The original “Heroes Reborn” event created an entirely new world for the heroes of Earth that continued to evolve further once the Avengers departed.
In the 1990s, the Avengers and Fantastic Four sacrificed themselves to stop the powerful villain Onslaught. Despite initial appearances, they didn’t actually die, but they were rather transported to a pocket dimension created by Franklin Richards to save his friends and family’s lives. This world was the focus of the Heroes Reborn reboot, a year=long publishing effort that saw creators like Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld reinvent Marvel’s classic heroes, long before the Ultimate Marvel era.
Eventually, the Celestials discovered Counter-Earth and deemed it a threat to all of existence, insisting that Franklin choose one world or the other to be eradicated. To save both Earths, the heroes of our world were returned, leaving Counter-Earth without its mightiest heroes. In the aftermath of the heroes being sent back to their proper Earth, the counterpart world was struck by massive floods that left half of New York City underwater. In a series of 2000 one-shots by creators like Chris Claremont, Mike McKone, Joe Kelly, Michael Ryan, Charlie Adlard, Matt Haley, Fabian Nicieza and Mark Bagley, Doctor Doom, who had spent time on Counter-Earth after Onslaught’s defeat, went back to the alternate world. His arrival nearly killed him, and Doom took it upon himself to restore order to Counter-Earth, albeit with a clenched iron fist.
When Doom first returned to Counter-Earth, he was barely saved from drowning, as well as from Atlantean assailants, by Samantha Dunbar, one of the natives of the alternate world created by Franklin when he willed the universe into existence. Without her knowing, Doom injected her with nanites that allowed the two of them to be linked almost telepathically, and also imbued her with the power to create and wield raw plasma energy as a weapon.
Together they searched for and rescued the Celestial Ashema, who had been made human by the Dreaming Celestial Tiamut. The Celestial was behind the chaos on Counter-Earth, and intent on using it as a means of freeing himself from his extradimensional prison. Doom, Samantha and Ashema all decided to work together to undo Tiamut’s plot and save Counter-Earth, although doing so was not without difficulties. Various heroes and villains across the globe all vied for their place on Counter-Earth, the Masters of Evil trying to convince Doom to ally with them only to be unceremoniously killed by the Marvel tyrant. Dorma, the leader of the Atlantean army, attempted to seduce Doom, but he saw through her ruse and prepared for her inevitable betrayal.
The Young Allies, including this world’s Bucky, Rikki Barnes, fight tirelessly against the Nazi-led World Party only to become caregivers for the embodiments of the cosmic ideals of chaos and order. These cosmic beings had been trying to prevent the destruction of Counter-Earth, even if they did accidentally wipe Paris from the map almost entirely. The World Party aren’t the only native threats to Counter-Earth, though, as across the country in the combined remains of California and Nevada, now Calivania, the former public face of the World Party, Master Man, had turned over a new, possibly more terrifying leaf.
The hero Rebel fought across the desert against Master Man and his religious cult of Acolytes, many of them now mutated and empowered by an unexplained explosion of Gamma radiation. Aside from all of this, budding superhero team the Remnants found themselves up against their former leader Deadpool, who had taken a S.H.I.E.L.D. hellicarrier loaded with nuclear weapons, intent on ending the world after discovering that it was only a lie invented by a child.
In 1999’s Heroes Reborn: Doom #1 by Chris Claremont and Mike McKone, Dorma finally reveals herself to be the Dreaming Celestial in disguise. The young Celestial had finally reclaimed her former power, and in the clash with her brethren, the entirety of Counter-Earth was displaced back to the primary Marvel Universe. Once returned to his proper plane of existence, Doom claimed sovereignty over Counter-Earth, now residing on the exact opposite side of the sun from Earth, until he eventually found his way back into the Marvel Universe.
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