8 Strangest Alternate Versions Of Beloved Superheroes
3. The League Of Justice
The League of Justice is a little known, two issue entry in the Elseworlds series written and pencilled by Ed Hannigan. It reimagines the Justice League as part of a Lord of the Rings inspired universe, and to be frank the sheer amount of insanity squeezed into only two issues is impossible to sum up simply.
In this universe Batman wears the corpse of a giant bat and goes by the name "Bat-Mancer", the Batmobile is a wagon attached to some huge bats, Alfred is a zombie for no discernible reason, and the Joker has been reimagined as "The Griever"; a mad man who can't help but constantly weep instead of incessantly laugh.
Green Arrow goes by the name "Longbow Greenarrow" and looks like a homeless Gandalf, The Flash is called Phaeton and is completely red from head to toe, and The Atom is called "Atomus the Palmer" because he... reads palms... right, ok, moving on. Martian Manhunter looks like the Hulk had a child with an anteater and has his head laser eye-beamed off by Sovereign – this universe's version of Superman, who was raised by the nefarious sorcerer Luithorr after he blew up his home planet of Cyrpton.
By the way these aren't editing errors, everything is just spelled weird in this universe.
The Green Lantern Corps are now the Green Knights led by Sir John Stewart – who has a ring of "cryptonite" instead of a power ring. Lobo – sorry, Loblo – makes a brief cameo as some sort of zombie Viking, Hawkgirl and Hawkman are genuine hawk people, and Aquaman and the rest of the Atlanteans are also real, genuine fish people.
Apparently the writer Ed Hannigan has a thing for the literal. Finally, Wonder Woman is, strangely, exactly the same as her main DC counterpart, and gets shot with an arrow and dies after about two pages.
Nobody, in good conscience, could recommend you actually read this one. Almost all the dialogue is in impossible to decipher olde-fantasy English, the plot is absolute nonsense, and the four young protagonists who are sucked into the universe are incredibly annoying.
However, even though it feels like a malaria induced fever dream from start to finish, it does have some redeeming features – most notably its artwork - and is probably straightforward and easy to follow if you take some light opiates beforehand.