DC's "new" timeline revealed at NYCC

[Artemisfanboy]

Say goodbye to a timeline that try to make even remotely any sense...

"And this, ladies and gentlemen, is what's coming after Future State. Everything. Any story, any character, any creator, any timeline, any reality, anything goes. Freedom for creators to take a story, use what continuity they deem fit, and tell that story to the best of their ability. Call it Hypertime, call it non-continuity, call it Omniverse."

https://bleedingcool.com/comics/deat...-future-state/

I think Bleedingcoool is kind of reading into things that aren't there and jumping to conclusions and being a bit sensationalist. I just read that scene as a feel good inspirational "please have faith in this universe and its heroes, and maybe give us a little help" speech, not a company mission statement. Don't know how you jump from there to "DC Comics is getting rid of continuity entirely" alarmism.

And frankly I don't see them abandoning continuity altogether unless they plan to stop publishing monthly comics. I mean even in the DCYou "story over continuity" era, did that actually mean anything? From what I remember everything was still solidly in the new 52 continuity and continuing onward from it.

I don't know how much of a timeline or if we're getting any kind of timeline laid out. Really I don't need a complete list of what is or isn't continuity, or detailed explanations of how all the continuities fit together, or know exactly when and where thing happened. I'd just like a rough basic outline and few clarifications. I have somethings I want clearly put back or taken out, like most of us I assume. But most problems I can think of can be fixed with a one line gloss to patch things as necessary and just let us fans use our imaginations to fill in the details.

[Factor]

I still expect there to be a semblance of a "main continuity", mostly because I don't see DC having *all* their regular ongoings as glorified Elseworlds. Plus team books like JL make no sense when there isn't a shared universe.
What I do see them doing is having a larger collection of stories not set in that main continuity. I fully expect to see some more Future State books after February, more White Knight stuff, more Injustice etc. Those things seem to be working very well for DC.
I'm personally very curious now, because DC's multiverse is so rich and full of potential that I do think they should be doing way more with it.

[Restingvoice]

Oh, there's still going to be connectivity, they're just doing what they've been doing now, that is, focusing on their stories and not worried too much about which event fits where or whether which characters have what backstories.

Remember when people in Titans forum confused on which iteration of Titans is canon now? They're gonna continue not gonna care about that and just use their own interpretation even if it contradicts other writers.

It's already happening these past few years, I just want them to make it official and start telling off people for using certain stories to justify character hate, because b***, they're all based on whatever the frick the author's thinking at that time.

[Steel Inquisitor]

Say goodbye to a timeline that try to make even remotely any sense...

"And this, ladies and gentlemen, is what's coming after Future State. Everything. Any story, any character, any creator, any timeline, any reality, anything goes. Freedom for creators to take a story, use what continuity they deem fit, and tell that story to the best of their ability. Call it Hypertime, call it non-continuity, call it Omniverse."

https://bleedingcool.com/comics/deat...-future-state/

DC's given up on canon? This will end in tears.

[DragonPiece]

Say goodbye to a timeline that try to make even remotely any sense...

"And this, ladies and gentlemen, is what's coming after Future State. Everything. Any story, any character, any creator, any timeline, any reality, anything goes. Freedom for creators to take a story, use what continuity they deem fit, and tell that story to the best of their ability. Call it Hypertime, call it non-continuity, call it Omniverse."

https://bleedingcool.com/comics/deat...-future-state/

But Tynion just said in his newsletter a week ago that the Batfamily books would be a lot more connected in March and he's been talking to the other writers in the line a lot.

[Vordan]

But Tynion just said in his newsletter a week ago that the Batfamily books would be a lot more connection in March and he's been talking to the other writers in the line a lot.

The two don’t necessarily contradict. There may be tighter continuity in the “now” with the Batbooks playing off stuff that’s happening in each other’s book right now, while also acknowledging that Steph and Cass were Batgirls for example, even though that’s not true as of right *now*. Or BC could be talking out their ass again. They’ve been wrong before and Rich hasn’t been able to go get gossip at cons lately obviously.

[Konja7]

The two don’t necessarily contradict. There may be tighter continuity in the “now” with the Batbooks playing off stuff that’s happening in each other’s book right now, while also acknowledging that Steph and Cass were Batgirls for example, even though that’s not true as of right *now*. Or BC could be talking out their ass again. They’ve been wrong before and Rich hasn’t been able to go get gossip at cons lately obviously.

I think bleedingcool sources are relatively reliable, but Rich seems to Jump conclusions pretty easily, which could distort information.

[Frontier]

Would those stories been impossible to do with less continuity?

Considering they felt built on from the continuity that came before them, I would like to think so. Or at least they wouldn't have been the same.

[Last Son of Krypton]

More from BC:

Well, the rumours are hotting up. What remains of the New 52, after DC Rebirth, Death Metal and Future State, is being done away with in favour of an Omniverse model. In which characters and comic books are no longer tied to a strict continuity but will play faster and looser with history.

This is a direct rejection of former DC publisher Dan DiDio's plans for a new DC Timeline that had began to be set up earlier in the year. Shown off on a New York Comic-Con stage, and filleted by Bleeding Cool, it was intended to be published in this year's DC Comics Free Comic Book Day title. But after publisher Dan DiDio was fired, every single copy was pulped – not one copy escaped to the aftermarket, despite four-figure sums being offered by enthusiastic collectors to anyone who might have one on the side. If any departing DC editors have a stack of them in their office drawer, they could pay for their retirement.

I also understand that DC is currently working on putting together a new event comic to birth this new reality, to be published in March or April, for this new unrestrained storytelling approach. Basically, DC Rebirth written by people other than Geoff Johns, a framing story for all the books spinning out of it into 2021, couched in a new kind of Omniversal continuity to persuade people that everything still matters.

Because some disquiet I have heard is that Dan DiDio's expressed status of the new DC Universe that "everything happened, everything matters" may become an "everything happened, nothing matters". For some, continuity is a major aspect of superhero comic books, a single, extended history, with many books having the question asked of them, "does it count". Half of the questions asked of Doomsday Clock and The Three Jokers, titles set up by the heavy-continuity DC Rebirth, were about whether they were in-canon, whether they counted, whether they mattered, the answer being "not since Geoff Johns left DC Comics as CCO."

But what the DC Omniverse will mean is greater creative freedom, less interference by editors (or publishers), and no one saying "you can't use that character, they died in City of Bane/got lost in a Dark Dimension/went evil and currently approaching Gotham, slowly, with all her plants."

And lots of new variants of characters to license as toys, or to be turned into new direct-to-TV animations. The Elseworlds stories have done very well for Warner, this might make every DC comic book an Elseworld title. Once upon a time, this was called Hypertime, but DC Comics never really committed to it. Now, it seems, they are. Hopefully, that increased creative freedom will make up for the lower page rates starting to come in…

Look for more DC Omniverse in Death Metal #7.

Source: https://bleedingcool.com/comics/dc-c...-future-state/

[Frontier]

Another continuity set up event and everything becoming basically free for all Elseworlds...just isn't really appealing to me.

[Last Son of Krypton]

Are we going to regret that 5G and the Generations timeline didn't happened? 😂

[Factor]

Another continuity set up event and everything becoming basically free for all Elseworlds...just isn't really appealing to me.

I don't think I can take yet another continuity-altering event. Wasn't this the purpose of Death Metal already?
They seriously need to get their sh*t together if these rumors are true.

[Morgoth]

Doesn't Marvel work on the same principle now? Their series now generally openly ignore each other, like Aaron's Avengers, for example.

[Factor]

Doesn't Marvel work on the same principle now? Their series now generally openly ignore each other, like Aaron's Avengers, for example.

Aaron's Avengers is a badly written comic, but the universe as a whole still has some semblance of a continuity. Empyre is a major example of that, as it's affected even the X-books which are largely in their own corner of the MU.

[Badou]

I'm someone that really likes continuity. I enjoy trying to figure out how these decades of stories fit together, but I also understand that right now DC's continuity is as big of a mess as I've ever seen it. It's kind of a disaster. So while I might not like it this approach is probably the only course they can take going forward. They've dug way to big a whole to ever get out of now. Honestly, because of how frustrated I've become with DC part of me would actually like to see a full reboot or something in line with Marvel's old Ultimate line. Something free of so much baggage and endless characters, but DC won't do that.

That being said there are major problems with this approach. Since many large stories overlap and can't coexist. Big examples include Superman's parents being dead or alive. If they want to have his parents be alive does that mean every story with them being dead is now not canon even if "everything is canon" now? Or on a smaller scale, which Bludhaven origin story is canon? Is it the post Crisis version or the Rebirth one? Since both tell the story of Dick's introduction to the city and have very different versions of Blockbuster. There are tons of more examples like that where only one version of these stories can exist as the same time.

But I don't know what the answer is. Clearly DC is just going to invest more in these OGN stories that are mostly free of continuity or set in their own universe, and the ongoing monthlies will probably continue to lose importance. So maybe it doesn't really matter that much in the end.