Building a 'pseudo Smallville' AU continuity

[DigificWriter]

Hi, all.

I was thinking about story ideas for a possible fanfic series based on the Justice League last night, and, almost by accident, started thinking about Smallville's iteration of the group and what a series/story featuring them might be on an ongoing 'episodic' basis.

However, I soon realized that I didn't want to just 'plug myself' into the Smallville universe directly, but to instead use elements of it as a way to create my own universe that exists as a sort of "Elseworlds" AU.

The problem is that I can't figure out exactly what I want to/can/ought to use to make my universe a 'pseudo-AU' of the Smallville continuity while still allowing it to be its own thing, and thought I'd solicit some ideas and thoughts from others.

As a point of reference, I want the following characters to comprise my Justice League:
Oliver Queen/Green Arrow
Kal-El/Clark Kent/Superman
Bart Allen/The Flash
Orin/Arthur Curry/Aquaman
Dinah Lance/Black Canary
Chloe Sullivan/Watchtower
Tess Mercer/Red Tornado

I did manage to settle on including the following things from Smallville:
- Chloe being a Metahuman with "empathic healing" and Clark's closest confidante outside of his family

- Oliver being the catalyst for the League's formation and its leader

- Tess being Lionel's daughter/head of LuthorCorp

- Black Canary being a former 'gun for hire'

- Bart being a former thief

- The existence of Veritas

I'm just not sure quite how to stitch these ideas together, or what other elements to use.

Anyone with ideas, please share them, because I'd like to move this idea beyond just the conceptual stage and actually do something with it sooner rather than later.

 

[Chris3123]

How about featuring Amanda Waller/Checkmate?

 

[DigificWriter]

^ Nice idea.

I started trying to work out some timeline ideas, and hit on the notion of combining Veritas, Lionel, and the Apokaliptians into a cohesive narrative arc that I could use to both inform my universe's history AND serve as a catalyst of sorts for my League's formation, so maybe Checkmate could become the narrative equivalent to the DEO or ARGUS for this version of things and also be tied in with Apokalips somehow.

Any suggestions?

 

[DigificWriter]

I was hoping to get some more suggestions, but apparently not.

Oh well. This has kind of ended up morphing beyond what I was initially envisioning it as being anyways, as I've decided to strip things down to their 'essence' as far as Smallville-related characteristics goes, but otherwise twist and shape things as needed, which has resulted in Tess going from being Red Tornado to essentially being Wonder Woman (with super strength, speed, and durability as a result of being experimented on/genetically conditioned by Granny Goodness and Glorious Godfrey) and Chloe kind of 'morphing' into a combination of OG!Chloe, Supergirl, and Legionnaire Saturn Girl (since I want her to have her empathic healing ability, as well as low-level telepathy and 'muted' versions of some of Clark's powers[super hearing, super speed, super durability, and super strength]).

I also hit on the idea of doing this story as a Mortal Kombat Legacy-style 'miniseries' of 'vignette' episodes that build up to the League's official founding in opposition to Lionel, while also laying the groundwork for, potentially, a larger continuation story involving Darkseid.

I also decided to add Cyborg back in, and am toying with the notion of adding either Andrea Rojas/Acrata or Zatanna Zatara as well.