What would you do?

Peter Parker discovers that, in addition to being granted the proportional strength and agility of a spider, he's also acquired the relative lifespan of a spider and has a year left to live.

That someone, anyone finally kills The Joker. Robbing Batman one of his main motivations.

Batman finds out it was his adopted parents that were killed, taking him out of Gotham to find his real parents.

The Mighty Thor gets a flattop haircut.

A Katrina-like hurricane completely floods New Orleans. Namor promptly claims it as part of his kingdom.

This is what Marvel and DC have been doing for decades now. This is pretty much the inherent problem. Instead of doing something completely new, they just keep playing with the same characters because they've become familiar properties.

The real problem is that they make major changes, then promptly undo them somewhere down the line.

They put out plenty of new characters, but the fans have little to no interest in them. These days the books just seem to be placeholders for the film/TV adaptation. Not particularly insightful, I know, but if the books with new characters don't sell, Marvel/DC has little incentive to publish them.

X-men's Jubilee is diagnosed with gender identity disorder and goes through sex reassignment surgery. Unfortunately his powers still suck.

That's inherent to any serialized property. See also- comic strips, film sequels, television shows. You can't keep the same character going if you change it. You can't radically reinvent Garfield and still call him Garfield. There's really no escaping that which makes this whole exercise inherently silly.
Spider-Man is Spider-Man, plain and simple. If you change him radically forever you're basically creating a different character. And if you do that, then why keep calling him Spider-Man? Just because you like the name?

Okay, let me amend that. Create new GOOD characters.
But that might not even work by now because the only people still reading superhero comic books are the grown men who stubbornly refuse to let go of their favorite characters.

I wouldn't personally offer any specific change for a specific character, but if I were in charge of DC or Marvel I'd abandon continuity. Let whatever creative team that is working on a book decide what the boundaries are.

Artist A writes Spidey as a 24-year-old cub reporter and grad student, engaged to Mary Jane. Whenever the creative team switches, Artist B comes along and decides to write Spidey as a 19-year-old college freshman, dating Gwen Stacey. Or after Artist Z writes Superman for awhile with secret identity intact and Lex Luthor as mad scientist, Artist Y takes over and writes Superman as married to Lois, and Lex is running for Congress.

Let each writer decide whether Supes is strong enough to move a planet, or whether Norman Osborn is the Green Goblin or is dead. It'd be a lot easier, a lot more enjoyable, and after awhile even ubernerds wouldn't care.

Amen. I was trying to imply that, but I didn't word it strongly enough.

If he's still got the powers of a spider, he's still Spider-Man. You're just altering the personality of the person behind the powers, or making major changes to his life, which happens to people in real life all the time.

I'd really like to see someone let a superhero actually age and die rather than constantly retconning their origin so it allows them to be perpetually 25. You'd think that if Spidey started when he was 15, you've got at least 25 years' worth of stories before you could reasonably expect age to start taking a toll.

And they're poor hicks, borderline criminals. Like country versions of the low-lifes he started fighting. It would give the normally cheerful, throwaway Batman a Citizen Kane-esque quality.

I actually really like your original idea, by the way.

I would like to see Bruce Wayne come out of the closet.

That joke brought to you by 1960.

A corporate takeover of Wayne Enterprises leaves Bruce Wayne broke and ruined. Forced to sell his house and destroy the Batcave to keep it from being discovered, Wayne rents an apartment in lower Gotham, but can't afford to pay the rent. Decides to pretend he's gay to allow two girls to live in the apartment with him. Unfortunately they do not know of his secret identity of Batman, thus forcing Wayne to hide both his sexuality and his hero identity. Then Oswald Cobblepot buys the building, determined to discover whether or not Wayne is Batman/gay, thus allowing Cobblepot to evict him.

Since we're all just throwing out ideas.

1) The Legion of Super Heroes comes back to the present era to kill off certain members of the DCU to "perfect" their future.

2) Daredevil finally goes up against a Criminal Syndicate worth a fuck. Taxing him on the Murdock side and as ol' Hornhead, he finally starts having to blur the line between right and wrong.

3) The Hulk is a mutated Banner. Everytime he turns back into Banner, it's nothing more than cells trying to rebuild in occupied gamma space. Once the new body is finished, the Hulk will expulse and rampage on its own. Unchecked by Banner's mind.

4) Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD - Nick Fury has been allowed back into SHIELD on one condition. He's got a list of 13 names. Some of them innocent, some guilty and some not even born yet. He's got to kill them all. Along the way, he'll discover why.

5) Kid Eternity - It's a new age in the DC Universe and it needs new heroes. The new Kid Eternity has to get the best and worst of the DCU to agree to shuffle off the mortal coil to become one of the undead legion that Eternity commands.

6) Strange Tales - Dr. Strange has to advance to being the new Ancient One. Wong has step forward and become the new Sorcerer Supreme. Meanwhile, there is a battle for control in Hell between Mephisto, Magik and Dormammu. Who will win, as the rules for magic in the Marvel Universe are rewritten.


That should do for now, I can keep crapping these out as they come.

Anderson wins.

But Cerny's was pretty damn good too.

Matt Murdock becomes a divorce lawyer for the rich and famous, and in his spare time beats the shit out of guys who don't pay child support.

Reveal Spider-Man as Peter Parker to the world, and dissolve his marriage with Mary Jane.

Wait a second... Shit.

Would the Mad Hatter later come along to replace Cobblepot as the landlord and try to act that he's hip and foxy?

And if we're going down this route, why not have a story about Harvey Dent and the antics of the Gotham City court system. Complete with his lame attempts at trying to score with Rene Montoya?

And promptly gets shot in the face as no criminal is scared of richie rich with the pretty boy face.

At which point he becomes Darkman. The circle is complete.

Wonder Woman crashes her invisible plane into Sears Tower, causing it to collapse. Internet fills itself with rumors that the building was a controlled demolition, since no one could actually see the plane hit the building. Paul Greengrass makes a film about her last moments.

Okay, I'm done.

Justice League of America - The Team splits into three factions: public, covert and tech.

They change out the roster every mission or so, while keeping a 3 person base. The team rotates in and out depending on where strength is needed in what facet. Villains can't ever pinpoint which hero to attack and it puts the team on the path towards stopping more crime.

The only problem is that each team only answers to one of the main three. Public team answers to Superman, Covert team answers to Batman and Tech team answers to Wonder Woman.

The new angle of interteam fuck-ups and incidents plays against the missions. Thus, we have new dimensions of stories to play with until the next cross-over dustup.

A 3-month, company-wide crossover which centers around Wonder Woman being hypnotized into slaving in front of a stove all day. I call it BAKE-OFF (the logo is written in big flaming letters). The main title for the crossover would be bookended by two one-shots with the subtitles OUT OF THE FRYING PAN ALPHA and INTO THE FIRE OMEGA. Burning questions will be raised and the answers will stew in the minds of readers for years afterwards. Most other titles during this time will feature several panel appearances by Wonder Woman, who shows up randomly to present the main characters with something she cooked up, perhaps in another unrelated comic for added continuity, and spouting the catchphrase: "I baked some cookies for you boys!". Advance promo images feature a silhouetted hero grasping his/her throat, apparently dying of food poisoning, and the words "Are you ready to chow down?"

The great thing about this event is that it opens up cross-promotion opportunities with both the Food Network and the Pillsbury Bake-Off Contest, bringing new readers into the fold.

I would purchase that Nick Fury one. Of the jokey answers the funniest one was Thor gets a buzzcut.

The Ten-Eyed Man. His own title.

BUMP

I was looking if there's a thread about JLA and find this thread...
The (Morrison's) Batman's son is fighting along JLA in the future.
The Joker is the only mind capable of defeat an alien threat. Batman has to convince him to do some good stuff.

Im going to be a complete nerd and make the most out of this thread, even if it means making a fool of myself; that said, here's my "fixes":
-Spider-man: Undo "One more day/brand new day", bring peter and MJ back together, have them become parents (yes, I actually would like to see De Falco's "Spider-Girl" being retro-fitted into continuity); have Mephisto (spurned of his deal with peter/Mj during OMD) make a deal with Norman Osborn that estipulates that Harry will only live if Norman destroys Spiderman's life.
-Superman: I'd like to see a story arc were Luthor uses all his resources and wits to make Superman obsolete; curing disease, ending world hunger, crime, poverty and so on...if Luthor makes earth a Paradise, would earth even need Superman anymore?
-Iron Man/Avengers/Marvel Universe as a whole: Ultron becomes a Skynet like virtual entity, and manages to control every single technology on Earth, intend on exterminating all organic life.
-Silver Surfer: Galactus is dying, taking the Universe with him; Silver Surfer finds out he will become the new universe's Galactus, and races against destiny to prevent this. (Yes, I know it ripp offs Last Galactus Story...but we never saw the end of that one).
-Authority/Wildstorm/etc: Captain Atom is sent back to the Wildstorm Universe, now in his Monarch persona, he starts a war agiants the amoral, near fascist heroes of the Wildstorm Universe.
-New Gods/Darkseid: Just give Grant Morrison his own Kirby earth/universe, and let him go nuts away from the mainstream Dc universe.
-LEOSH: I loved Anderson's idea (Jim Shooter would have owned that plot!), but i'll make it grander; the Legion arrives in the present, declaring war on the current DC universe villains and heroes alike, because a future event will destroy their future and kill billions.


Note to self: Never get into writing comics.

One more thing:

-More Planetary, dammit...a Doc Brass comic book written by Ellis would be fantastic.