Twilight of the Superheroes

"Twilight of the Superheroes" is the title of a comic book that was proposed by writer Alan Moore; he submitted the proposal to DC Comics in 1987 before his split with the company, resulting in "Twilight's" status as a "lost work."

The title refers to Richard Wagner's opera the "Twilight of the Gods" (Götterdämmerung). The story was to be set two decades in the future of the DC Universe and would feature the ultimate final battle between the heroes of Earth, including the older and younger generations of superheroes, as well as the supervillains and some extraterrestrials who inhabited Earth in the DC continuity. "Twilight" was conceived as a standalone limited series which could also be tied to ongoing titles at the other writers' consent, much like the then-recent 12-issue limited series "Crisis on Infinite Earths".

The proposal

The series was set in the future of the DC Universe, where the world is ruled by superheroic dynasties, including the House of Steel (presided over by Superman and Wonder Woman) and the House of Thunder (consisting of the Marvel family). These two houses are about to unite through a dynastic marriage, their combined power potentially threatening freedom, and several characters, including John Constantine, attempt to stop it and free humanity from the power of superheroes. The series would also have restored the DC Universe's Multiverse, which had been eliminated in the continuity-revising 1985 mini-series "Crisis on Infinite Earths". The series was never commissioned, but copies of Moore's detailed notes have appeared on the Internet and in print despite the efforts of DC, who consider the proposal their property. Similar elements, such as the concept of Hypertime, have since appeared in DC Comics.

As the years passed after Moore's departure from DC, the proposal for "Twilight" started to leak onto various websites on the internet. For a time there was some speculation as to the document's authenticity, but it has been proven by DC and Moore to be authentic. At least one website was threatened with legal action by DC, which claimed to hold the copyright on the proposal, an action whose legitimacy is disputed. [ [http://www.hoboes.com/html/Comics/Twilight/dc.html DC Copyright Summary ] ] Some have claimed that the proposal has been suppressed due to its alleged similarities with the 1996 limited series "Kingdom Come" — creators Mark Waid and Alex Ross state that they read the proposal, but any similarites are minor and unintentionalFact|date=July 2007 which are mostly limited to the notion of a Superman/Wonder Woman pairing, contending factions of superheroes as the driving point of the narrative, dramatic conflict between Superman and Captain Marvel, humanity and metahumanity in conflict, and the setting of a dystopian superhero future in the first decade of the 21st century.

Twilight is loosely referenced in the first issue of "Final Crisis".

References

* [http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/6612/library.htm The Virtual Museum of Comic Art Library] Accessed March 8, 2007
* Stratton, Jerry [http://web.archive.org/web/19970411100007/www.hoboes.com/html/Comics/Twilight/ Alan Moore's Twilight of the Superheroes] Accessed September 21, 2007

Footnotes

External links

* [http://www.rocketshop.holowww.com/twilight/gallery.htm Twilight gallery featuring takes on the unpublished series from Moore collaborators]