10 Fascinating Comic Moments That Almost Happened
A look at some real-life alternate continuity.
One of the most prevalent ideas in comics is that of alternate worlds, entirely different continuities built around the concept of exploring "what if" scenarios for our favourite heroes. Entire series have sprung out of questions like "What if Superman turned evil?" or "What if Spider-Man had a daughter?" - Marvel even used to have an entire series of "What If?" comics to showcase how iconic moments could have gone differently.
However, sometimes these "What If?" scenarios apply to comics themselves in real life. Comics are a multi-million pound industry and thousands of decisions are made every day on characters and plot points, with changes often being made at the very last minute. At the time, some of these decisions may not seem important but, with hindsight, we can look back and realise the full impact they had on their respective series and the comic's industry as a whole.
This is a list of those times, those last minute changes that altered huge moments in comic book history. Some are things that would have completely rewritten famous characters, while others are instances where the events leading up to the change itself are fascinating.
Either way, they're all an incredible peek into comics that almost happened.
10. Captain Atom Was Almost A Supervillain
'Armageddon 2001' was a 1991 DC event based around the entire concept of "What If?"
In the year 2001, one of DC's heroes went insane. Donning a suit of power armour and dubbing themselves 'Monarch', they killed all the other heroes and took over the world. The only one left was the time-travelling Waverider, who went back to 1991 to discover who Monarch really was.
The story played out across annuals for each series, with each adhering to the same basic plot. Waverider would appear and use his powers to see a potential future for each character (including Superman as President and Flash as a father).
Over the course of Waverider's investigation, various clues pointed to Monarch being the nuclear-powered hero Captain Atom. That's because he was who DC intended to be the one behind the helmet. However, just before the final issue was released, the ending was leaked. DC desperately scrambled to write a new ending, and changed Monarch's identity to the superhero Hawk, of the crime-fighting couple Hawk and Dove.
The only slight problem was that the Hawk and Dove annual had already come out and showed Hawk dying in battle against Monarch. To put it into perspective, out of every single hero in the DC Universe, they chose to make Monarch the only hero it couldn't possibly be.
Monarch was set to be one of the biggest villains of the DC Universe and it's interesting to think about how popular he could have been if DC hadn't completely screwed up his origin story.