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molokai198
Since: Oct, 2012
KHR-FolkMyth
Since: Jul, 2022
1st Aug, 2022 12:08:14 PM
Yeah, that might be it.
I think I have seen this trope in comics, but may creep into film adaptations also.
The "main reality" is altered and becomes a Wasteland, Mad-Max style or the like. The heroes learn that the alternate reality is not "what it should be", so work together to reverse the damage. Throughout the story (Story Arc/Crisis Crossover), there is a plot point about how "the end of the world is nigh/upon them", etc. by some reason. At the climax of the story (or after the heroes go back), the heroes manage to return home, but the alternate reality is destroyed for whatever reason.
Examples: 1) Flashpoint (2011) - Barry Allen travels in time and causes a massive chain reaction that alters the main DCU. In the new timeline, Aquaman and Wonder Woman are at each other's throats and their war threatens to destroy the whole world. In issue 5, Flash and a ragtag bunch of heroes kill Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Reverse Flash, but the world of that altered timeline is already doomed. Flash (Barry Allen) is convinced to return to the point when he altered the timeline ad stop himself.
2) Here Comes Tomorrow (2004), by Grant Morrison and Marc Silvestri - in the future, Jean Grey/Phoenix is awakened by a Sublime-possessed, Mad Scientist Beast, wh siccs the Phoenix against the version of the X-Men of that timeline. As the story ends, Jean Grey goes into a metaphysical room of other Phoenix hosts and manages to "psychically touch" the main timeline to avoid creating that future.
3) Age of Apocalypse (1995) - After Legion kills his father, Professor X, in the past, Apocalypse rises and dominates North America, turning it into a hellhole. Time traveller Bishop is the one unaffected by the temporal divergence and remembers the true timeline of the main Marvel Universe. The whole crossover is how the Ao A X-Men learn of the changes and try to gather the necessary tools to reverse them. In the ending chapter, one-shot Ao A: Omega, Bishop is sent once again to the past and stops the assassination, thus negating the existence of the Ao A timeline. In the final pages of the one-shot, Rogue and her husband Magneto reunite with their son Charles, outside of Apocalypse's citadel, just in time to see the bombs fall and destroy them. (Obs: the bombs are actually a plot point: the "Human Survival Council" or whatever planned to drop nuclear bombs on Apocalypse's citadel in North America to end his threat once and for all).
4) Justice League Dark: Apokolips War (Animation) - the world is nearly destroyed by Darkseid's forces. The Justice League Dark manages to summon Trigon (Raven's demon lord father), which defeats Darkseid. At the end of the film, the world is destroyed, but there is hope for rebuilding. Still, again, the Flash goes back in time to undo that Crapsack World.
Edited by KHR-FolkMyth