[SPOILERS] Doomsday Clock & DC’s Continuity in Justice League #39

[Mr.B]

It feels like there is no plan and the DC editorial is trying to act like there is one. The only thing that's been confirmed is something we already knew: continuity is a mess. I suspect that 'unifying the timeline'/ 5G is not going to help at all and make things worse.

It will all make sense.

[superduperman]

It feels like there is no plan and the DC editorial is trying to act like there is one. The only thing that's been confirmed is something we already knew: continuity is a mess. I suspect that 'unifying the timeline'/ 5G is not going to help at all and make things worse.

This seems like the most likely possibility.

[Mr.B]

Nope. It will all make sense. Bye.

[docmidnite]

"Superboy" will always be the inspiration for Legion. For all we know, both Clark and Jon could have had interactions with the Legion, but at different points in Legion's history. Or, there can be multiple Legions out there, from the present's point of view (i.e. the Legion of Three Worlds, with Clark interacting with one version, while Jon interacts with another version. Anything is possible, when dealing with time travel and parallel timelines.

But Superboy will always be the inspiration for Legion.

Actually it's always been Superman that was the inspiration for the Legion. That's why the founding members originally went back in time to see Clark as a teenager. To see how a teenager like themselves could grow up to be such an inspirational figure as Superman. That's when they befriended him and asked him to join.

[BohemiaDrinker]

Yeah that's where 5G finished timeline chart shows up.

It will all make sense.

Nope. It will all make sense. Bye.

Yo, Mr B, I have to ask. In this and others threads you've been saying this, but not posting anything to back it up, soooooooooo... Is it "faith" or you know something we don't?

I see you've been here for about four months: is the "B" in your nickname for Bendis? :P

EDIT: Just realised the above comment sounded dickish, so I apologize as it was not my intention. Those were honest questions.

[KangMiRae]

This seems like the most likely possibility.

It feels like their plans changed suddenly and now Snyder, Johns, and co. are quickly working a new conclusion into existence as cleanly as possible. Everything they’ve presented ties into what we had before this new reveal, so it technically works.

[Otto Gruenwald]

It was nice to see that the pre-crisis universes still existed--

No wait it wasn't. Because they were relegated to the same hypertime look-don't-touch bubbles they've been in since The Kingdom.

Well atleast the JSA are back. It's nice seeing Jakeem and Cyclone again.

But do I have any faith in them being treated well by DC's writers?

God no.

[achilles]

It was nice to see that the pre-crisis universes still existed--

No wait it wasn't. Because they were relegated to the same hypertime look-don't-touch bubbles they've been in since The Kingdom.

Well atleast the JSA are back. It's nice seeing Jakeem and Cyclone again.

But do I have any faith in them being treated well by DC's writers?

God no.

Exactly my thoughts! Sadly, especially that last...

[CaptCleghorn]

It feels like there is no plan and the DC editorial is trying to act like there is one. The only thing that's been confirmed is something we already knew: continuity is a mess. I suspect that 'unifying the timeline'/ 5G is not going to help at all and make things worse.

Continuity is a mess and there are currently multiple stories going on each supposedly out to "fix" it. That's pretty much an accepted fact. The question is "is DC going to be able to actually fix it?" I'm going to go out on a limb and say that there will always be some fans who will not be happy with the results. There were rumors of a simply titled "Crisis" to bring all this to a head. The idea of simpler titles being more important appeals to me and would be a nice companion to other "crisis" titled stories.

DC's been going on with this current continuity story since 2011 and Flashpoint. Sure, nu52 was designed to be a new set continuity, but the plethora of "what about"s and "wait a minute"s brought forth 2015 and Rebirth. And that has been a plot going on for over five years. Now, I don't follow many DC books but my two big favorites are JSA and Legion. As a result of those two franchises often being the most sensitive to Crisis level continuity shuffling, I have a need to try and discover what the heck is going on.

Yes, I'm putting myself throug a lot of stress when it might be easier to step back. But my name is Captain Cleghorn and I am a comicoholic.

[Mr.B]

It was nice to see that the pre-crisis universes still existed--

No wait it wasn't. Because they were relegated to the same hypertime look-don't-touch bubbles they've been in since The Kingdom.

Well atleast the JSA are back. It's nice seeing Jakeem and Cyclone again.

But do I have any faith in them being treated well by DC's writers?

God no.

They're not hypertime worlds.. They're worlds split off for Johns to use.

[superduperman]

It was nice to see that the pre-crisis universes still existed--

No wait it wasn't. Because they were relegated to the same hypertime look-don't-touch bubbles they've been in since The Kingdom.

Well atleast the JSA are back. It's nice seeing Jakeem and Cyclone again.

But do I have any faith in them being treated well by DC's writers?

God no.

Hopefully that won't be the case for long. I'm assuming the reason why Johns brought it back was because he had some sort of plan to do something with it. But given how long it takes DC to do anything, we could be looking at least a couple years before plans even get off the ground.

[Lightning Rider]

I've been struggling to keep up with monthlies and this laborious, stretched out continuity fixing just makes it more and more of a headache. In Rebirth (over 4 fucking years ago!!!!) we were promised a restoration of elements of old continuity stolen in 10 years; we got Wally back but kind of sidlined and ultimately mishandled, and we got Superman Lois and Jon, while many old relationships and characters were still missing. The Button was a waste of time, and so was the Oz Effect. We were given Doomsday Clock over a 2 year period which ended up not being necessary or tying directly into continuity. Now you're telling me Justice League and Metal are the supposed flagbearers for what counts, and we have to keep waiting and waiting and reading for things to just stabalize to a recognizable lived-in world?

All this could have been wrapped up in a single overzied issue, or a mini-series. I have no idea why continuity fixes have to be explained by long-winded and complicated adventures. Just do a lot of cosmic hand-waving, condense Dr. Manhattan's Doomsday Clock arc if you want, and add some touching moments once everyone remembers their forgotten pasts. Barry swings by Hal as he closes up shop at Ferris and they crack jokes while drinking beers about how much they've been through, Canary and Ollie cuddle in bed and smirk while recalling their wedding, Clark comforts Lois as she finds the Daily Planet article about Superman's death, Wonder Woman walks through a door with Stargirl to find Jay and the JSA hanging up the old decorations at their headquarters, Aquaman roams and finds members of the old Aquafamily like Dolphin.

Why does it take over 4 years to just get on with it? Everything happened but now we're young again, new status quo, time to get great writers with novel ideas on books. Am I being naive here or is it really not that hard?

[ERON]

Considering the same people who messed up continuity to begin with are the ones supposedly "fixing" it, I'm not very optimistic.

[K. Jones]

The fact that Doomsday Clock is 'out of continuity' is part of the actual plot of Doomsday Clock when Doctor Manhattan "fixes" things at the end. In that way, like many Crisis-level events, while "it sort of happened" or "characters sort of remember it" (usually Superman), things couldn't have quite gone down the way they did after the Universe is reset or patched up or fixed.

Now, that being said ... I don't think Doomsday Clock is out of continuity. I just think that, timeline-wise, despite the real life release schedule, it happened quite a while ago in the DCU. Like ... before METAL. Before Heroes in Crisis. Before Dick Grayson got shot in the head. All the Rebirth/Doctor Manhattan shenanigans were already resolved not long after their initial references in other DC books, with maybe one or two elements from latter titles needing to stretch to kind of sync up (like Batman and Superman having to deal with their extant temporal father figure problems).

But ignoring those escalations that occurred as the Watchmen-verse began interacting with the DCU, there's still probably conspiracies and other angles within Doomsday Clock's event that are still in play even as the ending shook out differently. The Supermen Theory ... extragovernmental tampering in the creations of your Firestorms and Metamorphos. A lot of that stuff is probably still relevant and therefore in-continuity. It's unclear enough that I can't remember well enough to give a play-by-play, but I don't think there's anything too contradictory once the story itself implies that it's "fixing itself" or whatever.

The hard part is going to be when Scott Snyder sends all these JLA heroes into that white door of canon and all of a sudden we go full Grant Morrison Prism and "EVERYTHING IS CANON" is a thing.

[Buried Alien]

Considering the same people who messed up continuity to begin with are the ones supposedly "fixing" it, I'm not very optimistic.

Marv Wolfman, Dick Giordano, Denny O'Neill,and Jeanette Kahn are involved?

DC continuity has been a basketcase since 1986.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)