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I just read Green Lantern: 1001 Emerald Nights, an awesome Elseworlds story, for the 1st time. It really has nothing to do with super-heros at all, but it manages to beautifully weave together the mythos of Green Lantern with the original tale. But anyways, it got me thinking about this.

What are your favorite alternate reality tales in comics? Elseworlds, What If?'s, Alterniverse, and multiple-Earths would all fall into this catagory. I wouldn't count ongoings like the Ultimate, All-Star, or 2099 Universes. They encompass just too big of universes to count it as one story, in my list at least. My favorites:

-Green Lantern: 1001 Emerald Nights - See my first paragraph above.
-DC Comics: Kingdom Come - One of the finest comic stories to have ever been told.
-JLA: Justice - I don't know if this officially an alternate reality or not, but it sure wasn't like any incarnation I ever read, it kinda blended the best of all the Silver-Bronze age incarnations.
-JLA: Rock of Ages - That future-Earth where Darkseid ruled looked wicked. I wanted to see more of it. And what about Wonderland (The land of the God Super-Heroes)? That was nuts!
-X-Men: The Age of Apocalypse (Original) - This was an X-Crossover done perfectly. The story was amazing, and it actually mattered. There was a reason everything happened the way it did. The art was fantastic. And the special covers were beautiful.
-Superman/Batman: Elseworld's Finest - Totally underrated, IMO. I thought this was awesome. It was set in the same era as Indiana Jones and The Mummy, and had that same sense of adventure about it.

-Nate-

It seems to be in between your qualifications of story arcs versus ongoing, but Earth X was my all time favorite, and this comes from a die hard X-Men fan. I think the depth the explored some alternatives in that really was great, and the amount of dialogue was great. I read it at a time I knew X-Men, but not much of the rest of the Marvel U, and they did a good job of back stories for the characters I didn't know well enough.

Yeah, Paradise X faltered, but even through the Heralds arc I was really into it.

I really liked X-Men: Age of Apocalypse. It was the first crossover I bought it its entirety without dipping into back issue bins.

I also have a soft spot for What If (Vol 2) # 22 by Ron Marz and Ron Lim, where the Silver Surfer never left Earth and became a member of the Fantastic Five.

And then there's Batman: Gotham By Gaslight - my first exposure to the genius of Mike Mignola.

AoA definitely ranks up there with me. It was my first true taste of a big scale comic book event.

Superman: The Nail
Superman: Red Son
Superboy's Legion of Superheroes

Gotham by Gaslight was going to be my choice also. Mignola is incredible.

Earth X is my all time favorite Marvel mini-series, but how do we REALLY know it's an alternate universe...

Age of Apocalypse(Original) , its my favorite story/event ever. Joe Mad pencils sprinkled throughout was just the icing on the cake. I wish he could keep a timely schedule, I would love to see him back on Uncanny with Bru. Would be awesome.

AoA
What if the Punisher Killed the Kingpin?

I'm reading Heroes Reborn now but I've gotta go with AoA too. Just awsome setting even if some of the arcs fell a little bland.

Just wondering, tybird99, did you mean JLA: The Nail? Cuz I loved that story. And if there is a Superman: The Nail I need to read it now. But so far I can't find one.

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns

JSA: The Unholy Three

JLA: Rock Of Ages.

Even though the comic wasn't the focus, Batman Beyond was amazing.

Spider-man from August 1962-December 2007

Kingdom Come is mine.
Does Marvels count?
The Last Superman Story was pretty good.
Actually The Dark Knight is an alternate reality story.

Marvels is technically in the 616 proper, so no.

I'm surprised no one mentioned James Robinson's The Golden Age. If you his Starman run, you'll love this.

Earth X, for me, is superior in every way to Kingdom Come, mainly because it got to do a lot more with the universe around the characters and had a lot more pages to do it with. Plus, John Paul Leon is AMAZING.

Fantastic Four: Unstable Molecules is, to me, a perfect comic. It's also the best thing Marvel has done in the last decade.

1602 was also a pretty great book that was originally supposed to tie-in to the 616, but after Bill Jemas left and the book didn't sell as well as they'd hoped, Marvel dropped that idea, which is very unfortunate.

I also have a soft spot for Hulk: The End and Punisher: The End, but they are technically the "final" story of these heroes and in-continuity, so they reall don't count.

You mean the movie? Good pick.

Actually, it doesn't go that far back, but I get your point.

And originally, Frank Miller stated that he wrote DKR in continuity, as DC would never age their hero to that degree, so he did it for them. Now, whether or not that still holds is debateable, but that's what he was saying back in '86-'87.

Yeah, I hadn't read it in years and saw it on sale on a shelf at my LCS, and I had completely forgotten Mignola did the pencils on Gaslight. Truly one of the all-time greats.

Wasn't there a sequel to that as well? I never bothered to read it if there was...

Kingdom Come, Age of Apocalypse, The Earth X and Universe X books...Paradise X started well but seriously let me down...lol...

I agree. Universe X is a bit rocky, but there are some great moments in there and I loved the conclusion...until the epilogue that forced you to read Paradise X. I mean, just end it so it can stand on its own!

Paradise X is a disappointment because it had an opportunity to be an amazing piece of work. Unfortunately, it didn't. At all.

Paradise X started well...and even on it's Wikipedia page, it states that things just went wrong in the end and that higher ups came in and just screwed everything up...I loved the Cap tie in to Universe X, where it explains how Ultron took down the Avengers...very nice...

oh and let's not forget the Future Imperfect TPB...very excellent work...

But wasn't Future Imperfect a possible reality, according to Peter David?

Either way, you're right, great story.

well, now I think it's an Earth with a particular number, at least according to the Exiles books lol...