Nearly ten years after Game of Thrones, every network is still trying to get a Game of Thrones of their own. In its efforts to land a must-watch drama of the same caliber, Hulu has turned to the Mr. Game of Thrones himself, George R. R. Martin. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Hulu is nearing a deal to turn Wild Cards, a superhero universe co-created by Martin, into a multi-series franchise.

But don't expect Game of Thrones: Superhero Edition. Wild Cards is an entirely different beast—it's more of a premise that serves as a launching pad for a number of short story collections, comics, and tabletop RPGs all set in the same universe. The idea that links them all is the titular Wild Card virus, released over Manhattan in the '40s and killing 90% of the population, deforming the majority of survivors—and giving a lucky few superhuman powers. Passed down to the descendants of survivors, the Wild Card virus lies dormant until triggered by emotional stress of some kind, at which point it will either kill, mutate, or manifest superpowers in the carrier. It's... a lot.

Wild Cards has been kicking around for a while now, almost as long as Game of Thrones, with SyFy hoping to turn the series into a film in 2011, the year Thrones debuted. Nothing ever came of it, however, and the rights came up for grabs once more—allowing room for a TV series to take shape. (Or multiple series, in the case of this potential Hulu deal.)

The nice thing about Wild Cards, however, is that it's not actually written by Martin—he's contributed stories and co-created the premise, but he largely has served as an editor of the short story collections along with Melinda Snodgrass, and largely functions as a figurehead. So Wild Cards stories can talk all manner of shapes and styles, and there's a rich pool of stories to draw from and adapt. Hulu's take on Wild Cards—spearheaded by Andrew Miller of The Secret Circle, with Martin and Snodgrass onboard as executive producers—can essentially look like anything. And that's great, because the best way to find the next Game of Thrones is to make something entirely different from Game of Thrones.