I know I'm a little late to the party but I just wanted to give my thoughts to the two recent hot topic escalation issues of the DC money and the "Napoleonic Restoration". In terms of the DC sales numbers, I don't regard it as solely being from comics rather it's the sale of all DC merch. VHS, shirts, lunchboxes, toys, etc. Is it a bit high for the collective merch of the time? Sure. But I like to believe that the Quest kind of takes place in a world where movies and entertainment are held in higher regard and are treated both socially and commercially as a more serious and integral part of everyday life, kind of like a less extreme version of Yugioh and Duel Monsters. So long as it's not something incredulous like Star Wars making a trillion dollars or national and global politics being reguarly decided by films that's fine with me.
Also in terms of the meta aspect of the Quest, I treat these high numbers as sort of a meta balancing of the gameplay, both for us as Bruce and Lucsafilms and for our competitors. Money is a currency system both literally in the narrative and for gameplay to be used for resource acquisition for actions in filmmaking and other commercial and charitable ventures. By making so much money, our competitors gain the resources necessary to match up with Lucasfilms and stay as relevant competitors, thus enhancing gameplay by giving us Questors a challenge to overcome in the competition. Besides, I don't think Magoose is going to translate this into Alan being the next Warren Buffet and making constant 100 million dollar movies, not to mention that he has to spend a huge chunk of his newfound fortune paying off his titanic debt and stock buying to clean house.
In terms of Napoleon, yeah it's a little bit silly, but I don't think Magoose is going to dedicate huge portions of the timeline to French politics and history and cause it to radically change. Coming from Alternatehistory.com, this is a pretty medium sized divergence in terms of absurdity and is nothing compared to the craziness that can come from the site in terms of "Serious TLs". Absurd premises can lead to being fun in alternate history so long as there's effort being put in and it's not a blatant wank such as how one of AH's most popular TLs is one where Colonel Sanders becomes President. Magoose rolled a 99 for France and this is the result. Have to say that it is a bit silly to find fault with this when Bruce is a living Forrest Gump who just beat Muhammad Ali and no one was objecting to Dracula causing the Romanian Revolution.
As for the actual plausibility of President Bonaparte, it's difficult but not impossible. Any Frenchman or student of French history is free to correct me, but I think Bonaparte could manage to do this in 1981 if he managed to place second in the French Presidential election and Mitterand just barely was 3rd. OTL, Mitterand and the Socialists won big time because the French were tired of Conservatives ruling the country for the past three decades and they wanted change after the stagnation and economic turbulence of the 70s. If Mitterand doesn't get on the second round ballot and Napoleon has a lot of Leftist positions then I think that the French Left along with Right defectors (The French Right was undergoing a fracture at the time) could propel him to victory against d'Estaing. However, Napoleon would likely have to form a Rainbow coalition of the Left and Right and name a Socialist as his Prime Minister.
A wild card in this election would definitely be the Romanian Revolution which might be the key to mitigating the Left's victory despite OTL seeing them be in a surge. If the Soviets inflict high atrocities and genocide or ethnic cleansing on the Romanians or it escalates into wars with the rest of the Warsaw Pact, then the Communists are going to be obliterated and the Socialists might schism or falter in popularity, not enough to be irrelevant, but making them weaker than their OTL high position. A similar damage was done in 1968 with the Prague Spring and without Romania it would be a lot more difficult to prevent a Mitterand victory, although Mitterand in and of himself isn't a wonder candidate as he came in 2nd and only got 51.5% of the vote.
Perhaps a more natural election for Napoleon VII would be in 1993 where the Socialists got obliterated in the polls thanks to economic troubles, scandal, party fatigue and frustration over Mitterands right-leaning sympathies and governance. Here the Right would rise but Nationalism was also rising, and Napoleon could absorb those who would go to FN and gain the following of disenchanted Liberals and Socialists to be elected President, not to mention he'd be taken more seriously with him and his Bonapartist party being active for more than a decade. Although it would take a long time to get there so I can understand the more catharsis and fun route of 1981.
Sure the election is a bit out there but it can be done. Celebrity elections are growing more common nowadays, look for two extremes in Trump and Zelensky, one a real estate mogul and the other an actor who became nationally popular because he played the President in a TV show. Something far more difficult in implementation would be an outright Napoleonic Restoration which would need the rest of the Napoleon movies to perform as good as the first one and for Charles Napoleon to be the French Washington and Lincoln fused with the Left and Right looking upon him as fondly as FDR and Reagan.
