AvX Inspiration: A Comic Pitch

All this AvX stuff has me thinking a lot about comics lately.  After reading through most of Warren Ellis’s run on Astonishing X-Men and then Avengers: Ultron Unlimited earlier this week, the inevitable finally happened.  I started wondering what I’d do if I could write one of the X-books.  It took me a while to come up with a plotline that I liked, but what I eventually settled on was: What if I could make an X-book that was also a straight-up sci fi story? 

The thing the X-writers are doing lately is taking ideas out of Days of Future Past and spinning them into dystopian slices set in the present.  They’re bringing the worst of the X-Men mythology, setting it up, and letting it haunt our imaginations.  And it’s working, I think, because we’re already invested in the characters they’re writing about.  Most of the X-Men have been around since the 1960s or ‘70s.  By now, what we as readers really want to know, I think, is this: How does it end?  What happens to their kids?  What’s next in the story, after the whole “hated and feared” thing? 

We’ve been on the edge of that “next” thing for awhile.  What I want to do is go ahead and get there.

In addition to AvX and some recent
X-Men stories, I took some inspiration
from Next Avengers.

Once I decided that, it was easy to start thinking of this as a generational story, conceptually similar to the movie Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow but different in terms both plot (i.e. conflict) and execution.  Which is to say that I’m not thinking of this as a young adult (YA) project.

See where I’m going with this?

Anyway, I got through all that, designed my team, started fooling around with a few potential plot-points, and finally decided that I’d put too much effort into it to leave as a piece of would-be X-Men fan-fic.  So I jettisoned the Marvel Universe, re-wrote about half the team and the base team concept, and decided, hey what the Hell, I’m setting this story in New York City, and I don’t care what anybody thinks about it.  I likeNew York.

What I’ve got now is this:

In the near future, tailored genetic mutations become the new weapons of mass destruction.  Easier to hide, cheaper to control, and with far less long-term clean-up costs than so-called “dirty” bombs, non-persistent chemical agents, or even conventional munitions, soon every tin-pot dictator, cult-leader, and nefarious non-state actor on the planet is developing some kind of “ultra-human” capability to push its agenda or just keep its people in line.  Against this, the United States initially deploys small numbers of home-grown uniformed ultra-human soldiers, augmented by an array of costumed vigilante “superheroes” with whom it has a close but unofficial working relationship.  But the mid-21^st Century is a litigious place, and in time, this unofficial relationship becomes untenable.  Costumed ultra-human battles create massive property damage as well as frequent civilian injuries or even losses of life.  Moreover, vigilante superheroes are themselves little better than non-state actors once they become involved in international affairs. 

All concerned soon realize that a better strategy is needed.

The Enhanced Forces Division (E.F.D.) is a pilot program that seeks to answer America’s future ultra-human security needs.  In exchange for scholarships in the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC), a handful of the country’s best and brightest ultra-humans—many the sons and daughters of well-known costumed superheroes of yesteryear—are recruited into the New York State National Guard where they are trained, commissioned, and placed on assignment in New York City. These young officers represent America’s first, best line of defense against the genetic monstrosities the outside world now has on offer.

 For the officers themselves, however, the E.F.D. is more than just their job.  It’s their family. 

This is their story.

Still with me?  Well, I've already sketched out the first issue of this story, so if I have some time, I post more about this idea when I get a chance.