alt title(s): Elseworlds
One of the more in(s)ane examples.
A
Sister Trope to the
For Want Of A Nail episode. While
For Want Of A Nail explores another fork in the road taken by a character, an Elseworld takes a well-known character and plonks them into a potentially wildly different location and situation. This can add some freshness to a character which allows them to act a different way than normal canon might allow but may also become an excuse to write professional
Cookie Cutter Fic of the
Recycled In SPACE variety.
Daring writers trusted by loyal fans may do this kind of episode without any warning or explanation. Well regarded elseworld stories generally involve a) either keeping the characters and their motivations recognizable despite the new setting and situations or 2) working within the confines of the new setting in order to get
back to the original premise in a reasonable way.
Comes from the term used by
DC Comics for these kinds of stories; they publish one-shots and
Mini Series like this. Compare to
Alternate Continuity. If a show is all Elseworlds all the time, you've got a
Commedia dell'Arte Troupe.
Examples:
Anime and Manga
Comic Books
- The DC Universe version is the Trope Namer, and has a lot of them. One of the best and most notable is Kingdom Come, a beautifully painted and surprisingly cerebral graphic novel. Some of their Elseworlds would actually fall under For Want Of A Nail.
- Superman Red Son is a miniseries about what Superman would have been like if he had landed in the Soviet Union (specifically the Ukraine, which seems to be the closest the writers could find to a Soviet version of Kansas) instead of America; he ends up a Knight Templar. President Luthor defends America from the Red Menace with Superman's Rogues Gallery and Green Lanterns.
- I, Joker is a one-shot about a dystopian future version of Gotham where people worship the current Batman (who is also called "The Bruce", but is NOT Bruce Wayne) as a god. It's told from the point of view of a person who believes himself to be The Joker. This Batman likes to take enemies of the state, mind-wipe them, and turn them into carbon-copies of past Batman villains with implanted memories; he then uses them in a yearly bloodsport where the entire city dresses up as Batmen/girls/women and attempts to kill one of the villains so as to get a chance to fight him for the right to become the new Batman. However, after an act of rebellion from his personal doctor/surgeon who converts the rebels into faux villains, this year's Joker gradually regains his memories and, after discovering the original Batcave, defeats the wannabe Bat-god and takes up the mantle of the Bat. He also rescues his girlfriend, who had had her vocal cords removed as punishment for being a rebel; she becomes his Robin.
- Elseworlds itself had been gone for years (as it didn't jive with the current canon of there being-no-multiverse-at-all-really). The first hint that the Multiverse might be back actually occured when one of the Infinite
Christmas Holiday stories ended with Superman punching Batman in the face for being Santa Claus (It's a fun story) with the last panel having an "Elseworlds" logo on it. It wasn't until months later they confirmed the 52.
- Early on, Marvel Comics's distinctive "What If?" series were stand-alone For Want Of A Nail stories based on key events in the Marvel universe. They later ran more Elseworld style stories, these are not usually specifically labeled as either (Marvel Zombies, Marvel 1602, X-Men Fairy Tales)
- Transformers: Hearts of Steel was an Elseworlds where the some of the Transformers wake up on Earth during the Industrial Revolution rather than in 1984 as they did in the original cartoon/comics, and took corresponding vehicle mods such as trains, propeller aircraft and warships. Human characters in the comic included John Henry, Mark Twain, and Jules Verne. According to writer Chuck Dixon this was meant to be a possible part of regular continuity, but numerous discrepancies (most notably the fact that the Transformers are seen waging war on Earth during the ice age, in the forms of fantastical creatures) contradict this.
- Hearts of Steel was originally meant to be the first in a set of Elseworlds called The Transformers: Evolution. However, the series was never continued, most likely due to poor sales.
Fan Fics
- In fanfiction this is known as an Alternate Universe (or AU), where the characters generally remain the same but the setting changes. High school A Us are very popular, probably because many of the writers are themselves in high school.
Live Action TV
Webcomics
- This is the premise of Penny Arcade Adventures, with the first storyline, On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, taking place in a Lovecraftian 1920's version of the Penny Arcade universe.
Western Animation
- The "Without Warning Or Explanation" type happened in Ben 10: The episode initially indicated somehow Ben went back in time to before he got the Omnitrix. He was then surprised to find that this time Gwen gets it, and he spends a good portion of the episode explaining to Gwen how the aliens work. The events of the first episode play out with these changes, and it wasn't an Elseworld episode until the very end when it didn't get resolved.
