DC's "new" timeline revealed at NYCC

[D.Z]

The JSA exists on Earth 0 and 2.

I would mostly only bother with what post Infinite Frontier does. They changed Jon Kent's birth again slightly.

[Dataweaver]

Don't even have to that far. Just use the reasoning they did back in Showcase #4 (September-October 1956)

That works for Barry Allen; not so much for Clark Kent (see Doomsday Clock #12, the before-and-after scenes between Clark and his father). And even with Barry Allen, you need to further invoke something like Morrison's Multiversity to explain why Barry was able to find a comic book that accurately portrayed the adventures of Just Garrick. I'm not fond of the “comic books are a link between alternate universes” idea as a foundational premise.

[king81992]

That works for Barry Allen; not so much for Clark Kent (see Doomsday Clock #12, the before-and-after scenes between Clark and his father). And even with Barry Allen, you need to further invoke something like Morrison's Multiversity to explain why Barry was able to find a comic book that accurately portrayed the adventures of Just Garrick. I'm not fond of the “comic books are a link between alternate universes” idea as a foundational premise.

A simpler premise would be that Jay or someone else wrote comics about Jay's time as the Flash. Barry reads those comics as a child and eventually takes the mantle which leads to him meeting Jay.

[Sacred Knight]

So...dodged a bullet here?

Not really, the more time passes the more it becomes evident that the new regime is cribbing heavily off the 5G ideas, just implementing them slower.

[bat39]

That works for Barry Allen; not so much for Clark Kent (see Doomsday Clock #12, the before-and-after scenes between Clark and his father). And even with Barry Allen, you need to further invoke something like Morrison's Multiversity to explain why Barry was able to find a comic book that accurately portrayed the adventures of Just Garrick. I'm not fond of the “comic books are a link between alternate universes” idea as a foundational premise.

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. My solution combines the Earth 2 concept with the idea that they are part of Earth 0 history. Its actually in line with the history provided by Doomsday Clock, where the JSA were from the main DCU earth, before the first reboot (the 'silent' reboot from the Golden Age to the Silver Age) shunted them and their history off to Earth 2...which was eventually reintegrated into the main DCU earth after COIE.

[Frontier]

Not really, the more time passes the more it becomes evident that the new regime is cribbing heavily off the 5G ideas, just implementing them slower.

I meant the timeline specifically, which it doesn't seem like they're really adapting from.

[Sacred Knight]

If they don't do that, then I agree with you its definitely a dodged bullet. I'm' just not sure what to expect from them, since it really feels like they have no vision except for adapting things Didio left on the table when he departed. At this point I wouldn't be surprised if they actually did adopt a similar timeline the way things are going.

[bat39]

If they don't do that, then I agree with you its definitely a dodged bullet. I'm' just not sure what to expect from them, since they really have no vision except for things Didio left on the cutting room floor when he departed. At this point I wouldn't be surprised if they actually did adopt a similar timeline the way things are going.

I sometimes wonder if the Linearverse is meant to be some kind of take on Didio's timeline.

[Dataweaver]

I think with Jonathan Kent, we just need to accept that his existence is a huge retcon that fundamentally changes Superman's history, as opposed to trying to fit it into any pre-existing timeline. Hell, that seems to be par for the course for the character concept across media - the Arrowverse also gave Superman two teenage sons via cosmic retcon, and there are rumors that this might be a plan to get a kid of Superman's into the DCEU as well!

So Jon is born around 11 years ago, chronologically. And whatever Post-Crisis Superman stories from that time and later, which originally had Superman childless, we now have to imagine as including Jon somewhere in the background. Much like how we used to imagine Black Canary as being part of the JLA's early Silver Age missions.

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.

I can understand the appeal of having the JSA originate from Earth 2, but this explanation was meant to explain how they can be on Earth 0, using an approximation of their real-world publishing history, while also sorting out the ageing thing.

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. My solution combines the Earth 2 concept with the idea that they are part of Earth 0 history. Its actually in line with the history provided by Doomsday Clock, where the JSA were from the main DCU earth, before the first reboot (the 'silent' reboot from the Golden Age to the Silver Age) shunted them and their history off to Earth 2...which was eventually reintegrated into the main DCU earth after COIE.

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.

[D.Z]

I sometimes wonder if the Linearverse is meant to be some kind of take on Didio's timeline.

It's Jurgens, which is another universe.

[Dataweaver]

Not really, the more time passes the more it becomes evident that the new regime is cribbing heavily off the 5G ideas, just implementing them slower.

Not necessarily. The crucial difference is that they don't have to go there if they don't want to. 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. And while Titans Academy initially seems to be heading toward the Future State Titans mess, they're starting out far enough back that it's not too late for them to save the Academy — or at least to change the way that it ends.

[Dataweaver]

A simpler premise would be that Jay or someone else wrote comics about Jay's time as the Flash. Barry reads those comics as a child and eventually takes the mantle which leads to him meeting Jay.

Which works if they're on the same Earth.

[Username taken]

Not really, the more time passes the more it becomes evident that the new regime is cribbing heavily off the 5G ideas, just implementing them slower.

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.

[D.Z]

Exactly this.

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

Not really, they dropped most of the timeline of 5G and the aging.

[Dataweaver]

It's Jurgens, which is another universe.

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.