When was the last time you felt "harmony" in the DC comics Universe?

[SiegePerilous02]

Yeah, you get it. There's never a time of perfect equilibrium, there's just the times when certain characters you love are doing well - or even just that those characters are doing things you personally like.

Yes this seems to pretty much be it.

Fans favor the era where their favorite runs were created or where their favorite characters were perceived to be at their best. There really is no non-biased way to look at where DC's continuity was at its most cohesive, because it pretty much always was a mess.

Like I expect a lot of JSA naturally prefer post-Crisis/Pre-Flashpoint because that is their preferred status quo for the team and their history, and view the entire DCU as being more cohesive because of it. Meanwhile, some Superman fans who get sick or origin reboots since COIE and his pre and post Crisis histories being at odds with each other are going to feel much differently about that era.

[Lightning Rider]

Kinda bummed out that it feels like there's no way to have everyone get justice and have it make sense. I guess that's the price you pay for legacy and decades of expansion.

Still, #IBelieve.

[SiegePerilous02]

Kinda bummed out that it feels like there's no way to have everyone get justice and have it make sense. I guess that's the price you pay for legacy and decades of expansion.

Still, #IBelieve.

Maybe someday, someone will. Having the Multiverse available means you could have a JSA book with a post-COIE set up. Or between Superman and Action, have the former be a post-Crisis status quo and the latter be like pre-Crisis Earth-1 or something.

[Jackalope89]

For me, and it seems to not be all that popular but; the first couple years of Rebirth. It wasn't perfect by any means (Justice League being a real stinker for awhile is a good example), but it had a lot of optimism going for it. Then most series took a big 180 in terms of tone. Gone was the optimistic nature that. Marked by Heroes in Crisis, Rebirth went from optimistic to

[godisawesome]

Kinda bummed out that it feels like there's no way to have everyone get justice and have it make sense. I guess that's the price you pay for legacy and decades of expansion.

Still, #IBelieve.

The closest I think you can maybe hope for are adaptations into continuities that can allow time to progress, but don’t mind doing flashbacks. Think like the Young Jutsice Cartoon... but not limited to just one single show, and you’d still need the quality control and clarity to see what story points and characterization are needed.

And even as a major Greg Weisman fan... even I don’t find YJ perfect (stupid Bizarro Match!)

[Sacred Knight]

My only experience of "harmony" was the 90s really. How when it featured tons of change? Well, as a young reader, a lot of the stuff that was changed from its classic forms I didn't even know were being changed. That goes a long way into shaping your mindset and your experience. IOW I think largely very subjective to the individual, and a decent portion based on what you know going in. However on a more objective end, it was a better time in terms of editorial. Things flowed then in a way it hasn't since the Didio era began.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Kinda bummed out that it feels like there's no way to have everyone get justice and have it make sense. I guess that's the price you pay for legacy and decades of expansion.

Still, #IBelieve.

You're never going to please everyone, because there's simply not enough creators talented enough or a readership big enough to support all the books that would need to be published that would satisfy all the various fanbases out there.

However, I think the current setup of shifting continuity into a softer more squishy configuration that encompasses the largest possible toy box for creators to use is the best potential scenario...in theory. Whether or not this actually results in a better, more harmonious DCU remains to be seen.

[MajorHoy]

. . . However, I think the current setup of shifting continuity into a softer more squishy configuration that encompasses the largest possible toy box for creators to use is the best potential scenario...in theory. Whether or not this actually results in a better, more harmonious DCU remains to be seen.

But when different creators start using different scenarios based on their choices of past continuities, you may wind up with a need for Zero Hour II: Crisis in Continuities.

[sifighter]

I’m going to come out and say never, and looking back on classic comics I don’t think it ever existed. For me personally I started as a kid in the 90’s/00’s so my first jump into comics was the confusing bringing back everything lost in crisis on Infinite earths events. So I was born into the insanity and contradictions.

But DC I don’t think was ever harmonious when in the 60’s/70’s they had to use the multiverse or earth-2 to explain the mistake they made with having two different versions of Flash and Green Lantern. Then after that they had multiple universe crossovers until crisis where they just brought everything together on one earth including characters they initially did not own like Shazam/Captain Marvel. Maybe not every decade of DC has been mired with “time or the universe is broken” or “reality has been altered multiple times” but I doubt harmony is the word we are looking for.

[DrNewGod]

Kinda bummed out that it feels like there's no way to have everyone get justice and have it make sense. I guess that's the price you pay for legacy and decades of expansion.

Still, #IBelieve.

It's interesting to me that DC became fixated on precise dates right about the time Marvel abandoned them.

[Citizen Kane]

Pretty much anytime before Flashpoint.

[failo.legendkiller]

post COIE until Identity Crisis. Then an inexorable descent towards Flashpoint disaster.

[K. Jones]

I think there's good periods and bad periods and periods where it's the cultural zeitgeist that feels like cohesion (the Nineties) and some where there's some solid editorial reasons for why.

What sticks out in my mind to answer the question, "the last time ..." I think for me was during the Brightest Day phase of things. Not everything in the DCU during Brightest Day was A-Game top grade "good comics". Green Arrow / Arsenal stuff for instance sticks out like a sore thumb. Generation Lost kinda went nowhere (though as a bi-weekly it was bound to have a few highs and a lot of lows). Robinson's JLA was interesting but never hit a peak. But there was a lot of cool books, too, and everything felt unified in that Brightest Day landscape, building to something interesting, an interesting spiraling outward of where those stories could go, until savagely curtailed by the Flashpoint.

[BlueRuggo]

New52 up until end of Metal series was pretty cohesive and harmonic. So 2011- 2018 or so, I would say. The reintroduction of Superman threw a bit of a wrench into the works but it still made sense. And certainly 2011-2016 was very cohesive, very self-consistent. I can't imagine anybody arguing against that.

A lot of the people who posted in this thread are simply stating their favorite time periods in which they loved DC the most instead of honestly and accurately answering the actual question, which was when was the LAST time the universe was harmonic, not your FAVORITE time.

[Restingvoice]

The only time I feel consistency in my reading experience is The Court of Owls - Night of The Owls - The City of Owls all tie-in included but only the titles involved in it because they actually bother to arrange the timeline by the hours.

Once that's done it's done. I can still arrange the timeline of the Batfam books from the start of the New 52 up until Death of The Family, but they gave up then.

So if someone says I'm a stickler to a timeline it's because, in my first actual foray into the DC series, they prove they can do a consistent timeline if they want.