If you don’t know what Elseworlds are, they’re basically Marvel or DC Comics not set in the Marvel or DC Universes, but in an alternate continuity where things are a little different. They’re generally based of “what if” premises, like “What if baby Superman had landed in Soviet Russia when he was rocketed from Krypton?” or “What if Wonder Woman lived in the Victorian era?”
We talked about really cool superhero elseworld comics earlier, but let’s face it, some superhero elseworlds are really, really bad. The creators will sometimes use it being a different continuity as an excuse to make the characters utterly unrecognizable, going against the very things the character stands for. Sometimes Elseworlds don’t even bother to explain their premise or have it make logical sense. Sometimes the agenda the writer has is painfully obvious or the idea isn’t very good to begin with.
And sometimes things just get weird. Really weird.
Whatever the reason, there’s some real stinkers in the realm of Elseworlds. So let’s take a look at some of the worst and weirdest. Do you have any other bad ones you’d like to mention? Do you disagree with any of the choices? Talk about it in the comments!
Superman: Speeding Bullets
Superman: Speeding Bullets by J.M DeMatties and Eduardo Barretto is basically “what if Superman had a backstory exactly like Batman’s (he gets adopted by the Waynes, they are gunned down) and became Batman, but like with superpowers?” It’s…as boring as it sounds. Superman’s supporting cast all turn up in Gotham but act like Batman characters (Lex Luthor becomes a weird Joker-Penguin combination, etc). Then at the end of the title, Superbatman becomes Superman anyway. It’s all an exercise in pointlessness basically
JLA: Created Equal
JLA: Created Equal by Fabian Nicieza and Kevin Maguire takes place in a world where all the men except Superman and Lex Luthor have died from a virus. Now women are in charge…but this story still manages to be all about the men anyway. Take a seat, ladies! Superman is trying to repopulate the Earth and gives his stuff to make a bunch of superbabies (did no other sperm banks survive?) but Lex Luthor shows up, reveals he’s been a secret meninist all along and turns Superman’s progeny into an army that will take the women down. Which they do, with ease, because that “created equal” thing was just a title.
By the way, one of the superbabies killed his mom Lois Lane by hugging her too hard (nobody thought to teach him to control his powers just in case somehow). Unusually for these AUs, Wonder Woman and Superman do not immediately hook up after this. I guess it’s sort of implied they will, but that’s something at least.
Batman: Brotherhood of the Bat
This story by Doug Moench and ten billion artists takes place in 2053, when most of the world has been wiped out by a modified ebola virus. Ra’s al Ghul is still kicking, though, and he decided to dress up the League of Assassins in terrible Batman costumes and have them kill people because this will restore order somehow. Batman is dead, but he fathered a son with Talia al Ghul, who is named Tallant (creative) and rocking a classic 90’s mullet. He doesn’t even know he’s Batman’s kid until he’s an adult, when Talia finally bothers to tell him. Then he becomes Batman and fights the League of Batmen in a very tedious fashion. It’s full of terrible 90’s art and terrible plot.
Spider-Man: Reign
Spider-Man: Reign by Kaare Andrews is four issue miniseries set thirty-years in Peter Parker’s future, where he’s a seventy year old very sad Spider-Man. I basically know this as “the series where Spider-Man killed Mary Jane with his radioactive semen”. Because that is seriously a plot point, he gave her cancer with his Spectacular Spider-Junk. The rest of the series is pretty standard grimdark stuff (though there are gems like zombie Doctor Octopus and J. Jonah Jamison as a pastor for some reason. Also at one point Spidey punches his way out of his casket while singing his 60's theme song), but I just can’t believe someone wrote that down and was like “ah yes. Very tragic. Not at all ridiculous. I’m a genius.”
All-Star Batman and Robin
Frank Miller and Jim Lee turned out a Batman AU that bred a million memes and is hailed as proof of his declining…everything. If you’ve heard “I’m the goddamn Batman” bandied around, you should know the line comes from this comic, where Batman tells young Dick Grayson, age 12, this after kidnapping and terrorizing him and then locks Dick Grayson, age 12, into the Batcave and forced Dick Grayson, age 12, to eat rats because that builds character or something. (The comic repeats “Dick Grayson, age 12” a lot, that’s what I’m trying to communicate here). Eventually Miller noticed how quotable his comic was and that nobody took it seriously, so we got treated to Batman saying “goddamn” every other word, totally killing the joke.
I genuinely don’t think this started out as a joke though, it was supposed to be a fresh take on Batman starting from scratch in a continuity-free universe. But Miller indulges in all his worst excesses, introducing Vicki Vale lounging around her apartment in lingerie and heels because Miller has zero shame, and I’m just quoting him here, since his literal script notes are “Okay Jim, I’m shameless, let’s go with an ass shot”. Thus readers are treated to Vicki Vale’s talking butt. Stay classy, Frank.
When he’s not having Batman terrorize and torture small children whose parents were literally just murdered, Miller is having Wonder Woman yell “out of the way, sperm bank” at random men and making it clear he thinks Superman is dumb. Wasn’t this supposed to be a Batman comic? Who even knows. It was never finished, but at least it gave the internet plenty to snark about, which is comic's saving grace really.
Superman/Wonder Woman: Whom Gods Destroy
Superman/Wonder Woman: Whom Gods Destroy is a comic wirtten by Chris Claremont and drawn by Dusty Abell. Claremont is renowned for his work on the X-Men, but must not have liked Wonder Woman much, because in this story he makes her a Nazi. Yes, with a little swatiska tiara and everything. Just ‘cuz. Also the Greek Gods are in league with the Nazis because reasons.
Honestly, there are some ideas in this story that could, potentially, in another context and not surrounded by garbage, be good (Lois as Wonder Woman etc) but they're few and far between.
I’d try to explain what was going on in this book to you, but I feel like Claremont himself might not even know. The Nazis never fell and Lana Lang is now a seer…and she takes Superman to Germany, but he’s turned into an evil centaur…and Lois Lane becomes Wonder Woman and defeats Nazi Wonder Woman…then Superman becomes a woman…then she, Lana and Lois go to form a lesbian harem on the moon, I guess. Claremont has some weird fetishes, we all know this.
Superman: At Earth's End
Yeah, a lot of these are Superman titles. Poor guy. This book by Tom Veitch and Frank Gomez gave Superman fans what they always wanted- showing us a grizzled, older Superman who uses a ridiculously huge gun that defies the laws of physics, aesthetics and common decency. What, that’s not what Superman fans want? Geez, they’re hard to please.
Basically, Superman survives in a post apocalyptic world and tags along with a mowhawk wearing gang and then he runs into twin clones of Hitler. God, Elseworlds really like using Nazis. Despite initial refusal, Superman picks up a gun and destroys this terrible threat. Then the book tries to send an anti-gun message, saying guns are bad. Comic, you can’t have it both ways.
This comic did birth a great meme though, mainly there's a part where Superman shouts "I AM A MAN" and bad-comic reviewer Linkara ran with that. You can also see his reviews of All-Star Batman and Robin and this list's second and first worst titles on his channel.
Catwoman: Guardian of Gotham
This two-issue miniseries by Doug Moench and Jim Balent dares to ask the question, “What would it be like if Catwoman had Batman’s backstory and was the guardian of Gotham instead of Batman?” Apparently, the main difference would be she’d wear an awkward leather corset over her already terrible costume. Also Two-Face is now a woman which means she’s a model who had acid in her makeup and is mad about losing her good looks because women, amiright? And while dude Two-face gets nice suits, lady Two-face gets tacky half lingerie outfits.
Also Batman is now a cackling murderer with no real motivation because why not.
JLA: Act of God
JLA: Act of God is a three issue series by Doug Moench (wow, he's on here a lot) and Dave Ross. The premise was that all the superheroes on Earth had lost their powers because of a mysterious flash of light. That was it. That was the only explanation ever given. The comic didn’t seem to care that the heroes powers all came from wildly different sources and for some of them, like the Martian Manhunter and Superman, their were part of their biology, meaning the light would have had to rearrange their genetics somehow. Also, all mystically based heroes just conveniently vanished, except for Wonder Woman, because the writer forgot that she got her powers from a mystical source (the Greek Gods). Again, no explanation given other than it was an “act of God” maybe.
The lazy lack of explanation for anything would have been forgivable if the series had explored the emotional fall out of the event in an interesting way, but nope. The point of the whole thing seemed to be that it was somehow a good thing that these heroes didn’t have powers now, despite the fact it meant there was nobody who could punch out Darkseid next time he tried to destroy Earth. J’onn Jonzz postulated they’d had their powers taken on them for being “arrogant” and “above the normals”, despite the fact all of J’onn’s race have his plethora of powers, so having powers IS the norm for him. And yeah, how arrogant of the heroes to have powers and use them not for personal gain, but to help people.
It got worse though, as all the heroes who had previously taken losing their powers quite well in other stories became complete messes without them. Clark Kent moped for the entire series and Lois dumped him for not being Superman, even though she’d fallen in love with Clark without knowing he was Superman, because we needed the required Superman-Wonder Woman hook-up. And losing her powers for some reason made Wonder Woman convert to Christianity (despite the Greek Gods being responsible for her creation) and lose all humanitarian impulses to become a Wall Street shark and also consider suicide. Kyle Rayner absolutely lost his mind without his Green Lantern powers despite the fact he’d only had them for a couple years.
This series is bottom of the list because it doesn't even have the unintentionally funny "so-bad-it's-good" moments the others have. It's just a dull, annoying, relentless read all the way though.Nothing makes sense and everyone is out of character, the end.