10 Alternate Universe Characters That Were Better Than The Original

€œWhat If?€ seems to be the favourite question of writers everywhere, particularly if they are writing science fiction. Good writers are always trying to create something new and innovative, and that often means altering their characters or putting them in different situations. While taking characters in new directions is sometimes necessary to keep a television show or comic book exciting, the older a character or franchise is, the harder this becomes. It€™s increasingly difficult to find new situations for characters to explore when they€™ve been around for fifty or sixty years already. Getting a character to do something new or act in a different way also becomes a challenge if this goes against the way they normally behave. The easiest ways for writers get around this problem is to introduce an alternate universe.

In many cases, an alternate universe is created as a means of putting a character in a foreign situation or setting to see how they react. In others, it€™s a way of showing how those characters would be different if you changed specific aspects of their history. Using an alternate universe means that changes don't need to be permanent if they prove unpopular. It also gives writers as much of a blank slate as they need by allowing them to provide as little information as they want and relying on an audience€™s knowledge of the characters€™ backstory to do the rest.

In some cases, though, writers manage to create a character in an alternate universe who proves to be more popular than their mainstream counterpart. It could be that the new character is more realistic or more relatable for the audience. Perhaps they€™re more confident and proactive than the original. Perhaps they breathed new life into a character idea that had otherwise grown stale. We€™ve put together a list of ten characters from alternate universes that are the superior of their mainstream counterparts.