Are the timelines going to merge to make a new one?

[mortymantis]

If the bring back enough of a pre-Flashpoint timeline that Diana is not the daughter of Zeus, and Donna is not a weaponized construct created for malicious purposes, that would be the biggest gift DC has given me since the days of Darkest Night and Brightest Days.

Really, I would be perfectly comfortable if they took the opportunity of Doomsday Clock to include, and exclude, various elements from various different continuities, and add some new things too, if (a) the resulting main timeline looks - from the inside, and the viewpoint and memories and histories of the characters within it - organic rather than an obvious, non-coherent patchwork; and (b) they take some time to tell us what the history of this new timeline and its characters actually is, rather than leaving everyone (not just the readers, but the writers and the editors too) to guess, and wind up with conflicting answers.

For example, right now the story of the Titans (particularly the O5) is: they were sidekicks to the Justice League (except maybe Donna), formed a team together, and became best friends. Then, after an incident with Mr. Twister, they and their mentors and everybody in the world forgot that they ever got together as a team (and, in Garth's case, that he was ever Aqualad at all). They then spent a number of years going on with their lives on the basis of deleted and changed and fake memories, barely knowing each other, not treating each other as friends, and not remembering their many experiences together. Then they and everybody else (I think everybody else) got their memories back, and they've come together as a team and friends again - but the courses of their lives were still, none the less, tremendously distorted and diminished (on an emotional level) by living those years based on fake memories.

Personally, I think this is a terrible backstory to give to a bunch of good characters. Especially if you have no interest in really examining the impact of all that weirdness of character development, which TPTB don't. (The current Titans are written more like they just got back from a month of separate vacations, and haven't seen each other for a while, as opposed to people whose key personal relationships were ripped from their minds for years.) And the only reason it's there - the only purpose it has - is an attempt to "mesh" what we saw in The New 52 (the O5 Titans barely know each other; Garth was put on an elite team to hunt down and battle Aquaman, who he didn't even know personally; and so on) with "look, we've got our old Titans back!" And it doesn't even really do a good job of that, if you think about it.

Well, there's really no reason to do that now. Just admit that the New 52 stories of the O5 Titans (at least those stories that touched on, or avoided, their relationships with each other) - even if some of those stories were good - are no longer (as originally written) part of the current timeline. Maybe they happened in some other timeline, maybe they didn't. But in the post-Doomsday Clock timeline, the O5 met as kids, formed a team, became best friends, and maintained those relationships to this very day. No world-wide memory wipes (utterly unnecessary). Garth never hunted down and fought Aquaman, at least not the way it was written. If you want to get rid of the consequences of those New 52 stories, and Dr. Manhattan is playing with time anyway, then just get rid of those stories. (From the new timeline, at least.)

And if there are stories from The New 52 that you want to keep (the Court of Owls, for some readers), then keep them - but knit them into the new timeline so that they make sense there, and the timeline is coherent. (This isn't even difficult with the Court of Owls, since Batman's history, as opposed to the Titans history, was not so affected by The New 52.)

A new thing they can include? Give Donna Troy an origin in which she is a human girl from Man's World who was raised for a time on Themyscira, adopted by Hippolyta, and was Diana's loving adoptive sister. (This was basically her pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths origin after she was a member of the Teen Titans.) And add into the history that, when she was Wonder Girl, she sometimes worked alongside Wonder Woman has her sidekick, like Batman & Robin or Flash & Kid Flash. Actually show us some flashback stories like that. Flash out their early relationship. You might even show us where and with whom she lived on Man's World in those Wonder Girl days.

(Bizarrely, she never had that. After she was given the Diana-Rescued-Donna-from-A-Fire origin -which has small problems but can be fixed - the relationship between her and Diana was implied. But, for example, she rarely if ever showed up as Wonder Girl in Wonder Woman's own comic. Meanwhile, Aqualad was still showing up in Aquaman stories, and Speedy in Green Arrow stories. Donna never got that visibility, that solidity. Which is why it was easy, after CoIE moved Diana's origin to be years later than Donna's, it was easy to give Donna a new origin in which she had no connection to Diana to speak of. Which I always thought was a shame, and a big mistake. Well, now they have the opportunity to do it, if they want to.)

I don't really like careless retcons every few months, done without much regard for their consequences. But Rebirth/Reborn was a major retcon, with, of necessity, ripple effects that affected all the heroes in the DCU. (For example, the Superman/Wonder Woman love affair was gone.) In a way, the transition is not over yet, and won't be until the end of Doomsday Clock. So this is their opportunity to include what they consider to be the best aspects of their heroes, their history and backstories, their universe, in a new main timeline (and whatever subsidiary parallel Earths might exists alongside). And they can think it through and plan it out, so there aren't any glaring gaps or conflicts, and give us a DCU with an organic, coherent feel. I don't expect perfection, of course, but I'd love to see a good-faith effort.

But that's just me.

Spot on. 👆


Timeline is whacky. They’ve got to do something

[Doctor Bifrost]

What I really hope is that they are not going for this "everything is continuity"-stuff. Because than nothing really matters anymore and everything gets super confusing.

I agree with you wholeheartedly, but we may represent a shrinking subgroup of fans (possibly because many who agreed with us have already wandered away).

[king81992]

At this point I think that creating a new timeline will create more problems than it will solve. Things are already convoluted as they are now. Writers should just use the hand that they(or the editors)were dealt and try to make the best stories possible. How many stories and characters were ruined or undermined because writers got too clever for their own good?

[Robotman]

Hopefully instead of a "new" one, we can just get the old Pre-Flashpoint timeline and forget the New 52 ever happened.

So just erase Animal Man, Swamp Thing, Johns’ Aquaman, Justice League Dark, Frankenstein Agent of SHADE, etc.?

There were a lot of great books created during the New 52.

[SiegePerilous02]

Really, I would be perfectly comfortable if they took the opportunity of Doomsday Clock to include, and exclude, various elements from various different continuities, and add some new things too, if (a) the resulting main timeline looks - from the inside, and the viewpoint and memories and histories of the characters within it - organic rather than an obvious, non-coherent patchwork; and (b) they take some time to tell us what the history of this new timeline and its characters actually is, rather than leaving everyone (not just the readers, but the writers and the editors too) to guess, and wind up with conflicting answers.

I think we are unfortunately long past the point where the DC universe can be completely coherent. Their startling lack of foresight in 1986 has made it impossible.

I do agree that streamlining things down and including the best bits of all the eras would be the way to do. Pre-Crisis would be my ideal foundation, with bits and pieces from post-Crisis and New 52 sprinkled here and there. The Multilverse would be present so things wouldn't be cluttered: they are obviously moving back to the JSA on the same Earth as the main group, and I think that is a mistake and short sighted over correction to the lack of appeal that the New 52 Earth-2 had for not being classic enough. There is a middle ground here that they for some reason cannot seem to hit despite how obvious it is (in this example, bring back the classic JSA but put them on their own Earth. It's not that hard guys). Superman could start out as the New 52 incarnation in his early days, the majority of his mythos while in his prime would resemble the Silver/Bronze age, and in the present he and Lois will be married and (eh, I guess) have a son. The NTT era, or at least the broad strokes of it, should be canon again, even if that's only one part of a long uphill climb to make the Titans relevant again.

Doing these course corrections in-story would not be a good idea though, because then it becomes an arduous chore. Just get new creative teams on the books that are not currently working (Titans being the big one, and kill this "JSA returns to being the first superheros on the main Earth" crap before it begins), while also releasing a stand along graphic novel/handbook that details the streamlined history of the Multiverse. And then just go from there. Wonder Woman, Aquaman, the Flash, Green Lantern and especially Batman don't require too much tinkering.

[Sirzechs]

So just erase Animal Man, Swamp Thing, Johns’ Aquaman, Justice League Dark, Frankenstein Agent of SHADE, etc.?

There were a lot of great books created during the New 52.

Shhh, according to this forum everything has been horrible for the last seven years.

[WonderScott]

If they bring back enough of a pre-Flashpoint timeline that Diana is not the daughter of Zeus, and Donna is not a weaponized construct created for malicious purposes, that would be the biggest gift DC has given me since the days of Darkest Night and Brightest Day.

Really, I would be perfectly comfortable if they took the opportunity of Doomsday Clock to include, and exclude, various elements from various different continuities, and add some new things too, if (a) the resulting main timeline looks - from the inside, and the viewpoint and memories and histories of the characters within it - organic rather than an obvious, non-coherent patchwork; and (b) they take some time to tell us what the history of this new timeline and its characters actually is, rather than leaving everyone (not just the readers, but the writers and the editors too) to guess, and wind up with conflicting answers.

For example, right now the story of the Titans (particularly the O5) is: they were sidekicks to the Justice League (except maybe Donna), formed a team together, and became best friends. Then, after an incident with Mr. Twister, they and their mentors and everybody in the world forgot that they ever got together as a team (and, in Garth's case, that he was ever Aqualad at all). They then spent a number of years going on with their lives on the basis of deleted and changed and fake memories, barely knowing each other, not treating each other as friends, and not remembering their many experiences together. Then they and everybody else (I think everybody else) got their memories back, and they've come together as a team and friends again - but the courses of their lives were still, none the less, tremendously distorted and diminished (on an emotional level) by living those years based on fake memories.

Personally, I think this is a terrible backstory to give to a bunch of good characters. Especially if you have no interest in really examining the impact of all that weirdness of character development, which TPTB don't. (The current Titans are written more like they just got back from a month of separate vacations, and haven't seen each other for a while, as opposed to people whose key personal relationships were ripped from their minds for years.) And the only reason it's there - the only purpose it has - is an attempt to "mesh" what we saw in The New 52 (the O5 Titans barely know each other; Garth was put on an elite team to hunt down and battle Aquaman, who he didn't even know personally; and so on) with "look, we've got our old Titans back!" And it doesn't even really do a good job of that, if you think about it.

Well, there's really no reason to do that now. Just admit that the New 52 stories of the O5 Titans (at least those stories that touched on, or avoided, their relationships with each other) - even if some of those stories were good - are no longer (as originally written) part of the current timeline. Maybe they happened in some other timeline, maybe they didn't. But in the post-Doomsday Clock timeline, the O5 met as kids, formed a team, became best friends, and maintained those relationships to this very day. No world-wide memory wipes (utterly unnecessary). Garth never hunted down and fought Aquaman, at least not the way it was written. If you want to get rid of the consequences of those New 52 stories, and Dr. Manhattan is playing with time anyway, then just get rid of those stories. (From the new timeline, at least.)

And if there are stories from The New 52 that you want to keep (the Court of Owls, for some readers), then keep them - but knit them into the new timeline so that they make sense there, and the timeline is coherent. (This isn't even difficult with the Court of Owls, since Batman's history, as opposed to the Titans history, was not so affected by The New 52.)

A new thing they can include? Give Donna Troy an origin in which she is a human girl from Man's World who was raised for a time on Themyscira, adopted by Hippolyta, and was Diana's loving adoptive sister. (This was basically her pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths origin after she was a member of the Teen Titans.) And add into the history that, when she was Wonder Girl, she sometimes worked alongside Wonder Woman as her sidekick, like Batman & Robin or Flash & Kid Flash. Actually show us some flashback stories like that. Flesh out their early relationship. You might even show us where and with whom she lived on Man's World in those Wonder Girl days.

(Bizarrely, she never had that. After she was given the Diana-Rescued-Donna-from-A-Fire origin -which has small problems but can be fixed - the relationship between her and Diana was implied. But, for example, she rarely if ever showed up as Wonder Girl in Wonder Woman's own comic. Meanwhile, Aqualad was still showing up in Aquaman stories, and Speedy in Green Arrow stories. Donna never got that visibility, that solidity. Which is why, after CoIE moved Diana's origin to be years later than Donna's, it was so easy to give Donna a new origin in which she had no connection to Diana to speak of, and still act like nothing much had changed for her. I thought losing that relationships was a shame, and a big mistake. Well, now they have the opportunity to fix it, if they want to.)

I don't really like careless retcons every few months, done without much regard for their consequences. But Rebirth/Reborn was a major retcon, with, of necessity, ripple effects that affected all the heroes in the DCU. (For example, the Superman/Wonder Woman love affair was gone.) In a way, the transition is not over yet, and won't be until the end of Doomsday Clock. So this is their opportunity to include what they consider to be the best aspects of their heroes, their history and backstories, their universe, in a new main timeline (and whatever subsidiary parallel Earths might exists alongside). And they can think it through and plan it out, so there aren't any glaring gaps or conflicts, and give us a DCU with an organic, coherent feel. I don't expect perfection, of course, but I'd love to see a good-faith effort.

But that's just me.

May the gods (except Zeus) bless you for everything you said about Donna Troy. Cosigned!

[WonderScott]

I'm probably in the minority, but I'd reboot a lot of history. It'd take setting up DC editorial offices differently with groups of writers collectively working together on characters and concepts to righten the landslide that is continuity. I'd make it so many B and C characters have an editorial home that makes sense (e.g. Martian Manhunter is one of a number of extraterrestrial characters who makes his home in Metropolis) where they can built up as a character (J'Onn) within a concept (Metropolis) that could use some attention.

[AquaLantern]

If anyone truly believes that we’re getting Pre-Flashpoint continuity 100%, prepare to be disappointed.

[CaptCleghorn]

If anyone truly believes that we’re getting Pre-Flashpoint continuity 100%, prepare to be disappointed.

DC's doing what they did after COIE. They're unchanging the parts of a revamp that didn't prove to be popular. They're going to take what's good and change what didn't work.

[Sirzechs]

DC's doing what they did after COIE. They're unchanging the parts of a revamp that didn't prove to be popular. They're going to take what's good and change what didn't work.

Exactly, Superman was still divisive so they merge both of them, funnily enough people praise that hur dur DC finally delete New52 Superman as a fake and look what happen, the story ended up that both are canon.

So to believe that DC is going to toss out everything at go back is plain silly, DC never fully go back to anything, they reintegrate what they need and move on.

[ironman2978]

Exactly, Superman was still divisive so they merge both of them, funnily enough people praise that hur dur DC finally delete New52 Superman as a fake and look what happen, the story ended up that both are canon.

So to believe that DC is going to toss out everything at go back is plain silly, DC never fully go back to anything, they reintegrate what they need and move on.

This. I just hope the reintegration, is more evened out instead of simply mostly Post Crisis elements with little Pre-Crisis and New 52. A good New DC universe would be either A.) Elements from every version, or everything was in continuity in one way or another or B.)Just not focus on using Post Crisis or New 52 history. But moreso just going forward.

[Comic Book Addict]

DC's doing what they did after COIE. They're unchanging the parts of a revamp that didn't prove to be popular. They're going to take what's good and change what didn't work.

If true, I'm happy about this. It'd be the best way to go about it IMO.

[MajorHoy]

DC's doing what they did after COIE. They're unchanging the parts of a revamp that didn't prove to be popular. They're going to take what's good and change what didn't work.

Or take what THEY think was "good" / "popular".
No guarantees they won't exchange some recent bad for even worse pre-Flashpoint statuses.

[AquaLantern]

Or take what THEY think was "good" / "popular".
No guarantees they won't exchange some recent bad for even worse pre-Flashpoint statuses.

I’m hoping the Nora Allen death is one of the things that gets undone.