DC Comics has created many of the best comics of all time. Superheroes wouldn’t exist in the same way without DC, and the various eras of DC heroes are beloved by fans. DC has also played a huge role in the maturation of the comic medium, a process that began in the early ’80s with the hiring of legendary writer Alan Moore. Moore brought the kind of maturity to American comics that British, European, and Japanese comics had for decades, bringing a sophistication to the American comic industry that led to some amazing — and when the creators weren’t up to snuff, terrible — places. However, Moore’s time at DC didn’t last; fights over ownership of Watchmen ended his relationship with the publisher. It also robbed readers of what could have been the greatest superhero event comic of all time.
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In 1987, Moore had an idea about superhero comics that would have changed the medium forever — Twilight of the Superheroes. Moore’s proposal for the series, since published by DC in 2020 after years of copies of it circulating around online, was exactly the type of thing that one would expect from a writer of Moore’s caliber. Moore and DC’s split robbed readers of some great stories, but the loss of Twilight of the Superheroes is DC’s biggest missed opportunity.
Twilight of the Superheroes Would Have Changed Comics Forever
Alan Moore had a problem with superhero comics and the events that fans loved so much. Moore’s biggest problem was with the endless nature of superhero comics. He felt that the fact that there was no ending took something away from the tales of people in tights whomping on each other, and that was partly where Twilight of the Superheroes came from. Moore wanted to give the DC Universe an end point, one that grew out of the present, and he wanted to do it with a massive event series that was set twenty years in the future. Moore wanted to create a mega crossover that made sense for readers, one that wouldn’t make them feel like they had to buy books or were missing something from the books they were buying.
Moore also wanted complete control over the story; he was going to help design the ads, guide other creators, come up with t-shirts, toys, and role-playing games, something he was also trying to do at DC with Watchmen after its publication. Moore was going to change comics forever again with this story. It’s amazing to think exactly what could have happened if DC and Moore could have somehow mended their fences and Twilight actually got made. Unfortunately, all DC fans have had is glimpses of what could have been.
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The premise of the story involved Alan Moore creation John Constantine and Rip Hunter traveling back in time to stop something that caused catastrophe in their future, pretty standard superhero stuff. However, as the book, and its tie-ins, went on, readers would learn the terrible truth about the DC of twenty years in the future. The superhero community had stratified into eight houses, with the House of Steel (Superman), the House of Thunder (Shazam), and houses for the Justice League, Teen Titans, and more all basically ruling the world. Supervillains are gone and aliens have been ejected from the Earth. As the Houses of Steel and Thunder prepare to unite by marriage, all hell breaks loose, and a massive battle breaks out. It’s revealed that Constantine and Hunter didn’t come back to stop anything, but to make sure the future happened exactly as they remembered, because the final battle would have broken the superhumans’ hold over the Earth.
That’s an extremely ambitious crossover, and it doesn’t stop there. Twilight of the Superheroes would have brought back the DC Multiverse, which had just ended, and showed off darker versions of the heroes, ones that fit Moore’s work on Watchmen. It would have been a huge turning point for DC, and finished Moore’s work in making superheroes more complex and mature. It would have been glorious.
Even Though It Never Existed, Twilight of the Superheroes Still Had a Hold over DC History
Looking over Moore’s plans for Twilight of the Superheroes, it’s easy to see just what DC fans lost. This would have been the greatest DC story of all time, full stop. Nothing less could have come from an Alan Moore working with the training wheels off. The internet is filled with details from Moore’s proposal, so it’s easy to see the crazy genius that the story would have set forth. The story was so good that DC has gone on to use many ideas from it many times over the years.
Comics like Armageddon 2001 and Kingdom Come borrowed elements from Twilight of the Superheroes. There’s a one panel homage to the never published story in Infinite Crisis, when Alexander Luthor was creating alternate universes in the book’s fifth and sixth issues. Grant Morrison’s Final Crisis also gives the DC Multiverse an end point, although it doesn’t use any of the other ideas from Twilight of the Superheroes.
DC has owned the proposal since it was made, and it’s their prerogative to use its ideas. However, one can’t deny that the book as Moore envisioned it would have been the biggest game changer of all time. DC in 1987 was in a pretty good place; post-Crisis DC had an energy that the publisher hadn’t had since the early days of the Silver Age. Moore adding to that would have been amazing. While DC fans still got elements of things, the loss of Twilight of the Superheroes, though, will always stick in DC’s fans’ craws, all because of what could have been.
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