So... Caeser?But shouldn't the PLANET OF THE APES version of Tarzan be an ape raised by a tribe of wild humans?
Tarzan on The Planet of the Apes comic book crossover from Boom! Studios and Dark Horse
- Thread starter JD
- Start date
Asked in all seriousness and genuine curiosity: what's the difference?
"What If" is generally a Marvel thing, based on the idea of the alternate universe-- some little detail happened differently, like the Fantastic Four getting different powers or a different person being bitten by a radioactive spider, and the story proceeds from there. But it always diverges from existing continuity. "Elsewords," by contrast, is a DC thing, derived from the "Imaginary Stories" of the 60s, wherein a character or situation is completely reimagined-- such as Superman and Luthor being brothers or Wonder Woman being born on Krypton, or some other crazy thing that is totally divorced from the original premise.
Ah, okay, thanks.
No problem.
RJDiogenes said:
Not necessarily. Some Elseworlds titles are based on "What If?" ideas, like Batman: In Darkest Knight (what if Abin Sur's Green Lantern ring had chosen Bruce Wayne?) or JLA: Act of God (what if all superbeings lost their powers?). There's a whole subgenre of Elseworlds tales imagining alternate fates for baby Kal-El's rocket -- what if it landed in the USSR, what if it landed in England (co-written by John Cleese), what if it was found by Thomas and Martha Wayne, what if it landed on Apokolips, etc.
For that matter, most of the classic DC Imaginary Stories were different from What If...? only in being about the future rather than alternate pasts -- e.g. what if Superman married Lois and they had kids, what if Lois got superpowers, what if Luthor killed Superman, what if Superman were split into two copies and one married Lois and the other married Lana and they had super-kids, etc.? Often weird, yes, but extrapolating from the existing status quo rather than the kind of complete reinventions that Elseworlds often did.