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FAILED-PROJECT FRIDAY: My SECOND unsuccessful pitch for a DIRTY PAIR/GEN13 crossover!
🕑 Added 2024-10-25 13:50:59 +0000 UTCSTATE OF MY DRAWING HAND UPDATE: Since yesterday morning I've been experiencing a sudden and bizarre new drawing-hand pain issue that seems to recur at random, so I'm taking the rest of the week and the upcoming weekend off from drawing in the hopes that this strange new malady will abate. However, if these random jolts of pain continue, such a problem may make drawing-based posts through the end of the month challenging indeed; I'll keep you fine folks apprised next week, in any event.
In the meantime, I stumbled across a synopsis for a second ill-fated attempt at a crossover between The Dirty Pair and Wildstorm's Gen13. Now, I'm reasonably sure that I previously posted a synopsis of the first such pitch, which was a blatant reworking of the nanotech-based concept behind a failed 90s pitch for Marvel's X-Force, which had been titled "Junk Mail":
That particular Gen13/DIrty Pair pitch went nowhere, of course; years later, I apparently tried again, this time reworking the likewise nanotech-based concept underlying the failed 90s proposal for a Superman/Dirty Pair crossover, titled "Jupiter Brain":
Now, the first G13/DP crossover pitch had sent the Lovely Angels to 90s So Cal for a team-up, as (very vaguely) hinted at in this promo illo:
This new version, howeva, apparently dispatched Gen13 to the DP's AD 2141, as you'll see in this relatively brief synopsis:
GEN13/ DIRTY PAIR: “JUPITER BRAIN”
(proposal/ synopsis from Adam Warren for a G13/ DP crossover miniseries)
QUICK, CHEESY “HIGH CONCEPT” OVERVIEW: Via a very, very literal form of deus ex machina (which translates as “god from a machine,” remember), three Gen13 members, Fairchild, Freefall and Grunge, are reincarnated in the wildly high-tech and out-of-control 22nd-century milieu of the Dirty Pair. There, against the backdrop of a “gas giant” planet that’s been nanotechnologically transformed into a monstrous, reality-warping supercomputer with five times the mass of Jupiter, our time-displaced heroines (and, uh, hero) must join forces with the two perenially underdressed, technologically empowered, highly skilled but disaster-plagued Lovely Angels to survive. High-tech, high-energy mayhem and mass destruction ensue, along with generous doses of spacefaring spectacle, irreverent humor and theoretically non-gratuitous titillation… really. And all the madness enfolds while, wouldn’t you know it, the goldarned fate of the universe hangs in the balance.
Wait! Let’s try this with exclamation points! Lotsa stuff blows up, real spectacular-like! (The colorist, needless to say, will be earning his pay!) Pretty faces and prettier bodies, usually scantily clad but sometimes nude, are everywhere! (Don’t worry, we won’t actually see anything.) Action reigns, from brutal martial arts sequences to spaceflight combat to large-scale superpower usage affecting whole planets! A wild-ass menagerie of bizarre and scary foes, many of whom literally come out of the woodwork (or the metalwork or plasticwork, more precisely)! Zillions of lasers, missiles, nanoassembled monsters, and kilometer(s)-long spaceships zip about! All kinds of mind-bending technologies and twisted “speculative science” concepts abound! (Whatever I can dig up that Warren Ellis or Alan Moore haven’t used already, that is!)
LESS QUICK, YET STILL CHEESY LONGER-FORM OVERVIEW: Okay. First, let’s deal with how Caitlin, Roxy and Grunge end up reincarnated in the Dirty Pair’s superhero-free AD 2141 setting. In a remote star system, illegal nanotechnology has been unleashed upon a monstrous “gas giant” planet, several times the mass of Jupiter. In time, under the shrouding clouds of its outermost atmospheric layers, the planet has been transformed into a monstrous aggregation of countless trillions upon quadrillions of self-aware nanotech processors, forming a planet-sized supercomputer “neural net” which provides this miniseries’ titular “Jupiter brain.”
Indeed, the transformed planet’s computing power is so great that it begins to deform the space-time fabric around it, inducing bizarre quantum effects among its orbiting moons… including the random creation of living beings from so-called “virtual matter.” The Jupiter brain’s manifold processors inadvertently conjure into being both “real-life” creatures and entirely nonexistent, mythological entities… such as fictional characters, which is where Gen13 comes in. (The Dirty Pair’s universe, you see, never had superheroes back in the 20th and 21st centuries.) Needless to say, Fairchild, Freefall and Grunge are quite surprised to suddenly pop into existence on a gas giant’s volcanic moon, in the midst of chaos and destruction as Jupiter brain-induced quantum effects wreak havoc on an embattled moonbase.
Spacefaring “trouble consultants” Kei and Yuri, codenamed “the Lovely Angels” (but nicknamed “the Dirty Pair” for their disastrous proclivities), have been dispatched to the system to investigate the alarming phenomena. Their task (and the plot itself) is complicated greatly by the presence of numerous hostile groups, from scheming gene-enhanced supersoldiers to thousand-man “mass minds” to nefarious sentient spaceships, all competing to exploit the “Jupiter brain” in some unscrupulous way.
Kei and Yuri hook up with the bemused Gen13 members on one of the gas giant’s volcanically active moons (patterned after Jupiter’s gravity-wracked, continually erupting satellite Io). Though initially skeptical of the kids’ bizarre claims, the Angels become believers after seeing the team’s completely inexplicable powers in action… while the Gen13 members are in turn awed by the DP’s penchant for inadvertent devastation. (Grunge, in particular, is awed by the perfection of their “genetically upgraded” bodies and their skimpy, constantly-transforming “smartsuits.”
After team intellects Caitlin and Yuri get jacked up on high-powered “smart drugs” and figure out that the Jupiter brain’s evolving “neural network” is in imminent danger of accidentally destroying the universe, Gen13 and the Lovely Angels enact a daring plan to halt this universal apocalypse. They travel from the volcanic moon (which, surprise, is spectacularly blown to bits as they escape) to the gas giant itself, plunging through the shrouding cloud layers into the abyssal mass of nanomachinery for the big finale. Along the way, they do battle with a wild menagerie of futuristic enemies of all descriptions, as well as a worsening onslaught of increasingly terrifying monsters churned into being spawned by the gas giant’s processors! It’s wild and wacky, folks!
Yep, we play the “spectacle” card pretty heavily here, with powerful imagery of weird and exotic settings, bizarre enemies by the planetful, and plenty of large-scale destruction as befits a meeting between the disaster-prone Angels and “gen-active” youths with superhuman powers. Actually, we really play up the “superpower” card, here, with Caitlin smashing and bashing stuff on a Kirbyesque scale, Roxy getting her gravitational powers technologically jacked-up to a god(dess)-like level, and even Grunge getting up to some impressive stunts (such as expanding himself on a gigantic scale, as well as emulating hyperdense, compacted gas giant core material, with destructive but comedic results). And the tech-empowered Dirty Pair are constantly blowing the kid’s minds with one hyperadvanced display of future tech after another…
How about character dynamics, you may ask? Well, one unusual character angle of this story is that the Gen13 members are aware that they’re actually constructs of possibly short-lived “virtual matter,” and may not exist for much longer… which adds a somewhat “heavy” spin to the story, but what the heck. This doesn’t faze the DP much, though, as both of them have died (and been resurrected through clones) several times. This could serve as an opportunity to take Grunge and Roxy’s situation to, uh, a whole new level, as this story isn’t really happening… Anyway, intellectual heavy hitters Caitlin and Yuri get along famously, while insouciant, devil-may-care Kei relates somewhat better to Grunge and Roxy… though, of course, Roxy bristles when her ersatz boyfriend seeks to relate very closely indeed with the redheaded Angel. “Don’t sweat it,” Kei assures her. “He’s not my kinda guy, y’know? My jerk boyfriends are all good-looking.” “Hey!” bleats the deflated Grunge.
An obvious question, of course, is “Where are Rainmaker and Burnout?” The answers are A) having seven lead characters is completely out of the question (hell, five leads are bad enough); B) Fairchild, Freefall and Grunge (the “Big Three of Gen13” as I call ’em) are the easiest team members to write, I must admit. Oh, well. Hey, we could always do a sequel story with Sarah and Bobby, right? Well, maybe not…
SPECS: We’re talking about a three-part miniseries, here, but with an extended page-count in each 40-page issue, so the final page-count is equivalent to slightly more than four regular issues. I want this additional space because A) I’m not interested in doing the typical abbreviated, half-assed one-shot crossover format and B) the watchword, for this project, is “spectacle”… and spectacle requires page-count, alas. At this point, my plan holds that the artwork would be done either by Rick Mays (inked by Jason Martin), or by yours truly if necessary. Heavy-duty coloring and separations are also required, but I’ve got several Photoshop whizzes in mind who could readily handle the formidable coloring challenges this project entails. Also, I can line up some heavy-hitters for alternate covers… or, if Rick’s pencilling the book, maybe I’ll do the alt covers. Whichever way works better to help the sales figures is fine with me…
[END OF SYNOPSIS]
Looking back on this failed pitch, I'm vaguely annoyed that I would've left Gen13's Sarah and Bobby out of the narrative; I suspect this proposal was written before I had started my 2000-era, 18-issue run of writing the main Gen13 title, during which I developed a much keener appreciation for both characters.
Regardless, the pitch was a predictable failure; in fact, I can't even say for certain that I formally submitted the proposal to Wildstorm proper! I had then, and still have today, so many g-d Failed Pitches and abortive projects endlessly spiraling into oblivion one after another that I have great difficulty keeping 'em all straight! (See that Master of Kung Fu pitch I mentioned here months ago, which I entirely forgot had been tentatively updated as a new original project semi-recently before being abandoned again.)
NEXT TIME ON THIS HERE PATREON: No idea, TBH, but something should be coming up in the next M/W/F slot. Let's find out together, shall we?
Comments
Aidenke
One more vote in hopes of your hand feeling much better very soon -- but it's a delight to see some background on these classic pitches! "Oh, what could've been."
Tim Price
Hope your hand feels better. This is just the kind of wonkiness I want in a team up story. Sigh
PixelThis
Would have absolutely loved this
Strypgia
I'd have loved to buy and read that. Wildstorm didn't know what they were missing.
tuberqlosis
Oh hell yeah! should have been greenlit at each stage!!!
Tekkaman-James
All the “could have” and “might’ve been” stories from these Failed Project Fridays are so heartbreaking to learn about. Despite that, I enjoy learning about them and appreciate your willingness to share these failed pitches with us. Oh! And, of course, I wish you a speedy recovery, good sir!
T.Geist
That would've been an awesome crossover but we miss out on,but not forgotten
