"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.
The Tales of the Scarlet Knight series you could do a whole bunch of them since there are 8 books.
In book 1, Emma survives her first encounter with the Black Dragoon mostly by a stroke of luck. (Check out the comic book on Amazon or the moving comic version on YouTube.) But...what if she didn't? What if the Black Dragoon killed Emma on her first mission as the Scarlet Knight and the former Scarlet Knight Percival Graves?
The red armor seeks a new host and calls upon Emma's friend Becky Beech, who has motivation to stop the Dragoon with Emma being murdered. If you read book 4, you'd know Becky is a harsher kind of Scarlet Knight, more like the Frank Miller version. Where Emma would try not to hurt people, Becky really had no qualms about beating the shit out of bad guys--or even killing them.
So Becky gets the armor and defeats the Black Dragoon in a violent, bloody fight. Where Emma did not kill Ian MacGregor--who killed himself instead--Becky dispatches him. And then she sets to work on the rest of Rampart City, terrorizing Don Vendetta and her goons and the various gangs and common street criminals.
Ultimately she starts to go too far, beating the shit out of common purse snatchers or jaywalkers or petty criminals like that. The witches Agnes and Sylvia decide they need to intervene and try to stop Becky's reign of terror. But Sylvia is badly wounded by Becky and the witches barely escape.
Agnes winds up turning to Marie Marsh for help. Marie has a strange ability that lets her see people's memories and even to travel in time. Agnes works with Marie to hone her ability, but when they're about to send Marie back to save Emma, Becky appears. Agnes holds her off and Marie goes back to that first battle with Emma and the Dragoon, saving Emma so she continues being the Scarlet Knight and everything goes on as it was.
Book 2: Speaking of Marie Marsh, in book 2 she helped usher in an invasion of demons, until she joined with Emma and the witches to stop it. But...what if she didn't?
Years later, the world is mostly a wasteland overrun with hellspawn. There is no Scarlet Knight left to battle the evil. Marie is an outcast who spends most of her time trying to find a way to undo what she did. She's finally able to go back in time to stop herself from helping the demons. Some of the demons try to stop her, but with Emma's help she puts right what once went wrong.
Book 3 & Book 8 you could have the same scenario: What if Isis won and defeated the Scarlet Knight? In both cases Emma would likely be dead and the armor would again have to go to someone else. In a world where Isis reigns supreme and the whole world is her plaything, the new Scarlet Knight (Tim Cooper? Louise Earl? Jim Rizzard? Whoever.) would have to rally people together and find a way to defeat Isis--or not.
Book 5: An arms dealer sets off an antimatter reactor that's going to blow up the city (and possibly much more) when Sylvia sacrifices herself by vanishing into space with the reactor. But...what if she died before she could do that and the reactor exploded?
Fast-forward a few years and a scarred, bitter Emma, having survived the explosion thanks to the magic armor, is living in the post-apocalyptic wasteland that used to be Rampart City. She's hung up the cape, no longer believing she can make a difference. To make things worse, Isis has come of age and regained her power.
Then in her dreams Emma is met by a girl named Joanne who looks much like her when she was young. Joanne convinces Emma to strap on the armor and in Old Man Logan style go back out there for one last fight against Isis. But is she up to the task? Maybe.
Books 6-7 already end unhappily so any "What If" would either be happy or else a lateral move.
1 comment:
sounds interesting...now you can write these all out and have your own "what if" series, especially since Marvel is doing an animated one for D+ in the near future....timing is everything :)
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