TWILIGHT OF THE SUPERHEROES: ALAN MOORE’s Never-Published Proposal to Finally Be Released by DC

The Watchmen writer planned a major DC event in the ’80s, only to have it scotched…

Interesting new book included in Friday’s DC Comics solicitations — DC Through the ’80s: The End of Eras, a collection of memorable and significant pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths stories.

But buried in the official description is this golden nugget: The book “features the complete text of Alan Moore’s legendary, never-before-published Twilight proposal!”

That’s amazing. Check this out:

DC THROUGH THE ’80S: THE END OF ERAS HC

Written and illustrated by VARIOUS

Cover by CURT SWAN and MURPHY ANDERSON

The ’80‘s were a truly rad time for comic books. DC was killingit with groundbreaking titles like Man of Steel, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, and Watchmen. This collection, curated by writer and former DC publisher Paul Levitz, celebrates the pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths era of the early 1980s with memorable adventures including Alan Moore and Curt Swan’s poignant “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?,” both Batman and Superman teaming with their Golden Age equivalents in separate stories, Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor versus gremlins, and more. Collects Action Comics #583, Detective Comics #500, The Flash #296-298, Jonah Hex #54-55, Superman #423, House of Mystery #286, #290, #294-295, #300, #308, #321, Warlord #42, Wonder Woman #311-312, The Brave and the Bold #200, Weird War Tales #93, Time Warp #2 and #3,G.I. Combat #288, Blackhawk #258, DC Comics Presents Annual #1, Super Friends #36, and Sgt. Rock #345, #347, #368, and #387. Also includes new essays on this amazing era from such comics luminaries as Jack C. Harris, Elliot S! Maggin, J.M. DeMatteis, Andy Kubert, and more, and features the complete text of Alan Moore’s legendary, never-before-published Twilight proposal!

ON SALE 12/15/20 $49.99 US | 520 PAGES | FC | DCISBN: 978-1-77950-087-8

Now, what is Twilight of the Superheroes? It was Moore’s planned 1987 maxiseries that imagined an end to the DC superhero universe.

While I’m not inclined to rely on Wikipedia, here’s a fairly straightforward bit of background:

Twilight of the Superheroes is the title of a proposed comic book crossover that writer Alan Moore submitted to DC Comics in 1987 before his split with the company. Although various elements suggested by Moore later occurred in various comics, Twilight was never published and is considered a “lost work“. The proposal gained fame after surfacing on the internet in the 1990s where its status as a lost work by one of the superstars of the medium, as well as its dark treatment of superheroes, garnered much attention.

“The title refers to Ragnarök from Norse mythology. 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.”

So while the proposal has popped unofficially online, this is the first time DC itself is publishing the proposal and that’s pretty damn remarkable.

MORE

— How ALAN MOORE Helped Create the WATCHMEN Role-Playing Game. Click here.

— The WATCHMEN Page That Gibbons and Moore Gave to Neil Gaiman. Click here.

Author: Dan Greenfield

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14 Comments

  1. I’m interested in the collection. But, the darkness that came into comics of the ’80s is what officially ended the Bronze Age. Moore is one of those writers…no real interest. That’s just my opinion and taste.

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    • You sound like you have a bad case of blind nostalgia, a story can be good with lighter or darker tons, not everything needs to be a pony cartoon neither

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        • I’m with you. Thanks to Moore, we had decades of comics featuring nothing but deconstructed anti-heroes. Alan Moore also gave us “The Killing Joke” – where the Joker cripples and sexually assaults Barbara Gordon. If detesting that is considered “blind nostalgia,” then count me in.

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    • Moore has always been more of a hack than anyone worth emulating or considering he ranks up there with Kirby. I can continue waiting for this storyline to come to light.

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  2. I have waited 35 years for this!

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  3. I’ve read enough about Twilight to know there’s some rather…icky stuff in there, in particular the relationship between Captain and Mary Marvel. That alone was reason enough for DC at the time to not publish it, but given where they’ve taken the characters since, I’m surprised they haven’t dusted it off and done something with it. I guess this is it.

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    • I bet they want it to see print in some form to establish copyright, since it’s already been shared widely.

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  4. There’s a lot to love, here. Some of the choices are a bit of a puzzle, but some are obviously the first or last tale of a given character or such. I have to say i love the eclectic nature of the collection.

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  5. I would scream “Take my money now!” But the way things are going at DC, I wonder if we will ever see it.

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  6. Twilight has been available online forever, I have a printout from about 10 or 15 years ago. You can find the whole interminable slog at archive.org.
    and I call it an interminable slog with nothing but the greatest admiration for Alan Moore, one of the top three comic book writers of all time. But boy does he go on…
    It is a great look at Moore’s creative process back when he was younger and upbeat and out to change the comic book world, hand-in-hand with DC publications.

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  7. Allan has something new to bitch about regarding DC and Levitz…joy. He’d just finally shut up.

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  8. I hope they include the back stories and not just the main feature.
    TEJANO is in Jonah Hex #54-55.
    And there is a one page BAT-MITE story in B&B #200.

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  1. Rorschach #1 Review: Clouds of Controversy Circle The First Chapter | Comic Book Herald - […] to ruin your favorite characters with his grim and gritty sensibilities. (Having read the pitch for Twilight of the…
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