Dear comic publishers: Please consider this idea.
I was thinking about how “Batman: Death in the Family” and “Armageddon 2001″ had alternate endings (and how now those endings may actually be in continuity now) and got me thinking what if they published a trade of DitF where Jason Todd lives in the end. We know the artwork was completed. Not sure if the artwork where Captain Atom is revealed as Monarch was ever completed for “Armageddon 2001″, but I think that’d be an interesting one to see.
Can anyone think of any others? Is this even an interesting idea?
It could be like a new version of Cancelled Comics Cavalcade; “Unseen Comics Cavalcade!” Other suggestions in the thread include Gerard Jones’ original take on “Emerald Twilight” and Tony Bedard’s unseen take on Batman and The Outsiders. Aren’t there any Marvel ones…?
January 16th, 2008 at 11:52 am
What, MORE crappy What If comics?
No thanks.
//\Oo/\\
January 16th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
What about the proposed ending for… I think it was [i]Infinite Crisis[/i], but it just might have been the World War III part of [i]52[/i]… where the heroes are losing a big fight until Rip Hunter leads a charge of every Legionnaire that has ever existed in any version through a time rift to save the day? I’d be there like Jack the Bear from Delaware.
January 16th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
The unused Jim Aparo art from Death in the Family was used in a Batman annual recently.
I’d love to see a trade of the announced but never published Longshot ongoing series from 1988. There was also a FF graphic novel around that time that evaporated.
What ever happened to that Dakota North series with Lauren Mcubbin announced a few years ago? I was looking forward to that as well.
Warren Ellis was building up his nineties Hellstorm run towards a big story just as the book got cancelled. I loved that book. Wasn’t he just fishing for Marvel titles to revamp? Finish that one, put out a hardcover collecting the whole run and laugh as you take my money.
January 16th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
I don’t think the Alexander Irvine/Russell Braun Hellstorm sold very well, though it was an entertaining book.
January 16th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Graeme wrote: “Aren’t there any Marvel ones…? ”
Yeah but they call them “What If” books.
Actually I don’t think any of the “What If” stories were actually drawn and ready to go. Though with all the delays in shipping of such stories as One More Day and Civil War it makes you wonder if those delays weren’t totally caused by slow artists and more the result of last minute editorial changes.
Honestly I don’t think Marvel editorial has the sense to second guess themselves enough to work up a “back up” plan to any of their big stories. They just charge through like a runaway freight train pushing whatever direction they’ve chosen no matter the consequences. This lack of second guessing sure does make it fun watching the trainwrecks.
January 16th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
There was a completely different version of Silver Surfer #1, by Englehart and Buscema, which eventually ran in an issue of Marvel Fanfare. In the editorial for that issue, they mention that an alternate version of X-Factor #1 exists as well… if so, I’d love to see that one.
January 16th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
I have a better idea… Retcon Jason Todd’s revival. PLEASE.
As much as I hated OMD, I think Batman could use his own OMD that sets things back to Jason’s death.
January 16th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
I’m always interested to hear about books that never got published or that turned out differently.
Looking back at an old Dick Giordano “Meanwhile … ” column in a mid-80s DC book, for instance, he announced that there would be a new Len Wein-Bernie Wrightson Swamp Thing series.
Any others? or a link perhaps?
January 16th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
I remember that; Wrightson said in Back Issue he started drawing Wein’s story but got blocked or busy or just couldn’t finish it. A later writer did a plot similar to Wein’s so they decided to bag it altogether.
January 16th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
Incidentally, I thought the quality of the artwork in the main story of Civil War What If was pretty low. That’s what I get for buying a bagged comic on impulse.
January 16th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
Glad you liked the idea also, Graeme! Here’s hoping some of the publishers do as well.
January 17th, 2008 at 12:40 am
Marvel does have a few sitting around, I think … including an alternate ending to the Dark Phoenix Saga (I could be wrong, though I recall reading this somewhere), Fred Hembeck’s original “FH Destroys the Marvel Universe” and surely there ARE others. But maybe not. Feh.
January 17th, 2008 at 6:45 am
Not only did Marvel have an original, scrapped ending to the Dark Phoenix storyline, they actually did what this item calls for. The one-shot Phoenix: The Untold Story showed the issue as was originally intended (as well as the intended opening to the next issue.)
January 17th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
I’d definitely like to see what was started for Bedard’s Outsiders run. If there is anything that never saw print for Martian Manhunter or Blue Devil.