For a while, I thought of a timeline where Bill Jemas had chosen Kevin Smith as EIC instead of Joe Quesada (which led to him remained as editor of Marvel Knights imprint). And while it may halt his directing career for the time being, it might give a different look at how Marvel Comics getting passed its Chapter 11 bankruptcy stage with anything else on the way.
Here's a rough outline of ideas from Kevin, Marvel and anything else...
Marvel Comics
Ultimate Marvel: The imprint still exists but finished its run in 2009 with 12-issue maxi-series
Ultimatum (that's co-written by Jeph Loeb and Warren Ellis) and gave a brief "happy" ending to the continuity (up until its re-appearance in 2010 mini-series,
Bullet Point).
U-Decide: Still happened but with the inclusion Kevin Smith's
Daredevil: The Target (which never went to hiatus following the first issue) Joe Quesada's
Ash (whom the character emigrated to Marvel continuity) and Grant Morrison's
Marvel Boy II: The Rebirth Of Mar-Vell instead of Captain Marvel, Marville and Ultimate Adventures. The competition ended with Grant Morrison winning and led to an ongoing called
Marvel Corps.
Wolverine/Origin: The mini-series is still released but with the added inclusion of Sabretooth as his long-lost half-brother. Also, Wolverine's son Daken never existed (but X-23 is still a clone and later Logan's adopted daughter).
One More Day: Never happened. Instead, it got replaced by
Bullet Point which focused on Peter Parker trapped in an alternate timeline he caused thanks to his "wish" towards Mephisto that Uncle Ben never got shot. During that, he encountered the heroes of Ultimate Marvel Universe and New Universe.
The series then controversially ended with Marvel Universe returned but tweaked with the merging of New Universe that led to
Brave New Marvel storyline (still ongoing at this time of writing).
Marvel Movies: Bryan Singer directed the three X-Men movies to date (with directing
Wolverine: The Origin movies), Sam Raimi only direct the first two Spider-Man movies before being replaced by David S. Goyer (even after the disaster that is
Blade: Trinity), Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise still exists but with few differences...
- Joaquin Phoenix replaced Edward Norton as The Hulk instead of Mark Ruffalo.
- Terrence Howard remained as Jim Rhodes for Iron Man sequels.
- Jon Favreau directed the third Iron Man movie.
- Brian Kirk directed Thor sequel (titled Thor: Ragnarok).
- George Nolfi picked as director for Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
- Clark Gregg's character Phil Coulson survived during The Avengers. Instead, Nick Fury "died" on the movie (but is actually a life model decoy secretly invented by Tony Stark).
Besides anything else,
Man-Thing did hit the cinemas instead of being dumped to direct-to-television and flopped hard as a result.
Kevin Smith
His Work As Editor-In-Chief: Like OTL with Joe Quesada, he ended his work in 2011 and went back to directing with the long-awaited
Jay And Silent Bob Strikes Back movie released in 2012. He's also scheduled to direct
Mallrats II: Die Hard In A Mall.
Jay And Silent Bob's Secret Stash: The store in Red Bank, New Jersey is the one that closed down in 2007 instead of the store in Westwood, New Jersey. It still led to
Comic Book Men reality series as hosted by Jason Mewes but canned after one season (its podcast counterpart
The Secret Stash is still ongoing though).
Degrassi: The Next Generation: Kevin Smith still guest-starred in the show but in a different storyline entitled "The Kids In New York" with the cast visiting Marvel Comics offices.
Die Hard: Kevin Smith never appeared in fourth movie which is titled
Die Hard: ReLoaded. The movie never gotten a PG-13 rating and became a more successful hit in TTL with the following two movies coming - but with the fifth taking place in Japan and the sixth in Russia instead of the other way around.
Jennifer Schwalbach Smith: Returned to USA Today in 2001 but as entertainment reporter before she's appointed by Larry Kramer as editor-in-chief in July 2012.
Other companies/franchises
DC Comics: With
Bullet Point released by Marvel, there's no
Flashpoint and
The New 52 involved. Instead, it got replaced by
Wild Skies with DC heroes battling against The Authority and other WildStorm heroes and with their core universes remained intact.
Also, Bruce Wayne is still "dead" in current DC continuity after the events of
Final Crisis but there are plans for his return later this year.
Image Comics: Rob Liefeld returned to the company after the closing of Awesome Entertainment in 2000 instead of going to Marvel Comics. With that, Marc Silvestri is appointed as published instead of Erik Larsen.
Also, Invincible and The Walking Dead is published by Dark Horse instead of Image (while The Walking Dead television series still airing but more faithful to the original source meaning ie. no mention of The Dixon Brothers).
Star Trek:
Enterprise still got cancelled in the fourth season but abruptly after the airing of
In A Mirror, Darkly Part 1.
For the remaining episodes...
- In A Mirror Darkly Part 2 debuted on fourth season DVD.
- The two-parter Demons and Terra Prime compiled itself into a telemovie entitled Star Trek: The Terror Of Terra Prime.
- The final episode These Are The Voyages... only appeared as near-complete bootleg workprint.
Doctor Who: Still happened but with Christopher Eccleston remaining in the series for second series before he got replaced by John Simm as the tenth doctor and Sean Pertwee as the eleventh doctor. Also, Catherine Tate is cast as River Pond while Alex Kingston played an incarnation of Rani. Benedict Cumberbatch also appeared as The Master.
That's all I can think of for the moment (I'll get to more shortly). If anybody has good additions to this and anything else, go ahead and drop a line.