Tag: Martian Manhunter

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Unsuck Heroes: Martian Manhunter

Unsuck Heroes is a series about making characters who suck not suck, as explained here:

I’ve always liked the Martian Manhunter. Superman is what happens with an extrovert starting over blissfully unaware he’s the last of his kind; Manhunter is an introvert who witnessed his people’s last gasp and knows what he lost. He’s an empath whose whole existence has been a trauma, but he’s still trying to make the world better… even as he struggles to truly be a part of it. But I’m also not making the argument that he doesn’t suck. He does, most of the time, despite all of this potential.

1) Calling him the ‘Martian Manhunter’ makes as much sense as calling Superman the ‘Kryptonian Plumber.’ Sure, he’s probably fixed a toilet or two in his day, but that’s… really not what he does. So we fix that by making John… a manhunter by trade. At one point, the Oan Manhunters reached as far as Mars. While the Manhunters were marginally in charge of the sector, the Oans had discovered they lacked social graces, and sometimes partnering with locals meant that they could more easily handle cases requiring nuance and tact. Depending on the timeline, John can either be one of these who partnered with the Manhunters, or just someone brought up in the same traditions- that all sort of hinges on how old you want your Green Lantern Corps. to be. John was on one of these manhunting missions off-world, on Earth, actually, when the Martian cataclysm occurred. He returned, to try to help, but was powerless to stop it, and forced to watch his family’s demise. He tracked the origins of the cataclysm back to Earth, where an unethical scientist accidentally created the psychic virus that killed every other Martian. John wonders if he’s immune, which brings the horrifying realization that he might have been the carrier that transmitted the virus home.

2) Because he’s a second-stringer, he’s always being sidelined for Superman. But some of this inevitably comes from the fact that he’s been a second-stringer, and therefore never got his own rogues, which leads to a spiral- no archnemesis of note means no starring role and down and down we go. This is helped by the backstory in 1. That unethical scientist is a Luthor type. But unlike Lex, having his own resources to fall back on, he’s a con man- smart enough to fleece people to fund his research, and then disappear before the check comes due. This also makes it necessary for John to hunt for him- especially since his first invention upon meeting John was a helmet that shields him from John’s telepathy.

3) Fire bad. Okay… this one’s going to be a bumpy ride. Because the thing is, the one thing guaranteed to be at literally every superhero fight, is fire. He might as well be vulnerable to oxygen. But… I have a solve- courtesy of Batman. Wayne was working on new heat-absorbing panels for a next-gen shuttle; they’re meant to function like scale armor, or a phalanx’s shields, interlocking in such a way to minimize heat leakage between them. John essentially carries some of these in his body at all times, and can assemble them in such a way that he can make himself somewhat fireproof; he can’t phase them, and holding them in place would essentially require all his shapeshifting concentration, so they would greatly reduce his ability to move or pass through matter, but it means that he can at least withstand some fire temporarily. It’s not a complete fix… but honestly, I wouldn’t want one. John’s already the Superman problem times 20- he has a superpower for literally every situation and only the one, largely silly vulnerability. We have to give the villains at least a little bit of a chance.

4) Personality-wise, though… John sucks. This is honestly probably where he sucks the absolute most. Because his entire character is essentially locked in as a perpetual outsider. It’s lazy, and worse, nonsensical. He’s a telepath, skilled at manhunting, which involves at least some ability to blend into a native population. Sure, at some core level, he’d struggle as one of the last Martians. But he can read minds, he’s empathic even when he’s being portrayed as cold. I think this calls for a whole arc, frankly. John starts pissed at being alone, the last of his kind. He hunts down the scientist responsible for his specie’s near-extinction… but along the way realizes how many people are just as vulnerable and deserving of care and protection as his family. John goes from wanting to burn the world and the entire species responsible for his loss, to wanting to hold the scientist responsible according to the Earth’s laws, while working to help humanity embrace its better nature, and his own.

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DCNu Pitch: Martian Manhunter

Since the DCEU is rebooting, I’m pitching my own reboot here. I’ll likely continue on with my older pitches, too, but given that the Snyderverse is as dead as Kevin Costner’s Jonathan Kent (um, spoilers, I guess, if you somehow missed the first movie in the Snyderverse, but also still care about details from a 10 year old movie), my focus will likely shift to these. To differentiate continuities, the new ones will be given a DCNu tag.

I think I’m going to continue to ladle out details of my overarching plans, but I’m scheduling things to take advantage of the fact that we have a lot of well-known, even successful franchises and also a lot of question marks. By padding the more questionable stories between more known quantities, you aren’t going to accidentally derail the entire project if say Martian Manhunter doesn’t catch on with the public- because it might not, for the same reason that projects like “Black Adam” or even “Blue Beetle” might not.

Martian Manhunter

This will draw on the write-up I did for John as an Unsuck Hero, but will hew more towards narrative.

We start on Mars. The man who will eventually be called the Martian Manhunter is just called John. He’s preparing to leave again, and his wife is uneasy. For years he’s been on the trail of a White Martian terrorist responsible for igniting a civil war between Green and White Martians that’s still raging. John hopes that by bringing the terrorist to justice, the war can finally end, and their family can be finally safe. His wife shifts, her skin turning White. She’s afraid, afraid his efforts could see them targeted, afraid of being exposed as a White Martian, afraid for their son and daughter. John shifts into his uniform; it’s not quite the one we know, and is somewhere between that and the Oan Manhunters.

In this continuity, the Oan Manhunters spread as far as Mars. However, they were ill-equipped to deal with a civilization that had no spoken language or even body language, relying entirely on telepathy, and so recruited locals to interface with the population, which eventually became a Martian Manhunter Corps., essentially their police force. The Oan machines have since been recalled, but the Manhunter Corps. continues in the same tradition, even keeping the name for its protectors.

John’s wife is an extra skilled telepath; the Manhunters usually employ them for long-range recon, but because she’s a White Martian she couldn’t pass their security checks, so she scans for John under the table. She’s the one who found the terrorist, hiding on Earth.

Manhunter pilots a ship from Mars. He talks to his superior in the Manhunters, who tells him he’s going out on a limb, because there haven’t been any unauthorized launches since the terrorist was last seen on Mars. John feels confident, which leads to the superior probing for information on his CI, but John plays coy, saying only that he trusts the informant with his life- and the superior warns that he could be- John wouldn’t be the first Manhunter caught in a separatist trap, tortured for intel then set on fire.

John lands, and scans the local population for information on what they look like, eventually settling on a detective, blue trench coat with an exceedingly high collar and a hat (I think his eventual uniform will incorporate elements of this disguise and his Manhunter uniform; you could even give him a red vest and a red belt). The people in his immediate area are predominantly watching a detective movie on the TV, the lead played by the actor playing John, so when he makes himself look human, he resembles that actor (I’d probably have the TV version wearing some prosthetics, just so it’s not too 1:1, otherwise he’d be in disguise as relatively well-known actor- someone likely to draw attention).

We’re going to do a riff on a noir story, here. There’s a femme fatale waiting in his office, and she pounces on him, kissing him passionately. He pulls her away. “Shiera, I said this can’t happen.” She corrects him, that he said it can’t happen again. “I know what I said,” he says coldly. She softens, asks if things are okay at home. He remains cold, because he’s angry at himself, and snaps at her that he didn’t go back home for gossip, he went to find a lead- and he did. She asks if she should get her wings, or even call in her people.

He tells her this is his fight- that if his intel is good, he’ll call for backup- that it’s too dangerous a fight for her- or really anyone who isn’t Martian.

John can’t just scan for his target; the separatists have developed a method of hiding from telepathy, something that is strictly illegal in their society. But his wife’s scan puts him on the trail, and he’ll have to track him the old fashioned way. He finds an apartment the White Martian had been using, which gets him known associates, leading eventually to the discovery of the terrorist himself- unfortunately he ‘feels’ John at that moment, and runs, so John pursues him on foot for a fun little chase through the rain, before their confrontation.

Their fight appears to be a massive shapeshifting battle, until the terrorist realizes the entire thing is happening in their minds, that John is trying to limit the fallout and exposure to the native Terrans. The terrorist tries to lash out in the real world, but splitting his concentration just makes him vulnerable in his own mind, and John’s able to subdue him.

John stops back at his office to say goodbye, to Shiera, to Earth, to this whole assignment. Shiera doesn’t want him to stay gone, and tries to justify their affair, largely to herself; deployed so far from home, she has an agreement with Katar. John says he doesn’t have that kind of relationship, nor is Mars as distant as her home world; he understands how all of this is different for her, but he’s betrayed the woman he loves. Shiera is smart, though; she tells him some part of him felt betrayed by his wife. If it wasn’t for her White Martian heritage, for her ties to the terrorist he’s been hunting- his eyes flash red and she doesn’t finish.

On his ship, the terrorist teases John. I think I’d make them both rivals for John’s wife’s affections- that before she married John, she was in a relationship with the terrorist, finally leaving when his extremism and the danger that placed them in became clear. He reads John’s guilt over the affair, something John takes as a threat to tell her. “John, she has one of the strongest minds I’ve ever encountered. She already knows. She’s just waiting for you to be honest with her. She deserves at least that.” John says he doesn’t think he should be taking relationship advice from a terrorist. “Remember, I know her at least as well as you do.” John delivers him to a cell.

John confronts his wife with the truth of his affair. She’s… very understanding, all things considered. She knows their life together was never easy, but as the civil war mounted, she became consumed with her fear. She knew hiding her put a strain on him, but she could barely contain her own fears over their children. She left him alone in their relationship, just as surely as he left her on his missions. It’s not a justification, but she is keenly aware of their circumstances.

On Mars a psychic disease quickly becomes a pandemic. The infection pattern first makes the Manhunters believe it’s a deliberate attack, until they isolate it down to psychic contact with John’s prisoner- but given the nearly constant contact of Martian telepathy, universal spread occurs quickly. Most horrifically, the disease burns out the Martian host- literally using the Martian’s powers to set fire to the body, utilizing the species long-standing fear of their vulnerability to fire as the catalyst, taking over control of their shapeshifting to move their cells together to set them alight.

John’s wife starts to smoke first, but their son is behind her only a moment. John holds them, and their daughter, and as they burst into flames, he screams out.

We cut to later, John walking onto the planet’s surface. Every building has fire and smoke rising out of it. He flies to his headquarters, smashing through the walls and into the cell of the terrorist. At first the terrorist is confused, then reads it on John’s face, and says he would never do anything to harm John’s wife. Then he makes the mistake of asking John what he did. John flips out, and punches him a few miles, catching him even before he can impact the surface and tackling him into a mountain. The terrorist is grief-stricken in his own way, and as John hits him tells him how he got to Earth, that he was pulled there by a scientist, the same scientist who created their telepathic blocks, who was working with them on a weapon to kill Green Martians. He’s horrified at the realization that he was that weapon- that his hubris was used to infect his own people, too.

The only Martian population untouched by the plague are the separatists living underground in hiding- the terrorist’s people. John tells the White Martian that suspended animation is the only plausible cure- that he knows they have the tech, and the separatist agrees to safeguard his people while John deals with the double-crossing scientist.

John goes to Earth, to hunt down the man he now believes responsible. First he stops back at his office, and talks to Shiera. This is where we reveal that his daughter survived- though technically, while he raised her, she’s biologically the separatist’s spawn. He tells Shiera to protect Megan with her life, and she agrees to. After he leaves, Megan asks if she’s going to die like her mother and brother. Shiera tells her that according to her scans, both she and John have a subtle mutation- one she learned from him, that made them impervious to the psychic virus- but that they’re carriers, that the disease could mutate itself and attack them anew at any moment.

John tracks down our mad scientist. I know in my previous write-up I suggested creating someone new, but I may have a more elegant solution, here: the mad scientist is Vandal Savage. At first he tried to partner with the White Martian separatist, thinking he could use them as his own army of supermen, but it quickly became obvious that the White Martians viewed the Greens as their inferiors- that if they ever came to Earth it would be as conquerors. So he decided to wipe the Martians off the board completely, aware that he had an easy scapegoat in the separatist, and very little likelihood of blowback.

We cut back, to the White Martian using the machinery to put the rest of the White Martians into suspended animation remotely. He hallucinates John’s wife. She tells him to go into suspended animation. He’s worried that he might accidentally infect the other White Martians. She starts to burn in front of him; he tries to apologize. She tells him it doesn’t matter; she’s dead, he’s just trying to assuage his own guilt. “You don’t need to,” she says. “You didn’t do this.” He says he knows who did. We see a Martian ship launch, and cut back to John and Vandal.

They have a quick dust-up, but the nature of the fight changes when Vandal discovers John was exposed and survived, as Vandal’s curiosity leads him to ask questions even as he’s using a combination of science and magic to keep John (barely) at bay- and John realizes Vandal might be able to cure Megan, so she isn’t a ticking time bomb, and he starts counter-interrogating to that effect, and it starts to look like they might be able to come to some kind of agreement- until the White Martian bursts through the wall, his fury dwarfing John’s. A desperate three way fight ensues, John and Vandal barely able to hold back the White Martian’s assault. He’s hurt and confused by John’s intervention, cursing the fact that he’s the other last Martian projecting his guilt onto John for failing to save the woman they both loved.

“We are not the last,” John says, and telepathically connects the Separatist to Megan, and the antagonist drops to his knees, whispering his daughter’s name. “He lives, so she can.”

So now the White Martian is going to play bad cop with Savage. “You heard the Manhunter. You’re going to develop a cure, and give us two doses, which we’ll administer at random, so if your cure doesn’t work, or harms us, there will be one of us left to end you. And if it’s me, I’m killing everyone sharing even a single strand of your DNA- your line burned off the face of the planet. And the ones who knew you, remembered you fondly, they’ll die screaming.”

“I’m not sure it would be any great loss. Most of my children weren’t worth the hour it took to make them.”

“Not even Cassandra or Scandal? To say nothing of the fact that, by your own estimates, a full ten percent of the population bear some small part of you.”

“Okay,” John says, “I think he gets the idea.”

“So you’re the good cop, then?” Savage asks.

John spins on him, predatory and alien. “I am a father. You killed one of my children, and the mother to both. And the authority that might have checked my anger died when you killed my world.”

“So you’re both terrorists, now?” Savage asks with a smile. “No judgment. I’ve been on the weaker end of a conflict; you use the tools you have at your disposal. Your proposal is acceptable. And…. for whatever it is worth, I, too, have been on the losing side of genocide. I am truly sorry to have given you that pain.”

After they leave, John tells the White Martian Megan isn’t getting either dose- they’re going to synthesize it and test it on the White Martians in suspended animation. The Separatist bristles, at first; but John points out two things: one, they’re not using their daughter as a guinea pig, and two, the White Martian survivors survived only because they were terrorists hiding out. He offers it as their penance- that as far as he’s concerned they’re still at war, and the war ends once the White Martians ensure it is safe for them to be released from their suspended animation.

“The other option,” John says, “is that the war continues. That you and I fight, here and now, and if I win, I’ll put you into suspension with the others, and I’ll ensure you never wake up.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“My mind is open. Tell me I’m lying.”

“You would.” He stops. “You’re right. Not about all of it. With Savage we have to be strategic… and I couldn’t be the reason Megan lost her father, too.”

John flies back to Megan and Shiera. “I need to tell you something, something your mother and I hoped to tell you together one day. About your father.”

“I’ll… make tea,” Shiera says, as an excuse to leave.

“The only thing I’ve ever needed to know about my father was that you loved me.” She grabs onto him. “You kicked his ass, right?”

“I did. But things have changed. You and I are the last Green Martians, and the only White Martians who survived were terrorists. I’m sorry. I hoped to give you a better, safer world.”

“It’s okay,” she says. “It just means I get to help you make it, instead,” and shifts into a female version of his costume.

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Pitchgiving 2021, part 9: Elseworlds

I view these as largely low-budget films done with largely practical, period effects suitable to the type of movie they’re aping (excepting, of course, where modern tech can make something safer and/or cheaper). Doing them this way, you could probably continue the Elseworlds franchise indefinitely, like James Bond, and I have literally a dozen synopses already. I may pitch only the sequels that make sense for a trilogy, but I might also do all 12. Kind of depends on how I’m feeling.

The franchise would nominally star the Martian Manhunter, though he would mostly only appear in the beginning and end, maybe here or there once in a while, and even then largely CGed, so even he could largely be recast movie to movie. Because the series involves altered timelines it would also permit the leads to be recast between pictures, too, which would both help keep budgets down and also guarantee that just because someone makes sense as cyberpunk Batman, that doesn’t mean we have to sit through his groan-inducing medieval Batman and also opens opportunities for race, gender and other diversity-bending.

For those of you unaware, the last remaining Martian, John Jones, can shape-shift, read minds, is as strong as Superman, can control his density, become invisible. He could single-handedly take down the rest of the Justice League… provided no one accidentally caused a spark. Yeah, his weakness is to fire… which is a pretty ridiculous weakness to still have modern day (probably trumped only by Green Lantern’s weakness to yellow; side note, I want to give that weakness to JSA GL, and then have the Trickster have a flash mob pelt him with bananas- because it’s funny).

This movie starts during a fight with the immortal Vandal Savage. Probably to keep the budget down, we could just imply the rest of the Justice League are there, have Batman’s cape billow in from off-screen, show some heat vision blasting in, Wonder Woman’s lasso whipping a guy across the room. That kind of thing. John grabs Savage just as he’s trying to use a device to send him to a different time to escape them (I’d probably set it up through some narration as Batman deducing that Savage had been engineering evil throughout the millennia- that that was the reason Batman was after the image of Wonder Woman, too, looking for proof of Savage’s influence- including collaborating with Hitler (he helped Nazism get off the ground). John grabs him, but they’re separated by the machine, and flung into the past. Or a past, really, since the machine had really only be calibrated to work with Savage’s DNA, and was thrown for a loop by the addition of John.

We comedically dump John through a portal into pastoral England. The trauma of the machine reassembling John from atoms knocks him out every time. This time, it happens to be in the presence of the Green Hood (Green Arrow by way of Robin Hood). John comes to in Sherwood Forest. John has spent years honing his abilities, and to prevent detection amongst humans, has trained his body to revert to a human form when he is unconscious. This John just happens to be rather large, a veritable giant of a man. Hood says that there are men who would burn him for a witch for that, which likely means he’s arrived at an opportune moment.

We cut to court, where Lord Lexington (a bald Luthor in a suit of plate mail painted in the colors of his battle suit, so purple and green), as the Sheriff of Nottingham, presides. Savage is there, in the background, working as Nottingham’s advisor. One of the other nobles expresses confusion, why this one is different. They’ve been holding ‘King’ Arthur for a fortnight, but this Themysciran ambassador arrived in town only yesterday. They don’t understand why Lex is in such a hurry to burn her at the stake. Lex says that Arthur’s claims are worth investigating. If he is indeed a king, even one in exile, his execution could bring them into conflict with the kingdom of Atlantis, and there are only rumors a peasant woman saw him trying to commune with fish. He might just be one more in-bred noble.

Whereas no one’s heard of Themyscira, the ‘ambassador’ flew in view of several members of the city guard, and who on earth has ever heard of a woman ambassador. He pounds the table, and demands that she and the other witch must both be burnt at the stake before they are able to ensorcel them all (the Sheriff has declared all metahumans witches and enemies of the realm). At that moment, the younger, handsome noble to one side of Luthor collapses forward, knocking over his wine onto Luthor’s lap, apparently having fallen asleep at the meeting. He stirs, muttering about not likely missing anything important. 

“Not at all, Wayne, by all means, sleep the day away,” an irritated Lex grumbles. It’s subtle, but Wayne pockets a key.

We cut to later that day, as John and Hood sneak into the castle. The square is filled with people, there to watch as an executioner in gray plate armor reminiscent of Firefly lights a torch, preparing to set the pyres two women are tied to alight.

“Fire is… bad,” John says.

“Yes, my simple friend,” Hood says, and claps him on the back. “That is why we must rescue these fair damsels from it, and preserve England from the stain of having murdered an ambassador in the process. I just have to figure out how…”

We cut back to the women. One is Lady Diana, the ambassador in question. Her garb is strange, with a Greek, togic influence, and some variation on the red, blue and gold color scheme. The other is the witch Zatanna, smartly dressed as a courtesan reminiscent of the purple and white costume with the cape she wore in the comics; she has a rag tied across her mouth preventing her from speaking. Diana snaps her bonds, and then tears the gag from Zatanna. Immediately the witch begins to chant, bidding the flame to jump from the torch onto Firefly.

We cut back to John and Hood, with John asking. “Part of your plan?”

Hood rises, drawing his bow, and firing into Firefly, who ignores the fire engulfing his armor and lifts an executioner’s ax above his head. “Ours is apparently a supporting role in this play.” Hood fires, managing to strike Firefly in the joints of his armor, causing him to fall. John flings a stone torn from the castle wall into another guard that was sneaking towards Zatanna as she removed her bonds. Zatanna and Diana fly over the castle wall. John leaps over it, not wanting to draw more attention to himself than necessary. “Little help?” Hood calls to the escaping women, and an exasperated Zatanna mutters something that lifts him after them by his shorts (it is a flying wedgie) and he exclaims, “Ah, my pantaloons!”

We cut to the dungeons, panning past two cells that had held Diana and Zatanna but are not open, stopping on one occupied by a crowned nobleman with an orange and green color scheme to his attire. In the immediate foreground, a black-gloved hand inserts a key- the same stolen from the Sheriff earlier. Arthur sits up, and turns towards his rescuer. It’s Lord Wayne. “You may find this peculiar, but a school of fish passed a message by code to me this morning, by a method I learned in my travels through Arabia. The message stated that there would be a distraction at this hour, affording you an opportunity to bloodlessly escape.” Wayne unfurls a green cloak with an Arabic influence to it, perhaps even letters around the hood in Cyrillic reciting a period/culture-appropriate variation of the Green Lantern oath. “If anyone questions, you are my Moorish servant, mute to the English tongue, and ill-tempered from a bout of disease his physicians are nearly certain isn’t leprosy.”

Arthur smiles, telling him that, “Lord Wayne, the rumors did not do you justice.”

Wayne is impatient. “Come. My carriage awaits.” We cut to the exterior, as they rush into the carriage. It is, for all intents and purposes, the Batmobile as a carriage, black, gothic, and bat-winged. It is driven by Wayne’s squire, Gareth.

Hood and John arrive back at his place in Sherwood. There’s an awkward moment, as, seeing there’s only the one bed, the assumption Hood has brought them back to be, er, bedded, is obvious. Until a woman in a black cloak with blond hair arrives, laying down her lute (she is, roughly, a bard). “I ride to the next town, and you can’t help yourself but bring home other women.”

“They were going to be burned at the stake by Nottingham,” Hood complains.

Diana intervenes. “I assure you, madame, that we have no designs on your gentleman’s attentions.” This Wonder Woman is openly sapphic- and only has eyes for Zatanna. Even though they only just met.

Canary reacts with frustration, that Nottingham is increasing his aggression, that they need to do something, and quickly. It is then that a Moor, dressed in the same robe that Arthur was given in the previous scene, enters into the already crowded hut. “I’m here to extend an invitation from a gentleman who is very much of the same sentiment.” They react with fear; they believed themselves secreted away in the forest, but he found them. While his presence is intriguing, they fear he’s leading them into a trap. He is the Green Lamp, even if he does not introduce himself as such.

“From what I saw this afternoon, I don’t imagine there’s a martial force, including the Sheriff’s, that could stand against those in this room. However, to take on Nottingham in a fair conflict would see him threaten the peasantry- he holds the entire citizenry hostage to his ambitions. If, like my ‘master’, you would not only see Nottingham removed, but removed with as little damage to those least prepared to weather his wrath, I would bid you follow me. I assure you my master’s secrets are equal, at least, to your own, and when all is revealed you will be equally at one another’s mercy.” They’re conflicted. It’s John who reads the Moor; when he does, the lamp he clutches to his chest glows with green flame, and he tells John he knows he’s trying to read him, and he’ll permit it, and the flame extinguishes. John tells them he recognizes his master (he doesn’t tell them that he’s Batman, or this world’s Batman), but he says that he trusts him with his life. That he will go, and if the others would stay they can stay. But he knows the man by reputation, and they will need his mettle before the end. This cascades, with Hood not being comfortable letting his simple friend take the risk alone, Canary resolving to keep her own simple ‘friend’ safe, Zatanna casting some bones to verify that she should trust them, and Diana following her.

As they leave the hut, there’s a gust of wind, and a man in red robes and chain mail with a rapier stands in front of them. “Sorry I’m late,” Flash says with a grin.

“I heard no horses,” Hood says.

“I walked,” he beams.

“How?” Canary asks. “It’s a day’s ride. And you said you had business to attend to before you could follow me.”

“I did. I’m quite swift.”

“Very well. This is Sir Jareth, a swordsman said to be the equal of a thousand men.”

“A mercenary?” Hood asks, indignant. He liked having the most swash in his buckle and is hurt Canary brought home someone else.

“No, sir,” Jareth says. “I heft my sword when justice demands it of me.”

“Sir Jareth,” Green Lamp says, putting out his hand, “You’ve spared me a ride. It’s a pleasure, your reputation as a man of honor precedes you, despite your speed.” Jareth shakes his hand. This is actually a pretty big moment, as a nobleman taking a Moor’s hand as an equal is a pretty big deal- but we don’t make a big deal out of it, because that’s not the kind of guy Jareth is.

“Well met, sir.”

“Ah, yes, if you’ll permit me,” the Green Lamp holds his lamp out, and forms a glowing coach with horses out of the ground. The door pops open.

“What witchcraft is this?” Hood asks, walking around the coach and kicking one of its wheels to see that it’s solid.

“You quarrel with witchcraft?” Zatanna asks, with an edge of menace to it.

“Quarrel? No. Trust entirely with my person, not entirely.”

“You’re more than welcome to ride with us, Sir Jareth. No need to run alongside us,” the Green Lamp offers.

“I suppose I could do for the company.” They all get inside, with GL sitting outside to drive, to keep up appearance. The glow dissipates, to draw less attention as they begin.

“I do have one last stop to make. It’s along the way. I’m afraid he insisted I permit him to provide one last service before I collected him.” The pull up to a small parish.

“Ah, a church, if anyone has sins to confess, or needs to use the Lady’s facilities,” Hood says.

A friar exits the parish. His robes are overlarge and ill-fitting, very plain, very bare; he lives as a pauper, because he puts every penny he scrapes together to help the poor. We likely get flashes of what he wears beneath it, chainmail colored like his classic suit, with the red and yellow symbol on his chest. It arrived with him from the far-flung land of his parents birth, and is the only clothing in existence strong enough to withstand the same damage as him. He addresses the Green Lamp as “Alihan,” and shakes his hand warmly, and objects when he stands on ceremony to refer to him as Friar Kent, and insists that he call him Clark. Hood asks after it, and the friar tells him that the name means “Hand of God,” and that they get along very well, because he lives up to it.

They ride off, as the world becomes dark. They see the castle, roughly in the shape of the top half of the bat symbol as it cuts across the moon. Hood recognizes it. “This is Wayne Manor. My family visited once, when I was a child. Young Bruce was churlish and stuffy, even for a nobleman’s son- even for a physician’s son.”

“And he would know from stuffy,” Canary adds. Lamp drives their coach beyond the manor, into a series of caves. Depending on budget, it can be quite a harrowing ride over caverns and jumps, or it can simply be through a waterfall. 

Lamp opens the coach door for them, and tells them, “Welcome to Lord Wayne’s world.” Referencing a Mike Meyer’s movie isn’t the only reason I’m writing this pitch. It’s just a perk. The cave is wonderous, filled with falling water and lit by torches. It takes the breath away. Wayne, in his Dark Knight plate armor, descends a spiral staircase carved into the rock. He bids them join him at a rounded table with a bat symbol (and also the Wayne family’s crest) carved into it.

Wayne relates that he has a spy on the inside of Lexington’s circle, a courtesan named Lady Kyle, who has been watching Luthor. She informs him that Lexington moves against Arthur and Diana are part of a larger thirst for power, that Nottingham plans to seize nearby lands for his own, under the pretext that he will protect them. If he can grab up enough new land before King Richard’s return, from the crusades, the gentry will be forced to decide if they would accept a smaller slice of a lesser pie, or to serve under Lexington.

Lady Diana interrupts, to explain what her ambassadorial mission was- to pass a message, and express condolences: that Lexington’s man within Richard’s circle, the Yellow Knight, had succeeded in killing Richard, and laying blame for it at the feet of the Amazons. She came with proof of his ill-deeds, but it was seized along with her- and not through martial means. She believes Lexington is involved with sorcery. Flash relates that the business he concluded before arriving likely relates- that he scuttled a group of sellswords hired by Eobard Thawn, at what he now believes was Lexington’s bidding, to attack the township, in order to press them to request the protection of Nottingham.

Wayne tells them Lexington is setting about creating reasons to expand their territory, first within and then beyond England, that his game is already afoot, and they have only one chance to depose him. They talk about who should replace Lexington. Some think it should be Wayne, and while he believes himself a capable commander in the field, he is not a ruler. Arthur, however, is. King Arthur is of course reluctant, because he’s already lost one kingdom. Eventually it’s Wayne who interrupts them to say, “We storm a castle held by superior forces, with sorcery and corruption at their command. Those of us who survive can bicker over who must take the reigns after.” They agree to table the question of who will sit the throne until such time as it is won, and agree to depose Lexington.

Most of them pile back into Lamp’s coach, which expands to accommodate them- including Lamp himself, as Wayne’s squire takes the reigns. Wayne himself climbs atop a black steed (named Ace) with black armor of its own, resembling his, including its own billowing cape. “I believe the party is on, Lord Wayne,” Wayne’s squire says.

“The party is on, Squire Gareth.” Shut up. Don’t judge me.

They ride to the square where Diana and Zatanna were nearly burned earlier in the day. On the scaffolding, Lady Kyle is bound at the wrists, hanging from the ropes. The Squire leaps from his seat, and starts towards her. Wayne stops him. “Wait,” he says, then “Hood, if you’d be so kind as to free her.” Clear of the coach, he looses an arrow, that slices through her bonds, and she lands gracefully. At the same moment, Sir Slade, in his trademark orange and black armor, fires an arrow at Wayne, who deflects it with his cloak (I’m going to say its slats of armor, and so can be used somewhat like a shield).

Other members of Lexington’s council emerge, now revealing their gimmicks that identify them as analogs to supervillains: Deathstroke, Zoom, Sinestro, Circe, Cheetah and Harley Quinn. Also there is Black Manta, who was not part of the council, but is in this incarnation, an Atlantean assassin, garbed mostly in black, tasked by Arthur’s brother to kill him and end the threat to his rule. Cheetah, while dressed in cheetah-skin robes (I might consider making her of African descent, and patterning the cheetah skins to traditional garb from the region, both to explain how it’s there and increase the diversity a bit) is actually a werewolf (werecat, if we really must). Lexington’s jester is, for all intents and purposes, a bawdy-joke-telling Harley Quinn. If it doesn’t overstuff things, she’s got her own agenda, to avenge the death of Lexington’s previous jester, her Joker, who Lex just couldn’t find the humor in- which is why she face turns towards the end. The heroes and villains face off.

Superman Lexington
Flash Eobard Thawn
Green Lantern The Yellow Knight
Wonder Woman Lady Circe
Batman Sir Slade
Aquaman Black Manta
Martian Manhunter Savage
Green Arrow Deadshot
Black Canary Harley Quinn
Lady Kyle Lady Minerva

About the midway point, we reveal that Thawn is from the future, and brought back advanced tech with him, which Lex took to like a fish to water (“Arthur knows precisely what I mean about that”) giving the villains an even further advantage. But the heroes persevere, overcoming even these long odds, only for Lex to hit them with a blast of arcane energy, maybe stating that magic and science are separated only by one’s own rational understanding, that the idea of a separate “witchcraft” is therefore the province of small minds. Now, if you want to keep it to the relatively cheaper model I described, Lex just gets slightly powered up by magic before being defeated with an assist from Harley. But if you want some bombast, Lexington demonstrates the ability to resurrect Solomon Grundy to fight them. John catches Savage trying to sneak away, and they’re both sucked into another portal.

It’s Arthur who lands the final blow on his assassin, who makes one final attempt as Lexington is defeated. Arthur, pleased with himself asks, “So, King Wayne, what will your first decree be,” realizing as he turns that the rest of them are already kneeling before him, Wayne included.

Wayne smiles beneath his helmet. “I believe you’ve misspoken, sire, for as you can plainly see, your subjects humbly await your command.”

“Oh, bother,” Arthur says, and we roll credits. We only do the main cast, before we do a mid-credits scene:

The League of Justice sits around the round table in the Batcave. Lord Wayne addresses them. “I’ve asked you to come here to answer a question, one I cannot answer for all of you. We united, to provide justice within Nottingham, to right that single wrong. But were we a League of Justice once, or are we a League of Justice for all?” They all stand together, as the music stirs.

One does not. It’s Arthur, and as he rises, he explains why, that while he has reluctantly accepted a crown in England, he refuses one here.

That suits Wayne just fine, who continues. ”One among us has had his kingdom stolen, usurped by a brother who believes right can be usurped by a will to power. I ask you not to stand for a divine right to rule, but on the cause Atlantis is a kingdom on the brink, because this usurper has proved unfit to wield the power he has stolen. I have it on authority that this self-proclaimed Master of the Ocean would rather sink Atlantis than relinquish his grasp.” On the one hand, maybe it’s cruel to set up a sequel we won’t actually make… on the other, you could totally make those sequels.

Mid-credits Scene

It’s quiet, as we pan through Lexington’s dungeon, past the cells that housed Diana, Arthur and Zatanna. Only this time we pan down, through the floor, into an underground workshop; it is one-half Dr. Frankenstein, one-half necromancer’s laboratory. But we stop on an iron-gated doorway with metal barbs carved into the bars.

We hear quiet, anxious laughter, and the single tinkle of the last remaining bell on a jester’s collar. Then a voice, first timid, asking, “Lex?” Peppered laughter, now louder, more assertive. “Oh Lexy-pooh? Sheriff of Rottingham?” An unhinged, gleeful, aggressive, angry fit of uncontrollable laughter bursts forward, until a man with white skin, wearing a green and purple jester’s costume, lunges into the door, the barbs cutting into his hands, but not making him grip the door any less firmly. “While the sheriff’s away, the jester will play,” he says, and whistles a version of the animated Joker theme song as he traces a rune onto the lock, which opens it with a sizzle. The door swings open as he walks out, continuing to whistle. This Joker is both the result of Lex’s occult and chemical experimentation, and also his apprentice (not that Lex intended to teach those kinds of secrets to such a madman- but he could see enough from his cell to become truly deadly).

End Credits Scene It’s a dark and stormy night on the seas during the golden age of piracy, a family (boy, mother and father) acrobatically jump amongst the rigging, so acrobatic and graceful you forget for a moment it isn’t a performance. The rigging Richard is on breaks, and he grabs another piece, which breaks. Mary swings to save him and for an instant they share a smile, before that rope, too, breaks. Their son, young Dick, swings on another rope to save them, but he’s too late- and while his rope, too, breaks, it breaks at the end of his arc, and he’s able to land on some rigging opposite, and climbs down to where his parents fell. The men gather around as the boy weeps beside his dead parents. We hear murmurs from them not to wake the Captain. We see a wooden door swing open, and hear a shudder go through the crowd as offscreen the Captain says, “He’s up.” All we see of him is a black boot coming to rest just behind a boy, next to a rat that is subtly green and whose eyes glow red. The Captain’s black glove lights on the boy’s shoulder where he weeps. We pan up but also out, climbing the mast as we show more of the ship. In a flash of lightning we see a black pirate’s flag, but the skull is incorporated into a bat symbol.

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Pitchgiving 2020, Part 11: Justice League: Interplanetary

Lobo has been hired by Darkseid to snatch up Kryptonians. He manages to get Superboy in the prologue, listening to a voicemail from Clark in San Francisco. “I know we haven’t known each other long, and I know you don’t always feel Kryptonian, but you’re family. Whether you’re living in Kansas with mom, or if you decide to stay in Titans Tower in California, if there’s anything I can help with, let me know.”

He makes quick work of it, sticking mostly to the shadows (I suspect his has a kryptonite hook on his chain to help). Cut to Martha Kent, calling Clark. She hasn’t heard from Connor and is getting concerned. Clark is fighting Metallo, talking on a Bluetooth headset. He suggests Martha send Kara (Supergirl) to try and find him, and tells her to call if she finds anything strange, and he’ll be there in the blink of an eye. We dissolve to Kara, landing in San Francisco, touching a footprint where Connor stood, noticing the brick where his heat vision scorched it. We notice Lobo’s silhouette in the alley behind her, punctuated by a pair of red eyes, then he leaps out and we cut.

Superman flies through the air as a message from Martha plays in the background. “Clark. Kara still hasn’t checked in, and I checked her phone. She made a call to you that didn’t go through. I’m getting worried.” Superman lands in the alleyway. We see red eyes behind him as a dramatic sting plays. Out of the alley steps the Martian Manhunter. “Power Girl was taken from her home, following a struggle. I followed the energy signature of an alien craft here. I think someone has been collecting Kryptonians.”

“Manhunter. Good to have you along.” A chunk of the first act is a hard-boiled mystery being investigated by Clark, an investigative reporter, and John, a detective. Things get worse with the arrival of a Green Lantern (I’d go with Hal, personally, as I think he fits most into this scene, but Stewart could work, too- either way playing the part of more an official policeman). He’s tracking a New God, who he believes has violated treaties not to interfere with the Earth that both they and Apokalips have signed. Really, Scott Free is there because intelligence pointed to a plot to kidnap and turn Kryptonians into an asset for Darkseid, who he believes has taken Barda, as well. The Hawks show up, largely because they view themselves as a rival influence to the Lanterns, and don’t want to give the Corps too much sway over Earth affairs. I imagine Blackfire shows up, frustrated that Tamaran is being excluded from this now intergalactic meeting. Essentially, there are supposed to be non-interference treaties they’ve all signed, which they all think the others are violating. There’s a big old brawl, mostly destroying Clark’s orbital Fortress of Solitude. Lobo returns, fights Superman basically to a standstill; the fight is bombastic enough the others stop fighting, and start watching. Superman eventually asks for help, and Lobo gets walloped by the rest of the assembly.

Lobo puts in a call to his boss, and a Boom Tube opens up, dropping Granny Goodness (it all but has to be Kathy Bates, right? Offer her all of the Aquaman money, it will be worth it) and a selection of Furies, including Supergirl, Power Girl and Big Barda (Superboy is acting as Granny’s personal protection). Superman and Mr. Miracle plead with them not to hurt their friends, and try to talk down the Furies. They fail, and a new fight ensues. They’re pretty evenly matched, but Lobo, fighting the Martian Manhunter, overhears Superman trying to reason with Connor (Lobo buys himself a moment spitting a liquor fireball lit on his cigar at John, who recoils in horror at the flame). Connor’s trying to fight his programming, but it’s clear he’s terrified, that he didn’t fit before, and now, after all this, there’s no way he won’t be an outcast. “You’re family, Connor. You have a home, with us. People who care about you, and who know that it doesn’t matter if you screw up- what matters is that you try to do better, to be better, every day. We want you back, but you have to want to be back.”   

“Ah, what the frag,” Lobo says, shrugging, and face turns, smacking Superboy from behind with his hook. He and Superman share a moment. With Lobo on their side, the fight turns, and Granny’s forced to crawl off, humiliated. But obviously there’s a huge, looming threat from off-world that none of them can ignore. The New Gods argue that they should all join war against Apokalips, but the rest largely argue for containment; they need to be able to protect themselves against Apokalips, and form an alliance to that affect, but aren’t ready to declare an interplanetary war (I’m sure you all see where this is going, though). If there’s too much overlap between this and DuVerne’s New Gods, you can swap in Mongul and War World with relatively little fuss (we’d just have to increase his power levels accordingly).

There’s a tense moment at the end, where no one is sure what to do about Lobo. He’s kind of stand offish, before asking, quietly, if Superman meant what he said. “Bout having a home. The main man hasn’t had a home since Czarnia.” Superman puts out his hand, and Lobo shakes it.

“It’s a big universe. If you want to help us keep it safe, you’ll always be welcome here.” Lobo walks into the living room and drops onto the couch, putting big, gross boots up on the coffee table, and drinking the rest of his bottle of booze. A subplot going forward will be an Odd Couple dynamic between Clark and Lobo at the Fortress, because that should be funny.

Bonus: In part 2, Mongul is used by Darkseid to start a proxy war with Earth’s heroes, scooping most of the Interplanetary League up to join his games. They free Battleworld and end Mongul’s reign, in the process recruiting Adam Strange and freeing the planet Rann, and discover Darkseid’s influence, teeing up part 3. In 3, we feint towards Brainiac, but he’s really just working with Darkseid (as he has since the destruction of Krypton), and weakens our heroes in preparation for Darkseid’s invasion. The movie ends with Superman shoving Darkseid through a Boom Tube, and being swallowed up with him, lost, presumably on Apokalips. Part 4 would be an invasion of Apokalips to liberate the planet, as well as rescue Superman; I would expect this to be an Avengers 3/4  style crossover with the New Gods, likely bringing in even more of Earth’s heroes for at least cameos for part 4.