30 days of Scans Day 11: Favourite Elseworld/Alternate Universe

[uadlika]

Marvel: 1602 is one of the few comics that I found not through S_D, but through an internet search on the lost colony of Roanoke. Virginia Dare, the first English child born in the New World is a major character in this 8-part series, with the ability to shift into animals (based on this legend). The history nerd in me absolutely adores this. Another semi-historical tale, Superman: Red Son, is perhaps my second favorite Elseworld.

The premise of Marvel:1602 is that the heroes from the regular Marvel Universe are transplanted into the year 1602, just as Queen Elizabeth I lay dying and King James of Scotland set to take the throne. We meet familiar-yet-not characters such as Sir Nicholas Fury, the Queen's spymaster, Doctor Stephen Strange, the Queen's physician, Peter Parquagh, Carlos Javier and his school for sons of gentlefolk, the Four from the Fantastick, David Banner, Grand Inquisitor Enrique, aided by Sister Wanda and Petros, and Otto von Doom.

Here is a teaser showing us these characters from the first issue (4 pages):







Also there are dinosaurs.

Comments

[arilou_skiff]

I liked 1602 well enough, but I always have... Issues with Gaiman's take of the 17th century. He seems so in love with the aesthethic that he misses the point y'know?

[icon_uk]

What would the point be? (Genuine question) The story seemed to have an awareness of the history, society and politics of the time, filtered through comic book science.

[arilou_skiff]

Yes and no. It's not just "filtered through comic-book science" but filtered through a very... Popular history kind of understanding.

The Inquisition doesen't really work as depicted in most fictional works, for instance (and incidentally was singularly uninterested in burning witches) he's always very anglocentric (mostly I suspect because he's such a huge Shakespeare fanboy) and of course there's the ending: Which paints a kind of unfortunate teleology onto history.

[requiem2adream]

he's always very anglocentric (mostly I suspect because he's such a huge Shakespeare fanboy)

Or because he's English, maybe?

[arilou_skiff]

The two aren't exactly unrelated, but then again, not really. He does a lot of non-anglo stuff in other time-periods.