Recently, I had to review a comic that featured pre-Flashpoint Wally West as The Flash, post-Flashpoint Wally West as Kid Flash, and a young version of pre-Flashpoint Wally West back when he was also called Kid Flash. Add in the fact that the book also featured Tempest, whose pre-Flashpoint iteration was called Aqualad, side-by-side with the current Aqualad, Robin, Nightwing who used to be Robin, and Donna Troy, whose history is too complex to figure without a slide rule and a snack, and that was one complicated discussion. On the other hand, Spider-Verse was a multi-issue crossover featuring alternative versions of Spider-Man, multiple Spider-Womans, multiple Peter Parkers, a living Uncle Ben and a talking pig, all of which added up to great fun and a ripping crossover adventure, leading to today’s doppelgangland query…
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) notes that Marvel is putting out three different books featuring characters who are Spider-Woman, asking: Are you okay with alternative versions of the same hero (or multiple heroes with the same name) being active at the same time?
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For the most part I’m okay with it. There are some cases where I’m not crazy about it, and a few select cases where it just irritates me, but most of the time it doesn’t really bother me as long as the story is entertaining. I’m also a big fan of multiverse adventures where characters of one world team-up or do battle with one or more of their counterparts (such as many pre-Crisis stories, or the more recent Spider-Verse event), and in a different context, I’m used to there being more than one version of a character across different media (such as the DC comics, movie universe, Arrowverse and animated universes, or the same deal with Marvel’s properties).
But I am likely somewhat biased as three of the characters in my own superhero universe are technically the same person (the main one from that timeline, a “mirror duplicate” from another timeline and an older one from a possible future that no longer exists but he wasn’t erased as he was outside of his timeline when it was altered).
It does little for me. I would rather see a sidekick or an alt universe.