DC's "new" timeline revealed at NYCC

[Zaresh]

Generation 2
Year 11 Flash - Professor Zoom Kills Iris
Year 11 GL - John Stewart is the new Green Lantern?
Year 13 Flash - Barry Kills Professor Zoom

Generation 3
That Green Lantern of Earth and Space thing... if that's the same year as everyone who joins JLI, then Guy would be the Green Lantern of Earth.

Lol all three GL at this time has 3 letters first name making things difficult

(Oh geez, I forgot about Billy Batson debuting before Crisis, and then there's Wallace West born before Zero Hour too. I'm gonna say the age down happens in Crisis and Zero Hour then now. Otherwise, Wallace would be 18 in Rebirth and Billy would be too old too.)



I can read "Kyle Resurrect The"

Done. Everything is already in the charts .

I think that the GL for space is Hal, so I filled that one too.
EDIT: yeah, @Lirica saw it too xD. Confirmed.

[Restingvoice]

Done. Everything is already in the charts .

I think that the GL for space is Hal, so I filled that one too.
EDIT: yeah, @Lirica saw it too xD. Confirmed.

Hmm... check out if you can see "Wonder Woman Kills Max Lord" under Infinite Crisis. That's a big deal for Wonder Woman back then, broke up the Trinity which leads to the Crisis and changed how people view and writers do Wonder Woman since then. The way Johns wrote Diana in New 52 "when I deal with them I deal with them" seems to be influenced by that, especially since he wrote Infinite Crisis.

[Zaresh]

Hmm... check out if you can see "Wonder Woman Kills Max Lord" under Infinite Crisis. That's a big deal for Wonder Woman back then, broke up the Trinity which leads to the Crisis and changed how people view and writers do Wonder Woman since then. The way Johns wrote Diana in New 52 "when I deal with them I deal with them" seems to be influenced by that, especially since he wrote Infinite Crisis.

Could be. The first word looks a little like WONDER, and it seems to have a KILLS too in the second row of that sentence. The last words are very short too. I'm adding it in blue for now.

[Myskin]

Already posted in the Superman forum:


Personally speaking, I am rather positive about this attempt to incorporate everything (even stories which belongs to the 1950s and couldn't become part of modern continuity in any possible way) into one timeline. Maybe it's because it strongly resembles and old fan pitch of mine (I had imagined Superman as a Planetary-like character, arriving to earth in the 1930s and living the most important global events through an entire century). It's all in the execution, of course, but it has more potential than any retelling of Superman's origins we have had in the latest decades (including Birthright).

Also: it is something new. I mean, we have had Supreme and Planetary, but as far as I know this is the first time they have tried to do it with Superman.

As for Superman not being the first superhero in-universe, well, it is not that important and never was. Superman being the center of the spoilers:

metaverse

end of spoilers in Doomsday Clock is equally irrelevant. It's like Superman getting a medal for his past glory without playing a central role in the universe he lives in.

As far as I remember, Wonder Woman has several recurring nazi villains, while Superman doesn't have any. It just makes sense that she is in World War II.

[Aahz]

I edited gen 3 with the first 3 ones in black. The one about Supergirl is still in blue because it's so, so blurry, ugh.

By the way, I've just finished Gen 2:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

RED are things I read but I'm not sure about.
GREEN are Bleeding Cool bits that I cannot read properly.
BLUE are bits from @restingvoice I cannot read properly.

Gen 3 chart here, too: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing
Feel free to point mistakes or add your bits. I'll edit whatever you say.

Nice work

It seems wired for me that they put Hush, War Games and Under the Red Hood all in separate "Years", I thought all three stories were happening on after the nest in the same year.

[Zaresh]

Nice work

It seems wired for me that they put Hush, War Games and Under the Red Hood all in separate "Years", I thought all three stories were happening on after the nest in the same year.

Thanks on my part (it really is a collaboratory work :3)

From Hush to Under the Hood, there were like 3 years in real time, if I'm not mistaken. It's funny that they decided to go similarly in the timeline. They make weird choices, again.

Edit: mmmm, could be that they don't want too much happening during Identity Crisis, and Steph "death" is too much linked to Tim's general period of misery during that time. And both Hush and UtH can be kept separated from IC.

[bat39]

If DC does actually go through with this its HUGE. This timeline seems as radical as some of the fan timelines that have been published online since IC (back when we all speculated about something like this happening).

The Gen 2-4 timelines seem like just putting everything from the Silver Age to today in one comprehensive chronology, with more 'realistic' passage of time. The Gen 1 timeline is the one with the glaringly BIG retcon - namely, that Wonder Woman is the first superhero and a JSA founder, and came to Man's World the same year that Kal-El's rocketship crashed.

I still can't figure out what DC's intention is there. I'm cool with the JSA being around during Clark and Bruce's childhoods, but does it make any sense if that was during WW2? And if that was only around 60 years ago, then does it mean that the present-day DCU is set in the 2000's? Obviously, we're missing something here.

Incidentially, on the subject of Superman being 60 going by this timeline - a crazy theory occurred to me.

If we assume that Superman is 60 now, then it means he would have come to earth as a baby around 1959, and would have made his debut as Superman in around 1984. Which...puts him in the right time-frame to follow the original chronology of the Byrne Superman!

According to Byrne's MOS, Clark was 28 at the end of the miniseries, which led directly into the rebooted Post-COIE titles that started in 1987. Clark has been Superman for three years at that point, since age 25. So his debut would have been in 1984.

So basically, this timeline gives us Superman's age if the Post-COIE Superman's history unfolded in real-time after his mid-80's debut.

Of course, not everything lines up with this. But it is a curious coincidence. And since we fundamentally seem to be moving to a Post-COIE timeline with stuff from other eras blended in, one kinda has to wonder if the Byrne Superman's chronology is the 'baseline' here.

That said, this would mean that WW and the JSA start in 1959/60, which doesn't make sense given the WW2 references...

[Tenzel Kim]

Tried making a more readable version of the Generation 1 image. Still have a few X's as I'm not sure what those reads.



Also turned it into a pdf:

Generation 1 - Dawn of the Heroic Age.pdf

Haven't read the entire thread yet so don't know if I've made some mistakes or missed something.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Tried making a more readable version of the Generation 1 image. Still have a few X's as I'm not sure what those reads.



Also turned it into a pdf:

Generation 1 - Dawn of the Heroic Age.pdf

Haven't read the entire thread yet so don't know if I've made some mistakes or missed something.

Great work here. I like a lot of the continuity tweaks they are doing here.

So, Krypton's explosion and baby Kal-El's arrival on Earth kicks things off in 1938, with Wonder Woman's debut bumped a couple years earlier from '41 to '38, with both Jay, Alan & Dinah similarly being moved earlier to '39 and the end of the JSA delayed a smidge to the mid-50s.

[bat39]

Great work here. I like a lot of the continuity tweaks they are doing here.

So, Krypton's explosion and baby Kal-El's arrival on Earth kicks things off in 1938, with Wonder Woman's debut bumped a couple years earlier from '41 to '38, with both Jay, Alan & Dinah similarly being moved earlier to '39 and the end of the JSA delayed a smidge to the mid-50s.

Yup.

Clark's "secret" Superboy career occurs from 1950 to 1955. The Wayne's are murdered in 1953. J'onn J'onzz came to earth in 1956 (which is close enough to the 1955 real-life publication date). And Aquaman's backstory mostly plays out between 1956 and 1958.

[Tzigone]

(Oh geez, I forgot about Billy Batson debuting before Crisis, and then there's Wallace West born before Zero Hour too. I'm gonna say the age down happens in Crisis and Zero Hour then now. Otherwise, Wallace would be 18 in Rebirth and Billy would be too old too.)

If they are going to compress a timeline and move a world war (instead of doing 82 years and age-downs), why don't they just compress to 45 years and avoid age downs altogether? If that is what's happening, I just don't get DC's mindset.

[Ra-El]

Why start things in 1938 if Superman isn't debuting that year? The only relevance to the date is that it was when Superman debuted, if they want to start with Wonder Woman they should have used WWI. Is like they want to say that DC started in 1938, but don't want to start it like it really happened.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

If they are going to compress a timeline and move a world war (instead of doing 82 years and age-downs), why don't they just compress to 45 years and avoid age downs altogether? If that is what's happening, I just don't get DC's mindset.

I think there's a lot more going on here than we are currently privy to. I'm sure they are still working things out and what Didio showed is still a work in progress that he put out there to gauge the fan reaction.

The upside is that DC Editorial finally seems to have a plan in mind that will allow creators access to all its history and continuity.

[bat39]

Why start things in 1938 if Superman isn't debuting that year? The only relevance to the date is that it was when Superman debuted, if they want to start with Wonder Woman they should have used WWI. Is like they want to say that DC started in 1938, but don't want to start it like it really happened.

I'm guessing they wanted 1938 to be the year the rocket landed in Smallville.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Why start things in 1938 if Superman isn't debuting that year? The only relevance to the date is that it was when Superman debuted, if they want to start with Wonder Woman they should have used WWI. Is like they want to say that DC started in 1938, but don't want to start it like it really happened.

Because that's when the DCU proper started. They're giving a tip of the hat to Superman's debut by having baby Kal-El arrive in 1938, though, which I think is enough. Superman hasn't really been a character tied to the late 1930s in a very long time. Swapping him out for Wonder Woman works really well, ups her overall importance to the DCU while still retaining Superman's status as the one that started it all and the hero who began the modern era of superheroes. That seems like a fair compromise.