sanctioned diplomat. She brings along another to go to Atlantis, not her mother, either of their love interests, or her sister; any other named amazon from Wonder Woman. Though Donna may also be with them, on an allegedly temporary basis.

Also for the record, Vulko will be the atlantean ambassador to humans, and his counterpart is Giganta, a genius scientist who gave herself the ability to become giant, but growing makes her proportionally less smart. She's usually a villain, but it's far from the first time I just flip that around.

Koriand'r and Power Girl return directly to the Director's office in the north pole, where the first thing he does is ask them not to reveal that Bruce Wayne was Batman; the Society covered that up. That's probably all he needs to say, since Power Girl is a disciplined soldier and Koriand'r doesn't really care about either of them. But I do have more info, because I just can't help myself, so:

The Society planted evidence suggesting Wayne had been secretly cooperating with the late Commissioner Gordon, using a discreet amount of his wealth and influence, working to take down Batman. Actually it was Luthor who was trying to secretly support Gordon, which is also why the Society never took any interest in that situation.

Some more false evidence suggests that, shortly after Gordon's death, Wayne suddenly fled the country; but that was planted more ineptly, to make the police think Batman did it after killing him. This worked.

As for the man she brought to face neokryptonian justice, they released his identity as Patrick Malone, alias Matches, a minor criminal only notable for having worked under most or all crime bosses in Gotham. The police already suspected he had also done work for Batman, probably under duress; nobody really questioned the reveal of his identity. As for the real Malone, Luthor assumes Batman killed him long ago and took his name, though if he still exists he seems to have taken the opportunity to disappear, and he's glad to let him.

Fun fact: "Patrick" comes from Gotham, the tv series. As far as I can tell, no other version gives him a first name.

Also, Lex is wearing power armor. It's a modified kryptonian power suit, green and purple and modelled after his common cartoon one. He was traumatized by the attack and is never going to not wear it, for the rest of his life.

Finally, once Koriand'r leaves to visit her friends, but mostly her boyfriend, Lex also informs his friend of some new recruits. In particular he wants her opinion on one of them, who was apparently inspired by the attack. Wears power armor and a fancy warhammer of his own design, very impressive work; both painted solid white, and the Legion's symbol on his chest. Calls himself Legionnaire.

She mostly doesn't understand why it may bother her. She doesn't own the name or the logo and even if arguably she could lay prior claim to them, she would not have cared. Also the entire reason she's here is to prevent the Legion's very existence, so it's not like she can complain in their behalf. So it's all fine.

Some more time goes by, but not much, and then Dick's corrupted Test begins. Raven and whatever mage was Returned for her start doing the research, but as soon as they speculate about "love magic" Koriand'r suggests the Violet Corps will know about it, so she should go ask them. Dick immediately asks her to bring him along, thereby implicitly placing their relationship above literally everyone in the planet, thereby passing his Test. They leave together before anyone can notice the problem is over, as far as this planet is concerned at least.

And yes, he should get a violet version of his disco outfit.

The two of them get involved in the White War, and neither is ever seen again. We do not confirm their deaths, gotta keep open the possibility that they fell into a dimensional rift in case we ever want either or both to show up elsewhere. But as far as Earth 2 is concerned, they are missing, presumed dead.

Some appropriate time after, Komand'r reassumes the throne. Her first move is to mobilize an army to lay siege to New Krypton, demanding their ruler's hand in marriage. She gets it, and thereafter Queen Faroa mostly takes charge of all the Empire's paperwork. She ushers the way to greater prosperity and peace, and also a closer economic and cultural exchange with Earth, which finally becomes an actual member of galactic civilization.

As to whether the Queens had a personal relationship, either before or after, neither will ever confirm nor deny. That's why I specifically didn't want an answer to what orientation, if any, Komand'r has.

Eventually their heir will be a clone of Komand'r's mother, the late Queen Luand'r, created in the neokryptonian cloning vats. Queen Faroa will argue the use of them makes the child her legitimate daughter, in accordance with their law and custom, regardless of any peculiarity of her biology. All the nobles are satisfied by that, since all they actually care is that the eventual Ruler be of noble blood, even if they don't want to admit such out loud.

That also means the late Queen's corpse was stored in such a way that retains viable genetic material, though it must be almost a (human) decade since her death. Probably longer, no particular need for them to have had a kid immediately. So let's say Tamaran has ritual mummification, and a memorial planet full of royal corpses, too far from any sun to sustain any life.

The princess' name is Kand'r; I will admit that's the main reason I wanted these two together. Her mother will raise her to be an excellent clerk and keep up the administration of the Empire. In this timeline, they will far surpass the end of the (human) millenium.

Also, Stephanie Brown and Donna of Themyscira should become friends, because that's why I made them the same age, but I don't have any particular ideas for them. Maybe leave them for a sequel.

And that's about it. We've basically caught up with Earth 1, timewise, and leave off with Earth entering a new and exciting status quo. Could add something about Lex and Jor-El starting research into dimensional mechanics, but I don't think it's strictly necessary.

After credits, back at the Legion, we see the day the last atmosphere generator was destroyed. A team of repair technicians deploys, all dressed in a "realistic" version of Booster Gold's suit: the helmet covers their head fully, and all of it is fully sealed. A bit of bulk at the back, not nearly as much as an astronaut's backpack thing, but a little reminiscent of that. And some arm braces on both forearms, which are their computer terminals.

Their leader is Supergirl's brother, though obviously he can't be referred to as such. He's the Chief Engineer, or something like that. But we still may figure it out when his suit sounds an alarm, some info displaying on his arm, then before he can read it an explosion gets him.

His second in command tries to keep the rest of the team on task, but we follow the one that breaks and runs away. The others are screaming at him to come back, until he turns off his comms. He flies through the ruins of the facilities, until he drops to his hands and knees, breathing hard and crying.

The camera pulls back to show us this is the time machine room. The end.

If that was too much for a single movie, my first thought is to split most of the Power Girl stuff into her own movie, probably called just "Power" so it can pretend the original guy will stay, at least a little. That one keeps the Supergirl and Booster Gold scenes, of course. Poster would be the Legion's logo, against black or starry sky background.

...about Prometheus

First off, there is a Prometheus in DC. This is not that; I came up with the character first, then thought what his name should be for about five seconds, then checked to see what they may have used that name for. All I can say about that guy is he won't be showing up or be hinted at in any way, to minimize confusion.

So, this starts in the timeline where Ares' plan worked (from the tags), Steve Trevor and all the soldiers chasing him died at Themyscira's beach. Also I just checked that scene and they don't have planes, actually? I assumed he flew in, because he's a pilot, which would mean his enemies need to also fly in order to get him; but they're actually all arriving on ships.

Whatever, amazons don't fly until later. Still Diana gathers a crew to go out and bring peace to humanity, as inspired by Ares' visions.

Definitely include the one that would have been Donna's Other Parent. Her farewell to Queen Hippolyta is a little more heartfelt than any of the others; they're not a couple yet, but they're both already interested.

On the other hand, no to the one that was to be Diana's dead love interest later. She asks her to come, but only because she's asking everyone to come; they don't seem to have any particular feelings at this point.

The amazons are very successful, arguably extending the Great War by a few years, unless we count it as having ended immediately and then been succeded by their attack; historians will be divided on that.

If Doctor Poison was not removed from Wonder Woman, they recruit her to be the first of the science team. She also becomes a close friend of Diana, though not her lover because then we'd have to kill her off. That honour instead goes to some important guy, a prince or general from somewhere.

By the time World War II would have come, it doesn't, because all human nations already recognize Diana as Queen. Instead at that time she launches an attack to also conquer Atlantis. Aquaman's grandfather shatters her sword, but she kills him with the last bit left on the hilt.

This is before his daughter would have been born. Actually most people from the franchise won't be born, simply because of the huge changes in demographics. Princess Koriand'r is a Violet, but her visions did not include this world.

Anyways, a few decades later a farmer sees a ball of fire fall from the heavens into his farm, which contains a baby. He assumes it's God-Imperatrix Diana's son, and reports it as such.

It's actually not that unreasonable. Nobody knows where amazons came from; the official answer is "you are not worthy of knowing", but she also unofficially encourages the myth that they descended from the heavens, drawn by the last prayers of those dead in the Great War.

The kid's not hers, but she decides he should be, and adopts him. Also gives his ship to her science people to figure out, which is why she names him after the mythical figure, who brought fire from the heavens to help pull mortals out of the darkness.

About two decades later, Earth's joint peoples have made huge progress. They're already mining the asteroid belt, and begun terraforming both Venus and Mars. At that point they detect what seems like more of Prometheus' technology in the north pole, both he and his mother go to check it out.

She and Jor-El should get along well, I think. He approves of her parenting.

They do trigger the emergency beacon and draw in General Zod's forces. But because Mars has cities now, that's where they land and launch their threats and deploy the world engine, which also means Martian Manhunter will stay trapped, presumably forever.

Diana, Prometheus and their Honour Guard all go fight them. That's a bunch of supers, but we don't need anyone specific, just that every soldier there is special in some fashion. They're all wearing spacesuits modeled after roman armour. They easily kill the kryptonians and claim their ship.

Diana checks the ship's computers and learns about the history of the galaxy. The enormity of the conflicts going on breaks the last of the hope she didn't remember she still had, and that's when Ares shows up. After a brief talk she does go with him, both disappearing forever.

Prometheus picks up her sword, which has since been reforged using atlantean and/or kryptonian technology, and crowns himself God-Imperator. After a brief period of the scientists figuring out the arctic ship and the captured one, he leads Earth on a ridiculously succesful conquest of his galaxy.

In about a decade he has gained control of most territories not claimed by Tamaran or the Lanterns, and are starting to threaten war with the former when his scientists figure out interdimensional travel, starting the multiversal conqueror phase approximately at the time BvS would have been, because I vaguely picture all timelines running concurrently. Don't want people suddenly travelling to Victorian World or something.

Also, if Yellow Jor-El was the traitor in Lanterns, Prometheus would have found the same world that gives kryptonians even better superpowers, and his personal armor would be tuned to provide him that atmosphere, either permanently or as a temporary battle mode.

At some point someone needs to wrestle him from behind as he threatens to use his laser vision on something, but he succesfully fights it off and destroys his target and/or the interloper.

For his eventual defeat at the end of his part of the franchise, I was vaguely thinking there could actually be two Promethei, their interdimensional empires overlapping without anyone knowing it, so that the heroes may learn that and manipulate things to pin one against the other. That probably needs too much setup for movies to do it correctly, though.

Also thought Diana (any) could meet him and run some psychological warfare, but honestly probably not. He's likely met Dianas by now, perhaps even killed a few.

And there is always kryptonite, of course. But actually in the comics is usually been a rule that kryptonite doesn't work unless it's from the same universe, which to my knowledge no movie has brought up, undestandably. That may mean I'd be obligated to make use of that, no? Is that how that works? That's probably how it works.

...and then...

...there was a bunch of details that I keep elaborating upon, which were threatening to delay this even more. I have removed them and saved them elsewhere, there will be at least one more post in this series. And so on and so forth, probably.

#my writing #fanfic #dc #dc comics #detective comics comics #long post #damn it's been a while since i had a post this long #though that's mostly thanks to trying and failing to get done on this one #since i think march?#feels good to be back on form #this one doesn't qualify for story rewrite because i ran out of stories to rewrite #worldbuilding is its own reward

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