Dropped ideas/proposals/stories?

[JoshuaB]

Coming from my other thread on the Superman 2000 thread, are there any other storylines or ideas that were "almost" out of the gate, but got denied by editorial or something? I know, at one time, there was something going on with Superman and Rao, that seemed to be leading somewhere...

Does anyone know of any of these dropped ideas?

[Magneto_X]

Gail Simone's proposal for Batgirl was rejected.

It was an interesting and controvercial take where Cassandra would become a Christian after saving a priest.

I definitely would have bought it if DC greenlighted the project.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

The retro-Silver Age-esque Krypton introducted by Loeb & McGuiness was initially meant to be the real dead until DC got cold feet and decided to go with Birthright, which they seem to have also gotten cold feet about.

Also, Loeb & company intended to have Lois killed off only to have Superman beg Mxy to bring her back but at the cost of all her memory of their life together. So Superman would have to win Lois back again.

The Russian General Zod was originally intended to be the Kal-El from the Silver Age Krypton that Superman saved during the aforementioned "Return to Krypton" storyline.

If memory serves, Elliot S. Maggin intended to get Lois & Clark together way back in the seventies, but Julie Shwartz put the breaks on that.

[666MasterOfPuppets]

Coming from my other thread on the Superman 2000 thread, are there any other storylines or ideas that were "almost" out of the gate, but got denied by editorial or something? I know, at one time, there was something going on with Superman and Rao, that seemed to be leading somewhere...

Does anyone know of any of these dropped ideas?

I remember asking Eddie Berganza about that Rao stuff. All he said was that "that was from the previous creative teams, but something cool can be pulled off from that". I remember the Quintessence (or Zeus, at least) was at odds with Rao, and forbade Superman to mention that name in his presence.

I'll ask again, this time to Matt Idelson. Yep, I know I'll get no satisfactory response, but what the hell...

[marshal99]

Maybe not superman related but still on the subject of aborted ideas.
The aborted script for the first issue of the 70s SSOSV comic book. Don't you just love Darkseid sneaking around and whispering like a common thief ? ;) :D

http://www.comictreadmill.com/CTMBlogarchives/images/AmazingSSSV.jpg

[Kilgore Trout]

Well they just gave an INFINITE CRISIS which I always assumed meant a reshuffling/douching of the DCU...

In fact they wrote the whole thing around Superman's weak mojo and even dragged the GA Superman in to show him how to be a Superman in the grand tradition...

But it seems that only thing that happened was they disrespected the memory of the GA Superman and left the current dude in the spandex Superman suit with all his warts, blemishes and lack of imagination virtually intact...

The last IC seems like a dropped proposal to me... :rolleyes:

[JoshuaB]

Well they just gave an INFINITE CRISIS which I always assumed meant a reshuffling/douching of the DCU...

In fact they wrote the whole thing around Superman's weak mojo and even dragged the GA Superman in to show him how to be a Superman in the grand tradition...

But it seems that only thing that happened was they disrespected the memory of the GA Superman and left the current dude in the spandex Superman suit with all his warts, blemishes and lack of imagination virtually intact...

The last IC seems like a dropped proposal to me... :rolleyes:


Huh. Maybe this would have worked better in a new thread.

[Kilgore Trout]

Huh. Maybe this would have worked better in a new thread.

:confused:

So its NOT a dropped idea?

[666MasterOfPuppets]

Maybe not superman related but still on the subject of aborted ideas.
The aborted script for the first issue of the 70s SSOSV comic book. Don't you just love Darkseid sneaking around and whispering like a common thief ? ;) :D

And SSOSV stands for... :confused:

[marshal99]

And SSOSV stands for... :confused:

Secret society of super villains.
In the 70s , they had a series that lasted 15 issues and was cancelled suddenly by DC and the fate and storyline of the SSOSV was only finally continued and resolved in that infamous JLA "mindswipe" mentioned in identity crisis.

[Kilgore Trout]

The Sandman Saga (Superman 233-241, 1st series) was an early attempt by DC to depower Superman...

But by issue 242 Superman was again crusing a coupla trillion miles out in space... :eek:

I never was sure why they shitcanned the idea... :confused:

[Gernot]

Well, Kilgore, I remember a couple of issues of World's Finest and Superman or Action that made reference to the fact that Superman was no longer as strong as he'd once been.

True, it didn't last long at all, but it WAS longer than just #242. :)

[J. Robb]

Probably the biggest unpublished Superman story is "The K-Metal from Krypton" (http://superman.ws/k-metal/about-k-metal.php). It would have radically changed Superman's history.

[666MasterOfPuppets]

Secret society of super villains.
In the 70s , they had a series that lasted 15 issues and was cancelled suddenly by DC and the fate and storyline of the SSOSV was only finally continued and resolved in that infamous JLA "mindswipe" mentioned in identity crisis.

I see. Thanx for the info. So I presume that's the origin of the Legion Of Doom from the Superfriends cartoon, right?

Probably the biggest unpublished Superman story is "The K-Metal from Krypton" (http://superman.ws/k-metal/about-k-metal.php). It would have radically changed Superman's history.

Yeah. Sometimes you think the world is a really small place.

[Gernot]

I see. Thanx for the info. So I presume that's the origin of the Legion Of Doom from the Superfriends cartoon, right?

Not really. The Legion of Doom is a different group from The Secret Society of Super-Villians. Different memberships, enemies, and all that. Some villians may've been in both groups, but the LOD wasn't really part of the DC comic Earth until the mini-series currently being published.

[dupersuper]

Why could Darkseid not break in himself? And what the #@$!## is MANHUNTER doing there???

[666MasterOfPuppets]

Not really. The Legion of Doom is a different group from The Secret Society of Super-Villians. Different memberships, enemies, and all that. Some villians may've been in both groups, but the LOD wasn't really part of the DC comic Earth until the mini-series currently being published.

I see. But I meant that it was the inspiration for that, right? (Yeah, sorry. I used the wrong words).

[Kid Kyoto]

Luthor's wife the Contessa had potential but was suffled off stage post-haste.

Byrne planned for Superman to reveal his identity to Lois but it was canned (I think that's why he left) though they did it anyway a year or two later.

I'm not sure I thought the Byrne Supergirl plan (which became Matrix which became Linda Danvers) wasn't told the way he planned.

[Gernot]

I see. But I meant that it was the inspiration for that, right? (Yeah, sorry. I used the wrong words).

Actually, the inspiration for the SSOSV probably came from all the way back in the 1940's. Just as the JSA inspired the JLA, there was an Injustice Society of America that probably inspired all villain groups that followed.

To tell the truth, though, I'm not sure which group came first: The Legion of Doom or SSOSV. :confused:

[666MasterOfPuppets]

Actually, the inspiration for the SSOSV probably came from all the way back in the 1940's. Just as the JSA inspired the JLA, there was an Injustice Society of America that probably inspired all villain groups that followed.

To tell the truth, though, I'm not sure which group came first: The Legion of Doom or SSOSV. :confused:

I see... Thanx for the information.

[umbc8]

Others include Byrne's Supergirl originally planned as a post-crisis Power-Girl with a different origin than Supergirl ended up with.

Byrne also had planned to have a pregnant Lara make the journey to Earth, then give birth to Kal-El before dying. Also, Byrne regrets not having Clark be Superboy when he was young.

Maggin also tried to put in a line implying that Lois had the same dress on after a date with Clark the night before, but Schwarz had it changed due to sexual implications that were a no-no in th 70s.

[PatrickG]

Loeb and McGuinness had a string of canned projects between SUPERMAN and SUPERMAN/BATMAN. I suspect they left the book after DC nixing RETURN TO KRYPTON killed several plans.

Ask Loeb about the tabloid-sized SUPERMAN: ALL MONSTERS MUST DIE or the Titans/Legion stuff they had planned if you see him.

[jaguarshark]

The Sandman Saga (Superman 233-241, 1st series) was an early attempt by DC to depower Superman...

But by issue 242 Superman was again crusing a coupla trillion miles out in space... :eek:

I never was sure why they shitcanned the idea... :confused:

I think the plan was to cut him down to about a third of his then-current power level. As far as I know, it didn't work because, as I think John Byrne put it somewhere, "a third of infinity is still infinity."

Superman's powers are kind of like an arms race, and no matter how radically they get cut down, they will always get built back up again.