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TwoPair posted:My only real what if thing I think about is what if the DC New 52 wasn't such a hot mess? As I understand it, financially the New 52 was a good move (for a while at least) and theoretically a clean break with a complex canon would be an ideal way to draw in to draw in new readers. Except it wasn't a complete reboot because they just let Geoff Johns and Grant Morrison continue their Green Lantern and Batman stories with more or less (definitely more in Morrison's case but still mostly) no changes, and a good portion of the new #1s were clearly written without a reboot in mind at all, or were written from very confusing angles which referenced older stories that supposedly were no longer canon. So like, what if DC let Morrison and Johns finish and let every other writer put a cap on other characters' stories (this would also be fun because it'd let writers go real crazy since there would no longer be a reason to "put toys back in the toybox" for the next writer) before the big break? Would things have ultimately turned out better, or would we more or less be in the same boat as we are now with Rebirth, and DC still going "uhhhh it was Dr. Manhattan's fault but now we're fixing everything back to the way it was!" That just reminds me of how goddamn terrible the New52 Static Shock #1 was. You know what's helpful for new readers? Including a double of a character in the same scene with none of the characters referencing that fact! More comic book movie but I wonder how different things would have been if Dougray Scott hadn't had to drop out of X-Men and got to play Wolverine. Jackman was definitely the breakout star of the movie and I don't see the same thing happening with Scott but I think that first one would have probably turned out about the same. The sequels would definitely have been different and there's no way we would have ended up with Wolverine solo movies. As for Hugh Jackman I wonder if not being Wolverine would have short circuited his action career and he would have stayed more towards musicals and dramas.
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Aug 14, 2020 02:40
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Without Jackman's Wolverine as an anchor? The thing falls apart.
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Aug 14, 2020 02:59
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WeedlordGoku69 posted:If this is meant to be Arnold Schwarzenegger, he was already a known quantity in 1986. Not the mega-star he'd become after Terminator 2, granted, but he'd already done Conan the Barbarian, Commando, and the first Terminator by that point and people generally knew who he was. drrockso20 posted:And even before those he was still an international celebrity through his bodybuilding achievements It clearly meant Hansi Hinterseer, who in this reality is a bodybuilder.
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Aug 14, 2020 04:09
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What if the Image guys never leave to do Image? What if Stan Lee accepts DC's offer in the late 70's? What if Jason Todd survives the phone vote? What if Dave Cockrum never leaves DC to work on X Men? El Gallinero Gros fucked around with this message at 00:24 on Aug 16, 2020 |
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Aug 16, 2020 00:21
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El Gallinero Gros posted:What if Jason Todd survives the phone vote? I thunk the writer said that if he survived the phone vote they would just kill off hia mother.
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Aug 16, 2020 04:22
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David D. Davidson posted:I thunk the writer said that if he survived the phone vote they would just kill off hia mother. Yeah. Jason Todd was an incredibly unpopular character; even without the phone vote, I'm sure DC would have gotten rid of him somehow. How about this: what if there was no Phil Seuling? Would someone else invent the direct market?
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Aug 16, 2020 04:53
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Selachian posted:Yeah. Jason Todd was an incredibly unpopular character; even without the phone vote, I'm sure DC would have gotten rid of him somehow. Though this is teased out in a 6 month miniseries called Hit List which starts with all the hyenas in the Gotham Zoo being poisoned by laughing gas. Then several low-level villains and joker-associates start coming up missing. Jason reportedly receives word that his father is behind the killings, ultimately being abducted and found tortured and comatose. Blaming himself, Batman devotes night and day to solving the mystery. Driven to his limits, he confronts Jason's father, who reveals that he was an out of work actor hired for a bit part. Before he can reveal any more, he is shot with a joker-venom tipped dart. The climax is Batman and the Joker captured by the mastermind, Jason Todd, revealing his faked coma and injuries were part of a plan to gather the two men who ruined his life -- Joker by killing his mother and denying him a family, Batman for being a false father-figure and leading him to believe that he could find order in this mad world. Taking the name of Orphan, he vows to find his own way. (Note, early editorial wanted him to be The Cuckoo, but that got struck quickly), but he leaves Batman with one last quandry: save the Joker or save the Orphan. DC toys with offering readers a chance to vote to see who Batman will save (again) but the included numbers just go to two pre-recorded messages left by Jason: one berating "Bruce" for leaving him to die in favor of saving "that maniac" that ruined so many lives; one that calls Batman's crusade into question if his sentimentality and allegiance to his broken family could cause him to violate his ethics. Either way, he pledges that Batman will be seeing him soon, and reminds him to lock the back door to the Batcave... Ultimately, Orphan becomes Nightwing's arch-villain as the 'true' inheritor of Batman's legacy.
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Aug 16, 2020 05:42
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The Cuckoo is a really, really good name for Todd.
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Aug 16, 2020 07:17
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El Gallinero Gros posted:What if the Image guys never leave to do Image? I think at least some of the Image guys leaving was an inevitability - certainly Lee basically got pushed into it by Marvel's boneheaded decisions, but Liefeld and McFarlane were always going to strike out on their own. I seem to recall the talk was that if Jason had lived he would have retired from being Robin, and I guess maybe move into a Snapper Carr/Rick Jones type role as someone who sits on the sidelines, of sorts. Also FilthyImp, your writeups are great, never stop. Yvonmukluk fucked around with this message at 09:30 on Aug 16, 2020 |
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Aug 16, 2020 09:27
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You'd probably need to do something like an editorial/corporate personnel shakeup at some point before the early '90s, so when the artists come to Marvel and object to the terms of the licensing, there's someone at Marvel who both has the empathy to see their position and the stroke to make a different decision go through. Maybe the 1986 sale to New World doesn't go through and Marvel is somewhat less corporate at the time, or Ron Perelman keeps it in his pants and spends less time loving around with junk bonds. What I'd wonder at that point is if you wouldn't see a bunch of the bigger names on that list getting a McFarlane-style deal to do boutique books for Marvel, or if a few of the Image starter titles end up as Epic books with Marvel editors riding shotgun.
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Aug 16, 2020 09:34
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Cassa posted:The Cuckoo is a really, really good name for Todd. But the real reason was pronunciation. One of the secretaries had a habit of pronouncing it "KUH-koo", while the writers all pronounced it "koo-koo". So they had Jose Garcia Lopez draft up a placeholder hero with a stylized name/logo. They then passed it around and asked how they would pronounce Cuckoo. And the results were pretty varied. The name fell apart after the meeting came to a head with "Well what's the drat catchphrase? Is it "Kooked again?" Or "Kuck'ed Again?". Everyone broke down laughing and, for better or worse, Orphan won the day. At least until Morrisson briefly revived it for his All-Star Boy Wonder 3-shot. Wanderer posted:What I'd wonder at that point is if you wouldn't see a bunch of the bigger names on that list getting a McFarlane-style deal to do boutique books for Marvel, or if a few of the Image starter titles end up as Epic books with Marvel editors riding shotgun.
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Aug 16, 2020 17:50
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FilthyImp posted:I'd hazard we see a Vertigo style imprint pop up that says 80/20 artist revenue split with creator-control. That would actually make a lot of sense. The Sandman was in publication at the time, so while Marvel wasn't in a position to be precisely envious of its success coming off the Claremont/Lee X-Men #1, I'd be surprised if nobody at Marvel at the time had asked why they didn't have a Vertigo-style imprint. Come to think of it, there's a lot of mostly-forgotten Marvel work in the '80s that's just about the same kind of weird as early Vertigo, like some of the Marvel Graphic Novels or Strikeforce: Morituri, but it seems like that all dried up almost immediately once Shooter was out. Maybe some procession of shenanigans go down that puts Ann Nocenti in as editor-in-chief in 1987 instead of Tom DeFalco.
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Aug 17, 2020 02:57
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I just found this thread and it's too good to have died in August. How different do things shake out if the "Superman 2000" pitch with Grant Morrison, Mark Waid, Mark Millar, and Tom Peyer moves forward? Reading some of the pitch it seems like we would have gotten a Superman-scale "every story happened, every story matters" approach like the one Morrison brought to DC. Maybe his relationship with Millar doesn't turn sour. Maybe Waid and Peyer stick around DC for longer. The biggest change wouldn't be to DC, but to Marvel, since Morrison wouldn't leave DC to take on New X-Men and Millar wouldn't have taken Ultimate X-Men or The Ultimates.
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Mar 14, 2021 01:44
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Claytor posted:I just found this thread and it's too good to have died in August. And that in turn means no MCU as we know it, given the Ultimates were a major inspiration for the MCU. And I'm glad you revived the thread, because I never got to shine a light on the last of the alternate comic history articles I mentioned in the OP.
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Mar 15, 2021 22:50
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What if Miles Morales was created in the 70s, how badly would he be written?
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Mar 18, 2021 19:38
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bessantj posted:What if Miles Morales was created in the 70s, how badly would he be written? First off, he'd probably have a villain called "Dy-No-Mite!"
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Mar 18, 2021 19:44
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bessantj posted:What if Miles Morales was created in the 70s, how badly would he be written? There's a high probability he would have been called "Black Spider." He definitely would have been angry. Like, all the time. But that would have stopped as soon as Peter Parker told him to "get off his high horse" and see that NYC's problems are "bigger than Harlem." In his next appearance he would have been killed by the Punisher by mistake and only mentioned again when Peter needed to feel guilty about something.
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Mar 18, 2021 21:22
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Splint Chesthair posted:There's a high probability he would have been called "Black Spider." There's no way he would've been called "Black Spider". DC already has a character called "Black Spider". 
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Mar 18, 2021 21:30
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Davros1 posted:There's no way he would've been called "Black Spider". Stan the Man: How do we incorporate an afro into the design? The SENSATIONAL character creation of 1971 IS HERE! AN AMAZING clash of TITANS When SPIDER MEETS SPIDER [IMG- SpiderBoy's pointing at Parker] You there, SPIDER-HONKEY, it's YOUR FAULT Harlem is in the GUTTER! FilthyImp fucked around with this message at 22:15 on Mar 18, 2021 |
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Mar 18, 2021 22:13
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What if Miles had been created by Dwayne McDuffie, in a world where the Marvel/Milestone collaboration had gotten off the ground?
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Mar 18, 2021 22:16
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Man, I don't know enough about 70s black social justice movements to do that justice. Someone carry this torch: quote:Dwayne McDuffie has just been handed the ultimate Catch-22.
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Mar 18, 2021 22:37
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It's great how each post paints a darker future.
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Mar 18, 2021 23:26
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bessantj posted:It's great how each post paints a darker future. That last one doesn't seem too bad.
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Mar 19, 2021 00:23
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McDuffie wasn’t working at Marvel back when Jim Shooter was EIC (I don’t think), but one of Shooter’s failed initiatives was to replace most of the characters with new versions of them. It isn’t hard to see that Miles could have fit right into those plans if they had come to fruition.
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Mar 19, 2021 00:49
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bessantj posted:It's great how each post paints a darker future. I was hoping more towards a moonshot style dealie where McDuffie has a herculean task that he pulls off deftly and redefines comics as an inclusionary space for poc, the way that early Marvel pioneered heroes having relatable problems. In my head, the very rough sketch for this goes that they come up with an idea for more "black" comics and draft up the ridiculously tone-deaf cover idea I joked about -- based on what little knowledge I have about Luke Cage's affectations from that era. The logic is "hey, Spider-Man is kind of our everyman down on his luck so someone from NYC would be likely to see him more than anyone... so if we had a black spider-man..." McDuffie gets involved somehow and comes back with "well, let's make him bi-racial. Kind of how Peter Parker straddles the experience of young adult and hero, Miles could add a dimension of cross-cultural experiences". From there, the character gets rebuilt from the ground up. And it ends up with "Hey, if this guy's a hit you can make a whole line... like the X-Men, but for modern urban communities". Maybe the setup for the larger line happens like this: Galactus returns to earth, but to warn humanity of an impending danger. A Celestial touches down in New York and a battle breaks out between the two. Heroes jump in and help defeat the Celestial, but its death destroys 75% of Central Park. Rich industrialist Jefferson D. King, the "black kingpin of Paris island", launches a financial and political campaign to create a "bridge burrough" in the location -- a move that draws on the elimination of Seneca Village to establish the park in the first place. The resultant Dakota Burrough begins life amidst a hotpot of controversy and tensions. Adding to that, the Celestial "Big Bang" event may have triggered a new class of mutates/mutants located in the areas around Dakota. Miles establishes himself as a protector and A-class hero to Dakota, mentoring several new faces in the process. And maybe it leads to King being responsible for the Bang Babies, not the Celestial...
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Mar 20, 2021 03:48
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Edit: Never mind, I didn't read the last post closely enough.
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Mar 20, 2021 04:45
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With Onslaught looming upon the creative horizon and the Clone Saga dragging interminably, Marvel was desperate to try and untie the Gordian Knot that had engulfed their most popular character. Casting out to all corners of the company, it was Dwayne McDuffie, fresh off the Milestone/Marvel collaboration that ultimately found a solution. Needless to say, a lot of fans were angry that Spider-Man apparently died alongside the Avengers & Fantastic Four, especially given the costume implied it was Peter Parker who had made that sacrifice. The release of Spider-Man: Chapter One by John Byrne also muddied the waters, since, much like Heroes Reborn, it featured a reimagined and modernised origin for Peter Parker. The promise of a 'new Spider-Man' also naturally drew fan ire. The first story arc after Onslaught naturally drew widespread attention. Establishing that a new Spider-Man is on the scene in an ill-fitting costume while the Scarlet Spider watches from the shadows, the reveal that the new Spider-Man is biracial teenager Miles Morales, which naturally caused media attention to focus on the new hero. the following issue established his origin, predating Onslaught, where he is bitten by a genetically-modified spider. However, unlike Peter Parker, he concealed his new powers, only to find himself caught up in the battle with Onslaught where Spider-Man rescues him, and, forming a connection with the hero, offers to - once the battle is won - mentor the young man to become a hero. Wracked with guilt and the sense that he might have somehow helped save Spidey's life if he had stayed and fought, he finally confronts the Scarlet Spider, who is revealed to be a very much alive Peter Parker - it was Ben Reilly, wearing his costume, who had laid down his life. Parker had hung up the costume and allowed the world to believe Reilly was the only Spider-Man, both out of guilt & because with the birth of his daughter May, he doesn't feel he can risk his life any more. He reluctantly begins training Morales, who begins to investigate a new Prowler and his unseen employer, who declares that nothing will deny him vengeance against the real Spider-Man. Needless to say, many fans and writers alike were divided at the idea that Peter Parker was reduced to a supporting character. However, fans of Reilly had widely praised his at the time final scenes, where he provides much-needed reassurance to Miles before swinging off to meet his destiny. Morales joins forces with many street-level heroes (Daredevil, Black Cat, Cloak & Dagger and Peter as the Scarlet Spider, and Byrne co-creation Mattie Franklin as Spider-Woman*) to investigate a new Crime-Master, which would culminate in the discovery that the new villainous Prowler was Miles' Uncle Aaron, which would culminate in him sacrificing his life to save him from the Crime-Master, revealed to be Norman Osborn, the architect of the Clone Saga. The arc culminates in old and new Spider-Man teaming up to defeat Osborn, with Morales being the one to strike the final blow and avenge his uncle, including unmasking him to the world. While Peter Parker would once more take up the mantle of Spider-Man with the advent of Heroes Return (Ben Reilly staying behind to continue as a hero on Counter-Earth), it was decided that rather than stretching the character too thin, Amazing and adjectiveless would be his books, while Morales would continue as Spider-Man in his own right in Spectacular and Web, an arrangement which continues to this day. Of course, the real long term effect was laying the seeds for the Champions imprint, the success of which would ultimately see McDuffie ascend to the role of editor-in-chief...
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Apr 4, 2021 13:10
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That actually sounds really good, especially as a resolution to the Ben/Peter thing. I'm wondering who you imagined on art duties? In my head I'm picturing Mike Wieringo.
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Apr 4, 2021 15:50
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How Wonderful! posted:That actually sounds really good, especially as a resolution to the Ben/Peter thing. I'm wondering who you imagined on art duties? In my head I'm picturing Mike Wieringo. I didn't actually think of that, but now you said Weiringo I don't think there's anyone better.
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Apr 4, 2021 17:23
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drat, I really want to see what some of that would look like. And, perversely, a HR era take on Miles by Liefeld
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Apr 4, 2021 17:33
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Kinda has me wondering what mid 90's versions of Marvel's other more modern characters would be like
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Apr 4, 2021 23:08
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Here's one that's more from the comic strip side of things: The original artist on Modesty Blaise, Jim Holdaway, died of a heart attack at age 42 in 1970, in the middle of the "Warlords of Phoenix" storyline. He was later replaced by the Spanish artist Enrique Romero, who did the lion's share of the work on Modesty until it ended in 2002. Thinking about it today, the two artists have distinctly different strengths. While they're both talented, Romero is the one who arguably gave Modesty most of its reputation for what a modern audience might call "fanservice"; there are a lot of strips in Romero's run where he'll find a flimsy excuse to show a woman in dishabille. (Romero even had a side gig in the early '80s, a strip called AXA, which was entirely based around post-apocalyptic sci-fi nudity excuses. It's kind of a hoot.) Holdaway was never shy about that sort of thing either, but Romero made it much more gratuitous, and Holdaway's fight choreography in his strips is often a significant highlight. Modesty Blaise still has its fans today, primarily in the UK, but I'm wondering what its impact might've been, both on comics in general and newspaper comics in particular, if Holdaway had lived longer. Both Romero and Holdaway are geniuses at being able to tell a whole story in three short panels, but Holdaway's style was a big part of what got Modesty popular to begin with.
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Apr 18, 2021 03:13
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drat, I'd never heard of it. That's some drat fine line work. My not very knowledgeable take: Holdaway gets a little more creative with larger layouts and action sequences, a kind of Sterankoization, which grabs the attention of Playboy after some censorship rows. Heffner jumps at the chance to get a sexy, mature ongoing serial to take up 2 pages every issue. It's popular and a steady gig, and the removal of any care for censorship really helps. There's eventually a contest to find a lookalike to get the cover/centerfold as a cute PR stunt. They eventually fund a collection under a short-lived imprint. Alan Moore gets involved on a spin-off series. It pushes some indies and Big Names into exploring more woman-centered pursuits and a bit of a NeoNoir trend. Holdaway gets a Terry Moore-like career with some side-projects involving original IPs until he retires. The Spike Network options a 'Very Graphic Animated Novel' adaptation for its planned animation block, but rights issues and payment kibosh the deal . Not a huge loss since it's animated in Flash and retains none of the charm of the original noirish art since it all resembles paper cut-outs. FilthyImp fucked around with this message at 05:13 on Apr 18, 2021 |
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Apr 18, 2021 05:03
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FilthyImp posted:drat, I'd never heard of it. That's some drat fine line work. Quentin Tarantino got Miramax to option Modesty Blaise, but the film rights lapsed before he got around to it. In a timeline where the series was a bigger deal in the United States he might have done his Modesty Blaise adaptation instead of Jackie Brown or Kill Bill - its success heavily dependent on Harvey Weinstein not meddling in production. If this movie did well, we might have seen a bigger version of the early 2000s trend of independent comics getting smaller budget film adaptations.
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Apr 18, 2021 22:20
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FilthyImp posted:Holdaway gets a little more creative with larger layouts and action sequences, a kind of Sterankoization, which grabs the attention of Playboy after some censorship rows. Heffner jumps at the chance to get a sexy, mature ongoing serial to take up 2 pages every issue. It's popular and a steady gig, and the removal of any care for censorship really helps. There's eventually a contest to find a lookalike to get the cover/centerfold as a cute PR stunt. I've also been rereading some of the old Ms. Tree comics from Eclipse lately, and this makes me sad that Mike Tree never teamed up with Modesty.
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Apr 18, 2021 23:01
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What if darwin cooke didnt die 
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Apr 22, 2021 20:22
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What if Superpro succeeded?
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Apr 27, 2021 17:30
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Rick posted:What if Superpro succeeded?
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Apr 27, 2021 17:55
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What is Darwin Cooke had not have whatever caused him to never work for Marvel again and had done some work for them. I imagine he'd do some Invaders or at least WW2 Cap books.
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May 23, 2021 23:21
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twistedmentat posted:What is Darwin Cooke had not have whatever caused him to never work for Marvel again and had done some work for them. I imagine he'd do some Invaders or at least WW2 Cap books. I would have loved to see him do a silver surfer title, or a period piece 60s x-men book
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May 28, 2021 21:55
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