A few weeks ago, Brian Wilson finally released SMiLE, a project he started with the Beach Boys in 1967. Wilson abandoned the project because he suffered a nervous breakdown, and now -- 37 years later -- he finally finished the project.
The release of SMiLE got me thinking about similar situations in comics. What long-abandoned projects would I like to see?
The most obvious example of this is Miracleman. Alan Moore's groundbreaking run was followed by Neil Gaiman's Golden Age storyline. Gaiman started his Silver Age storyline ... and then it all fell apart (due to Eclipse Comics dying, not a Gaiman nervous breakdown). More than a decade later, it looks like we'll finally be seeing the conclusion of Miracleman ... or so Marvel promises. Time will tell.
Another example is Wolfman and Perez's Titans Graphic Novel Games. Started and abandoned back in the 1980s, when Wolfman and Perez were the creative team on Titans, DC dusted it off and had Perez and Wolfman finish it. It's currently due to be published some time in 2005.
One that never got very far along before it fell apart was Jim Shooter's Last Legion Story. In the late 1990s, Shooter and Levitz were in talks to have Shooter pen this tale. It quickly fell apart -- scuttlebutt was that Mike Carlin still harbored a grudge against Shooter from their Marvel days and killed the project.
So what long-abandoned project would you like to see brought to life?
Posted by Jason Fliegel at October 26, 2004 2:24 PM
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Big Numbers. I haven't read either of the two issues that were released, but more Moore is never bad.
Lost Girls is now set for release through Top Shelf at some point.
I remember seeing some of the possible future stories for Kesel and Grummett's Section Zero series - which only lasted three issues - and those looked fun.
There were a couple of CrossGen series I would have liked to see continue, most notably Negation.
I'd like 1963 to have an ending.
Also, I'd like to know what was up with DMZ in Blood Syndicate.
Big Numbers would be the most direct comparison to SMiLE, since it actually did cause nervous breakdowns...
D'arc Tangent?
And the original ending to the Veitch Swamp Thing run. (Part of that might see the light of day as the trades come out, but I strongly suspect that Veitch had a different resolution to the Arcane subplot in mind and that'll probably never happen. Associated with this, of course, is the Gaiman (and someone else...Morrison?) Swamp Thing run that would have followed it..
Quantum and Woody. [Note to creators: this and Miracleman show why publishing a story from a year or more ahead in your planned future is a major jinx.]
It was Gaiman and Delano who were going to do it, alternating story arcs.
All the various Moore unfinished things would obviously be good (although Avatar will probably get around to them sooner or later - I think their next project is going to be a trade of Alan Moore's Shopping Lists vol 1 June-August 1976. And I'll probably buy it). I'd love to see the end of Supreme, Miracleman, Big Numbers, 1963 and all the rest.
And I wish there was even the slightest possibility of the planned Moore/Bissette/Totelben Cerebus #301, where Cerebus comes back as a zombie...
Incidentally, I'm doing a webcomic about Smile (see the URL above), which anyone interested in both Smile and comics might reasonably be interested in (feel free to delete that bit if you feel it's unreasonable pimping of my own stuff). New page up tonight...
Jeff, don't forget the future jump for Ray AND Black Panther. Of course, those weren't intended to be slotted into issues that would be published, like Q&W #32 was.
A definite ending to the Moore run on Supreme would be pretty nice, but I'd really like to see some sort of definite conclusion to Kirby's OMAC. It ends on such a cliffhanger, since OMAC gets turned back into Buddy Blank, the bad guy's fortress blows up, possibly killing everyone inside, and the final caption is like "Oops, look like everyone died, thanks for buying OMAC!" The King did not deserve to get the Poochie ending!
Well, as long as we're wishing the dead back to life, I'd love to see Gil Kane complete his Blackmark series of graphic novels.
Can this thread also include what aborted story arcs you'd like to have seen done? Because of time and continuity, they have no chance of ever being done - unlike some of the examples provided in the article.
Bob Layton's ARMOR WARS II in Iron Man
John Byrne's IMMORTUS SAGA in Avengers West Coast
Roger Stern's CAPTAIN AMERICA with Byrne
Kirby's SILVER SURFER which from what I hear would have confirmed the Surfer as being created ex nihilo by Galactus, and not be a transformed human-like alien Norrin Radd
Claremont/Byrne's original conclusion to DARK PHOENIX and subsequent stories resulting from it
Priest (then Jim Owsley) and Bright's POWER MAN & IRON FIST
Peter David's plans on the HULK
Steve Englehart's plans on SILVER SURFER
This is more like the "Never can be done now that time has passed" projects like Chris.
"Twilight of the Superheroes"
I've probably said this in Crisis threads on this site a couple of time but...
it would have provided a way to fix the most obvious problems of Crisis without 6 years.
It would have had either John Totleben or Steve Bissette(I'm unsure which) art.
The outline is amazing, if anyone has ever stumbled across it.
The question is, if Twilight had been done, would it have forever entrenched grim and gritty with superheroes. Of course, that is a risk I would take to see Alan Moore's ultimate superhero story (and then maybe he could have just packed up his superhero ideas and moved onto just doing horror/erotica/slice-of-life stories as he intended).
Although I'm not particularly deeply interested in it, I suppose that Busiek's "Look Back in Armor" belongs on this list.
Aagh! Can't believe I forgot about Puma Blues!
(Does Matt Wagner's prose Grendel novel could for this thread, by the way? While on the subject of Matt, there's the Aerialist. Which brings one round to Dark Horse Presents, and thus to Sin City, where Miller's 1940's Sin City tale remains yet untold.)
Also, parts 4-7 of Halo Jones.
How about a Touch of Evil-like "re-editing" of The Hunger Dogs which was closer to Kirby's original intent?
I would get behind the realization of Twilight of the Superheroes, but the subplot about the midget really, really, REALLY creeps me out. (shudder)
I can't *believe* I didn't think of Twilight.
Of course, we've already had something very like that in Kingdom Come (total coincidence *coff*)
As long as we're wishing for Kirby volumes that might have been, why not just go back to the Source and ask for complete NEW GODS, FOREVER PEOPLE, and MISTER MIRACLE runs comprising the Fourth World saga?
And endings to 1963 and the Veitch Swamp Thing would be great. I really, really hope Vertigo is planning to let Veitch run his original ending when the trades reach issue #88.
Most of all, I'd like to see the rejected original ending to JIMMY CORRIGAN, THE SMARTEST KID ON EARTH in which Jimmy shags his adopted stepsister and they go on a five-state killing spree. Damn you, Kim Thompson - damn you to hell.
I forgot two that I would love to have seen brought to more satisfying conclusions (if they had to end at all): Chase and Chronos.
Chase had so much untapped potential left to explore, including (but not limited to the whole "is she a metahuman?" thing, which was outright ignored after the first few issues. It also would've been cool to see more with AcroBat and the Justice Experience. And the series just kind of... ended. On a flashback issue, no less. No sort of conclusion at all there.
The major storyline in Chronos was one of the more elaborate time travel stories I've seen in comics, and it seemed a shame to have it all wrapped up in such a hurry over the space of, like, an issue, with a tacked on "and then I kept on travelling and it was neat" ending.
Sonic Disruptors. Late 80s, Mike Baron on writing, I think, and I don't recall the artist, who was pretty wonky but good. Featured a rock'n'roll rebellion against a future Orwell state.
Canceled after 7 of 12 planned issues due to overwhelming lateness and pro-marijuana stance.
The Conway/Perez JLA/Avengers story. I don't know if it would have been better or worse than the eventual Busiek/Perez one, but I would at least have been younger and less of a curmudgeon.
I want to find out what happened to Quantum and Woody.
Okay, no, not really. What I would like is for the various people involved in Valiant comics to get a chance to end their universe properly instead of being rebooted because Acclaim decided to throw money at the problem instead of trying to retrench once the collector's market fell out. I didn't mind the new creative teams coming in so much as I minded the corporate mandate to create 'products that can be mined for other media' which really stripped Valiant of all the interesting bits.
Greg sez: The Conway/Perez JLA/Avengers story. I don't know if it would have been better or worse than the eventual Busiek/Perez one
I think you do.
but I would at least have been younger and less of a curmudgeon.
This is true.
I also suspect it would have aimed squarely at that younger audience (while still catering to longtime fans in the grand Bronze Age style) and succeeded in reaching them, as opposed to aiming exclusively for aging fans who'd been waiting twenty years for the story and vastly overshooting its mark.
Mine's a little more off-beat. There was an indie comic in 1994-5 called Cygnus X-1 that ran for threee issues before the writer/artist Malachi Penney ran out of money. I've always wanted to go back, throw a wad of cash in his lap, and say, "Keep going, dammit!"
Nathan's post reminded me how much I enjoyed Rob Walton's Ragmop. I wish that were still around or, failing that, Walton had been given the time to bring it to a satisfying conclusion.
I would love to see All-Star Squadron pick up where it left off and forge on to the hellish end of WW2...
Also, Englehart/Colan's aborted Doctor Strange Saga...
Dave
Not to mention Neil Gaiman's proposed abortionist Dr. Strange project ("how DID Stepehn Strange get the money to travel to Tibet?), even if it is too much like subpar gritty superhero for my liking.
Rather than Byrne's Immortus saga in AWC, I'd rather not seen Byrne there at all. "Let's trash all of Steve Englehart's accomplishments with the Vision and the Scarlet Witch! DeFalco would approve!"
I'd love to see the original JLA/Avengers, as that was at a time when you still had the _classic_ versions of both teams, not the re-re-rebooted ghosts wandering around today. Also less of a let's throw everybody in attitude and Busiekian sucking up.
Kirby's _The Prisoner_
Topps comics making a success of the Kirbyverse.
Eclipse not going bankrupt and keeping publishing Airboy and related titles.
The same for First and Grimjack, Sable and American Flagg!, but with the original creators.
Martin, you do know Grimjack is already on it way back with the original creators, right?
Anything by Priest.
The difficulty here is that the golden age of comics is 12. I'm 35. I think DKR is a classic. I was 15 when it came out. We are vulnerable to the judgment of the current generation when they look back in twenty years.
The difficulty here is that the golden age of comics is 12. I'm 35. I think DKR is a classic. I was 15 when it came out. We are vulnerable to the judgment of the current generation when they look back in twenty years.
I very much agree. I mean, I know people who consider the Claremont X-Men "those wierd new characters".
ClanDestine by Alan Davis. He was booted off his own title at issue 8, then came back ("They backed a truckload of money up to my house--I'm not made of stone") for a two-issue X-Men crossover, and scored a collection out of it.
I would cheerfully have kept reading that series for some time.