Elseworlds

Elseworlds was the publication imprint for American comic books produced by DC Comics, in which stories take place outside the DC Universe canon. The Gotham by Gaslight graphic novel, featuring Batman, is considered to be the first official Elseworlds story. The "Elseworlds" name was trademarked in 1989, the same year as the first Elseworlds publication.

History

Imaginary Stories

From 1942 to the mid-1980s, particularly during the 1960s — the Silver Age of Comic Books era — DC Comics began to make a distinction between the continuity of its fictional universe and stories with plots that did not fit that continuity. These out-of-continuity stories eventually came to be called Imaginary Stories.

The title page of the first reprint version of "Superman, Cartoon Hero!" stated that the story was "Our first imaginary story", and continued to said: "In 1942, a series of Superman shorts started showing throughout the U.S.! So, with tongue firmly in cheek, the DC team turned out this story of what might have happened if Lois Lane had decided to see... Superman, Cartoon Hero!". The original printing was worded differently and gave no impression that the story was any more or less than a "real" Superman story.