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Post by MWGallaher on Aug 15, 2017 19:36:43 GMT -5
One of the things that's long fascinated me are comics in which a creator turned a rejected pitch for one character into a new, different feature. It's fun to look for the original "DNA" and to imagine how the concept might have been executed if the original plans had not fallen through. For example, Steve Gerber's Void Indigo :  An unfortunately aborted concept that was just a few years ahead of its time, this story of an alien who was a reincarnated earthling exacting brutal vengeance on his also-reincarnated enemies was critically panned. I remember that CBG's Don Thompson was especially harsh, not being able to tolerate the idea of this "hero" killing off his enemies without a fair trial. Before it launched, Gerber revealed that the series had originated as a pitch for a revival of a then-moribund character for DC. He didn't say which one, but I had a good guess:  Seemed like J'onn J'onnzz would have been a good fit: similar look, with a change from green to red, and also bald, if to a greater degree. But no, later Gerber revealed he had intended this premise to be applied to Hawkman:  OK, I could see that, too, with the additional factor of combining the Earth-2 Hawkman's reincarnation gimmick into the mix, as well as incorporating the Silver Age Hawkman's tendency to use ancient weaponry. Given the controversy at the time, DC was probably smart not to let Steve do this to Katar Hol. I'd have been keen to see it, but I don't think I'd have traded it for Tony Isabella's eventual take on the character. I've got another, much more obscure example at hand, but is anyone else aware of other cases like this one? |
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Post by berkley on Aug 15, 2017 19:46:26 GMT -5
Nothing comes to mind at the moment, but I loved Void Indigo and I'm very glad Gerber did it as a new, independent character rather than as Hawkman or any other existing character. I only wish he'd been able to continue building it into a complete epic with beginning, middle, and end.
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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 15, 2017 20:13:15 GMT -5
Well, Larry Hama pitched an idea for a new SHIELD series that was turned down. It got dusted off and turned into GI JOE, giving it a longer lifespan than any SHIELD comic ever had.
Mike Grell took his failed newspaper strip pitch, the Savage Empire and retooled it into Warlord, at DC. The original was about an archeologist who ended up in a savage world and the archeologist morphed into an Air Force SR71 pilot who crash lands into this lost world. He also retooled a private eye series, called Iron Mike, into Jon Sable. The original was more of a Mike Hammer thing; the latter was a mixture of Hammer, james Bond and more.
Dave Cockrum turned his Outsiders idea (a planed spinoff of the Legion of Superheroes) into (partially) his designs for the new X-Men. Other elements of his idea turned up in his Futurians.
Most famously, Jerry Siegel turned his Rein of the Supermen, about a scientific villain, into Superman, a wish fulfillment hero.
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Post by kirby101 on Aug 15, 2017 20:15:28 GMT -5
The biggest ever no doubt was;  Based on the Charleton comic characters. |
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Post by coinilius on Aug 15, 2017 21:12:48 GMT -5
Youngblood was a reworking of a Titans pitch that Rob had worked on as well.
I echo the statements about Hawkman - while that would have been interesting, the Tony Issabella run is a favourite of mine and Katar Hol Hawkman had enough problems with what was done with him later (Hawkworld) - better to develop that idea as an original property.
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Post by chadwilliam on Aug 16, 2017 0:43:16 GMT -5
Jim Starlin and Bernie Wrightson offered to do a sequel to Batman: The Cult for DC but was told that the company wasn't interested. Not sure why, since The Cult was a hit, but Starlin and Wrightson took it to Marvel where it became Punisher: POV. The Cult seemed to be a pretty closed book by the end of issue four so I'm not sure how a sequel could have even worked, but I would have loved to have read their pitch at the very least.
J.M. DeMatteis wanted to do Kraven's Last Hunt at DC as a Batman/Joker story but was turned down. He eventually did his original story (or something approaching it) as a five-part Legends of the Dark Knight story penciled by Joe Staton.
The Mysterious Doctor Satan film serial was intended as a Superman project for Republic, but the rights to the Man of Steel were tied up so it became a Copperhead feature instead.
Similarly, the Captain America serial was apparently intended to star another superhero (perhaps even serve as a sequel to The Mysterious Doctor Satan), but was reworked into a Cap program instead.
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Post by coinilius on Aug 16, 2017 5:05:04 GMT -5
Some more:
Frank Miller's Holy Terror was originally Holy Terror, Batman!
The Rob Lefield Fighting American was originally made using left over material from Heroes Reborn Captaon America.
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Post by Icctrombone on Aug 16, 2017 6:28:04 GMT -5
I remember reading in the letters pages that a Harlan Ellison Story that was rejected by DC was used in Avengers # 101.
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Post by chaykinstevens on Aug 16, 2017 15:39:31 GMT -5
J.M. DeMatteis wanted to do Kraven's Last Hunt at DC as a Batman/Joker story but was turned down. DeMatteis had previously pitched the story to Marvel with Wonder Man and the Grim Reaper. link |
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Post by MDG on Aug 16, 2017 16:09:30 GMT -5
A rejected proposal for Ditko's the Odd Man at DC became "T.O.M. Foolery" in Negative Burn at Caliber Comics.
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Post by chaykinstevens on Aug 16, 2017 16:40:19 GMT -5
Mark Millar's rejected pitch for Secret Society of Super-Villains became Wanted.
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Post by chadwilliam on Aug 16, 2017 23:41:51 GMT -5
J.M. DeMatteis wanted to do Kraven's Last Hunt at DC as a Batman/Joker story but was turned down. DeMatteis had previously pitched the story to Marvel with Wonder Man and the Grim Reaper. linkThat's a great link with a number of fascinating details I would never have guessed but make perfect sense. A Hugo Strange Last Hunt storyline would have been great but then again, so was the Kraven storyline (which apparently wouldn't have used Kraven had he not been Russian). |
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Post by Jesse on Aug 17, 2017 13:20:15 GMT -5
I read Gerber's Void Indigo a couple of years ago and remember enjoying it.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 17, 2017 21:01:33 GMT -5
Anyone mention Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers taking their plans for the Madame Xanadu series that got cancelled underneath them after 1 issue and putting them out as Scorpio Rose at Eclipse? Not quite a rejected pitch, but along the same lines of salvaging something and using it elsewhere.
-M
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Post by mikelmidnight on Aug 18, 2017 12:06:27 GMT -5
For that matter, their original strip featuring the Foozle was a rejected Superman/Creeper story for DC COMICS PRESENTS.
Englehart had originally planned to publish his abandoned StarLord series as another character as well, but sadly it never appeared.
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