Fanboys Anonymous

Welcome to the first edition of Fanboys Anonymous GAME PLAN, where we take a film, television show or any kind of inspiration and we try to design a video game concept about it.

First things first, let it be known that I am by no means a video game expert. I haven't owned a console since PlayStation 2, I've never tested a game, etc. Under no circumstances do I ever think I could actually program these things. This is more about the idea behind it, rather than the execution, and I'm certainly an idea man.

For the debut, I wanted to go with something on the simpler side in that we already have a template to work around and just need to adapt it in a different way. I knew just the idea, too.

I really enjoyed the first two Marvel: Ultimate Alliance video games and had always wondered what a DC version of it would be. What characters would you be able to select from? What locations would it span? Which villains would you fight?

Thus, I present to you...

THE DC: ULTIMATE ALLIANCE VIDEO GAME

WHAT IS THE TITLE?

Obviously, the title of the game would simply be DC: Ultimate Alliance, if we were going with a direct equivalent. However, assuming DC were to make a game that's as close as possible to this, but not be able to get the rights or want to deal with any trademark/copyright issues, let's think of something else.

I'll spoil some of the story here and say that this isn't going to have parallel dimensions in it, so I'm not going with Crisis on Infinite Earths as its name. That's the sequel, much like how Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 was the Civil War story.

There are a few ideas I think could work, but they should all revolve around either DC Universe or Justice League. Here are some suggestions that all sound quite similar, so you get the idea:

• DC Justice League United
• DC United: Justice League War
• DC: Justice League Crusades
• DC: Justice League Crisis War

My favorite of the bunch is probably DC United: Justice League War. I think you could subtitle the follow-ups as DC United: Crisis on Infinite Earths and such. But this title goes with the theme of this first introduction game and story.

WHAT IS THE STORY?

Simplicity is key. That's why Marvel's first Ultimate Alliance game worked so well. It had tons of characters to pick from, lots of locations, a ridiculous amount of cameos and references, but a simple enough "fight the bad guys who are teaming up against the heroes" plot at its core. Even when it got confusing why Galactus was involved with Loki and Dr. Doom and all, it boiled down to just stopping the villains from taking over the universe.

The same should apply here, and we all know who should be behind this whole thing: The Legion of Doom.

Here's the overall pitch of the story in its raw form, without all the specifics:

The story opens with several cities under attack from a White Martian invasion. We play through the beginning level as different heroes, so we see Superman fighting them off in Metropolis, Batman fighting them in Gotham, etc. As this intro level progresses, Martian Manhunter gets everyone together to stop the invasion and they decide to form the Justice League (and there is a "super friends" joke in there, of course).

Cut to one year later, or a time skip somewhere along those lines. We have a group of our "core founding members" who had formed the Justice League: Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, Aquaman, and Martian Manhunter. They discuss how the White Martian invasion got not only them to form their own super group, but that other unions have been forming. There are bigger factions as well as smaller cells of villains who are now teaming together and such. It's not just the Bat Family anymore, as there is an Injustice League of some villain, they know the government has Project Cadmus and Checkmate as well as so-called Suicide Squad (officially Task Force X), Lex Luthor has created Infinity Inc to form the "Everyman Project", Bruce Wayne's public response is OMAC and Brother Eye spearheaded by Maxwell Lord, etc. They've even been hearing rumblings about a so-called Legion of Doom super group they need to be prepared for.

The Justice League has been doing recruitment procedures over time and has expanded its roster to dozens of different subgroups. For example, Dick Grayson is the leader of the Young Justice group called Teen Titans, because he's not only the most trained and best for the job, but he's able to connect with the youth and maintain their innocence.

Ultimately, what this boils down to is that Lex Luthor is working in coalition with Brainiac, Vandal Savage, Ra's al Ghul and several others as an Illuminati-like group called The Light to create the Legion of Doom and connect all their resources so they can take down the Justice League and control the universe. Darkseid is probably not in this group as he's far too dangerous. But we get a general game out of missions where your team has to investigate different attacks on locations, stolen artifacts/weapons, stop military takeovers, etc, just like Ultimate Alliance, with The Light being extinguished (at least for now) and the universe being saved.

LOCATIONS

Throughout the game, different levels take place on different cities, worlds and major DC landmarks, including, but not limited to:

Hero Bases of Operations:

• Watchtower satellite
  
• Hall of Justice
• Happy Harbor and Mount Justice / Secret Sanctuary
  
• Titans Tower
• Bat Cave
• Fortress of Solitude
• Flash Museum
• Oa / Mogo 
• The Quiver (I hate the Arrowcave name)
• Tower of Fate
  

Other Locations:

• Belle Reve
• Blackhawk Island
• Midway City
• Central City / Keystone City - Iron Heights
  
• Gotham City = the city itself, Ace/Axis Chemicals, Amusement Mile, Arkham Asylum, Blackgate
  
• Nanda Parbat
• Metropolis = Daily Planet, Stryker's Island, Suicide Slum
  
• Warworld
• Hall of Doom
• Star City
• Coast City
• Peña Duro in Santa Prisca
• Slabside Island
• Apokolips
• Blüdhaven
• Amnesty Bay / Atlantis
• Fawcett City
• Hub City
• Ivy Town
• Gorilla City
• Smallville
• Kasnia
• Qurac
• Corto Maltese
• Kahndaq
• Markovia
• Rheelasia
• Themyscira
• Source Wall
• Kandor
• Qward
• Rock of Eternity
• Phantom Zone
  
• Speed Force dimension
  

You get the picture.

WEAPONS / ARTIFACTS

Some of the weapons or artifacts that are being stolen throughout the game so the Legion of Doom and other sects can amass power are things like the following:

• Book of Destiny
• Helmet of Nabu
• Kryptonite
• Miraclo
• Mother Boxes
• Phantom Zone Projector
• Spear of Destiny

Transportation between levels for the Justice League is done through Zeta Beam or Boom Tube technology.

VILLAINS

You need to have enemies to fight. Not only would there be generic criminals, robots and so forth, there would also be named characters spread out, just like there is in MUA.

Groups:

• Brainiac robots (my preference is that Brainiac is the Brain Interactive Construct version, not the green alien)
• Checkmate
• Court of Owls 
• Darkseid's forces including parademons, Granny Goodness with the Female Furies, Kalibak, Steppenwolf, etc. Desaad would be in it, but you wouldn't fight him, necessarily.
• Fatal Five
• Fearsome Five
• Flash's Rogues Gallery
• Gorilla Grodd and his forces
• H.I.V.E.
• Injustice League
• Intergang with Bruno Mannheim, Morgan Edge, Whisper A'Daire, etc
• Joker will have a whole circus of clowns and subordinate types like Rag Doll and Professor Pyg's Dollotrons and such
• League of Assassins (I prefer the League of Shadows name, personally)
• Legion of Doom
• Leviathan (maybe)
• Lexcorp robots and Infinity Inc
• Manchester Black and The Elite
• Manhunters
• Nuclear Family (maybe)
• OMAC and Brother Eye under Maxwell Lord's control
• Roulette's underground fighting group
• Royal Flush Gang
• Task Force X / Suicide Squad
• The Ultimen (manufactured superheroes from Cadmus)
• White Martians 
• Yellow Lantern Corps (as well as possibly the Red Lanterns and so on, but maybe there isn't enough room for them in this game)

Boss Fights:

• AMAZO
• Bane
• Bizarro or Cyborg Superman (no need to have both as a boss fight)
• Black Adam
• Black Manta with Ocean Master
• Black Racer
• Brainiac
• Brother Eye
• Deathstroke
• Doomsday
• Eclipso
• General Zod
• Gorilla Grodd
• Joker with Harley Quinn
• Lex Luthor in his kryptonite suit
• Libra
• Lobo
• Mister Mxyzptlk
• Mongul
• Nekron and Black Hand
• Ra's al Ghul and the League of Assassins
• Reverse Flash / Zoom
• Sinestro
• Some kind of mystical threat (Morgaine le Fey, Mordru, Klarion, Enchantress, etc)
• Starro
• Trigon
• Vandal Savage

Other Random Villains (not the big boss of a level, but still could be solo or working together):

• Atomic Skull
• Black Beetle
• Black Spider
• Blockbuster
• Brain and Monsier Mallah
• Captain Boomerang
• Captain Cold
• Cheetah
• Chemo
• Cheshire
• Circe
• Clayface
• Clock King
• Cluemaster
• Copperhead
• Count Vertigo
• Deadshot
• Despero
• Despero
• Doctor Light
• Doctor Polaris
• Doctor Sivana
• Electrocutioner
• Evil Star
• Felix Faust
• Firefly and Firebug
• Gentleman Ghost
• Giganta
• Goldface
• Killer Croc
• Killer Frost
• Killer Moth
• King Shark
• Livewire
• Mad Hatter
• Major Force (partnered with General Wade Eiling)
• Metallo
• Mirror Master
• Mr. Freeze
• Onomatopoeia (how fun would this be in the game?)
• Parasite
• Poison Ivy
• Prometheus
• Psimon
• Riddler
• Scarecrow maybe teaming with Doctor Destiny
• Shade
• Silver Banshee
• Solomon Grundy
• Sportsmaster
• T.O. Morrow
• Tattooed Man
• Terror Twins
• The Key
• Toyman
• Trigger Twins
• Turtle (a super easy fight)
• Ultra-Humanite and Titano the Super Ape
• Weather Wizard

You'd think that would cover everyone, since this list is huge, but I'm still leaving out TONS of people.

PLAYABLE CHARACTERS

In an ideal world, we have TONS of characters to pick from, but not everyone can be chosen. You'll find plenty of names in the next section as cameos instead. Still, I wanted to incorporate as many as I could consider reasonable.

To help keep things organized, I've grouped characters into some different factions. Obviously, Batman belongs in the Bat Family, but since he's a core hero, you want to put him in there above everything else. Keep that in mind and don't think that I'm ignoring their ties to all the different units.

Also, naturally, every character would have a few alternate skins you could download. Superman would have the Electric Superman form, the black suit with the mullet, etc.

Characters in italics are ones that could potentially be cut if there were too many to pick from. Every character not in italics would HAVE to be in the game as far as I'm concerned.

Founding Core:

• Superman
• Batman
• Wonder Woman
• The Flash (Barry Allen)
• Green Lantern (Hal Jordan)
• Aquaman
• Martian Manhunter

Batman Family:

• Nightwing (blue is default; alt costumes are red version, the feathery blue and yellow outfit and a Robin suit)
• Robin (Tim Drake - I'd prefer Damian, but I want DC to let Tim become Flamebird. I don't like the Red Robin name. So let's keep Damian out of this game for now)
• Batgirl (Barbara Gordon)
• Red Hood
• Catwoman
• Huntress
  
• Batwoman / Orphan / Spoiler (I like Stephanie and Cassandra, but they're not necessities. To be honest, I don't like Batwoman at all and think she's a pointlessly derivative lame character).
  

Justice League's Other Members:

• Black Canary
• Booster Gold
• Captain Atom
• Firestorm
• Green Arrow
• Hawkwoman / Hawkgirl
• Hawkman
• Plastic Man / Elongated Man
• Shazam aka Captain Marvel
  
• Vixen
• Zatanna

Green Lantern Corps:

• Guy Gardner
• Jessica Cruz
• John Stewart
• Kyle Rayner
• Simon Baz
• Note: They probably would act all the same and just be different skins of the Hal Jordan character with some slightly different constructs, so it likely wouldn't be too hard to incorporate all of them. Alan Scott is saved for the sequel game.

Outsiders:

• Black Lightning
• Katana
• Metamorpho

Superman Family:

• Steel
• Superboy (black shirt and jeans is default, 90s look is an alt skin)
• Supergirl (Power Girl is an alt skin)

Teen Titans:

• Artemis / Tigress
• Arsenal (Red Arrow works, but Speedy is a dumb name)
• Aqualad / Tempest
• Beast Boy
• Blue Beetle (Jaime Reyes)
• Cyborg
• Kid Flash (Wally West) or Impulse (Bart Allen) or my preference, having it be Impulse as a name and design but the Wally West character under the mask - could just be alt skins of Barry, though
  
• Miss Martian (could just be an alt skin of J'onn)
• Raven
• Starfire
• Wonder Girl (could just be alt skins for Diana that are Donna Troy and Cassie Sandsmark)
  

I say that's a pretty healthy crop of characters to pick from. The likelihood all of these would be available would be slim, so some would probably have to be cut from the lineup.

SUPPORTING NON-PLAYABLE CHARACTERS

It's impossible to be able to play as every character out there. The game designers couldn't possibly make enough variations for it to be worthwhile, it's too much programming work and it wouldn't be worth it for the smaller characters.

However, that doesn't mean they can't still pop up as NPCs, right? Marvel Ultimate Alliance had cameo characters in supporting roles as people to talk to on missions, interactions at the base of operations and so on. That's what we're doing here.

• ARGUS
• Adam Strange
• Alfred Pennyworth and Lucius Fox
• Animal Man
• Commissioner Gordon, Harvey Bullock and Renee Montoya
• Dan Turpin and Maggie Sawyer
• Doom Patrol
• Dr. Fate (just too powerful)
• Etrigan
• Fire and Ice
• Green Lantern Corps = Extra members of the GLC including the Guardians
• Hawk and Dove = Hank Hall and probably Dawn Granger (I prefer that group with Don having died already)
• Justice League Dark = Constantine, Deadman, Swamp Thing, etc
• Legion of Super-Heroes
• Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen
• Marvel Family = Mary Marvel and such
• Mera
• Mr. Terrific 
• New Gods = Big Barda, Forager, Highfather, Lightray, Orion, Mister Miracle
• Red Tornado Family = Red Tornado, Red Inferno, Red Torpedo and Red Volcano
• S.T.A.R. Labs (Emil Hamilton and such)
  
• Spectre
• Stargirl and S.T.R.I.P.E.
• Ted Kord
• The Atom (too hard to figure out how to incorporate his powers as a playable method)
• The Metal Men 
• The Question
• Waverider (only to set up the sequel game as a post-credit tease)
• Wildcat (trainer for the tutorial)
  

WHAT IS DC ULTIMATE ALLIANCE 2?

Just for the sake of explaining the thing I teased multiple times, here's a short explanation of the sequel game.

At the very end in a post-credit sequence, Waverider would show up and there would be all sorts of signs pointing toward a multiversal problem with different parallel earths crossing over.

Hypertime would be involved in this. That means we can incorporate some characters we didn't touch on in game #1, such as the Crime Syndicate/Justice Lords, the Anti-Monitor, Gog, Krona, Imperiex, Chronos, Solaris the Tyrant Sun, Superboy Prime with Alexander Luthor, Hal Jordan doing the whole Parallax and Spectre thing, and even Watchmen and Authority, maybe.

The game could include going to different alternate dimensions as well as the past and the future. You could see Jonah Hex in the past during a wild west level. You could team up with the Justice Society of America's Alan Scott and Jay Garrick.

At the end, the Anti-Monitor would be stopped and it would set up a third game, but I'm not sure what would be the best story for that one. After all, the first game isn't even real, let alone the second!

What do you think? What would your pitch be for a DC Ultimate Alliance game?
Drop your thoughts in the comments below!