Does this superhero team exist?

[Fist McStrongpunch]

Is there any superhero team where the members are all the same person, but from different universes? So like you've got a badass normal version, a cyborg version, a wizard version, a mutated animal version, an opposite sex version, etc.

If not, I call dibs.

Aaaaaaand, GO!

 

[PsychoPere]

People with more knowledge of comics history may be able to provide other answers, but the first thought that came to mind for me was the Interdimensional Council of Reeds from Jonathan Hickman's Fantastic Four run. They weren't exactly a superhero team, but the Reeds did form their council to solve problems that only genius Reeds could.

 

[Christopher]

Well, there was the "Council of Reeds" from Jonathan Hickman's Fantastic Four run, an assembly of the various incarnations of Reed Richards from across the multiverse, but I think they turned out to be more villains than heroes. (EDIT: Oops, beat me to it.)

And I can think of two times it's been done in animation: in the concluding "Spider Wars" storyline of the '90s Spider-Man animated series, a team of alternate-timeline versions of Spidey/Peter were brought together to save the multiverse, and in "Game Over for Owlman!" on Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Batman defeated the evil-twin mirror-universe counterparts of the Justice League by recruiting a team of alternate Batmen from multiple realities. The video game Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions also has a team of multiple Spideys from four different timelines/eras.

I'm not sure if this quite counts, but there were a number of Wonder Woman comics from the '40s or '50s that told "imaginary stories" teaming Wonder Woman up with her younger selves Wonder Girl and Wonder Tot -- which led to some confusion when the writer of a different comic thought Wonder Girl was a separate person from Wonder Woman and started writing her into present-day, canonical stories. So they had to retcon her into a distinct character and it got kind of messy from there.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Is there any superhero team where the members are all the same person, but from different universes? So like you've got a badass normal version, a cyborg version, a wizard version, a mutated animal version, an opposite sex version, etc.

The Deadpool Corps.

You have Deadpool, his alternate universe female self Lady Deadpool, his alternate universe zombie head Headpool, his alternate universe kid version Kidpool, and his alternate universe canine version Dogpool.

 

[Greg Cox]

Not on a regular basis, but Grant Morrison's Final Crisis ended with Rene Monotoya gathering an army of alternate Superman from across the multiverse: a Nazi superman, a Bizarro Superman, a black Superman, etc. I believe there were over fifty different versions of Superman, all working together to save the multiverse from Darkseid.

 

[Mister Fandango]

That's happened several times with Superman. But, yeah, it was hardly any kind of permanent type of team; just one-shots as far as I know.

 

[Trevacious]

There was a team of Wolverines once.

 

[Christopher]

And there was Doctor Who's "The Five Doctors," though those weren't alternate-timeline duplicates, but five successive incarnations of the same individual brought to the same place and time. Similar principle, though -- a team of different versions of the same person.

 

[wamdue]

its an interesting idea, an army of Superman, in one reality might scare a few people however.

Of all the ones posted in this thread so far, Council of Reeds is the most interesting.

I did wonder during Smallville, how other Superman would react to Clark, would they consider him a bit of a failure of a Superman?

 

[Stevil2001]

Captain Britain was a member of the Captain Britain Corps, which "is a league of super-heroes all known as, or appear as an alternative version of, Captain Britain."

 

[Christopher]

I did wonder during Smallville, how other Superman would react to Clark, would they consider him a bit of a failure of a Superman?

I don't think so, since he was supposedly only 24-25 when the series ended, and most versions of Superman don't really adopt the role until their late 20s or so (I think the Donner Superman was something like 34 when he finally got back from his intergalactic training montage with the ghost of Jor-El). And yet by his mid-20s, Smallville's Clark had already formed the Justice League, established a career at the Planet, won Lois's heart, and defeated Brainiac, Zod, Checkmate, and Darkseid among others. He did have kind of a slow start, but if anything he's an overacheiver compared to most of his alternate selves.

 

[wamdue]

He did have kind of a slow start, but if anything he's an overacheiver compared to most of his alternate selves.

I will bow to your knowledge, but I will also be honest and say it sure as hell did not feel like he ever over achieved.

Fair enough he was younger, but he never seemed as smart as a Superman should be, and at times unwilling to use his powers, sometimes ashamed of them, and become the superhero he was meant to be.

Also I think Chloe and Ollie had as much to do with the Justice League as Clark.

Back on topic, there is also the All Red Rangers episode. Forever Red.

 

[Christopher]

Fair enough he was younger, but he never seemed as smart as a Superman should be, and at times unwilling to use his powers, sometimes ashamed of them, and become the superhero he was meant to be.

Also I think Chloe and Ollie had as much to do with the Justice League as Clark.

True, true. In terms of how the series was executed, Clark didn't come off as very Superman-like. But the whole idea was that he hadn't yet matured into Superman. So I'm not sure it's fair to compare him to the other incarnations of Superman who are in their upper 20s or 30s; any comparison should be to what they accomplished in their own teens or early 20s. What do we really know about that? Pre-Crisis Clark was Superboy and accomplished quite a lot at that age. Donner's Clark was in some kind of intergalactic learning trance or some nebulous thing for something like 18 years, which doesn't strike me as accomplishing much on behalf of other people. Man of Steel Clark, and also Birthright Clark, was wandering the world and searching for his purpose while doing clandestine good deeds. DC Animated Universe Clark is something of a mystery where that part of his life is concerned, but we know he didn't reveal himself as a hero until he was older. Ditto for George Reeves Clark. And so on.

So I'd say it's a mixed bag. Some versions of Clark accomplished a lot in their teens and early twenties, others not so much. Smallville Clark probably falls somewhere in the middle.

(And I'd argue that there are two separate eras of Smallville -- the first 7 seasons from the original showrunners, in which Clark resisted embracing his heroic potential for a ridiculously long time, and the last 3 seasons from a different set of showrunners who finally, finally abandoned that stagnant characterization and had Clark embrace his heroic role. It doesn't really work to treat the whole thing as a single piece, because it's really two very different shows with different approaches.)

Back on topic, there is also the All Red Rangers episode. Forever Red.

Except those weren't alternate versions of the same person, or even different bearers of the same identity like the various Flash team-ups in comics -- just different people who wore the red color usually associated with leadership on various distinct Ranger teams. It was more like an all-star team. (I mean, yeah, they were all "the Red Ranger," but one was the Red Mighty Morphin' Ranger, one was the Red Zeo Ranger, one was the Red Turbo Ranger, etc.)

 

[Greg Cox]

Yeah, given that Clark didn't actually become Superman until the last five minutes of the final episode, it's impossible to know what kind of Superman he eventually became. I imagine we're meant to assume that he became everything we expect Superman to be . . . .

SMALLVILLE wasn't called THE NEW, NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN for a reason. It was a very long prequel . . ..

 

[wamdue]

your right in that Smallville, was "How does a younger Clark, handle similar problems that Superman does, before he is Superman?", which is very different to the young lives of other Clark Kents.

Even with the age difference, I would have liked to have seen him being smarter about thing, and not quite as sacred to use his powers as he was. Fair enough all the young Clarks will have that in some small way, and its part of Superman that he knows when to and when not to use his powers, but I do feel Smallville took that to far.

Maybe this is too specific, but how many younger Clarks, had as much of a problem with flying as Smallvilles Clark did? Certainly there was nothing about the Earth in the Smallville verse, that prevented him from flying, other characters were more than capable of it.

Also whilst you are right to split the show like you did, there wasnt too much of a problem in the early seasons, where he was in High School, and no one expected him to be the big hero. Also in those season the group (almost Buffy like) dynamic worked well, the problem came later when he still needed as much help as he was getting in high school, and still not fully embracing his powers.

Only thing I ever thought about the Smallville verse, is how much kryptonite there was around, how oddly that it meant that unlike previous Clarks / Superman he was alot more aware he was more mortal than his other selves.

 

[trekkiebaggio]

There was also the finale of one of the recent TMNT cartoons where that version, the classic 90s version and the original comic version teamed up. There may have been other versions included but it's been a while since I've seen it.

 

[Christopher]

Yeah, the fact that Smallville Clark grew up in a town full of Kryptonite is a source of concern. That'd be like a human growing up in a town littered with uranium deposits. There's bound to be Kryptonite dust in the air, in the water supply... he's probably gonna develop super-leukemia some years down the road. In fact, maybe that was part of why he had so much trouble flying.

Of course, the real reason is that the creators never expected the show to run more than 5-6 years, so when it kept getting renewed they kept having to delay his maturation and keep him in a rut far longer than intended; and in those last few seasons they were too faithful to their original intention of keeping the "no flights, no tights" rule until the bitter end. Once the show reached season 8, they should've realized it was time for a serious rethink of that policy. Although I think I read that Tom Welling himself refused to wear the costume under any circumstances.

 

[wamdue]

Tom Welling was wearing a costume as a The Blur, certainly making much better use of the super jumps, with a more natural evolution into flying, in the later seasons would have been better (and not just in the first or last episode of the season) he was floating in the pilot after all.

super-leukemia is an interesting idea, and if you take the multi-verse view, a variety of Supermen is interesting, and yes across a mutliverse, one of them could well be a total failure in controlling his powers, and not embracing the Superman persona.

 

[Prince of Space]

Although not exactly superheroes, Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champions (Elric, Corum, Dorian Hawkmoon, et al) sometimes came together as a team. They were all the same hero, exisiting in different versions across the multiverse.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

What about a Supergirl/Power Girl team up, such as http://comicboxcommentary.blogspot.com/2012/04/back-issue-box-supergirl-16-supergirl.html?