Batman #256 (1974) was a 100 Page Giant. And those always had a few extra pages to fill, and DC usually used puzzles, or factoid pages, or fan-art.
But in this issue, Marty Pasko and Pat Broderick used two pages to do something a little bit different. In the era between the imaginary story era and the Elseworlds era, they started What If...?--several years before Marvel did.
We start with the origin we could all recite in our sleep:
But then they explain their premise:
First stop: what if Bruce Wayne had been in the desert, for some reason?
Next, look out, Aquaman:
Hey, Pat, that is a terribly drawn stingray. Sorry, had to be said.Then--what if Bruce Wayne were a park ranger?!?
Or an astronomer?
Or just liked to hang around museums??
Ladies and gentlemen, presenting The Scorpion, The Stingray, The Owl, The Shooting Star, and The Iron Knight--The Legion Of Alternate Batmen! (OK, Pasko never called them that, but I did...and you know it's a damn good name).Look, Grant Morrison is in charge of Batman these days...and DC had held off doing any multiverse stories because they want Grant to do them. So, I'll ask--nay, demand--once more: Why the hell hasn't Grant Morrison done anything with the Legion Of Alternate Batmen?!?
It should be good for at least an 8-issue miniseries, and would be a lot more fun than Zur-En-Arrh...
11 comments:
"…and when criminals see this shooting star, they'll wish upon it, all right. They'll wish they'd never been born!"
(blinking in stunned disbelief)
Wow...that is some spectacularly bad writing! I could see Bob Rozakis pumping out something like this (he was the king of these low-wattage back-up features), but I remember Pasko being better than that. Man, whenever I get into one of those "comics were better way back when" moods, I'll be sure to temper it with dreck like this.
Oh, and we can't forget the peculiar case of the Bat-Spider-Man!
Bruce didn't look too confident when he proclaimed himself "The Scorpion", did he? It looked more like he was just giving his "omen" a wide berth!
Thank goodness Bruce Wayne wasn't a urologist.
When Alterna-Bruce became the Stingray, he apparently felt that sticking to the underwater theme was more important than actually going after criminals, 99.9999% of whom operate on dry land.
"The fear of wisdom"?! What the feck?!
Am I alone in hoping Grant Morrison doesn't do anything with the multiverse?
The Owl (apparently not Owlman) or Stingray I could get behind. I'm not sure the Scorpion would have worked as well as the Marvel version, and even cape-loving me thinks the Shooting Star's cape is way too long. Surprisingly indifferent to Iron Knight.
"Am I alone in hoping Grant Morrison doesn't do anything with the multiverse?"
No.
The fun part is that those characters actually look like character that already exist.
Scorpion - well, Marvel's Scorpion (also Stingray)
The Owl, well, Watchmen's Nite Owl.
Shooting Star looks a lot like the second (and female) Captain Marvel.
And Iron Knight-- wasn't there a guy like this in the DC Universe already?
"I was startled by a feral cat digging in a dumpster as I ran from Crime Alley! It must be an omen! I'll call myself Feral Cat Man! And jump from behind garbage cans and startle criminals and... well, pee on them I guess. Perhaps tom cat around some."
Is it just me or is Bruce Wayne particularly impressionable.
A couple years later this pretty much actually happened. Nice premonition!
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