Back to more of your questions, and here’s Wayne with
“If Element Woman and Ultra the Multi-Alien had a child, well, what’s it going to look like, past an electric leg. That was a silly question, I know.”
Okay, here we have the Element Girl, or Woman, on this classic 1960s cover:
And here we have that poor bastard, Ultra, the Multi-Alien, his body sectioned off into four alien body types after being zapped by ray guns held by those four particular races…am I remembering that right?
Anyway, presuming Ultra can still father kids with his Four Corners Monument private area, I’m going to presume any resultant children are going to look like the Autons from Doctor Who:
And wait? What’s this? A second question? Here in the streets of Gotham?
Well, okay, I’ll let it slide this time.
“I’ve really enjoyed many of the Black Label books by Tom King. I doubt we’ll see Ultra….”
I can see some kind of body horror thing coming out of the Ultra concept, each segment of Ultra’s body fighting for control against the original human mind to whom this body belonged. (Or perhaps Ultra can come across other aliens from these species, one of which has a regular human leg on his electric body, etc. — even though I think a version of this was done in the old “Claw the Unconquered” back-ups from Warlord). I don’t know if this kind of story is in Tom King’s wheelhouse, particularly, but I can see something like this happening.
“As long as it isn’t the main heroes, this could be for anyone. some WildStorm books like The Authority or Gen13.Dial H, Heroes in Love? Better or worse, King can do something with obscurity, for anyone who liked Danger Street. And one of my favorite books ever is THE HUMAN TARGET?”
Of those examples, it feels like Gen 13 may be the most likely prospect for a Tom Kingenning. Authority I feel like is hovering around a full relaunch sometime soon, depending on whether or not it makes it into the DCU Gunniverse (current “not” at the moment, I believe). Dial H was already the subject of a recent-ish and well-regarded relaunch, even if it’s kind of forgotten now, and a Young Heroes in Love that isn’t by the original creators would face some resistance.
Gen 13 is one of those titles that went through a few hands post its creators’ involvement, and has been kind of a defunct property for a while now, though individual characters have popped up here and there. Again, this depends on DC’s intentions with the property…if they think they can still relaunch Gen 13 as a viable ongoing, that’s one thing. If they think it’s a moribund property and they might as well hand it to Tom King to do his thing to it, then there we go. I feel like DC may feel like there’s life in this old property yet, so they’d probably hold off sending it into the woodchipper, as it were.
DC itself has no shortage of abandoned or forgotten properties that might get a wild new reworking from King…I mean, I just mentioned Claw the Unconquered. Or The Wanderers, or even like Young All-Stars, which would probably give Roy Thomas conniptions admittedly.
Granted, King did do Mister Miracle, which didn’t destroy Scott Free for all time, and…well, I think the jury’s still out on Adam Strange. But if you want something like Danger Street, then there’s enough in DC library to keep this sort of thing going, assuming King wants to do that.
Okay, but how about “Dial H for Heroes in Love”?
Given his behavior lately, I vote in favor of giving Roy Thomas conniptions.
Tom King could always write a new Batman story arc where Condiment King, Simon the Pieman, and Sweet Tooth (from various animated Batman TV shows) team up tondo battle with the Dark Knight…
Or how about DC having a new iteration of The Outsiders Featuring Element Woman, Ultra the Multi-Alien, Robby Reed and his “H” -Dial, Dolphin, Brother Power the Geek, and the Jack Ryder iteration of The Creeper?
…and Robby Reed can use his “H”-Dial to turn into King Kandy to help Batman…Etta Candy can help out as well!
right now king is getting absolutely *pilloried* on tiktok, mainly for his WW. I haven’t read it so i dont know why, but he is eating SO MUCH FLAK right now.
I really liked the approach to Caitlin in the new Wildcats. Making her a kid made her click more for me than just a redhead in a suit.
I lived Mister Miracle, but my brain totally breaks unless I consider it just outside of canon. Same with Vision, honestly.
Mike: when Geoff John had the Brainiac arc, he had it that all four races were in the same planet. To which I say, why not? Sort of makes sense.
I was reading the SHOWCASE of Metamorpho when this bizarre thought hit me and was stuck in me. Not Elasti-Girl and Doll Man hooking up. I suppose it would be a better story if Urannia and Ace Arn were combined by “bad guy”. “With a fetish.”
And I have enjoyed a few Black Labels, though DANGER STREET was good/bad. I think GEN 13 would be good because (correct me if I’m wrong) they haven’t been used since the 90s (not counting the new52, which used Fairchild, I think.)
Who knows what is under Ultra’s white shorts? The lightning bolt might just be meant for fighting.
Your photo of the Autons, makes me think that any of the husband/wife powers could be used, though if Ultra used one, EG would have to use one, too. I don’t know why. Each hero could surprise the other. And then Ultra can stop wearing white Fruit of The Looms.
If King can do DANGER STREET, he can do this. Who is the villain? I do not know.
This is what residents of Chicago think about. Way too much.
Sure GEN-13, but make them all Gen-Xers in their 50’s now.
I wanna see a 52 year old Grunge who still listens to the Pixies.
King is a real hit-or-miss writer, when he’s good its a lot of fun but when he whiffs, OOF. I do give him a lot of credit for trying and actually taking risks, though.
ABSOLUTE AMBUSH BUG when?
DK: I don’t buy all the black labels, is it always Tom King who writes them?
Mike: sorry. It was the arc where DC recalled the covers so that the bottles Clark and Pa Kent had was labelled beer and they changed it to root beer. But it was an example of what Brainiac was doing. I believe the planet was named using one of the aliens’ names, and the green and blue races seemed to at least live in the same area. I believe we saw a full lightning creature flying, but no bird creature. This was in the 00s so I can’t recall ANYthing.
DK: ABSOLUTE SPACE CABBIE?
No, it’s certainly not only Tom King writing all the Black Label titles. For example, right now there is a Black Label Superman titles called The Kryptonite Spectrum written by W. Maxwell Prince (who I do not believe is really Tom King). There have been many other writers under the DC Black Label banner too. It’s a DC imprint featuring non-continuity, more mature (although not always Vertigo-level “for mature readers”) subject matter using DCU characters.
As far as Gen 13, there was a series written by Gail Simone in the early-2000s, but I think that was the last time the Gen 13 team had their own title. So, still, around 23 years now.
Hey, I’m nearly 50 years old, and I love listening to the Pixies.
Also, Absolute Ultra, the Multi-Alien; it’s coming. Trust me. It’s going to happen.
adrian – King gets a lot of criticism for various reasons which I obviously didn’t get into here. I’ve happened to like some of the types of comics we were discussing that he’s done, and even have an odd fondness for Rorschach for just how peculiar that was.
Gail Simone wrote 13 issues of Gen13 starting in 2006, then it was taken over by Simon Oliver for a while. With issue #21 it became part of WildStorm’s World’s End post-apocalyptic crossover event branding thing and stuck around until #39 at the end of 2010 when all the WildStorm titles were ended.
I’d say that considering there were over 100 issues of the various series published (plus crossovers with Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Generation X, and Superman) it’s kind of surprising there hasn’t been anything in 15 years, but The Authority, StormWatch, Wildcats, and anything else Wildstorm has barely had anything released in that time so it’s clearly not a priority for DC/there’s no market for it.
The three comics near me are gone. Two because of the pandemic, though their main stores are still around, many miles away. The last one, ALL-AMERICAN COMICS, well, Carl Bonasera flat out retired. First specialty shop in our area, went there from 1979 until the end, 2023.
Chris V.: Because of what I just wrote, that puts mew out of the loop. So aside from the Superman book and the Bruce Wayne wags his peener at Alfred book, I was thinking that King had started doing all of Black
Label.(After Heroes Crisis or whatever that was).
I like King for the pitches he makes. How DANGER STREET got out there, I don’t know. By the way, I’m 66 and I know the Pixies from the theme of FROM. After DS what the heck? He can do anything, even a Dollar Bill mini-series. Maybe HAWKWORLD, since nothing is in continuity. I loved it because it was set in my own Chicago.
Mikester: can you call Paramount+? I’m working on Ultra and Element Woman. Without the kid. Just being coy about falling in love. We can split the profits.
Everyone: thanks for reading my babblings. I’m happy that Mike followed up on my insanity. All of you enjoy the day. Buy extra comics from Mike. I honestly enjoy the comments and have been reading this blog since 2010, even going backwards in time.
@ DK
I think the idea of reviving Gen-13 as Gen-Xers in their 50s is not a bad idea at all. It could be a limited series or Black Book and there could even be a “Days of Future Past” time-travel element involved. What if Roxy and Grunge eventually had Gen Z or Gen Alpha children, who were to time travel from 2025 back to the ’90s?
Or, focus the book on how we Gen X-ers in our ’50s actually experience life currently.
@Wayne: I liked Aquaman: Andromeda quite a bit. By my admittedly faulty memory the story was light but the artwork was outstanding.