When it comes to alternate versions of superheroes, there’s a lot of different variations out
there.
But some of the most interesting are ones that adapt different genres or different time
periods.
It’s easy to become enthralled with alternate future timelines, my friends.
But today, instead of looking into the future, we’re doing the opposite, and looking into
the past for the alternates on our list today.
These are our picks for the top 10 superhero alternate versions from the past.
We’ll be looking at a lot of heroes from DC’s Earth 2 and a handful of Marvel’s
Elizabethan Era characters from the Earth 311 which takes place during the year of 1602.
So with that in mind, let’s get to it.
10 Rojhaz (Earth 311) Rojhaz is the Earth 311 version of Captain
America Steve Rogers.
In 1602, a woman named Virginia Dare was partially responsible for transporting a time displaced
Rogers from a dystopian future called Earth 460 to this timeline.
Dare, by the way, according to writer Neil Gaiman is not an alternate of Alpha Flight’s
Snowbird, despite having similar powers and a similar appearance.
Anyway, during this timeline, the Roanoke Colony does not disappear like it does in
our world.
Rogers ends up saving the colony from starvation.
Rojhaz is a blonde haired blue eyed Native american who ends up serving as Dare’s bodyguard
who was sent back in time when the Purple Man and his government tried to execute Rogers,
but accidentally sent him back in time instead.
This event is actually what triggered this alternate timeline to occur.
9 Helena Wayne Helena Wayne is from Earth 2, the home of
all of DC’s golden age heroes, in which the timeline begins at the start of the golden
age.
More on the history behind that later, though.
Anywho, Helena is the daughter of Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle-Wayne, born in 1957.
After Catwoman was blackmailed into return to crime (and lost her life because of it)
Helena wanted vengeance, and took up the mantle of Huntress.
After Crisis on Infinite Earths, she was erased from existence until the new 52 continuity
(minus another alternate of her popping up in the aftermath of 52, which is a different
thing.)
This Helena who popped up in the new 52 was stranded on prime earth with Kara Zor-El,
and eventually found a way back to her home world.
8 David Banner (311) David Banner is the alternate version of Bruce
Banner on Earth 311, and he was an advisor of King James when he took over as King.
Banner was an advocate of eradicating witchbreeds, and was even sent out to kill Queen Elizabeth’s
old advisor, Sir Nicholas Fury, at the Roanoke colony.
During the process he was exposed to energies that transformed him into a large grey monster,
the 1602 equivalent to the Hulk.
He had become the very thing he despised, and was forced to rethink his loyalties.
Later on, he ended up returning to England and was sentenced to death, to be burnt alive
at the stake.
But Banner transformed into his angrier half and killed King James, taking on his armies,
which eventually caused the king’s castle to burn down.
Hulk eventually escaped the country, and resided in China where he sought to amend his wrongs
by joining up with a Buddhist monastery.
But you can’t take the hero out of superhero, friends, because what did Banner do while
he was there?
He killed a dragon that was terrorizing the people, one that had previous murdered the
Emperor of China.
And by slaying that dragon, Banner was declared the new emperor.
7 Carlos Javier (Earth 311) Carlos Javier is, you guessed it, Charles
Xavier.
Except this Xavier has a very different origin story.
He’s a Spaniard living in 1602 England, and similar to his 616 counterpart, he runs
his own school, this one called the College for the Sons of Gentlefolk.
It’s actually a haven for those who are considered ‘witchbreed’, aka, mutants.
How very time appropriate of a name.
Much like the regular Xavier, he has psychic powers.
His students include a slew of alternates from the X-Men roster, including Roberto Trefusis
(Iceman), Scotius Summerisle (Cyclops), Hal McCoy (Beast), Werner (Angel) and John Grey,
who is actually a young woman with psychic powers hiding her true identity in order to
be a part of the team.
And she’s got psychic powers much stronger than her mentor’s.
Later on, when the character reappeared in Secret Wars when the remains of Earth 311
became part of Doom’s Battleworld, and was renamed as King James’ England.
James was found out to be a witchbreed though, and Carlos took over, becoming King Charles
the first.
6 Sir Nicholas Fury (Earth 311) This version of Nick Fury is exactly how you’d
imagine an Elizabethan Fury to be.
He’s an advisor to Queen Elizabeth and an ‘intelligencer to the Queen’.
He’s still missing one eye.
And he got his position by excelling on the battlefield, causing him to be knighted and
eventually working his way up to the high position he held at the beginning of 1602.
After the Queen’s untimely death, Fury became a fugitive after betraying King James; he
took his witchbreed prisoners to sea, claiming that he was going to kill them, but instead,
left with them to the New World after helping them invade Latveria.
5 Peter Parquagh Peter Paraquagh is an alternate of Peter Parker
from Earth 311, and he’s also Sir Nicholas Fury’s assistant and apprentice.
Later known as the Spider, this version of Peter was raised by his Scottish uncle Benjamin
until Fury showed up at his door.
Fury, who had known Peter’s parents before they died, wanted Peter to enter into his
service, changing his last name from Parker to Parquagh in order to hide his Scottish
origins (the English weren’t fans of them at that time).
His adventures as an adult saw him taking on 1602 versions of some of Spider-Man’s
most famous foes, including King’s Pin, Bull’s Eye and Baron Octavius.
He even fell for this world’s alternate of Mary Jane, an actress at the Globe named
Marion Watsonne.
Unfortunately, he would meet his demise when Morlun showed up during a performance at the
Globe, and overpowered him, staking him to one of the Globe’s support beams, killing
him, and stealing his life essence before disappearing to another dimension.
4 Alan Scott (Earth 2) Alan Scott is the Green Lantern of Earth 2,
and had a very different origin story than the Silver Age Hal Jordan Green Lantern.
After a railroad accident occurs, he begins to hear a voice coming from one of the train’s
lanterns, and he gets a ring from said lantern that he needs to recharge via the lantern
every 24 hours.
After Crisis on Infinite Earths, Alan ended up being merged into New Earth, where his
origins were retconned slightly, and after 52, it was revealed that he had died a long
time ago, succeeded by his daughter Jade.
But then the new 52 happened, and he returned with a brand new back story that riffed on
his history.
This time around, Scott was gay, and on vacation with his boyfriend Sam who he plannedto propose
to.
But before he can, the train they are on crashes, and a mysterious green flame protects Scott
and heals his wounds.
Sam doesn’t survive.
Scott decides to avenge his love by using this new found power to protect the world.
And his ring?
He uses the engagement ring as a foundation to forge his green lantern ring.
3 Doctor Stephen Strange (Earth 311) Strange, in this alternate universe, is the
Queen’s physician, Queen Elizabeth the 1st.
Strange is also a magician and an alchemist, and was married to Clea Strange, an alternate
of Clea, who was from another dimensions.
When he was a boy, he was kidnapped by foreigh sailors and sold into slavery, eventually
landing in the care of a doctor, who trained him, and told him if he were able to find
specific herbs from the East, he would grant Strange his freedom.
This was where he learned of magic, and saved Clea, eventually marrying her.
He returned to England, and found himself aiding Queen Elizabeth the first, who then
made him her personal physician.
Strange believed that their world was coming to an end, and confided in Sir Nicholas Fury.
Eventually, his scheming with Fury was outed, and the plan to go behind the crowns back
to prevent catastrophe from occurring.
When King James took over, he imprisoned Strange for treason, and beheaded.
Clea would return his body to the Roanoke colony, fulfilling the promise she made to
Strange, asking the heroes there to bury his head with the rest of his body before she
departs back to her home dimension.
2 Power Girl Kora Zor-El first appeared in All Star Comics
issue 587 in 1976.
She’s Superman’s cousin, but from an alternate universe, Earth 2 (of course).
Finding herself stranded in the main DC universe after a cosmic crisis on her home world, she
ends up working alongside Superman and her alternate self, Supergirl.
In comparison to her counterpart, she’s more mature and level headed, and more aggressive
in combat.
Unlike some of the other Earth 2 heroes on our list, she had a really odd retcon experience
after Crisis, resulting in her origins being changed so that she was actually the granddaughter
of an Atlantean sorcerer.
People weren’t into it, so THAT was retconned, and during the 2005-2006 Infinite Crisis,
she was returned to being a refugee of Krypton from Earth Two.
1 Jay Garrick Jay Garrick lands the top spot on our list
not just because he’s a golden age hero who resides on DC’s Earth 2.
Or because he’s a completely distinct other version of the Flash from an alternate timeline.
Really, it’s because he was the pivotal Earth 2 character to bridge the gap between
DC’s multiverse with Barry Allen, and essentially, create the multiverse, or a ‘shared universe’
as it was called, by appearing in The Flash issue 123 storyline ‘Flash of Two Worlds’.
Earth 2 was created to explain the differences between the Golden Age and the Silver Age,
in which heroes who had begun their crime fighting careers at the beginning of the golden
age (and the dawn of World War 2) would reside, yet could appear in stories with the current
iteration of heroes and not mess up the continuity.
Anywho, Jay Garrick got his speedster powers in a different way; as a college student,
he accidentally inhaled something called hard (or heavy, as it was retconned) water vapors
after falling asleep in his lab, where he had been smoking.
It’s so very golden age.
He awakens to discover he has superhuman speed, and ends up using his football jersey and
his father’s helmet from WW1 to make himself a costume.
He was also one of the founding members of the Justice Society of America, the predecessor
to the Justice League.
He would fall into obscurity, replaced by the new more science fiction based Barry Allen
Flash, until that fateful story in Flash issue 123, which changed the fabric of the DC universe
forever.
There we have it friends!