On today’s episode of Things That Might Have Happened And Could Have Been Cool But Didn’t Happen But The Idea’s Still Cool So That’s Cool, it’s the time retro adventure game folks Wadjet Eye might’ve made games based on DC Comics’ moody Vertigo line. It didn’t pan out, but they get as far as whipping up ↑ a nifty bit of artwork showing Hellblazer‘s John Constantine hanging out with The Sandman‘s Dream and Death.

That could have been cool but didn’t happen but the idea’s still cool so that’s cool, and Wadjet head honch Dave Gilbert says they plan to revisit the “dark urban fantasy” idea.

“Fun fact. We once were in talks with WB to do games based on Vertigo comics. Didn’t happen, but we did a test image,” Gilbert tweeted yesterday. Click on that to see the artwork full-size. He added, “I always wondered ‘what if’ and the desire to do a dark urban fantasy hasn’t gone away. Hence, ‘Unavowed’, our post-Shardlight project.”

Shardlight, of course, is Wadjet’s recently-announced post-apocalyptic adventure game, which is due in spring 2016.

Vertigo was the imprint DC created for their ‘mature’ comics, which meant lots of horror and artsy things, pulling together comics including The Sandman, Doom Patrol, and Hellblazer (though some had their brightest days before Vertigo even started, like Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing run and Grant Morrison’s Animal Man). Dickhead magician Constantine and the cheery Death were favourites of mine and ah, I would’ve been very curious to see how games turned out. Adventure games probably would’ve been the best way to explore comics like that too. There was a game of Keanu Reeves’s Hellblazer movie and… looking on the bright side, we can at least say the film gave us Peter Stormare as Lucifer and Tilda Swinton as Gabriel, and they’re always delightful.

Anyway! As we always say here on Things That Might Have Happened And Could Have Been Cool But Didn’t Happen But The Idea’s Still Cool So That’s Cool, that could have been cool but didn’t happen but the idea’s still cool so that’s cool.

(Also, speaking of John Constantine and adapting Vertigo characters and old comics happenings, I always dug Ultimate Eye for the Vertigo Guy as a response to the silliness of Marvel’s Ultimates imprint. Remember the noughties, eh? Eh?)