DC's "new" timeline revealed at NYCC

[D.Z]

To be fair, Generations Lost/Generations Forged doesn't make that clear: without Jurgens' word-of-author clarification, it's easy to get the impression that this was intended to be part of Didio's new timeline.

Not really.

[Dataweaver]

Exactly this.

DC is actually moving towards 5G but very,very,very slowly.

Perhaps not in its entirety but the current state of the DC universe does seem indicate that they are slowly drifting into 5G.

In part, yes. My guess is that they're trying to salvage the good stuff from it, but in a way where they can ditch the bad stuff.

[Dataweaver]

Not really.

Yes, really. There's nothing in the story that indicates that the whole thing is taking place in a separate universe; you have to rely on explanations by the writer to see that.

[bat39]

The problem is that by inserting Jon into Superman's timeline without a time travel origin, you need to push the marriage back in time as well; and that essentially wipes out nearly all of the history between Lois and Clark before their marriage. The Superman Reborn timeline made matters even worse by pushing everything in Superman's timeline back, meaning that Doomsday showed up not long after the original Justice League was founded.

Besides, you seem to be fond of solutions that are as close to the original material as possible (which I totally get; so am I). And the reason inserting Jon into Superman's timeline is messy without time travel is because the original material pertaining to Jon had time travel. The only things I'd change would be the bit about how they got to the past in the first place (you can bypass all of the Convergence stuff simply by having Lois and Clark get zapped by an arbitrary time traveling villain) and the bit where Lois and Clark find that the timeline had been altered. Instead, I replaced the latter with “they ended up being stranded in the past of an alternate universe [Earth 52] for a decade before returning home”. And even that is more of a reinterpretation of what happened than it is a change: all that actually changes at the end is the transitory storyline from Superman-52's death to the Superman Reborn reality edit (from DC Rebirth #1 to Superman Reborn) where they confront and work through the dilemma of how the can be two Supermen from the same Earth.



If you're trying to get around the Earth 2 thing, then invoking the Earth 2 thing seems to be a funny way to do it. It also raises issue of what the relationship between Earth 0's JSA and Earth 2's natives is. By contrast, the “city out of time” approach avoids all of those issues, and addresses the age issues: by placing the time-skip event in 1961, you guarantee that the ages of the Golden Age heroes line up properly; and by transporting an entire city through time, anyone who you need to transition from 1961 to the Silver Age just needs a reason to be in that city when the time skip happens.

I'm not necessarily opposed to your ideas, frankly. The JSA one in particular is great! Honestly, my 'Earth 2' idea is just an extension of that. And the Earth 2 I'm talking about might not literally be a classic parallel universe. It could be some kind of pocket universe, or alternate timeline, or other realm. It depends on who or what is responsible for the JSA being sent there. If it is a classic parallel universe/earth, then its possible that the inhabitants of that earth too were brainwashed into believing the JSA had always been there. Or maybe all the other inhabitants were just duplicates of their Earth 0 counterparts who then ceased to exist along with this world. There are any number of possibilities.

As far as Jon Kent goes, his existence works on a 20-plus year timeline without the need to compress the pre-marriage history too much. The way I see it, we'd have about a decade that includes classic Lois/Clark/Superman love triangle, Lois and Clark dating, and their early marriage, before Jon is born.

I guess the question is when he's born relative to other DCU events. Didio's timeline places his birth during the early 2000's era of President Luthor and post-Quiver Green Arrow...just before stuff like Hal's resurrection.

[Tzigone]

In part, yes. My guess is that they're trying to salvage the good stuff from it, but in a way where they can ditch the bad stuff.

Of course. The problem comes when I don't agree with them on which stuff is good and which bad. On a more serious note, a big problem has been that different writers don't agree with what's in and what's out and editorial doesn't enforce any consistency, and editorial doesn't even plan with them to stick with any one version very long. They leaned into it hard with the Hypertime/Omniverse thing late last year, but that was 8 months ago...

[Dataweaver]

I'm not necessarily opposed to your ideas, frankly. The JSA one in particular is great! Honestly, my 'Earth 2' idea is just an extension of that. And the Earth 2 I'm talking about might not literally be a classic parallel universe. It could be some kind of pocket universe, or alternate timeline, or other realm. It depends on who or what is responsible for the JSA being sent there. If it is a classic parallel universe/earth, then its possible that the inhabitants of that earth too were brainwashed into believing the JSA had always been there. Or maybe all the other inhabitants were just duplicates of their Earth 0 counterparts who then ceased to exist along with this world. There are any number of possibilities.

Kind of like the “Superboy pocket universe” workaround that the 90s Legion of Superheroes ended up with? Hmm…

To do this right, you'd want to sprinkle in hints into the retelling of the story that something's wrong with the pocket dimension; and I'd be inclined to not have it persist until the Crisis on Infinite Earths — though given that a 4-to-1 time compression of the Silver Age would reduce that from 20 years to 5 years (with “annual teamups” replaced by “quarterly teamups”), maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing. Or maybe the teamups are quarterly on the League's side, but annual on the Society's side: I seem to recall that during the Silver Age, Earth 2 was allowed to age in real time even as Earth 1 operated in “comic book time”. The accelerated nature of time in the pocket universe could be used as evidence for the “something's wrong here” thing I mentioned earlier.

As far as Jon Kent goes, his existence works on a 20-plus year timeline without the need to compress the pre-marriage history too much. The way I see it, we'd have about a decade that includes classic Lois/Clark/Superman love triangle, Lois and Clark dating, and their early marriage, before Jon is born.

I guess the question is when he's born relative to other DCU events. Didio's timeline places his birth during the early 2000's era of President Luthor and post-Quiver Green Arrow...just before stuff like Hal's resurrection.

Didio's timeline has a lot of flaws, not the least of which is that it's a 60 year timeline, with roughly 40 years of it devoted to G2–G4. If the New 52 5-year timeline was too compressed, this one would have been too extended. Remember that part of the intent was too age everyone up so that they could be summarily replaced by an All New All Different DC.

In a 20-year timeline, fitting ten years of Jon growing up between Lois and Clark's marriage and the present causes massive problems, displacing half of the timeline. That's why it's easier to just go back to what it originally was: Lois and Clark get abducted to somewhere/somewhen else, and then reappear moments later, ten years older and with a son in tow. People will look at them oddly; but only for a while: it's not the weirdest thing that's ever happened in the DCU.

[MajorHoy]

Moreover, again, we're trying to come up with a framework that allows the JSA to be part of Earth 0 history. The goal isn't to shunt them off to another earth.

Why not?

The idea of the JSA on a separate earth worked well for nearly 25 years.

. . . Witness what they're doing with Flash: I see no indication that Wally is going to end up as the mass murderer we saw in Future State. . .

Wasn't Wally a mass murder as a result of Tom King's Heroes in Crisis from 2018-2019?

Future State wasn't until this year (2021).

[Dataweaver]

Of course. The problem comes when I don't agree with them on which stuff is good and which bad. On a more serious note, a big problem has been that different writers don't agree with what's in and what's out and editorial doesn't enforce any consistency, and editorial doesn't even plan with them to stick with any one version very long. They leaned into it hard with the Hypertime/Omniverse thing late last year, but that was 8 months ago...

For what it's worth, I think post of the reason they're not more concerned with consistency at the moment is that they have another Crisis planned, for 2023 and/or 2025: this whole Metaverse& Omniverse thing that they're doing with Infinite Frontier may turn out to just be a stopgap measure while they work out the details of how to fix the overall mess. Likewise with the Future State stuff: it gives them something to work off of in the short term while they develop a more long-term plan.

(Normally, “another Crisis” would have me pulling out my hair; we've had far too many of those lately. But these guys have earned a modicum of my trust through the Death Metal Specials, which indicated a course correction toward more respect for the characters and the audience; and with Dan Didio gone, I'm willing to give the new editorial team the benefit of the doubt.

[Dataweaver]

Why not?

The idea of the JSA on a separate earth worked well for nearly 25 years.

Yes, it did — which is why I also suggested the option of restoring that notion. The main thing that gets lost with that is the idea that the JSA helped inspired the JLA's generation, which can easily be worked around.

Wasn't Wally a mass murder as a result of Tom King's Heroes in Crisis from 2018-2019?

Future State wasn't until this year (2021).

You haven't read the Infinite Frontier Flash material, have you? It turns out that no, Wally wasn't a mass murderer in Heroes in Crisis; he has been completely absolved of all guilt for the deaths that occurred at Sanctuary. And even as it was originally presented in HiC, Wally wasn't a mass murderer; the whole thing was an accident.

Future State had Wally running around and killing people: not a “I got depressed and blew up, accidentally killing a lot of people who happened to be nearby”; actually deliberately killing people.

[MajorHoy]

You haven't read the Infinite Frontier Flash material, have you?

I've had very little opportunity / interest in reading most new DC material for a while now.

And any time I think I might be interested, DC soon finds a way to derail my interest.

[king81992]

Which works if they're on the same Earth.

Ideally, Jay and Barry would/ should exist on the same Earth.

[Dataweaver]

Ideally, Jay and Barry would/ should exist on the same Earth.

Right. But the context of the post you were replying to was exploring the possibility of going back to the Earth 1/Earth 2 concept. I was pointing out that there's a cost to this, namely that the JSA wouldn't have been around in the past to inspire the JLA — something that proponents of the legacy element of the DCU consider to be rather important.

[Tzigone]

Right. But the context of the post you were replying to was exploring the possibility of going back to the Earth 1/Earth 2 concept. I was pointing out that there's a cost to this, namely that the JSA wouldn't have been around in the past to inspire the JLA — something that proponents of the legacy element of the DCU consider to be rather important.

I'm not a legacy proponent and very much prefer Jay on another earth. But I don't think it's going to happen, even though I think the JSA being tied to WWII is a fundamental problem in continuity that gets worse as time passes. I've seen lots of solutions proposed, but never liked any of them. Not to mention that it makes Barry and Ray look bad, since they didn't have permission for those titles when they took them (unless that's been retconned, too, which it may well have). Plus, I really like Superman as the first hero. If someone ha to be the one inspiring others (not that I think they need outside inspiration), it should be him.

[king81992]

I'm not a legacy proponent and very much prefer Jay on another earth. But I don't think it's going to happen, even though I think the JSA being tied to WWII is a fundamental problem in continuity that gets worse as time passes. I've seen lots of solutions proposed, but never liked any of them. Not to mention that it makes Barry and Ray usurpers, since they didn't have permission for those titles when they took them (unless that's been retconned, too, which it may well have).

I never saw the problem with the JSA being tied to WW 2. The members who were normal humans would have passed away by the modern era, while the ones who age slowly for various reasons would be retired or still active.

Jay ages slowly by virtue of being connected to the Speed Force, prolonged exposure to the Starheart greatly extended Alan's life, Wildcat has nine lives, Dr. Fate ages slowly/ stopped aging by virtue of magic and Hawkman/ Hawkgirl age slowly due to being aliens or reincarnated into younger bodies(to this day, I'm still not sure how the Hawks work and recent comics that allegedly 'clarified things' left me even more confused).

I don't think most people see Barry as usurper, but that could be avoided by having a storyline where he meets Jay and the mantle is officially passed on.

[Neo Goblin]

The JSA and company is better off on their own world. Otherwise, there is too much weird stuff to reconcile, and while you can twist yourself into a pretzel doing it, sometimes the easiest, cleanest, least resistance way of doing things is actually the best. They weren't designed to exist in the same world as the Earth 1 heroes...so they shouldn't. I also don't think Wonder Woman should be this super old woman. I guess there is nothing inherently wrong with the idea, it's just not something I personally like.