I don’t know about you, but God! There are days when I just can’t move for getting phone calls and emails from editors at Marvel Comics and DC Comics. “You’re a famous comic blogger,” they say, “why can’t you just come and write our comics for us?” And I have to keep turning them down, saying “I’d love to, but I have another blogging deadline. Let’s not and say we did, huh?” and that’s how I discovered the sound of Dan Didio’s tears.
Wait, that’s not what happens.
I’ve never written a comic that’s seen print and, to be honest, the idea kind of terrifies me a bit after making a name for myself by being a dick online. But that hasn’t stopped me from coming up with ideas by accident, thinking about them a little too much, and then not writing them up. But here are four that stuck in my head longer than they should’ve.
1. Fantastic Four
Everyone and their sister has a Fantastic Four pitch in them, I think, and almost all of those pitches are exactly the same, all a return to the imagination and dynamism of the classic Lee and Kirby run (Or, more specifically, the era around #48-#70something where Lee, Kirby and Sinnott were really cooking). My imaginary pitch was no different, and all about familiar plots, as well; the replacement of a team member by an impostor, time travel into the far future to discover society has splintered into four tribes inspired by each member of the team, the introduction of the alien who wants to be Galactus’ girlfriend, that kind of thing. Along the way, the Thing would turn into Ben Grimm again - of course! - and Wyatt Wingfoot would return, this time as a college professor and with a son in tow. My aim would never have been to revolutionize the book, just to be familiar and familial enough.
2. OMAC
I actually did write this one, kind of, but I’ll be damned if I can find the document anywhere on this computer (There’s apparently something about Kirby’s DC Comics; years earlier, I wrote one for the Manhattan Guardian series I could see spinning out from Seven Soldiers; that one’s right here). The short version of my take on OMAC was that it could be repurposed from where Countdown left the character/concept into being DC’s Iron Man or, at least, their technological hero. SHADE, DC’s often-ignored counterpart to SHIELD would capture Brother Eye/Brother Mk. 1 and reprogram him to be less of a crazy killer and more of the classic Kirby Brother Eye. Buddy Blank, the character left as OMAC at the end of Countdown would become OMAC permanently and be tasked with investigating and policing use of future tech in the DCU, bringing him into conflict with the publisher’s time travelers, mad scientists (Oolong Island!) and the like. The tagline would have been “Get Ready For The World That’s Coming.”
3. Power Man and Iron Fist
If ever there was a series that made me nerdily nostalgic and hit all my fanboy points in reviving, it’d be Power Man and Iron Fist. Both characters are pretty much re-established in the Marvel Universe these days, but before Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction made Danny Rand the hit that he is again, I came up with an idea for a story that was pretty much Fan Service Central, as long as that fan was me. The basic idea was that DW Griffith, Luke’s old film student slacker sidekick ended up both rich (Didn’t he have a rich dad all along?) and kidnapped by old Jo Duffy-era villain Montenegro, and Luke and Danny had to team up to get him back safely. Hilarity, no doubt, would have ensued.
4. Ultimate Rick Jones
I love Rick Jones. Love him love him love him. It’s all down to Peter David’s take on the character during his Incredible Hulk run. So, when Marvel announced their Epic open call for fan submissions around the same time as the announcement of their Ultimate line, can you blame me for thinking of coming up with a series based around Rick Jones? Of course, Ultimate Rick Jones would have been looked like Stu Sutcliffe and acted just like the original Rick did, way back in his first appearances; he would’ve been a ’60s throwback beatnik wannabe, both a loser and kind of awesome at the same time, and his series would’ve been a series of misadventures between himself and his buddy, Ultimate Doc Samson. Who, of course, would’ve been a former professional wrestler-turned-shitty radio psychiatrist.
You can tell why I never bothered writing this one, can’t you?
Like I said; none of the above ever got written (with the exception of the OMAC one that I lost, so same difference), and even if they had, I’d never have done anything with them. I’m a coward that way. But here they are, just for you.
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I will buy the chromium cover to your Ultimate Rick Jones series.
Chromium GATEFOLD.
But you’re not too late to bring back Ultimate Rick Jones. Just make him Ultimate *Comics* Rick Jones!
I’d even buy the monthly.
Content © Graeme McMillan, 2008.
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Lurve ‘em, lurve ‘em, lurve ‘em. I swear to you, I didn’t have a FF pitch until last week.