"What If" series are pretty popular in comics. Marvel has done lots of them. DC has also done its fair share. Other publishers of properties like Transformers have done it. Star Trek has an entire mirror universe that's it's own "what if" thing. Even Star Wars did some "What if" issues.
Looking at the premises of some of DC's "Tales From the Dark Multiverse," I got to thinking about doing some What ifs of my superhero series.
For the first book, Girl Power, Robin (the Batman/Batgirl character)'s nerdy friend Melvin--who becomes Melody--stops the evil Major Dalton from using an alien weapon to turn most of the world's population into women. But what if he didn't?
Major Dalton is successful and creates her New Amazonia, where most everyone is female--except a few men to function as servants and breeding stock. About 15 years later, Jenny Bassett is going about her normal day when she suddenly develops super-speed! She manages to get home and ask her mom, who tells her she's the daughter of Velocity Man/Gal and so the ability must have passed down to her--which was the subject of a short story.
Jenny then becomes a superhero like her dad. She learns her new powers--basically like The Flash--and stops crimes and all that. Then one day she's met on the street by a homeless-looking woman. It's Robin! She knows who Jenny really is and recruits Jenny to break into a secret lab. There Dalton's scientists have our heroes locked up to study what makes them tick. Jenny finds her father--who's a woman now--and is able to free her, Mermaid, and Apex Girl. The latter they have to expose to sunlight so she can regain her powers.
Then with Jenny sort of as her father's sidekick, our heroes destroy Dalton's feminizing machine and start the slow process of returning the world to normal while Jenny is glad not only to be a hero, but to have her family back together.
In Book 2, The Impostors, the military (unwittingly guided by Major Dalton) introduce a group of male clones of the Super Squad to supplant the feminized versions. These clones were all destroyed (except the one of Robin), but...what if they weren't? What if the male clones had managed to supplant the female Super Squad?
Some time later, Apex Man rules the surface world with an iron fist with Velocity Man and Midnight Spectre as his lieutenants. Underwater in Pacifica, King Neptune plots to take over the surface world. As war becomes ever closer, the assassin for hire Hitter is recruited to lead a Suicide Squad of other villains. They're tasked with taking down the male Super Squad.
They start by taking out Velocity Man in probably some horrible, gory way in the style of The Boys. Then they capture Midnight Spectre to get intel on how to destroy Apex Man. The only way is to go to the arctic to his Fortress of Solitude and create a special drug that will make Apex man lose his powers. It is of course a dangerous mission and as Hitter and company are getting the materials for the shot, Apex Man shows up and there's a terrible battle, but Hitter is able to hit him with the shot and take him out.
Apex Man's rule is ended and after he recovers enough, Hitter goes to Pacifica to take out King Neptune, allowing someone less militant to rule. Hooray!
In Book 3, League of Evil, the feminizing weapon pretty much turned the whole world into females and threw everything into chaos. The Super Squad and a Suicide Squad of feminized villains united to stop a planet-killing entity known as Omega before it could destroy Earth. But...what if they didn't? What if Omega was successful?
Years later, Lieutenant Kila of the Galactic Peacekeepers (basically the Green Lanterns), receives a signal from the dead planet known as Earth. She investigates and finds Robin--or the femininized clone of Robin--who was instrumental in selling out Earth and as a "reward" was left to rule the barren wastelands. Robin has been working to get back at Omega and devised a way to kill it, but she needs Kila's help to get into space.
Kila, regretting that she allowed Apex Girl to be executed for a crime she didn't commit, agrees. But as she and Robin get into space, they're discovered by other Peacekeepers who don't want to risk a war with Omega that they might lose. Kila and Robin manage to escape and track down Omega out in space somewhere. Robin sacrifices herself heroically to allow Kila to use whatever weapon to destroy Omega.
Kila has saved the universe from this dangerous threat but now begins the possibly more dangerous task of ferreting out the traitors in the Galactic Peacekeepers who set up Apex Girl (and others) to appease the monster. She also goes back to Earth with some colonists to repopulate the dead planet.
Sort of a bittersweet ending.
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