Continuity Cops! Has "Everything Happened" been a success or failure for you?

We're about a year and a half into DC's current "Everything Happened" approach to its twisty turn-y oft-rebooted contradictory 80+ year old continuity. Surprisingly, the most recent Crisis is explicitly not about tinkering with that continuity yet again.

Over that last year and a half, DC creators have freely referred to pre-Crisis, post-Crisis, New 52, and other media with very little in the way of continuity-breaking, mostly because no one has gotten particularly specific in regards to the stuff that might get readers and creators stuck in the weeds, such as the specifics and timing of Jon Kent's birth & childhood, when exactly Steve Trevor met Wonder Wonder, and what Donna Troy's origin actually is. Thus far, avoiding those topics hasn't really become an issue yet, although I'm sure at some point, they'll have to address it.

From my perspective, I don't mind it all, the "everything in the toy box is at your disposal" option feels like the best one in regards to storytelling. I don't really need everything to fit together neatly. As long as the characters feel like the ones we've been following for decades and the broad strokes of their histories and journey's up to this point are intact, I don't really need them to try to untangle the more knotty parts of their continuity unless that makes for an interesting story...and that's a very rare animal.

What do you think? Are you happy with the current status quo or would you like an exhaustive timeline pegging everything down so you can nitpick it for what it's gotten wrong? ;)

The "everything happened" just doesn't work for me.

Jason waking up in his coffin over being brought back via magic water, yes. Superboy Prime being cause of said wake-up call, not so much.

But overall, no. Just no.

*My* DC Universe existed from 1986-2011, and while it certainly had its flaws, the people that built it cared about continuity on a level we probably won't ever see again.

I don't mean this as cynically as it sounds, but I really don't care anymore. The current mandate works for me in that I still read the characters/creators I like, and stopped worrying about how/if/when their stories all tie together awhile ago now.

So far it has been working, but as you say eventually there are going to have to be some stuff that contradicts other stuff. It's a given that if no one knows how anything fits together that two writers will address the same event and include details that can't both be true. Then some third writer will come along and write a story that doesn't fit in with either version.

What's so bad about hypertime?

[QUOTE=James Cameron;6055862]What's so bad about hypertime?[/QUOTE]

I also loved Hypertime, but, much like "Everything Happened", few creators (or fans) can wrap their minds around what it actually is.

the key problem is that... well... you can't take hundreds of timelines and fuse them into a single history.

And yes, the sheer number of "elseworld" stories that DC had in the old days was immense.

Like Superlass: [url]https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Lisa_Kent_(Earth-91)[/url]

Just... does not fit with almost any other continuity. It's something that is fine, internally, but.... is so drastically different in a few specific ways from the main universe that it just... conflicts with a huge number of stories.

And that's just one example.

Bendis says than the Legion never existed before. So, not "everything happened".
I mean, how can you doubt what Bendis says?

It's been working for what it was designed to do: allow use of characters and/pr history that were erased over the years - mainly but not solely - by the new 52without having to do yet another reboot/relaunch/time is broken/the sky is falling kind of thing. As things were, you could not have a proper Wally West without rewriting history, and sure as hell couldn't have a proper Wally besides Avery Ho without ignoring.

And for the moment, this is fine. Connor Hawke is in his own little corner and won't meet Ollie anytime soon, so yeah.

But at some point, they're gonna have to clean the mess up. My hunch is that, as the past - a new past - gets referenced in current stories, it will supercede any other pasts. For instance, last issue of Flash we saw Wally telling stories about Wallace childhood. Previously, they didn't share a childhood, but now they do and [B]that[/B] is the past.

I think that when most characters have enough meat in their past lives, that's when they will start dealing with this stuff.

My guess remains that being late 2024, early 2025.

Did Lex Luthor go bald as boy growing up in Smallville? Did Clark Kent dress up as Superboy as a teenager and go on adventures with the Legion of Superheroes?

Endless fan wars were waged over these questions. One writer says one thing the other says something else.

So the solution to end these problems is "well Superman remembers the various lives he lived throughout the Goldeb Age, the Silver Age, Post Crisis, Flashpoint, etc. It doesn't mean that the random highschool teacher John Doe remembers all the reboots and the death of Supergirl, just whoever lived these events at one point in time.

It's honestly the most realistic answer after there are so many different origin stories and reboots.

While I understand the thinking behind it, I think it's created an absolute dog's breakfast where readers just have to roll with it because NOBODY can explain it.

There are way too contradictory elements to just say 'everything happened'. Morrison spent ~10 years~ trying to consolidate all the wacky Silver Age stuff with the modern version of Batman. It will take about the same time but probably even longer to do that for the entire DCU.

I don't care about the shared universe. Just give me good stories, the ocassional team up or cross over, connect the dots where they make sense and we're good.

[QUOTE=SJNeal;6055811]*My* DC Universe existed from 1986-2011, and while it certainly had its flaws, the people that built it cared about continuity on a level we probably won't ever see again.
[/QUOTE]

Same.

Every body is Hawkman and Donna Troy now.

Good job, DC!

[QUOTE=SJNeal;6055811]*My* DC Universe existed from 1986-2011, and while it certainly had its flaws, the people that built it cared about continuity on a level we probably won't ever see again.

I don't mean this as cynically as it sounds, but I really don't care anymore. The current mandate works for me in that I still read the characters/creators I like, and stopped worrying about how/if/when their stories all tie together awhile ago now.[/QUOTE]

Amen, it is [I]MY[/I] DC Universe as well. It felt like the heroes were family, hell even the villains felt like family! Joker would run into Lex and they actually acknowledged each other and their previous relationship.

What a time to be alive.

[QUOTE=John Venus;6055972]Every body is Hawkman and Donna Troy now.

Good job, DC![/QUOTE]Well, not Lisa Kent. :p 'cause she's part of why her universe doesn't fit. In most unis Superman doesn't have a daughter. :p