What Could Have Been/Comic Books: Difference between revisions

** Similarly, Venom was intended to be killed off in issue 400 (he first appeared in issue 300), so the symbiote could move on to other characters, like J. Jonah Jameson. It was swiftly killed when Venom gained popularity.

** Marvel at the time, also felt that readers would not view a woman as a physical threat to Spidey, and in turn became something of a [[Self-Fulfilling Prophecy]] in that Spidey doesn't have many memorable female villains.

* [[Chris Claremont]], for [[Kudzu Plot|fairly obvious reasons]], is responsible for a ton of these in ''[[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]]''. For example, Mr. Sinister was originally supposed to be the psychic projection of a kid who started stalking Scott Summers when they were both in an orphanage together. The fact that he was the invention of a child was the explanation for his (frankly) ridiculous name, and his entire look. Gambit, meanwhile was supposed to be Claremont's [[Take That]] response on ''New Teen Titans'' villain Terra, as far as being a spy Mr. Sinister hired to infiltrate the X-Men, right down to seducing Storm to get the X-Men leader's confidence. He also planned on sacrificing the Alan Moore-created villain the Fury to further build up Nimrod as a major villain (with Nimrod, not Mister Sinister and the Marauders, being responsible for the mutant massacre) and the notion of a lengthy plotline where Wolverine is turned into the brainwashed minion of "The Hand" (this actually happened, only the Hand teamed up with HYDRA at the time), kidnapping Jean Grey to become his "Queen of the Night", leading to Forge and Banshee having to rescue Jean.

** To be fair, sometimes [[Executive Meddling]] is responsible, and sometimes he's assigned to a different book and the author that replaces him decides to go a different way.

*** Which still counts as [[Executive Meddling]], anyway...

*** The "Dark Wolverine" story was later repitched as the opening storyline for the 1991 X-Men series: rather than fighting Magneto and the Acolytes, the X-Men would fight the Reavers, of which Lady Deathstrike would kill Wolverine via ripping out his heart. But the Hand (revealed to be in league with the Shadow King) would obtain Wolverine's corpse and recreate his heart/resurrect him as an agent and have him reappear in ''Uncanny X-Men'' #294, as part of the rematch between the X-Men and the Shadow King and his army of minions, as the Shadow King (via Gateway) seeks to gain control over everyone's dreams.

*** Selene was there because she was the leader of the Upstarts, Lee's replacement for the Hellfire Club. Unfortunately, Selene was put on a bus when Lee left Marvel, as far as Bob Harras and Fabian Niceza deciding to use Gamemaster instead as the Big Bad.

* Wolverine was originally going to be revealed as not a human mutant, but an [[Humanoid Animals|actual wolverine that was mutated into humanoid form]]. When another writer attempted this with Spider-Woman and the plot point was rejected, the writer decided not to go with the mutated wolverine bit.

** That's not all. The second Silk Spectre was going to be a teenage runaway simply named Silk, the world would actually be [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future]], with no disease and easy genetic modification. Antarctica was going to be a huge resort for the rich and wealthy, an idea which ended up trickling down to ultimately being ''only'' Ozymandias' lair.

* Gerard Jones' version of ''[[Green Lantern]]: Emerald Twilight''. Basically, the Zamarons (the female gladiator counterparts to the Guardians of the Universe) were supposed to take over the Green Lantern Corps, reinstate super-villain and renegade Green Lantern Sinestro as head of the Corps, and do away with all of the established weakness of the power rings (mainly the yellow impurity and 24-hour charge). Hal Jordan would then go renegade, but not in a crazy mass murderer sort of way, but in an [[Only Sane Man]] manner as far as going "rogue" rather than take orders from his arch-nemesis and a bunch of crazy war mongering space amazons. Apparently, DC editorial hated the scenario (largely because it required people knowing who the Zamarons were), so Jones resigned from the title, and Paul Levitz, Mike Carlin, Denny O'Neil, and Archie Goodwin wrote a new plot based on Jones' script, and gave it to Jones' successor, Ron Marz, to write. The result is the ''Emerald Twilight'' that was published currently.

* The [[Spider-Man|Green Goblin]] was originally intended by [[Stan Lee]] to be an [[Sealed Evil in a Can|actual demonic goblin-thing released from an Egyptian sarcophagus]]. Steve Ditko apparently convinced him that a human psychopath in a costume fit the tone of the Spidey series better. This idea was used in the Ultimate Universe, where that universe's Norman Osborn mutates into an actual goblin due to an experiment.

** Ditko allegedly didn't intend for the Goblin to be Norman Osborn, though; that was Stan Lee's idea. Ditko objected vehemently, and Lee won the argument by virtue of being editor. This was rumor to be the last in a long series of arguments the two of them had over Spidey's direction; allegedly, Ditko considered this one to be the final straw, and he quit Marvel. However, more recently Ditko stated that their falling out had nothing to do with the Green Goblin's identity, and claimed that they'd both agreed that Norman should be the Goblin from the start.

** Some rumors state that Ned Leeds was Steve Ditko's choice for the Green Goblin, backed up by the fact that near the end of Ditko's run, Ned Leeds and Peter had a very antagonistic relationship where they patched things up as soon as Romita took over. Ned was later framed for being the Hobgoblin, making him Marvel's go-to guy for not quite-goblins.

* Due to [[Executive Meddling]], the grand finale to Simon Furman's long-in-the-making saga for IDW's ''[[Transformers]]'' comic series was cut from 12 issues down to 4. Readers therefore missed out on epic battles featuring big bruisers like [[Person of Mass Destruction|Sixshot]] and [[Combining Mecha|Monstructor]], while the long-awaited confrontation between Optimus Prime and Nemesis Prime was reduced to a poorly-explained affair that lasted around three pages. It also resulted in many storylines and character arcs being shortened or even ruined. One character arc involved Sideswipe trying to get to Earth in order to save his brother Sunstreaker who had been kidnapped. The original ending had them being reunited and Sideswipe learning an important lesson, the new ending completely erases any potential brotherly relations between the two and Sideswipe learning the lesson that he [[Family-Unfriendly Aesop|dosen't give two craps about his brother or any suffering he experiences]]. One wonders just how much action readers missed out on by the story being reduced to a third of its planned length.

* Siegel and Shuster conceived of two early versions of [[Superman]] before the famous one. The first was an ordinary man who gained mind control powers in an experiment and became a supervillain until his powers faded (too bad he killed the scientist who gave them to him in the first place) though this was a One Shot. The second version was a nonpowered colorfully attired strongman who went around beating up bullies. This second version eventually became the then mildly popular Slam Bradley (who didn't wear a costume, but otherwise looked a lot like Superman). In this case, [[Executive Meddling]] worked for the better, forcing the creative team to create the third wildly popular version of the character and define an entire genre of fiction.

* [[Alan Moore]]'s [http://www.hoboes.com/Comics/Twilight/ Twilight of the Super Heroes.]

* [[Gail Simone]]'s [http://forums.comicbookresources.com/showthread.php?t=130350 original proposition] for the Cassandra [[Batgirl]] was to have her rescue a sincerely faithful Christian preacher to Gotham's homeless population from a mugging and be converted by his sincere, strong faith in forgiveness and the teachings of the Bible. Taking up a new, white-colored costume, and devoting herself to the most vulnerable of Gotham's residents -- the mentally ill, the homeless, runaways and immigrants -- she would become known as the Angel of the Bat and, for the first time ever, would be genuinely happy.

* When [[J. Michael Straczynski]] thought up his ridiculously controversial ''Sins Past'' storyline {{spoiler|(which revealed that [[The Gwen Stacy|Gwen Stacy]] had had a child with Norman Osborn}}, he planned for Peter Parker to be {{spoiler|the child's father}}, but Joe Quesada, the EIC of Marvel, [[Executive Meddling|felt that]] this would [[Comic Book Time|age the character]] too much. <ref> Much more acceptable would be to turn one of the most innocent characters in the history of comics into a cheater, thereby tainting the most fondly remembered relationship in comics.</ref>

** The "Anonymous" storyline was originally supposed to reveal that the one acting as Anonymous was actually the original Robotnik (the one killed off in issue #50), but the plan fell through.

** Oh, and the alien Knuckles was supposed to fight in the prophecy? It was supposed to be a man named Dr. Ian Droid, the bad guy who appeared when Sonic teamed up with the [[Image Comics]] characters.

* Another [[Spider-Man]] example, and possibly the best-known; [[The Gwen Stacy|Gwen Stacy]]. Stan Lee has said several times that he originally intended Gwen to be Peter's one-and-only, and that MJ was created only as [[Romantic False Lead|competition]] for Gwen. However, for several reasons too numerous (and controversial) to name here, the writer who succeeded Stan, Gerry Conway, wrote the now iconic comic ''The Night Gwen Stacy Died'' while Stan was away. Many fans still wonder what might have been had Gwen Stacy survived.

** Too numerous? The only reason I've heard was that the only direction the creative team felt that Gwen and Peter could go was to get married, and they didn't want to marry off their protagonist just yet. So they instead killed her. If there are other complex reasons, I would like to hear them.

** The "New 52" reboot ended other stories before they could start. For instance, the finale of the ''Titans'' series hinted at Red Arrow and Jericho rebuilding the team... only for the title to end and an entirely new continuity to start the next month.

*** This also happened in a "dream vision" manner at the end of Stephanie Brown's run as Batgirl. Thanks to Black Mercy, she got a vision of a possible future (which the author wrote as ideas he had for the title if it continued). Everyone agrees, they would have been awesome.

* Hulkling of the [[Young Avengers]] was originally pitched as [[Gender Bender|a girl who posed as a guy when fighting crime;]] Wiccan was going to [[Gayngst|struggle with the fact that his love interest was sometimes male.]] It's been speculated that creator Allen Heinberg thought this was as close as Marvel would let him get to putting an openly gay couple on the team. Eventually he had a change of heart and asked for permission to make Hulkling 100% male.

** On the other hand, Brian Bendis and Tom Brevoort's steadfast refusal to allow Heinberg to outright overturn Avengers Disassembled via bringing back Scott Lang as Ant Man and redeeming Wanda is why Heinburg bailed upon the title after the first 12 issues. Story notes however, such as Heinberg's plans for a rookie villain version of the original Masters of Evil led by an android version of Egghead were ultimately written by other writers, and the ''Children's Crusade'' miniseries seems to have accomplished the goal of resurrecting Ant-Man and bringing Wanda back.

* The Red Circle: The original plan was that JMS was going to debut them in the pages of ''[[The Brave and the Bold]]'' in their original forms and team them with DC's big names. But apparently DC felt that the spots on ''The Brave and the Bold'' would be better served with the [[Milestone Comics]] heroes instead, so DC and JMS did four one-shots reviving some of them (mostly radically altered) before launching The Shield and The Web into their own titles (with the other two heroes introduced in the one-shots in back-up stories: Inferno and Hangman, respectively). The books lasted 10 issues each, but not before DC publishing a Mighty Crusaders Special at the same month as the ninth issues of the two books! The only major appearance of any of the Red Circle guys in another DC book was when the Shield showed up in two issues of Magog. Currently, they are publishing a Mighty Crusaders six-issue mini-series in order to try to wrap up all loose ends that the earlier Red Circle book had left behind!

* According to James Fry, if Marvel had approved of more ''Slapstick'' stories after ''[[The Awesome Slapstick]]'', his Rogue's Gallery would have included established Marvel villains such as The Toad Men and the poultry-based team-up of [[Super Zeroes|The Black Talon, Gamecock, and Bantam]] -- revealing them to be [[Sibling Rivalry|rival siblings]] in a battle that would have ended with all the heroes doubled over with laughter at their expense...

* Dave Stevens sketched and scripted a three issue [[The Rocketeer (comics)|The Rocketeer]]/[[Superman]] [http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=29312 mini] that never saw the light of day. It would have been set in [[The Thirties]] on the day of [[Orson Welles]]' infamous ''[[War of the Worlds]]'' broadcast.

* Heroic Publishing, around 2006 or 2007, was trying to get people interested in [[Fantastic Girl]], a planned multi-media sensation who would diversify their line-up by being a [[Token Black]] heroine that would appeal to the old-school Blaxploitation fans. Fan reaction who totally negative, due to the limited info of her seemed to establish her as an [[Ethnic Counterpart]] of their [[Flare]] character, and as a result the character was quietly dropped!

** [[Fantastic Girl]] has just been [[Saved From Development Hell]], and is scheduled to debut as the back-up feature in ''[[Heroic Spotlight]]'' #10, slated for release in September 2012.

* Another [[Heroic Publishing]] example: [[Eternity Smith]] was considered for Eclipse's line of 16-Page 50-cent bi-weekly comics, but creator Dennis Mallonee declined. DC was also interested in it, but Mallonee took the book to Renegade Press for five issues before becoming part of Heroic Publishing!

* More Heroic Publishing info: [[Icicle]] got her solo title by accident: Heroic was planning to use League of Champions as an anthology book for most of their characters, but [[George Perez]] was interested in doing the book, so they slapped together Icicle on short notice!

** It's interesting how close this came to happening. Dan Didio handed the death down as an editorial mandate, but [[Geoff Johns]] flat-out refused to kill Dick Grayson off (seeing as he is one of the longest-existing comic book characters in American comics). Superboy was eventually killed off instead (and he got resurrected later on).

* [[Paul Dini]] wrote a Zatanna Prestige Format one-shot for Vertigo, which sold out in a short time. Vertigo had plans for a miniseries and eventually a series. Then, Grant Morrison got the bid for Seven Soldiers and snatched Zatanna away...

* [[Captain America (comics)]]'s original name was 'Super-American'.

* There was supposed to be a legitimate prequel series to Watchmen, The Minutemen, which would have been of equal length and created by Alan Moore and David Gibbons. Moore's falling out with DC ended the prospects of this. Stranger still, going by comments made by Gibbons and Moore at the time, the tone would have been very different, attempting to recreate Golden Age comics as realistically as possible (if not an actual [[Reconstruction]]). This would have had far-reaching effects, since imitation of Watchmen's style was responsible for some of the worst excesses of the Dark Age of Comics.

* ''[[Marvel 2099]]'' was originally planned to have kept going after a certain point, being rebranded ''Marvel 2101'' and featuring many of the characters living in the Savage Land after a great disaster.

* When Alan Grant wrote the first issue of Batman introducing Anarky, it was shortly after the death of Jason Todd, and he planned for Anarky to become the next Robin, plans to introduce Time Drake were in the works, but Grant didn't know that until he pitched his idea to DC. Of course, YMMV on whether having Anarky as Robin would have been better or worse, but it would certainly have been different.

* Giant Sized X-Men #1 gives the impression that right before the original X-Men series got canceled, both Havok and Polaris were active members of the X-Men. However if you go back and read those issues (along with the X-Men's guest appearances while the comic was in reprints) you'll see that they never actually went out with the rest of the X-Men on missions. Which is unfortunate, since this is one of the few things that could've made the Thomas-Adams era even better.

* [[Alex Ross]] came up with a mini-series idea called ''Batboy'', who would have focused on the son of Bruce Wayne and his ally, Superman, Jr. Most of the original heroes would have been retired save [[Green Lantern]] Hal Jordan with the [[Teen Titans]] becoming the [[Justice League]]. As the story progressed, Batboy would realize his world was ''too'' perfect before learning the truth - this was Hal Jordan's perfect Earth from ''[[Zero Hour]]''!