ELSEWORLDS 175
Ellis has long been a proponent of utilizing the Internet to not only market his work,
but also to interact with other creators. He has written an ongoing web-comic (Freakan-
gels), as well as Come In Alone, a weekly column for the Comic Book Resources Web site
that dealt with the theoretical underpinnings of comics as a medium. Ellis maintains a
robust Internet presence and has hosted various on-line communities for creators from
a wide range of media. A writer very much in the tradition of H. G. Wells, Ellis uses
fi ction as a tool to both examine and comment upon the present.
Will Allred
ELSEWORLDS. A DC imprint adopted in 1991 to identify stories that dramatically
diverged from the DC universe’s established continuity. Th e tag line read “In Elseworlds,
heroes are taken from their usual settings and put into strange times and places —some
that have existed or might have existed, and others that can’t, couldn’t or shouldn’t exist.
Th e result is stories that make characters who are as familiar as yesterday seem as fresh
as tomorrow.”
Th e secret origin of the Elseworlds imprint begins in August of 1960 with the publica-
tion of “Mr. and Mrs. Clark (Superman) Kent” in Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane #19,
a simple story exploring the life of Superman and Lois if they were ever married. Th e
distinguishing feature from this particular yarn, however, was that it was billed upfront as
an “imaginary story,” unlike previously published narratives which included improbable
events by later revealing them as dreams or fantasies. Under Mort Weisinger’s run as
editor in the 1960s, the imaginary tale was a regularly occurring feature in Superman
comics, delivering such stories as “Th e Death of Superman” in Superman #149, “Lois
Lane, the Supermaid from Earth” in Superman #159, and “Th e Amazing Story of Super-
man Red and Superman Blue” in Superman #162. While the stories mostly explored
possible future scenarios —Superman getting married, dying, having children— a few
such as “Lois Lane, the Supermaid from Earth” rewrote the origin of several characters,
establishing the possibility for exploring drastically alternative histories of DC’s major
characters.
During the same period, alongside the inception of imaginary stories, came the
concept of parallel earths. Th e Flash , Green Lantern, and Th e Atom had all been
resurrected in the mid-1950s and early 1960s after cancellation, with new identities,
new costumes, even in some cases new powers, and no connection to the previously
published characters bearing those names; but in 1961 the editor for DC’s Justice
League of America, Julius Schwartz, and the title’s current writer, Gardner Fox, con-
spired to bring back the original defunct characters from the 1940s and 1950s. In Flash
#123 (September of 1961) Barry Allen, the Flash introduced in 1954, met Jay Garrick,
the Flash created in 1940. Both were explained to reside in alternate realities vibrating
in the same space at diff erent frequencies, allowing DC writers to team-up of versions
of the same character. Th is storytelling tactic became wildly popular and spawned
several subsequent narratives such as 1963’s “Crisis on Earth One” in Justice League of
America #21 or 1966’s “Th e Bridge Between Earths” in Justice League of America #157,
