Undercover Revivals

[MWGallaher]

I've long been fascinated by comics that started out life as proposed revamps of existing characters, but were refashioned into "new" characters or titles.
"Watchmen" is surely the best known and most successful example: Moore and Gibbons started with the Charlton "Action Heroes" and ended up with a phenomenon. But there were others, with varying levels of success.
Steve Gerber mentioned in the press that his "Void Indigo" began life as a revamp proposal for a DC character. I guessed at the time that he'd originally intended this as a new take on Martian Manhunter, who also happened to be a barechested, colorfully-skinned alien, but Gerber later revealed that this was first proposed as a twist on the Earth-2 Hawkman! I could see the concept working with either...the resulting character seemed to have as much in common with the one as with the other.
I haven't seen confirmation, but I'm fairly certain that the Bill Mumy/Miguel Ferrer/Gray Morrow graphic novel Dreamwalker (for Marvel) was proposed as a Golden Age Sandman revival, and that Mumy and Ferrer's "Trypto the Acid Dog" was originally an attempt to bring back Krypto to the DC universe.
Vertigo has published at least one undercover revival, with "The Unseen Hand", a surprisingly faithful remake of Mike Sekowsky's "Jason's Quest" from Showcase.
More recently, we've seen DC publish "Breach", first developed as a new "Captain Atom" (and portrayed as a multiversal Captain Atom counterpart in "Infinite Crisis").
I'd love to hear from anyone who knows of any other classic comics that were secretly remade under new titles, with no explicit nods to their predecessors.

[JKCarrier]

Lodestone Comics' short-lived series "Codename: Danger" was originally going to be called "Codename: Action", and star the old Ideal toy hero Captain Action. Apparently the licensing deal fell through, so they had to change the name. If you look at the cover, you can actually see where they've pasted the word "DANGER" over "ACTION" in the logo:
http://www.milehighcomics.com/cgi-bin/backissue.cgi?action=fullsize&issue=17736358422%201

[foxley]

Youngblood was a reworking of a rejected Teen Titans proposal.

[berk]

I've long been fascinated by comics that started out life as proposed revamps of existing characters, but were refashioned into "new" characters or titles.
"Watchmen" is surely the best known and most successful example: Moore and Gibbons started with the Charlton "Action Heroes" and ended up with a phenomenon. But there were others, with varying levels of success.
Steve Gerber mentioned in the press that his "Void Indigo" began life as a revamp proposal for a DC character. I guessed at the time that he'd originally intended this as a new take on Martian Manhunter, who also happened to be a barechested, colorfully-skinned alien, but Gerber later revealed that this was first proposed as a twist on the Earth-2 Hawkman! I could see the concept working with either...the resulting character seemed to have as much in common with the one as with the other.
I haven't seen confirmation, but I'm fairly certain that the Bill Mumy/Miguel Ferrer/Gray Morrow graphic novel Dreamwalker (for Marvel) was proposed as a Golden Age Sandman revival, and that Mumy and Ferrer's "Trypto the Acid Dog" was originally an attempt to bring back Krypto to the DC universe.
Vertigo has published at least one undercover revival, with "The Unseen Hand", a surprisingly faithful remake of Mike Sekowsky's "Jason's Quest" from Showcase.
More recently, we've seen DC publish "Breach", first developed as a new "Captain Atom" (and portrayed as a multiversal Captain Atom counterpart in "Infinite Crisis").
I'd love to hear from anyone who knows of any other classic comics that were secretly remade under new titles, with no explicit nods to their predecessors.I don't have an example, but this info made me realize that I'am and was much more interested in Void Indigo than I would ever have been in a new version of Hawkman's origin. So until all these established characters are public domain and creators can enjoy complete freedom to imagine them as their creative impulse drives them, I think the undercover revival is the way to go for comicbook writers.

OTPH, comics is such a visual medium, that if I want to read a story about a particular character, that visual aspect is usually such an important part of the character for me that reinventions might not work. But usually I'm more interested in reading a good story than in a particular character, so i can always forget that it's a reinvention of anything else.

[spoon_jenkins]

Both Nightcrawler and Storm were modifications of characters that Dave Cockrum had intended to introduce in Legion of Super-Heroes.

[MDG]

Steve Englehart's "Foozle" story was supposed to be a Superman/Creeper team-up from DC Presents.

The character T.O.M Foolery that appeared in Negative Burn (written by my partner and me, art by Joe Staton) started as a proposed revival of the Odd Man--as much as you can revive a character that only appeared once.

[KidCommando]

Well Guardians of the Galaxy were introduced in the late 60s in a one-shot and went no where. Later in the 90s Marvel introduced a new Guadians of the Galaxy which went on to have a long run,

[foxley]

Guardians of the Galaxy were always kind of around after their introduction. I remember then appearing in some Avengers stories in the 70s.

[Scott Shaw!]

When some of Fawcett's "Bulletman" stories were reprinted during the 1950s, he gained an unintentionally hilarious new name: ZIP JET, SUPERSONIC ENEMY OF EVIL.

I'm sure the bad guys' knees were shakin' when they heard that Zip Jet was after them.

(The name always reminds me of the cyborg superhero in GODZILLA VS. MEGALON, "Jet Jaguar".)

Aloha,

Scott!

[dan bailey]

Guardians of the Galaxy were always kind of around after their introduction. I remember then appearing in some Avengers stories in the 70s.

Not to mention (as Lone Ranger does in his latest Comics Should Be Good post) ishes 3-12 of Marvel Presents from late '75-earliy '77

[Scott Shaw!]

Pressed to meet an impossible deadline for a fill-in issue of CAPTAIN AMERICA, Mark Evanier "repurposed" the plot of an old PORKY PIG story he'd written for Western Publishing (it was a mystery) so it'd work with Cap and the Falcon.

Aloha,

Scott!

[Scott Shaw!]

Bill Black's AMERICAN COMICS regularly reprint Golden and early Silver Age stories of specific characters who he re-names, apparently to avoid copyright problems (although I really don't understand how that is even legal!)

Aloha,

Scott!

[JKCarrier]

Bill Black's AMERICAN COMICS regularly reprint Golden and early Silver Age stories of specific characters who he re-names, apparently to avoid copyright problems (although I really don't understand how that is even legal!)

It's the difference between Copyrights and Trademarks. Copyrights apply to specific stories and artwork, which eventually expire and go into the public domain. But trademarks (brand names) never expire, as long as they're still in use. The old Lev Gleason Daredevil stories have fallen into public domain, but the name "Daredevil" is still protected by trademark. So Bill B. changes it to "Red Devil", and he's legally in the clear (at least in theory).

It's similar to why DC always has to title their Captain Marvel comics "Shazam!". They own the copyrights, but the trademarked named "Captain Marvel" is owned by Marvel Comics.

[foxley]

Miracleman began life (as Marvelman) when the Fawcett stopped publishing Captain Marvel. The publisher doing the British reprints created an almost identical character as a replacement. Alan Moore then revived the character in the 1980s.

[benday-dot]

The undercover revival I have in mind is not so much character based as plot, or continuity based.

In a strange bit of cross-company symmetry when the first Aquaman series came to an abrupt halt in 1971, with issue #56, Steve Skeates had still more to tell in his great "The Creature that Devoured Detroit" story.

In 1974 Skeates found himself working over at Marvel, and coincidentally enough, assigned to that company's own underwater superhero title... none other than The Sub-Mariner, the original "fish-man."

In a further coincidence, when Subby's final number came up with issue #71 Skeates must have decided he might not get another chance to finally finish the saga he began 3 years earlier for a different title and publisher.

He had to use a different character, and didn't have the great Jim Aparo to visualize the conclusion (but I always liked Dan Adkins, who pencilled the Subby story) but he pretty much managed to pull off his own undercover revival!

[FanboyStranger]

Steve Englehart's "Foozle" story was supposed to be a Superman/Creeper team-up from DC Presents.

.

Speaking of Englehart, his Scorpio Rose mini published by Eclipse in the '80s was originally a Madame Xanadu story that fell apart in pre-production. It also features in its second issue yet another incarnation of Mantis-- Lorelei.

[foxley]

Dominic Fortune was a revival of Howard Chaykin's character the Scorpion from Atlas Comics. They look almost identical.

[Cei-U!]

Dominic Fortune was a revival of Howard Chaykin's character the Scorpion from Atlas Comics. They look almost identical.

Likewise, The Defenders' Devil-Slayer was a transparent transplantation of Rick Buckler's Demon-Hunter character created for Atlas.

Cei-U!
I summon the recycling!

[MWGallaher]

And there's also the JLA's "Willow", a.k.a. the Avengers' "Mantis", reborn in a different universe courtesy of writer Steve Englehart. And Rob Liefeld made no attempt to hide the fact that his "Fighting American" was a reworking of pages intended for his run on "Captain America" before he was booted from the job.
As for the afore-mentioned "Devil Slayer / Demon Hunter", the character had an even earlier incarnation for a semi-professional publication called, I think, Galaxion. Buckler's baby even then, of course.
One of the more bizarre examples of, well, not exactly an undercover revival so much as a repurposing of unusable material, was when Marvel turned a completed issue of "Tarzan" (after they'd lost the license) into an issue of "Battlestar Galactica"!!!