Which question? Well, that depends on your choice of unknown.
As we all know, comic books are full of loose ends. Plots that never got resolved because the creative team changed. Subplots that got forgotten. There was a running subplot in the Bronze Age Superman books about a superspy in Galaxy Communications, for instance; whoever it was, they never got around to unmasking. There are also books that wound up canceled before the end of a story arc, like the original run of Metamorpho.
Comics are also full of stories where the story changed mid-way through because of a fresh idea or an editorial command, such as Stan Lee having Jack Kirby rewrite the end of Adam Warlock’s first appearance.
Between fanzine interviews and internet discussions, we know a lot of answers to “how it would have turned out if I’d gotten my way/the series had run longer.” We don’t know all of them. So my question is, what unresolved comics story would you like the answer to? I will pick two.
First, I would really like to know what the plans for Metamorpho were if the book hadn’t been canceled. Who was the Prosecutor working for? With Sapphire’s husband dead would she return to the book or would Rex and Urania go on as a crime-fighting team?
Second, what was Gerry Conway’s original origin for the Hyena?
When the psycho-vigilante the Hyena shows up in Firestorm #4-5, they’re quite obviously someone in a costume. Their slashing claws are diamond and the Hyena brags she can make them doubly leath by setting them vibrating with miniature motors. Nevertheless, when we learn her origin a few years later, she’s not wearing a costume — the Hyena is a lycanthrope (or hyenathrope I guess). My friend Ross figures the change was done in response to the success of The Howling which I find plausible.
I contacted Gerry Conway online a few years back and asked why he’d switched. He said he didn’t remember, which is not surprising; I’ve forgotten decisions about stories far more recent. A shame, though.
So, anything you’d like answers to?
Art by Jack Sparling (top), Jack Kirby and Al Milgrom.
The Moench-Jones run on Batman lasted for almost 40 issues, yet it’s still incomplete because Moench didn’t want to have anything to do with the earthquake, so they left the book. But they had the marionette dude showing up at certain times, and it was clear he was going to be a big threat. They never got around to it, and it bugs me to this day!!!! 🙂
The completely dropped plot thread introduced in Fantastic Four #207, wherein it is shown that the mysterious Enclave has captured Medusa of the Inhumans for some nefarious designs. I would have liked that to have been resolved in an actual story that addresses it directly – rather than that hand-wavy and largely unsatisfying exposition dump in FF #240 (the one when the Inhumans moved to the Blue Area of the Moon).
Wow, I don’t even remember that, and unlike the later Moench Bat-run I know I was reading the book.
(Sorry I haven’t posted here in a while)
There are so, so many. Here are a few-
What was Len Wein’s original idea for They Who Wield Power (in various Marvel Team-Up and Hulk issues in the ’70s)? I always liked the way Roger Stern wrapped it up, but I’ve always wondered what the original idea was, if there was one.
Way back in Avengers #58, Hank Pym mentioned, after examining the Vision, that he himself had at one time been working on creating a similar “synthezoid”, and he couldn’t remember what had happened to that experiment. It turned out that his memory had been erased by Ultron, of course, but Ultron couldn’t have been the synthezoid Pym was referring to- he’s a robot, not a synthetic human, and in his original form, as invented by Pym, he wasn’t even humanoid (and Pym specifically referred to the synthezoid he’d been working on as “humanoid”). I can’t help wondering if maybe the original idea was that Ultron stole the synthezoid Hank had been working on and turned him into the Vision, but that later, when they had the idea of having Vizh’s body turn out to be the original Human Torch, that was dropped. At any rate, it seems like an open question-what exactly happened to the synthezoid Hank had been working on?
There are plenty more, maybe I’ll be back later.
In the same vein, what was it Hank saw inside the vision (during the “Journey to the Center of the Android”) that shook him up so much? Perhaps that would have tied in.
Well, that bit came directly from Neal Adams’ idea that Vizh was the Torch, so that scene wouldn’t have happened in a speculative “Hank made him” scenario.
That I did not know. Thanks for the information.
I want to know what was the idea about Nancy Reagan being a Man Hunter…
(in Millenium)
I didn’t remember that detail but I like it.