Making comics can be a temperamental exercise. Cancellations are rife, even after a given issue makes it to stands, and that's without even mentioning the prospect of delays, creative shake-ups and editorial changes doing the rounds too.
It's like any other creative industry, and that means that sometimes projects can get cancelled before they've even hit the stands. It's a frustratingly common occurrence, and the most frustrating thing about it is that a lot of these ideas sound incredible. Like, why would Marvel turn down the prospect of an Alex Ross-fronted Fantastic Four comic? Or DC with a Grant Morrison and Jim Lee-helmed Wildcats reboot? The mind boggles.
Making these cancellations even more bittersweet is the fact they're often extensively documented and easily disseminated across the web. Concepts for revamps, re-jigs and just new creative teams have all been dissected almost as much as finished material, but there are some that stick out more than others.
So, spanning across the Big Two (DC and Marvel), here are the cancelled story-arcs, concepts and uncompleted comics that continue to make readers contemplate what could've been...
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
