Bizarro is one of Superman’s more colourful villains, originally created back when comics were a great deal more lighthearted and fun. Today’s Bizarro is a bit more tragic—an imperfect clone of the man himself who really just wants somewhere to belong. He has powers comparable to Superman, only some are switched—heat vision becomes ice vision; ice breath becomes flame breath. One would think he’d be super weak instead of super strong, but that would be no fun. In fact, Kryptonite, Superman’s bane, actually makes Bizarro stronger, so if they were ever both locked in a room with a hunk of the green stuff, Bizarro would crush Clark Kent’s head like a grape. Good times.

Oliver “Ollie” Queen, that is, known as much for his ad choice of kid sidekicks as he is for his signature weapons. His first kid sidekick, Speedy, once became a heroin addict. The current one has HIV. In other words, if Oliver Queen asks to take you under his wing, just say no. It isn’t worth the hassle.

Not sure that I really see a theme here running between all five screenshots. There’s S.T.A.R. Labs in two or possibly three of the shots, but then there’s the picture of the hospital in Metropolis and those guys fighting with the Green Lantern. Perhaps I’m just not up on my DC lore, being a born and bred Marvel fan, to really understand the connection here. Help me out here, comments section!

DC Universe Online’s senior producer Wes Yanagi shows off some of the super evil powers available in the upcoming massively multiplayer game in this video.

Playing along side the likes of The Joker and Harley Quinn, Yanagi uses his super evil character to freeze enemies into blocks of ice, which he then picks up and throws at other enemies. Another neat power: Creating a sort of vortex around yourself that pulls nearby items and flings them around the room.

I was already impressed with the ability to tear light poles out of the ground and bat people with them, but enemy ice cubes? That takes the cake.

The Playstation 3 and PC game is in pre-Alpha, so still no release date, unfortunately.

DC Universe Online Comic-Con Walkthrough

Lee and Wolfman talked about the challenges of squeezing the 75-year-old DC Universe into the game, focusing on “the coolest characters, the coolest content” for DCUO, which is still in a pre-alpha state. Geoff Johns was the one on the DC Comics side responsible for the overarching story in DCUO, with Wolfman fleshing out the story concepts appropriate for the game.

“If you think about a building, Geoff created the entire structure, the beams, now I’m filling in the individual rooms, the plastering,” Wolfman said. “We’re all coming up with story concepts that fit within the DC universe. They’ll take up a paragraph I’ve marked up, and the developer turns it into 60 missions. It passes through us a second time to make sure it fits in the universe.”

Those on the DC side sounded enthusiastic to be able to work within the broader confines of DC Universe Online, with Wolfman relishing the chance to write for the player who chooses to side with DC’s villains.

“In DCUO sometimes the hero loses,” he said, noting that DC writers are “trained to have it the other way.”

Lee joked that it was challenging on the artistic side, making the transition from 2D comic book panel to 3D multiplayer online video game, bemoaning that “Drawing the other side of buildings was tough.”

“There is no map of Metropolis,” adds Johns, one of two main locations that DCUO is focusing on for its initial release. But Andersson pointed out the depth of the game’s interiors, particularly S.T.A.R. Labs in Gotham City and the thrill of “cleaning up all the disasters that happen there.”

“There’s just too much cool stuff to put in the game at launch,” Lee said, explaining SOE and DC’s focus on two main cities. That obviously doesn’t rule out other famous DC Universe locations in future expansions and patches, but considering the MMO is dated for “2000-something” right now, don’t expect to hear anything about a Central City expansion any time soon.

Lee did joke that the bottle city of Kandor, miniaturized by Braniac, would probably be the easiest, quickest to download city expansion.

Sony Online Entertainment says the game is due to hit an alpha milestone “soon,” but still has no release date to announce.

This teaser image popped up on the DC Universe Online MySpace page yesterday, along with a bit of overly-obvious teaser text: “I just saw the poster that we’re giving out at San Diego Comic-Con and people will be “clawing” to get it.” Subtle.

I’ll be sure to have McWhertor add this poster to the annual list of Comic-Con exclusive merchandise he forgets to pick up for me.

DC Universe Online [MySpace via MMORPG.com]

A profile shot. The Flash uses this for his Facebook listing.
That there’s the fastest head on the planet.
Surprise! The Flash is running!
And running some more.
The Flash has a posse.
Running really works the glutes.
You could photoshop these all together to make DaVinci’s The Flash.
Flashback!
All together now.
Yep, he’s that fast kids.
Strike a pose!
Look at that boy go!
Collect the whole set!
Body concept.

You may not be able to play as Batman and Superman, but that doesn’t mean you won’t see them, talk to them, and maybe even help them at times.

What Is It?
DC Universe Online is an action-focused massively multiplayer online game set in the DC universe. In it gamers create their own super heroes or villains and work to make a name for themselves. Comic book artist Jim Lee and some of DC’s writers helped create the game that features DC settings like Gotham City and Metropolis.

What We Saw
I played around for a few minutes in an open world setting, fighting with other players, good and bad, and some NPCs. Then I went into an instance where, playing as a super hero, I had to help Superman defeat Doomsday. The villain instance, which I didn’t play, had players taking on Doomsday with the help of Lex Luthor. All play was on the PC, the Playstation 3 version was not on hand.

How Far Along Is It?
The game is due out in late 2009 to early 2010.

What Needs Improvement?
Graphics: While the likes of Superman and Doomsday are easily identifiable, the graphics don’t pop as much as I expected with Jim Lee helping out. The character you create doesn’t really look all that different from the ones I’ve seen in other super hero MMOs.

Something New: Not to beat a dead horse, but so far the only thing that DC Universe Online seems to have going for it that City of Heroes doesn’t is the DC name… and characters. Of course that’s huge, mammoth even, but it would be nice to see them do a bit more to differentiate themselves.

What Should Stay The Same?
Lift With Your Legs: I love the fact that many of the things you see around you in the open world can be picked up and used as a weapon. I tossed cars at people, even picked up a giant light pole and used it as a baseball bat. That alone sold me on DC Universe.

Super Stars: You can’t play as Batman or Superman or any of the other heroes of villains of DC because then you would have an entire world, worlds, of Batmen and Superman and it wouldn’t be any fun. But, you can help them out. I may not have defeated Doomsday on my own, but I’m fairly sure I bugged him enough during Superman’s battle to let the big blue boy scout get in an extra pop or two. I’m told that players will also catch site of famed heroes and villains roaming around the game at times and can even get messages from them as they build up their reputation.

Movement: The game has several movement modes that allow you to do some pretty neat stuff right out of the box. The character I played had a standard mode that allowed her to walk and run around. But she also had an acrobatic mode than allowed her to double jump in the air and do a bit of a glide. She could also jump onto walls and stick there, which was pretty damn neat.

Controls: The controls for DC Universe Online would be familiar to anyone who has played a game like City of Heroes or Guild Wars. You get hot keys to slap powers down to and mouse clicks for attacks and alt attacks. The game based on some pretty solid roots which shouldn’t be tinkered with.

Final Thoughts
DC Universe Online appears to be a very solid effort backed with some notable characters and storyline. I like some of the little tweaks made to the game, but would love to see a bit more to set it apart from the competition.

The big question for me, right now, is what character creation will be like. We had to play with set character, and in an MMO like this being able to make someone who acts and looks exactly like I want them to goes a long way.

I’m not sure why they didn’t just release this artwork along with the video they passed along back in February, which got the comic book fan inside me more than a little excited. Perhaps the new release is in response to Doomsday’s ridiculous appearance on Smallville. In the teen TV drama the incredibly powerful villain has been reduced to a guy living in Chloe’s basement, feeding his murderous rage with the random thugs who show up to take out Clark Kent’s gal pal when they conveniently stand too close to the basement door. The poor guy can’t even dispose of his own bodies, requiring the plucky ex-reporter haul out bloody bags of trash to the dumpster.

I suppose when you’re filled to the brim with Superman killing power you’re somehwhat above doing the chores.