Question about post-Crisis Superman

[superduperman]

Was any in universe explanation given for why Superman and Krypton had a different history after the Crisis?

[OpaqueGiraffe17]

Crisis on infinite earths ended with earth 1, 2 and the earth Billy Batson was originally from, got merged together. So continuity/the timeline rewrote itself. So suddenly Jay Garrick and Billy Bateson were made into to be from the same earth as the recently deceased Barry Allen, and had always been a native from that earth. Other changes like the ones Byrne made to Superman, Jason Todd got a new origin, etc. Basically like how the new 52 was the result of continuity changes from the dcu merging with a wildstork universe.

[bat39]

Actually, there wasn't. Not really.

Yes, Superman's reboot, and indeed a lot of other continuity changes after COIE were attributed to that event. But on-panel, there was never any official confirmation that COIE was what caused those changes. COIE ended with the five surviving earths merged, but the heroes who were present at the Dawn of Time remembered their original Multiversal history. But the Superman who 'survived' COIE was still the Earth 1 Superman with all his Silver Age/Broze Age continuity intact. The same applied to all the other characters.

A little later, in All Star Squadron I believe, there was a mention made of how the full timeline altering effects of COIE had now set in. So obviously one can assume that this is what caused the Earth 1 Superman to 'become' the Post-COIE Superman, but its never been stated outright.

IC of course gave us another possible explanation for Superman's continuity changes - Superboy-Prime punching the walls of the crystal dimension he was trapped in, causing history to be altered on Post-COIE earth.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Superboy-Prime's Source Wall retcon punch hissy fits remain my favorite explanation for changes in continuity ever.

[superduperman]

Superboy-Prime's Source Wall retcon punch hissy fits remain my favorite explanation for changes in continuity ever.

He would have had to throw a hissy fit pretty early on for that one! I think it's rather interesting that Superboy Prime punching the Source Wall is basically just Homer with the toaster. Keep punching until you get the desired result, I guess.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

He would have had to throw a hissy fit pretty early on for that one! I think it's rather interesting that Superboy Prime punching the Source Wall is basically just Homer with the toaster. Keep punching until you get the desired result, I guess.

It wasn't Superboy-Prime at that point. Mekanique holding back the effects of the Crisis in All-Star Squadron was why the Post-Crisis Superman existed for a little while after the Crisis had finished. Once she let the temporal wave go, the Pre-Crisis Superman became the Post-Crisis Superman and the Earth-2 Superman, Batman & Wonder Woman were erased from the history of New Earth.

Superboy-Prime was responsible for the continuity issues of the Post-Crisis DCU that occurred retroactively across the past, present and future of the DCU.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

In addition to the three different Kryptons of the the Pre-Crisis, Post-Crisis and Birthright, and the various LSH reboots in the 30th Century, Superboy-Prime's retcon punches effected Jonah Hex by throwing him back to the Old West following his brief exploits in the Great Disaster era future, Jason Todd's new origin, Hal Jordan's DUI, the Metal Men's dumbass Carlin/Jurgens origin and many, many more.

[Jim Kelly]

I guess I remember the Crisis differently. I remember heroes going back to the beginning of time and changing the events that started up the universe, effectively creating a new universe. Thus nothing had to be anything like what had happened in the other universes (that were all now obliterated from existence by the Anti-Monitor). It's just coincidence that the new universe was so similar to the other universes--but it wasn't beholden to any past continuity.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

I guess I remember the Crisis differently. I remember heroes going back to the beginning of time and changing the events that started up the universe, effectively creating a new universe. Thus nothing had to be anything like what had happened in the other universes (that were all now obliterated from existence by the Anti-Monitor). It's just coincidence that the new universe was so similar to the other universes--but it wasn't beholden to any past continuity.

If memory serves, that was the original intent for the post-Infinite Crisis continuity as well according to Kurt Busiek. The idea was that it was an entirely new continuity that shared similarities to prior ones.

[bat39]

If memory serves, that was the original intent for the post-Infinite Crisis continuity as well according to Kurt Busiek. The idea was that it was an entirely new continuity that shared similarities to prior ones.

Actually, IC established the idea that the post-COIE earth was basically Earth 1 with elements of the other earths merged in. This actually became a major plot point, since Kal-L wanted Earth 2 to serve as the template for the merged earth.

[bat39]

It wasn't Superboy-Prime at that point. Mekanique holding back the effects of the Crisis in All-Star Squadron was why the Post-Crisis Superman existed for a little while after the Crisis had finished. Once she let the temporal wave go, the Pre-Crisis Superman became the Post-Crisis Superman and the Earth-2 Superman, Batman & Wonder Woman were erased from the history of New Earth.

Superboy-Prime was responsible for the continuity issues of the Post-Crisis DCU that occurred retroactively across the past, present and future of the DCU.

I don't think what Mekanique did was necessarily responsible for stuff like making the Earth 1 Superman into Post-COIE Superman. The changes she was holding back basically served to erase all memory of the Multiverse, as well as the doppelgangers. Maybe the intent back in 1986 was for what she did to be responsible for what happened to Superman...but later, they came up with the idea of the Pre-Crisis mythos being one of Post-COIE Superman's possible timelines/histories, alongside MOS and Birthright.

So I think it may actually be possible that even after the full effects of COIE took hold, we still had a Superman who was basically the Earth 1 Superman, and that either Superboy Prime's punches, or maybe Hypertime 'bleeding into' the Post-COIE universe was what resulted in the shift to the MOS Superman.

I dunno...maybe someone who's actually read stories from that nebulous period just after COIE where it was unsure which continuity we were in could shed some light on the matter.

[Jim Kelly]

But Infinite Crisis was twenty years later. The question was about post-Crisis Superman. Starting out after Crisis, what we were told then was different from what we were told later. Which is usually the case with DC. They'll use one explanation for things and then they'll change their minds and use another and then change their minds again. Trying to follow what they want us to believe is like trying to follow a moving target through a dense forest.

[superduperman]

What I remember from COIE #11 was them showing flashbacks to the "new" continuity and the ship leaving Krypton looked pre-Crisis. Now, there could be any number of explanations for this, not the least being that Perez had no idea what Byrne was planning. This might be one of the things where the simplest explanation is probably the correct one.

[bat39]

What I remember from COIE #11 was them showing flashbacks to the "new" continuity and the ship leaving Krypton looked pre-Crisis. Now, there could be any number of explanations for this, not the least being that Perez had no idea what Byrne was planning. This might be one of the things where the simplest explanation is probably the correct one.

That's the thing. There's this nebulous period of time between the end of COIE and the start of the first 'reboots'/relaunches of the Post-COIE continuity...where all the characters were technically part of a Post-Crisis universe but were pretty much following on from Pre-Crisis continuity.

The Superman left standing at the end of COIE was the Silver Age/Bronze Age Superman. The Jason Todd left standing after COIE was still the red-haired former circus brat. It would be a short while before they became the Byrne Superman and the juvenile delinquent who stole tires off the Batmobile respectively.

Now the earliest possible explanation was Mekanique. Later, we had Hypertime. Still later, IC came along with Superboy-Prime punches.

Also, I think Superman # 200, published a couple of years before IC, established that Pre-Crisis, MOS and Birthright were the three possible timelines for Superman - and if I recall correctly, the story ended with Superman choosing the 'Birthright' origin, which explained that soft-reboot. So the implication is that at some point, a shift happened from Pre-Crisis to MOS, and that shift wasn't necessarily because of COIE itself.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Actually, IC established the idea that the post-COIE earth was basically Earth 1 with elements of the other earths merged in. This actually became a major plot point, since Kal-L wanted Earth 2 to serve as the template for the merged earth.

I wasn’t talking about the Post-Crisis Earth, I was talking about the Post-Infinite Crisis Earth that combined elements of Pre-Crisis and Post-Crisis