We could be heroes, just for one night.
Courtesy of woogledesigns, a poetic Vertigo/DC plotbunny:
One for Sandman fans: I had a dream of Morpheus, who saw an invasion of earth that would go through the dreaming to reach target. Morpheus, who foresaw the plan even as it was being dreamt up by the aliens, was obligated to mount a defense. He recruited two sleeping Green Lanterns, one of Alan Scott of Earth and one Tomar-Re. Morpheus himself possessed a Green Lantern ring, old and dark, the first design imagined by an Oan, but abandoned for the more powerful matrixes in use in reality. Morpheus used the perception-shifting power of dreams to show the earth as it was seen perpendicular to the 3 dimensional plane, myriad and honeycombed spaces. This split the invasion force, so when they landed throughout Earth's 3 dimensional plane they were scattered into groups. The trio were easily able to target and dispose of the groups.
But the invasion force was millions upon millions and it was a massive task. To occupy the force while the Lanterns got to them the lord dreamer recruited the world's heroes to fight the invaders: Batman imagined himself a pirate and then a knight and then a 20's B-Reel adventurer, in each case dispatching the aliens in their different guises across different places and times. But the Super-powered were not the most noteworthy or triumphant of the day. The people who imagined themselves heroes were the most powerful, while Superman dreamt of being farmboy in Kansas little boys with big imaginations strode as giants from battlefield to battlefield.
In the end the night was won, but- as is the way with dreams- not enough people remembered the great battle of the Earth's dreams for even Bruce Wayne's great detective skills to corroborate the casual reports of dreams of fighting the following morning.
(The context was itself a gift to Woogle from Morpheus.)
One for Sandman fans: I had a dream of Morpheus, who saw an invasion of earth that would go through the dreaming to reach target. Morpheus, who foresaw the plan even as it was being dreamt up by the aliens, was obligated to mount a defense. He recruited two sleeping Green Lanterns, one of Alan Scott of Earth and one Tomar-Re. Morpheus himself possessed a Green Lantern ring, old and dark, the first design imagined by an Oan, but abandoned for the more powerful matrixes in use in reality. Morpheus used the perception-shifting power of dreams to show the earth as it was seen perpendicular to the 3 dimensional plane, myriad and honeycombed spaces. This split the invasion force, so when they landed throughout Earth's 3 dimensional plane they were scattered into groups. The trio were easily able to target and dispose of the groups.
But the invasion force was millions upon millions and it was a massive task. To occupy the force while the Lanterns got to them the lord dreamer recruited the world's heroes to fight the invaders: Batman imagined himself a pirate and then a knight and then a 20's B-Reel adventurer, in each case dispatching the aliens in their different guises across different places and times. But the Super-powered were not the most noteworthy or triumphant of the day. The people who imagined themselves heroes were the most powerful, while Superman dreamt of being farmboy in Kansas little boys with big imaginations strode as giants from battlefield to battlefield.
In the end the night was won, but- as is the way with dreams- not enough people remembered the great battle of the Earth's dreams for even Bruce Wayne's great detective skills to corroborate the casual reports of dreams of fighting the following morning.
(The context was itself a gift to Woogle from Morpheus.)