What if National Publications never bought out All-American Publications?

[LordUltimus]

Also occurs: the Batman TV series was the way it was because of Julius' Schwartz's 60s Bat-run, which William Dozier thought should be done as high camp. Batman's going to look different in TTL's 1960s which means the Batman TV show is going to be quite different. Possibly it'd be a comedy in a different way ("look what this Stan Lee did, we should do this show as a soapy sitcom") or possibly it'd end up serious, but either way means a huge impact on 60s comics and pop culture in general.

[Jim Kelly]

Western Publishing splliting from Dell in 1962 and starting up Gold Key--with most of the titles that had been published by Dell--left Dell a much weakened comic book publisher. Before that Dell and DC were about evenly matched for the number one spot in comic book sales. And I don't think Gold Key ever dominated the industry the way that Dell had done in the past. Had Western stayed with Dell, the publisher probably would have been big enough to hold strong against the competition for a much longer time.

[LordUltimus]

That's the part that interests me. Presumably if Max Gaines never sells AA, then he never starts Educational Comics. Assuming he still died the same way, then instead of inheriting a company producing educational and Bible comics, Bill Gaines, as you say, inherits one producing superheroes, and just starting to get into teen comedy/romance and westerns. In that case, does he introduce horror comics? I seem to recall Bill decided to give horror comics a try after finding out he and someone else (Al Feldstein?) were both horror fans. But if AA is successful in the way Educational Comics wasn't, and Al Feldstein isn't there, would Bill Gaines have even been willing to take a chance on horror comics? Would he have brought in guys like Jack Davis, Wally Wood, Graham Ingels, etc. to replace AA's staff? A world where Max Gaines never sells AA could well be one where Tales from the Crypt et al. never exists. (Which, continuing the dominoes, is one where Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella probably don't exist either.)

And, taking another leap of logic, plenty of famous horror writers and directors, from Stephen King to John Carpenter, have emphasized how much they were influenced by reading EC Comics growing up. Obviously there are other sources for horror, but without EC in those formative childhood years, would Stephen King have still turned his pen to horror stories? Probably, but ya never know...

Yeah, it was Feldstein. They had similar tastes in horror, and after the whole "educational" comics weren't exactly selling, they made a total sweep and made a new trend.

And, since superheroes weren't exactly popular in the late 40's and early 50's, All-American would probably discontinue superheroes and produce horror, since that was the new big thing. So, Tales from the Crypt, Vault of Horror, still exist. And when the comics code wipes them (and by the way, how do we know the Code as is stills exists), they just go back to superheroes.

[The Darknight Detective]

And, taking another leap of logic, plenty of famous horror writers and directors, from Stephen King to John Carpenter, have emphasized how much they were influenced by reading EC Comics growing up. Obviously there are other sources for horror, but without EC in those formative childhood years, would Stephen King have still turned his pen to horror stories? Probably, but ya never know...

Since King appears to have been more influenced by horror film and books than comics, I think he still becomes the big Kahuna of that genre (though maybe not exactly the same writer as he became in reality).

[Jim Kelly]

Yeah, it was Feldstein. They had similar tastes in horror, and after the whole "educational" comics weren't exactly selling, they made a total sweep and made a new trend.

And, since superheroes weren't exactly popular in the late 40's and early 50's, All-American would probably discontinue superheroes and produce horror, since that was the new big thing. So, Tales from the Crypt, Vault of Horror, still exist. And when the comics code wipes them (and by the way, how do we know the Code as is stills exists), they just go back to superheroes.

Not to repeat myself, but I want to make sure it's understood that Bill Gaines got the idea from Sheldon Moldoff. This is pretty well documented as fact. The lawyer at EC--Dave Alterbaum--threatened to black list Moldoff if he took any legal action against EC. I hate to say bad things about Bill Gaines--because I love EC so much--but he could be a very mean and underhanded guy.

[Frostbite883]

Perhaps Fawcett buys Timely/Atlas and then re-brand themselves as Marvel Comics after their flagship character.

Oh, good theory. Imagine Captain Marvel being Marvel Comics number one comic book star before or next to Spider-Man.

[Digifiend]

Of course, Billy Batson still being published as Captain Marvel means that Mar-Vell never exists (he was only created to grab the name) and that means neither does Carol Danvers. Monica Rambeau and Kamala Khan could both still exist (Kamala definitely would - they created her character first and decided to link her to Carol later), but if so they would have different names.

[DrNewGod]

I think an interesting question would be what if GL and Flash were run as backup features in major books the same way GA and Aquaman were? They would still survive being carried by a bigger character. What would the SA look like then? Would Marvel still come about? Would the Justice League still be a thing without rebooted versions of those two characters to prop them up?

Flash probably could have bridged the times as is, but GL might have been a different matter. "Magic" wasn't cool any more by the mid-1950s. It was space travel and aliens that were all the rage. Might Alan Scott have gotten a Swamp Thing treatment somewhere along the way, with the Guardians of Oa (or something like them) turning out to be the voice that had spoken to him from the lantern after his should-have-been-fatal train crash?

However, asking if Flash and GL might have survived as backups in a more popular character's book begs a question: who would have AA had to anchor such books?

Also occurs: the Batman TV series was the way it was because of Julius' Schwartz's 60s Bat-run, which William Dozier thought should be done as high camp. Batman's going to look different in TTL's 1960s which means the Batman TV show is going to be quite different. Possibly it'd be a comedy in a different way ("look what this Stan Lee did, we should do this show as a soapy sitcom") or possibly it'd end up serious, but either way means a huge impact on 60s comics and pop culture in general.

That actually went in the opposite direction. There are several different takes on how it happened, ranging from developers watching young people laughing at reruns of the old Batman serials, to the first producer not being a comics fan and unable to see how Batman would work without being campy, but the original concept was something more similar in tone to The Lone Ranger. Denny O'Neil was assigned what became an iconic run on Batman in the late 1960s specifically to undo the damage from having the comics try to capitalize on the TV show's popularity by aping its style.

[Kaijudo]

My big takeaway from all of this is that I really want to read a JLA with Hawkman, Orion, Manhunter, Big Barda, and Wildcat!

[Electricmastro]

Wonder Woman (All-American Publications) wouldn't have become part of the trinity label with Superman and Batman (National Allied Publications) then.