Way back when I was a young me, one of the first comics-related things I ever read was a hardcover compendium of Superman stories at the library. This was a genuinely great collection, filled with Golden, Silver and Bronze Age Superman stories, and readers were spoilt for choice of some of the best classic Big Blue stories around: the first one with Titano, the introduction of Mon-El, “The Two Lives Of Jonathan Kent” (easily one of the best Super-stories ever printed, and not just because the villain was an evil hippie with magical wish powers), a classic imaginary death story…
…and my personal favorite, the one where Superman teamed up with Orson Welles (seriously) to fight evil Martian space Nazis.
Now, I probably can’t get away with Orson Welles. But…
Okay, let’s work this thing out.
Right. Alien space Nazis. Shouldn’t be too hard, do the “they receive signals” trick. Whoops, turns out, though, that that means that you’ve only got an effective radius of one thousand light years from Earth – that’s practically next door in spatial terms. Hm. We need this to be a fairly backwater world, so that when the Legion encounters the evil alien space Nazis they’re totally unheard of and new.
Okay, no problem. What happens is that in the far distant future, the Nazi radio waves hit a gravitic anomaly sort of a thing, yes? And the gravitic anomaly slingshots the Nazi radio waves in a totally different direction and speeds them up to much much faster than the speed of light, and the theory of relativity does the rest of the work, shoving the radio waves backwards through time so they hit the planet that will create the alien space Nazi civilization and accompanying war machine in, oh, let’s say about 2950, giving the Xgrylth Reich about 150 years and change to build up a truly fearsome armada.
From there, it’s cake: you have your explanation for the evil alien space Nazi armada, it sounds even semi-plausible, and all you need to do is tell the artist to draw the shit out of some planet-stomping giant Nazi war robots and some awesome-looking space Messerchmitts and some wicked-cool space SS troopers (to laugh in the Legion’s faces when some of them get captured and thrown in the Space Gulag of Ropticon 7, you see) and oh oh oh don’t forget the Turbo-Star-Panzer Brigade, armed to the teeth with death rays and alien fascist self-importance.
Bluntly: if the Legion of Super-Heroes fighting evil alien space Nazis is wrong, then I don’t wanna be right.
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That’s gold.
While I agree that alien Nazis are totally sweet, I can’t say I’m buying into your explanation for how they could come to be. Most of your “Why I should write the Legion” bits have a clever turn to them that makes people stop and take notice. This one comes across as more of a 12-year-old kid trying to write a comic for the first time. Just not up to your usual standards.
Then again, you did give ample warning that you were catering only to yourself with this one.
You’re sounding a bit like Ellis on one of his bad days there, MGK. Relax. Don’t fight logic. You don’t need a physically plausible reason for an obscure alien world to worship Hitler. Who will really care? Who will argue? When the bionically enhanced Nazi octo-chimps making their burning descent through the Earth’s atmosphere, black-light plasma rays blazing, and Karate Kid punches through one of their spines, who in their right mind will argue?
But, on a more honestly critical note, do they have to be nazis? Can’t they just be space facists? Do nazis really still make everything better?
Or, another idea… what if they’re a lost colony of settlers founded by neo-nazis? The result of centuries of uninterrupted attempts to breed the superman? Bloated on stolen alien technology (note: possible vehicle for your earlier “history is a gun” idea), sneering at the now “corrupted” trans-human race… scary shit when they when they start igniting the atmosphere of whole planets.
I like your idea. And that you prefaced it with “catering to me”. Makes it all the better, cause your honest. And truthfully, I think it’s good too.
It’s already been said, but don’t worry about the logic of HOW they come to be. let the poor sap who’s gonna take over the comic after you suss it out. I bet thats what alot of writers do anyway.
You’re doing this totally in reverse. The answer is: Hitler was an alien.
Thank God…I’m not insane…not making it up…someone else DID read that story…
Spot-on idea, man. They should bring back Martler NOW. Have him be J’onn J’onnzz’s deadliest nemesis.
Two problems with this; one, the first thing I think of when I see “Space Nazis” is that episode of Classic Trek where the Starfleet Captain introduced Nazism to a planet.
Second, the Legion’s already fought Hitler himself. Even better, Hitler’s mind in Superboy’s body (with a side order of John Dillenger and Nero in Mon-El and Ultra Boy’s bodies). Adventure 314, described at http://www.comictreadmill.com/CTMBlogarchives/2007/2007_Individual/2007_12/001628.php with the even more inspired idea of putting Hitler’s mind inside Beppo the Super-Monkey’s body. Hitler the Super-Monkey! Sheer genius!
Fascists aren’t impressive. Italy had trouble beating Ethiopia, after all.
And I too, would like some variety. Maybe space WW2 Japanese, or something. Those guys were just as bad as the Nazis, and they totally deny their actions in places like Nanking without consequence.
Man, I’m so glad you’re doing these occasionally again. Great stuff. You SHOULD write the Legion!
The more I think about this, the more I think you’re not taking it far enough. Suppose, for instance, that this whole thing gets started by a royal astronomer/scientist building a device to receive signals from the creator, “a radio for talking to God,” at the dawn of the Xgyrlth Renaissance. Unfortunately, he makes contact with “God” in the form of old Nazi broadcasts, and the Xgyrlth Church adjusts itself according to the new commandments issued forth, with the Fuhrer becoming a position of national and spiritual leadership. Details get a bit jumbled up in the process- Hans Von Hammer, the fallen Valkyrie, takes a role analogous to Lucifer, with the Blackhawks as his lieutenants. Lebensraum becomes a central tenant of the faith, and the Xgyrlth expansion just happens to reach the United Planets at a time when the Legion is at its lowest ebb. All per Degaton’s plan, from the moment he placed the gravimetric anomaly.
It would be easier to just say an alien scouting force landed in Germany in the late 1930’s, picked up on Hitler and his beliefs, took the objective moralities of National Socialism back to their planet and it became a pandemic cult there over the period of a thousand years.
Or Hitler’s bunker suicide was actually an elaborate ritual employing the Lance of Longinus tha allowed his soul to escape out into space. The disembodied maniac hurtled through the cosmos for a millenia before finally finding contact and voice through the psi-priests of Tetragon IV.
Yes, to combine Zenrage & NCallahan:
an alien scouting force landed in Germany in the late 1930’s, picked up…Hitler
It could be that his consciousness combined with some alien deity or monstrosity who was staggered by mankind’s ability to do evil – making it/them take notice of Earth.
You’re definately overthinking this.
Problem: Space Nazis have crushed the Legion!
Reason: Vandal Savage
2nd Reason: Hitler’s Brain in a Jar in a Robot
Solution: Send in the Subs!
I see your space Nazis and raise you brain-stealing space Nazis who want to kill god.
[…] is important because people can tell the difference between just throwing out words at random to masquerade as a plot element and a fully formed idea on the backs of those seemingly random words. (He said, unabashedly […]
Nah, they should be Space Nazi Zombies. Nazis who fled Earth in 1945 in their flying sausers, caught a zombie virus, flew through space for 1000 years and now they’re back.
That way you have ‘real’ Nazis not cosplayers and no one has to feel remotely guilty about killing them.
BTW you totally have my vote for writing the Legion.
Oh, to go back to those halcyon days ten years ago, when Nazis were practically a joke…