Interview with Author Alan Dean Foster

Alan Dean Foster is a great writer in many genres, creating his own works and bringing to life the works of screen and television.  He was my first interview subject in 2002, and who knows, if this will be my last but it would be fitting, he is a treasured person of talent for me.

Here is the interview, please enjoy.

Alex: I know you went to a very good film school after getting a political science degree.  Does the film school work you did help in reading and adapting the works to the novel format?  In what ways yes, if yes?  And how not, if no?

ADF: UCLA graduate film school.  Didn’t really help with novelizations, except to show me early on how to navigate a screenplay.  Prose is so different from a script…you either can write it or not.  Film school prepares you for a very different type of writing.

Alex: A Film Degree didn’t help you write?  Is a novel written in a way much differently than film writing?

ADF: It didn’t, really. Only in the sense that I learned screenplay format. 

Writing a novel is much more difficult than writing a screenplay.  Much that you can show in a film, such as a character’s reaction to something, has to be spelled out in a novel, and that takes a greater command of the language… if you want to make it worth reading.

Alex: When you are given the screenplay to adapt, do you immediately get pictures in your head of the scenes?  And therefore, the better the screenplay the easier it is for you to adapt it to novel?

ADF: Oh, absolutely.  I’ve always been a very visual writer.  As soon as I read a sequence in a book, I’m mentally filming it.  A better screenplay makes it easier to adapt into a novel only because it’s better writing, not because of the format.

Alex: I am not, in any way, shape or form, suggesting my work matters compared to anyone, least of all you, but, I have a serious hard time ghost writing.  I've been asked to do that more times than to write my own work.  I usually say no, and the few times I've said yes it is for people I love who I know need my help, and I never charge.  So, getting to my question, how do you do Movie Adaptations, and I know you've Ghost written, as in Star Wars the New Hope adaptation for George Lucas, knowing that you won't be given credit as the artist?

Are you a Zen master and have eliminated your ego somehow?  I don't mean to be offensive with that, simply saying, most people in the arts want to be known for the works they've done.

ADF: You don’t do the work as a Zen master: you do it as a fan.  Who hasn’t sat in a theater and thought how they might change a scene, or a line of dialogue, or even the music?  Once you go at it with that mindset, it’s very easy to do.  The only book I’ve ever ghost-written was the novelization of the first SW film.  I’ve been asked numerous times since to do the same for other projects.  I’ve declined only because I didn’t have the time. 

I think if you’ve never received credit for original work, then doing nothing but ghosting work would be hard to take.   But if you have a body of original material, then you should have no problem ghosting for someone.

Alex: Compared to your original work, do they pay much?  Do you think the pay is commensurate to the work?

ADF: I think the payments are generally fair.  Just as with original material, payment for a novelization or a spinoff varies according to the property and the publisher.  I’m occasionally “underpaid”  (on Terminator: Salvation, for example) only because I refuse to be satisfied turning in half-assed work that short-changes the reader, even if contractually I’m not obligated to write a single additional word following official acceptance of the manuscript.  Fans deserve better.

Alex:  You've done work in Alien/Aliens - StarTrek - StarWars - Terminator - Transformers franchises and no doubt many others.  Do you believe that the owners of the franchises choose you because your work is recognized, good, or something else? 

ADF: Recognized and good, yes.  Also, I am able to subvert that artist’s ego you spoke of earlier for the greater good of a project.  And I can write very, very fast.

Alex: What book, books or series of yours would be the best movies, which would be impossible to make?

ADF: Nothing’s impossible to make anymore.  I think excellent films could be made of MIDWORLD, SAGRAMANDA, MAORI, PRIMAL SHADOWS, and the Flinx series.  SPELLSINGER would kill as an animated feature.

Alex:  As a writer with a film degree do you have a desire to write screenplays as well? Do you find yourself correcting dialogue in movies, subconsciously or otherwise?

ADF: I enjoy writing screenplays, too.  Just had one, OLYMPUS, co-written with Joel Berke, optioned to L.A.-Beijing Pictures, for possible production in China.  As to correcting dialogue in movies, when I watch, I find myself correcting everything … from the dialogue, to the sfx, to the direction.

Alex:  What movies are favorites of yours?  Do any of them play roles in novels of your own?  (Thinking Lucas's adoration of Hidden Fortress)

ADF: My two favorites films are GUNGA DIN and the 1940 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD.  But they don’t influence my writing.

Alex: Moving on from film and adaptations, we are now firmly in the digital era where paper books are quickly becoming the dinosaurs of the industry.  If people like me hate ebooks, and youth hate hardcopy, when will the critical mass or event happen when paper is seen as so not worth having?  Does it remain forever as a tiny cottage market?

ADF: I think paper will remain a substantial portion of the market until and unless the cost of a book starts to diverge significantly.  If a hardcover is priced at $25 and an ebook at $12, that’s already approaching such a gap.  If ebooks drop regularly to around $2.99, then that relegates print to traditionalists and collectors. 

Alex: If tomorrow humans found out that they were able to travel across the stars to any planet, galaxy, moon, dwarf planet, what would you like most to see?

ADF: Midworld.  With suitable armor, etc.  I love rainforests.

Alex: As a writer of futurist work, in many respects, you have to be optimistic.  Is that easy to still be facing the serious issues we face globally?

ADF: Realistically, we’re running the Earth into the ground (pun intended).  As an SF writer, I have to be optimistic or I’d stop writing the stuff.  There’s no shortage of dystopian tales out there and I don’t feel the need to add to them.

Alex: I don't want you to stop writing, so this isn't a secret agenda question, but, when will you stop writing for print, or will you?  Why would you?

ADF: I have no intention of ever stopping.  I’ve slowed down some due to domestic concerns, but I’ll never quit.  I like telling stories.

Alex: I have enjoyed your works Mad Amos and the Icerigger trilogy the most of all, so I don't have a specific genre I follow with you.  Which genre for you is easiest to write in, why do you think that is?

ADF: Fantasy.  SF takes research, non-fiction takes still more research, Westerns are based on historical reality, Mysteries require application of logic.  Fantasy…as long as you maintain the internal logic, you can do anything you want.

Alex:  As a poet I've attempted to step back from judging the present world and instead write about it as a reporter or observer.  Can a writer of prose science fiction and fantasy do that?  Or do they have to become so much more conversant in the world they write about?

ADF: No, you can step back.  Obviously, you can do so with non-fiction (as in PREDATORS I HAVE KNOWN, for example).  You can certainly do it with SF (as in the MONTEZUMA STRIP stories, for example, or SAGRAMANDA).

Alex:  Thank you Alan Dean Foster for your time, thoughts and ideas for us to consider.

The author has a great website at AlanDeanFoster.com  And he continues to create great works, so buy them,  and support living artists.

The Vietnam War, considered in comics

It is said by various observers of American culture that Vietnam was a breaking point in the old guard of ideals.  By sending troops to die in a conflict that was not universally approved of meant the whole culture would change. For decades following World War 2 many comic books were made by people in the comics world that could be said to be lauding the accomplishments of the Allies and, in general, the victories of the same.  The events and battles of World War 2 were mostly uncontroversial, at least with the end results being agreed upon, along with most of the motives for the battles.  But the events of Vietnam both in terms of the individuals serving, whichever side they were fighting upon, and in terms of the politics and governments of the armies fighting, were not clean, so called black and white events.  Comic books about the war were few before the comic The Nam came out in 1987, aside from the occasional comic set in the war or as a flashback, but once the Nam came out, it opened the door to telling the story of the war.

Götterbatterung

The mid 1980s was a wonderful time to be reading comics, especially for a DC fan. Maybe it just seemed that way to me, because I had just started seriously buying comics and found a local comic book club about that time; but there were some really incredible things going on about then. DC had just upended the universe with its CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS. John Byrne was retooling Superman in his own image, and George Perez was breathing fresh life into Wonder Woman. Alan Moore was leading the British Invasion of Comics with his startling re-interpretation of Swamp Thing, planting the seeds for DC's VERTIGO line of Mature Readers comic, and was about to stagger everybody with WATCHMEN.

And then there was THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS.

Published in 1986, THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS was a four-part series telling of the Twilight of the Batman; his final days and his last and greatest fight against his ultimate enemy. It was the creation of Frank Miller, who had just come off of his highly-regarded RONIN limited series and a lengthy and successful run on DAREDEVIL. Along with WATCHMEN, DKR marked the start of the “Grim 'n' Gritty” era of comic books which remains with us today.

There's a lot of interesting stuff in DKR: Miller's use of TV talking heads as a kind of Greek chorus commenting on the action; his introduction of Carrie Kelly, the first female Robin; his drily sarcastic interpretation of Alfred and his very human Commissioner Gordon. And a lot of controversial stuff, like the Batman's frothing Dirty Harry rants; the effeminate depiction of the Joker, Selina Kyle's reinterpretation as a prostitute, (Frank dearly loves his prostitutes, as SIN CITY has shown us); and the Joker's hippie-dippy psychiatrist who blames the Batman for all his patient's neuroses.

But given the recent release of BATMAN V SUPERMAN, I'd like to look at the climactic battle of DKR, which the BvS movie tried to invoke: the clash between the World's Finest Heroes.

It has been ten years since Something Bad happened to Jason Todd, the second boy to take on the role of Robin. We are never told what this Something Bad is, but it caused Batman to hang up his cape and cowl and retire. Bruce Wayne is in his fifties now, brooding over the past and watching his city slowly dying of violence, crime and corruption. Finally he had take it no longer.

Over the course of the first three chapters, we see Bruce struggling against his compulsion to resume his one-man war on crime and finally embracing it; we see him go up against his one-time friend Harvey Dent, alias Two-Face, who at first also seems to have conquered his inner demons, but who like Bruce seems destined to succumb to them. We see him take on a savage street gang that holds the city in terror and recruit a new Robin to take Jason's place. We see the Joker, who had been in a state of catatonia for ten years until he heard that Batman has come back, murder a studio full of people on the David Letterman show; and we see Batman pursue him into an amusement park to a final confrontation even more visceral and final than Alan Moore's similar fight in THE KILLING JOKE.

It's all leading up to Superman.

I remember when DKR first came out, members of our local comic book club arguing over the splash panel of Batman, in a bulky suit of powered armor belting Superman. Could that really happen? I mean, Superman? Faster than a speeding bullet? More powerful than a locomotive? Against a guy in a bat suit? Even a powered bat suit; really?

But Miller set up the fight to make it halfway plausible. Supes was recovering from having a block-buster nuke blow up in his face, and so was not at his best; Bats was wearing specially-designed armor to boost his strength; and he'd managed to synthesize some kryptonite to weaken Superman further. This, I think, was the origin of the oft-stated mantra of Batman fans that the Batman can defeat any opponent up to and including God, given enough time to prepare. Most importantly, though, Clark doesn't really want to hurt Bruce. But we'll get back to that in a moment.

Why would Superman and Batman fight in the first place?

Earlier, Clark pays Bruce a visit at Wayne Manor. He tries to persuade Bruce to back off on the bat-stuff. “You're not a young man anymore Bruce... time have changed...” Finally he spits it out. “It's like this, Bruce – Sooner or later, somebody's going to order me to bring you in. Somebody with authority. When that happens...”

Bruce doesn't smile as much as he bares his teeth. “When that happens, Clark – May the best man win.”

In the years that have passed, public sentiment has turned against super-heroes. Although not explicitly stated, this might well have been one of the reasons behind Bruce's retirement ten years ago. Later on, we get an internal monologue from Superman recalling the time:

The rest of us learned to cope. 

The rest of us recognized the danger – of the endless envy of those not blessed.

Diana went back to her people.

Hal went to the stars.

And I have walked the razor's edge for so long...

Long ago Clark made a deal with the devil. He agreed to work for the Government, and to operate discretely and covertly. In return, the Government grants him secrecy. And refrains from trying to take him down. Could even the combined forces of the United States military bring down Superman? Clark doesn't want to find out. And even if he could beat the Army, Clark fears the kind of hell such a war would mean for everybody involved.

Bruce despises Clark for selling out this way. And Clark doesn't like it much himself. In another monologue he says:

“I gave them my obedience and my invisibility.

           They gave me a license and let us live.

No, I don't like it. But I get to save lives – and the Media stays quiet.

But now the storm is growing again ---

They'll hunt us down again –

Because of you.

The order to take Batman down comes straight from the President. Clark doesn't want to kill him, but he knows that Bruce won't let him take him alive. So the stage is set for the final battle, in Crime Alley, where Bruce's parents died and where, in a real sense, the Batman was born.

Armed to the teeth with every attack he can think of, on a battlefield he's rigged with traps and ambushes, Batman gives Superman the fight of his life. And through it all, we get Bruce's bitter, angry monologue:

“Still talking – keep talking, Clark...

...You've always known just what to say.

“Yes” – You always say yes to anyone with a badge – or a flag …

… it's way past time you learned – what it means – to be a MAN!”

There are some Batman fans who cheer him in this fight, who revel in watching Batman take that Big Blue Boy Scout down a peg; watching him humiliate Superman.

But Miller also gives us bits of Clark's monologue too: “Bruce – this is idiotic … Bruce – I just broke three of your ribs...” Even after getting a face full of kryptonite gas; even after getting a spiked boot smashed into his face. Clark doesn't stop trying to talk him down. He is not dismayed by the violence Batman is inflicting on him; he can take it. He is dismayed by the sound of Bruce's heartbeat growing more erratic, and then stopping.

This, to me, is what makes THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS moving. It's not the epic of a Man fighting a God; it's the tragedy of two heroes fighting who once were friends. Bruce is probably the only peer Clark has left on earth. Clark desperately wishes the fight could be avoided, that they could once again be friends. But he winds up cradling Bruce's lifeless body in his arms.

The story doesn't end there of course; Bruce had one last trick up his bat-gauntlet. He had time to prepare, remember? And the moment at Bruce's funeral where Clark realizes what the trick was, and gives Robin a smile is a warm and satisfying one in an otherwise grim and cynical story.

BATMAN V SUPERMAN lifted a lot of imagery from THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, and director Zack Snyder has said that he was faithful to the source material. Maybe. But by taking a fight written at the end of the relationship between Bruce and Clark and putting it at the beginning, he has made it a completely different fight. And, I would argue, he's taken a lot of the heart out of it as well. Perhaps he managed to find a new heart to this new fight; one which could lead the two heroes to actually become friends the way they were in a different universe.

I hope that's the case.

SHANG CHI, MASTER OF KUNG FU

SHANG CHI, MASTER OF KUNG FU:

Marvel Comics had sought to license the characters and title Kung Fu from the popular television series.  However it was impossible.  Instead, they turned to the works of Sax Rohmer and the universe of Fu Manchu.  The villain was an evil character, and while a variety of racist versions had been done, Marvel created an entirely able, brilliant enemy, who was fully fleshed out, and not a simple stereotype.  The character Shang Chi was a martial artist and son of Fu Manchu.  As such Marvel intertwined the worlds of Marvel Comics, British Intelligence, MI6 to fight Fu Manchu and his minions, (found in a vast number of enemies of the ancient and Asian variety).

We get a choice? Whoa. Really?

The world exists.  We have no choices beyond those within our reach, and those that mortals are allowed.  But in the past people were assumed to have a faith in a deity, and generally speaking, in western culture, the deity was the Judeo/Christian God Jehovah.  So the western world had expectations in the era prior to modernity that were religious, but also, assumed the truth of God.  As such, questions arose, of how would we act if offered Godly power, or some Godly privilege? 

Or, somewhat differently, what would happen should the Devil offer you extended life, or some great power?  If your name was Faust and the devil's name Mephisto, you'd be in a special position.  Faust was a scholar who despite his successful his life wanted more.  This desire led him to make a pact with the Devil, exchanging his soul for absolute and unlimited knowledge along with similarly unlimited worldly pleasures.  How might we behave in similar situation?  And in the end, have you not asked yourself for more than your current share?

A Faustian bargain? Sell your soul to the devil?  "I'd give my life for a chance with..."

Ever think about selling your soul for a donut?

So then watch, as the world makes its own Faustian bargains.  In Japan, who experienced Nuclear weapon devastation, now depends in part upon Nuclear power.  It has made a Faustian bargain.


So is life worth the pursuit of the flesh?  As Faust learned, the devil remembers every bargain, never forgives a debt, and any moment gained, will be paid for later.


Very deep are the arguments and thoughts regarding the choices made, and the consequences that would follow.  But try to never assume anyone deserves their place in hell, unless of course, it is you, unless of course it is Hitler or the sort.

Along with Faust's bargain, the story has been told from other perspectives.  One brilliant work is found in Mephisto, a 1981 movie, about the rise of a modestly talented actor who rises high, in the era of the Nazi world.

In the comic book world Spawn by Todd McFarlane of Image Comics has made a choice to offer his services as a demonspawn so that he can spend time upon the earth to watch over his former wife in the flesh life.  Sadly, his Faustian bargain cost him more than his afterlife condemning him to hell and the politics of the realm.

"That Crazy Buck Rogers Stuff" and the Silver Age of Comics

There used to be a kind of enmity between Science Fiction fans and comic books. I suspect a large part of this snobbery was Hard SF purists looking down on pure fantasy of the funnybooks. Perhaps it was because after years of being derided as lowbrow, escapist trash, SF needed something to feel superior to. The rivalry has lessened, I think, since both forms have filtered into the mainstream of popular culture, and these days there's a fair amount of overlap between the two fandoms. Which is appropriate, because comic books owe a great deal to the worlds of Science Fiction. In fact, you could say that we owe the Silver Age of Comics to the Golden Age of Science Fiction.

Before comic books even existed in the form we know today, comics brought Science Fiction out of the Pulp Magazines and introduced it to mainstream popular culture in the persona of Buck Rogers. A newspaper syndicate president named John F. Dille read a novella titled “Armageddon 2419 A.D.” by a writer named Philip Francis Nowlan, about a man who finds himself thrust five hundred years into the future. Dille saw potential in the story, and hired Nowlan to adapt it into a comic strip. BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25^th CENTURY didn't necessarily grant respectability to the young genre – for a generation or so afterward Science Fiction was known as “That Crazy Buck Rogers Stuff” – but it did give a taste of other worlds to readers who might never have touched a lurid Pulp magazine.

A number of the writers from the Golden Age of Science Fiction also wrote for comic books. Otto Binder, best known to comics fans as a prolific writer for Fawcett Comics' CAPTAIN MARVEL, started out collaborating with his brother Earl writing for AMAZING STORIES under the name Eando Binder; (“E” and “O”). One of his most notable creations of that period, “Adam Link, Robot” was an inspiration for Isaac Asimov's robot stories and was later adapted as an episode of THE OUTER LIMITS.

DC Comics legend Gardner Fox, whose career stretched from the 1930s to the late 1960s, was also a prolific writer of short stories for magazines like AMAZING, PLANET STORIES, and WEIRD TALES and adventure novels, sometimes under a variety of pseudonymns. Fox created both the Golden Age Flash and the Silver Age version; as well as inventing the concept of Earth One and Earth Two upon which the DC Multiverse was based.

Every GREEN LANTERN fan can recite the Green Lantern Oath: “In brightest day, in blackest night; no evil shall escape my sight. Let all who worship evil's might, beware my power, Green Lantern's light!” This oath was created by SF legend Alfred Bester, perhaps most famous for his novels “The Demolished Man” and “The Stars My Destination”, who for a time wrote the GREEN LANTERN comic book. He also created the Golden Age GL Oath.

But perhaps the nexus of the SF/Comic Book universes would have to be Julius Schwartz, “The Man of Two Worlds”, as he called himself in his autobiography, a reference to the FLASH story “Flash of Two Worlds” which he edited. Julie Schwartz was a member of Science Fiction's First Fandom, publishing one of the first SF fanzines along with Forrest J. Ackerman and later fellow DC editor Mort Weisinger. He formed a literary agency specializing in SF and represented writers such as Ray Bradbury and Robert Bloch. He even handled H.P. Lovecraft briefly, and sold Lovecraft's novella “At the Mountains of Madness” to ASTOUNDING STORIES. He also helped organize the first World Science Fiction Convention.

In the 1940s, Schwartz became an editor for All-American Comics, one of the companies which eventually morphed into DC Comics. It was there, during the late '50s and early '60s, that Julie became the midwife of the Silver Age, overseeing a super-hero revival with revamps of The Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman and others. Schwartz recruited some of his SF contacts, like Alfred Bester, to write for him, and borrowed the name of Ray Palmer, the former editor of AMAZING, for the new version of the Atom.

(Palmer himself is an interesting guy. He earned the dislike of many Hard SF fans for hyping flying saucers and weird occult conspiracy theories, but his breathless editorials, combining bombastic hype with self-deprecating humor, remind me of yet another comic book editor of that period. I strongly suspect that Stan Lee was a fan of Palmer's).

This new generation of super-heroes had a strong basis in science fiction. The original Hawkman was the reincarnation of an Egyptian pharaoh, but his replacement was a policeman from another planet. Schwartz also created Adam Strange, a space-based hero who had no super-powers but who combined elements of Flash Gordon with John Carter of Mars. He filled in the odd corners of his books with illustrated science factoids for the science geeks in his audience.

Schwartz's re-vamping of the Green Lantern represents perhaps his greatest borrowing from the Golden Age of Science Fiction. The original Green Lantern, Alan Scott, got his powers from a magic lamp. (His creator, Martin Nodell, originally wanted to name him “Alan Ladd”, to evoke “Aladdin”). To update the concept for the Space Age, Schwartz and writer John Broome changed the character into a member of an organization of galactic lawmen, the Green Lantern Corps, inspired by the Lensmen series by science fiction patriarch E.E. “Doc” Smith.

Like the members of the Green Lantern Corps, the Lensmen maintained law and order throughout the galaxy using advanced technology given them by a super-advanced alien race. In the Lensmen books, these aliens were the Arisians, an incredibly ancient race with vast mental powers who have been secretly guiding the nascent civilizations of the galaxy and aiding them against the malevolent Boskonians. They recruited the Lensmen from among the most promising civilizations of the galaxy and gave them wrist-mounted devices called Lenses, focusing their native intelligence into incredible psionic abilities, much as the Green Lantern Corps were given rings allowing them to convert their willpower into forms of glowing green energy. DC tacitly admitted the connection between the Lanterns and the Lensmen by introducing a character in the '80s named Arisia.

In these and many other ways the ideas of the Golden Age of SF have become incorporated into the DNA of comics and passed on to readers who may have never heard of Bester and Binder and “Doc Smith”

DC but not DC

My best friend and I used to laugh at various comic nerds who grumbled over violations of canon, or  if a story was imaginary or not.  It was fish in a barrel, sadly, because most could not understand until thoroughly frustrated, that all stories told in comics are imaginary, except for those that biographical or factual history.  And even they require imagination to tell.  All publishers telling imaginary stories?  Does that mean nothing matters?  Or as one of the comic nerds would say, you can't have a black Spider-man and a white Luke Cage.  Well the one you could, and the other would just be stupid... still, it is still all imaginary.

WONDER WOMAN: AMAZONIA "A 19th century Wonder Woman in corset, fights Jack the Ripper, while talking like Eliza Doolittle."

The reason a publisher like DC or Marvel has an agreed upon canon and continuity, is so that the reader can be certain that what they are reading fits into the intricate story that is those publishing house's universes.  So, if Flash breaks his leg, in Flash #694 he won't be seen running with both legs in the same month or shortly thereafter.  Marvel Comics had a solid single world universe, where everyone lived and acted in the same universe.  This later changed in the late 1990s when Marvel was nearly unable to remain in print, so turned to opening up its characters, and canon to multiverse existences, and cross universe worlds.  DC on the other hand had a multiverse that had been slimmed down to a single universe.  How both use their past and present isn't about a great reward or artistic integrity, those might happen but, the real reason for multiple versions of one character or just one, or many realities or just one, is that the publishers try to keep their stories new and interesting.  Money being made or not is the engine of change or conservative views on evolution.

KINGDOM COME:  "A dark alternate future of the DC Superhero Universe. Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and almost every other character from DC Comics must choose sides in what could be the final battle of them all."

But, for a while, when DC had both a single world, with the characters it has, who are far more iconic than nuanced and flawed, tales could be told that showed how a different take on the character could be interesting, and show us how powerful the iconic character's mojo was.  You have a legend, then you introduce it to a different setting, or the same setting with a different version of the character.  The intention is, not to create new continuity, but to create stories without the encumbrance of having to worry if it could fit into the world as the publisher's canon would accept.

The DC Elseworlds broke the door open, and showed the world that these single stories or single series could enhance our appreciate of the main character, but showing a stripped down, or bulked up version of it.  We could see why Bruce Wayne was who he was if he lived in the 1800s with his parents still dying, or how Gotham would still need a hero, even under a religious theocracy. 

BATMAN: MANBAT  "When animal rights activist Marilyn Munro stumbles upon a lair of bizarre, bat-like creatures, she finds herself in a world of madness. And that world is about to receive another visitor: Batman."

So, here I present, 11 great Elseworld stories, that you can search for, or ignore.  What the hell do I care what you do with it.


BATMAN: HOLY TERROR

Batman is a member of the clergy but sees troubling issues happening in the theocratic leadership's government.

SUPERMAN WAR OF THE WORLDS

Superman lands upon an earth that is beset by the Martians from HG Wells' novel, War of the Worlds.

GOTHAM BY GASLIGHT

Jack the Ripper visits Gotham in 1880s, but there is a Bat who protects the city.

JUSTICE RIDERS

Steampunk western featuring "Cowboy and Indian" templates of the Justice League.

SUPERMAN'S METROPOLIS

Superman is the great son of the city of Metropolis, only this Metropolis is from the movie by Fritz Lang.

BATMAN: NOSFERATU

Batman is a character of a surreal nightmare, ala the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

WONDER WOMAN: THE BLUE AMAZON

Wonder Woman is a reimagined heroine in a world gone mad, chasing the infamous Dr. Marbuse, of German cinema.

BATMAN: THE DOOM THAT CAME TO GOTHAM

Batman lives in the 1920s, fighting the beasts of the Cthulhu realms.

SUPERMAN: RED SON

In Ukraine a rocket landed, a boy was found with super powers, and he fights for the workers, and the Soviet state.  He is the Red Son, Superman.

DETECTIVE COMICS ANNUAL 7 BATMAN: LEATHERWING

Batman is a pirate/swashbuckler known as Leatherwing, and he is in command of a ship.

BATMAN: MASTER OF THE FUTURE 

Batman from Gotham by Gaslight is still active, and he is forced to hunt down a scoundrel, who is determined to destroy then rebuild Gotham in his own image.

The Heroes of Dakota

Of the flurry of aspiring comics companies created in IMAGE's image during the 1990s, I think the most interesting was an outfit called Milestone Media. It was established by a group of black creators who wanted to form a more racially-diverse comic book universe. Although the Milestone line of comics only lasted a couple years, the characters which came out of them have been far more enduring.

Unlike the other start-up comic book universes of that era, Milestone did not set itself up as a challenger to the Big Two comic book companies. Instead, they set up an agreement where Milestone existed as an imprint of DC Comic, distributed by DC but separate from the DC Universe. Milestone Media retained all rights to their characters and creative control over their books. This was an unprecedented arrangement at the time.

The books were based in Dakota, a large city located presumably somewhere in the Midwest. For that reason, the Milestone Universe has sometimes been called “The Dakotaverse”. The company started out with four core titles, and a bang. A Big Bang, to be specific.

The biggest street gangs in the city were gathering for one ginormous fight. The cops got word of the event and planned to raid the rumble and round up every gang-banger in the city. To do this, they used an experimental riot control gas provided by a local industrialist, which, this being a comic book, had unforseen results, killing many of the victims outright and mutating some of the survivors.

Many of the principal characters in the Dakotaverse were “Bang Babies”, survivors of “The Big Bang”; and all of the characters were affected by it in some way. Most significantly were the characters of BLOOD SYNDICATE. They were members of various opposing gangs, who had become warped by the mutagenic gas. Before the Big Bang, they were deadly enemies, from different neighborhoods and different ethnic groups. The only thing they have in common is that now they're mutated freaks, and they need each other to survive.

I never read BLOOD SYNDICATE; it did not particularly appeal to me; but it was easily the grittiest and most “street-level” of the Milestone core titles.

At the other end of the economic spectrum, we have HARDWARE. Curtis Metcalf is a brilliant engineer working for Alva Industries. He has a nice home, a large salary, and his own personal lab. Metcalf owns a pet canary that he lets fly loose in his apartment. But when it does, it beats its wings against the windows. As far as the bird is concerned, it's still in a cage; just a slightly larger one. Metcalf comes to realize that his own situation is not that different: his cushy job with Alva is just another cage and he's nothing but a wage slave.

He's made millions for Edwin Alva, but gets no credit for his inventions, and no share of the profits. He can't even look for another job in his field because of a non-competition clause in the fine print of his contract. Metcalf learns that Alva has numerous criminal, or at least sleazy operations growing out of his legitimate business. It was Alva who provided the experimental riot gas used the night of the Big Bang. But because of his connections and power, Alva is virtually untouchable by the law.

So Metcalf works subversively within the system. He pilfers Alva Industry resources to build a suit of powered armor, and as Hardware, strikes against his boss by attacking Alva's criminal enterprises.

The best-known of the Milestone titles is STATIC, which enjoyed a second life as an animated series after the comics line ended. Virgil Hawkins is a bright but geeky high school student with the normal problems of adolescence: awkwardness with girls, annoying family members, trouble with a bully, and pressure to join a street gang. It's because of the last that he finds himself in the wrong place the night of the Big Bang. The mutagenic riot gas gives him the power to wield powerful electric blasts and to “fly” by riding on pieces of metal (originally a garbage can lid) that he levitates using electromagnetic force. Virgil is a wise-cracking hero in the Peter Parker mold.

Each of the main Milestone titles could with some justification be called black versions of iconic comic book superheros. BLOOD SYNDICATE was X-MEN, re-imagined as a street gang; HARDWARE was IRON MAN; and STATIC was SPIDER-MAN. What might be regarded as Milestone's flagship title, ICON, made no attempt to disguise the fact that it was, essentially, SUPERMAN; but like the other titles, it was Superman with a twist.

An alien being crash-lands on Earth. In order to protect him, his survival pod reconfigures his appearance to resemble the first native he encounters. Which happens to be a black slave in the antebellum South. He is raised as a slave and keeps his extra-human powers a secret, biding his time and waiting for earth technology to progress to the point where he can repair his spaceship. A century and a half later, he has come Up From Slavery and is now a successful lawyer in Dakota, calling himself Augustus Freeman IV. He still keeps his powers hidden, until a teenage girl named Raquel Ervin learns his secret and persuades him to use those powers to the benefit of society as a super-hero.

The dynamic between these to characters, Icon and Rocket, is what I find most interesting about this comic: the older, conservative Freeman and his outspoken, radical sidekick. I've read one critic sniff that Icon is a liberal's idea of what a black Republican is like, but that's only a superficial reading. The writer, Dwayne McDuffy, said that in the two characters he was trying to reflect a dialogue that has been going on in the black community about civil rights for over a century. Early civil rights pioneer Booker T. Washington emphasized education and hard work as the path for blacks to earn respect in society. His rival, W.E.B. DuBois insisted that blacks would not gain equality with whites unless they fought for it. Washington was the safe face of black civil rights, the one whites felt more comfortable with and the first black man invited to the White House for any reason other than to say “Dinner is served.” DuBois was the dangerous radical who criticized capitalism and embraced socialist causes. Several decades later, these differing philosophies were embodied by Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.

Augustus Freeman has good reason to be a Republican. After all, it is the Party of Lincoln, and since he was alive when Lincoln emancipated the slaves, to him that counts for a lot. And perhaps more relevantly, having worked his way from being a slave to becoming an affluent lawyer, he has little sympathy for poor blacks who remain in poverty. To which Raquel replies that it's easier to pull yourself up by your bootstraps when you can fly.

Yes, the writing showed a discernible political bias, but Icon never seemed to me like a Strawman Conservative to be punctured by the Good Gal Liberal. I felt his character was treated with respect with a legitimate point of view. Much as Steve Ditko tried to do with his HAWK & DOVE and Denny O'Neil attempted with his use of Hawkman and Green Arrow in JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA, in ICON the conversation between the two was more important that scoring which side wins.

Milestone's comics line lasted for a few years; longer than some other independent comics lines of the same era; and added a few more titles, most notably XOMBI and SHADOW CABINET. It was widely-perceived as a “blacks only” line of comics which limited its sales. Even a big cross-over event with the mainstream DC Universe, WORLDS COLLIDE, didn't help.

But although the comics line faded, Milestone and its characters remained. Some years later, STATIC was adaped into a successful Saturday Morning cartoon which lasted four seasons, and the character made appearances in the animated DCU in the JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED cartoon. More recently, Milestone and DC made a new agreement to fold the Dakotaverse into the DCU. With the subsequent re-shattering of the universe with the “New 52”, the Milestone world is its own alternate earth, designated “Earth-M”, and there are plans for new stories set in Dakota. The echoes of the Big Bang reverberate still.