Back in the early nineties DC looked forward to the far-off future with their big crossover event Armageddon 2001, where a scientists was sent back from an even more far-flung time period fifty years hence where the world was a dystopian graveyard, every superhero seemingly slain by a mad tyrant whose identity he couldn't quite remember... The big hook of the miniseries was that the villain in question was going to turn out to be a major DC hero, somehow twisted by circumstance into a force for evil rather than good. It was all framed as a mystery, and all the clues added up to the future bad guy Monarch being none other than the virtuous Captain Atom! What a shock! What a twist of fate! Except that they changed the ending at the last minute so the second-stringer Hawk was the one destined to become Monarch. That's because the original reveal was, depending on who you ask, either leaked to internet message boards or through an early solicitation. Fans already knew the big twist, so DC changed it. And readers hated it because it made no sense. Woops.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
