What's the big deal about Earth 2?

[Zero Hunter]

I like Earth 2 because they can do real changes on that world. They killed off Batman on Earth 2 and you saw people like Robin and Huntress step up to try and fill his spot. They didn't have Batman stay dead for a year and then come back. I liked that they could do things with the Earth 2 characters they could never do with the main U versions. Even in the Nu52 Earth 2 series they used this by not only having Batman dead but also Superman and Wonder Woman. It just opens up so many story avenues you can't do otherwise.

[achilles]

I like Earth 2 because they can do real changes on that world. They killed off Batman on Earth 2 and you saw people like Robin and Huntress step up to try and fill his spot. They didn't have Batman stay dead for a year and then come back. I liked that they could do things with the Earth 2 characters they could never do with the main U versions. Even in the Nu52 Earth 2 series they used this by not only having Batman dead but also Superman and Wonder Woman. It just opens up so many story avenues you can't do otherwise.

Sadly, in the case in the nu52, they were stories that turned out not to be worth telling.

[Zero Hunter]

Sadly, in the case in the nu52, they were stories that turned out not to be worth telling.

I disagree. I thought the book was very good up until editorial started micromanaging the title which made Robinson quit. Even then the book was still good up until they started setting things up for Worlds End which was just hot garbage.

[Stingo]

I don't know about you, but isn't there something so fascinating about finding a whole bunch of comics and characters that you knew nothing about and then getting new stories about those characters that tell what happened next and where their lives took them?

I think of something like Terra Obscura in ABC's TOM STRONG--it was pretty neat to have Tom meet up with Tom Strange and all the other heroes and to know that this was based on the original America's Best Comics. Or, to use another Alan Moore example, his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen that was a group of public domain characters from the 19th century. And then there's WATCHMEN--which is alternate versions of the Charlton super-heroes--just imagine if the Watchmen met the Charlton Action Heroes.

Or what if the Astro City heroes had all actually been published by a comic book company in the 1940s and 1950s?

Does that help to see why readers were so jazzed about the Justice Society of America appearing on their own Earth called Two?

I grew up reading comics pre-Crisis and so Earth Two (as we spelled it then - "Earth 2" was the spelling for the New 52 series) was an everyday reality in my comic book reading life. I cut my teeth on the JSA related work of Gerry Conway, Paul Levitz and Roy Thomas and found these Golden Age heroes much more fascinating than their Earth One counterparts. A big part of that was their ties going back to the 1930s and 1940s. Great stuff and I'd give my left eyeteeth to see Roy, Paul and/or Gerry return for at least a mini-series that might reunite them with these beautiful, shiny characters.

[king81992]

With the current continuity in mainline DC messed up(and I have no faith that Snyder's Death Metal or whatever will fix that) and characters being held back because writers want to rehash old storylines/ use them as fodder a continuity that's more/less ripe for fresh storylines is an interesting concept.

[Thor-Ul]

I remember being into comics after the crisis and reading about earth two many years later. And enjoyed it. It was interesting to see aworld where heroes were active since many years ago and how they changed their world. The aspects of real time and impact as seen having grow older and die or having them have children was interesting. I woukld like to see that dinamics back. Even to see a series with something like Astro City or Legends of the Dark Knight, with stories set in the past and unknown adventures of those characters, filling the gaps.

On the New52 Earth 2 series, I'm with Zero Hunter. Depiste my initial dissapointment, I admire the effort of Robinson on building a new world. Sadly, they had to got Taylor to do Injustice v2.

[dswynne]

"Earth-2" is the idealized version of what a hero should be, not what the era the hero exists in.