How the DC Multiverse should be.

[llozymandias]

DC has been making noises about one of the results of death metal being that all of DC's stories & conitiuities will be equally real & will have all hapened. Yes, i also think that sounds like the initial hype for hypertime. Before DC slapped all sorts of moronic rules on it. If hypertime had been done right, all DC continuities would have been available for use. Fans could have been reading about the adventures of their favorite versions of DC's characters, again. Istead a series of crisis events.



Anyway it would be nice if DC would do it right this time. It's all real/true. All of the past versions/continuities coexist with the current DCU in an infinite DC Multiverse.

[Jabare]

I was about to ask what does that even mean, but you know what I'll just go with it.


As long as they restore:

-Dick Grayson's history (maybe not the Devin Grayson run, although it was going okay until the Tarantula ending Game of Thrones'd it).
-The Titans History (I really just care about the Wolfman and Perez run, parts of the Johns and Winnick runs. some of the lackluster stories can be trimmed out)
-Cyborg's history (like Grayson keep iconic Titans stuff. Also, keep his solo books (Walke's run & Semper's run gave Vic some of the more indepth character development he's gotten since the new 52). Outside of Justice League Odyssey and the recent Titans stories, the extent of his development was Daddy issues since 2011! Sure he had some good feats here and there but they were also underscored by him getting hacked and brutalized, but I digress)
-Blue Beetle (pre-New 52 Jaime Reyes was fire, bring that back)
-Steel (John Henry Irons) restoring the Grant Morrison Justice League history would be big for his character. The 52 story was alright as well
-Grace Choi- can we bring her back? I liked that character.
Bronze Tiger-got to restore his history. The man who beat the Bat straight up twice
Richard Dragon- DC's greatest martial artist
Lady Shiva- deadliest woman (non superpowered) on the planet

I'm going to need someone to explain Flash's history if all the stories count.
Where does that leave Cassandra Cain? That restores her time as Batgirl, but does that also restore the stories where she was evil and fighting the Titans and Nightwing?

What does this mean for Supergirl? Kara? Matrix?

[Restingvoice]

Wait, hold up. Is the current one Hypertime, or one timeline but the most current version of the characters remember every previous versions of themselves?

[Dataweaver]

As of the penultimate issue of Death Metal, it's one timeline but the most current version of the characters remember every previous version of themselves.

What it will be when Death Metal it's over, I'm not sure; but I suspect they'll be cramming in as much history into one timeline as they can manage. Conversely, I suspect that the events of Death Metal itself will be left out of the rebooted timeline. That is, I don't think we're going to be getting an “everything happened exactly as it originally did” timeline; but I think we will be getting a “most things happened in ways reasonably close to how they originally did” timeline.

But the thread wasn't about how the main Earth's timeline should be; it was about how the DC Multiverse should be. And there are some things that simply can't be fit into the former, because they're mutually exclusive with it: Helena Wayne, for example. Or the Crime Syndicate. I'm all for there being a rebooted Multiverse where every world potentially has a history of its own that's just as extensive as the primary Earth's history.

[llozymandias]

As of the penultimate issue of Death Metal, it's one timeline but the most current version of the characters remember every previous version of themselves.

What it will be when Death Metal it's over, I'm not sure; but I suspect they'll be cramming in as much history into one timeline as they can manage. Conversely, I suspect that the events of Death Metal itself will be left out of the rebooted timeline. That is, I don't think we're going to be getting an “everything happened exactly as it originally did” timeline; but I think we will be getting a “most things happened in ways reasonably close to how they originally did” timeline.

But the thread wasn't about how the main Earth's timeline should be; it was about how the DC Multiverse should be. And there are some things that simply can't be fit into the former, because they're mutually exclusive with it: Helena Wayne, for example. Or the Crime Syndicate. I'm all for there being a rebooted Multiverse where every world potentially has a history of its own that's just as extensive as the primary Earth's history.

As much as i really dislike Doomsday Clock, compared to dark knight metal & death metal, it's worthy of a Hugo. Add in the one shot where they were going over all the different crisis events. in that they claim that the infinite multiverse was unstable, then claim that the post-coie singleverse was perfectly stable. So when i say how the DC Multiverse should be, i am merely giving my opinion. Nothing that i actually think they intend to do.

[Dataweaver]

I liked the way Doomsday Clock ended. And I wouldn't mind the Metaverse (that is, the primary Earth and its era-based spinoffs) being the backbone of the new Multiverse.

For the overall structure, I picture a forest of trees. The aforementioned Metaverse would be the central tree, with the primary Earth as its trunk and the various spin-off Earths as its branches. These spin-offs could have their own spin-offs, such as the various versions of Earth 2 that we've gotten over the years. Meanwhile, other trees in the forest would represent variations on the theme. For example, an evil mirror of the primary Earth, or a world where Heroes have the same name but different concepts, or where the sexes are reversed, and so on. These would be the Elseworlds. And like the Metaverse, each Elseworld would have its own branches.

Instead of the cap being 52 Earths in an Orrery of Worlds, I'd borrow the “Monster Group Snowflake” concept from Planetary and say that the maximum possible number of trees in the forest is 808,017,424,794,512,875,886,459,904,961,710,757,00 5,754,368,000,000,000. And each tree, be it the Metaverse or an Elseworld tree, can have an unlimited number of branches.

And then there's the Omniverse.

[superduperman]

The concept of the multiverse is such a simple one but somehow DC seems to take the simplest concepts and makes them unnecessarily complicated. Want a universe where Superman landed in the wild west? Just do that. Want a universe where he landed in caveman days? Just do that too. Marvel knows that it's not that big a deal.

[Dataweaver]

I'm aiming for a Best of both Worlds approach. On the one hand, my suggestion includes sort of structure that people who like the current multiversal map would enjoy. But on the other hand, it puts no practical restrictions on what Earth or how many of them you can have. Unlike the 52. So yeah, impractical terms just add that wild west or caveman Superman Earth.

[brandnewfan]

As much as I hate this...at this point, they just need to reboot everything again.

Continuity is such a huge mess that it’s hard to keep up.

[Dataweaver]

Oh, they're doing that. Not the N52 “fresh start” reboot, mind you; rather, we're getting a new timeline that will tell us what happened and when.

[llozymandias]

I choose to see each of DC's massive reboots/revamps/retcons as a shift in focus from one DC Multiverse to another. Even John Byrne (at the time DC introduced hypertime) had a good idea on how to bring back the multiverse. DC just says it was there all along, it's just that we did not know it was there. A few years later, in the Superman titles. Superman is missing, Mr. Majestic is shunted there from the then Wildstorm earth. He meets Lois Lane. He tells her that her earth smells/stinks. That not only is he not in his own universe, he is not in his own strand of the multiverse. If the guys in charge of DC were smart, they could have used this as the time to say well the multiverse is back. No crisis events of any kind were needed. It just seems like DC is addicted to doing crisis events & major reboots. Also it's funny how COIE was done supposedely to help streamline DC's convoluted continuity. But ended up making it even more convoluted. And every reboot since has made things worse.

[Restingvoice]

Conversely, I suspect that the events of Death Metal itself will be left out of the rebooted timeline.

Tom Taylor said in his Nightwing interview that Dick and Babs marriage in Metal is alternate universe, so either you're right or he's mistaken since he's not part of the team.

Back to the Multiverse, I like Infinite possibilities

[CentralPower]

It does not matter which alternate worlds "exist" or what events "count".

What matters is how DC uses those things, or (more basically) what DC publishes.

But, DC has never followed up on either with anything worthwhile. For the last 15 years, every alternate world DC has written has been fodder for a fanfic grade cross-over where " everything gets destroyed again and again... ".

DC editorial cannot distinguish between a good idea that could be built on, or simply left alone ("Master Men", " Red Son", "Pax Americana" or "Lord Havok") and something that was a waste of time to begin with (the disposable worlds of Death Metal).


Don't tell me what " counts". Tell me why I give a damn about anything DC has to say.

[Zero Hunter]

The concept of the multiverse is such a simple one but somehow DC seems to take the simplest concepts and makes them unnecessarily complicated. Want a universe where Superman landed in the wild west? Just do that. Want a universe where he landed in caveman days? Just do that too. Marvel knows that it's not that big a deal.

That is it in a nutshell. DC just for some reason seems to think the concept of a straight forward multiverse (which pretty much everyone and their brother understands) is somehow more complicated than the mess they have created with their "dark multiverse"s, hypertimes, and megaverses.

[Dataweaver]

Ironically, you just described Hypertime.