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123-621: The first issue of A-Next paid homage to The Avengers #1, with an Asgardian menace prompting new superheroes to band together, all of them analogues to the original team. Future stories introduced new heroes and villains, most of them based on pre-existing Marvel characters. Characters and story elements created by DeFalco in the comic were used in other comics in the MC2 Universe. A five issue miniseries entitled Avengers Next ran from November 2006 to January 2007, written by Tom DeFalco and with artwork by Ron Lim , that followed on from

246-527: A Megaduke and commander of its armies and manages to fight off the invading Ottoman armies of Mehmet II . He saves the city from Islamic conquest , and even chases the Turks deeper into lands they had previously conquered. One of the earliest works of alternate history published in large quantities for the reception of a large audience may be Louis Geoffroy 's Histoire de la Monarchie universelle : Napoléon et la conquête du monde (1812–1832) (History of

369-523: A UFO crash site, they discovered a Kree space probe. When they neared the ship, the automated defenses activated, and a robotic sentry was released. Bill activated a distress signal which was picked up by Mainframe and the rest of A-Next. Spider-Girl is the daughter of Spider-Man and Mary Jane Watson . Mainframe appears in Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. , voiced by Jeffrey Combs . This version

492-431: A multiverse of alternative worlds, complete with the paratime travel machines that would later become popular with American pulp writers. However, since his hero experiences only a single alternate world, the story is not very different from conventional alternate history. In the 1930s, alternate history moved into a new arena. The December 1933 issue of Astounding published Nat Schachner 's "Ancestral Voices", which

615-459: A POD only to explain the existence and make no use of the concept, or may present the universe without explanation of its existence. Isaac Asimov 's short story " What If— " (1952) is about a couple who can explore alternate realities by means of a television-like device. This idea can also be found in Asimov's novel The End of Eternity (1955), in which the "Eternals" can change the realities of

738-412: A Pennsylvania State Police officer, who knows how to make gunpowder, is transported from our world to an alternate universe where the recipe for gunpowder is a tightly held secret and saves a country that is about to be conquered by its neighbors. The paratime patrol members are warned against going into the timelines immediately surrounding it, where the country will be overrun, but the book never depicts

861-464: A Union victory at the Battle of Gettysburg. When a story's assumptions about the nature of time travel lead to the complete replacement of the visited time's future, rather than just the creation of an additional time line, the device of a "time patrol" is often used where guardians move through time to preserve the "correct" history. A more recent example is Making History by Stephen Fry in which

984-469: A bitter war with the "Spanish" in Mexico (the chief scientist at the laboratory where the experiment occurred is described as a Gnostic, and references to Christian Gnosticism appear repeatedly in the book). Although not dealing in physical time travel, in his alt-history novel Marx Returns , Jason Barker introduces anachronisms into the life and times of Karl Marx , such as when his wife Jenny sings

1107-412: A certain drug, and the agent is constantly trying to maximize the consistency of behavior among his alternate selves, attempting to compensate for events and thoughts he experiences, he guesses are of low measure relative to those experienced by most of his other selves. Many writers—perhaps the majority—avoid the discussion entirely. In one novel of this type, H. Beam Piper's Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen ,

1230-559: A character in Ada makes a long-distance call, all the toilets in the house flush at once to provide hydraulic power. Guido Morselli described the defeat of Italy (and subsequently France) in World War I in his novel, Past Conditional (1975; Contro-passato prossimo ), wherein the static Alpine front line which divided Italy from Austria during that war collapses when the Germans and

1353-629: A different history. "Sidewise in Time" has been described as "the point at which the alternate history narrative first enters science fiction as a plot device" and is the story for which the Sidewise Award for Alternate History is named. A somewhat similar approach was taken by Robert A. Heinlein in his 1941 novelette Elsewhen in which a professor trains his mind to move his body across timelines. He then hypnotizes his students so that they can explore more of them. Eventually, each settles into

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1476-797: A divided United States , in which the Empire of Japan takes the Pacific states, governing them as a puppet, Nazi Germany takes the East Coast of the United States and parts of the Midwest , with the remnants of the old United States' government as the Neutral Zone, a buffer state between the two superpowers. The book has inspired an Amazon series of the same name . Vladimir Nabokov 's novel, Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle (1969),

1599-479: A nation. It assumes that by giving a nation an alternative history, alternative values can be made to grow." In the English language, the first known complete alternate history may be Nathaniel Hawthorne 's short story " P.'s Correspondence ", published in 1845. It recounts the tale of a man who is considered "a madman" due to his perceptions of a different 1845, a reality in which long-dead famous people, such as

1722-664: A sixteen-part epic comic book series called Captain Confederacy began examining a world where the Confederate States of America won the American Civil War . In the series, the Captain and others heroes are staged government propaganda events featuring the feats of these superheroes. Since the late 1990s, Harry Turtledove has been the most prolific practitioner of alternate history and has been given

1845-592: A staple of the alternate history genre. A number of alternate history stories and novels appeared in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (see, for example, Joseph Edgar Chamberlin 's The Ifs of History [1907] and Charles Petrie 's If: A Jacobite Fantasy [1926]). In 1931, British historian Sir John Squire collected a series of essays from some of the leading historians of the period for his anthology If It Had Happened Otherwise . In that work, scholars from major universities, as well as important non-academic authors, turned their attention to such questions as "If

1968-470: A subgenre of science fiction , alternative history is a genre of fiction wherein the author speculates upon how the course of history might have been altered if a particular historical event had an outcome different from the real life outcome. An alternate history requires three conditions: (i) A point of divergence from the historical record, before the time in which the author is writing; (ii) A change that would alter known history; and (iii) An examination of

2091-629: A third. Robinson explores world history from that point in AD 1405 (807 AH ) to about AD 2045 (1467 AH). Rather than following the great man theory of history, focusing on leaders, wars, and major events, Robinson writes more about social history , similar to the Annales School of history theory and Marxist historiography , focusing on the lives of ordinary people living in their time and place. Philip Roth 's novel, The Plot Against America (2004), looks at an America where Franklin D. Roosevelt

2214-503: A time machine is used to alter history so that Adolf Hitler was never born. That ironically results in a more competent leader of Nazi Germany and results in the country's ascendancy and longevity in the altered timeline. While many justifications for alternate histories involve a multiverse , the "many world" theory would naturally involve many worlds, in fact a continually exploding array of universes. In quantum theory, new worlds would proliferate with every quantum event, and even if

2337-411: A tyrannical US Government brushes aside the warnings of scientists about the dangers of time travel and goes on with a planned experiment - with the result that minor changes to the prehistoric past cause Humanity to never have existed, its place taken by tentacled underwater intelligent creatures - who also have a tyrannical government which also insists on experimenting with time-travel. Time travel as

2460-427: A vehicle to expound them. This book introduced the idea of a person being transported from a point in our familiar world to the precise geographical equivalent point in an alternate world in which history had gone differently. The protagonists undergo various adventures in the alternate world, and then are finally transported back to our world, again to the precise geographical equivalent point. Since then, that has become

2583-541: A verse from the Sex Pistols 's song " Anarchy in the U.K. ", or in the games of chess she plays with the Marxes' housekeeper Helene Demuth , which on one occasion involves a Caro–Kann Defence . In her review of the novel, Nina Power writes of "Jenny's 'utopian' desire for an end to time", an attitude which, according to Power, is inspired by her husband's co-authored book The German Ideology . However, in keeping with

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2706-742: Is a fictional group of heroes in the Marvel Comics MC2 universe. They first appeared in A-Next #4, and are based upon the "kooky quartet" of replacement Avengers introduced in Avengers #16. In their first appearance, Mainframe accepts them as members of the Avengers without consulting the existing members, which initially creates conflict between the original A-Next team and the Dream Team. The team roster comprises: Shannon Carter

2829-495: Is a form of historiography that explores historical events in an extrapolated timeline in which key historical events either did not occur or had an outcome different from the historical record, in order to understand what did happen. The earliest example of alternate (or counterfactual) history is found in Livy 's Ab Urbe Condita Libri (book IX, sections 17–19). Livy contemplated an alternative 4th century BC in which Alexander

2952-412: Is a gaming A.I. created by Iron Man that gained sentience. In the episode "Wheels of Fury", he threatened to destroy a city if Iron Man lost his real-life game, which Mainframe merely saw as continuing Iron Man's challenge as ordered. In response, the agents of S.M.A.S.H. went up against Mainframe's robots in a roller derby . After the agents of S.M.A.S.H. and Iron Man defeat Mainframe's robots, Mainframe

3075-516: Is a self-aware computer program, created by Tony Stark , which inhabits a series of identical armors. When an armor is damaged or destroyed, he simply transfers his consciousness to another body. His robot body utilizes Stark technology similar to the one found in the Iron Man armor. His personality is based on his creator's, possibly created by the same process as the Vision 's. Dr. Cassandra Lang

3198-405: Is a story of incest that takes place within an alternate North America settled in part by Czarist Russia and that borrows from Dick's idea of "alternate-alternate" history (the world of Nabokov's hero is wracked by rumors of a "counter-earth" that apparently is ours). Some critics believe that the references to a counter-earth suggest that the world portrayed in Ada is a delusion in the mind of

3321-598: Is alive and leading the resistance, and the Avengers help them defeat the Nazi forces, including the Thunder Guard, an alternate version of the Avengers. Thunderstrike elects to stay on the alternate Earth, and the remaining Avengers return to Earth, receiving a reprimand from Tony Stark and Clint Barton. Immediately afterwards, they're attacked by a team of villains known as the Revengers , led by Red Queen and Big Man,

3444-517: Is another attempt to portray a Utopian society. In Aristopia , the earliest settlers in Virginia discover a reef made of solid gold and are able to build a Utopian society in North America . In 1905, H. G. Wells published A Modern Utopia . As explicitly noted in the book itself, Wells's main aim in writing it was to set out his social and political ideas, the plot serving mainly as

3567-641: Is attacked by the Revengers , Argo fights for his friends (along with other allies of A-Next) and when they won the battle, Argo accepts membership in A-Next. Kandra Freeman is the daughter of Photon and Derek Freeman. Blacklight has the ability to manipulate solid light constructs, and use it to fire blasts of destructive energy. She can also focus her energies into solid form and create energy-constructs out of dark force in virtually any form she can envision (ramps, stop signs, giant shovels, etc.). She can also use her energy powers to fly at high speed. Coal Tiger

3690-481: Is defeated in 1940 in his bid for a third term as President of the United States, and Charles Lindbergh is elected, leading to a US that features increasing fascism and anti-Semitism. Michael Chabon , occasionally an author of speculative fiction, contributed to the genre with his novel The Yiddish Policemen's Union (2007), which explores a world in which the State of Israel was destroyed in its infancy and many of

3813-470: Is forced to abdicate the throne and is exiled for killing his grandfather Bor , who was brought from the past and driven mad by Loki, control of Asgard passes to Thor's half-brother, Balder . Asgard is destroyed yet again after Norman Osborn seizes control of S.H.I.E.L.D. following the Secret Invasion as he seeks to expel Asgard from U.S. soil in an effort to consolidate power. Osborn leads

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3936-576: Is impatient and straightforward. Her main power is superspeed. She was once affiliated with the X-People (successor to the X-Men ), until she joined the Avengers when she realized she would not get much publicity. Aerika Harkness is related to the witch Agatha Harkness , former teacher to the Scarlet Witch . She possesses control over magical energies, although the exact nature of those energies

4059-707: Is inhabited by Angels . It was cut off from the rest of the realms following the Angels' attack on Asgard which led to the apparent death of an infant Angela . Asgard later established the Congress of Worlds which consists of the representatives of the Nine Realms. After Heven was reintegrated with the other Realms, representatives of Heven started appearing as members of the Congress of Worlds. The Asgardian dimension contains several distinct regions. The six races of intelligent humanoid beings known to reside within

4182-568: Is not known. They appear similar to the way the Scarlet Witch's powers were originally portrayed , and she can control it with relative ease. She died stopping an alternate Doctor Doom from attempting to use the Cosmic Cube to invade the Avengers' Earth. Brandon Cross was trained by Hawkeye and Swordsman and has shown proficiency with a variety of weapons as well as athletic skills. His costume design draws from both Hawkeye and

4305-690: Is persuaded not to attack the city. Desiring to learn more about the real world, Mainframe creates a new body and leaves to see the world. In the episode "Planet Monster" Pt. 2, Mainframe is among several heroes who help the agents of S.M.A.S.H. and the Avengers fight the Supreme Intelligence 's forces. Asgard (comics) Asgard is a fictional realm and its capital city appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics . Created by Stan Lee , Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby ,

4428-642: Is set in Europe following the Nazi victory. The novel Dominion by C.J. Sansom (2012) is similar in concept but is set in England, with Churchill the leader of an anti-German Resistance and other historic persons in various fictional roles. In the Mecha Samurai Empire series (2016), Peter Tieryas focuses on the Asian-American side of the alternate history, exploring an America ruled by

4551-494: Is suggested that, had Gordon Banks been fit to play in the 1970 FIFA World Cup quarter-final, there would have been no Thatcherism and the post-war consensus would have continued indefinitely. Kim Stanley Robinson 's novel, The Years of Rice and Salt (2002), starts at the point of divergence with Timur turning his army away from Europe, and the Black Death has killed 99% of Europe's population, instead of only

4674-555: Is the daughter of the second Ant-Man , Scott Lang. Although she is the oldest member, in her mid-20s, and the only one on the team with a professional life and a scientific background, she is still doted on by her father, who constantly worries about her new-found superhero life. She possesses many abilities originally engineered by Henry Pym, including resizing, flying, communication with insects and artificial "stingers", all based on her costume and helmet. 18-year-old Kevin Masterson

4797-473: Is the niece of Sharon Carter . Her uniform design is based on Captain America 's and includes a set of stun discs (similar to Nomad 's) that can be thrown at opponents. She does not possess any powers, but is an Olympic -level athlete, a skilled fighter and a strategist. American Dream was later rewarded the shield of an alternate-reality Captain America after saving that world from destruction. Blue Kelso

4920-433: Is the son of Black Panther - named after his grandfather - and the prince of Wakanda. He is able to transform into a humanoid cat-like being. In this feline form, he has superhuman strength and agility, enhanced senses and retractable razor-sharp claws on his fingers and toes. The character has received accolades from critics. John Foster is the son of Bill Foster . When John and his father Bill were investigating

5043-420: Is the son of the original Thunderstrike . He absorbed his father's mace into his body, and has gained the ability to produce "thunderclaps"; bursts of concussive force from his hands. He can use them to simulate super strength or to propel him in huge Hulk-like leaps. Although he doesn't possess real super strength, he has limited invulnerability. In his civilian identity, he is a college student. The Dream Team

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5166-536: Is three times denser than similar human tissue, contributing to their superhuman strength and weight. An average Asgardian male can lift 30 tons (27.2 metric tons ); an average Asgardian female can lift about 25 tons (22.7 metric tons). Asgardians are immune to all terrestrial diseases and resistant to conventional injury (however this resilience seems relatively incapable of defeating the zombie plague in Earth-2149 that affects even Asgardians). The metabolism of

5289-663: The Crosstime Traffic series for teenagers featuring a variant of H. Beam Piper's paratime trading empire. The concept of a cross-time version of a world war, involving rival paratime empires, was developed in Fritz Leiber 's Change War series, starting with the Hugo Award winning The Big Time (1958); followed by Richard C. Meredith 's Timeliner trilogy in the 1970s, Michael McCollum 's A Greater Infinity (1982) and John Barnes' Timeline Wars trilogy in

5412-800: The Dark Avengers in the Siege of Asgard . The invading forces are defeated with help from the reunited Avengers , although Asgard itself is toppled by the Sentry . Immediately following the Siege, Thor reerects Heimdall 's observatory atop Stark Tower as sign of solidarity with Midgard and appreciation for the Avengers' aid. Thor restores Odin to the throne when the nine realms are invaded by "the World Eaters". However, after Thor and Odin's long-forgotten brother Cul , kill each other in battle during

5535-572: The Disney+ series Loki (2021). Eventually, Asgard was relocated to Earth in Norway and appeared in Avengers: Endgame and Thor: Love and Thunder (2022). According to Asgardian legend, in the beginning there was nothing, but in time two worlds came into being on opposite sides of the void. The one to the north was named Niflheim , a world of clouds and shadows in whose center surged

5658-472: The Empire of Japan and the Germans (and doing almost as much harm as good in spite of its advanced weapons). The series also explores the cultural impacts of people with 2021 ideals interacting with 1940s culture. Similarly, Robert Charles Wilson 's Mysterium depicts a failed US government experiment which transports a small American town into an alternative version of the US run by Gnostics , who are engaged in

5781-646: The Juggernaut ) and the adult Speedball , Jubilee and Jolt . The heroes are transported to Asgard by Loki, who wants to retrieve the Thunderstrike mace's powers for himself, but Kevin disrupts the spell, absorbing the mace into himself and transforming into a new Thunderstrike in the process. Loki and the trolls are then defeated by the heroes, with assistance from Thor, now the King of Asgard. Thunderstrike, Stinger, J2, and Mainframe decide to stay together as

5904-858: The Swordsman ); Crimson Curse (an analogue to the Scarlet Witch ) and Bluestreak (an analogue to Quicksilver ); known collectively as the Dream Team , save N'kano , the Wakandan ambassador, from the racist Soldiers of the Serpent (an amalgam of the Sons of the Serpent and elements from the Egyptian god Set ), with the assistance of the Coal Tiger , the son of the Black Panther . Afterwards,

6027-592: The Warriors Three are sent to retrieve golden apples from the branches of the tree. Odin once hung himself from the tree for nine days and nights as a sacrifice to gain knowledge of the runes . Thor repeated this action during Ragnarök. Later Amora the Enchantress attempt to destroy the tree in an effort to free the body of Skurge the Executioner from its roots, an action that nearly tore apart

6150-787: The Worldwar series , in which aliens invaded Earth during World War II . Other stories by Turtledove include A Different Flesh , in which the Americas were not populated from Asia during the last ice age ; In the Presence of Mine Enemies , in which the Nazis won World War II; and Ruled Britannia , in which the Spanish Armada succeeded in conquering England in the Elizabethan era , with William Shakespeare being given

6273-586: The time travel novel Lest Darkness Fall by L. Sprague de Camp in which an American academic travels to Italy at the time of the Byzantine invasion of the Ostrogoths . De Camp's time traveler, Martin Padway, is depicted as making permanent historical changes and implicitly forming a new time branch, thereby making the work an alternate history. In William Tenn 's short story Brooklyn Project (1948),

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6396-435: The Æsir . Odin and his brothers grew to hate the giants and slew Ymir, and his blood formed a great sea. Odin and his brothers then raised Ymir's body from the sea and created Midgard between Niflheim and Muspelheim. With Ymir's bones they created mountains, and with his hair they created trees. They then raised Ymir's skull upon four pillars to create the heavens. Within the skull contained sparks from Muspelheim, which became

6519-519: The " Fear Itself " event, Odin passes control of Asgard to the Vanir , headed by the "All-Mother", a triumvirate of female deities consisting of Freyja , Gaea and Idunn. Tony Stark 's company, Stark Resilient then rebuilds Asgard over Broxton, Oklahoma, where it is rechristened as " Asgardia ". During the " Original Sin " storyline, it is revealed that there is a Tenth Realm in Asgard called Heven that

6642-664: The "Void of Non-Existence". Thor returns to Earth and rebuilds Asgard outside of Broxton, Oklahoma , purchasing the land with gold from the treasury. Thor then goes about restoring the Asgardians, who have been reborn in the bodies of mortal men and women. Asgard's location on Earth makes the city a target during the " Secret Invasion " by the Skrulls led by a Super-Skrull named Godkiller, whose powers mimic Thundra , Titania , Volcana and Battleaxe . The aliens are repelled with help from Thor's ally, Beta Ray Bill . When Thor

6765-466: The "fair world" parallels our history, about fifty years out of step, there is functional magic in the fair world. Even with such explanation, the more explicitly the alternate world resembles a normal fantasy world, the more likely the story is to be labelled fantasy, as in Poul Anderson's "House Rule" and "Loser's Night". In both science fiction and fantasy, whether a given parallel universe is an alternate history may not be clear. The writer might allude to

6888-426: The 1920s. In Jo Walton 's "Small Change" series, the United Kingdom made peace with Hitler before the involvement of the United States in World War II, and slowly collapses due to severe economic depression. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen have written a novel, 1945 , in which the US defeated Japan but not Germany in World War II, resulting in a Cold War with Germany rather than

7011-484: The 1980s; Chalker's G.O.D. Inc trilogy (1987–89), featuring paratime detectives Sam and Brandy Horowitz, marks the first attempt at merging the paratime thriller with the police procedural. Kurland's Perchance (1988), the first volume of the never-completed "Chronicles of Elsewhen", presents a multiverse of secretive cross-time societies that utilize a variety of means for cross-time travel, ranging from high-tech capsules to mutant powers. Harry Turtledove has launched

7134-420: The 1990s. Such "paratime" stories may include speculation that the laws of nature can vary from one universe to the next, providing a science fictional explanation—or veneer—for what is normally fantasy. Aaron Allston 's Doc Sidhe and Sidhe Devil take place between our world, the "grim world" and an alternate "fair world" where the Sidhe retreated to. Although technology is clearly present in both worlds, and

7257-401: The American Civil War (named the "War of Southron Independence" in this timeline). The protagonist, the autodidact Hodgins Backmaker, travels back to the aforementioned battle and inadvertently changes history, which results in the emergence of our own timeline and the consequent victory of the Union instead. The American humorist author James Thurber parodied alternate history stories about

7380-412: The American Civil War in his 1930 story "If Grant Had Been Drinking at Appomattox", which he accompanied with this very brief introduction: " Scribner's magazine is publishing a series of three articles: 'If Booth Had Missed Lincoln', 'If Lee Had Won the Battle of Gettysburg', and 'If Napoleon Had Escaped to America'. This is the fourth". Another example of alternate history from this period (and arguably

7503-411: The Asgardian dimension. ^2 Not to be confused with the dragon Fafnir . Although they look human, all Asgardians possess certain superhuman physical attributes. They are extremely long-lived (though not immortal like their Olympian counterparts), aging at an extremely slow rate upon reaching adulthood (through the periodic consumption of the golden apples of Idunn ). Asgardian flesh and bone

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7626-414: The Asgardian dimension. The tree is supported by three roots that extended far into the other worlds; one to the spring of Hvergelmir in Niflheim , one to the well of Mimir in Jotunheim , and another to the well of Wyrd in Asgard. Though Midgard is not physically connected to Yggdrasil, it is said that the Earth's axis is in alignment with the tree. In the limited series Thor: Blood Oath , Thor and

7749-403: The Asgardians but shorter than giants, around seven feet (2.1 meters) tall, although some trolls are considerably taller. Trolls tend to be extremely strong, stronger than the average Asgardian, dwarf or elf and on par with giants. Trolls like Ulik rival Thor in strength. There are different flora and fauna in Asgard: Yggdrasil ; the world tree is an immense ash tree that is central to

7872-480: The Asgardians gives them superhuman stamina in all physical activities. Demons are beings of fire and tend to be about the same stature as the Asgardians. Dwarves are smaller in stature than the Asgardians, and have short, stocky bodies. Their average height is four feet (1.2 meters). Elves vary greatly in size from four to eight feet (1.2 to 2.4 meters). They tend toward slender bodies and proportionately longer limbs. The dark elves tend to be darker in color than

7995-399: The Asgardians. Loki and the Executioner are both children of giants despite their diminutive six or seven foot (1.8 or 2.1 meter) stature. Trolls are the least human-looking of the denizens of Asgard, possessing body characteristics that are almost simian. Trolls are stocky and massive, have thick body hair (almost fur) and tend toward a ruddy orange color. They are on average taller than

8118-502: The Austrians forsake trench warfare and adopt blitzkrieg twenty years in advance. Kingsley Amis set his novel, The Alteration (1976), in the 20th century, but major events in the Reformation did not take place, and Protestantism is limited to the breakaway Republic of New England. Martin Luther was reconciled to the Roman Catholic Church and later became Pope Germanian I. In Nick Hancock and Chris England 's 1997 book What Didn't Happen Next: An Alternative History of Football it

8241-658: The Avengers after Franklin Richards recommended Kate to them in their search for Thunderstrike. Hudson Logan is the son of Wolverine and half-brother to Wild Thing . He possesses claws and a healing factor similar to Wolverine's. He was once a member of the Revengers , but joined the Avengers when he claimed to have reformed. Thena is the daughter of Thor . She was sent to Earth by Thor to search for Kevin Masterson and restore his powers. Initially, she showed great dislike for J2, especially so, after she realized her abilities had no effect on him, and broke her hammer on his helmet. After J2 saved her from Sylene's cauldron, she

8364-455: The Church Peter Damian in the 11th century. In his famous work De Divina Omnipotentia , a long letter in which he discusses God 's omnipotence , he treats questions related to the limits of divine power, including the question of whether God can change the past, for example, bringing about that Rome was never founded: I see I must respond finally to what many people, on the basis of your holiness's [own] judgment, raise as an objection on

8487-419: The Great had survived to attack Europe as he had planned; asking, "What would have been the results for Rome if she had been engaged in a war with Alexander?" Livy concluded that the Romans would likely have defeated Alexander. An even earlier possibility is Herodotus 's Histories , which contains speculative material. Another example of counterfactual history was posited by cardinal and Doctor of

8610-461: The Hawaiian Islands. Perhaps the most incessantly explored theme in popular alternate history focuses on the aftermath of an Axis victory in World War II . In some versions, the Nazis and/or Axis Powers win; or in others, they conquer most of the world but a "Fortress America" exists under siege; while in others, there is a Nazi/Japanese Cold War comparable to the US/Soviet equivalent in 'our' timeline. Fatherland (1992), by Robert Harris ,

8733-435: The Imperium is one of the earliest alternate history novels; it was published by Fantastic Stories of the Imagination in 1961, in magazine form, and reprinted by Ace Books in 1962 as one half of an Ace Double . Besides our world, Laumer describes a world ruled by an Imperial aristocracy formed by the merger of European empires, in which the American Revolution never happened, and a third world in post-war chaos ruled by

8856-515: The Japanese Empire while integrating elements of Asian pop culture like mechas and videogames. Several writers have posited points of departure for such a world but then have injected time splitters from the future. For instance James P. Hogan 's The Proteus Operation . Norman Spinrad wrote The Iron Dream in 1972, which is intended to be a science fiction novel written by Adolf Hitler after fleeing from Europe to North America in

8979-464: The Jews and Israel, Chabon also plays with other common tropes of alternate history fiction; in the book, Germany actually loses the war even harder than they did in reality, getting hit with a nuclear bomb instead of just simply losing a ground war (subverting the common "what if Germany won WWII?" trope). The late 1980s and the 1990s saw a boom in popular-fiction versions of alternate history, fueled by

9102-586: The Moors in Spain Had Won" and "If Louis XVI Had Had an Atom of Firmness". The essays range from serious scholarly efforts to Hendrik Willem van Loon 's fanciful and satiric portrayal of an independent 20th-century New Amsterdam , a Dutch city-state on the island of Manhattan . Among the authors included were Hilaire Belloc , André Maurois , and Winston Churchill . One of the entries in Squire's volume

9225-480: The Myriad Ways , where the reality of all possible universes leads to an epidemic of suicide and crime because people conclude their choices have no moral import. In any case, even if it is true that every possible outcome occurs in some world, it can still be argued that traits such as bravery and intelligence might still affect the relative frequency of worlds in which better or worse outcomes occurred (even if

9348-515: The Odinsleep, using his right as the 'son' of Odin before Thor could claim it, but fled when Asgard was invaded by Mangog as he realized that this new foe was too powerful. Loki later usurped the throne of Asgard by taking the Odinring, but fled again when Asgard was invaded by the fire demon, Surtur . The throne of Asgard later passes to Thor after Odin is killed in battle by Surtur, when

9471-841: The Soviet Union. Gingrich and Forstchen neglected to write the promised sequel; instead, they wrote a trilogy about the American Civil War, starting with Gettysburg: A Novel of the Civil War , in which the Confederates win a victory at the Battle of Gettysburg - however, after Lincoln responds by bringing Grant and his forces to the eastern theater, the Army of Northern Virginia is soon trapped and destroyed in Maryland, and

9594-461: The Swordsman. Freebooter was romantically linked to Crimson Curse. Kate Power , originally known as Energizer, is the youngest member of Power Pack , a team of pre-teen superheroes formed by her and her three siblings after gaining their powers from a Kymellian named Aelfyre Whitemane. Her abilities involve disintegrating matter, absorbing its energy and unleashing it as powerballs. Kate joined

9717-692: The Universal Monarchy: Napoleon and the Conquest of the World) (1836), which imagines Napoleon 's First French Empire emerging victorious in the French invasion of Russia in 1812 and in an invasion of England in 1814, later unifying the world under Bonaparte's rule. The Book of Mormon (published 1830) is described as an "alternative history" by Richard Lyman Bushman , a biographer of Joseph Smith . Smith claimed to have translated

9840-452: The authors did not alter the real history of the past when they wrote the stories. Similar to the genre of alternative history, there is also the genre of secret history - which can be either fictional or non-fictional - which documents events that might have occurred in history, but which had no effect upon the recorded historical outcome. Alternative history also is thematically related to, but distinct from, counterfactual history , which

9963-486: The cause of a point of divergence (POD), which can denote either the bifurcation of a historical timeline or a simple replacement of the future that existed before the time-travelling event, has continued to be a popular theme. In Ward Moore 's Bring the Jubilee (1953), the protagonist lives in an alternate history in which the Confederacy has won the American Civil War. He travels backward through time and brings about

10086-519: The children of Hank and Janet Pym, out for revenge. The Avengers, alongside their reserve members Earth Sentry, Coal Tiger, Argo and Blacklight, defeat the Revengers. The team was occasionally seen aiding Spider-Girl , and also appeared during Last Hero Standing and Last Planet Standing . The team also made a cameo within Fantastic Five vol. 2 #4, in which they were fighting one of

10209-435: The copies of you who made the same decision succeed too. What you do for the better increases the portion of the multiverse where good things happen." This view is perhaps somewhat too abstract to be explored directly in science fiction stories, but a few writers have tried, such as Greg Egan in his short story The Infinite Assassin , where an agent is trying to contain reality-scrambling "whirlpools" that form around users of

10332-605: The cosmic-powered Doombots . The only minor in the team, J2 is Zane Yama , a 15-year-old high school student and the son of the original Juggernaut (Cain Marko) and district attorney Sachi Yama. Picked on by bullies at school, he manifested the ability to grow to a huge size, in which he gains super strength and invulnerability. His uniform, which includes his father's favorite flannel shirt tied around his waist over his armor, manifests itself automatically upon metamorphosis. He can only stay this way for about an hour. Mainframe

10455-405: The demon invades Earth. It was prophesied that Loki would lead Asgard's enemies in a final conflict known as Ragnarök , which would lead to its destruction. This comes to pass when Loki obtains the forge that created Mjolnir and creates new uru hammers for his army. The entirety of Asgard and its inhabitants are destroyed in the resulting battle. After Ragnarök, Donald Blake awakens Thor from

10578-731: The disintegration of the US Federal Government after Albert Gallatin joins the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794 and eventually leads to the creation of a libertarian utopia. In the 2022 novel Poutine and Gin by Steve Rhinelander, the point of divergence is the Battle of the Plains of Abraham of the French and Indian War. That novel is a mystery set in 1940 of that time line. A recent time traveling splitter variant involves entire communities being shifted elsewhere to become

10701-526: The document from golden plates, which told the story of a Jewish group who migrated from Israel to the Americas and inhabited the region from about 600 B.C. to 400 A.D., becoming the ancestors of Native Americans . In the 2005 biography Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling , Bushman wrote that the Book of Mormon "turned American history upside down [and] works on the premise that a history—a book—can reconstitute

10824-567: The emergence of the prolific alternate history author Harry Turtledove , as well as the development of the steampunk genre and two series of anthologies—the What Might Have Been series edited by Gregory Benford and the Alternate ... series edited by Mike Resnick . This period also saw alternate history works by S. M. Stirling , Kim Stanley Robinson, Harry Harrison , Howard Waldrop , Peter Tieryas , and others. In 1986,

10947-424: The events of Last Hero Standing and Last Planet Standing . It reunited the remaining members of A-Next and added new members to the team, namely Sabreclaw , Kate Power (of Power Pack ), Thena , the daughter of Thor , and a former criminal teleporter called Warp. The new team comes together when Avengers Museum (formerly Avengers Mansion) is attacked by Asgardian trolls commanded by Loki , prompting

11070-489: The fabric of reality. Alternate history Alternate history (also referred to as alternative history , allohistory , althist , or simply AH ) is a subgenre of speculative fiction in which one or more historical events have occurred but are resolved differently than in actual history. As conjecture based upon historical fact, alternate history stories propose What if? scenarios about crucial events in human history, and present outcomes very different from

11193-522: The first that explicitly posited cross-time travel from one universe to another as anything more than a visionary experience) is H.G. Wells ' Men Like Gods (1923) in which the London -based journalist Mr. Barnstable, along with two cars and their passengers, is mysteriously teleported into "another world", which the "Earthlings" call Utopia. Being far more advanced than Earth, Utopia is some 3000 years ahead of humanity in its development. Wells describes

11316-552: The fountain Hvergelmir , from which flowed twelve rivers of ice. The one to the south was named Muspelheim , which teemed with rivers of fire. Eventually the warm air from the south carved out the ice giant Ymir from the ice in the north. Ymir became the father of all the giants, and his cow Auðumbla licked out of the ice the first Asgardian, Buri. Buri had a son named Borr, who married the giantess Bestla. Borr and Bestla had three sons named Odin , Vili, and Ve, who were known as

11439-402: The hero (another favorite theme of Dick's novels ). Strikingly, the characters in Ada seem to acknowledge their own world as the copy or negative version, calling it "Anti-Terra", while its mythical twin is the real "Terra". Like history, science has followed a divergent path on Anti-Terra: it boasts all the same technology as our world, but all based on water instead of electricity ; e.g., when

11562-460: The historical record. Some alternate histories are considered a subgenre of science fiction , or historical fiction . Since the 1950s, as a subgenre of science fiction, some alternative history stories have featured the tropes of time travel between histories, the psychic awareness of the existence of an alternative universe by the inhabitants of a given universe, and time travel that divides history into various timestreams . Often described as

11685-420: The light elves. Both types have natural proclivity towards magic. Giants are basically humanoid in appearance and color although they tend toward the neanderthalic in body and bone structure. Their most distinguishing feature is their height. The average giant is twenty feet (6.1 meters) tall, although some may reach thirty feet (9.1 meters). On occasion giants will produce stunted offspring who look similar to

11808-539: The mansion's subterranean levels, powering a gate to an alternate Earth . After defeating the Soldiers of the Serpent again, with the help of Blacklight (the daughter of Monica Rambeau ), the Avengers travel to the alternate dimension, which had been conquered by Red Skull after World War II, and was now ruled by the Skull's adopted son, Dr. Doom, who had murdered the Skull. During the battle, they discover Captain America

11931-539: The museum's caretaker and former butler Edwin Jarvis to send out a distress signal. The summons is responded to by several heroes including Thunderstrike (Kevin Masterson, son of the original Thunderstrike, who was visiting the mansion at the time of the attack); Stinger ( Scott Lang 's daughter Cassie Lang, now an entomologist , who was testing Ant-Man 's old uniform); Mainframe (a mysterious armored individual); J2 (Zane Yama, high school student and teenage son of

12054-573: The new Avengers. The adult heroes decline to stay with the reformed team. A downed Kree spaceship leads to the transformation of Bill Foster 's son John into Earth Sentry , an analog of Captain Marvel . Doc Magus, the new Sorcerer Supreme, then recruits the Avengers into fighting the reformed Defenders . Four new members are then inducted into the Avengers by Mainframe and Jarvis. The new members: American Dream , (a female analogue of Captain America ); Freebooter (who modeled himself on Hawkeye and

12177-465: The poets Robert Burns , Lord Byron , Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats , the actor Edmund Kean , the British politician George Canning , and Napoleon Bonaparte , are still alive. The first novel-length alternate history in English would seem to be Castello Holford 's Aristopia (1895). While not as nationalistic as Louis Geoffroy 's Napoléon et la conquête du monde, 1812–1823 , Aristopia

12300-402: The point of view of an alternate history is variously known as " recursive alternate history ", a "double-blind what-if", or an "alternate-alternate history". Churchill's essay was one of the influences behind Ward Moore 's alternate history novel Bring the Jubilee in which General Robert E. Lee won the Battle of Gettysburg and paved the way for the eventual victory of the Confederacy in

12423-553: The protagonist's doppelganger. Philip K. Dick 's novel, The Man in the High Castle (1962), is an alternate history in which Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan won World War II. This book contains an example of "alternate-alternate" history, in that one of its characters authored a book depicting a reality in which the Allies won the war, itself divergent from real-world history in several aspects. The several characters live within

12546-408: The ramifications of that alteration to history. Occasionally, some types of genre fiction are misidentified as alternative history , specifically science fiction stories set in a time that was the future for the writer, but now is the past for the reader, such as the novels 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) by Arthur C. Clarke , 1984 (1949) by George Orwell and the movie 2012 (2009) because

12669-415: The reality that is most suitable for him or her. Some of the worlds they visit are mundane, some are very odd, and others follow science fiction or fantasy conventions. World War II produced alternate history for propaganda : both British and American authors wrote works depicting Nazi invasions of their respective countries as cautionary tales. The period around World War II also saw the publication of

12792-777: The realm first appeared in Journey into Mystery #85 (October 1962). Based on the realm of the same name from Germanic mythology (particularly Norse ), Asgard is home to the Asgardians and other beings adapted from Norse mythology. It features prominently in stories that follow the Marvel Comics superhero Thor . Asgard has appeared in comics and various media adaptations, including the Marvel Cinematic Universe films Thor (2011), Thor: The Dark World (2013), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Avengers: Endgame (2019), and

12915-459: The slaughter of the innocent thus entailed, remaining solely in the timeline where the country is saved. The cross-time theme was further developed in the 1960s by Keith Laumer in the first three volumes of his Imperium sequence, which would be completed in Zone Yellow (1990). Piper's politically more sophisticated variant was adopted and adapted by Michael Kurland and Jack Chalker in

13038-435: The sun, moon, and stars. When Midgard was complete, Odin and his brothers created a home for themselves above it called Asgard. Between the two worlds they stretched a rainbow bridge and called it Bifröst . Once a year Odin must undertake the Odinsleep to regain his strength. During this time Asgard is vulnerable to attack from its many enemies, most notably Odin's adopted son, Loki . Loki first takes command of Asgard during

13161-649: The task of writing the play that will motivate the Britons to rise up against their Spanish conquerors. He also co-authored a book with actor Richard Dreyfuss , The Two Georges , in which the United Kingdom retained the American colonies, with George Washington and King George III making peace. He did a two-volume series in which the Japanese not only bombed Pearl Harbor but also invaded and occupied

13284-409: The team investigates the apparent return of Doctor Doom, who is revealed to be Kristoff Vernard in disguise. The team is then attacked by Argo , who claims to be Hercules ' son, followed by an encounter with the villainous Ion Man, prompting Mainframe to reveal he is a sentient computer program based on Tony Stark 's personality. The new Avengers discover the Scarlet Witch in suspended animation in

13407-441: The team is able to locate Hercules, who is suffering from mental trauma from witnessing an event which nearly destroyed the Avengers. Argo attacks his father, enraged that his father "abandoned" his mother and his son, but Thunderstrike intervenes. When Argo sees the emotional state his father is in, the two reconcile. Argo states that he was going to help his father recover, and try to bring his family back together. Later, when A-Next

13530-539: The title "Master of Alternate History" by some. His books include those of Timeline 191 (a.k.a. Southern Victory, also known as TL-191), in which, while the Confederate States of America won the American Civil War , the Union and Imperial Germany defeat the Entente Powers in the two "Great War"s of the 1910s and 1940s (with a Nazi-esque Confederate government attempting to exterminate its black population), and

13653-505: The topic of this dispute. For they say: If, as you assert, God is omnipotent in all things, can he manage this, that things that have been made were not made? He can certainly destroy all things that have been made, so that they do not exist now. But it cannot be seen how he can bring it about that things that have been made were not made. To be sure, it can come about that from now on and hereafter Rome does not exist; for it can be destroyed. But no opinion can grasp how it can come about that it

13776-445: The total number of worlds with each type of outcome is infinite, it is still possible to assign a different measure to different infinite sets). The physicist David Deutsch , a strong advocate of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, has argued along these lines, saying that "By making good choices, doing the right thing, we thicken the stack of universes in which versions of us live reasonable lives. When you succeed, all

13899-529: The unwitting creators of new time branches. These communities are transported from the present (or the near-future) to the past or to another timeline via a natural disaster, the action of technologically advanced aliens, or a human experiment gone wrong. S. M. Stirling wrote the Island in the Sea of Time trilogy, in which Nantucket Island and all its modern inhabitants are transported to Bronze Age times to become

14022-572: The war ends within weeks. While World War II has been a common point of divergence in alternate history literature, several works have been based on other points of divergence. For example, Martin Cruz Smith , in his first novel, posited an independent American Indian nation following the defeat of Custer in The Indians Won (1970). Beginning with The Probability Broach in 1980, L. Neil Smith wrote several novels that postulated

14145-488: The world's Jews instead live in a small strip of Alaska set aside by the US government for Jewish settlement. The story follows a Jewish detective solving a murder case in the Yiddish-speaking semi-autonomous city state of Sitka . Stylistically, Chabon borrows heavily from the noir and detective fiction genres, while exploring social issues related to Jewish history and culture. Apart from the alternate history of

14268-526: The world's first superpower. In Eric Flint 's 1632 series , a small town in West Virginia is transported to 17th century central Europe and drastically changes the course of the Thirty Years' War , which was then underway. John Birmingham 's Axis of Time trilogy deals with the culture shock when a United Nations naval task force from 2021 finds itself back in 1942 helping the Allies against

14391-525: The world, without people being aware of it. Poul Anderson 's Time Patrol stories feature conflicts between forces intent on changing history and the Patrol who work to preserve it. One story, Delenda Est , describes a world in which Carthage triumphed over the Roman Republic. The Big Time , by Fritz Leiber , describes a Change War ranging across all of history. Keith Laumer's Worlds of

14514-451: The writer explicitly maintains that all possible decisions are made in all possible ways, one possible conclusion is that the characters were neither brave, nor clever, nor skilled, but simply lucky enough to happen on the universe in which they did not choose the cowardly route, take the stupid action, fumble the crucial activity, etc.; few writers focus on this idea, although it has been explored in stories such as Larry Niven 's story All

14637-493: The writer uses human decisions, every decision that could be made differently would result in a different timeline. A writer's fictional multiverse may, in fact, preclude some decisions as humanly impossible, as when, in Night Watch , Terry Pratchett depicts a character informing Vimes that while anything that can happen, has happened, nevertheless there is no history whatsoever in which Vimes has ever murdered his wife. When

14760-553: Was Churchill's "If Lee Had Not Won the Battle of Gettysburg", written from the viewpoint of a historian in a world in which the Confederacy had won the American Civil War . The entry considers what would have happened if the North had been victorious (in other words, a character from an alternate world imagines a world more like the real one we live in, although it is not identical in every detail). Speculative work that narrates from

14883-442: Was more amicable with him, even giving him a kiss. Warp is a thief with the power to teleport . He originally worked for Sylene (the daughter of Loki ) and Ulik . When he learned that they planned to turn Earth into a new version of Asgard, he defected to the Avengers. Argo is the son of former Avenger Hercules . Argo is trying to find his missing father and, needing help, turns to A-Next. Using their S.H.I.E.L.D. contacts,

15006-594: Was not founded long ago... One early work of fiction detailing an alternate history is Joanot Martorell 's 1490 epic romance Tirant lo Blanch , which was written when the fall of Constantinople to the Turks was still a recent and traumatic memory for Christian Europe . It tells the story of the knight Tirant the White from Brittany who travels to the embattled remnants of the Byzantine Empire . He becomes

15129-450: Was quickly followed by Murray Leinster 's " Sidewise in Time " (1934). While earlier alternate histories examined reasonably-straightforward divergences, Leinster attempted something completely different. In his "World gone mad", pieces of Earth traded places with their analogs from different timelines. The story follows Professor Minott and his students from a fictitious Robinson College as they wander through analogues of worlds that followed

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