A Hippie in the House of Mouse (Jim Henson at Disney, 1980)

[Plateosaurus]

Fascinating, especially the Superman's Revenge story. No Doomsday and DoS arc means a lot.

Also, if you may remember, Robocop has no sequels here ITTL, and in ours they were written by Frank Miller but execs f'd it up, making him create Sin City to be unadaptable. So maybr Sin City is, making the films (if they aren't butterflied) much different.

 

[jpj1421]

Meanwhile, She-Hulk out here saving her ire for her writer. Love me some good meta humor.

I will say this about Rob Liefeld's early efforts at Marvel...they were perfectly cromulent. He drew X-Factor 40, the epilogue on their part of Inferno and it's indistinguishable from the work Walt Simonson was doing the issue prior. Of course I haven't yet gotten to when he was just allowed to do whatever he wanted out.

 

[Bbone91]

Oh goody, the Dark Age of comics is well and truly upon us. Everyone say hi to ‘90s Kid!

 

[nathanael1234]

in one of the posts, there was a mention of a 1992 Lone Ranger movie directed by Chris Columbus. I wonder how that turned out?

 

[TheMolluskLingers]

Alan Moore, who is largely credited with initiating the Dark/Iron Age, would be lured back to DC after they allowed the rights to The Watchmen to lapse and gave him, via Vertigo, the green light to launch his Twilight of the Superheroes line, an alternate world where superheroes have forged ruling dynasties.

This is certainly a butterfly - maybe since Moore is staying at DC for the forseeable future and Image is part of Marvel ITTL, maybe Moore's Supreme run instead becomes a Superman comic?

 

[jpj1421]

Actually, speaking of X-Factor I wonder if a less jerky Jim Shooter would revisit the idea Claremont gave him of Jean's sister being on the team when Louise Simonson is sent to save the book when it's clear it's not working. Though all of that went down in 85-86 so it's probably too late. I was just thinking aloud to try and save Madelyne Pryor, a character only Claremont cared about so he ended up pouring all frustrations with editorial into her during Inferno.

 

[GrahamB]

This picture reminds me that, perhaps paradoxically, Doctor Strange is a perfectly placed character for a series of lighter, fantasy comics aimed at younger readers, even as his 'mainline' comics have him trying to trap Lovecraftian horrors in logic puzzles reliant on quantum entanglement. Doctor Strange Presents a Series of Peculiar Pictographs could be a neat way for Marvel to rope in one-off or short-run comics from freelance artists and bullpen writers, "What If" tangents, and 'jokey' series like Spider-Ham into a regular-run anthology series, with Strange acting as your narrator and occasional participant.

 

[Workable Goblin]

I don’t see how 2000AD could possibly have successfully sued Marvel, given that all of the ideas being used were commonplace in science fiction written decades before Judge Dredd first appeared. It would be like George Cukor suing Wise and Robbins over West Side Story ripping off Romeo and Juliet…

 

[Nerdman3000]

Thus, Peter Parker was given some time off, marrying Mary Jane and having a son together

the birth of Peter and Mary Jane’s son, Benjamin Richard Parker

Part of me is kind of disappointed it was a son and wasn’t outright Mayday Parker, especially since there’s already another Ben. Hopefully in the future Mary Jane and Peter will have another kid, a daughter, named May, that way we can still get our future Spider-Girl.

Actually thinking about it, reversing things with May and Ben (making May the younger sister instead of older) would certainly be a interesting direction. Though hopefully May is born relatively closer to Ben, making them closer in age. In that way, perhaps it can even parallel/replace OTL Franklin Richards brother-sister relationship with his younger sister Valeria in the comics as the main older brother/younger sister Legacy character duo in Marvel.

 

[Daibhid C]

This is certainly a butterfly - maybe since Moore is staying at DC for the forseeable future and Image is part of Marvel ITTL, maybe Moore's Supreme run instead becomes a Superman comic?

Oh, that would be fun. I can just imagine the bafflement on the messageboards when the guy who wrote Twilight of the Superheroes is given the keys to the kingdom ... and decides to bring back the Silver Age.

Alan Moore:
The apocalyptic bleakness of comics over the past 15 years sometimes seems odd to me, because it's like that was a bad mood that I was in 15 years ago. It was the 1980s, we'd got this insane right-wing voter fear running the country, and I was in a bad mood, politically and socially and in most other ways. So that tended to reflect in my work. But it was a genuine bad mood, and it was mine. I tend to think that I've seen a lot of things over the past 15 years that have been a bizarre echo of somebody else's bad mood. It's not even their bad mood, it's mine, but they're still working out the ramifications of me being a bit grumpy 15 years ago.”

 

[Shiny_Agumon]

[3] This idea courtesy of @Pyro (hat-tip!). For those wondering what happens, in Pyro’s own words: “Eventually, Conduit lures Clark to a mock version of Smallville filled with android duplicates of its inhabitants programmed to despise him. Superman and Conduit face off in the football stadium. While the two start on fairly even terms with Conduit's Kryptonite blasts weakening the Man of Steel, Superman's rage eventually overcomes them and he tears off Conduit's armor before readying the final blow...only for Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), and members of the Justice League to arrive with a recently-recovered Lois. She pleads with Clark to spare Conduit's life as the Superman she loves would never take the life of another, [and he spares Conduit] when he realizes how far he's gone. However, just as the two walk away, Conduit breaks loose from the Justice League's restraints and activates a self-destruct in a last-ditch attempt to take out his hated rival for good. Superman shields Lois from the blast, but the Kryptonite radiation saturated his cells and left him temporarily powerless until his body absorbs enough solar radiation to filter out the Kryptonite [ultimately] leading into ‘Reign of the Supermen’ where several new heroes appear in Metropolis to fill the void left by the powerless Superman like Steel, Superboy, and [even] a ‘reformed’ Lex Luthor.”

I'm glad we could keep the Reign of the Supermen, although I wonder how Lexi will fit into this storyline. Does he replace Cyborg-Superman? What makes him different from Steel?

Also speaking about Steel, does the awful Shaquille O'Neal movie still happen?

Also those the marriage plot confirm that Lous and Clark doesn't exist? Since the Death of Superman was only supposed to stall for time until the tv series came around to have them marry.

I know it's probably a pipe dream, but not having Superman come back to life makes me hopeful that "Comic Book Death" won't be such a phenomenon in this Timeline.

a part of the Disney empire, Jim Shooter was in charge and, with Disney keeping the lights on and CCO Jim Henson happy to give them the creative freedom they sought, he opened the door for his writers to push the limits. The Epic line, largely rebranded into an adult line to compete with Vertigo, became the home for some of Marvel’s new wunderkinds like Dale Keown, Todd McFarlane, Art Adams, Jim Lee, Erik Larsen, and Rob Liefeld. 1993 for example saw the launch of McFarlane’s now-iconic Hellspawn, which followed Al Simmons, a CIA assassin who dies, goes to hell, and is “recruited” against his will as a “Hellspawn”, or knight in Mephisto’s service.

Hellspawn rivalled Venom and everyone’s favorite Merc as the poster child of the Dark/Iron Age. Violent, ruthless, cruel, ugly, conflicted, and angst-ridden, Hellspawn set the tone for the dark, tortured antiheroes to come. The comic sold like crazy, eventually spawning (pun totally intended, I’m sure) a movie. Featuring McFarlane’s flowing, dynamic art, Hellspawn was also one of the first Marvel comics to use digital inking and painting using the DIS Stations, pushing the technical as well as thematic bounds of the medium. It also gained the ire of the moral guardians, despite being a part of the adult-focused Epic line, who blasted it for “glorifying Satan”, despite the fact that Simmons’ fate is hardly portrayed as a “good thing” for him. Seriously, did those assholes even read it?

Other Epic lines pushed the limits in similar ways. Shooter, Steve Englehart, and artist David Lapham’s Shadowman and Bob Layton and Bernard Chang’s The Second Life of Doctor Mirage both spun off from Dr. Strange and dipped into necromancy and other “darque” magics. Erik Larsen’s The Savage Dragon, a character he developed as a child, incorporated Cowboy Cop tropes and made the titular character an actual Chicago Police Officer rather than a masked vigilante. The Wachowski Siblings (writing as Larry and Andy at the time I love you either way, sisters!) would start their careers at Marvel, writing for Ectokid and Clive Barker’s Hellraiser and Night Breed for Epic

No Image or Valiant, but most of their characters, ironic 😂
I just hope they can escape the fate of being a comic in a large company and don't have to do pause their storylines for a executive mandated crossover.

[9] Yes, the original plan goes through. No “Maximum Clonage

Yeah! No complicated Clone Saga, but Ben stays Spider-Man, interesting.

Also Judge Dreed is going to the states earlier? Those that mean that we will see a theatrical film earlier?
Maybe we can get Van Hoeven to do it!
He would be perfect to highlight the more satirical aspects of the universe and since Robocop isn't a big franchise maybe Dreed can feel that niche.
I bet the 2000 AD fanbase will be pleased with the inevitable Judge Dreed animated series, with laser guns and no profanity 😂
Extra points if they used to be Whovians too🤣

[6] Wade, you’re butterflied! Get the hell out of my timeline!

Ha, nice try, asshole! You ain’t gonna butterfly me!

My Timeline. You’re butterflied. Period.

Nuh-uh!

[7] Hey! I deleted that section!

I rewrote it. Salute to @nick_crenshaw82 for thinking of me, by the way.

Ambush Bug? I’ll totally squash you.

Face it, DP, I’m the fourth wall breaking wiseass of this TL! Butterflies are a bitch.

This ain’t over, Bug.

@Geekhis Khan you ok there, bud?

Too much 4th wall breaking isn't good for your mental state 😂

But seriously, I will miss Deadpool (or will I?).
Maybe we will instead see Ambush Bug become a household name in pop culture.

At least we won't see the awful not Deadpool in X-Men Origins, even if I'm sure that film doesn't exist in TTL.

 

[Igeo654]

I have an idea. What if what happened to The Hulk in 1999's Earth-X actually happened in the main canon a few years earlier? Bruce and the Hulk become semi-separated, symbiotic beings with Bruce becoming a 10-year-old kid and the Hulk being this giant, primal, King Kong esc being protecting him under his sway. Sort of a throwback to that old 70s trope of The Human Kid and his Giant Monster pal you saw in cartoons back in the day.

 

[TheMolluskLingers]

and decides to bring back the Silver Age.

And not only bringing it back, but being absolutely meta about it too.

 

[Igeo654]

And not only bringing it back, but being absolutely meta about it too.

Why not? Might be a good deal actually.

 

[GrahamB]

Part of me is kind of disappointed it was a son and wasn’t outright Mayday Parker, especially since there’s already another Ben. Hopefully in the future Mary Jane and Peter will have another kid, a daughter, named May, that way we can still get our future Spider-Girl.

Actually thinking about it, reversing things with May and Ben (making May the younger sister instead of older) would certainly be a interesting direction. Though hopefully May is born relatively closer to Ben, making them closer in age. In that way, perhaps it can even parallel/replace OTL Franklin Richards brother-sister relationship with his younger sister Valeria in the comics as the main older brother/younger sister Legacy character duo in Marvel.

Peter Parker and his Spectacular Spider Kids would be a neat comic book run, like a parody Marvel version of Family Circus that gets to tie in the Richards' kids.
And then you could have an issue where ALL the Bens get together ("Young Ben" Parker, "Uncle Ben" Reilly, "Big Ben" Grimm, probably a bunch of supporting cast members I don't recall).

 

[Pyro]

This is certainly a butterfly - maybe since Moore is staying at DC for the forseeable future and Image is part of Marvel ITTL, maybe Moore's Supreme run instead becomes a Superman comic?

Oh, that would be fun. I can just imagine the bafflement on the messageboards when the guy who wrote Twilight of the Superheroes is given the keys to the kingdom ... and decides to bring back the Silver Age.

I'm feeling too lazy to link the post, but Alan Moore did work on TTL's post-Crisis reboot of Superman, which included elements of OTL's Supreme. That said, it would be an intriguing proposition to have him return to the Man of Steel around 1996 to revisit those themes and perhaps incorporate elements of Grant Morrison and Mark Waid's Superman 2000 pitch. It could function as an "apology" for his part in inspiring the excesses of the Dark Age.

It should be worth noting that TTL is approaching DC's Zero Hour, so to speak, which could give Moore an opening as the event creates another "revision" that changes the Man of Steel's history. For one, editorial mandates and rampant retcons forced DC Comics to reboot the Legion of Super-Heroes so Moore could rewrite them back into greater Superman mythology. This might be a bit controversial, but what if said revision reestablished Superman's Golden Age history? (To an extent.) Superman could be the first public superhero who had adventures with the Justice Society of America [1] while Lana Lang was his primary love interest at this time. Similarly, the Ultra-Humanite could take Lex Luthor's place as his primary antagonist from the 1940s to the late 60s while Clark Kents works at the Daily Star under George Taylor. Meanwhile, his kryptonian genes and constant exposure to Earth's yellow sun made him immortal and ageless while Lana grows older. This realization, combined with the Ultra-Humanite's (apparent) suicide, prompt him to leave Earth to explore the galaxy.

I'm glossing over several story points, but Supes eventually returns to Earth to help inaugurate the "modern" Age of Superheroes. It wouldn't completely invalidate the stories that occurred from 1987-92, but tweak/"revise" certain details. I just need to figure them out. Anyway, that's all that comes to mind now.

[1]Perhaps the OTL Byrne retcon of Hippolyta going back in time to become the Golden Age Wonder Woman can work its way in here as well.

 

[TheMolluskLingers]

I'm feeling too lazy to link the post, but Alan Moore did work on TTL's post-Crisis reboot of Superman, which included elements of OTL's Supreme. That said, it would be an intriguing proposition to have him return to the Man of Steel around 1996 to revisit those themes and perhaps incorporate elements of Grant Morrison and Mark Waid's Superman 2000 pitch. It could function as an "apology" for his part in inspiring the excesses of the Dark Age.

It should be worth noting that TTL is approaching DC's Zero Hour, so to speak, which could give Moore an opening as the event creates another "revision" that changes the Man of Steel's history. For one, editorial mandates and rampant retcons forced DC Comics to reboot the Legion of Super-Heroes so Moore could rewrite them back into greater Superman mythology. This might be a bit controversial, but what if said revision reestablished Superman's Golden Age history? (To an extent.) Superman could be the first public superhero who had adventures with the Justice Society of America [1] while Lana Lang was his primary love interest at this time. Similarly, the Ultra-Humanite could take Lex Luthor's place as his primary antagonist from the 1940s to the late 60s while Clark Kents works at the Daily Star under George Taylor. Meanwhile, his kryptonian genes and constant exposure to Earth's yellow sun made him immortal and ageless while Lana grows older. This realization, combined with the Ultra-Humanite's (apparent) suicide, prompt him to leave Earth to explore the galaxy.

I'm glossing over several story points, but Supes eventually returns to Earth to help inaugurate the "modern" Age of Superheroes. It wouldn't completely invalidate the stories that occurred from 1987-92, but tweak/"revise" certain details. I just need to figure them out. Anyway, that's all that comes to mind now.

[1]Perhaps the OTL Byrne retcon of Hippolyta going back in time to become the Golden Age Wonder Woman can work its way in here as well.

Yes! This sounds exactly like how I'm imagining it.

 

[nick_crenshaw82]

1993 for example saw the launch of McFarlane’s now-iconic Hellspawn, which followed Al Simmons, a CIA assassin who dies, goes to hell, and is “recruited” against his will as a “Hellspawn”, or knight in Mephisto’s service.

Sorry for not catching this in the preview but I think you should keep Malebolgia have him be a rival and possible child of Mephisto.

Seriously, did those assholes even read it?

Ambush Bug: No, I rather doubt it. The never seem to probably engage in whatever they're vilifying.

Meanwhile, Shooter pushed to relaunch many of the old Gold Key and Harvey characters

You mention relaunching Gold Key & Harvey characters but than focus on just the Gold Key characters. Here's a list of Harvey's superheroes:

Harvey

One idea I had was to use Harvey's golden age characters in a storyline similar to Marvel: Lost Generation.

[3] This idea courtesy of @Pyro (hat-tip!). For those wondering what happens, in Pyro’s own words: “Eventually, Conduit lures Clark to a mock version of Smallville filled with android duplicates of its inhabitants programmed to despise him. Superman and Conduit face off in the football stadium. While the two start on fairly even terms with Conduit's Kryptonite blasts weakening the Man of Steel, Superman's rage eventually overcomes them and he tears off Conduit's armor before readying the final blow...only for Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), and members of the Justice League to arrive with a recently-recovered Lois. She pleads with Clark to spare Conduit's life as the Superman she loves would never take the life of another, [and he spares Conduit] when he realizes how far he's gone. However, just as the two walk away, Conduit breaks loose from the Justice League's restraints and activates a self-destruct in a last-ditch attempt to take out his hated rival for good. Superman shields Lois from the blast, but the Kryptonite radiation saturated his cells and left him temporarily powerless until his body absorbs enough solar radiation to filter out the Kryptonite [ultimately] leading into ‘Reign of the Supermen’ where several new heroes appear in Metropolis to fill the void left by the powerless Superman like Steel, Superboy, and [even] a ‘reformed’ Lex Luthor.”

So do we still get the following characters - Cyborg Superman, Eradicator, Lex Luthor, Jr., and/or Supergirl (Matrix)? If we do get Lex jr. can we keep him as a separate character and an ally of Superman and/or Superboy? Is Superboy still a clone?

[5] While Shooter has adopted a lot of Henson’s lessons on talent management, he’s still Jim Shooter.

Who, if anyone, is the closest OTL equivalent is Shooter Jim?

Big question: Can Liefeld draw feet ITTL?

Doubt it.

Let's hope the dark age's impact has a bit more sticking power ITTL. even if Supes doesn't kill Conduit, It'd be nice to see him be a bit older and a bit more no-nonsense, like in his early Golden Age days when he took on social corruption and was a bit more brutish and pushy

Doubt it but that could provide an interesting direction for a angsty, brooding Superboy.

Also, if you may remember, Robocop has no sequels here ITTL, and in ours they were written by Frank Miller but execs f'd it up

Maybe he can write the sequels as graphic novels.

making him create Sin City to be unadaptable.

Unadaptable how so, the first film seems fairly faithful to the comics to me.

Part of me is kind of disappointed it was a son and wasn’t outright Mayday Parker, especially since there’s already another Ben. Hopefully in the future Mary Jane and Peter will have another kid, a daughter, named May, that way we can still get our future Spider-Girl.

Or you could start a petition to have @Geekhis Khan retcon it as twins.

Does he replace Cyborg-Superman?

It seems more logical for him to replace Eradicator by maybe merging with the Eradicator device

Also speaking about Steel, does the awful Shaquille O'Neal movie still happen?

I hope not.

Also those the marriage plot confirm that Lous and Clark doesn't exist? Since the Death of Superman was only supposed to stall for time until the tv series came around to have them marry.

Who say the show even exists?

I know it's probably a pipe dream, but not having Superman come back to life makes me hopeful that "Comic Book Death" won't be such a phenomenon in this Timeline.

No kidding, maybe will still mean something in comics.

I just hope they can escape the fate of being a comic in a large company and don't have to do pause their storylines for a executive mandated crossover.

Most likely not because I believe Marvel owns them all. Maybe Marvel starts some sort of royalty program where creators get royalties for using their characters but the company still owns them.

He would be perfect to highlight the more satirical aspects of the universe and since Robocop isn't a big franchise maybe Dreed can feel that niche.

I'm up for that. I also like the idea of Peter Weller as Judge Dredd.

I have an idea. What if what happened to The Hulk in 1999's Earth-X actually happened in the main canon a few years earlier? Bruce and the Hulk become semi-separated, symbiotic beings with Bruce becoming a 10-year-old kid and the Hulk being this giant, primal, King Kong esc being protecting him under his sway. Sort of a throwback to that old 70s trope of The Human Kid and his Giant Monster pal you saw in cartoons back in the day.

Only if 10 year old Bruce is still as smart as adult Bruce and the enviable fusion of the two results in a permanent smart Hulk.

For one, editorial mandates and rampant retcons forced DC Comics to reboot the Legion of Super-Heroes so Moore could rewrite them back into greater Superman mythology.

This realization, combined with the Ultra-Humanite's (apparent) suicide, prompt him to leave Earth to explore the galaxy.

You can expand on this by having Superman exploring time instead of the galaxy and retconning all of Superboy's adventures with the Legion as Superman's adventures with the adult Legion.

 

[Neoteros]

Weird question: what happens or will happen to Gen 13 here? From what little I know of it, it's one of those cases where a good premise got fucked by horrible execution and countless stylistic and writer's changes.

 

[nick_crenshaw82]

Weird question: what happens or will happen to Gen 13 here? From what little I know of it, it's one of those cases where a good premise got fucked by horrible execution and countless stylistic and writer's changes.

If Jim Lee is working on X-Men they'll probably be introduced there.

@Geekhis Khan or @Pyro: Something I forgot to ask in my last reply, does Youngblood ITTL replace Liefeld's X-Force?