How should DC's new continuity work *SPOILERS*

[Factor]

As revealed in Death Metal and was further confirmed by Scott Snyder in interviews, characters will now remember their experiences from previous continuities.
Everything that was once part of the main universe at the time of publication is now remembered, even if elements from different continuities may contradict each other.
So Superman can now remember Golden Age, Pre-Crisis, Post-Crisis, New 52 and Rebirth.
Jon Kent knows the absolute continuity mess behind his origin and so on. Everyone is now Hawkman.

But... How will all this actually work?
What rules should be applied so DC doesn't become even more of a continuity mess with this change?
Let's discuss

[Frontier]

To be honest, I'm not expecting it will make that much of a difference but I guess it's a way to have, say, Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown remember their Batgirl tenure's even if technically that never happened in current continuity...ditto Wally being The Flash after Barry.

[Factor]

In my point of view there would need to be some rules:

- Only the characters involved in Death Metal can remember anything about their past lives and even so, they don't remember them vividly.
- Regular citizens are completely oblivious to all continuity changes.
- There would be a new "official" continuity. It would merge elements from all previous ones but would eliminate inconsistencies (eg: Cyborg joined the League after being a Titan and got a power-up when doing so, but that wasn't during the League's first mission).
- The previous item would be needed if characters time traveled to the past. There would need to be a proper continuity characters could go back to when the story dictated.
- Unaltered versions of previous continuities would exist in parallel Earths or through Hypertime. They could also be visited when needed.

Bonus rule:
- In this new continuity, Heroes in Crisis, Cry for Justice and other terrible stories like them would be ignored.

[Ascended]

Haven't been to the LCS in weeks so I haven't read the issue (not sure if I'm even pulling the book anymore) but this seems like something that's better in theory than in application.

How does this work? Does everyone on earth now remember all their lives? Does the dude who sells street pretzels outside the Daily Planet remember selling them to Clark and Lois in the 40's, up through to today? Or is it just heroes? What about the villains? Do they remember everything now? Does this extend to other planets in the universe or other realities in the multiverse?

I feel like this "should" result in everyone affected suddenly getting leveled up to "raid boss" levels. And that's.....that doesn't seem terribly workable, honestly. If only the heroes remember their publishing history then all their usual rogues should become laughably impotent threats. I mean, you're a villain; you lose to the hero 99.9% of the time....and now that hero remembers every version of your conflict, ever. How do you even pretend to be a legit threat in the face of that? Almost every scheme you're gonna think of, your hero nemesis has probably already lived through. It'd be like putting someone in an escape room when they already know where all the keys are.

And if the villains remember everything, then their capability should be increased too, and that raises the stakes so high that the earth couldn't possibly survive the escalation. It's on the brink of destruction every other week already and now Lex Luthor remembers all the crazy Silver Age gadgets he built back then?

Does this "remembers everything" thing affect regular people? Has DC considered what someone like Elon Musk would be like, having access to memories like this? I hope DC doesn't intend to keep their earth as a close approximation of the real world because science, business, religion, and every other facet of life would be thrown into chaos as the entire population essentially triples their IQ and technologies, philosophies, etc., advance at a pace too fast for anyone to keep up with.

I think this is a fascinating idea, and in something like a novel or manga, where creative control is a lot tighter and the narrative has a definitive end-point, it'd be pretty gods damn cool to explore. I mean, I'd read that in a heartbeat. But in DC, with their open-ended serial storytelling where characters who have existed for most of a century get passed around from writer to writer all the time? This feels far too ambitious for what they're capable of. And I'm not trying to insult DC or its talent here; it's a damn fine concept but the DCU is just so damn unwieldly in the first place I struggle to see them making good use of this.

Having not read the issue yet, this feels like hypertime; a good idea that DC won't really be able to make much out of.

[lemonpeace]

simple honestly, in-canon they'll look at it like universal reincarnation. The Earth 0 they are on is still the New 52 earth with all the elements from they brought back over the years like during rebirth, while everything from the Silver age up to just before Flashpoint are just past lives they've lived. major events are obviously more easy to recall (COIE, Final Crisis, Infinite Crisis, etc) but the day to day minutiae and smaller stuff are forgotten or vaguely remembered, like regular memory. most people who aren't heroes probably lived regular lives in other continues too, no knowledge of the Multiverse or the wider cosmology, so visions or memories you have but didn't physically experience in this lifetime would probably seem, to them, like strange dreams or a daydream. The heroes and the major players in the universe have context so they understand "oh, so I did x, y, and a before the time crisis, and q, r, s afterward I was murdered by Superboy Prime"

[Dred]

Everyone lives their lives as if they read the entire history of their character in a comic book, just like we have. Sometimes they forget because there's so much they've done and so much has changed. They just have the same perspective we do. Superman can remember being involved with World War Ii, despite the fact that he also remembers growing up in Kansas in the 90s right now. He doesn't remember it like growing up, becoming a baby again, growing up again etc. He just remembers the comics of his life like a story. He knows that they happened, but a lot of it isn't relevant now except for as experience.

[Sacred Knight]

I'm not really sure how it should work, admittedly an everything counts approach comprising of 80 years worth of history is damned hard. I don't blame them for having trouble implementing that. That said, I'm pretty sure how it will work though, which is basically that it won't. Sure maybe for a while various writers will play with characters having funny memories, but it really being of consequence? I don't think it will. I think things will just go back to normal quickly where such things just aren't mentioned or referenced anymore and only what's going on in the moment at a particular era counts or matters in all practical application.

[Ascended]

simple honestly, in-canon they'll look at it like universal reincarnation.

Is that taken from the issue or just a hypothetical? Like I said, I haven't read it yet (might hit the LCS tomorrow....).

I still think if the heroes remember their past lives with any degree of accuracy then by rights they should be far, far more capable than DC usually portrays them. Even if they only recall their past lives in a hazy, dream-like kind of way, that's still decades and decades of extra experience and that would add up, especially given the kind of scope some of these people operate on.

[wonder39]

I don't think it can work. Honestly, Metal should have just built off of the results of DDC and created an Earth where the older heries have retured/ are missing/ whatever and allow Jon, Yara, etc to assume these roles. Then we are just visitingbthis Earth, vs destroying things thst made it all so much clearer ( original multiverse existing, events causing new earths to be created)

[lemonpeace]

Is that taken from the issue or just a hypothetical? Like I said, I haven't read it yet (might hit the LCS tomorrow....).

I still think if the heroes remember their past lives with any degree of accuracy then by rights they should be far, far more capable than DC usually portrays them. Even if they only recall their past lives in a hazy, dream-like kind of way, that's still decades and decades of extra experience and that would add up, especially given the kind of scope some of these people operate on.

I was just using reincarnation as a simple term to explain it. in the issue, The Hands (perpetua's race) restored earth to it's state prior to the BWL's attack and set that history in stone (post-Flashpoint landscape) but people keep access to their previous histories (aka previous memory). so the previous continuities "happened" but they technically didn't happen in this lifetime; in that way, it's like reincarnation. they also mention that people will have flashes of alternate pasts and futures as Hypertime heals, meaning some people will probably get their memories in waves (or some version of them).

how vivid they are is up in the air but what I'm saying is it's all just memory they're receiving; which are fickle. if you remember something that you know didn't or couldn't happen in this lifetime, odds are you'll chuck it up to a dream unless you have context for why it would be otherwise. do I see this making them more competent? for some, maybe, but I also don't think everyone should/would have perfect recall of all their past lives and experiences. people don't remember every doodoo they took in this life, let alone two-three more lives, ya know? so I don't think they'll pay much mind to how it will effect their competency in the field, moreso their mental states and drives will be affected than anything.

basically what Dred said, it's post-Flashpoint but everyone just moves like they've read all their books and wikis.

[Pohzee]

Even before this particular moment, I've kinda been wondering a while about this. If everyone remembers something happening, has it happened. What does it mean for everyone to remember something happening when it did not happen? If everyone remembers it what is the meaningful distinction between something happening and not happening? How could it be determined that something truly happened?

[j9ac9k]

I just want to read a DC story that *isn't* about its fucked up continuity. (I know they exist, but the DCU is over-burdened by trying to explain itself)

[Bored at 3:00AM]

In practice, I would expect that the broad strokes of DCU history is now what everyone is operating from, with the inconsistencies largely ignored or explained away as the result of various time shenanigans that everyone has been through on several occassions.

The only two characters where it's really going to matter are the two that have been rebooted the most, Superman and Wonder Woman.
Given the epic, cosmic & mystical nature of both of those characters larger than life existences, I think they could make it work. Lois, Clark & Jon have experienced so many time-bending shake-ups, I don't imagine they'll have too many problems adjusting to the notion that they've lived multiple lives already (which they've already known about at multiple times throughout their history). In terms of actual practice, I think they'll just approach their history the way most everyone else in the DCU will and shrug it off. Ma & Pa Kent will be alive, but Clark could still be haunted by the memory of alternate timelines in which he lost them if the story calls for it.

Wonder Woman is currently "dead", so I guess they can punt that issue down the line, but her 1940s history is back in play and Steve Trevor has been brought back from the dead by Olympus before, so I don't see why they can't explain that the current young Steve running around the DCU is the result of that and move on.

Will this be a little convoluted? Yup, but there is no solution remaining after umpteen different reboots and reshuffles that wouldn't be convoluted at this point.

[km_sus]

Pretty easy. They all remember their post crisis stories (I'd include Gold and Silver Age stuff, but no writer will ever reference that ****) but retain the physical experiences from their recent history. Take Cassandra Cain: her origin is the one shown in Batman & Robin Eternal (her father dies, raised by Mother's organisation) but she remembers her origin from post-Crisis (No Man's Land, her solo series, Black Bat). I don't think the timelines/universes are merged, they simply just remember what happened to them previously.

Also, I'd say that only the people fighting the BWL on that big battlefield remember previous universes - so it's not as if regular people remember two or three lives, only the heroes and villains.

[Goldrake]

So if I understand well, Aquaman marriage is still valid, so why the hell did he and Mera remarry again?