Was The New 52 an Altered Pre-Flashpoint DC U Or Not?

[Minerboh]

It has been several years since Flashpoint and the rise of the New 52 U and it still bothers me what on earth was the New 52 in the first place.
Was it an altered Pre-Flashpoint Universe or a completely separated timeline/Universe?
There are some points that indicate that the N52 U was simply Pre Flashpoint U reconstituted such as that infamous splash page in Flashpoint #5 which clearly depicts the Pre Flashpoint heroes transforming, Wally West re emerging and Bary hinting that they were acquinted before in another timeline and Green Latern re assuming after the Flashpoint from the events that took place right before.
Then there is that whole mess with Superman. Pre Flashpoint Superman reappearing and taking N52 Superman's place indicating that N52 and Pre Flashpoint U are two seperated Universes.
So... What was the deal with N52 anyway?

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

Rebirth has been billing it, for the most part, as an altered Pre-Flashpoint universe, yes. Its a different timeline, but the same universe. That make sense?

[nickytesla96]

The end of Flashpoint indicates that Pandora altered Pre-Flashpoint by combining three timelines to strengthen it against some threat. Phantom Stranger was shown to be aware of this in one of the Trinity of Sin series.

But then Convergence and Justice League (N52) #40 indicated that Pre-Flashpoint and New 52 are essentially different universes. And that the former basically died or ended, giving way to the new one. Kinda like in Marvel with the 6th universe (where Galactus is originally from) dying in the Big Crunch and the 7th being formed by the Big Bang. Hence why we had separate Pre-Flashpoint and New 52 Booster Golds, the whole Convergence event, and Pre-Flashpoint Superman and Lois as separate people and refugees in the New 52.

DC Universe: Rebirth #1 switches it and indicates again though that the New 52 timeline is the Pre-Flashpoint timeline edited or altered, this time by Doctor Manhattan (who is explained to have manipulated Pandora).

Superman: Reborn combining the two Supermen/timelines and explaining that they were originally split and retconning Jon into DCU history + the renewed use of the concept of Hypertime in Rebirth confuse things further. Not to mention the kinda convoluted way they explained Wally. He was originally in the New 52, but got wiped from memory by Abra Kadabra and got trapped in the Speedforce, and THEN got memories of the Pre-Flashpoint timeline and saw Doctor Manhattan's edits. A lot of confused nonsense lol.

So basically... idk lol. The overall attitude DC's taking across Rebirth, Flash, etc NOW is that the New 52 timeline is an altered Pre-Flashpoint DCU. So Convergence is likely non-canon and you should ignore any hints to the contrary in the past. It's clear that DC didn't have an overarching plan stretching from New 52 -> Convergence -> Rebirth (makes sense, why would they if they assumed that the New 52 would be sustainable?) and changed their minds along the way. So best to just go with what they say is the case now.

[Buried Alien]

I would say about to the same degree that the Post-COIE (Pre-FLASHPOINT) DCU was the five remaining Pre-COIE parallel universes (Earth-One, Earth-Two, Earth-4, Earth-S, and Earth-X).

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[KurtW95]

It’s really confusing. Rebirth aimed to show that it was the original timeline altered with years taken away. However, there are a lot of circumstances that would make that make less sense, like anything that changed before the time period that Barry changed or race changes, different origins, and stuff.

[bat39]

Even Convergence doesn't actually really contradict the current stance, if you really think about it. The bottled cities were taken from 'dead timelines'. Pre Flashpoint was technically a dead timeline (having been replaced by Flashpoint, and then the New 52). So its consistent with Pre Flashpoint becoming the New 52 (and then Rebirth).

The problem arises because we're dealing with alternate timelines AND parallel earths - two different concepts in the DCU which sometimes overlap. And DC hasn't done a great job dealing with that ambiguity. In fact, writers often exploit it.

Pre-Flashpoint Superman wasn't from a parallel universe. He was technically the New 52 Superman from a previous timeline. Its like if, in the Back to the Future universe, Marty traveled to 1983 and met a younger version of himself who grew up with a successful family. Both Marty's are from the same universe, but they are from different timelines. Of course, the way the stories themselves are written, alternate timeline versions are pretty much the same as parallel universe versions. It really is a matter of semantics to an extent. But there is a technical difference, and that plays into Superman Reborn.

The two Supermen fusing and history (his, and the entire DCU's) altering makes perfect sense given that the two Supermen were alternate timeline variants of each other. What IS confusing though is the new backstory behind it. Apparently, Doc Manhattan (or someone) split Superman into two at some point to weaken him. But that's not what we saw. We KNOW how and why there are two Supermen. Superman wasn't 'split' into two - his timeline was altered by Flashpoint (and Manhattan), and a pre-altered version of him was 'rescued' from erasure by Brainiac and survived with his family. And you can't say Convergence is 'no longer canon'. In a meta sense, beyond the scope of the current DC Rebirth timeline, ALL the universe-altering, timeline-altering events happened!

[Batgrayson]

It’s really confusing. Rebirth aimed to show that it was the original timeline altered with years taken away. However, there are a lot of circumstances that would make that make less sense, like anything that changed before the time period that Barry changed or race changes, different origins, and stuff.

In Flashpoint, Thawne said that Barry was like "a bullet through a glass". Barry saving his mother wasn't the origin of Flashpoint; it was he running through the time stream and shattered history-the timeline. Years after that, Wally said that at the end, Barry was actually correctly fixing the timeline, but that was the moment when Dr Manhattan altered the timeline. It is not like he took away the period of 1995-2005, he took away time of the entire history of the universe, and that was how the new52 timeline was created.