WRITER GUY: So I have this idea for a story.
EDITOR GUY: Hit me!
WRITER GUY: Right, so it’s World War II, and Hitler –
EDITOR GUY: Whoa! Hitler!
WRITER GUY: Right. So Hitler meets this guy –
EDITOR GUY: – and it turns out to be himself! From the future!
WRITER GUY: But he’s dead in the future.
EDITOR GUY: Good point! Good point.
WRITER GUY: I was thinking more it could be a cautionary tale sort of a figure.
EDITOR GUY: Whom Hitler ignores! Because he is Hitler! And then Hitler kills the guy!
WRITER GUY: …why does he kill him?
EDITOR GUY: Because it’s Hitler.
WRITER GUY: Okay.
EDITOR GUY: And the cautionary tale figure, what does he tell Hitler?
WRITER GUY: Well, I was thinking something about the futility of fascism and the indomitability of the human spirit…
EDITOR GUY: BOOOOOOORING.
WRITER GUY: …Captain America is the figure and he punches him in the face again?
EDITOR GUY: Wrong company.
WRITER GUY: Well, how about –
EDITOR GUY: Now, now. I already know who the figure is. But wait. First Hitler kills Eva Braun –
WRITER GUY: But – wait, let me guess. Because he’s Hitler.
EDITOR GUY: Bingo. And then he goes and meets with his master scientists.
WRITER GUY: He had master scientists in the bunker?
EDITOR GUY: He does now. And the master scientists tell him the machine is perfected.
WRITER GUY: What does the machine do?
EDITOR GUY: Right, right. It’s a suspended animation chamber.
WRITER GUY: …why does Hitler need a suspended animation chamber?
EDITOR GUY: Because that way he can fight the Legion of Super-Heroes!
WRITER GUY: But I’m pitching you a story for Weird War Tales.
EDITOR GUY: Again, you have a good point. Okay, he has a suspended animation chamber because every 1100 years, history repeats itself.
WRITER GUY: …it does?
EDITOR GUY: Well, not so much.
WRITER GUY: And nobody’s going to say this doesn’t make sense.
EDITOR GUY: They read Superman comics. He is a guy in red and blue pyjamas who can fly.
WRITER GUY: Fair enough. What does Hitler do next?
EDITOR GUY: Well, he goes into the suspended animation chamber, and then kills the scientists –
WRITER GUY: …how does he do that?
EDITOR GUY: Excellent point! You’re a great writer, you know that? He has a loyal guard kill them.
WRITER GUY: I’m glad I could contribute.
EDITOR GUY: And then Hitler sleeps for 1100 years and wakes up in the future.
WRITER GUY: And the future is like World War II?
EDITOR GUY: Well, it’s future-ish World War II, but yes.
WRITER GUY: And what does Hitler do?
EDITOR GUY: Well, clearly he goes to take over.
WRITER GUY: Because he’s Hitler.
EDITOR GUY: Yes. He’ll have long hair, of course.
WRITER GUY: And a beard?
EDITOR GUY: No, just the little moustache.
WRITER GUY: His hair grew but not his beard?
EDITOR GUY: If he has a beard, how will we know it’s Hitler?
WRITER GUY: Okay. So what happens to Hitler?
EDITOR GUY: Well, he gets nabbed by guards and brought to see Future Space Hitler.
WRITER GUY: And what does Future Space Hitler do?
EDITOR GUY: You’ll like this – Future Space Hitler kills regular Hitler! Just like Hitler killed the portentous figure earlier!
WRITER GUY: Portentous figure?
EDITOR GUY: You know, your portentous figure. The one you wanted to write about.
WRITER GUY: Right.
EDITOR GUY: And it’s ironic!
WRITER GUY: How is it ironic?
EDITOR GUY: Because Hitler is killed by Future Hitler just like Hitler killed the figure, who was clearly past Hitler!
WRITER GUY: …but there never was a past Hitler. Nor, for that matter, suspended animation chambers in the year 900. Or a fascist empire around that time.
EDITOR GUY: Don’t be a negative nelly. You’ve written a fantastic story here! You’ll go places.
Yes, I know I’ve made fun of Paul Levitz here, who edited the piece. But Paul Levitz is an awesome dude and I do so out of love.
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Amazing, even with the last three links broken (please, fix it, I NEED to see Future Space Hitler!).
Now for the Didiotic version…
Wow, that was trippy.
Oh, FYI, the last three links don’t work if you click on them. I just changed the page number in the address bar to get to the right one, though.
Now for the Didiotic version…
Sigh. Was that really necessary?
The Legion of Super Heroes vs Future Space Hitler….Yes I would buy that comic in a second, but only if MGK was the writer.
To see the last images, all you have to do is replace the number at the end of the earlier links.
Anyone else thinking about Good Hitler Versus Space Hitler right about now?
Holy crap, I remember this story.
The “suspended animation chamber” from the 840s was probably a wooden barrel packed with salt. It’d preserve the tyrant quite nicely. There was a massive empire in Europe that fell apart around then… Charlemagne’s heir, Louis the Pious, died in 840. The empire split apart upon his death, too. Hm… Maybe in the DCU, Louis the Pious was not Space Hitler, but Medieval Hitler!
Dammit, there’s a series to be made about this. The GI Robot of 835 AD! Yeoman Francis Roque! Dig it!
A guy I worked with at Kinko’s once wrote a book about Hitler escaping Berlin at the end of WWII, learning how he was wrong, and then going back in time to stop himself. He told me the publicist he talked to said “it would never be published in this country.”
Zenrage, I desperately need to read that book.
Start a publishing company.
Links fixed.
He told me the publicist he talked to said “it would never be published in this country.”
It should’ve been. Why CAN’T even somebody like Hitler redeem himself and save his own victims? Zemo used to believe all of that “master race” garbage, and he changed his ways eventually instead of only pretending to.
To read about another fictional scenario in which Hitler lived on, have a look at the Hate-Monger.
the crazy thing is… and i am truly not being sarcastic here… the pitch isn’t really that horrible… i actually kind of thought the editor guy had some good ideas… but maybe that’s just me.
I like how, on the last page, Hippy Hitler shouts a line of Future Hitler’s dialogue.
I bought that issue of Weird War Tales & still have, somewhere.
Ron Goulart wrote a book called “Hail Hibbler” in the ’70s(I think). Cover art was by Josh Kirby. The premise was almost identical.
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