The Road to Crisis, Pt. 2

The road to Crisis was a year in the making, and I probably drove myself insane trying to get it done. Here’s part 2 of the retrospective piece where you’ll learn how the threat of the Renegades began to alter time in the Marvel Universe.

Alternate History:

In the same vein as the X-men Classic mod, Ultimate X-men was a retelling of the first four issues of the comic with obvious changes taking place. Outside of the presence of two X-men (plus Sunfire) that appeared later in the series being in the roster, the X-men found themselves paired up with the master of magnetism as he helped lead them to safety during the mod’s finale. Of course, he shared a few gems of wisdom with the bruised and startled X-men in an effort to make them think about their position in the war between humanity and mutants, but other than that, everything was more or less the same.

World’s Greatest Hits:

The Fantastic Four mod was a unique beast that really served no purpose in the grand scheme of Crisis but existed to show that time and space was still in a state of fluctuation after the Renegade’s attacks from the earlier mods. The Fan4 donned their ultimate gear but seemed to retain their knowledge and personalities from the 616 universe. Not only that, but they also seemed to be reliving some of their more memorable stories, albeit not without alterations. The return of the skrulls under the guise of “helping” Earth and their grudge against Galactus who, himself, was breaking his deal with Reed and had returned to Earth, the return of Silver Surfer as a herald of Galactus, and Doom’s attempted plot to steal Surfer’s powers for himself were all adventures the Fan4 had already experienced. Unfortunately, their roles in Crisis were marginalized with only Thing being playable during the final missions, Reed and Sue kept the base active, and Johnny was mysteriously “missing” from the entire event… or was he?

Escape from Arkham:

On the surface, this DC mod didn’t have anything to do with Crisis and that’s only because I never got around to finishing the final 5 missions; however, those missions had more to do with the setup of Exiles than it did to Crisis. During this mod, you find yourself in control of Batman as he struggles to catch a bunch of criminals that have escaped from Arkham. As he attempts to do so, he eventually finds himself in a game of cat and mouse with his deadly arch-nemesis, Joker, who makes his first strike against Batman by kidnapping Robin and leading Batman into a match with Bane, the only person to break Bruce’s back. After Robin is saved and Joker is arrested, the game becomes even deadlier with the arrival of Ivy who has enticed all the men in a local park and plans on having them killed by her rampaging plants. Batman manages to save the day, but Ivy escapes with the help of Harley, who managed to avoid custody. Batman then finds himself trying to save Ivy’s life, as Clayface attempts to destroy her. While Batman, Ivy, and Robin are busy with Clayface, Joker escapes containment and rekindles with Harley. Unexpectedly, however, Mr. Freeze arrives in town and takes the Joker as his hostage for reasons unknown. Harley rushes to Batman and begs for his help , making a deal to return to prison if they save Joker. Showing faith in Harley , the trio defeat Freeze and learn that Joker had stolen something from Freeze that he wanted back. Before the dynamic duo can get any clearer answers, Harley betrays them and once again escapes with Joker, leading to their final showdown in the streets of Gotham.

Clearly, a lot of the story from the outline never made it into mod form; however, that didn’t stop me from reviving the lineup of Ivy, Joker, and Harley post-Crisis, and it definitely didn’t hinder me from using the unused Clayface/Robin fight in Crisis with a few tweeks.

A Crisis:

And now we’re onto the main event. The true inspiration behind this blog post you are now reading. It is my biggest and longest mod to date, though Exiles came extremely close in overtaking it. This mod was the pure quintessence of everything I had done before it, from scripting and coding to plotting and dialogue. It’s the creation that drained me the most and left my modding schedule completely wrecked and sporadic from that point onward. It’s also the mod that seems to have gotten me the most praise and attention even though till this day, I am not completely happy with the outcome. What is it that drew so many people to this mod? Was it the story, the characters, the tricks, or was it simply because this was the payoff of a year’s worth of stories? I don’t know what it was for you guys, but for me, Crisis was definitely a time where I was forcing myself to step up my game. Regardless of the fact that I failed in pulling off some of the feats I wanted to debut during the creation of this mod, I still hold it high on my list of coding related achievements. After this point, my python knowledge grew to a level where I was able to pull off stunts I never achieved in my earlier mods.

With the Renegades out of the picture, the story of Crisis centers on the duo of Darkseid and Thanos who decided to work together in an effort to rule both their universes. Although their alliance is uneasy, they begin to plot their revenge and make use of the several time rifts the Renegades had created in their attempts at hostile takeover. By first removing Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman from existence with the use of the infinity gems, Thanos and Darkseid use their positions in the hierarchy of villainy to manipulate others into doing their bidding. With the JLA being their first target, Darkseid orders the Justice Lords to subdue the team; meanwhile Thanos uses his influence to draw Juggernaut and Blob from an earlier time in an effort to disrupt the X-men.

Following their excursion with Juggernaut and Blob, the X-men learn that their world is suffering from chronal disturbances and seek out the help of the Avengers and the Fan4. Realizing that something similar has happened in the past, Captain America suggests that they form a makeshift team and head into the DC universe in order to join up with the Justice League. Not even moments after Reed opens a portal into the DCU, the Marvel Alliance finds themselves under attack by Parademons sent to sideline their advances. Thor and Captain America easily discard of their foes and join up with Batman Beyond and Nightwing, who lead them to the Justice League base. Now with a team that consists of both DC and Marvel heroes, the group prepares to put an end to Thanos and Darkseid’s reign of terror.

As time and space begin to collapse, Thanos and Darkseid reach a breaking point in their relationship. Following a quick skirmish where neither party gets the upper hand, Thanos sends the infinity gems all over the DCU and MU in an effort to keep their power away from Darkseid. Unfortunately for the duo, Reed Richards warns the Marvel/DC Alliance of this breaking news and sends three teams after each set of gems. The heroes, however, only manage to retrieve two before they find themselves going face to face with Thanos and Darkseid individually. As fate would have it though, the heroes manage to defeat their foes and retrieve the remaining four gems.

In a final twist of fate, it’s revealed that Dr. Strangefate and his minions have been taking advantage of all the damage the Renegades and Thanoseid have been creating. Attempting to restore his world and to secure his existence, Dr. Strangefate lashes out at the remaining heroes and finds himself completely overwhelmed and restored to his prison in the pocket dimension. As the world returns to normal, the heroes find themselves with altered memories of the events that had taken place.