These are imaginary stories... aren't they all?

May 14, 2009 12:01 PM

Darkseid tries to join the Legion of Superheroes, Batman wrestles the serpent in the garden of Eden, Clarke Kent shoots Abraham (Brainiac) Lincoln... Hall of Silver Age Elseworlds first pages - from DC Silver Age Elseworld stories that never happened, from the Elseworlds 80-Page Giant collection, which was pulped after controversy surrounding Letitia Lerner, Superman's Babysitter - which later became the only story in the collection to see print again.
posted by Artw (21 comments total)

More from the Elseworlds 80 page giant
posted by Artw at 12:05 PM on May 14, 2009

Man, I thought geeks were supposed to be cool. I thought they were all about rebelling from authority through comics and stuff, and it turns out they're just a different kind of square.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:06 PM on May 14, 2009

I've heard that it's not at all hard to find the full comic online, using certain very popular but illegal services that I would certainly never endorse.

That said, I'm a big fan of this book, and the saga of its destruction is one of the biggest WTF moments in comics history. (The story that was so inappropriate you scrapped the whole book was the one you reprinted later? Seriously?) I think my favorite story is "Rockumentary," in which Lex Luthor becomes the world's most powerful record executive.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:15 PM on May 14, 2009

To the Batfish, Robin!
posted by oddman at 12:22 PM on May 14, 2009

I love the thought bubbles on the Batman and Eve one.
posted by Artw at 12:23 PM on May 14, 2009

Also Braniac's hat.
posted by Artw at 12:24 PM on May 14, 2009

These are awesome.

Having been a big fan of the 'Modern Age' Spectre as a teenager, I love the 'Li'l Spectre' in the Golden Age Teen Titans cover.
posted by kaibutsu at 12:44 PM on May 14, 2009

Wait - Hippolyta's girdle had a giant glowing vagina on the front of it?
posted by FatherDagon at 12:58 PM on May 14, 2009

Holy shit I've been trying to remember the name of this comic forever. Thanks for this!
posted by BitterOldPunk at 1:00 PM on May 14, 2009

They made Darkseid cry, the big bullies!
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 1:05 PM on May 14, 2009 [1 favorite]

They made Darkseid cry, the big bullies!
This is why the Great Darkness Saga happened.
posted by WolfDaddy at 1:14 PM on May 14, 2009

The naked-but-hey-baby-leave-the-cowl-on Batman, with a snake slithering across his groin, in the Book of Genesis, with a naked woman, on a comic-book cover, fighting the Fall of Man, is wrong in about seventeen different directions.
posted by PlusDistance at 1:53 PM on May 14, 2009 [1 favorite]

Oh and the snake on his groin is the Joker.

* head explodes *
posted by PlusDistance at 1:55 PM on May 14, 2009

Furthermore, the Spectre was not the first embodiment of God's anger, but was the replacement for the previously minor DC character Eclipso. Ostrander chose to portray this as a distinction between the Spectre's pursuit of vengeance and Eclipso's pursuit of revenge. In a historical context, Eclipso was responsible for the biblical Flood, while the Spectre was the Angel of Death who slew the firstborn Egyptian children.

Nutso!
posted by Artw at 1:58 PM on May 14, 2009

The ironic, excessive parodies justify the existence of the ridiculous, excessive originals.
posted by GuyZero at 2:21 PM on May 14, 2009

Of course, over at Marvel there was that time the Punisher got given special guns by angels and went hunting down the supernatural for the lord.
posted by Artw at 2:22 PM on May 14, 2009

Mark Waid, writer behind these pages, has an excellent slot on the buiness of writing and editing comics over on Kung Fu Monkey.
posted by Artw at 2:56 PM on May 14, 2009

Of course, over at Marvel there was that time the Punisher got given special guns by angels and went hunting down the supernatural for the lord.

Let me guess, Garth Ennis?
posted by rokusan at 3:12 PM on May 14, 2009

Heh, no. He pretty much dismissed the entirety of that in two captions when he took over Punisher.
posted by Artw at 3:18 PM on May 14, 2009

I would pay big bucks for an actual Golden Age Teen Titans comic book.
posted by wittgenstein at 5:17 PM on May 14, 2009

Artw: Yeah, Ostrander's approach was to take the 'embodiment of God's vengeance' to the logical, bloody, old-testament-style conclusion and run and run and run. If ever you've looked at the OT and said, "And these are the good guys?" then you've experienced what Ostrander was evoking. Eventually Corrigan (as Vengeance embodied) comes to understand just how ridiculous the mission is, after confronting a whole slew of morally impossible positions. All of this is played directly against the Spectre's essentially unlimited power; it has the ability to destroy worlds, if need be, but is confronted by these small human dramas that give pause to (or undermine?) its execution of its mission. It was good storytelling.
posted by kaibutsu at 5:40 PM on May 14, 2009 [1 favorite]