"Power Without Knowledge...": President Haig and the Era of Bad Feelings
- Thread starter Born in the USSA
- Start date
Media Matters: Plus Ultra
The release of the X-Men '97 trailer inspired me to do this little number 😂
While the 1985 Marvel acquisition of DC was relatively clean from a business standpoint, a simple buyout followed by a rebrand, actually reconciling the properties involved would prove a more daunting task. Even having the Crisis on Infinite Earths and Secret Wars events lead into the 1986 Amalgam event and then decohere into separate characters operating in a single world, getting everyone where they needed to be, so to speak, there was still the matter of reconciling two vast and often convoluted settings and character stables. Aside from fan and writer jurisdictional questions about SHIELD, the Avengers and the Justice League, there was also the particular standout that Mongul was inspired by Thanos who was in turn inspired by Darkseid, with all three now coexisting!
Several Ultra writers would spend the following decade attempting to stitch everything together, but it was the streamlining of this drawn out process through the Ultra Animated Universe that would really help stick the landing during Ultra Comics' brief time as the hyperpower of the comics world, introducing the new canon in a digestible way to new generations of potential readers. Running for over a decade, the UAU consisted of a series of animated shows linked through crossovers and overarching plot elements. In release order, they were:
The UAU would also introduce the definitive Teen Titans roster for the Millennial generation, made up of power couple Superboy and Jubilee along with Static, Iron Lad, Robin and Starfire, with Spider-Man acting as a mentor to the younger generation. The team would prove the centerpiece of a reboot of the setting in the form of the 2010 Teen Titans series, sharing the expansive world of the Ultra Comics universe with a new generation of fans and priming the pump for a long-delayed live-action Ultra Cinematic Universe to reboot all the one and done films of the preceding two decades and better compete with the Image box office behemoth on the silver screen.
*Basically take Weapon Plus on steroids and have Sinister as the man behind the man.
**Yes I'm keeping both, Galatea was cool. Also Superboy's telekinesis is the result of adding an X-gene, so he's a Kryptonian-mutant hybrid clone. Since Sinister sampled it from Jean Grey he fills the role of Nate Grey in the broader Ultra universe, more or less, though he's ironically not nearly so OP.
***I despise recent Sinister clone Doctor Stasis, but the backstory that he's at least indirectly related to Weapon Plus, the gamma experiments that made the Hulk and the spider that bit Peter Parker is functionally transferred to Sinister here. All told Cadmus has a hand in a lot of hero and villain origin stories.
While the 1985 Marvel acquisition of DC was relatively clean from a business standpoint, a simple buyout followed by a rebrand, actually reconciling the properties involved would prove a more daunting task. Even having the Crisis on Infinite Earths and Secret Wars events lead into the 1986 Amalgam event and then decohere into separate characters operating in a single world, getting everyone where they needed to be, so to speak, there was still the matter of reconciling two vast and often convoluted settings and character stables. Aside from fan and writer jurisdictional questions about SHIELD, the Avengers and the Justice League, there was also the particular standout that Mongul was inspired by Thanos who was in turn inspired by Darkseid, with all three now coexisting!
Several Ultra writers would spend the following decade attempting to stitch everything together, but it was the streamlining of this drawn out process through the Ultra Animated Universe that would really help stick the landing during Ultra Comics' brief time as the hyperpower of the comics world, introducing the new canon in a digestible way to new generations of potential readers. Running for over a decade, the UAU consisted of a series of animated shows linked through crossovers and overarching plot elements. In release order, they were:
- Batman: The Animated Series (1992-95)
- X-Men: The Animated Series (1992-97)
- Spider-Man: The Animated Series (1994-1999)
- Superman: The Animated Series (1997-2000)
- Ultra 2099 (1999-2000)
- Static Shock (2000-04)
- Justice League (2001-03)
- Avengers Assemble (2004-05)
The UAU would also introduce the definitive Teen Titans roster for the Millennial generation, made up of power couple Superboy and Jubilee along with Static, Iron Lad, Robin and Starfire, with Spider-Man acting as a mentor to the younger generation. The team would prove the centerpiece of a reboot of the setting in the form of the 2010 Teen Titans series, sharing the expansive world of the Ultra Comics universe with a new generation of fans and priming the pump for a long-delayed live-action Ultra Cinematic Universe to reboot all the one and done films of the preceding two decades and better compete with the Image box office behemoth on the silver screen.
*Basically take Weapon Plus on steroids and have Sinister as the man behind the man.
**Yes I'm keeping both, Galatea was cool. Also Superboy's telekinesis is the result of adding an X-gene, so he's a Kryptonian-mutant hybrid clone. Since Sinister sampled it from Jean Grey he fills the role of Nate Grey in the broader Ultra universe, more or less, though he's ironically not nearly so OP.
***I despise recent Sinister clone Doctor Stasis, but the backstory that he's at least indirectly related to Weapon Plus, the gamma experiments that made the Hulk and the spider that bit Peter Parker is functionally transferred to Sinister here. All told Cadmus has a hand in a lot of hero and villain origin stories.
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And yes, of course the Summers family tree is as convoluted as usual, aside from Cable and Rachel running around in the present (on-and-off in Cable's case) Ruby's there too, so the "step-children" have plenty to bond over 😂 There's also an analogue to Hyperstorm with a bit of Hope Summers mixed in, though instead of the future maybe-baby of Rachel and Franklin Richards she's Conner and Jubilee's. Unlike her dad she is actually OP, with full Kryptonian powers, much stronger mind reading, full telekinesis and the ability to generate nuclear explosions even when she's not a Phoenix host. Also aside from the standout example of Cadmus there's some other canon welding, with Hydra an outgrowth of the League of Shadows (itself descended from Clan Akkaba) and the New Gods exist outside of the main universe but come about in the future after an apocalyptic war on Asgard as Kirby originally intended.
Something that just occurred to me: given the state of the modern world and the fact that the ARC has generational constitutional conventions where every member of the continental government is present I'll definitely have to include language in my Basic Law about the contingency of a decapitation strike, though Karnak is so well fortified and the event itself so meticulously screened it would probably take something like a direct high yield nuclear strike or a rod from god to take everybody out at once 🤔
Had some recent thoughts about the development of ecological fiction and its influence on and crosspollination-with Regressive thought so that one will likely be next! In the meantime any setting questions? Work has been busy but I'll try to update soon.
Homo ludens
Have a random thing that struck my fancy!
More language facts: Gestaltisch (and to a lesser extent High Human) is actually one of the end goals of the Maximalist Fraction, expanding on the relatively limited Xenofemenist Fraction's goals to add extra genders to ACE and the Novuteran Fraction's weird obsession with þ. Aside from having thirty-something letters and a veritable rainbow of grammatical genders, Gestaltisch in its ideal form would also have two distinct methods of writing: first would be a standard latin-derived phonetic alphabet and second a sigil-based logographic writing system fostered by the increased efficiency of inputting it aided by computer programs. The latter would be incredibly difficult to actually create but it's slightly streamlined by a standardized set of rules regarding how words are transformed into logograms, including not only limits on how letters can be reshaped and what positions they can have in the final design of a given word but also such standard practice as the uniform removal of vowels from the words in question before transition.
More language facts: Gestaltisch (and to a lesser extent High Human) is actually one of the end goals of the Maximalist Fraction, expanding on the relatively limited Xenofemenist Fraction's goals to add extra genders to ACE and the Novuteran Fraction's weird obsession with þ. Aside from having thirty-something letters and a veritable rainbow of grammatical genders, Gestaltisch in its ideal form would also have two distinct methods of writing: first would be a standard latin-derived phonetic alphabet and second a sigil-based logographic writing system fostered by the increased efficiency of inputting it aided by computer programs. The latter would be incredibly difficult to actually create but it's slightly streamlined by a standardized set of rules regarding how words are transformed into logograms, including not only limits on how letters can be reshaped and what positions they can have in the final design of a given word but also such standard practice as the uniform removal of vowels from the words in question before transition.
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I've had another flurry of general media fun facts, none of which are meaty enough for a full entry, so after I finally get a free moment for the ecological/regressive/mycological fiction post I'll do a general bullet-pointed one with my random asides, then I suppose it's only fair I do the 2016 election 😂
Just a little teaser to wet your beaks but for the longest time I couldn't figure out exactly how I wanted the middle action of 2016 to go— suffice to say I knew how it started and how it would end but some aspects of the actual election eluded me. I've been inspired by a recent reread of @ChangeofPace's delightful To Heaven but with a Political Party TL, so that should tell you something. Though we both know this version will end in a far less uplifting way 😉
Any questions going forward? They always help me think when I'm otherwise busy with work and life more broadly.