MC2
In comic books, MC2 is an alternative timeline for the Marvel Universe. The line was based on issue #105 of What If?, a magazine that featured stories with alternate endings to Marvel's main storylines. Issue #105 dealt with Spider-Man being allowed to raise his daughter (who seemingly died in the regular Marvel timeline), who discovered she too possessed super-powers, becoming Spider-Girl. The line was conceived by writer/editor Tom DeFalco. It was set 15 years in Marvel's future, using Marvel's "chronal elasticity" to actually be able to present the stories in modern time. Three MC2 titles were launched with October 1998 cover dates, initially planned as 12-issue limited series: Spider-Girl, the main star of the show);A-Next, dubbed "The Next Generation of the Avengers", after most of the original ones mysteriously vanished); andJ2 (Juggernaut's son, a heroic teenager) However, the titles failed to attract a large fan-following, and A-Next and J2 ended as planned after twelve issues, replaced with: Fantastic Five, the expanded Fantastic Four family); andWild Thing, Wolverine and Elektra's daughter);
with Spider-Girl continuing due to a desire for some continuity in the line. However, with the collapse of a deal to sell the comics in K-Mart and Target, the new titles were cancelled after only five issues, leaving Spider-Girl as the MC2 line's only survivor, with sales gradually drifting downwards to cancellation levels. A few spin-off mini-series were launched during the main title's career (Spider-Girl Presents DarkDevil and Spider-Girl Presents The Buzz), but even Spider-Girl was always kept on the brink of cancellation. Only successive efforts on the part of DeFalco and a few enthusiastic fans kept the title going, even if it is one of Marvel Comics' lowest selling magazines. However, recently, Marvel launched a line of small "Digest"-sized trade paperbacks, with Spider-Girl being one of the two biggest successes in the "mass market" (the other being Runaways, which was reprieved from cancellation by the digest sales), with some reports suggesting that the Spider-Girl digests had substantially outsold the monthly comics. In 2005 a new MC2 five part limited series will be released called Last Hero Standing, with the aim of the series being to go to digest quickly as a possible prelude to making digests of the other MC2 books ("The sales of the Spider-Girl trade paperbacks have been so good to the mass market and to the grade schools that Marvel wanted a limited series that would introduce the other members of the MC-2 Universe to the mass market." [1])
External links Tom DeFalco discussing why Fantastic Five and Wild Thing were cancelled Interview with Tom DeFalco on Spider-Girl and Last Hero Standing
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