I was feeling nostalgic and rooting through my comics long boxes this weekend, when I came across Secret Origins #2, with the origin of the Blue Beetle, back when there were only two. My eye fell on a sentence in the letters page where it was claimed Blue Beetle “would play a role in the upcoming Crisis on Captive Earth“. Huh? Crisis on Captive Earth? Never heard of it? Turns out it was intended to be the next big event crossover after Crisis on Infinite Earths, to be published in 1986. Tom Brevoort has the details:
CRISIS ON CAPTIVE EARTH had been put together under the oversight of editor Bob Greenberger. It was intended to have been plotted by Paul Levitz, scripted by Len Wein, penciled by Jerry Ordway and inked by Karl Kesel. By November of 1985, this creative team had worked out their proposed storyline in enough detail for Greenberger to circulate this memo throughout editorial, in order to inform everybody what the story was going to be about and to set up the necessary character usages and tie-ins.
From the original proposal pages Tom has included, this looks interesting but a bit weak, not very well worked out. It lacks the edge and menace of the original Crisis. There are also a lot of loose ends that would’ve needed tightening if this was to be published. This is also clear from the response of DC’s then editorial and creative staff, as shown in a second article. From the responses it was clear there was little enthusiasm for this new crossover series. What we would get instead was the less ambitious Legends series, which would launch a revamped Justice League series as well as John Ostrander/Kim Yale’s Suicide Squad. For a little bit more about , the wonderful Dc in the 80s blog has a small article, which mentions:
Per Amazing Heroes #62 (January 1, 1985) which served as their 1985 Preview issue, this story was originally envisioned to take place in a twelve-issue maxi-series by Paul Levitz, Len Wein, and Jerry Ordway. Legends would only run six issues, and would feature Wein, as well as John Ostrander and John Byrne in the creators’ chairs… and it’s finished product may have only matched the scrapped maxis in when it would start hitting store shelves.
I love this sort of what might have been. This may not be as famous as e.g. the Alan Moore Twilight proposal, but still interesting to see what DC staff were trying to come up with after Crisis.
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