This thread is based upon the idea that you have no right to criticise a major event or storyline unless you can do better. So this thread is essentially offering you to come up with a better storyline than a big Marvel/DC/Image/etc etc event or major storyline.
The concept shouldn't be radically changed, just major plot points in order to say, for example, "I didn't like Civil War, but I see what they were trying to do. If only they did this, this and this."
However you must bear in mind your alternative approach must be something workable for the companies. You can't say I would have changed Crisis on Infinite Earth's so everything in all multiverses died. Imagine you are working for the comic company. You have to justify plot points like killing major characters and have to consider fan reaction or comic sales, tie ins and other factors.
I felt that Grant Morrison's story was to convoluted with a disjointed narrative that whilst matched his quirky style of writing, didn't really feel like a "Crisis" event. I felt he tried to much all at once and whilst there were lots of cool things, he failed on several fronts as well.
What I would have done different would have been to have taken FC back to it's Crisis roots in a more straightforward, linear story. Just cos it's simple doesn't necessarily make it stupid.
I would have had the return of the Anti-Monitor with his original plan from COIE to erase all the multiverse. Pariah returns to warn the DC heroes of Earth 1 in time. The major gist of the story would consist of the heroes traveling over the entire DCU and the mutliverse, recruiting help against this threat. This would bring about strong allusions to the original crisis which would not only be good for company marketing but would satisfy the long term fanboys. However the main protagonists of the story would be the JLA's big seven so as not to become too mired in continuity and could appeal to casual fans or new readers. The storyline would include the death of a Flash and Supergirl, in reference to the original Crisis. However their could be another major death (Batman?) Superman with most of the DCU would defeat the Anti-Monitor and any forces he brought to try and stop the heroes.
Perhaps a subplot or a tie in miniseries could be a storyline focusing on D-List heroes trying to "hold the fort" on Earth 1 from all the major villain's who are exploiting the circumstances.
The New God's could be casualties in the Anti-Monitor's destruction if it was necessary by editorial mandate to kill them off. Several other notable alternate universes could be destroyed in the process. Who lives or dies could be worked to accomodate what is decreed by DC offices.
The storyline would be a simple, straight forward action epic that brings the Crisis brand to a satisfying conclusion. It would be a strong departure from Morrison's FC, but would be similar in the sense that it would be over the top epic and would draw upon even the most obscure characters of the DCU. Everyone would be involved as much as possible. The JLA's big seven would be at the core of it all though.
Whilst this may not be as subversive as Morrisons, it could be more profitable in the long run. Perhaps during the storyline, a new unknown universe would be uncovered, containing a whole host of new characters to provide future villains and stories so the closing of the Crisis brand would provide the opportunity for new events and story-lines. This would make any retcons that usually accompany a Crisis, unnecessary. Stale characters could be killed by the events of FC and the discovery of this new universe by Earth 1 heroes would revitalise the DCU line and create new titles.
That's ignoring the purpose of this thread Perhaps if you looked at what you specifically disliked about H.O.M and then thought about how it would have worked better to suit both Marvel as a company and the fans in general. What could have been done?
But to be honest no part of house of M was good, I liked that wolverine knew nothing about his past, I liked that Magneto had power...granted he's gotten his powers back but still....I mean really what good points were there to House of M?
The original purpose of H.O.M was to lose a vast chunk of the mutant population and make the X-men franchise slightly more important again by making them more unique. Bendis didn't want writers to be lazy by just explaining away powers as Mutations.
So the only parameters would be that H.O.M would have to alter reality to eventually lower the mutant population when the real reality was restored. Anything else within that could be up to you.
I think the main problems of H.O.M was a lot like the main problems for Secret Invasion. Both took a long time to reach the places Bendis wanted them to be in and it turned out the outcomes he wanted from these events were quite unrelated to the storyline itself. H.O.M was several issue about an altered reality so he could simply undo mutations.
What would have worked better would have been if the events during H.O.M when reality was changed would be suggesting that something bad for mutants would be happening. Perhaps what would have worked better would have been if the real universe was restored much quicker than the last issue. When it is restored there are still the hundreds of thousands of mutants with active powers. However everyone remembers the altered reality. Humans fear mutant growth more than ever. The sentinel program is restored and hundreds of thousands of mutants across the planet are exterminated by sentinels. All the popular mutants who Marvel want to keep and use post H.O.M survive. This plays into a core X-men theme about survival of the fittest and retains that uneasy relationship between humans and mutants that is so important to X-men story lines.
That would achieve the same outcome as Bendis' version of H.O.M did but in what I think would be a much more entertaining way. It would also appear to be a natural progression of the story instead of Bendis' which kind came out of nowhere.
Plus the fact that reality is changed and restored just like Bendis' H.O.M allows for the alterations you disliked such as Wolverine regaining his memory could still be something that may or may not happen in my version. Plus, as reality is restored much quicker in my version, you have more time to see characters dealing with the aftermath of it.
There is one thing, one thing in Civil War that I would have changed. I loved the story and thought it was great how heroes were turning on each other and stuff but I really hated spiderman unmasking. Like a stone in a pond the ripple that was coursed in spidermans universe was changed but in a really bad way, I mean we OMD and BND which were both terrible storylines. Plus don't even get me started on Peter catching May in bed having....sex....
Marvel Zombies should have been done in more than just a Horror story. It didn't make any sense!! I love the whole idea of it, but I see that nobody seems to talk about it at all. THAT'S BECAUSE NOBODY CARES ENOUGH TO TALK ABOUT IT!! I mean, there were so many things that I could take a week to point out. Wolverine getting the zombie virus, for one, was one thing I couldn't understand. I know it looks cool, but...again...it makes no darn sense!! The guy has healing powers that grew back his skin, for cryin out loud!! I would have loved to see a kind of Terminator storyline in this. One where maybe there was one (like Wolverine) who survived the entire onslaught of this event. Later on, he finds other survivors who were invulnerable to this virus, but had been beaten too much to do much of anything. The Vision, for example, could have been taken apart by the zombies, only to be found by Logan. Dr. Doom, who had stranded himself into the zombie universe, could also play a role in this. He, himself, was shown to have been invulnerable to the virus. Maybe he studies it by capturing his zombie counterpart, ( who apparently was vulnerable) and tries to find some sort of a cure for this whole thing. Sabertooth, Deadpool, and a number of heros would make it interesting too. I mean Forcing Logan and Creed to actually work together would have put an interesting twist into the story.
House Of M was one of the large pieces Bendis was setting in place, that would lead to Secret Invasion & the current Dark Reign - he started laying seeds as far back as Secret War in 2004.
Also important as the precursor to Civil War, because it showed Captain America & The Avengers as ineffective & morally paralyzed about dealing with Wanda's reality warping. They wouldn't make the hard but necessary choice to kill her - despite destroying the team months earlier - and kept insisting there could be another way. The mutants paid for it with Decimation (which removed a huge portion of the super powered populace the Skrulls would deal with), and likely got Iron Man to thinking about how the team could function more efficiently to deal with threats - he had brought Wolverine onto the team to bring a more 'decisive' element, and they failed the test when it mattered. Hence leading to the opportunity for mass government involvement with super heroes, and not just following Cap's example, and so on.
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"I'm not smart so much as I am not dumb." - Harlan Ellison
nice idea, but to do that, you'd be messing with blackest night...
no.
Messiah Complex:
Make Sinister the big bad. Make the scale bigger. Get rid of that stupid dog/panther mutant hunting thing, or else use it differently.
House of M:
I'd redo it, and genuinely give every mutant their heart's content so that they would actually face a difficult choice as to whether to go stop magneto.
Bendis wanked that up big time.
Civil War:
I would have had Cap die during it, forcing Tony to re-evaluate what he'd done on a bigger scale.
I thought the same thing and I agree, but I reasoned that it was the Final Crisis, even if Blackest Night is better (I hope it will be) it's not the same mega event scale as a Crisis should be. Anyway it could still work with Blackest Night. The Anti-Monitor could be resurrected as the Black Lantern's power battery, leading into Blackest Night. Same destination as the actual comics, just a slightly different route
I actually think one of the biggest problems with FC was it was labelled a Crisis when in actuality it was more like an event story being deconstructed by Morrison. The label was wrong.
Yeah, I've heard they've all done reasonably well (although I disliked the second series) it's just that the first series really took off
BND was really bad, i dont understadan why peopel think it will bring spiderman back to his glory days ,whast so great about web shooters
a lot of SM history gone , him and mj
i woudl of let aunt may die , no need for peter top make a deal with teh devil she shoudl of come to except her death and come out a stronger charecter ; it was her time
also they should of let SM keep his upgraded powers whcih i thought were quite cool (stingers, night vsion,faster healing , increased strength speed, agiklity and reflexes and a abetetr spdier sense)
i heard on these forums that the events with morlun , the other did take place as did avengers diasembled but his loss of upgardes is yet to be explained , pretty sad to just give him these cool powers and get rid of them so quickly , the powers and mystical element had potenital
Spiderman has been ruined, it used to be great and one of the best selling comics but I feel now like spiderman is just...not the same, I have alot of back issues of spiderman mainly from the 90's but now I don't buy spiderman...last storyline I bought was new ways to die which was actually a pretty good storyline but now they just seem to ruin spiderman
Well not to disagree with you because I also feel that Spider-man has gone downhill, but it's still doing reasonably well in terms of it's sales.
Marvel and DC's attitude is that fans vote with their cash. If they like something they buy it, if they don't they won't buy it. The problem with this logic is that fans don't know if an issue is worth buying or not until they actually buy and then read the issue. Granted if they don't like it they stop buying, but there has to be an initial sale to determine whether the series is worth purchasing each time. That (and accessability being another) is one of the many reasons that first issues usually sell well.
I personally don't like it. They simply refuse to hold their hand up an admit events like OMD were simply bad. It may have got Spidey into the place they wanted him to be in (which was the same place as Ultimate Spidey- so why didn't they promote that?) but it took great pains to get there. They felt it was too bad from a moral standpoint to either kill off or divorce MJ, but they didn't have any compunctions about having their hero making deals with the MU equivalent of Satan.
But, like I say, the point of this thread is not to moan at how poor a series is but offer a solution. A good solution to OMD would have been a divorce or separation of Peter and MJ. That wouldn't have caused as much of a fan backlash, would have garnered at least as many sales and wouldn't have killed any one off, considering as much story potential as having Peter make deals with the Devil without the awkward questions from fans
They should've had Peter follow the advice of GOD himself and let things run their natural course and refuse to give the devil what he wanted and in doing so losing the woman he loves. Then had him dealing with losing the last family he has left and finding yet again another reason to blame his self for the fate of those around him and to once again bring home the great point of the character. With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility!
Only this time the power was his choice to do whats right and openly admit to the world who he is in doing whats right. In telling the world who he was he made those around him vulnerable and the closest thing he's ever really had to a mother paid the ultimate price for it.
And don't get me wrong, I love Aunt May. I really do. But come on, how many years is she suppose to drag along. How many more times can we take her always being so old and frail for Peter to always have to worry about her so greatly? I mean damn how old is she now? Did Peter really think this deal would make her live forever?
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No reason to get so hung up about Marvel Zombies. It was obviously an alien virus of such power that it affected any living person. It even had mystical properties, because how could Thor get affected? He's immune to disease - unless it's magically generated. So Wolverine just got something his healing factor couldn't fight, is all.
And the point was the turn all the heroic characters on their head, to show how their attempts to still be themselves are just overriden by zombie flesh-eating needs. It was a big black comedy of a story, not a serious look at an apocalyptic future.
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Last edited by roughrider on Jun 19th, 2009 at 04:21 PM
KMC Community Forums
Jun 17th, 2009 09:28 PM
Perhaps if you looked at what you specifically disliked about H.O.M and then thought about how it would have worked better to suit both Marvel as a company and the fans in general. 
What could have been done? 
