Interesting Pieces of DC2 ephemera

We had loads of cool mini-events, mega-events, crossovers and the like. We always tried to promote them in fun ways, so here's a handful of teasers we used across the years:


Danger Trail and New Outsiders were two of the most quintessential DC2 titles, and it was only inevitable they'd cross over at some point.


Oh, this crap piece of work is one of mine! I know all about the villainous Black Light and how they'll debut in the DC2niverse. In fact, we've already seen one of their number in an old issue of Green Lantern Corps, and theirs is a future that is bound to come around at some point! But yeah, this was when I had no idea how to properly use GIMP:


"The Return" was one of our annual Bat-book crossovers, based around the return of Bruce Wayne after he seemingly died fighting Ra's Al Ghul the year prior. It was synergistic with what was going on in the mainstream titles at the time, as Final Crisis and Battle for the Cowl were going on around the same time, and as with a lot of events shared between the DC2 and the DCU proper, there was a lot of coincidental thematic cross-pollination at the time. Some of us were convinced that DC were pinching our ideas, but that's crazy.


Oh, here's another interesting artefact. DC2 Nemesis! This was probably my proudest "event moment" on the site, though I have high hopes for something I intend to get to in 2020. I can't say the teasers do it justice, but you get the vibe I was going for, right?


Oh, I must have been reading Warren Ellis' JLA: Classified arc, "New Maps of Hell" when I did this-- but then again, I was always reading something by Warren Ellis. That line from Superman about being a scientist's son is lifted from the finale of that story, and I disagree with it nowadays... Kal-El's biological father may have been a scientist, but he was raised by the Kents. It sounds about as right to me now as it does when Superman shouts "Rao!"


And a tie-in between two of the events mentioned above! Ramon and I planned to introduce our take on a post-Battle of the Cowl-styled Jason Todd in the aftermath of Bruce's "death", and Nemesis seemed like a good place to launch him. I can't remember if it happened that way? Ramon wanted to write the story-- or I pushed him to, I was a pushy guy-- and he was a faster artist than he was a writer. I can't remember if we used Jason in the Bat-books or Nemesis first, basically. God, 2009... ten years...




You can tell I rely dug the "use-dialogue-from-a-story-to-promote-and-tease-said-story" aesthetic of promo packages:


Our version of Earth-2 was sorta like... if there was no JSA, and the JLA debuted and aged normally? I can't remember to be honest, but in recent issues featuring Power Girl (who originated from Earth-2), I boiled it down to running ten years faster, so everyone was basically ten years older and we had a lot of legacies running around. That helped me nail down the relationship between Power Girl and Supergirl (later Superwoman) but I admit, it was a shortcut that I feel still works. David, one of the founders and Golden Age genius, crossed his JSA title with Earth-2's JLA, and the results were explosive. A veritable crisis on two earths...


The last thing I remember us really doing in the hey day of the site was an attempt to relaunch and refocus the Superman family of titles; Don was going to do a team-up book with Superman and a rotating cast, called DC2 Comics Presents..., David wanted to do Adventure Comics and as I was the one who pushed for Action Comics' existence back in the early days of the site, I was going to run that title. We managed to get one issue out each before other responsibilities took priority, a special one-shot from Don, and a pair of annuals by David and myself. 


When I concluded my initial run on Green Lantern and needed some breathing room, I put the title on hiatus but asked Trevor to help me with a tease for future events the next year. He hit it out the park, and I eventually returned to the title. Not everything came to fruition immediately, but I did manage to get everything done before I put the title on hiatus again at the end of last year. 

What have we got? Panel 1): Guy Gardner got his head smashed open by the Predator at the end of the run, and needed surgery to relieve the damage. I wanted to have him turn heel a bit, make him more of an arrogant arsehole closer to the mainstream version, but I chickened out. Instead though, he was infected with remnants of the Predator entity, and his face-heel turn was a lot more temporary. Panel 2): Carol Ferris was given a corrupted Star Sapphire ring which we saw her utilise in the penultimate arc of Green Lantern Corps last year. I know where she ends up. Panel 3): Chloe and Hal lost their daughter to the Predator, but she was rescued by Kyle and Sinestro, just before Red Lanterns invaded from another dimension and put everyone on a collision course. And finally, Panel 4): John Stewart became the main Green Lantern of Earth, and that's where we started the relaunch from. 


Panel 1): That's the devilish Parallax and his minion, Alex Nero. Panel 2): I COULDN'T POSSIBLY SAY. Panel 3): That's Parallax's army of Manhunters. Panel 4): Atrocitus' legion of Red Lanterns! They haven't been seen in ages. Panel 5): Our very own Cyborg-Ultraman sure doesn't like that power battery, does he? Panel 6): Oh, there's Carol again. She sure looks happy...


Okay, that's the first round of nonsense I found in the archives. More to come!