Earth Liberty: An Ares Merged-U Homebrew
Posted: Wed Oct 31, 2018 8:44 am
I've decided to get back into contributing more to the site creatively, though it's going to be a bit slower since I'm working on several things right now, at least one of which will hopefully be profitable. And I do plan on getting back to what I consider to be my big "setting" project, Multiverse: The Animated Series. But to start with, I thought I'd take it slow with something a little smaller but kind of fun.
So. Earth Liberty. This is actually the third time I've re-named this universe, which shows I should have put more thought into it before posting this thread. I was originally going to call this The Alterna-Verse (no relation to Alterna Comics), simply because I liked the name and this setting was going to be a collection of 'alternative' universes separated from the Big Three (Marvel, DC and Image). Then I noticed a trend of patriotic themed heroes I plan to use and decided to call it Earth Patriot. Now, in this hopefully final rebranding, I've decided to call this version of it Earth Liberty.
So this idea started when I was re-reading some old FemForce issues, and discovered that part of the impetus for AC Comics (the creators of FemForce) to get into the comics business was the desire to re-print Captain Marvel comics and do new stories with the Fawcett characters. And they actually had a small window to do so before DC got the rights to the Fawcett heroes, but ultimately AC decided to make their own setting. However, they also made use of characters who had fallen into the public domain, including a lot of heroes that have been used by other settings.
So I decided to look at these Public Domain heroes (helped by my copy of Jess Nevin's Encyclopedia of Golden Age Superheroes), and found that many of them had been used in other settings. And if I decided to count each useage of the characters as equally valid, and then took the heroes of that setting as well, it made for the kind of fun mashup setting I love doing, but on a smaller scale than my usual.
As such, Earth Liberty is going to be a somewhat unique universe with the following guidelines:
#1) No characters that originated from the mainstream DC, Marvel or Image universes. Earth Liberty is going to be its own Earth with its own heroes, while DC, Marvel and Image will remain their own Earths in the larger multiverse. So Superman, Spider-Man and the Savage Dragon will each have their own Earths and not be directly incorporated into Earth Liberty. However, I will include a look at the larger Earth Liberty multiverse and the crossover events its had with the other Earths. The best way to think of it is to imagine the Pre-Crisis DCU, with Earth's 1, 2, 3, 4, X and S. Only now you'll have Earth Liberty (the main Earth of interest), Earth Justice (the DC Universe), Earth Marvel (the Marvel Universe), so on and so forth.
#2) The settings will be primarily drawn from sources/companies whose works that include include public domain, Golden Age heroes such as Daredevil, the Black Terror, Miss Fury, the Green Lama, etc.
#3) Settings also considered will be those that include strong patriotic themed heroes, including non-American heroes with a strong patriotic theme.
#4) Several settings to be considered will be those that larger companies like Marvel and DC have acquired over the years. Said companies will be "liberated" and placed here to be their own property instead.
#5) Additional settings will include those with a strong magical basis for abilities, as well as characters who have similar thematic ties to existing properties (such as the Blue Beetle Scarab and the various Kamen Rider transformation trinkets).
As of now, settings that are definitely part of Earth Liberty would include:
● AC Comics (FemForce, with the public domain heroes being the basis for the setting)
● Fawcett Comics (linked by several expies used by AC Comics)
● Project SuperPower (linked by Daredevil, the Green Lama, Black Terror and other heroes)
● Quality Comics (linked by several expies used by AC Comics)
● Charlton Comics (linked by Miss Fury, Peter Cannon and several expies used by Project SuperPower and MASKS)
● Several Pulp heroes (linked by the Black Terror to Dynamites MASKS crossover, including the Shadow and Doc Savage)
● Doc Savage (linked by a crossover with the Shadow)
● Kings Features Characters (linked by Dynamite, includes Flash Gordon and the like)
● Malibu Comics (linked by Miss Fury, primarily focused on the Centaur Publications/The Protectors and Men In Black)
● Capcom (linked by Malibu Comics through Street Fighter)
● The Six Million Dollar Man (linked by both Charlton Comics and Dynamite Entertainment)
● Worldscape (linking Tarzan, Red Sonja, Conan, John Carter of Mars, Pathfinder and others)
● Valiant Comics (linked via Solar, Turok and Magnus via Dynamite)
● Various horror franchises (Lovecraft Mythos, Army of Darkness)
● The Dresden Files (linked by Dynamite)
● The Rocketeer (linked by Doc Savage, the Shadow and others)
● Goldkey Comics (linked via Solar, Turok and Magnus)
● Hanna-Barbera Heroes (linked via Goldkey Comics)
● Red Circle Comics (linked via The Shadow)
● Various Tokusatsu
● Milestone Media
There are other Dynamite properties I'm considering including as well, such as Killer Instinct, Stargate, etc.
As you can see, I've got plenty to work with. While this will be solely my project in terms of content, I would welcome suggestions as to other comic universes to add to the setting, as well as questions about it to get me thinking, possible adventure ideas, etc. The history of this world will be something unique, drawing from all of the component settings without being 100% beholden to them. Hopefully this turns out to be fun.