Left: Earth-616. Right: Earth-1610.
"Established, popular characters? Check. Reinterpretation of a beloved, classic storyline? Check. Stretched-out presentation of the same? Check. Helmed by a popular creator of original works in his own right? Check. Updated characterizations that sometimes toy with the original creator's personas? Check. A bigger, more contemplative/brooding/generally 'big' tone? Check. Yeah, it's an Ultimate book, at least as we know them now."
A kind of Continuity Reboot designed to consolidate existing stories and themes into a new Alternate Continuity. Most notable regarding a franchise several decades old with multiple concurrent works, as it serves as a chance to wipe the slate clean while introducing new ideas that may not have been well received in the previous continuity. It may or may not replace the previous continuity but is perceived as a newcomer friendly world/story, sometimes as a Jumping-On Point or Gateway Series.
Extremely common in Retooled Crossovers, as this allows for storylines the original couldn't have done without a massive Retcon. The Canon Welding and greater cohesiveness owing to the advantage of foreknowledge that it possesses over the regular serial continuity (which generally more or less introduced new elements and characters as it went along). With greater control over the established timeline and with inspiration from the parent work, writers are able to lean into known stories and add their own twist without the characters within the story able to comment about it feeling familiar. Mythology Gags also tend to be heightened, referencing things from the entire history of the franchise as something modern.
Common hallmarks of an ultimate universe include:
- Use of a Meta Origin, Adaptation Origin Connection, Adaptational Early Appearance or Adaptational Late Appearance because of trying to create a stronger, ongoing narrative and shuffling around the order of events.
- Important characters may be Killed Off for Real, because Status Quo Is God only at the original universe, whereas there's more room for creativity here.
- Costumes and locations get redesigns that would be considered "too drastic" for the main universe, such as Movie Superheroes Wear Black.
- Backstories are altered to have more depth or outline their progression to become closer to their original character, to make it feel like a fresh take rather than a simple copy.
- Creating an Adaptation Personality Change with Adaptational Heroism or Adaptational Villainy, to shift perceptions of who the character is supposed to be.
- Use of a Race Lift, Gender Flip, Age Lift, Adaptational Nationality, or Adaptation Species Change.
- New stories may be told using elements of past stories.
- A tonal shift, often of a Darker and Edgier variety and a bigger focus on realism.
- Characters may be more powerful or weaker than the original version, relative to how their abilities would fair in different circumstances.
- Creating an Alternate History of the main universe, a "What If?" ranging from modernizing their origins or how they would react to the latest political climate.
- A character is Spared by the Adaptation, possibly as a Meta Twist for people expecting it to go through. Though Death by Origin Story is often set in stone.
- Adding new characters (heroes, villains, supporters, etc.) to spice things up. If a character from an official adaptation proves to be popular, they'll end up becoming a Canon Immigrant.
- A general drive for individual coherency, taking advantage of the Shared Universe and planning the Crisis Crossover ahead of time. Whereas the original work may have run against a Continuity Snarl, the Ultimate Universe has the benefit of hindsight. Writers can cherry-pick the best ideas from the preceding work and streamline familiar story beats.
- A new creative team is included, either foreign to the franchise but famous for their original work or taken from companion titles and promoted to a big property, so that they can breathe new life into the series with a different interpretation, style and foresight. This can often be fans of the original continuity or even critical outsiders who ends up a champion for it.
- Incorporating characters, elements and storylines exclusive to specific adaptations. This may fall on Adaptation Amalgamation.
Named for the Marvel Comics "Ultimate Marvel" line, which sought to update and streamline decades of continuity with an Alternate Continuity sub-brand without canceling out the original storyline. Most superheroes under the "Ultimate" umbrella brand are given reboots of their own, but on a smaller scale — Spider-Man's 'radioactive spider' origin story was replaced with an updated 'genetically engineered spider' version.
Fan Fiction writers frequently do this in Alternate Universe Fics, essentially rebooting the mythos to incorporate their own ideas, Fanon, and other material.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Dragon Ball:
- The Dragon Ball Heroes Alternate Universe also known as the Xenoverse is where everything is more extreme, every non-canon villain is present, there’s techno demons gods trying to take over the multiverse, an Ancient Evil Saiyan called Cumber shows up, Goku, Vegeta, Gohan and Broly can all go Super Saiyan 4 and Cooler has his own Golden Super Mode. It’s essentially Dragon Ball fan fiction come to life.
- Dragon Ball: The Path to Power is a more intense and visually spectacular alternate universe updated retelling of the early Dragon Ball arcs, incorporating much of the high-flying action and big displays of power that came later in the franchise with Dragon Ball Z.
- The 2003 adaptation of Fullmetal Alchemist, in the sense that it distills parts of the manga while giving it a much darker tone, handles it a bit more realistically (the fight scenes are often short and brutal instead of epic spectacles, while the villains are a bit more fleshed out and their origins more grounded, so to speak) and deconstructs certain aspects of the original. It also exists as an Alternate Continuity, and adds a new spin to the overall plot.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: After the end of Stone Ocean, which served as the Grand Finale of the original continuity. Part 7 and beyond takes place in a new continuity, but with a number of familiar (albeit sometimes renamed) characters and concepts, with other similar plot beats, many of which were tweaked to keep the narrative fresh, and mixing in elements from previous Parts (such as Part 8 revisiting the Morioh setting of Part 4, but with the Rock Humans, antagonists that are analogous to Part 2's Pillar Men, along with the protagonist named Josuke being significantly different).
- Mobile Suit Gundam:
- This was essentially the hook of the Alternate Universe series of Mobile Suit Gundam. As a result, Mobile Suit Gundam has nine of these. (G Gundam, Gundam Wing, Gundam X, ∀ Gundam, Gundam SEED, Gundam 00, Gundam Age, Iron-Blooded Orphans, and The Witch from Mercury).
- SEED is a more explicit example, as it bears a lot of similarities to the original series and is sometimes called "21st Century First Gundam" by Sunrise.*
- You can generally tell which series are examples by how big the focus is on their respective GUNPLA line. Seed and 00 have entire separate lines dedicated to them, making them stand out even more as reboot series.
- 00 in particular deserves special mention for being the first Gundam in the Anno Domini timeline, as opposed to an alternate universe like the other anime beforehand, going for subject matter heavily inspired by the War on Terror and debate over fossil fuels.
- There was also For The Barrel, an obscure Light Novel-styled story featured in Newtype magazine with radically redesigned characters and mecha.
- Naruto has a couple of these. There's Naruto the Movie: Road to Ninja universe where Naruto and Sakura get temporarily trapped in a Alternate Universe where Naruto’s parents are alive, Sasuke is an extroverted ladies' man and Hinata is a Hot-Blooded Shameless Fanservice Girl. Then there's Naruto: Jianghu Legends which is an even crazier alternate universe where the ninja world is a feudal wasteland, Tsunade runs a restaurant with Sakura and Shizune and the Fourth Raikage, Mei Terumi and Kabuto are roaming clans. A war between Hashirama and Madara played out in this universe as well
, but with a different context behind it.
- Naoki Urasawa did this for Astro Boy with Pluto, which is specifically a slower-paced and more maturely-toned adaptation of the iconic "The Strongest Robot in the World" story arc. One reviewer explicitly compared it to Ultimate Marvel (see page quote). The 2003 animated series also arguably qualifies, as it took many of the unrelated storylines from the largely continuity-free classic manga and wove them together into a cohesive story-arc.
- With the announcement of a second film set in the same universe instead of the regular canon one, Pokémon: I Choose You! can be considered one to the regular Pokemon anime continuity, featuring an Ash starting out his journey once again, but with elements introduced in later parts of the series.
- This is Hideaki Anno's stated intention with Rebuild of Evangelion. However, there is evidence to suggest it may also be a Stealth Sequel to the original series as well.
- The Tenchi Muyo! OVAs have two: Tenchi Universe, which has all the main characters and more or less a basic outlining of their backgrounds, plus another character and the same Big Bad, and Tenchi in Tokyo, with pretty much the main characters in the latter.
- Trigun Stampede is a very stylised reboot of the original manga and 1998 anime (though it’s more accurate to the manga in some respects) where Vash has a revamped design and has more Matrix-style fights and comic relief characters such as Milly are Adapted Out and replaced with the grizzled Mentor Archetype Canon Foreigner Roberto De Niro who guides the naive Meryl before dying*. Surprisingly Knives is given more humanising moments in this continuity, despite being more violent than he was in the 1998 anime.
Comic Books
- As mentioned above, Marvel Comics' Ultimate Marvel is the Trope Namer, as it's the Ultimate Universe version of the normal Marvel Universe.
- The primary change made to the series is the Setting Update, with the superhero-mutant era being identified as The 2000s. The mutant phenomenon is originally the linchpin for the series, with Magneto being the Greater-Scope Villain for the series (as opposed to Doctor Doom), the X-Men being the first super-team and The Ultimates (the Avengers' new name) being formed as a response to both Magneto and avoiding dependency on the X-Men. SHIELD is the primary Government Agency of Fiction and the overall arc for the entire franchise is Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke with many plots and schemes tied back to the idea of recreating the Super Serum that worked perfectly in Captain America but in the hands of Norman Osborn leads to accidents (Peter Parker being bitten by one of his experimental spiders, which leads to Osborn making himself the Green Goblin and so on) and in the case of the Fantastic Four, leads to experiments in the Negative Zone.
- Both Heroes Reborn and Spider-Man: Chapter One were failed attempts to do this by Marvel before they tried the Trope Namer and some ideas were even reused (like the idea of S.H.I.E.L.D. forming the universe's version of the Avengers rather than the team forming independently and Falcon having served in the military from Heroes Reborn, and the origins of Spidey and his foes having connections to each other from Chapter One). A possible factor in their failure is their attempt to replace the then-current continuity.
- Spidey: A minor example, especially when compared to Ultimate Spider-Man (2000), as while the series is a Setting Update of the original Lee-Ditko Spider-Man and reimagines several characters to be more connected than they were in the original comics, such as Harry and Gwen being Peter's classmates in school, it doesn't stray too far from what has already been done. However School's Out reimagined more characters while taking some inspiration from the version of Spider-Man shown in the Marvel Cinematic Universe which made this version of the character a little more different from the main comic version.
- Marvel's "Grand Design" comics are based on giving well-known creators the chance to do a same-medium Adaptation Distillation on their favourite characters and turn over fifty years of tangled canon into a coherent narrative. The first was Ed Piskor's X-Men: Grand Design, followed by Tom Scioli's Fantastic Four: Grand Design and Jim Rugg's Hulk: Grand Design.
- Supreme Power is a mature Ultimate Universe version of Marvel's Justice League Captain Ersatzes, the Squadron Supreme. They even had a crossover with the actual Ultimate Universe once.
- Warren Ellis' short-lived series newuniversal is The New Universe's Ultimate version.
- In 2023, Marvel launched a reboot of Ultimate Marvel as a new imprint, Ultimate Universe (2023). The series takes place in a world altered by the machinations of the Maker, the Reed Richards of the Ultimate Fantastic Four in the original Ultimate Universe. One of the most significant changes in this universe is that Peter Parker becomes Spider-Man as an adult, after he’s already become a Family Man with Mary Jane Watson.
- DC Comics has done this multiple times:
- The All-Star line, which had the All-Star Superman and All-Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder miniseries (with future projects based on Wonder Woman, Batgirl, and possibly the Flash), was a form of this. The series aren't supposed to take place in any particular continuity (although All-Star Batman and Robin does supposedly take place in the same continuity as Frank Miller's other Batman stories), and are supposed to be a concentration of what makes those characters special. As well, Justice is basically All-Star Superfriends, even if it couldn't legally be called that.
- The Earth One series of trade-paperbacks, consisting of Batman: Earth One, Superman: Earth One, Teen Titans: Earth One and Wonder Woman: Earth One, follow the Ultimate Marvel formula more closely than the All-Star line, intending to be a modern reboot in a new continuity rather than another mini-series written outside of continuity. The characters are all younger, more violent and asocial than the regular continuity.
- The New 52 is definitely this, and its impact for better or worse is still felt within DC. Especially given the DC Animated Movie Universe started off as a direct adaptation of it, and both the DCEU and James Gunn’s DCU borrow concepts from it. Like Ultimate Marvel everything is Darker and Edgier, Superman being introduced as an aggressive Smug Super, Wonder Woman is much more violent and wields a sword while the Amazons get reimagined into man-raping misandrists. Hal Jordan is a cocky jerk, Aquaman summons ocean life to kill, the Teen Titans are edgy adolescents and the Joker cuts his own face off. A lot of the campy Post-Crisis elements are drastically toned down and multiple characters get complete top to bottom revamps, most infamously Lobo going from a fun wild man biker to a beardless and sleek bounty hunter. Ironically Batman by comparison actually got Adaptational Nice Guy, being presented as a truly caring Family Man to his adoptive sons and daughters. Although his Rogues Gallery were still affected by this, Mr Freeze in particular getting Adaptational Villainy into a more despicable character. DC Rebirth however acted as a Author's Saving Throw towards the backlash over the aforementioned changes that fans hated.
- In 2024, DC introduced a new imprint called Absolute Universe in the aftermath of the Absolute Power (2024) storyline that also kickstarted the DC All In initivative, serving as their answer to the 2023 reboot of Ultimate Marvel, with notable changes including Bruce Wayne being a construction worker before becoming Batman, Kal-El arriving on Earth as an adult before becoming Superman and Diana being brought up in Hell before becoming Wonder Woman.
- In a more specific DC example, the mid-2000s saw the publication of two mini-series by Matt Wagner which retold early Golden Age Batman stories in a more decompressed and detailed manner — Batman and the Monster Men, based on the Hugo Strange story from Batman (1940) #1, and Batman and the Mad Monk, based on the notorious "Batman vs. vampires" story from Detective Comics #31-2. These were followed by the graphic novella Batman: The Man Who Laughs, by Ed Brubaker and Doug Mahnke, which retold the first Joker story from Batman #1 in an expanded version and with the Joker's post-Bronze Age characterization.
- IDW Publishing's Transformers Generation 1 material, but this can be said of damn near all modern Transformers material.
- Transformers: Generation One would take place in the then-modern early 2000s and would allude to the Marvel and cartoon runs while also trying to establish their own tone. The first comic book arc does deconstruct the existence of the Transformers, showing extensive collateral damage that their fights would realistically cause and even has Megatron share the status of Big Bad with two military figures who want to weaponize the Transformers. The comic also sees both Autobots and Decepticons targeted by humans, Spike grow disillusioned with the Autobots due to the death of his father, and multiple characters deaths, ending on a particularly bleak note. Thankfully, this was mitigated by later stories that went for a more optimistic approach (while still tinkering with certain Transformers conventions), but it certainly established the Dreamwave run as its own entity (for better or worse).
- IDW Publishing arguably had the most radical take on the franchise with their 2005 run. Instead of crashing on Earth in the Ark, the Autobots and Decepticons are scattered across the universe, steadily infiltrating worlds to either conquer or protect them, with meticulous protocols to ensure their success. Combiner technology is a novelty, with many teams not even being able to do so until after the war. The Headmasters and Pretenders are heavily altered, with the original Nebulos plotline being a Mythology Gag and the only real transformers to undergo the procedure being Scorponok and Sunstreaker. Instead of Unicron being the ominous existential threat to existence, it would be Nova Prime trying to use the Dead Universe to take over though Unicron would function as the Final Boss of the continuity in his own series. Iconic characters like Megatron, Arcee, Galvatron, Cyclonus, Prowl, Ultra Magnus, and more would also get massive changes to their characters and personalities, while others, like Shockwave, would have their characters taken to new extremes. Human factions like the Machination and Skywatch would also appear, Scorponok being involved with the former while Spike and Sparkplug, now soldiers, would be members of the latter.
- Transformers (2023) also works. The Autobots are shown to be on their last legs, with many prominents characters such as Bumblebee, Brawn, Ratchet, Sparkplug, Starscream, Frenzy and Kup being killed off early on. The need for resources also has serious consequences, with both the Autobots and Decepticons needing to be extra careful at who they can fix faster due to limited resources. Character dynamics such as human loyalty and Starscream's backstabbing are also explored. Like with Animated, Starscream's backstabbing of Megatron leaves the latter absent for much of the early part of the series, but his leadership (combined with serious doses of Adaptational Villainy) makes him such a liability that Soundwave murders him seven issues in. However, the continuity also gives long-overshadowed characters like Cliffjumper a bigger spotlight and even gives Optimus Prime a serious power boost, having him tear off his own arm to beat Skywarp, steal Megatron's fusion cannon arm for himself, and even throw down Devastator.
- In The Multiversity Earth-7's Essential Comics universe was an in-universe Ultimate Universe to the Major Comics characters of Earth-8. Both were based on The mainstream Marvel universe and Ultimate Marvel universe respectively.
- Switch (2015) is this for Witchblade and several other Top Cow properties. The series is set in an alternate universe where the Witchblade is wielded by a teenage girl named Mary, and has a Lighter and Softer (and decidedly less Stripperific) style.
- After the release of Dredd, Rebellion started publishing comics in that same continuity in Judge Dredd Megazine, making it an Ultimate Universe to Judge Dredd.
- Buffyverse: While the original Buffy-comics were a continuation of the original TV-series and its Spin-Off Angel, Boom! Studios got the licence for comics based on the franchise in 2017 and released a Continuity Reboot instead, which takes concepts of the original series, remixes some and updates the series for The New '10s, also called Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
- Mark Millar says that Jupiter's Legacy and Supercrooks are an alternate universe to his main Millarworld setting where the Fraternity didn't wipe out superheroes.
- Valiant Comics:
- The Valiant Entertainment continuity that began in 2012 acts as one for the original while taking some inspiration from the Acclaim reboot.
- In 2025, in collaboration with Alien Books, they began Valiant Beyond which is intended to be their version of Marvel's Ultimate Universe (2023) and DC's Absolute Universe and co-exist alongside the main continuity.
- Ben 10 received one in Ben 10 (Dynamite), a comic retelling of the series aimed at mature audiences with writer Joe Casey citing the aforementioned Ultimate Universe (2023) and Absolute Universe as inspirations.
Fan Works
- Spectrum, a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfiction that serves as a Recursive Fanfiction to The Conversion Bureau and a Continuity Reboot to The Conversion Bureau: The Other Side of the Spectrum, weaves in the show's canon, the comics, and its own original lore into one cohesive continuity, while remaining mostly true to canon in a Broad Strokes manner. The "Sunny Equestria" timeline also highlights this, with the backstory being based off what the show presented and the original story's concepts.
- The Legendary Spider-Man: A Spider-Man story that intends to take influences from all aspects of Spider Canon, and giving it its own sheen. In terms of some specifics, the story begins in the year 2021 so cell phones and jet pack technology are more modern aspects of their various lives. The Daily Bugle is described as more of a tabloid paper thanks to Jonah's editorializing, but inflation also means that Peter gets paid slightly more money compared with older pricing. And then there's discussion on how to bring a criminal to justice if they're also a public figure like Wilson Fisk.
Film
- The Amazing Spider-Man Series was meant to be this not only for the original comics but for the more lighthearted Spider-Man Trilogy as well, being a Darker and Edgier revamp of Spider-Man where he was more an Classical Anti-Hero and the villains are more monstrous and intense. It even borrowed a lot of elements from Ultimate Spider-Man (2000) such as Peter getting his spider-bite via Oscorp, meeting Gwen in high school and Captain Stacy being younger rather than an old man. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was also meant to lay the groundwork for Sony's own Cinematic Universe of Spider-Man related movies. Though the tepid response to the second film meant further sequel and spin-off plans were nixed, and a third reboot of Spider-Man was used for the MCU. Though ASM Andrew Garfield Spidey does return in Spider-Man: No Way Home to aid his Alternate Self.
- The Batman (2022) and its spin-off The Penguin (2024) bills itself as the most gritty, brutal and realistic take on the Batman mythos, even if it’s more stylised than The Dark Knight Trilogy was. Bruce Wayne is a troubled and antisocial young man who listens to Nirvana, the Riddler is a Zodiac-style Mad Bomber, and the Penguin is a Tony Soprano-esque mobster who lies and manipulates his way to top. Ironically however it’s the first film since Batman & Robin to uphold Batman’s Thou Shall Not Kill from the comics.
- In many ways, the DC Extended Universe is closer to Ultimate Marvel than the MCU is:
- It's more or less an integrated Continuity Reboot Shared Universe which in some instances is Darker and Edgier than earlier film and comics versions. Its three main superheroes (Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman) are shown to kill enemies (steamrolling Thou Shalt Not Kill) and their superhero activities unleash much collateral damage and sociopolitical turmoil.
- Like the Ultimate Marvel, the early DCEU heavily emphasizes the role of the Military-Industrial Complex, with Superman's arrival on Earth treated as First Contact and Superman interacting entirely with the US Military whereas earlier Superman stories much like superhero movies before, had the hero's first interactions be with civilian institutions and civilian society.
- The early movies also focus heavily on The War on Terror for its imagery and context (around the same time the Ultimate series first hit the stands) with the Metropolis battle between Zod and Superman drawing on 9/11 for imagery (especially the dust that covers civilians on ground), while Batman paraphrases VP Dick Cheney's 1% Doctrine to justify going against Superman.
- Wonder Woman's origin in her film is reminiscent of Ultimate Thor in that her stories about the Greek Gods are initially treated with bemusement by her human allies and she is identified as the last of the demigods of antiquity with the classic pantheon killed off by Ares, who is here identified as her half-brother, similar to Ultimate Thor and Ultimate Loki, the latter of whom wiped out the Norse pantheon in Ragnarok.
- Dredd is a updated, streamlined and extremely gritty and realistic take on the original Judge Dredd comics, stripping away much of the Camp sensational elements from the UK comics and turning it into more of a 21st century America inspired setting. While there are sci-fi elements like Anderson’s Psychic Powers, they’re still downplayed. Notably the villains don’t include any robots or mutants this time round, instead being regular gangsters.
- Shin Godzilla explores what would happen if the titular Kaiju attacked Japan for the first time in The New '10s and all the political baggage that would entail. There's also an attempt to make the monster's design terryfing again through the use of Body Horror, with exposed flesh, bleeding, and multiple forms to convey the disgusting and sad imagery of an animal mutated by radioactivity. The direction of Hideaki Anno was one of the movie's biggest selling points for anime fans otherwise unfamiliar with Godzilla or Tokusatsu as a whole, featuring plenty of his directorial quirks and references to other projects he's worked on.
- Paramount's Sonic the Hedgehog film series acts as this to the Sonic the Hedgehog game series, being a heavily distilled and streamlined take on the Sonic mythos that borrows many plot points from the games, while also deviating heavily from them in many areas, often drastically so. The films are also set in a more grounded setting compared to the games, being set on a real-world Earth away from Sonic's world instead of the Lions and Tigers and Humans... Oh, My! setting of the games.
- The Star Trek films headed by J. J. Abrams and his team are established as taking place in an entirely new timeline from the rest of the franchise, created inadvertently by Nero and old-Spock. As such, viewers can sit back and watch some familiar dynamics (the Kirk-Spock-McCoy friendship); some new ones (such as the Spock/Uhura relationship); and entirely new fates for Captain Pike, Carol Marcus, and Khan, etc.—without taking offense at any violations of canon. Fans have taken to calling this "The JJ-verse" or "AOS" (Alternate Original Series). Paramount has since confirmed that the name of the alternate continuity is "Kelvin Universe," a reference to the titular spaceship in the opening scene of the 2009 film. When Star Trek: Discovery went into development, it was said to be in the "Prime" timeline and not connected to these films, further affirming that it was a different type of playground.
Literature
- The book sequels to 2001: A Space Odyssey are all set in the universe established in the film version (the mission terminates at Saturn in the novel, at Jupiter in the film), but each one is set in a somewhat divergent universe that does not necessarily take all events of the previous novel(s) into account. Thus 2061 diverges from and ignores the epilogue of 2010, and 3001 glosses over several major implications described in the three previous novels. Clarke stated in the introductions to all three sequels that this was deliberate.
- The book series, comprising Michael Moorcock's The Final Programme, A Cure for Cancer and The English Assassin establish Jerry Cornelius as a globe-trotting, time-hopping, jet-setting secret agent. He is surrounded by immortal characters for whom death lasts precisely until they are needed in a sequel. This is the incarnation used by other writers associated with Moorcock's contribution to the New Wave. Then The Condition of Muzak reveals Jerry to be a down-at-heel would-be pop star with an imagination that makes Walter Mitty look like the average Vulcan. The only real death he encounters is that of his mother, which event ends the series.
Live-Action TV
- Kamen Rider
- Hideaki Anno escentially did this for the original series with Shin Kamen Rider (2023). And years before that we had The First. It's sequel, The Next, also adapted V3.
- Kamen Rider Amazons and Kamen Rider BLACK SUN are this to Kamen Rider Amazon and Kamen Rider BLACK respectively. Both of them being adult-oriented reimaginings. The former trades one-dimensional villains and a mystical bracelet for moral ambiguity and Body Horror, while the latter attempts to tackle an allegory for discrimination against minority groups. Amazons was written by Yasuko Kobayashi, who is known for writting some fan-favourite Kamen Rider seasons and other Tokusatsu series.
- The Kamen Rider Kuuga manga is one for the show it's based on. Changing the setting from the year 2000 to The New '10s, and quickly diverging from the original plot with the early introduction of Kamen Rider Agito. Much like The First, The Kuuga manga was written by Toshiki Inoue. Who has written plenty of Kamen Rider Seasons and the fondly remembered Choujin Sentai Jetman.
Tabletop Games
- Several campaigns by RPGA managed to receive the Ultimate treatment following their original publisher's demise. To wit, "Living City" became "Living Planar," "Living Greyhawk" evolved into "Blackmoor," and "Living Death" turned into "Fellowship of the White Star."
- White Wolf's Chronicles of Darkness is an Ultimate Spiritual Successor of the Old World of Darkness, created to tighten focus, tweak rules mechanics, standardize rules between different gamelines, and replace a metaplot continuity that in just a little over a decade had become as convoluted and incomprehensible as any comic book universe with a more ambiguous, optional, and largely more internally consistent one.
- Another White Wolf product, Exalted, is given this treatment in the third edition, with the map redrawn and multiple new types of Exalt appearing.
- The fourth edition of Dungeons & Dragons can be considered this to 3.5 edition due to its streamlined, MMO-inspired gameplay, drastic overhaul of many established D&D conventions, and incorporating races, deities, and ideas from different editions and campaign settings.
- Fifth Edition even moreso. After the poor reception of 4E, Fifth Edition is an attempt to Win Back the Crowd by effectively making a stripped-down Third Edition, which makes it feel very familiar to anyone who played 1st or 2nd Edition AD&D; it ends up serving as something of the new-generation Basic D&D, to Pathfinder's status as this generation's Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.
- The "Paragons of Freedom" setting in the Mutants & Masterminds book Worlds of Freedom places the Freedom City characters in the Paragons setting. Between the more "realistic supers" tone of Paragons compared to Freedom's four-colour approach, and the fact superheroes are a fairly recent phenomenon, it feels a lot like an "Ultimised" version of the Freedom City setting.
- After the OblivAeon event in Sentinels of the Multiverse, the game and the fictional comics focus on two major timelines - the Miststorm, or Tactics timeline, and the RPG, or main timeline. The Miststorm-verse is treated as an Ultimate Universe: it's darker and edgier, characters have different names and redesigns and beloved characters die for real. As a nod to the Marvel Ultimate Universe, the Miststorm timeline is eventually destroyed.
Video Games
- Action Taimanin: Action is set in an entirely new timeline from the other entries of the franchise. As a new continuity, it further combines elements of all prior entries of the series, like Yamamoto from ZERO, Asagi being Gosha Academy's headmistress from the third game, the Fuuma clan and story from Battle Arena/RPGX, and Oboro and NOMAD working be as depicted in the second game, just for a few examples.
- Batman: Arkham Origins. While other games in the Batman: Arkham Series try to focus on incorporating the best elements from across every Bat-adaptation, or showing how dangerous even the cheesiest Batman villain can be, Origins seems determined to modernize Gotham: Riddler becomes a hacker and cyberterrorist, Anarky resembles a modern "Guy Fawkes" street protestor, and a lot of focus is given to the corrupt prison and police system, both major talking points among the public when the game came out.
- Blaster Master Zero manages to incorporate nearly every part of the Blaster Master series into its canon. It is canonically a continuation of the Japanese Metafight universe, with the English canon added onto it. The series even sets up the events of Blasting Again for Jason and Eve's children.
- Call of Duty:
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) has this in spades. This time around, while the plot takes cues from the original Call of Duty 4 and Modern Warfare 2 (via a combination of Russian and Middle Eastern terrorists conducting terrorist attacks in their own countries, and against innocent civilians abroad), the action takes place in the current day rather than Next Sunday A.D., and Captain John Price is expressly Younger and Hipper (34-35 in this game, versus the 50 year-old incarnation in the original trilogy).
- Price still undertook an operation to assassinate Imran Zakhaev in Pripyat; in this timeline, it's all but confirmed that it was an outright success, whereas the first incarnation of that mission ended with Zakhaev losing his arm but otherwise surviving. Furthermore, Victor Zakhaev is said to be leading the Russian Ultranationalists that were referenced earlier in the game.
- In this universe, Price is more open with his emotions, swearing more, letting his frustrations show on the surface more often when a situation is going south (like during the defense of the Embassy in Urzikstan) and openly discusses Kyle's emotional concerns with him.
- Whereas Task Force 141 was set up in the interim between the first and second game (by Soap, largely in response to what happened with Zakhaev), this time around, Price is the one who sets it up, expressly to deal with Victor Zakhaev. Furthermore, Price recruits John MacTavish (aka "Soap"), Player Character Kyle Garrick (aka "Gaz") and Simon Riley (aka "Ghost"), along with a number of unspecified operatives.
- At the end of the game it's revealed that Khaled Al-Asad is now the commander of Al-Qatala and is leading an offensive against the Russia city of Verdansk.
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II continues this in spades, with Task Force 141 working under General Shepherd and together with the PMC Shadow Company, much of the story revolving around the possibility of America being implicated in an attack they didn't take part in (by way of American missiles ending up in Al-Qatala's hands), and a mid-game betrayal of Task Force 141 by Shepherd and Shadow Company. And, once they're dealt with, the last-minute revelation that there's still one more bad guy out there: Makarov.
- Castlevania: The Castlevania: Lords of Shadow game features a number of familiar elements and character names, but significantly reworked to find a way to fit them into the same era, with the plot of the first entry being something of a retake on Castlevania: Lament of Innocence, namely as an origin story for Dracula and the second on Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow duology, namely on the idea of events that take place in a more contemporary era, albeit under a more clear Alternate History. It also trades the Metroidvania exploration for a more "God of War" style beat em' up and the "vampire hunter/horror" theme for "Judeo-Christian and Paganism" to make it more relevant.
- Doom: Zig-Zagged with Doom (2016) and Doom Eternal; the games take place in a unique universe with elements from several prior works in the franchise (the general premise, certain monster designs), but tweaked to make the world more developed, and features quite a bit of new lore introduced to the franchise, but the protagonist is established to be the original Doomguy, who made his way to this new universe after the events of Doom 64.
- DmC: Devil May Cry streamlines many elements from the classic Devil May Cry series' convoluted story while adding original wrinkles, such as making Dante's mother a literal Angel, having Sparda tortured after betraying demonkind, and turning Dante's Rebellion into a shape-shifting weapon. It also has its own version of the fan favorite Vergil, who was seemingly killed in the original series' Anachronic Order via the first game. Overall, this continuity reuses some characters such as Sparda, Eva, Dante, Vergil, and Mundus, but redesigns their appearances and rewrites their personalities differently than their original counterparts. The story and dialogue are Darker and Edgier, while the setting also leans a lot on modern city Urban Fantasy than the previous games which leaned more on old Gothic-style architecture. The negative response to the reboot however led to Devil May Cry 5, which is a continuation of the original series.
- Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons is described by the developers as an "alternate timeline prequel" to the Double Dragon games. It takes many elements of the mainline games and other media in the franchise and its own unique takes and blend them together in a more grounded form.
- Final Fantasy: The Final Fantasy VII Remake and its sequel Final Fantasy VII Rebirth are effectively an Ultimate Universe for the original Final Fantasy VII. The technology is updated from 1997, there's numerous Darker and Edgier and Hotter and Sexier changes alongside Lighter and Softer and Tamer and Chaster ones, the designs, powers, personalities of multiple characters and enemies are updated and expanded. Everything is more extreme (including the minigames) with the gameplay being a Stylish Action -Turn-Based Combat hybrid. In a series-wide sense, it incorporates gameplay ideas from previous entries in the series, like the stagger mechanics from Final Fantasy XIII, free character movement combined with menu commands from Final Fantasy XII, and direct button inputs for attacks and dodges from Final Fantasy XV. It’s also revealed to be an Alternate Timeline from the original game, bringing multiple elements and characters from Compilation of Final Fantasy VII while still mainly following the original game’s story, while Rebirth introduces a third timeline where Zack and Biggs are still alive, with Zack aiding Cloud against Sephiroth in the second game's multiversal space-time climax.
- Grand Theft Auto:
- Starting off the newer HD Universe, Grand Theft Auto IV and its DLC packs (save for Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony) go for a more grounded, modern approach, especially when compared to the period pieces of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Unlike the previous games, which balanced the crime drama story arcs with more outlandish and whackier ideas, IV went for a more grounded approach inspired by the political and legal climate at the time. Many organized crime families are on their last legs, crackdowns by federal law enforcement leaving many paranoid and fearful. Even more street-level gangs like the Lost, McRearys, Spanish Lords, and North Holland Hustlers are past their peak, their influence being a thing of the past due to federal crackdowns and demographic changes, and by the end of the game most, if not every gang leader ends up dead or in prison. The only real criminal superpowers in Liberty City are the Five Families and The Mafiya, the former already being at risk of being a relic while the latter is marred by Mikhail Faustin's mental health and Dimitri's constant backstabbing.
- The game also averts Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Gangster! hard. Niko and Roman spend the game constantly struggling with financial and personal problems, the former's conflicts with Bulgarin and the traitor and the latter's debts and gambling addiction keeping them from being able to eke out a living. Johnny's attempts at keeping the Lost together see him struggling with changing times, as many characters call him and the gang out for no longer being relevant, which is backed up by the gang's steady decline, especially due to Billy Grey's leadership. While the previous games didn't hesitate to show the challenges of a criminal lifestyle, especially San Andreas and Vice City Stories, IV was a lot more defeatist, as evidenced by neither ending having a particularly "good" outcome.
- The War on Terror and various anti-crime policies also impact the story. Niko's status as a foreigner leads to authorities and the media linking some of his more violent crimes to terrorism, and one politician even exploits this by having Johnny Klebitz assassinate his uncle with the intent to paint it as a terrorist attack for sympathy. Niko is even ordered by the United Liberty Paper Contact to eliminate suspects linked to international terror groups. Also noticeable is the lack of Ammu-Nation stores, chalked up to strict gun control policies. Instead, weapons are purchased from street dealers.
- Grand Theft Auto V would continue some of the trends from its predecessor but also went for a Lighter and Softer approach, replacing dark and gritty deconstruction with aggressive social satire of celebrity culture and first-world problems. Each protagonist is a Deconstructed Character Archetype of different GTA player types (Michael the career criminal who "won," Fanklin the relative newcomer, and Trevor the Chaotic Evil lunatic) with the issues those involve. Michael struggles with finding a purpose in life, Franklin is struggling to "make it" in a criminal lifestyle that's growing steadily anachronistic, and Trevor is unable to establish human connections, his unhinged behavior often turning others against him and even leading to Michael trying to have him killed by the FIB. However, the game avoids the more pessimistic tone of its predecessor, even allowing the player to achieve a Golden Ending with no strings attached as opposed to IV's choices of a Downer or Bittersweet Ending.
- V would also continue to satirize post-9/11 policies as well as the post-Recession socioeconomic climate, satirizing the federal government's anti-terrorism policies such as torture and reliance on private military contractors. While the infamous "By The Book" mission is arguably the most harrowing moment in the game, it's largely an exception, other social commentary being more in line with the games pre-IV with a more sardonic tone.
- Kingdom Hearts is a Retooled Crossover of Disney and Final Fantasy, that sets both in the same continuity alongside characters from The Nightmare Before Christmas, Movies by Pixar, and The World Ends with You. When the worlds the player travels to are not a Compressed Adaptation of the movies they're based on, they and the Square Enix Characters usually have some thematic relevance with the story of the Original Generation Characters and the overall series. Tetsuya Nomura has also given drastic redesigns to some of the Disney and Final Fantasy Characters, putting them in clothes that are his preferred aesthetic.
- In a way, The King of Fighters is this by being a Retooled Crossover that puts many SNK Games into a single shared continuity, while also featuring many Original Generation characters. From Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting (with later games featuring characters from their Distant Sequels), to Ikari Warriors and Psycho Soldier. More recent titles have also added Kizuna Encounter, Samurai Shodown and Metal Slug into the mix. Some of the characters like Robert, Athena and Terry have also gotten redesigns as the series went on. And then there's King of Dinosaurs, who is actually Tizoc going under a new heel persona, kind of like The Maker but much more comedic.
- The Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam crossover confirms that the Paper Mario games are separate from the rest of Super Mario Bros. series, being contained inside a magic book kept in Peach's castle.
- Mega Man:
- The cancelled "Maverick Hunter" game by Armature Studio would have been this to the Mega Man X franchise, featuring a new realistic design for X, a supposedly darker storyline, and a Bruce Willis-esque human partner.
- Mega Man Battle Network is a Spin-Off/reimagining of the Mega Man franchise, set in an Alternate Universe that focuses on a grand development of the internet instead of robotics. It mostly features characters from the Classic series, who are all redesigned to fit with the Battle Network aesthetic (although Glyde from the Legends series, as well as Zero, the Colonel and Iris from the X series also show up). The series would later receive a Distant Sequel called Mega Man Star Force, which deals with aliens and Wi-Fi radio.
- The Mortal Kombat games by NetherRealm Studios are an odd example of this, much like the New 52 they start off a New Timeline by hitting the Reset Button in their First Game. After that, they condense the plot of The Arcade Trilogy in a cinematic Story Mode that involves characters introduced later into the series, With big changes to the events of the timeline being a result of Time Travel shenanigans. Mortal Kombat X adapts the plot of Mortal Kombat 4 and re-introduces some elements and characters from The 3D Era, while also killing of many others in the Prequel Comic or off-screen. It also introduces New Characters and Legacy Characters into the lore. Then Mortal Kombat 11 features another big cinematic Story Mode with Time Travel that has, controversially, changed the personality/backstory of certain characters more so than previous installments. Such as, for example, Sindel. Mortal Kombat 1 decided to pull yet another Continuity Reboot with Liu Kang creating a new world where multiple characters dynamics are changed up, such as Kuai Liang being the new Scorpion instead of Hanzo Hasashi, Mileena and Kitana being actual sisters, Raiden being mortal and Shao Khan is a General Ripper rather than an Evil Overlord. Then it’s revealed the MK9 timeline still exists and every ending from 11 is canon, including Shang Tsung's defeat of Fire God Liu Kang in Aftermath, and when that Shang Tsung learns of Liu Kang's New Era, he proceeds to invade the MK1 timeline in the hopes of conquering it and all other timelines, thus bringing The Multiverse into the fold.
- Ratchet & Clank:
- Ratchet & Clank (2016) (and the movie it's based on) retells the original story with a great amount of this trope in effect. Elements such as the Galactic Rangers, hints to Ratchet's origins, Qwark's rivalry with Nefarious and Ratchet's desire to be a hero are all injected into the story. In addition to that are a great amount of world-building such as a diverse array of races, the Megacorp and GrummelNet companies, President Phyronix, Unicop, the presence of other galaxies, and even an easter egg for what kick-starts the adventure after this one. By comparison the PS2 and PS3 titles took the course of a decade to introduce all of these.
- Zig-Zagged with Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction: the game discarded several modern gameplay elements and re-emphasized old ones and introduced brand news aspects, such as a higher focus on the story and lore, making it a giant gumbo of the series' best elements.note What makes this trope a Zig-Zagged one is that at the time, with all the discarded elements and characters picked up over the years, there was fan confusion as to whether the game was a Continuity Reboot or a Retool. As such, the games that came after included many throwbacks and references to the pre-Tools titles, ranging from name-dropping beloved characters like Courtney Gears and Ace Hardlight all the way to including a museum that is loaded with Continuity Porn as if it were a Milestone Celebration.
- Resident Evil: The REmake games starting with RE2make and followed by RE3make and RE4make are essentially an Ultimate Universe. Being an Alternate Timeline seperate from the mainline RE games, which are still ongoing. Everything is Darker and Edgier and more streamlined, Leon, Claire and Jill swear frequently, many characters have different appearances or backstories (Krauser in particular), Ada is a more villainous character and much of the Camp moments (especially in RE4’s case) are either toned down or Played for Drama. There’s a lot of discourse over these choices, with some feeling it ruins the fun B-Movie tone of the older games, while others argue it gives the series and its characters more depth.
- The reboot continuity of the Sherlock Holmes (Frogwares) series appears to do this, starting with Sherlock Holmes Chapter One. It's a Darker and Edgier continuity that streamlines storylines from the original games to have certain characters appear earlier than in the original continuity, features a slightly younger Holmes who has a much more angst because of his Dark and Troubled Past, and other characters like Watson and Mycroft have slightly different personalities compared to the original versions.
- Sonic the Hedgehog:
- Sonic Generations had Sonic team up with his past self, Classic Sonic. Sonic Forces and Sonic Mania retcon Classic Sonic to be from Another Dimension (due to a recurring translation error regarding Classic Sonic's world being referred to an alternate dimension instead), and was later re-retconned/clarified back to him being from the past, which was always the case.
- The Sonic Boom video games, as well as its follow-up cartoon, tried to serve as this for the Sonic franchise to give SEGA room to experiment in a new continuity while still being close to the original, though it didn't last very long before the properties got shelved.
- Super Robot Wars: Original Generation is effectively the video game equivalent of Ultimate Marvel: streamline the original plots from their licensed Super Robot Wars installments into one cohesive setting, featuring only their in-house created characters - a particularly interesting example, as Super Robot Wars is already a Massive Multiplayer Crossover Adaptation Distillation of many diverse Humongous Mecha properties. Things really hit a stride post-Continuity Reboot, as subsequent Original Generation Sequels began adding in obscure Banpresto-developed titles like The Great Battle series and Hero Senki: Project Olympus as tie-ins to overall Continuity. These days, it's expected an Original Generation installment will incorporate something from Banpresto's library into its narrative, especially when current developer B.B. Studio is treating Original Generation as this trope.
- The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction takes place in one. It's set in a more contemporary world where Hulk causes actual deaths, Leonard Samson doesn't have Gamma powers of his own, and Emil Blonsky is reimagined from a Russian communist spy to the American head of the Division out to capture Banner to unlock the secrets of Gamma radiation. Absent of Marvel Universe connections, there is a startling lack of supervillains causing the primary enemies to be the military, their big grey robots, and Gamma mutates created by the Division. The Devil Hulk, the game's largest and longest lasting legacy, is specifically reimagined as a Composite Character of his namesake and the Guilt Hulk, a manifestation of Bruce's most destructive instincts taking on traits from his father. Interestingly, the artist behind the first two Ultimates volumes Bryan Hitch contributed to the visual design for the game.
- Yu-Gi-Oh!:
- The world of Yu-Gi-Oh! BAM combines characters, story, and settings from the first three Yu-Gi-Oh anime.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! Reshef of Destruction features both manga-exclusive and anime-exclusive characters, referencing events from both continuities as well as its prequel game.
Webcomics
- Dumbing of Age is basically a reboot of Roomies!, minus the Mundane Fantastic that eventually took over the strip and plus the hundreds of characters created since then.
- Inverted Fate, while it is a Role Swap Au, it is also a reimagination of the original Undertale. Frisk has a freshed-out personality instead of being a silent protagonist, a backstory and more interactions with the cast, and Papyrus is a secondary protagonist and party member. The setting is more evolved due to the swaps affecting the story. The lore is also expanded through flashbacks, Dummied Out content being restored and Chara having a major role and impact.
- The Japanese Beetle went through this in 2003, retelling stories from its 1998 origin in more modern style. Word of God later admitted that this was exactly what he was going for.
- Tails Gets Trolled Polished was an attempt at this. With lazerbot adding shading to his crude drawings and correcting his infamous spelling mistakes. Events that in the original Webcomic lasted only two pages were stretched to four, characters introduced later into the story appear much earlier, and new characters and scenes were added, some of which try to add depth to minor characters. All of this with a much more dense tone akin to the latter chapters rather than the much more fast paced beginning of the original. The goal of this remaster was to make a definitive version of the Webcomic, with lazerbot himself even calling the original a draft. His fans weren't pleased, especially since the new project started after the original was left on a Cliffhanger.
Western Animation
- DuckTales (2017) combines elements from the original series (such as Webby, Launchpad, Gizmoduck and Mrs. Beakley) with those from the original Disney Ducks Comics (such as Uncle Scrooge wearing red and having Donald getting involved in his uncle's adventures as well as wearing a black sailor suit), all the while throwing in original ideas (like making Flintheart Glomgold a Fat Bastard, Fenton being Latino) and new characters (Mark Beaks). By the second and third seasons, much of the Disney Afternoon has been added, with characters from TaleSpin, Darkwing Duck, Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers, Goof Troop,its movies, and, of all things, The Wuzzles. Even the eponymous characters from Adventures of the Gummi Bears, Bonkers, and Fluppy Dogs get briefly referenced.
- Godzilla: The Series turns the continuity of Godzilla (1998) into this. While the movie is regarded by American and Japanese Kaiju fans as a Godzilla in name only, the Animated Series is a then-contemporary remake of The Godzilla Power Hour. Bringing back familiar elements such as his Atomic Breath and a Monster of the Week format. The show also has Expies of other Toho monsters, such as Quetzacoatl being the show's version of Rodan, The Nanotech Creature as Hedorah, and The Robo-Yeti as both King Kong and Mechani-Kong. Then there's also Cyber-Godzilla, a mechanized Kaiju that uses the remains of the previous Godzilla, a concept later used for the Millenium Mechagodzilla (Kiryu). Cyber-Godzilla was created by the Tachyons, which are the show's equivalent to the Simeons and Kilaaks. Much like Godzilla himself, the designs and backstory of these Expies are drastically different from their source, and The Robo-Yeti is Japanese instead of American, the inverse of this Godzilla, which is something that the show playfully points out. And finally, there's the thing that it has most in common with it's Trope Namer, these adaptations are a product of their time.
- Mega Man: Fully Charged was meant to be this to the main Classic MegaMan franchise. In this continuity, Megaman is a young robot boy named Aki Light that has the ability to transform into his Super Fightin' Robot hero identity MegaMan and lives alongside his creator; war-veteran Dr. Thomas Light, and his human daughter Suna Light (who has nothing to do with Roll), with them fighting a completely new antagonist named Sgt. Night, an anti-robot bigot that manipulates robots such as Fire Man, Air Man, Guts Man, Cut Man and Elec Man alongside newcomers Hypno-Woman and Blast-Woman into becoming dangers to society, with Megaman's twin brother being a Composite Character of ProtoMan and Bass.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012) utilizes many characters and elements from the 1987 series, but tends to use aspects of many other continuities (such as the use of Composite Characters and a somewhat dark tone), and adds its own spins on occasion (case in point, the revamped origins of the Rat King and Mutagen Man).
- Transformers:
- Transformers: Animated was made to modernize and reintroduce the franchise to a new, younger generation. It featured mostly the same cast from G1, but smaller, while adding new characters and ideas of its own. It also had a few elements from the first live-action film and characters from Beast Wars. (According to The AllSpark Almanac, a character from Robots In Disguise exists in this universe too.) Unlike the episodic '80s cartoon it rebooted, Animated had a bigger focus on continuity, with multi-part episodes at the start and finale of each season. Some characterizarion and roles were updated and tweaked too, like Optimus being younger and still figuring things out as a leader.
- Transformers: Prime is part of the Transformers Aligned Universe, which exists entirely outside of the Transformers multiverse in the beginning, and it was deliberately designed to be a universe with the best parts of other continuities. The show itself also had a more serious and brooding tone than other Transformers shows.
- Young Justice (2010):
- The show tries going for a more realistic approach regarding the existence of superheroes and tweaks many iconic storylines. The Young Justice team is less of a group of young superheroes and more of a black ops team that the Justice League relies on to carry out missions the League can't carry out. The League has also been active for only seven years when the series starts, with many threats such as alien invasions or supervillain team-ups being a very new concept to them in contrast to other depictions where such threats are incredibly common. The Light is also less of a direct threat and more of a secretive group constantly playing the long game in a near-perpetual cold war with the League. Public relations is also a huge factor for the League, the Team and the Outsiders, with UN politics together with news and social media being a huge factor in how they are able to operate. Death Is Cheap is also averted, with many characters such as Kent Nelson, Aqua Girl, Ted Kord, and Wally West staying dead for good, while others, such as Superboy and Jason have clear fake-outs.
- Many iconic character arcs and stories are heavily shifted. Speedy does become Red Arrow, but he is revealed to be a clone of the original, who ultimately becomes Arsenal. Season 2 plays with the idea of Barry Allen dying like his comic counterpart, but instead Wally is the one who perishes. The third season would have The Judas Contract, but instead of Terra, Geo-Force is the traitor while the fourth season made Cassandra Cain responsible for Barbara Gordon's paralysis instead of Joker.