52 spin-offs I'd buy

I think it’s safe to declare this week’s issue of 52 the series’ climax, despite the fact that there are two more issues to follow. After all, this is the issue that features Black Adam fighting the rest of the world, and is accompanied by a four-part World War III miniseries. But either way, the best superhero comic of the last year that isnt’ All-Star Superman is not much longer for the world and I for one will be sorry to see it go.

Oh sure, DC’s launching a sequel of sorts, although Countdown will lack the all-star writing team, as well as its predecessor’s two main hooks, one good (a missing year in the life of the DCU) and one bad (a day-by-day real time epic). But there were a lot of really cool ideas introduced in the course of the last fifty weeks, ideas that would make easy story-seeds for future spin-offs.

In fact, DC’s already announced a couple, including a new Infinity Inc. series featuring the Steels and a Booster Gold series playing up the character's time-traveling aspects. Additionally Lady Styx has been appearing in some of the space books, and Egg-Fu is set to appear in an upcoming Outsiders/Checkmate crossover. It’s a good start, I guess, but I don’t see much potential beyond the Booster Gold series, which sounds a lot like the brilliant-but-cancelled Chronos, only with a (slightly) more high-profile protagonist.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see a Greg Rucka written Question series announced relatively soon, or the long-rumored Batwoman series (a logo design of which has already made the rounds on the Internet).

But you know what I’d really like to see?

No?

Well, I’ll tell you.



Doc Magnus and The Metal Men: The true breakout star of the series has been Doctor Will Magnus, who has spent the last few decades vacillating between being the Metal Men’s human sidekick and appearing for a few panels in other heroes’ stories when they need a robotics expert to say a few words. Hell, when 52 was announced and launched, Magnus didn’t even rate a star status; he’s missing from the first cover, and his storyline wasn’t pushed as one of the major ones.

But look what 50 issues has done. Lacking Metal Men of any kind for much of the story, Magnus was the least-mad mad scientist on Oolong Island, home of Egg-Fu’s Science Squad (and the setting for the zaniest, most fascinating storyline of the series). The clear alpha male among the likes of Sivana and Dr. Cyclops, he got the girl (even though he didn’t really want her) and totally saved the day, taking down Egg-Fu (over)easy. And he accomplished most of this without the help of the Metal Men, who were clearly more weapons in Magnus’ arsenal here than anything else.





While the explanation of how the Metal Men work in #49 was great, perhaps the most promising thing about 52 regarding the Metal Men was the mission statement Mark Waid gave ‘em in his back-up origin story: “The Metal Men specialize in defending earth from the unique menace of cutting-edge science gone wrong.”

Yeah, that sounds cool. Especially considering the fact that Magnus turned on his fellow mads and let the JSA in (and totally went all Frank Castle on Egg-Fu). Imagine a series devoted to dashing scientist Magnus and his robots defending the world from science gone mad, including such foes as Egg-Fu, Sivana and the other nut-jobs he shared a lab space with.

Of course, based on the dialogue, I would guess an awful lot of the mad scientist stuff came from the mind of Grant Morrison, who’s a notoriously hard writer for others to capitalize on the ideas of. And he’s busy, so I don’t see him helming a Metal Man monthly? So who could do such a thing? If I were in charge over at DC*, I’d hunt down Tom Peyer, who had great success with a Morrison concept in Hourman (and he also made it pretty funny, and humor is something that should be mandatory in a Metal Men story), and it even dealt with human-like robots and androids. Perfect! On art chores, it’d be hard to beat Rouleau’s designs on that origin (check out that beautiful responsometer!). So sign that man up too!

(Note: I think Evan Dorkin, Mike Allred, Nick Dragotta and Ty Templeton would also kick ass on art for a Metal Men comic).



The Croatoan Society: In 52 #18 , Ralph Dibny investigates a murder at the House of Mystery, where via dialogue and some tantalizing newspaper headlines hanging from the walls, we learn that the stretchable sleuth occasionally gets together with fellow DCU detectives like Detective Chimp and Teri Thirteen to solve impossible mysteries like who Kaspar Hauser was or what Stonehenge is all about. The Society only really appeared in this issue, which kicked off the whole Ralph and His Magic Helmet plot, but it is an absolutely awesome idea, and one which should be further explored in a miniseries immediately, either one detailing their first adventure or, better yet, something along the lines of New Avengers: The Illuminati, checking in with the team/club every now and then. And if that title is too goofy, how about just naming it after their “headquarters,” House of Mystery.

Noted Elongated Man fan Mark Waid would be a perfect writer for such a series, as would James Robinson, who did such nice work on Ralph in Starman (and whose work on that title kept both feet squarely in the DCU while leaning toward Vertigo quality and tone, as would be needed in a series about a detective chimp kicking it in the House of Mystery in these post-Sandman times) or maybe Bill Willingham, whose Day of Vengeance was pretty terrible, but whose recent Helmet of Fate: Detective Chimp was great. I bet John Ostrander could pull it off as well, based on his The Spectre and, to a slightly lesser extent, Martian Manhunter.

An artist would be trickier, as Bobo, Ralph and the House all seem to require slightly different tones. Guy Davis of BPRD and Sandman Mystery Theatre fame could easily nail it, however.



Batman/Robin/Nightwing: And speaking of goofy titles, I couldn’t think of one that was less stupid than this one. I can’t do all of DC’s work here! We’ve seen some glimpses of these characters in 52 (and one flashback to their boat trip in ‘TEC), and it seems like there’s some pretty interesting stuff going on there. At the end of Infinite Crisis, Batman says he’s taking Dick Grayson and Tim Drake with him to follow the steps he took to become Batman, rebuilding himself with his partners. Awesome, huh? So let’s see some more of it, huh?

Again, Morrison seemed to do the heavy lifting during these portions of 52, but Batman is a character that pretty much anyone can write pretty well, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Batman artist who just couldn’t seem to draw Batman (except this guy). I’d like to say, oh Devin Grayson, Scott Beatty and Norm Breyfogle do it, but honestly, I’d probably buy this series no matter who created it. Come on, Batman, Nightwing and Robin globe-trotting and fighting crime until Batman goes into some nutty mystical stuff, Nightwing says “Screw it, I’m heading back to Gotham,” and Robin’s stuck there trying to figure out what Batman’s gonna do next? How could that not be awesome.

And, worst-case scenario, it couldn’t possibly be any worse than this or this, could it?



Batwoman: Frankly, I don’t care much for the character, who’s sole hook seems to be that she’s a lesbian. Her costume design is an interesting mash-up of Barbara Gordon’s Batgirl costume and the Batman Beyond suit, but the visible lipstick, the long, flowing, easily pulled hair makes her seem like the anti-Cassandra Cain to me. And as a fan of Cassie Cain, I just never really saw the logic of Batman and Oracle completely ignoring their Batgirl while DC writers did…whatever they did to her, just so they could introduce another female version of Batman named “Kane.” I couldn’t imagine caring to read a monthly, ongoing featuring her.

But I am interested in the missing year in Gotham City, specifically how the city coped with it’s hero gone. Was it a factor in Kane deciding to become Batwoman then? How did Harvey Dent spend the year, exactly? When did Commissioner Gordon become commissioner again, and why did he come out of retirement? Did The Question and Montoya fight other super-crime in Gotham, or pretty much just stick to beating up animal men? With Mannheim setting Gotham City up as the Vatican City of his global crime faith, no Batman and a bunch of colorful crimefighters coming and going during the ocurse of the year, there has just got to be some awesome tales to be told of Gotham during the missing year, all centering around Batwoman (also, it’d be nice to see her encounter Oracle, who would presumably come into some contact with her at some point, even if it was just sending Black Canary and Huntress in to kick her around, and her encountering Batgirl, who seems to have spent her year-off studying English, forgetting how to fight, and getting hopped up on Slade Wilson’s science juice).

This would be another series that I think anybody who read all of 52, the “OYL” bat-books and bat-books in the past ten years could handle (so no Adam Beechen). Again, Devin Grayson, Scott Beatty and Norm Breyfogle? Perfect! Maybe John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake could handle it though, and atone for their recent Batman arc.




The Legion of Teen Titans: Geoff Johns had a lot of fun playing with some of the missing year’s Titans during his “Titans Around the World” story arc, and it was pretty cool seeing a new Titans line-up every time they team appeared in 52, given how chaotic their line-up has been historically, with new directions occurring every couple of years. Call me greedy, but I’d like to see more of those missing year Titans. I’m sure Adam Beechen will get to some of that during his upcoming Teen Titans run, at least regarding Miss Martian, but I’d really like to see more about Offspring (and, um, why he exists at all in this universe), Aquagirl, Hawk and Dove, Mas y Menos, Young Frankenstein and how these characters came and went during that year. And, of course, I’d love to see Osiris and Sobek’s time with the Titans. I think there’s a good miniseries in here somewhere.




Shazam: The Marvel Family had a couple of cameos in this series, but their villains owned this series. Much of the series has revolved around Black Adam’s acquiring his own Black Marvel Family (complete with talking animal sidekick) and then losing it, and Sivana has played a major role in the whole Oolong Island side of things. How is that Waid, Morrison, Rucka and Geoff Johns can write these two Marvel Big Bands in a way that is completely in keeping with their original iterations and in synch with the modern DCU and the result be one of DC’s best-selling titles, but Judd Winick had to go and re-invent the wheel with Trials of Shazam in order to make the concept work? Next to the Metal Men, the DC franchise that seems to be the most obvious spin-off of 52 would be a new, improved, de-Winickified Shazam! series (which I’d go ahead and call Captain Marvel if I were DC…what’s Marvel gonna do, sue you? Let ‘em…It’s not like Time Warner can’t take ‘em in a courtroom brawl).


And in the “random” category, after Infinity Inc. gets inevitably cancelled before it hits 15 issues, I’d like to see John Henry Irons’ Steel back in the Justice League where he belongs and Nat’s Steel in Teen Titans. I’d like to see Egg-Fu pop up in Gail Simone’s upcoming Wonder Woman. I’d like the 52 version of SABBAC be the official one now, instead of the dirty Winick version.

And I would love to see a one or two-issue JLA Classified arc detailing Firestorm’s incredibly short-lived version of the Justice League…you know, the one featuring Firehawk, Ambush Bug, Super Chief and Bulleteer. Yeah, I know they didn’t stay together long, but I can’t be the only one interested in how Firestorm found his predecessor’s signal device, and how he arrived at that group of heroes, and if they did anything other than get slaughtered by Skeets. (The Tomorrow Woman one-shot placed a League adventure during JLA #5, so it shouldn’t be hard to set one during 52 #24, which spanned a week).

Yeah, those would all be awesome. Even more awesome? If they did 52 spin-offs to 52. Of course, we’d need 46 more suggestions.

Like, say for example…


Terra-Man: Year One

DC Comics Presents Soder Cola Presents Booster Gold’s Ferris Air Adventure Sponsored By Sun Dollar Coffee

Supernova’s Pal Clark Kent

The Menace of Manthrax

Giant-Size Hawkgirl This doesn’t refer to the format of the book, but rather the protagonist.

Firestorm/Cyborg Ditto.

Coalition of the Killing Black Adam convenes super-powered representatives from the superpowers in a bit of anti-U.S. diplomacy, including members of the Great Ten, the Global Guardaians, Sonar, Ibis the Invincible and others I’d need some Who’s Who In the DC Universe pages to identity.

The Brave and the Bold All-Adam Edition Featuring Black Adam and Adam Strange Guest-starring Atom-Smasher

All-Straw Sue Dibny Steve Wacker wasn’t just kidding about that book, was he? Was he?

Super Chief: The Lost Days Covering the few days we didn’t see between the time he first donned his buffalo mask and his death.

The Crime Bible A one-shot told in the style of several Chick Tracts, only dealing with Dark Side worship instead of Christianity.

Batshit Insane Billy Batson and the Seven Deadly Enemies of Mankind

Mercury, The Only Superhero Who’s Liquid At Room Temperature

Booster Gold: Funeral For a Friend Come on, don’t you want to see 22 pages featuring paid mourners Beefeater, Odd Man, the Human Blimp at Booster’s funeral in Cincinnati, with Skeets giving a eulogy?

Gold Twilight In the tradition of “Emerald Twilight,” the vilifying of Skeets.

Wait, What’s Up With The Shadowpact Exactly? A one-shot explaining what they were doing outside their little “One Year Later”-cheating forcefield in 52 #18.

Dynamole Did you know this Everyman Project hero is a legacy hero? Well he is. (You can read about the original Dynamoll’s adventure here). Man, there are a ton of Everyman characters who were just name-dropped in 52 #24 whom I’d like to read more about. Take, for example, any of the next four suggestions.

The Tornado Ninja

E.S. Pete

The Crimson Ghost Mainly because I want to know why a ghost-themed hero would have those little ears on his futuristic looking battle helmet. And why he doesn’t look anything like a ghost. And why his costume’s more of a maroon than a crimson.

Poledancer Come on, who doesn’t want to learn what Poledancer’s powers are, what her secret origin is, and how she fights crime?

Ambush Bug vs. Baron Bug

SABBAC, King of Devils Halloween Special

Happy Halloween, Judeo-Christians!

Turkey Man Thanksgiving Special Call me crazy, but I’d kinda like to read more about the Everyman Project’s lamest superhero, Turkey Man and his tryptophan fingers. I’ve even got the cover slogan worked out; ready? “Evil Grows Drowsy at the Touch of the Turkey Man.” Eh? Eh?

The Beard Hunter Shaves the DC Universe The wacky Doom Patrol villain returns during DC’s missing year, with his sites set on Aquaman, Richard Dragon, Ralph Dibny, Adam Strange and Animal Man. Who’s beard will survive?

Pulsar, Master of Sound

The Sivana Family

Tawky Tawny/Sobek

Montoya Vs. Ralph Dibny In a drinking contest, not a fight.

The Brave and the Bold Featuring Renee Montoya and Animal Man In order to shut up the infernal narration running through Montoya’s head, she’ll need Buddy Baker’s help to travel outside the DC Universe, through the fourth wall, and all up in Greg Rucka’s grill.

The Brave and the Bold Featuring Dr. Mid-Nite and Renee Montoya “Wait, what? He was dying of cancer and you dragged him threw snowy mountaintops on a sled? Why didn’t you just call your pals Black Adam and Isis to fly you back there again? Or cure him they way they cured Osiris?”

Twenty-Two Pages of J.G. Jones Just Painting Stuff

The Ten-Eyed Surgeons of the Empty Quarter

Shut Up, Wonder Girl

Mini Metal Men

Red Tornado Down Under

The Triple Fish Code Just like the Da Vinci Code, with Lobo in the Tom Hanks role, and a talking space dolphin in Audrey Tatou’s.**

The Erotic Adventures of Dr. Veronica Cale We know from #46 what a turn-on she finds the apocalypse. In our world, that might be a particularly hard fetish to cater to, but in the DCU? It’s the end of the world like once a week. It’d have to be a Vertigo series though.

Batwoman Confidential This one too.

The Brave and the Bold Featuring Batwoman and The Question II Ditto.

Batwoman vs. The Question II And definitely this one, what with the costume’s being ripped off (tastefully so, of course) during the big fight scene.

Nanda Parbatman And if it proves successful, there’s always

Nanda Parbatman: The Shadow of Nanda Parbat Or maybe Nandaparbatman and Robin

Teen Titans Costume Special #1 Why did Robin change his costume, adopting Batman and Superman’s briefs-on-the-outside style? Why did Wonder Girl trade in her ugly red spandex costume for the more sensible and aesthetically pleasing jeans and blouse look? (Or did I answer my own questions?). All of your answers inside!

M.P.D.: The Odyssey You think 911 is a joke in your town? Learn the incredible adventure that befell the Metropolis Police Department when they tried arriving on the scene of a super-brawl and Lex Corp to arrest the perpetrators, and arrived six days later, with no memory of what happened during their lost time…until now!





* I’m not.

** Come on, there’s 52 jokes in this post. Of course some of ‘em are gonna be terrible ones.