What if... Earth-2 had been the basis for the main Earth post-Crisis?

[SanityOrMadness]

Obviously, what got me thinking about this is the Dark Multiverse COIE one-shot (which is really Dark Multiverse: Last Days of the JSA, but I guess they expected COIE to sell better, not unreasonably), but I don't really buy the premise of that, which was that the entire Justice League found themselves on an Earth-2-based Post-Crisis Earth with no history, like Kal-L, Huntress and E-2 Robin in Crisis #11. If you flip the situation, you get the E1 duplicate characters - E1-Superman/Kal-El and Supergirl/Kara Zor-El, E1-Batman & Robin, E1-Wonder Woman, E1-Green Arrow and some consequential & supporting characters wiped from history. But not the rest. (After all, DC would still have titles to publish!)

Just thinking, as a counterfactual... if they committed to keeping the older versions around, what would have changed?

Funnily enough, several of the changes which would have happened were done *anyway* - Superman, Batman & Wonder Woman were all removed from JLA history for different reasons (eventually codified years later as JLA: Year One, telling a version of the JLA founding without the "trinity" and with Black Canary Jr as a founder) - the only significant difference would have been losing Green Arrow too. (E1 Aquaman was different enough to be more like E1 vs E2 Hawkman, with both co-existing despite similar names. Maybe without Aquaworld bringing it all crashing down a few years later). Meanwhile, the Legion lost Supergirl and got a "pocket universe" E1-Superboy.

The biggest change outside of the "trinity" books would probably be the Titans losing Dick Grayson/Robin/Nightwing, which would have caused major problems for that book (also Speedy, but since he wasn't an active member it would have been less disruptive. Funnily enough, Donna Troy would not have been messed up in this scenario, she just gets saved by an older WW...). How they patch that... the most obvious thing would be to have Jason Todd (who was basically a Young Dick expy pre-Crisis anyway) backdated, I suppose.

Since Superman & Wonder Woman were an alien and from a race of immortal Amazons respectively, they could have been active in the present day without too much trouble, and Superman in particular was a "father figure" of sorts anyway. They might have gone less heavy on the aging effects than the E2 versions were shown with in Crisis, but they would still have been viable. Supporting characters, especially for Superman, might have been more of a problem though.

Batman, well, in this scenario we're keeping the basic history of the Earth-2 versions, so he'd be dead. I'm guessing that Batman as a franchise would have got a variation of the treatment Wonder Woman got in reality - we introduce a new Batman in the present day. They just wouldn't be Bruce Wayne, but "inspired by" him, probably with Frank Miller getting even freer reign to design a "Next Batman Year One" than he did for the actual Batman Year One. Some past stories that really needed an unavailable Batman would probably get plugged with Huntress, with Jason Todd in place of Dick (as in the Titans idea above).

Most of the rest ends up similar to what happened in reality - so Wally takes over as Flash, Justice League Detroit putters on for a couple of years, etc - but with fewer outright reboots (so Captain Marvel/Shazam continues from the 70s version rather than getting rebooted twice in a few years), and a greater JSA presence with no "Last Days..."

I'm not sure it would have been "better" than what actually happened, and it would certainly have required a very different line of editorial thought, but I found it an interesting line of thought to run down, at least.

[LordUltimus]

You could have Helena be Dick's replacement on the Titans.

Would Infinity Inc. replace the Teen Titans?

[Restingvoice]

was there a Golden Age Teen Titans? I never thought about it

[LordUltimus]

was there a Golden Age Teen Titans? I never thought about it

Do the Young All-Stars count?

[Digifiend]

No. They're a retcon team first published in 1987, and therefore didn't exist pre-Crisis.
https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Young_All-Stars

[PCN24454]

Actually, Superman would be allowed to age.

[LordUltimus]

No. They're a retcon team first published in 1987, and therefore didn't exist pre-Crisis.
https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Young_All-Stars

My point is, if this is still a "post-Crisis" Earth, it could still have post-Crisis elements such as them.

How would the Legion of Superheroes fit in?

[Buried Alien]

The premise of the story appears to be that if Earth-Two (instead of Earth-One) had been the basis of Post-COIE Earth, results would have been inferior.

Some Earth-Two fans might find the proposition unintentionally insulting.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Jim Kelly]

I think this was somewhat on the table at the time. I vaguely recall that someone wanted Superman from Earth-Two to be THE Superman and Jay Garrick would have taken over as the Flash, not Wally.

The movies should be set on Earth-Two--I'd much rather see Batman and Superman in the 1930s. Wonder Woman and the Flash in the 1940s.

[bat39]

I think this was somewhat on the table at the time. I vaguely recall that someone wanted Superman from Earth-Two to be THE Superman and Jay Garrick would have taken over as the Flash, not Wally.

The movies should be set on Earth-Two--I'd much rather see Batman and Superman in the 1930s. Wonder Woman and the Flash in the 1940s.

Yeah, there was apparently a pitch at one point of time for Kal-El to be killed during COIE, and Kal-L to survive into the rebooted Post-COIE earth - with Byrne's Man of Steel as a story of the Golden Age Superman's first adventures on the new earth.

Continuity-wise, I'm not sure how that would have worked. Would Kal-L have remembered the Multiverse and his original history? Would he have been rebooted to fit the history of the new earth? Or would Kal-El's death remain 'in continuity' and he's basically a legacy character - a survivor of an erased world who's taking over the mantle?

What about the supporting cast? Would Lois, Jimmy et. all be younger, rebooted versions or the Golden Age versions?

Now, for the sake of argument, had DC really gone with Earth Two as the template for the new earth...well it's an interesting thought experiment for sure!

For starters, with the Golden Age Superman front and center as the face of the franchise now, it means that DC would have to face up to the fact that Superman is no longer 'forever-30', but a man with grey in his temples...even if he shows few other signs of aging. Lois wouldn't be a young intrepid reporter, but a late middle-aged, if not elderly veteran. I wonder what kind of impact this would have had on the franchise as a whole, and the pop-cultural perception of Superman. On the flip side, I could see them pushing the angle that this is the 'original' Superman by Siegal and Shuster, with tons of flashback stories set during the Depression and WW2. Who knows, maybe the Fleischer cartoons would have been more influential to Superman's pop-cultural legacy than the Donner movie?

Wonder Woman...actually I don't think she'd have changed a lot, apart from the fact that she'd visually look a bit older. Hell, if they wanted, they could have her immortality restored and make her younger again if they wanted - more so than they could with Superman. But it'd be interesting to see them put a Wonder Woman who looks around 50-60ish front and center. Might have been groundbreaking, even! And I suppose Fury would have a more prominent role, and maybe even take over the mantle of Wonder Woman!

Batman is an interesting one, since the Earth Two version was dead. Would that still stand, or would he be retconned back into existence? Here I'm gonna go with a crazy idea. Because the Golden Age Batman was dead, on the new earth, Batman was completely rebooted. He's younger than the other heroes (like, if Superman was around 70, Batman would be pushing 45-50), and a lot grittier than them. Think Dark Knight Returns. Unlike Superman and Wonder Woman, who are survivors of a brighter, more optimistic earth, Batman reflects the darkness of a new era, and he has an antagonistic relationship with the other heroes. The kicker for Superman, and the others who fought in COIE, is that they remember the Golden Age Superman, and so find the contrast between their fallen friend and this new counterpart jarring, to say the least.

The Justice Society would be the main team of course, but the Justice League would be around as this team which formed during the decades when the JSA was inactive. In the aftermath of COIE, the League disbands, and many of the characters' stories come to an end or go in different directions. I can see Wally maybe continuing as Kid Flash under Jay's Flash, or taking over as the Flash - maybe with a costume that blends Barry and Jay's. Barry'd be dead. Hal would probably head of into space and be part of a new Green Lantern Corps series, while Alan became the 'main' Green Lantern. I think with Aquaman, they could retcon it such that Arthur Curry's father was not the lighthouse keeper Tom Curry, but the original Aquaman...so he's still half-human and Atlantean, but even his human dad artificially gained Atlantean powers. I dunno about Hawkman...maybe the Thanagarians leave earth?

The New Teen Titans could still be around in my formulation - if you assume that Dick Grayson is still in his twenties thanks to the rebooted Batman. Or maybe its Jason who's now Nightwing?

Long-term of course, a problem they'd have with this earth is whether or not to have a sliding timescale. I think eventually they would have one, or build a time-skip into JSA history.

[DrNewGod]

I think this was somewhat on the table at the time. I vaguely recall that someone wanted Superman from Earth-Two to be THE Superman...

Yeah, there was apparently a pitch at one point of time for Kal-El to be killed during COIE, and Kal-L to survive into the rebooted Post-COIE earth - with Byrne's Man of Steel as a story of the Golden Age Superman's first adventures on the new earth....

I read somewhere that somebody (NOT Busiek) suggested that Kal-L be the survivor to preserve the idea of Superman as the original superhero. Seems like the pitch was that Kal-L had never aged as much as it looked, but had been disguising himself to preserve his life as Clark Kent, and with Kal-el's death, he would simply move in and take over Kal-el's existence as E1 Clark. I'm not sure if it would have worked that well with the Post-Crisis world we got; it would have taken real talent to make Kal-L's relationship with a younger version of his recently deceased wife anything other than creepy without breaking it off all together.

[Restingvoice]

Do the Young All-Stars count?

I meant more about the classic Titans character like Donna, Wall... okay, Barry and Wally don't exist do they, since Jay is a fictional character in Earth-1?

[Kaijudo]

Somebody already brought up Captain Marvel's continuity continuing from his earlier run from the 70s versus being rebooted. A couple other non-Earth-1/Earth-2 thoughts:

The Freedom Fighters would have probably been a bit more prominent, if not a lot more, as they were all Earth-2 residents who traveled to Earth-X. So the new Earth would have felt more like "home" to them, with maybe some of their number joining the JSA or the team as a whole evolving into something else. I could actually see the Freedom Fighters merge with the remnants of JL Detroit and go forward as a new entity with a new mission statement (since, arguably, JL Detroit was meant to reflect a more realistic America, which would still be a motivating factor for Uncle Sam). The Ray's son would still be the new Ray and maybe join Infinity Incorporated instead.

The Charlton heroes would be an interesting case. Probably the easiest two to integrate would be Judo Master (and Tiger), which would play mostly as it did before, with them being retroactively inducted into the All-Star Squadron, and Blue Beetle. I could see Ted joining the JSA or Infinity Inc. as a legacy hero for Dan Garrett, who now may have been part of the All-Star Squadron or even a retroactive JSA member. As for the rest, given how 40s-centric the JSA was and how 80s-centric Infinity Inc. was, I could see Captain Atom, Peter Cannon, Nightshade, Son of Vulcan, and Peacemaker maybe serving as a "gap team" between the JSA disappearing after the HUAC trials and the debut of Infinity Inc. They definitely incorporate elements of the 60s/70s...atomic power, Eastern spiritualism, the pacifist/"peacenik" movement. Maybe an older Judo Master or Tiger and/or Dan Garrett would join them as well.

[Kurt Busiek]

I read somewhere that it was Busiek who suggested that Kal-L be the survivor to preserve the idea of Superman as the original superhero. Seems like the pitch was that Kal-L had never aged as much as it looked, but had been disguising himself to preserve his life as Clark Kent, and with Kal-el's death, he would simply move in and take over Kal-el's existence as E1 Clark.

Not me. I had zero input into CRISIS.

kdb

[DrNewGod]

Not me. I had zero input into CRISIS.

kdb

Slander redacted

I can't say I'm surprised; it always made me double take. You're normally way more sensitive to things that would sound weird, like Superman swapping up Loises.