History Main / NowWhat

* A more serious case, at the end of the ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'' film "Predacons Rising" once Megatron has been [[spoiler: freed from Unicron's control, he comes to the realization that he's now totally alone in the universe; he doesn't stay on Cybertron (he knows he'd probably no longer be welcome), and he no longer has any desire to lead the Decepticons in conquest (he goes so far as to officially disband the group)]].

[[quoteright:300:[[WesternAnimation/WileECoyoteAndTheRoadrunner https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/whatnowending.jpg]]]]

* ''Comicbook/{{Watchmen}}'' ends this way: although TheReveal (actually a series of revelations) resolved a whole lot of plot points: Dr. Manhattan, who's in a position to know this kind of thing, claims that nothing ever ''really'' ends. The {{Denouement}} apparently bears out his claim: the world is now just barely politically stabilized under a fragile peace accord that may or may not last, the costumed vigilantes Dan Dreiberg and Laurie Juspeczyk are still at large and plying their trade under new identities for how much longer no one can be sure, and a certain journal that a very minor character may or may not be about to discover may or may not ultimately blow the lid off the huge secret these costumed vigilantes are keeping from the rest of the world. It's deliberately left up to the reader to speculate what's going to happen next.
* For years, one of the main driving plots of ''Comicbook/TheIncredibleHulk'' was that Bruce Banner had to keep his identity as the Hulk a secret. Then one day, unthinkably, he failed, and the world found out. And the comic kept right on going.

* Similarly in ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'', after defeating the BigBad, and receiving great honors, the team gets back into their ship, and is left with this question.

** The DirectToVideo film, ''The Plan'', reveals that the Cylons had no contingency for the failure of the attempted [[{{KillAllHumans}} extermination of humanity]] in the [[{{BackdoorPilot}} miniseries]]. Creator/RonaldDMoore insisted that they include the opening TagLine in every episode of the regular series, but never actually decided what said plan was. David Eick was against this idea from the start, and still says it was stupid.

[[folder:WebComics]]

* The phrase was used in one episode of ''Series/TheRedGreenShow''. After losing a contest to get a new town moment, Possum Lodge winds up in possession of the old one, a [=WW2=] army tank. They take it back to the lodge where Harold asks this. Red eventually finds an answer: fix it up and take it for a joy ride!

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'' ended this way (if one accepts the Nelvana season).

* For ''Anime/{{Robotech}}'' fans, one of the most fascinating things about the series is that it contains so ''many'' of these events, but always takes up the challenge to show what comes next. Two of these come from the "three-shows-in-one" nature of the series, of course, but one of the biggest NowWhat moments happens two thirds of the way through the original ''Anime/SuperDimensionFortressMacross'' segment. The show is really worth watching to learn how to write without succumbing to the easy way out (that is, just declaring "The End"), and to always address the ''consequences'' of the events you have written.

** Another NowWhat moment happened in TheEighties, when it was stated that Banner's personality was dead, that the Hulk had become a truly mindless monster, and ComicBook/DoctorStrange had to exile him from our universe entirely. Seriously, that issue reads like a definitive "last issue." ''Yet the comic kept right on going, showing what the mindless Hulk was doing outside our universe.'' This lasted the better part of a year. Eventually Creator/BillMantlo cut Banner some slack and let his personality resurface, though, allowing a return to more-or-less the [[StatusQuoIsGod status quo.]]

[[caption-width-right:300:[[WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants We don't know, we never thought you'd get this far]].]]

* ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds'': Hoorah, we've defeated the Martian invasion! That's the last we'll see of them! Well, until they invent disinfectant, anyway. This was answered in an unauthorized sequel, ''Edison's Conquest of Mars''

[[caption-width-right:300:Uhm, catch him again?]]

[[caption-width-right:300:Beats us?]]

[[caption-width-right:300:[[WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants We don't know, we never thought you'd get this far]].]]

[[caption-width-right:300:The joke here is that Wile E. Coyote DID catch the Road Runner... but only after he ended up tiny after a pipe gag.]]

* ''Comicbook/{{Watchmen}}'' ends this way: although TheReveal (actually a series of revelations) resolved a whole lot of plot points, Dr. Manhattan, who's in a position to know this kind of thing, claims that nothing ever ''really'' ends. The {{Denouement}} apparently bears out his claim: the world is now just barely politically stabilized under a fragile peace accord that may or may not last, the costumed vigilantes Dan Dreiberg and Laurie Juspeczyk are still at large and plying their trade under new identities for how much longer no one can be sure, and a certain journal that a very minor character may or may not be about to discover may or may not ultimately blow the lid off the huge secret these costumed vigilantes are keeping from the rest of the world. It's deliberately left up to the reader to speculate what's going to happen next.

* ''[[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068334/ The Candidate]]''...Naive lawyer learns how hard it is to win, and learns about the machine. "Marvin ... What do we do now?"