A number of Marvel Universe stories deal with and take place in these; appearances of the heroes in other media also fall under this category. Most prominent (and Alternate Continuity examples) are listed below.
Notably, the main continuity is not Earth-1 or Earth-Prime, it's Earth-616. This label was introduced in passing by the local Marvel UK imprint in the 1980s, as part of the Captain Britain: A Crooked World storyline. Despite some Marvel management actively trying to move away from it (and in-universe events that renumbered worlds or deleted all alternate universes and rebooted the whole multiverse), it’s still in use as of 2022.
Comic Books
- Agents of Atlas In one AU, Marvel Boy, Venus, M-11, Gorilla Man and 3-D Man became a team of 1950s Avengers; the timeline later got destroyed by Kang. The AU was based on the same issue of "What If?" that inspired the Agents.
- And then there's the Age of Apocalypse storyline. Although it was initially an alternate present for Marvel's baseline universe "Earth-616", it became an alternate reality when Jean Grey split it off into a separate universe during the events of X-Men Omega (Earth-295).
- Age of Ultron Two, aside from the prime Earth-616. We have Earth-61112, where The Bad Guy Wins, and Earth-26111, where without Ultron and Hank Pym, Magic Versus Science was decided completely in favor of magic.
- The Captain Britain: A Crooked World storyline starts on Earth-238, where reality is fraying and all of the superheroes are dead. The Captain then finds himself back in his usual universe, facing counterparts of his Earth-238 foes to stop history repeating itself. This was the storyline that first named the 'main' Marvel universe as Earth-616.
- Captain Carter is set in an alternate universe where Peggy Carter replaced Steve Rogers, who didn’t get the chance to become Captain America.
- According to Earth X (Earth-9997), every time you alter history through time travel you create an alternate universe.
- The comic Exiles explores this idea to its fullest, having the main characters hop between different Marvel AUs and fixing problems.
- Fantastic Four: Many, many of them. The FF have the highest number of canon AU stories. And whenever they needed to be avoided from a crossover; their absence is usually handwaved with: "The FF are away in an alternate dimension..." At one point, it's even revealed that Reed Richards often holds trans dimensional conferences with numerous alternate versions of himself at the same time.
- One universe, depicted in What If? #11, is one where the original Marvel Bullpen was the Fantastic Four, with Jack Kirby as the Thing, Flo Steinberg as the Invisible Girl, Sol Brodsky as the Human Torch, and none other than Stan Lee as Mr. Fantastic.
- House of M (Earth-58163)
- Marvel Adventures (Earth-20051)
- Marvel Apes (Earth-8101)
- Marvel Cinematic Universe (Earth-199999 - that's five nines)
- Marvel Comics 2 (Earth-982)
- Marvel Mangaverse (Earth-2301)
- Marvel Zombies (Earth-2149)
- Marvel 1602 (Earth-311)
- Squadron Supreme (Earth-712)
- The Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows: The series takes place on Earth-18119, where, similarly to the Earth-982 MC2 universe, Spider-Man and Mary Jane are married and had a daughter with spider powers. Instead of The Clone Saga being the divergent point, however, the split away from the main continuity is Civil War (2006). The events of that storyline were averted when Charles Xavier and The Avengers proposed the self-policing of mutant and super-hero communities as an alternative to the Super Registration Act, which averted Spider-Man revealing his identity, thus preventing One More Day from occurring. Additionally, thanks to Regent, most of the Earth's heroes have lost their powers, leaving the X-Men as the only hero group left.
- The Spider-Verse storyline. Just... The whole thing.
- X-Men Forever: The continuity remains more or less the same as the 1990s era of the Marvel Universe, with changes occurring only when an X-Man makes a life-changing decision (Peter Rasputin beginning a relationship with The Black Widow). Interestingly, recent 616 events are also covered and better explained or abruptly ended (The dwindling Mutant population and Storm's marriage). It's officially Earth-161 of the Marvel Multiverse.
- Ultimate Marvel (Earth-1610)
- Marvel Anime (Earth-101001)
- Galactus is the sole known survivor from the previous Big Bang-Big Crunch universe cycle, making him technically a native of an alternate universe.
- Man-Thing's swamp is home to a plot-friendly conflux of universes, including Howard the Duck's home dimension.
Films
- Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse: While the actual Ultimate Marvel universe until Ultimatum very much reflected reality like the classic Marvel Universe did, the film uses the Spider Verse concept to take the idea of Miles Morales coming from an alternate reality even further; for example, New York police cars are labeled with "PDNY" rather than "NYPD", Bland Name Products abound (with "Koca-Soda" instead of Coca-Cola and "RedEx" instead of "FedEx"), Shaun of the Dead became an actual franchise, and Miles doesn't know what Comic-Con is when Peter quips about it. This is cemented by Peter Parker's own universe having a Coca-Cola neon sign and the traditional "NYPD" abbreviation on a police car.
