Pop Culture Timelines Go-To Thread

Bronze Age of Comics Counterfactual​


What if somehow the deal that saw Marvel sold to Cadence and (eventually) Martin Goodman out of the company had gone wrong in some way? I don't have a single pivot point to make this an honest to goodness alternate history, but let's just assume Marvel was crippled sometime in the early 70s, and DC was the beneficiary of an influx of young talent needing jobs. This talent glut may have also weakened the hold of DC's old guard editorial, opening up DC to innovation that were definitely needed.

In one sentence: What if 70s Marvel had basically happened at DC?
Now, since this is ostensibly a gaming blog, I am more focused on how certain storylines or character intros might have transpired at the Distinguished Competition more than "wouldn't Batman have been great under creator [x]?" mainly because I think that focus is no less interesting, and more supers rpg gameable.
Here are some highlights:
Starlin takes over Green Lantern after the commercial failure of "Hard Traveling Heroes" and goes cosmic. GL battles a new assault by Darkseid (Starlin becomes the first writer to tackle the Fourth World after Kirby's series ended) and eventually even gains cosmic awareness through an encounter with the being that first set the Guardians on their path.
Steve Gerber brings his off-beat style to a revival of the Doom Patrol, and makes the adventures of the Swamp Thing even stranger.

Len Wein and Dave Cockrum bring some new members to the Legion of Super-Heroes, and Claremont follows for a long run. He also pens the limited series, drawn by Frank Miller, that makes Timber Wolf a star.
That's just for starters, but you get the idea.
 
SEGA To Buy Jackbox Games in $5 Billion Deal

In 2017, Founder of Jackbox Games, Harry Gottlieb says he sold the video games developer to Sega Corporation as he wanted to take break.

segajackbox.jpg
 
What circumstances would all have to be set up for Disney to own DC and Warner to own Marvel?
 
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Anyone have any suggestions on how to incorporate the following characters into the Marvel Universe: Harbinger, X-O Manowar, Shadowman, Archer and Armstrong, Eternal Warrior, Bloodshot, Ninjak, and Rai?
 
Here's a really silly popcultural POD I thought of and you should feel free to use it in some suitable video game timeline:

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, SEGA manages to secure some of the rights from Saul Zaentz for a Tolkien video game adaptation. They then create either a Golden Axe spinoff/derivative set at the time of Tolkien's Third Age works, i.e. based on The Hobbit or LOTR, or focus on bringing the concept and mechanics of Golden Axe into those Tolkien games and the OTL Golden Axe series is never created in the ATL. Tolkien computer games were gaining some popularity at the time, even a decade before the film trilogy was made, so who knows what a Tolkien-themed side-scrolling hack-and-slash would look like.

Just to make it more secure, have some ardent Japanese Tolkien fans on the dev team, so it's not just about the mayhem, but captures some of the necessary feel of the setting.

If the game would get a sequel, I imagine your choice between the three different main characters would be Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli, as the Three Hunters, interspersed with playing for Frodo and Sam, and occassionally Pippin and Merry (GA already has a Tolkien-style, Gimli-inspired dwarf among the three player characters, so it wouldn't be a stretch).

Yeah, silly, but I think it would be hilarious. Imagine the hobbits fighting a Nazgul who rode into the Shire or Bree and is terrorising locals... :p XD
 
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What if, instead of buying out Rare, Microsoft decided to buy out SEGA instead, right after the Dreamcast and into the first XBox?
 
What if, instead of buying out Rare, Microsoft decided to buy out SEGA instead, right after the Dreamcast and into the first XBox?
Considerably higher expenses involved but I guess they can afford it. That said like Rare Sega is about to hit a creative nadir that won't end until things like Yakuza four or five years later. Unlike Rare however Microsoft can reissue every first party Dreamcast game which will expand the original xbox library quite a bit, although I assume 360 still comes along on schedule.
 
Considerably higher expenses involved but I guess they can afford it. That said like Rare Sega is about to hit a creative nadir that won't end until things like Yakuza four or five years later. Unlike Rare however Microsoft can reissue every first party Dreamcast game which will expand the original xbox library quite a bit, although I assume 360 still comes along on schedule.
Depends, with Sega they could modify the xbox based on Sega own hardware know how and never get the shitty contract with Nvidia in the first place, they could launch X360 with cheaper production process and no red ring of death
 
Depends, with Sega they could modify the xbox based on Sega own hardware know how and never get the shitty contract with Nvidia in the first place, they could launch X360 with cheaper production process and no red ring of death
True but I still expect the 360 to come out unusually early. Original XBox was effectively a tech demonstrator after all and they'll want to steal a march on PS3. The Wii will probably still blow past all of them but with Sega onboard maybe Microsoft avoids being shoved into the "FPS console" niche of OTL.
 
they could launch X360 with cheaper production process and no red ring of death
Lead free solder plus MS demand to launch a year before PS3. Nothing will change on that front I suspect, because MS IOTL was perfectly willing to ship consoles they knew would break in order to meet their launch date.
 
Lead free solder plus MS demand to launch a year before PS3. Nothing will change on that front I suspect, because MS IOTL was perfectly willing to ship consoles they knew would break in order to meet their launch date.
I think all three could launch the same time and otl results( too expensive PS3) but if MS wants to stupidly burns money their call
 
Anyone have any suggestions on how to incorporate the following characters into the Marvel Universe: Harbinger, X-O Manowar, Shadowman, Archer and Armstrong, Eternal Warrior, Bloodshot, Ninjak, and Rai?
Consider that they could be easily implemented into the TL during the Onslaught/ Heroes Reborn or Infinity Gauntlet , House of M or newuniversal events as replacements that snuck in with the idea that some nigh godlike power (e.g. Franklin Richards, Wanda Maximoff, Rachel Summers) placed them into the TL, as a means to supplement or help the major heroes. Consider X-O Manowar was supposed to be the replacement for Iron Man. Bloodshot can be seen as the replacement for Captain America. Eternal Warrior can be seen as a replacement for Thor. Ninja at one point was a child merged with a video game character, so he can easily be linked to Spiderman..
 
Anyone have any suggestions on how to incorporate the following characters into the Marvel Universe: Harbinger, X-O Manowar, Shadowman, Archer and Armstrong, Eternal Warrior, Bloodshot, Ninjak, and Rai?
Consider that this can easily happen starting in September 1996, with the Marvel/ Valiant mini-series Heavy Metal:

 
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