Tonight we have what I guess would be considered the WWE’s third most important show of the year, Summerslam. I mean, on paper, it’s supposed to be the secondary Wrestlemania, but everyone and their imaginary friend loves Royal Rumble more. I look forward to the show despite the roadblocks it sets up. There are only six matches signed. One of these matches is a throwaway Divas match I couldn’t care less about. One of the championship matches is Rey Mysterio vs. Kane and while I love Kane and don’t mind Mysterio, I don’t need to be reminded of their abysmal, “Is he alive or is he dead?” feud.

So why am I so jazzed about the show? Team WWE vs. the Nexus in an elimination tag match. The Nexus has been one of the better wrestling storylines in past years, despite its own set of roadblocks (Daniel Bryan/Bryan Danielson being fired, Wade Barrett’s visa problems, Ricky Steamboat’s injury). I can only hope the storyline doesn’t get killed as of the end of Summerslam, yet at the same time, I don’t want them to last long enough to get destroyed by a returning Triple H. God, I really don’t want to see Triple H involved with this in any way.

For those new to the big main event, here it is laid out DC Comics style.

(click for bigger version)

Let’s see who we got on here…

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Elseworlds can be a mixed bag. Scratch that. Elseworlds can be a mixed bag that’s half eaten. You know when somebody’s picked out most of the good candy from the jar and there’s only three Jolly Ranchers left among a pile of 20-year-old pieces of candy corn? That’s more like what Elseworlds are like.

There are some good ones to be sure. The epics like Kingdom Come, Dark Knight Returns and Red Son count without question. Other good Elseworlds that come to mind include the Justice Riders, where Sheriff Diana Prince goes after railroad baron Maxwell Lord while accompanied by madcap inventor Beetle, godly-quick gunslinger Kid Flash, maverick card player Booster Gold and others. The Secret Society of Superheroes is another obscure story with a great spin, where the Justice League act in the shadows while FBI Agent Bruce Wayne works to exploit them. That story has possibly my favorite incarnation of Batman ever. Then there’s JLA: Destiny, which is only half good. The core of the story is about Jor-El being the sole survivor of Krypton with Thomas Wayne being the one who watched his wife and son being shot down in front of him. Sadly, while everything relating to Jor-El and Mongul (who fills in a Luthor role) is seriously good, the comic is absolutely bogged down by unnecessary characters and subplots.

Most of the rest I can care less about. In the end, you’re just seeing another retelling of Batman’s origin, only he has a mustache or his father was Abraham Lincoln.

The subject of this article is part of a 5th week event known as Legends of the Dead Earth. Information on it is pretty hard to come by, but to the best of my understanding, something screwy happened to Earth, causing its heroes to scatter into alternate realities. So on one hand, it’s a series of Elseworlds while on the other hand, the issues are canon in a sense.

This issue, Justice League America Annual #10, is part of the series. There are really two reasons I find it worth talking about. For one, it’s based on Extreme Justice, which I had just gone over. For two, it’s really out there and moves so fast that you can only scratch your head. Christopher Priest wrote this issue, by the way. So that’s something.

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Before we delve back into the insanity of what passed as a story in Extreme Justice, let’s look at what the various characters were up to when they weren’t baring their teeth and looking in-your-face. Captain Atom and Blue Beetle finally came to an understanding and started to get along. Firestorm ended up getting suspended from the team after his drinking problem got out of control. As for Amazing Man and Maxima, the two of them started to grow towards each other. Though at first, Amazing Man was offended due to the fact that Maxima only seemed to be interested after he powered up from his fight with Monarch’s quantum beasts. Also, there was this…

Maxima admitted that she was still culture-shocked from being on Earth. Almerac was advanced to the point that there was only one race and culture, so she was interested in a world with diversity. Amazing Man decided to start teaching her Earth customs in the form of books, music and television. During their look at TV, Maxima stumbled onto the porn channel, which immediately piqued her interests. Being from a planet that only believed in sex for the process of fertilization, she wasn’t quite prepared for… well, something X-rated.

Ah, fun. I can talk about Maxima and pornography all day, but I got a job to do and that job is discussing the Wonder Twins. Because, you see, I hate myself.

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Before I continue, I should point out that I have read worse comics than Extreme Justice. In actuality, the series wasn’t all bad. For instance, while the situations were idiotic, the characters were fine for the most part. There were some decent relationships like Captain Atom/Blue Beetle, Amazing Man/Maxima and Blue Beetle/Firestorm. In fact, Blue Beetle came out looking all right throughout this whole mess. He got to be his regular jokey self without Martian Manhunter yelling at him for not being serious. Plus he was actually useful in fights and wasn’t relegated to just hang out in the Bug and pilot.

As we last left our heroes, Captain Atom found himself before an unmasked Monarch, who was apparently Nathanial Adam. How could this be? The explanation was that when Adam was blown into the quantum field all those years ago (his origin), a quantum clone was created out of some alloy that escaped back to Earth while the real Nathanial Adam just hung out in space for a millennia, never taking the time to get rid of what had to be the dirtiest, nastiest pair of underwear in the universe.

The original Monarch showed up one day and the two became great friends. Monarch taught Adam much over the years, including the life Captain Atom stole from him. Monarch found a way out of the quantum field eventually and upon his death, sent his armor to Adam. Adam became the new Monarch and escaped. He felt that the original Monarch had the right idea of how to bring world peace, but spoiled it with some bad decisions.

The important thing from that gibberish is this: Captain Atom isn’t the real Nathanial Adam. Oh boy. You know how popular these storylines are. Just ask the many fans of Ben Reilly and Deadpool’s arch-nemesis T-Ray.

Nothing important happened with Monarch for a while, other than a bit where he had some “quantum beasts” attack Extreme Justice before destroying the creatures to make himself look like more of a hero to the on-looking crowd. The only important part to come out of this was Amazing Man absorbing the power of one of the creatures and permanently bulking up from it. That will come into play later.

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(Note: This is another set of articles from the early days of 4th Letter. I always liked these articles, so I figure I’d update and repost them. Plus I have an extra article prepared that goes with it. Enjoy)

As you already know, I really like Booster Gold. Out of interest, I made it my mission to read nearly all of his major comic appearances. At the very least, read through any series that heavily included him. His solo series? Check. The Giffen era of Justice League and the one or two years following? Check. The Superbuddies stories? Check. Infinite Crisis and its bells and whistles? Check. His scattered appearances in Superman, Green Lantern and Flash? Check.

This left one major challenge: I had to read through Extreme Justice.

And I did it. It nearly killed me, but I finished the series. Oh, and what a series it was. The mid-90’s was a dark time for comics and Extreme Justice was no shining beacon among the crap. Before I go into the story, let’s look at the original roster for the team and what brought them here:

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Jesus, we’re actually at the top ten. And some of you haven’t even lost interest yet. I’m proud.

What If: Avengers Disassembled came out the other day. You might be wondering if I would have placed it on this list if it came out several months back. The answer is no. No, I can’t really get behind an issue that tries to retcon a major story into something that makes even less sense. Having written this paragraph, I realize the John Byrne jokes write themselves.

Before I start this, one more call for anyone interested in drawing fake covers for the countdown finale. Come on, you know you want to.

10) WHAT IF THE FANTASTIC FOUR’S SECOND CHILD HAD LIVED?

Issue: Volume 2, #30
Writer: Jim Valentino, Ron Marz
Artist: Dale Eaglesham, Rurik Tyler
Spider-Man death: No
Background: In-between having Franklin and Valeria, there was another time Sue was pregnant with Reed’s kid. Unfortunately, there were radiation-related complications due to the team’s recent venture into the Negative Zone. Reed went to Doctor Otto Octavius – supervillain Doc Ock and the biggest expert on radiation – for help. Ock went berserk for a bit and the two had it out on the rooftops of New York City. Reed calmed Ock down and he agreed to help out. Unfortunately, they were half an hour late. Sue had a miscarriage. So let’s say Ock didn’t freak out and made it just in time? We have two stories here on two different sides of the spectrum.

The first story is best described as a horror story. Franklin wakes up from a horrible vision of the future where his father is dead. His parents just think he had a simple nightmare and leave it at that, but Franklin already knows that there’s a monster living inside his mother. Over time, Sue’s pregnancy takes a horrible toll on her. She gets weaker by the day and almost skeletal, soon losing her invisibility powers. When she gives birth to her child, she dies in the process. Reed names the baby Sue in order to deal with the loss of his wife.

As experience has taught us throughout this countdown, this isn’t going to end well at all.

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